Yeah, yeah I know it's in September, but the Rocktober Challenge Marathon was still a whole lot of fun.  The even was held in scenic RB Winter State Park and the adjacent Bald Eagle State Forest up in Mifflinburg, PA.  My parents came and picked me up at school on Saturday afternoon and we headed up to spend the night at one of the parks campsites.  Camping at a long race like this is nice.  Not only do you not have to get up as early, but you are right at the race when you wake up.  No travel time, just throw your gear on and warm up while heading to the start.  Saturday night I went for a 5 mile spin around a bit of the second half of the course.  I went up the Boiling Spring Trail and down a bit of the Old Tram trail.  Just from that short ride, I could tell that I had a difficult race ahead of me.  Old Tram was all downhill, but had so many rocks that you were pedaling the entire time.  And I had only ridden a mile of it.



The next morning, the race started at 9:00.  There were about 51 people total at the race (Men <44, singlespeeders, women, and Men>45).  We started out with a neutral roll out following a pace motorcycle, who didn't do much pacing and promptly sped up to a speed where we couldn't catch him.  I started in the front and once the race officially began (when we hit Rt. 192) Cannondale endurance pro's Rob Lichtenwalner, Branden Drugalis, normal Bike Line rider Andy Miller, and I set the pace.  We weren't going to fast, but by the time we hit the singletrack, the four of us and about 10 others had a bit of a gap on the rest of the field.  We made the turn into the singletrack less than flawlessly.  We had to turn off the road onto a dirt road, then make an immediate 180 degree turn onto a barely visible singeltrack that paralleled the main road.  Andy and I lost about 13 spots because we didn't know this and Rob and Brandon just sailed on by chuckling.  They would ride the rest of the race together without anyone in front of them.



The rest of the race continued pretty much as a race does.  We rode some singletrack, then a bit of road, then more singletrack.  Then some technical downhills, then technical singeltrack.  The difference was that I was riding really well.  I came into Aid 1 in 11th place, and only about 20 min off the Cannondale boy's pace (by the way, they had both race 24hr solo's the previous weekend, and Rob won his).  I kept plugging along at a higher pace then I normally do, and rolled into Aid 2 in 10th.  Then we began the really technical stuff.  I hit Old Tram Trail with a group of about 6 other guys.  The group promptly divided by technical skill.  I was somewhere in the middle.  Then we had to tackle the worst feature of the race: the 600yd long downhill pedaling rock garden.  I don't think I cleaned it, but there is always next year.  It was really really long though.  There was some dirt road after that, then eventually onto one of the other defining features of the course: a 2 mile very veryy very (like butt-cheek burning) descent.  I rode conservatively down it, trying not to crash.  Then there was a long climb up to Aid 3, where I rolled in at 11th place.  After that (mile 36 approx.) I started hammering to catch the guy in front of me.  There was some climby singletrack, some fireroad, and some more singletrack.  We got a big surprise when we turned into the end of the Old Tram Trail (remember the 600yd rock garden?) and were told 4.5 miles to go.  Yes folks, we were climbing back up what we had to struggle down.  On Old Tram I caught the guy that was in front of me, but didn't pass him.  Unfortunately, I was caught by another Bean's rider who had ridden off course and hammered to get back into at least the top 10.  He blew right by me like I was standing still.  It was pretty cool.  Fortunately, we did not do the entire Old Tram trail, and when we were dumped out onto a dirt road, I kicked it into high gear to try and catch the Bean's guy that had passed me.  And by high gear, I mean my highest gear possible.  I was time trialing along at around 20mph for most of the last 2.5 miles of the race.  I put 45 sec on the guy who was in front of me, and I came 10 sec away from catching the Bean's rider who passed me on Old Tram.  So I had to settle for top 11 overall.  10 sec out of the top 10, and with 45 sec on 12th place overall.  When you take out the singlespeeders ahead of me I came up with 9th in the Mens <44 class.  I'm pretty happy with that.  I feel like it was the best I had ridden in a long time, since Marysville.  I felt much more fresh after the race than I had after any other race; a credit to the 101 that I finished last month.  Once you've ridden a 101, everything seems short (until I do a 24 solo).  So that's that: 48 miles in 5:10 for 9th place.



Thanks go out to Intense Cycles for my still awesome bike, ODI for keeping my hands together, Hayes Disc Brakes for stopping me when I needed to, and Evomo for making me look cool pre and post race.  I'll scrounge up some pics next chance I get.



Until next time (Terror of Teabury, 9/16)...