Another Suffer Fest - The Lumberjack 100

This past weekend I traveled up to the northern part of Michigan to compete in the third race of the NUE Series, the Lumberjack 100. This course is different than all of the others in the series because it is all single track, well except for the first 1 mile of paved road section which leads the riders to the single track. Yes, that's right 99 miles of single track. In addition to being different by it's enormous amount of single track, this race is also a multi-lap race instead of being a one big loop race. At the Lumberjack, there is an inner loop that connects to an outer loop, which then forms one big 25 mile loop of trail. Riders then do 4 loops of this big 25 mile long loop to make the race 100 mile.
I think that having a predominantly single track course does make this 100 mile race tougher mentally than the others. Most of the 100 mile races out there provide a mental break by giving some road or fire road sections which do allow a rider to stretch out, eat, and just put the hammer down without having to worry about any unknown technical sections of trail ahead. At the Lumberjack, it is very important to stay focused on the trail during the entire race. Taking your eyes off the trail for even a split second could definitely cause an up and close visit with one of the many waiting trees which tightly line each side of the trail. The Lumberjack Course also wears on a rider physically by having many short steep climbs and fast descents added to the tight, twisty and sandy single track. The race information sheet says that a total of 13,000 feet of climbing is completed over the 100 mile course. In the end, it all just adds up to one tough race course.
Last year the Lumberjack was made difficult by the extreme heat that the area was experiencing at the time. Well, this year we did not have the heat wave, but we did get hammered by the biggest rain storm that the area has seen in 30 years. The storm dropped about 11 inches of rain on the area. Now, in Western PA and most place in the Mid-Atlantic Region, 11 inches of rain would create a complete quagmire of mud. In Michigan, this amount of rain did cause for some flash flooding and road closures, but no real muddy trail conditions overall due to the very sandy soil. The rain actually made the sand, at least initially in the race, more predictable. The rain, however, also created three long and deep water/sandy-mud holes at about the mid section of the course, which there was no way to avoid. These holes seemed very similar to the mud-bogs of the Blackwater Race in Canaan, WV. I found it to be faster to ride through these holes, but most riders were running/walking their bikes though these bike swallowing course hazards.
Why so much talk about the course in this blog writing??? Well, because I think that the course was the biggest battle of the day for me. I had probably had one of my best and longest sustained starts at this race. I started real fast, probably way too fast, riding with all of the big guns of the series, Schalk, Eatough, Price, Plews, Simonson and Tanguy. I was able to hold the fast pace for almost the complete first lap, until one of those big guns decided to attach up one of the bigger climbs on the course a few miles before starting the second lap. My legs and body said if you try to hang with that attack you will not be around at the finish. So, as hard as it was to do, I watched the group ride away from me. I was then left in no-man's land, with nobody insight, left only to do battle with my own demons on the course. And, that is exactly what I did for next eighty miles, other than catching some lapped riders and trying to pass them. So, it was basically just me and thanks to Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 22 (Firstwave) a bunch of old alternative tunes from the 80's dancing around in my head that kept me rolling towards the finish.
Not until the last lap, with about 15 miles to go, did I actually catch a rider on my lap. The rider that I caught was Trek Pro Michael Simonson. The interesting thing to me about catching Mike is that at the last three 100 mile races that we have done together, I have caught Mike every time in the last quarter of the race or so. He always starts off super fast, but for some reason has faded at the end of the race and has not been able to hang-on for the finish. This time when I caught him he said out loud to me "not you again, Mother F#*ker!" I knew he was saying it in kind of a joking/humorous way and so I just laughed and said back to him "No, I really don't know your mother in that kind of way." He then pushed on the gas and really started hammering the single track again. I was hurting, but managed to hold his wheel, until we hit the three deep mud-bogs. I did like I had done before and stayed on the bike. Mike, on the other hand, decided to run them. I picked-up time by staying on the bike and then heard Mike scream out something from behind. I knew that this might be my only opportunity to get a gap, so I dug deep and rode the next 9 miles to the finish as hard as I could manage. I did not see Mike again until the finish, with him about 4 minutes off my pace. This finish put me in 6th place overall out of 250 racers. Another suffer fest completed! -Gerry

Sprints, Manayunk and Pigeon Poop

Most people who know me know that I am not much of a sprinter. I like to do longer races and let things sort out that way, instead of in the last 200 meters or so. Well, this was a week of change for me for many reasons, which also included doing a short race, a very short race.

So, I changed some things up this week to help my shoulder heal. First, I took off my my rigid fork and put my Reba on my Mamasita. I probably should have done this before the Mohican 100 because I could instantly feel a difference in how my shoulder felt when on rough terrain. Secondly, I took off my Bontrager Satelite Mountain Bike "triathlon handlebars" and then installed my nice and wide carbon Salsa Pro Moto Bars with a 17 degree bend. I think these bars should give me more control over steering and a wider base to support of my upper body. These changes combined with the regiment of PT given to me by Fotia Physical Therapy has really seemed to help my shoulder to recover quite nicely so far. It certainly is not a 100%, but is coming along much quicker than I thought that it would.

I had to work this past weekend, so doing a long MTB race was not an option for me. But, since everyone I work with knows that I am an avid racer, I was volunteered to do a law enforcement only bicycle race competition, which was a part of an event known as the Delaware County Hero's Challenge. Not only did I get volunteered into doing the race, but also into setting up the race course. I did not have much terrain to work with in designing the course because it was all to be held on the athletic grounds of Widner University in Delaware County, PA. After, checking out the area on a few training rides, I was able to create about a three mile loop that included some natural and man-made obstacles on it, to make it at least a little fun to do. At the time I designed it, I thought that 3 loops (9 total miles) of the course would be good for a law enforcement only race.

So, after spending two hours marking out the course on the day of the event, I took the 20 competitors around the loop to make sure that everyone understood where to go during the race. It was amazing to me that most of the riders were barely able to make it around the course at a very slow warm-up speed with many catch-up and wait stops. I mean granted it was 95 degrees at the time, but these guys were suffering before we even did one mile on the course. By the time we finished the warm-up loop, I could tell that this was not going to be much of a race. Most of the riders then approached me and the event organizer before the race started to request that the race only consist of one 3 mile loop instead of 3 that I had initially planned to do. I didn't argue with their choice, even though I did not agree with it, because I really did not want to be responsible for rescuing one of the guys from a myocardial infarction during the race.

As I expected, it was not much of a race.... I won the race, about two minutes later another trooper from my station came in second, in about another two minutes another local PD officer finished, two minutes after that a female officer finished and then the rest of the male officers limped across the finishing line. At the end, you would have thought that these guys had just finished one of the 100 mile races that I do instead of a 3 mile race by the look of exhaustion on their faces.

After seeing me win the bike race event, the other troopers from my station then requested that I be apart of their 1 mile running relay team. I was a little hesitant at first because I have not really done any running, especially sprinting and because I was not certain of how my shoulder would take the running. But, I did agree to do the run for the team anyway. So, I started my second sprint race of the day and surprisingly enough actually won my lap. The other troopers on my team also won their relays, so we were the overall winning relay team. I still find it hard to believe that I was able to win a sprint, not to mention while I was running. I was also happy that I had no discomfort in my shoulder during the run, or afterwards.

Well, after my day of sprints on Saturday, I decided to do a nice long ride. To make the ride more interesting, I decided to ride from where I am living in West Chester, PA down to Manayunk to see a lap of the Commerce Bank Philadelphia International Pro Road Race come through town. I arrived in Manayunk about ten minutes before the pack was to arrive, thanks to the guided help of a rider named Tom that I met while on my ride. Once in Manayunk, I found a nice shaded spot under the SEPA Train Bridge, next to another guy that seemed to me like he might of been homeless. Anyway, this guy, like many others in Manayunk at the time already had a nice beer buzz going and was heckling just about every girl that walked near him. I really did not pay much attention, though, because I just wanted to make sure my camera phone was ready to take a picture of the riders when they came. Suddenly, I heard and felt a big splash on my left shoulder, you know the injured one. Well, I look down to my shoulder to find a big pile of pigeon poop sitting there. I then looked up to see the actor of this crime perched above me, almost as if he was laughing at my misfortune. The drunk, heckling, homeless guy seeing my bad situation then pulls out the largest wad of fast food napkins that I have ever seen one person possess and offers me one to clean-up. I accept his kind offer and then ask for another because one napkin is not enough to handle the pile on my shoulder. From what I understand, it is good luck to have a bird poop on your shoulder...maybe it was meant to be a sign from above that my shoulder is healing. I don't know either way, but I will say that I am thankful to the man carrying an endless supply of napkins with him.

So, even though I did not get to do any epic races this weekend, I did still have some interesting times and observations. Before I end this blog, let me say nice job to Ernesto for his second place at Big Bear and to all the others that did the race. From what I have read so far, it does sound like it was quite the death march. I will be going out to Wellston, MI this Saturday for the third leg of the NUE Series, The Lumberjack 100. I will be sure to update the blog after the race. Until then, Happy Trails. - Gerry

Keep It Moving

This past Saturday was the 2nd race on the NUE Series Calendar, the Mohican 100, which was held in Loudonville, OH. Andy and I left on Friday afternoon and had to make a quick stop at the Trek of PGH Bike Shop in Cranberry Twp., PA. On our travels to the bike shop, I was telling Andy about my crash at Granogue and about the shoulder pain that I was still experiencing. I also mentioned that it sure would be nice to bump into a doctor or physical therapist that might be able to give me an idea about how bad my injury actually was. Luckily for me, when I walked into the bike shop, I bumped into a long time friend and physical therapist, Joe Fotia.
I tell Joe about my injury and he did some quick assessment of my movement, so that he could give me his opinion of what might be wrong with my shoulder. As it turns out, he says that I probably either partially tore my rotator cuff or maybe stretched out my shoulder ligaments during the crash. He said it was a good thing that I still had most of my shoulder movement, but a bad thing that I could not resist his pressure when he tested my strength. He told me about some exercises that I could do to re-strengthen the area and also said to just keep it moving.
Of course me being in complete denial of possibly having a bad injury, still thought that it would be good idea to do a 100 mile mtb race on a rigid fork. To make matters worse, the race course was made very slick by an early morning thunder storm that hit just before the start of the race. My plan for the long day of racing ahead was to ride safe, keep the rubber on the ground and to do my best at not putting too much pressure on my shoulder; all of which is hard to do in any mtb race of any length, not alone in an endurance race.
I definitely rode safely during the race, almost too safely. I basically had to ride the beginning or the race very conservatively, due to the slick and muddy conditions, to ensure that I did not crash. Of course, this meant losing ground to the top riders and all other riders whenever I was riding through a technical section or a downhill portion of the course. I then would have to ride like hell to make-up time on the climbs and flats to stay somewhat competitive in the race. Somewhere before the second checkpoint (about mile 35 or so), I became so frustrated with my inability to ride hard and the horrid chainsuck that I was experiencing because of the muddy conditions, that I almost decided to give up on this race. At that time, I had just gone past Trek Regional Rep, Bob Myers, who seemed to be all over the course that entire day helping everyone out, and said to myself that it would just be so much easier to turn around and to ask him for a ride back rather than completing the rest of the course. Instead, I decided to keep it moving.
During the remainder of the race, I just focused on trying to make-up ground on the riders that had put time on me in the more technical beginning sections of the race. There are certainly other sections on the course that are equally as technical, but because the course was drying and with me feeling a little bit more sure of what my should could and could not withstand, I decided to press on and ignore the periods of pain that I would feel in my shoulder. I actually think, in a strange kind of way, this shoulder pain did help distract me from the typical 100 mile race pain that I do tend to experience throughout an endurance race.
The night before the race, Andy and I were talking about all the fast guys registered in the race this year and we both agreed during the conversation that a top 10 finish would be pretty good for anyone. I was certainly hoping for the best finish possible, but realistically knew that considering my shoulder condition that even being in the top ten would be an achievement for me. Well, by the end of the race and by going through much suffering, I did manage to finish 9th with a finishing time that was pretty much the same as last year's (around 8 hours) on a course which I would consider to be more difficult because of the wet conditions.
In the end, my shoulder was sore, but not any worse off than before doing the race I think. Hopefully this means that I did not do any further harm to it by deciding to keep it moving and that maybe it is not a severe injury (the denial thing, again). On another note, however, I am sure the doctor of Floyd Landis also told him to keep it moving after his hip surgery. Well, after a mediocre start and a crash on the slick singletrack, I saw Floyd bent over in pain and holding his hip on the side of the trail. This makes me think that there is probably a limit to how much one should keep it moving. I will try to take this into consideration the next time that I decide to keep it moving, but will probably continue to push forward anyway. -Gerry

Escape from Granogue

This past Saturday I did the MASS Series Race called the Escape from Granogue, which was held on a huge, beautiful estate owned by the Dupont Family. The estate is just across the Pennsylvania State Line in Delaware, so the location of this race is only about a 15 minutes drive away from my current, but temporary residence. All in all, the course was very nice with a good mix of single track, fields, roads and just about everything else in between. With the next NUE Series Race, the Mohican 100, coming up, I decided to do the four hour endurance race instead of a cross country race, so that I could get a long hard effort in before my next 100 mile race.
I did not really prepare for this race in the best way possible, considering that I was up all night because I had to work the midnight shift until 6:30 am that morning. I have raced many times with no sleep because of working the midnight shift with my job and I will tell you that it is never a good experience. Most times I have second thoughts about doing the race all together because I am just so tired; this past Saturday was not an exception to how I usually feel. I will say, however, that almost ever time that I have raced with no sleep, I do end up either doing very well or even winning the race. Once again this held true on Saturday, but it was a much harder and more painful win than I expected.
The race initially started off like I wanted it to begin; I was the first racer into the single track and held onto my lead for the first part of the 7 mile loop. Soon after the start that I wanted to have, though, Rob Lichtenwalner came around me very easily and then put about two minutes on me by the end of the second lap. I was comfortably in second, though, so I just continued to ride my own race. People standing out on the course were giving me time splits, which I never really believe in completely because they are not often too accurate, but I did notice that the splits were consistently being cut down during the third lap. By the end of the third lap, I had actually caught Rob and taken the lead of the race.
Feeling strong and confident because of catching Rob, I decided to put a little extra speed into my riding to hopefully increase the gap between us. My plan seemed to be working until I crashed hard while riding down a long, fast, gradual downhill. This was not your typical fall, get back-up quickly kind of crash. It was more like the superman style crash where you go airborne for an extended period of time, hit the ground hard and then slowly get up to take an inventory of all your body parts and your bike.
I will admit I was a little dazed from the crash because my head took a major impact and I also definitely jacked up something in my left shoulder, but I decided to get back on my bike slowly and start racing again anyway. During the first few pedal strokes, the only thing going through my head was that I was feeling a lot of pain and that I would probably be better off by not finishing this race. For some crazy reason or another, which I am still trying to figure out, I did decide to continue racing, though.
With about a lap and a half to go, I caught Rob again in the single track. We rode to the finish line together with one lap to go and then went back out onto the course together, after grabbing some water in the pit area. I lead through the first part of the last loop of the race and also through the first technical single track section. While riding in the lead position, I noticed that I was starting to gap rob, so I again decided to put the hammer down to try and increase the gap between us. My strategy seemed to work this time without incident and soon thereafter Rob was not in my sight any longer. I rode steady during the last part of the race, trying my best to not to crash again. Fortunately, things did go well for me on the last lap and I ended up finishing about four minutes up on Rob, doing six 7 mile laps (42 miles) in 3 hours and 58 minutes.
It was a painful victory, but sometimes those are the most special kind to have. Now all that I have to do is convince my body that the pain it is feeling was worth the victory.

The First Loser....

This past weekend Andy and I competed in the USA Cycling AMBC MTB Race at Greenbrier State Park in Boonsboro, MD. Andy raced in the semi-pro race, while I raced in my old man, masters 40-49 expert age class. Compared to last weekends 100 mile race, this race was much shorter at only 15 miles (3 loops of a five mile course). Doing a short race is completely different than doing a long race for many reasons. First off, a short race is all about speed, about not making any mistakes and about starting/finishing strong. Don't get me wrong, these are also important during an endurance race, but during a short race these factors are much more critical.

So, with that said, my game plan for the race was to start fast, hopefully get the hole shot leading into the single track and then riding strong and steady until the finish of the race. Well, the race did start like I wanted with me getting a hole shot and leading the first few miles of single track. I lost my lead after catching some of the slower riders in the age classes that started before our group. As many of you know, it can be difficult picking lines through lap traffic, especially on climbs and technical, rocky trails. I did feel like I was going through the traffic nicely, but at the same time I knew that if I made any mistakes the guy sitting on my wheel would capitalize on them. So, I did end up taking a couple of lines that slowed me down a little and that guy sitting on my wheel, Gunnar Shogren, made his move.

Once the move was made, the lap traffic actually became much heavier and more difficult to get through. This is not my excuse as to why I gave up my lead because I do think that riding through lap traffic is a learned skill, which Gunnar has seemed to master. Anyway, by the end of the first lap Gunnar had about 20 seconds on me, but he was in sight and so my motivation to catch him stayed consistent. Things stayed the same during the second lap, with Gunnar leading and me chasing. The lap traffic was also still heavy on the trails, so it was not real easy to make up time.

By the third lap, I felt like my legs were starting to wake up from my restful week of recovery riding and things started to flow for me again. I was easily moving through the lap traffic by this point and I definitely felt like I was strong enough to catch Gunnar. It was nice receiving time splits by other riders out on the course. Steve O, from the Indian Regional Hospital Team, told me when I caught him that I was only like 40 seconds down on Gunnar, with about a half lap to go. I put the hammer down and sure enough, there he was bouncing through the trails just in front of me. I put a lot into catching him and was then actually able to pass him pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I carried way too much speed into a sharp right downhill turn and had to unclip my foot from my pedal to stay upright. Gunnar ceased this opportunity to come around me again, which gave him the lead down the last technical down hill. I was able to follow Gunnar's line down the hill and was right on him leading into the last few straight aways up to the finish. As we came around the last bend, Gunnar started his sprint and I matched his move. I knew Gunnar was an accomplished sprinter, so I knew that I needed to put the power down. About 25 yards in front of the finish line, there was a lapped rider in the middle of the course. Gunnar had the high line leading to the finish, the lapped rider was right in the middle of the straightaway, and so I decided to take the low line to ensure that there was not a tangle-up at the finish. I put as much power as I could muster into my pedal strokes, but it was just not enough to come around the crafty old man. So, at the end, I was the first loser in the 40 plus race. All I can say now is that I am glad that very few mtb race come down to a sprint finish because sprinting is certainly not my strongest ability on the bike.

Andy finished out his race in 8th place, sorry I don't have too many more details about it than that. Additionally, our Ergon/Speedgoat sister teammate, Ernesto Marenchin won the marathon race. So, all in all, it was not a bad day for the Speedgoat Riders.

SPENT!

Well, it is Monday, two days after completing the Cohutta 100 NUE Series Race in Ducktown, TN. I took Sunday off from riding after the race for recovery and because frankly the last thing I wanted to do was ride my bike after doing a 100 mile race. So, today was my first ride and I must tell you that my legs felt like they had concrete poured into them before I rode today. I only did a little over 1.5 hours of riding today and all I can say is that I am spent from doing the Cohutta.

Well, enough complaining about how bad my legs feel. Let me tell you all about how the race went down from my perspective. Unlike last years dry course conditions, this year we were met by a night of hard rain and some light rain continuing during the early hours of the race. Of course, this made the trail conditions muddy, wet and a lot more difficult than last year. In addition to the harder course conditions, there were a lot more riders this year and a deeper field of talented riders, too.

The race started out on a 1.5-2 mile paved road climb, before going into about 15 miles of single track. The road climb was fast because everyone wanted to be one of the first into the single track. Last year I somehow managed to be the first one into the single track. This year, however, I was only able to manage being one of the top 15 riders or so into the single track. In front of me were all the riders that I consider to be possible winners of the race including; Floyd Landis, Chris Eatough, Harlin Price, Jeff Schalk and Josh Tostado. These riders and few others that I was not real familiar with lit the pace up and made things break apart very quickly up front.

By the time the single track section leading to the 70 miles dirt fire roads in front of us was complete, a lead group of 7 riders had slipped away from the rest of the pack. Last year I made this lead group, unfortunately this year I did not. I still felt pretty good, though, and was in the first chase group with my teammmate Andy Gorski, and two Ohio riders Shawn Adams and Ross Clark. Our group was not insight of the leaders, but we were also way out in front of any chasers that I could also not see. Basically, we were in what is consider as no man’s land. Ross flatted pretty quickly, so our group of four was whittled down to three. I started thinking that it was going to be a long hard day of chasing for the three of us, especially with a muddy chamois, face and grit filled eyes already irritating me.

Andy, Shawn and I did the best we could to keep thing smooth with our paceline, but were soon caught by Josh Tostado and Michael Simonson like we were sitting still. Josh had flatted in the first single track section, but quickly did a repair and was riding strong again. Andy, Shawn and I jumped onto the Tostado/Simonson Train, but could not match their crazy fast pace for too long. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to have riders just power away from you when you feel like you riding as fast as you can. Then, to make matters worse, we heard from a rider dropped by the lead group because of a mechanical issue, Chris Beck, that the lead group was 4 minutes up on us with less than 30 miles of the race completed.

Well, after Mike and Josh road away from us, another rider, Chris Tanguy, also caught us. Man, can this guy climb. Andy, Shawn and I tried to hang on his wheel when he caught us, but he just road away from us almost effortlessly. Again, not what you want to have happen so early off in a race, if at all. By this point, I start thinking that it just was not my day and I was wondering what I did to make my legs feel so bad. I actually then just kind of became lackadaisical about my riding and let Andy and Shawn put a small gap on me. During this time, I kept the two of them sight and just tried to recover a little, eating, drinking and re-gathering my focus. Eventually, I decided to start riding again when we saw Josh riding alone in front of our group. I quickly closed the gap up to Andy and Shawn and then rode up to Josh alone, before Andy and Shawn were also able to catch up to us. Apparently, Josh’s tire was leaking air, which caused him to slow down enough for us to catch him. The four of us rode into checkpoint 2 together, but left without Andy because he was still waiting for lube to be put on his chain. Andy did catch back up with us, but I could tell that he was starting to hurt from his early efforts.

The four of us rode pretty smoothly together for the next 10 miles of so, but Josh was definitely the strong man in our group and also the better descender on the downhills. Eventually, Andy could not match the pace with which our group was climbing and fell off the pace. Soon after that, he had a major chain suck issue and had to completely get off his bike for a couple of minutes to repair things. During this time, our Speedgoat teammate, Ernesto Marenchin, caught Andy. The two of them were then able to ride together until the last part of the race. Meanwhile, Shawn and I were once again dropped by Josh. This time, however, we were dropped on a long fast downhill instead of a climb. Josh was descending like a mad man and Shawn and I guess chose not to descend so aggressively. I just can’t see do 40 mph plus on a gravel/dirt fire roads when you could only see 10 feet in front of you because of the heavy fog.

By checkpoint 4, Shawn and I were still together. As we rode in to the checkpoint, we saw Josh riding out, so I tried to hurry through the checkpoint. I was able to exit the checkpoint a little quicker than Shawn and immediately attempted t0 catch up to Josh. The section of the race after checkpoint 4 is the only longer flat section of this course. I made no headway catching Josh alone, so I let-up on my pace a bit and allowed Shawn to catch up so that we could work together again. As a result of our work together, we were able to catch Josh once again. The three of us then rode together into and out of checkpoint number 5. After the 5th checkpoint, there is about 12 more miles of fire road before the last 12 miles of single track which leads to the finish of the race.

Josh entered the single track section first, I was second and Shawn was sitting third. I figured that Josh was going to bomb the single track section because the majority of it was technical downhill riding. Hoping to maybe put a little time on Josh before things became too technical, I decided to push the pace a bit on a medium length climb during the first part of the single track. My strategy seemed to be a good one because I immediately created a gap. When I looked behind me, I saw that Josh was struggling and that Shawn was chasing but was not catching up quickly. I felt like I had caught my second wind at this point and decided it was time to put everything that I had left in me into this single track. While hammering out the single track, I actually caught Michael Simonson which gave me even more motivation to keep the power going.

The single track ends with about 1.5-2 miles of pavement leading to the finish line. On the long stretch straight stretch back to the finish, I saw Shawn Adams in the distance behind me and chasing hard. I knew then that I had to drop it down a gear and pound it into the finish to guarantee that I would not be caught. It was a long and painful mile, but I was able to hold Shawn off to finish 7th overall. I was surprised about being seventh because I did not know that Floyd Landis had actually stopped during the race. Apparently he decided to stop during the race to sit in a creek and cool down, so we didn’t even know that we caught him while out on the course. I guess a long time friend of mine, Chris Scott, was able to motivate Floyd to finish out the race by riding along with him. Andy and Ernie were also able to finish the race strongly with a 12th and 11th place finish respectively.

All in all, I was happy with my result and race time of 7 hours and 23 minutes. My time was 8 minutes slower than last year, but I think that this was mostly because of the mud and wet conditions. I can certainly say that these 100 mile MTB races are definitely the hardest type of racing that I have ever done and something that you might want to try if you want to feel SPENT like me. - Gerry

The 2008 Season has arrived

So, the 2008 racing season has finally started and so far it has gone pretty well. I started my season with the ACA Mingo Park Road Race Series, which was promoted by Don M. and his Trek of PGH Stores. The Mingo Road Race Circuit is a challenging loop of about 5 miles, with one climb in the loop. There were 3 races in this series and I manage to take two second places and a first place at the last race, which gave me the 40+ masters overall series win. My long standing friend and competitor, Gunnar S., was second overall, but only because he did not show for the last race. He took the first two wins in the series, mostly because I have no sprint. Instead of doing Mingo, Gunnar and my Speedgoat/SPK/Salsa Teammate Andy Gorski decided to go down to the Parkersburg, WV Area for the WVMBA Series Race at Mountwood. Andy had a nice race taking third in the pro/expert men’s class. Unfortunately Gunnar was miss directed off course somewhere at the beginning of the race with two other racers, which cause all three racers to do an extra lap.

For me, Mingo was a nice way to warm up for my season of MTB racing. This week is the start of the NUE Series in Cohutta, TN with the Cohutta 100. Last year I finished a respectable 6th place, so I am hoping to have another good race down there. The field is stacked this year with riders from all over the country attending, among them is a guy name Floyd Landis. This will be my second race against Floyd in less than a year and I am sure that he will make it a fast one.

I do apologize for not writing more during the off season, but now that things are rolling again my writing will too. I will update this page with my race details about the Cohutta 100 early next week. - Gerry