But, on the descent, disaster struck. Apparently, unfamiliar trails and high speeds don’t mix though, and I found myself off the side of trail about halfway down when I went too wide on a left-hand curve. Upon reentering the trail, I hit a rut (or something) and starting bucking around a bit, and finally realized that I was no longer in control of the bike. My feet eventually lost the pedals; and, next thing I knew, I was airborne. A classic endo, with my arms extended in front of me and the bike getting ready for a bouncy ride. When the crash was over, I instantly knew something was wrong with my arm, but I wasn’t sure what. It hurt badly and I was short of breath. Lewis caught up to me pretty quickly, but hadn’t seen the crash because I was ahead of her in the turn. When she got to me, I told her that I thought my arm was broken; since, by all counts, it wasn’t hanging quite right. Without knowing exactly what the issue was, we started rigging together a sling out of an inner tube; but, before we got too far, the group of hikers showed up. And, by some stroke of good fortune, the group’s leader just happened to be an MD who had dealt with situations such as mine before. He knew that my shoulder was dislocated and quickly set to work trying to get it back in place. Initially, he tried to raise my arm over my head to get it back in place, but that wasn’t working. So his next move was to lay me on my back, put a foot into my armpit, and pull straight out on my arm until the shoulder mercifully–and audibly–popped back into place. After that, we slinged it back up, returned to the house to let my parents know what the situation was, and pack up for the trip home to the INOVA ER.

I decided on Saturday that the only way I’d make it was if I didn’t tote a 20 pound Camelback around for 12 hours, so I grabbed an bottle cage from the Revolution Cycles tent and a water bottle from the Dirt Rag crew and stuck a seat bag on my rails with enough crud to fix a tire and make some minor trail-side repairs. I never did flat, but did manage to tweak my front rim and blow out my chain. I bummed a spoke wrench to true the rim at Aid Station 4, but was almost SOL when my chain popped shortly after leaving the final aid station. Fortunately for me, the first rider to come up to me had a SRAM Speed Link which allowed me to complete the repair quickly and finish things up.

Probably the biggest win for me is that I seem to be getting my leg cramps under control by worrying less about eating bananas and focusing more on E-tabs and keeping a light mixture of Cytomax in one of my water bottles. There was some minor cramping I needed to fight through, but the post-ride cramps were minimal, and I didn’t suffer any of the mid-night lockups that have plagued me in the past. Good news, indeed!

By the time we got back to the truck and I fastened my number plate, I wasn’t feeling up to another climb; so, Lewis shuttled me up to the gate so I’d only have to ride the ridge to Kaylor’s Knob. Lewis rode out part way with me, but then turned back so as not to interfere with the race. As it turned out, I was the third person to reach Kaylor’s Knob, so ended up hanging out a good 45 minutes before the rest of the racers trickled in and the start got organized. I felt bad that Lewis had turned back so early, but she was also nervous about dinging the carbon frame on those treacherous rocks. Eventually though, the race got under way, with racers going out in 30 second intervals.

Things went poorly for me right out of the start when I hung my front wheel on a rock and had to bail over the bars. Finally under control again, I took off down the ridge knowing that there were some sketchy sections that I might better handle on foot. Running turned out to be one of the better decisions I made, as my technical skills just never really appeared for this race. I dismounted again at the U-turn where the trail from Kaylor’s met up with the XC route and once more in the sketchy rocks just before the trail finally settled into the flowy, smooth descent. Kat and Chris had a perfect vantage point for my final endo, and tried to assume some of the responsibility for the stumble as they’d cheered for me just before the mishap; but, I assured them that it was strictly my own doing. After that point I figured I was in the clear, but noticed that I was having issues keeping my front tire from washing in the turns and off-cambers; which nearly sent me careening off the trail at several points. While much of it can be attributed to rider error (since my only other mountain biking since the fall was the Baker’s Dozen), I still made a mental note to swap tires before the next day’s XC. Finally, about a mile and a half from the finish, I found a bit of a groove and was able to keep my bike moving pretty well.

I made it to the finish about 5 minutes behind the leaders feeling a bit more defeated than I thought I’d be, but it was a super fun course and a good time. The Shenandoah crew hooked us up with Rolling Rock on tap and Papa John’s (there were no other prizes awarded) and new friends were made. Lewis and I hung out for a long time chatting, but eventually headed back to the Comfort Inn to hook up with Kat and Chris. Sadly, we’d missed them for dinner, so we grabbed burgers and cheese fries at Chili’s before turning in for the night.

After a good night’s sleep on the firm hotel mattress, we were up early again and hit the continental breakfast buffet before heading back to the race site. I swapped out the 2.35 Maxxis Ignitors for a 2.25 Panaracer Cinder up front and a 2.1 Ignitor in the rear. I’m not sure that I really like the Ignitor as a rear tire, but it was the only other thing I had. The Cinder turned out to be a good choice.

Other than the usual nerves, I was feeling ok about the race and lined up near Claman for the start. For some reason, the organizers started the Sport women before the Sport men, but we finally got underway with a climb up the fire road and a right turn into the singletrack switchbacking up to the ridge. With the mud created from the previous day’s rain, the general difficulty of the climb, and the mass of riders piling up, things continued to be pretty messy until we got dumped back onto the fire road closer to the top. Starting out with so much climbing quickly took a toll on me though and I had my first thoughts that maybe this race wasn’t going to go well. I used the fire road climb as an opportunity to suck down 1 of the 2 GU packets I had stashed in the leg elastic of my shorts and finally made it to the top.

The ridge and ensuing descent provided some much needed rest, but it wasn’t long before the loop started going up again. With each climb, I could feel myself getting weaker and weaker and I realized that I hadn’t properly prepared myself with enough food to get through the race. The temperature wasn’t helping either. And then, just to make matters worse, my rear derailleur decided to stop shifting properly. Attempting to use the three largest cogs in the back resulted in a skipping chain, so I started to rely more on my granny and fourth cog to get me up even the slightest incline. Not even halfway through the race and I was ready to throw in the towel.

As I finally exited the trees and rode through the field toward the finish chute, I knew I had to keep going; but, I still wasn’t sure how I was going to make it back up the climb knowing that I’d already hit a wall. The answer came pretty quickly — walking. Nearly defeated and with almost no strength left in my legs, the race became an exercise in mental stamina and survival rather than my hoped-for top 10 finish.

After provisioning Friday night, Lewis and I managed to get to bed around midnight with the alarms set for 6:00 am. Our goal was to be at the team site by 8:30 to meet up with everyone; but, with a quick breakfast at Starbucks and an EZPass situation at the Greenway, we made it out closer to 9:00. Lee, and others from the Pedalshop team, had been on the farm at noon on Friday to claim our spot for the day; so, all we had to do was pull up to the tents, unload, and re-park over in the field. It was a pretty sweet setup — complete with carpeting; and, eventually, 10 cases of beer from our sponsor.

The race officially kicked off a little after 11:00 am, with Brandon leading things off for Team Pedalshop (our officially uninspired name; given that others on our team had names like “Too Drunk to Fish”), and Sean pulled lap number 2. On my first lap of the day, I hit the course without gloves, which would lead to some killer blisters that I would regret for HOURS. We quickly changed our strategy to double laps on the 7.5 mile course; but, I slowed the team down with a flat on my third lap of the day. The flat — combined with a stubborn stick in my middle chainring — combined to drop us 10 minutes off our next competitors, and we never were able to close that gap. All the same though, we finished 19th out of 48 registered teams, so we were okay with our showing.

Lewis and the girls ended up finishing a VERY respectable 9th in the 3-person “open” field, which was the 2nd best finish of all the Pedalshop teams. And, while everyone was hoping to party it up after the race was over, the storm clouds were quickly moving in by 12:30 am, and people started making their respective moves to head to their homes for the evening. Lewis and I were the last amongst the team to leave (several others did stay) and hit the road around 1:30. Driving home was as much a test in stamina as the race itself, though; and, we finally pulled in our parking lot at 2:30 am. We were TIRED!

Sunday, we slept in as late as we could; finally being awakened around 9:30 by our neighbor, who needed some assistance dressing for a trip to the Grand Canyon. I’m glad Lewis fielded that one.