State RR

Well, I got back to the race scene this past Sunday. I'm not saying I was a racer, I was just at the scene.
The past few weeks have been hecktic. It started with me 'supposed' to do the state RR a month ago, then the following week do Huntsville. I was on target for both after spending some time at altitude the previous weeks. Then the hurricane hit, which canceled the races. I was resting the week before and took the week of the hurricane and most of the next week off. I lost all motivation, except for doing some cross races midweek.
I just found out that I am supposed to do a 24hr adventure race nationals with iMOAT's, Leslie and Shaun. So I hit some longer bike rides, 2.5hrs and 3.5 hrs the past two weeks. And started running again. When I found out that the state RR was rescheduled I wasn't sure if I 'could' do it. But planned on doing it just for grins.
Well, on Saturday night I was supposed to get together with 5 friends and play some dice games, and relax and eat lots of candy and cheese dips. A 7 o'clock start time was agreed on. I show up at 6:45 hoping to be home at midnight. NObody else is there. One guy is called out to find a kid who ran away from home, a kid whose father screwed our karate school a couple of years ago. The other two were at home dealing with a drunk driver who crashed in their yard. The wife of the guy who got called to find the kid, was home hanging a wild pig who was shot by a friend earlier that day. They needed to skin it and get the meat for the winter.
Two show up at 7:30 with the wild drunk story, and keeps us occupied telling how Mr. Hyvl, a heavyset, shorter, funny man had to tackle this guy.
The guy tracking the kid shows up with his story, and some words on how stupid the dad(guy who screwed the karate school) is. This was at 8:30. I go out and help hold the light so he can skin the pig.
At 10:30 we start playing. I get home at 3, wake up at 5, do the drive at 6:30 and get signed up at 8. I start the race at 8:20, and we finish at 11:45ish. Now you can see why I am late to things that start at a certain time....like YettiCross. Showing up 20 seconds before a race is just what I do.
86 miles of racing is way different than a 3.5hr ride around huntsville. I somehow had plenty of power, which is normally my limiter. But at mile 83 I had some issues with my hamstrings getting tighter than a poor guy on a budget in a recession. I lost contact with the main group(with 2 guys up the road), and was now stretching and hoping that the 20 guys who just left me(the group was whittled down significantly) would somehow slow up for a moment to allow me to catch on.
Well, I ended up getting gapped too much, and with minimal power to put out due to cramps if I did put some power out, I got on with a 5 person chase group. I knew the race was over then, so I wanted to at least win out of this group. We come to the finish hill, and Tyler Jewel is leading strongly. Eric Benz takes off and starts putting a gap. I react, and catch him as a suburban is blocking the finish, to beat him to the line. I had the power, but lost because I couldn't keep from cramping. I had a fun race, and got 86miles in my legs, which I wouldn't've gotten otherwise!
My fantasy football team is sucking. I need to just wait for next year. Maybe this guy playing tonight will score me lots of points!
And to supliment my training, I'm going to do something Jason would do. Probably go do a run later after work, like 8 miles. Then some karate if I have time. Do some yetticross on wednesday. Some other long run on Thursday. Two spin classes on friday. A half marathon on Saturday, then the MTB at Lake Bryan on Sunday. A couple of weeks of schedules like this and I'll be ready to race on Nov.8th(24hr AR).