Sunday, September 16, 2012

Cheq Fat Tire Fest

It was a tough race this year with the speed and deep talent lined up at yesterday's Chequamegon 40. Painful as a race effort should be, I pushed down on the pedals to reach the finish line in 38th overall, 2nd in the 45-49 age division, and a PR of 2:14:20 in my 18th attempt at this epic 30 year old event. The highlight of my race was getting 2nd in a very competetive age division behind Iowan Cam Kirkpatrick while the low point of the race was when I detonated with 15 miles to go. The first half of the race was right on track with the goals I had set for myself until I made a small tactical error.. I was in a great position with a group of 10 that included Chad Sova, Adam Swank and Justin Piontek, but just about 5 miles before the Seely Firetower I couldn't cover an acceleration after dropping to the rear of the group and got unhitched. My hard effort to bridge back up failed and all I did was bury myself further as I blew up. Thankfully for me, we had such a huge gap over the next chasers that I made it almost to the top the Firetower in damage control mode before being caught by a pack of about ten. From there it was all about survival and getting to the finish line in one piece. With a couple of miles to go I stayed with the group through the logged out final miles and found a little kick left in my old body to finish mid-pack among the pack that pretty much saved my day. Overall a great weekend with family, friends and fellow racers! Thanks goes out to all my sponsors that make weekends like this possible! Pedal on...
Photo Credit - Brett Morgan

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