We started off the race thinking that Jeff and Lisa (our 4th person for this race) as "seasoned racers" would pull us through this one since I've never been the speediest on the team and Russell has been off his bike for a while, but after everyone's first lap was complete, and we were all within 5 minutes of each other with everyone's times being under an hour, it was evident that we were all able to pull our weight as needed.
I have to say that racing on a 4 person team is really the way to do a 12 hour race. 3-4 laps is pretty much all I could imagine at race speed, I really don't know the solos get in 12 laps by themselves. Crazy I say. 3 laps allows you to really enjoy the social aspect of the event as well. For instance, we got to hang out with the "BMX Mulisha" (rode the race on a BMX bike) and their keg of Guinness all day and listen to Gary from our 3 man team tell stories about his Leadville experience. That dude is awesome by the way. 25th out of 1500 racers in one of the toughest endurance races around. 14th place in his Category behind Lance and Dave Weins.
By mid-day we found ourselves with a strong lead over the team we needed to beat in order to move into 3rd place in the series! Yay for us!! We just needed to hold onto this lead for the rest of the day. Well, we were feeling pretty confident when it started getting dark. We had close to half an hour on our competition, and our first night lap was still under an hour. Perhaps we jinxed ourselves a little with our cocky talk, because then Lisa's lights malfunctioned. She had to piggy back on other riders for the end of her lap because her lights were going off and on sporadically. Yikes!! made for a lap close to 15 minutes slower than her 2 previous laps. We thought we were still in good shape, but I decided I shouldn't relax as much as planned as I headed out on my last lap. Though my legs were feeling like they might fall off on the biggest climb of the course, I managed to pull off a time only 5 minutes or so slower than my daytime lap. One more lap to go! Russell took off like a bullet for his final trip around the course. He was set up with Al's HID light on his helmet since it was brighter than his own so he was all set to dominate his night lap.
As we sat back with some taco's and a beer and lit a fire in the fire pit to wait for him to get back... little did we know... he was sans light 5 minutes into the lap. Al's light had gone out. This is NOT a course you could do without a light, so this SUCKED. He was almost ready to give up and turn around, causing us to only get 11 laps in and potentially fall instead of rise in overall standings when a kind solo rider rode up with two sets of lights and gave one set to Russell. THANK YOU anonymous solo rider!!! His name was Chris, but we didn't know him at all, so it was just awesome that he helped us out like that. Russell rolled in to the finish where our wondering team awaited him at a time of 1:07... which was an excellent time considering he stopped to switch out lights.
All in all, I'm really impressed with how our team of rookies made out in this series. 3rd place is where it's at!! I'll take a bronze medal! Especially considering none of us had any endurance race experience (if any at all) when we started out. Good job team :)
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