The Pain Ultra

I tackled this beast Sunday with Wes and Shawn"Scream"Jones. I don't know what was more painful, the race, or riding in a car with Shawn doing 30 in a 55, 40 in a 65, 20 in a 45. But oh well he drove so I can't complain that much. Wes and I had other plans go bad so as of Friday night I got the ok from the boss to do the race. I figured I handled the Mohican 100k pretty well so what is the harm in a 45 mile bike race? Just ride your own race right? I was neither physically or mentally prepared for the ass kickin I was about to receive. After a painfully slow neutral 3 mile start we let it rip. I ran a 32x20 on my single speed and well into the 2nd climb of the day was wishin I had a 21 on the rear and after riding all the singletrack we had done the the other way I was whishin' for a 25 in the rear. This course had 5 or 6 climbs that dwarfed anything on the Mohican course and found myself off the bike pushing and wishing for gears on so many hills. The Shenandoah 100 had the longest hike-a-bike I have ever done, but we were confronted with a straight up quarter mile hike-a-bike-soul-crusher that topped of a brutal race. Would I do this again? Hell yeah. I'd be better prepared next time, plus it would be better to come down and camp to enjoy the atmosphere along the Ohio River and hang with some cool people. As hard as the course was this was beautiful backcoutry Ohio riding.