After suffering from back spasms the previous week right up until the day before the start, I was super happy to actually be able to finish this race/ride. I even beat my previous year’s time by about 20 minutes, so it was an all-around win, as far as I’m concerned.

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!