5+ hours of driving put us in Columbia, TN this past weekend. We arrived on Saturday evening and the weather was perfect! We had a fast and fun pre-ride on the Chickasaw Trace course and were grinning when we thought about racing it the next day.
Chatted with friends, then headed over to our hotel for the night. A little cable, then off to sleep.
I woke up at about 2:30-3:00am and heard the storm. Sounded like it was going to be wet, but you never know how a trail is going to handle the water, so I didn't worry about it too much.
Everett had an earlier race....9:30, so we got up in time to get him to the course and warmed up. His front tire was a little low, but off he went with a really great first lap time. When he came through for his feed, I could tell he was in pain and he said his back was killing him. But, off he went for a second lap and he finished strong and very, very, very much covered in mud. No white left on his jersey!
Next up was Jansen, Shey and me. I had warmed up a little by riding up and down the side of the trail waiting for Everett to come through, so I could cheer and grab a pic. Then it was off to get pics of the other guys and line up with my girlies. I was hoping that Everett would be able to feed us, but we had our bottles set out on a table, just in case we needed to feed ourselves.
Well, I needn't have bothered. It was muddy. Peanut butter, slick, don't bother to direct your bike at all, muddy. I started off solid, then hit the woods and wasn't prepared for the trail to be that slick. I got used to the feel of bike sliding and just concentrated on staying consistent. I then made the mistake of trying to shift on an uphill and my chain did some great gymnastic stunt into areas of the bike it shouldn't go.......so a by-stander helped me get it back out and straightened the derailleur enough to get me out of the woods. Of course I topped it off by sliding into the thorny vines before I hit the field and rode over to the feed zone.
Shey came through first and I thought both guys would be together, so I knew something had happened to Jansen, when I didn't see him for a while. I'm not sure how he finished his lap, as his chain was not where it should have been at all....not even on the pulleys or in the d. cage?, so who knows how he pedalled out of there, but he did. Yep, that left three of us there to feed Shey. That was one well watered guy, for sure!
Shey and Everett made podium, then we packed up our muddy stuff and headed home.
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