of fear and bonking

just a quick note on the race. first, this should be a must do event at least once in your life (maybe add a second or third time once you have tried it for the first time). 800+ riders line up at the start, i started a third of the way back. 150 passed me on the flat start (32X20 was the gear of choice). quickly made up all of those passes, and some, as soon as we hit the first climb. the first half of the race was relatively easy, with some nice climbing and fun downhills, great rides through the tall trees in the forest and some bridges for added fun. just before the 1/2 way point you enter the roller coaster, basically lindsey's lunge steep with 8 -10 huge banked corners snaking back and forth so you can carry speed, but throw in rocks and more roots and a hundred people in the forest watching you bomb through the course, probably the most fun i have every had on a bike. finished the first 1/2 in 1.5 hours. the second half of the race was something else. it starts with 5km climb followed by 2km downhill, followed by another 3kms of climbing, with the whole mess gaining 500 meters of elevation. this took everything out of the legs. from there on i was a mess. lost both my water bottles on a 40kmph rocky downhill. at about 52km you hit the powerhouse plunge. my god, i have never ever ridden shit like that before, us prairie folk just don't get that type of stuff - scared me silly at times and had to run parts of it. it is just cruel the way the set this up; you climb until you are cooked and then you downhill and hang for dear life, all after 50+ kms of racing. so what is the logical thing to happen after all of this - cramping in both hamstrings like i have never experienced before. i was officially cooked by this point and i still had 22kms to ride with more single track which i walked more than i rode - i was just to tired and spooked by that point to really push it as hard as i would have liked to. finished the race just shy of 4 hours.

observations: gears, gears, gears. full suspension, please god, full suspension (okay maybe you don't need the full suspension, but it would make it much faster). oh yeah, i am going to do this agian, whose in?