Not Much

Funny thing about the Shenedoah 100 this year for is I did it did OK and don't have much to say about it. But here it goes anyhow. Ruth and me got to Stokesville Campground much later than we planned on Friday night it was close to 9:30. After driving around through the woods and finding several deadends we picked a spot out and setup camp. Then Saturday morning after some walking around in the daylight and some long and hard consideration we decided to pack up and move camp to a better location. After that we planned on going for about a 2 hour ride, then get a shower and head to Snowshoe for JR and Gina's wedding. But as it turned out that plan would soon change. Thinking that the wedding started at either 4:00 or 5:30 and it was about a 2 hour drive we have to leave around 2:00. We forgot the invitation at home and was calling some friends to confirm the time and guess what? We found out it started at 2:00 and it was already 12:30. We deicided to cut our ride short and get there as early as we could. I think we got there around 4:00 just in time to see everyone leaving the church and heading over to the reception. We had a good time at the reception and was very suprised by how nice JR looked all cleaned up. Unfortantly we planned on racing at the SMT 100 so that ment no beer for me or very little. But it still was allot of fun and our group which constied of the Shogrens, Chrissy McGill, and Ruth decided to leave around 7.

The trip back to Stokesville took a little longer back thanks to Hank. We got back and after talking to several people I decided to change my gear from a 32x19 to a 34x20 this turned out be almost a very smart decision. Going to bed I knew my biggest challenge of the day was going to be getting up and being ready for the 6:30 start. This goes back to my reasoning that it's not healthy to get up this early. This is confirmed by the fact that humans dont have good nightime vision. So we should be left sleeping until the sun comes out. But enough about that with about 7 minutes to go Ruth thought her front tire was low on air so when pumping it up the vavle broke and we hurried up and put in a new tube with 3 minutes to spare.

Wow we I rode up to the start I couldn't believe just how big of a pack 500 plus racers make. I found the best stop I could and squezed in. Then we were off and it was a pretty skechty start but I managed to stay out of trouble. Everything seemed to be going OK I felt pretty fresh and the bike felt OK too. I did this race once before in 2006 but for some reason couldn't rememeber to much of it. But just like in the Wilderness 101 there was plenty of back and fourth. I'd catch the same people in spots only to dropped or pass them only to regroup later. Finally when I the end was near I had some bike issues and ran in the last 2 miles or so. I was happy with a 5th place SS and 36 overall placing with a time of 8:32. That's all I got.

J