Great race! Everyone did great. I was excited to see how well we did. I learned a valuable lesson. Listen to the 40 other people using a different bike than myself. Everyone there knew of my self imposed plight. I used too skinny & weak of tires on the bike.
I reviewed the map. My first flat occurred about mile 11. I fought the flat issues to mile 13. Then I made the decision to go for it (25 -30 mins wasted time). I did have air in the tires. But it was a down hill bomb, very rough. I didn't feel the back tire blow, but a hard left and it got steeper, I was braking hard to get stopped. This was mile fourteen. I got off the bike and walked/run for half mile.
I jumped back on and started to bike, two flats. I might have tried to fix it, but I had used up the patch material on the two tubes I had. Still on Gravel when my dad came to see how things were. Made a decision for him to go get Amy's bike back at the Kinzua beach. He went up the road to turn around and by the time he got to me I was traveling on hard road and he said I would beat him to Elijah before he could get one way to Kinzua. So, I kept trekking. It was dicey coming down the hills with no air in the tire & even slicker when I hit the Elijah area and the blacktop was greasy. I almost biffed it twice. It was a happy day to see Shawn standing there waiting for me. I tried to hammer at this point, but the bike would get squirrelly. I had passed about 10 groups on the way up on the bike. I was then passed by those 10 and another 5 or 6. All said, if I would have used a mountain bike no flats, we could have gained an hour. Bigger is better.
Orienteering went awesome. I will let you all know (especially Scotty) that Matt was blowing me away up the hill to get to our first orienteering spot. My muscles were not responding after about two miles of running. It was hot, and steep. It took about a mile on top of the hill before I felt right. I think then we put the hammer down finding the last two spots (we could see the light at the end of the tunnel). Matt's suggestion about using the hard road up and then cross-country to get to the highway to go down, I believe, cut 10 minutes off our time. We did it in 1 hr 42 mins (or so). We also went down a pretty shear cliff to get on the road. Riding on our butts through the weeds. Two people on the road stopped and just stared at us. We then had to give them water because they had run out.
It was awesome to see Casey ready to run when we got in, I just hope it didn't do any more damage then he had already done to his knee.
I felt pretty awful for an hour after I was done, but can't wait for next year. Thanks guys.
1 comment:
Hats off to you Craig for your perserverence. 6 miles on flat tires...outstanding!
You know, when my brother came through the transition area he said to me "I passed your guy going the wrong way. I asked him if he was ok and he said yes." I won't lie...I was a little concerned at that point. By then Craig's dad had already taken off in his truck to go see what was what. Thankfully we all came to learn that Craig had dropped his tire pump and had turned around to pick it up.
Also, kudos to Craig and Matt for your performance in the orienteering leg. You averaged about 16 min/mile. I think that was one of the better finishes.
I was having some serious doubts about making that last run. Finally I decided it would not have been fair to ask anyone else to pick up the slack, especially after immediately coming off the orienteering course or 90 minutes post swim.
I am certain the additional running didn't make the knee any worse than it already was. Trust me, I'm no super trooper. I wouldn't have done it if I truly thought I was physically unable to do so.
We have some time to apply our lessons learned. I predict a first place finish next year in our relay division. Take it to the bank.
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