Hurt Box!!!!

That is where I spent the later half of Sunday's race. But you know it was a good hurt. The kind that once it is over and the dust settles things are going to be all smiles.

I will go into story time now and let everyone in on how things actually went on Sunday.

Friday night was chill as usual. Saturday was a bit of the same with the exception of getting my bike 100% for Sunday. I seem to be hard on wheels and didn't want to overload Russell after WORS 11 so I put my rear wheel under the scope and got to work. Now I am not much of a mechanic so after about an hour I had it strait and what seemed to be the appropriate tension on the spokes. Nice! The rest was pretty easy and before I know it I was on my way to Sheboygan to meet the 212 crew.

Pre ride went good and the course seemed to be in great shape. My legs felt good and after opening up all systems were a go. Back home to eat some supsup then hit the sack.

Sunday,

I was ready. Standard routine then off to the races. I felt good and was getting excited for the WORS finale. This year has been phenomenal for me and with all of the support I get from everyone I didn't want to let my "fans" down. I warm up and head to the line but just before callups Claire comes up with the Hero Cam. I was suppose to hook up with her earlier but couldn't find her and she couldn't find me. Anyway, Standing at the front of the starting shoot she rushes to put the cam on as she apologizes for the missed connections. I felt bad and assured her that I wasn't worried about it and that things were all good.

Go time and off we went! Damn my foot un clipped. Back in and I hammered my way back into position. It was right then I noticed my bike wasn't shifting right. I tried to shake it off but by the time we hit the first section of single track it was in full buck mode. I had 2 and 1/2 gears. I say1/2 cause if I held the shifter in it would stay up one more gear. By now I was sitting 5th wheel behind Mike. He slipped by Nate and a little later I got by as well with my focus on keeping in contact with the group. I still felt good but not being able to shift was getting the best of me. By the time we hit the equalizer I lost contact. I had to run that darn hill the first time around and I wasn't happy!!

I put it in full chase mode diggin as deep as I could. I felt like I was closing the gap but in all reality I think it was opening up more. Time to restrategize as I thought to myself "if I don't chill I am going to blow up bad", so that is what I did. Too late! The bike still wasn't cooperating and I was hurting. To top things off I was getting caught from behind. Once I saw it was Chris catching me I didn't feel too bad but still didn't really let off the gas too much. One more lap down and he was breathing down my back so it was time to just let up so he could catch me.

Now in tandem Chris took total charge of keeping me motivated to push me to the finish. About this time I regained my shifting ability but I am still not totally sure why it wouldn't shift. A little while later I caught myself laughing and thinking "not to many people get there own personal coach during a race". I didn't have to do anything except turn the peddles and that was hard enough. With Chris counting down the finish finally came and I couldn't be happier. Ouch that hurt but I couldn't think of another way to spend my race day. THANKS CHRIS!!!!!!!

Lesson for the day; Pick a good team because some time you might have to depend on your temmates.

D.B.