Location: Apache Junction, AZ
When: Saturday October 20, 2012
Well I was
traveling back from Utah on Friday the 19th and told my wife that I
was racing on Saturday. Her standard
questions followed: where? what time? how much? how long? Those questions were easy to answer, but
knowing that I really only had a few weeks till 24 Hours of Fury I knew none of
those questions really mattered, but I needed to race to get into the mode and
make sure I was ready.
So Friday
night after driving nearly 12 hours home from Salt Lake I get the car unloaded
and kids settled and start my preparations for Saturday morning. Helmet, gloves, water bottles, shoes and so
on. Made sure I grabbed a couple of
pairs of Gargoyles depending on the sun that morning and I was 100% sure on the
course direction. I also made sure I had
some Gu brew for my water bottles and some Gu Chompies for after the race if needed.
So the alarm
goes off nice and early and I roll out of bed.
As typical I never have an issue getting up on race or training days,
but make me go to the office and you better plan on dragging me out with a
truck. Load all the gear up, fill some
water bottles and I head out. Luckily it
was a nice and close race, so I really didn’t have to get up to early to get
there.
Well I raced
this race the first time they hosted it in 2009 I believe. It’s a short course, but this year they had
changed the direction of the course from the last time I raced it. Because I live fairly close I was there when
registration opened at 8am. I was a little
concerned as there really wasn’t many there and then as the hour went on more
staggered in. I believe there were about
25 in my category from 18-39.
8:50am came
and we started to line up. Then it
started. With the change in course it
gets narrow very quick as you head thru a little park area and then opens up to
some wide service road access which is what about 75% of this race was. About half way you start to see why it is
call Powerline MTB race as you track power lines for a few miles. The last 1 ½ miles turns to single track and
becomes sandy. I think this is where I
remembered by I hadn’t raced this in a few years.
By the time
we were about 2 miles in the pack had thinned and then it was just time to keep
a nice slow and steady pace. Lap 1 wasn’t
to bad and then it lead into 2 and by the time I hit the section of single
track on the last lap I was regretting wearing my long sleeve jersey.
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There was a
couple of racers in front of me as I came across the finish, so I wasn’t excepting
much at the awards. To find out though I
had taken 2nd in my division I was pleased.
Thanks go
out to Gargoyles eyewear, POC Protection, GU, Geiger Rig, Mikes Bike Chalet,
Stan’s NoTubes and all our other sponsors this year.
-ST-
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