Otter Creek HareScramble                                                

February 7th 2010

Sarasota Florida

 

 

Practice

We could not take the trailer so I had to travel down on my own early Sunday morning in the van with just me and the bike.

I left my house at 4am and arrived at the track perfectly at 07:30am and setup my gear.

The track had gotten a lot of rain in the past couple of days so it was going to be a mud race.

I signed up and got ready for my practice lap which I decided to run even though it was cold and wet.

During my practice lap the course  workers were still re-routing the track as some parts were under water and very rutted.

A lot of riders were going down but I stayed up and managed all the creek crossings safely which had not yet gotten too rutted up.

The course was very slick and the tree roots were difficult to negotiate but I like it when it is hard going as it gives me an advantage should I get a bad start.

I completed practice and got the bike down on the line early for a good place on the line.

 

A nice swampy pasture

 

The Race

I got another terrible start, I got round the first turn and tried to make up some places but was ducking my head out of the way of the mud roost from the other riders.

As I made a turn I got stuck in a mud hole and buried the bike, I tried to lift it out but it was stuck, every time another bunch of riders came past I had to stand out of the way.

I eventually laid he bike over and pulled it out of the hole It took me about 2-3 minutes and i was now way back in the race.

I decided to just ride smart and pushed on, I caught a few riders in my class and came round on lap one in 8th place.

 

                                                  

 

On lap 3 and 4 I was up to 4th but I lost control in a mud bog and went down again, I remounted and somehow got my foot caught on a root.

My foot had twisted  back 180* and I think tore my knee up or hopefully just tweaked it a little, anyhow it hurt.

 I dropped another 2 places and finally completed 4 laps within the 2hr time limit allowed.

 I finished the race in 6th place with a time of 1hr 56minutes and 4 laps completed, so I was pretty happy to recover so well.

 

                                      

 

I will be posting a video in the next day or 2, My helmet cam had a malfunction and I lost the sound but I will post some of the footage anyway.

 

 

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