Cohutta 65

A couple of weeks ago against my better judgement I registered for the Cohutta 65 mile mtn bike race. I had been tentatively planning on doing the race since the first of the year but had not put together a serious training plan to race for 6 hours.Needless to say I felt a little unprepared heading down on Friday the the day before the race.
I left work Friday at 11AM and had a lea surely drive down to the race venue. I got to the venue picked up my packet changed clothes and set out to preride part of the course. I rode for ~2.5 hours.After the preride I hung around socialized a bit talked with Jess, Cara, Andy, Stephen, Rhonda and Jubal, awesome people.From here I loaded up the bike made my way to Blue Ridge where I was staying the night. On the way I picked up a few groceries stopped for a bite to eat and then headed on to the house. At the house I got my stuff organized for the 7:15 am start sat on the porch and relaxed.
4:15am arrived bright and early. I slept well and felt well rested and ready to race. After breakfast it was off to the venue and the start of the race.I got a call up for the 65 mile start and Bruce made a comment about how serious I looked. The look was one of worry not seriousness. The horn sounded and we were off.
The race starts with a 3 mile climb and I started out with a brisk pace a tad below LT. Unlike the previous year I did not hear a small voice saying "I'm gonna catch you" I did hear other voices but these were just the usual ones in my head.After the climb it was onto the singletrack. This was awesome, fast and rolling. I kept a high cadence and steady pace. After the single track we hit the dirt roads. This part I did not like.One of the intersections was not marked and this cost me ~ 5-8 mins. During the dirt road riding I talked a bit with Tal a super strong rider oh, and he is also Jess's husband.
I raced for 4 hours and 15 mins after this I was just riding. I did not bonk I was just not racing. My average speed up to that point was ~13 mph. After the gravel roads we were on single track again. This was great! I picked up my tempo a hair while at the same time trying to be careful. We had ~ 8 miles to go and I was pretty sure I was leading my age group and did not want to do something dumb that would cost me the race. After blasting down thunder rock trail it was up the road across the bridge to the finish line. I was glad to see the finish, I was knackered. My time 5hr 30 mins not as fast as I had hoped but still fast enough for 1st in the 50+ category.
After finishing I went to my truck got out my chair sat and talked with Tal and Cara for a while.I finally regained enough energy to go and take a shower at the campground. The shower felt great,came back grabbed a bite to eat totally missed the awards a big thanks to Stephen and Jubal for picking up my stuff. I honestly thought the box that Stephen was carrying with my 1st place plate was a box of dunkin doughnuts. Perhaps my body was wanting some dunkin doughnuts. Anyway a cool trophy and and cool stuffed bear.
After my friends finished the 100 mile race I packed up and went back to Blue Ridge to take a nap and wait for Diana. Diana had done the Burnsville metric and decided to come and stay at Blue Ridge Saturday night. I was way to pooped to drive home.Diana arrived later that evening, we fixed dinner and then lights out.Sunday we bummed around the town of Blue Ridge, ate at a neat sidewalk cafe and then headed back to Asheville.

RECOVERY WEEK!!!!!