NUE #3 Wildcat 100

This being my first 100 mile MTB race I have to say that I was a different type of nervous. Instead of feeling nervous about call ups, hole shots and positions it was "can I finish?" "How long will it take me?" "What the heck am I going to EAT?!" But everything you think is going to happen never does in a race and there is never any need to be nervous, its just wasted energy. So I prepared the best I could for the race by eating well the few days before, giving my bike the once over and heading to bed early the night before like a proper pro should. The morning of the race was a wet one. The weather calling for showers all day and a high temp in the mid 60's was going to make an already hard race even harder with epic conditions of mud and my body trying to maintain some level of normal body temperature. The start was pretty chill with a semi neutral roll out the Williams lake where we rode through the famous cave and rocky single track. Then it was onto a mix of fire road, pavement, single track for the last 95 miles. Justin Lindine and I had a pretty good gap on the rest of the field and kept the pace up for the first 10 miles until a little wrong turn let the group behind catch up. I hung one with my Single Speed until Glory Hill climb mile 20ish... where my 32-16 gearing was to stiff of a gear to keep up so I paced myself up the climb and caught back on when things leveled off. By that time Justin and Christian Tanguy had taken off and I was left to draft the top 5 geared guys for the rest of the day. At no point during the 100 miles of mud, rocks and mixed emotions did I think about quieting. that's just not an option. I did a great job of pacing and keeping my head space right to finish 1st in my Class (Single Speed Men) at 7hrs 30min and 3rd overall just 10 min behind the 2nd place Pro Justin Lindine and inside 30min of Christian Favata. I have to say I don't know what I was thinking but now that its all over with I can say that I had a blast and I would do it all over again...Maybe...

~S