24 Hours Of Boyne!

It turns out that Mike, Mr. Bartlett, and I have super sweet team chemistry. We not only won 24 Hours of Boyne, but we broke the record for most laps ever done at this race.

But...back to the beginning. It all started Friday night at Shap's restaurant in Flint. Probably the worst mistake I ever made, but when I hear the words all you can eat and it involves food that is horrible, I can't resist. So I went with the all you can eat fish and chips. The first look at the plate told me that it was a bad idea, but I went with it anyway. So I had trouble sleeping that night at my first two laps I felt like I was going to throw up the whole time.

Beyond the early race stomach trouble due to Shap's and poor judgment, the race went very well for me as well as my teammates. Mike set the tone early by being the first into the woods, letting everyone know that Team Sofa King Fast was sure to dominate.

Our lead over Mattison, Sean, Fritz, and Corey had steadily been growing, but was clinched when the third member of Team Diaganum Dave (sp?) had light trouble on his second night lap and was out on the course for 1.5 hours. From that point on, it was just up to us not to make any mistakes.

I ended up getting an hour and a half of sleep from 5:20 to 6:50 (am), but woke up feeling immensely worse than before. I didn't feel like I could go on, but put my chamois on anyway and trudged out into the brisk morning to wait for Mike to come in from his sunrise lap. I started feeling better once I started warming up, but the first of these laps I couldn't sit down the whole time because my bum was so sore. I decided to put my brand new bib shorts on for the next lap so I could have a somewhat comfortable bum (Adidas bib shorts are super sweet by the way).

So, Team Sofa King Fast ended up doing 28 laps...best ever. Mike and I both did 12 laps (120 miles a piece) and Mr. B did 4. Congrats to Mr. B for going a lot faster this year. My fastest lap was 44 minutes and my slowest was 54 (I bonked pretty hard and had to stop on the side of the trail for about 5 minutes to eat my emergency Clif Bar that had been in my pocket for the last year and a half (and expired 8 months ago). I only bonked twice this year, didn't pass out at all and did two more laps this year than last year.

It was one of the hardest things I have ever done. But I did have a lot of time to think of the answer to my ever-present question about racing (see entry: Pontiac Lake TT). I realized it is because I truly do enjoy it...even though it may seem very masochistic.

Big thanks to our pit crew. The race would have sucked without help. Especially Caroline. She slept a little more this year, but still did a great job. There was always food to be eaten, drinks handed off, and Nickelodeon wake-up calls. Awesome job by the behind the scene half of Team Sofa King Fast!

And of course, it wouldn't be me doing a MTB race without a super-cool tattoo, so check it out.