Had a restless sleep on an air mattress on Matt’s floor in Port McNicoll Saturday night/Sunday morning. Not so much pre-race jitters, just a bad sleep. Didn'’t help having Rick snoring like a jack hammer in the same room. Matt kicked our butts early enough on Sunday morning so that I could get get the proper fuel into my body so that I would be running efficiently for the race. I don'’t enjoy eating oatmeal, but it does the job. A serving OmegaWhey helped the oatmeal go down – I always find that when I add protein to my meal before a ride, I always feel & ride better.

Left for the race with plenty of time to get to Durham forest near Uxbridge, time to register, get ready and get a good warm up in. However, as luck would have it, things didn’'t run so smoothly. We got a little held up when we were pulled over, about a half hour away from Uxbridge, by “"the county’s finest"” doing 101 km/hr coming out of a 50 zone. Doh! We were just following Matt and Brandon, keeping the same speed and distance, but we got nailed.

So we were about 20-25 minutes later than we had expected. We had to sprint to the one day license (I’ve been procrastinating buying my UCI license) booth then over to registration. By the time we left registration, it was raining. Not a fun way to start a race. It was only about 3 degrees to begin with; the rain and wind was only going to make things much, much colder. The temperature and weather conditions would hurt me badly later.

Back at the truck we pulled on our race kits, checked our air pressure, grabbed food and tools and hit the port-a-potties. I was able to get real quick sprint warm up on the road that lasted only two or so minutes before I had to race back to get a spot at the starting line. I need a good warm up, but this would have to do.

All the haste and rushing around prior to the start of the race was probably a good thing as my head didn'’t have time to think or worry about how I’d do in the race. In the past I'’ve always suffered a lot of anxiety from racing - one of the main reasons I'’ve decided to do as many races that I can this season is to try and shake that feeling and to go into races with a positive and fun frame of mind. Despite the craziness before the race, I’'m grateful that I wasn’'t standing around for a while before the start stuck in my own head.

There were about 50-55 riders lined up at the line ready to race 50kms. There were three groups to start, short track 8k’-er's; 25k’-er's; and us, the 50k-’er's. We started first, and later I was even more thankful that we got a ten minute start on the rest of the racers. Our race was a double lap of a 25km loop.

I noticed only a handful of single speeders and was a little disappointed that there wasn’'t a single speed category. I knew that there was a lot of gravel concession roads, fire roads, double track and only about 3-4 km of single track, so figured that I'’d spin out on the flats and downs trying to keep up with the riders in their big rings, mashing away and get spit out the back of any pack that I would be able to latch myself onto.

At the gun the mob of riders slowly crossed the line and had a long straight stretch of old fire road. The moment I was on the trail I knew that this was going to be a slugfest. The sandy/muddy soil was soft and very wet from the previous week’s warm temps and rain the night before the race. My goal was to try and keep Matt in sight for the first quarter or so of the race, using him to pace me. Matt is an experienced, fast racer and has put on a lot of miles over the winter and I knew that hanging with him in the first part of the race would set me up for a good pace time – but I figured that I’d eventually lose sight of him when he decided to drop the hammer.

He was in front of me until the first steep'ish climb on that fire road when I had to jack up the pace in order to keep my momentum up so as not to loose power and speed. The ground seemed to suck the life right out of me - every time I mashed down on the pedals it felt like I was going nowhere. I managed to get to the top of the climb before Matt and only glanced back once. Rick wasn'’t in sight, but I knew that he would be coming. The first section (about 2km) of fire road gradually climbed and would spit us out on a concession road. The pack bottlenecked at a gate that blocked the fire road/concession road and we were forced into single file to get through.

Once on the road, Matt’s comment, “I’ll get you on the road.” came true. He passed me and pulled in behind a small pack and began to conserve energy by drafting off of them. I stayed on his wheel and did the same. The concession road was completely soaked with rain and a fine grey, silty mud sprayed everywhere. Glasses were of no use, so I perched them on the end of my nose to protect my eyes from the spray off my front wheel. They would remain there for the remainder of the race.

The concession road seemed to rise and fall gradually over the next kilometer or so - we weren'’t on it very long before the race marshals waved us to the right up this soft, sandy climb (nearly killed me) that put us onto a fast downhill double track. The pack at this point was still riding relatively close together. I made up a lot of time passing guys here as I stayed on the outside part of the path. I found that the leaves insulating the ground must have kept it slightly frozen and firm compared to the more traveled centre part of the trail. This double track didn’'t last long and it spit us back out onto a concession road. I still stayed close to Matt using him to pace me.

As we approached the first climb on the concession road, the pack slowed and started to spin up it. Riding a single speed is damn difficult to spin slowly and slowing down robs you of your speed (hard to get back) and momentum. So I made the decision to leave the pack and pace myself up the hill on my own. I swore that I head Matt pull out behind me on my wheel, but once at the top I looked back and he wasn’'t there. It was the last time I would see him until the end of the race. I put my head down and kept turning the pedals over, trying to recover on the downhill. I managed to bridge a large gap between packs and catch a group of CX riders and stayed with them until we emptied onto the worst double track that I have ever ridden on.

It was a tight, old logging road, the width of double track. You could tell farmers led cows or horses through it, as there was manure here and there. I thought the first fire road was soft, but this was unbelievable. It seemed to last forever, but was probably only 3-4 kms long. Many sections you were better off dismounting and running through the thick, heavy mud. I’m glad that I had my shoes on tight because it was the type of mud that would suck your shoe off your foot. Later, after the race, I had heard how one racer got his bike so stuck in the mud that it took him and another rider to get it out. Riding behind geared riders I was glad that I chose to ride the single speed, as all you could hear where the grinding of drive trains, derailleurs clogging up and jamming and the odd profanity. I kept my cranks spinning smoothly with the help of Prolink Chain Lubricant - skipping and noise were not an issue.

Eventually we emptied out, after a slick and miserable downhill section, onto another concession road. It was a relief to hit it as my heart rate was spiking with the effort I put in to get through the difficult, muddy double track. I was glad to be done with that last section, but the nagging thought that kept going through my head was, “I’m going to have to do that again.” Seemed like the moment I hit the concession road it began to rain more heavily. I was getting wet and cold really fast. The road, being so open, seemed to act like a wind tunnel. This concession section was the longest of them and the one and only water feed was on it (on a corner, on a hill - nice!). I took some water and kept going. My only tactic was to survive at this point and what kept me going was trying to catch whoever I saw ahead of me. I made it a game, every time the road rose and then dropped, I would try and see if I could get a little closer to passing. Whatever mind game gets your through the suffering and torture. And it paid off as I managed to reel in a number of racers and pick them off one by one.

At the start of the race Matt and I discussed not going out too hard and hanging back a bit at the start and let riders burn themselves out. As a result, at the start I was more towards the middle to the back of the pack. Having that many riders a head of me was motivation to catch them.

The concession road finally came to an end and I had to take a hard left into the last 4 kms and it was mostly all single track. The first quarter was pretty fast and flowy, you had to watch the corners for roots and washing out. I think I kept a fairly good pace through it and managed to put some time between me and the last guy I caught. I had to dismount a few tight (180 degree) switch backs because I didn'’t have the legs nor the gear to make it up the muddy climbs - so I put the bike on my shoulder and hoofed up two or three climbs. The last bit of single track was more manageable and led back to the start/finish line.

At this point in the race I was trying to come up with any viable excuse to quit. I felt shattered and was freezing cold. I had to play mind games with myself to keep riding and not give up. Racing, what I am finding out, is as much mental toughness as it is physical toughness. Once I forced myself over the line, I knew that there was no turning back and actually began to feel better - I was more than half way done. I checked my watch and my first lap time was exactly 1hr 15min.

I said earlier that I would later be happy to have been the first group to leave the start line in the morning. As I pedaled up the first section of fire road, the conditions worsened. The 8 km sprint racers, the 25 k’ers had done a job on the course when they followed us through. It was much more difficult the second time. All of the double track seemed to become ten times worse, soupier, deeper and more difficult to get through. I ended up running close to a kilometer in total through the muddy double track section. My second lap I managed to set a faster time on the concession roads - maybe my legs were more warmed up or the previous weekend worth of climbing in North Carolina bumped up my pace, either way I felt really good. Cold, but quick.

I had to stop at the water feed to refill a bottle, at the start of the race I took two bottles (one in the cage, one in my vest rear pocket) and no hydration pack, as I went for weight savings. I had only two gels for the entire course - one each lap about mid way through. I felt like I had enough energy, but as one of the paramedics told me later (yep, paaramedics . . . it only gets better) was that I my body totally depleted itself during the race effort and also in trying to keep itself warm.

I was relieved to finally enter the single track, knowing that there was only about 4km of trail left before I crossed the finish line. The single track only diminished in condition as well with the number of riders on it during the rain. From a trail builders perspective, I really hope that the race organizers went back that day to do damage control.

One of the funniest things that happened to me in the whole race was in the last few km’s of the race, when I passed a woman who had obviously gotten into something way over her head (I think that she must have been doing the 25km race and I had lapped her) politely asked me as I climbed past her, "Excuse me."......I was ignoring her because I had absolutely no energy left to turn the cranks let alone answer her idiotic question, but again it came . . .. "Excuse me. When does the race end?" I thought to myself, "You’re kidding me, right?" I was annoyed, tired and just wanted to be finished, so I sarcastically shot back, "When you cross the finish line!" and kept on climbing out of her sight. What do you mean, "When is it over?" ?!?!

A few minutes later I caught my last rider who had earlier been two rises ahead of me on the concession roads and I managed to catch up to and sprinted him for the finish. I didn’t beat him as I hit a stump and got thrown a little sideways as I tried to go around him in the last 10-15 meters before the finish line. I didn’t care, I was just happy to be done.

I had a look around for Matt, Brandon and Rick to see if they had dropped out - conditions were horrible, cold and wet - there will be undoubtedly many dnf’s. However, they were not at the start line. I walked over to the timing tent, checked my time (unofficially 9th/22 riders in my age category, apparently the 2nd single speeder to come through and 2hr 30min time final- my second lap was the exact time as my first, talk about consistency!)and had a look around at the medal/schwag table, was going to grab a free sub- but didn’t feel much like eating. It was raining a bit heavier by now and I was soaked to the bone. I rode over to Rick’s truck to double check - maybe he had forgotten to unlock it - no such luck. Rode back to the finish line. Still no Matt or Rick. I found a pop-up tent to stand under. By this point my teeth were chattering and I was shaking pretty bad - no surprise, I had emptied the tank, was soaked to the bone and the air temperature before windchill was still only +3 degrees.

As my luck would have it, the tent I was standing under was adjacent to the Canadian Ski Patrol Tent who were doing the first-aide for the race. They spotted me and came over immediately. Started asking me some questions which I had a hard time answering (still don’t remember) and got some chocolate into me. Next came the space blankets and heavy warm wool blankets. I started to go downhill and fast. Matt crossed the line and spotted me - apparently I had seen him and called to him to take my bike and helmet to look after as the paramedics were taking me away somewhere warm.

I don't remember being transported by car to a shelter, but once there they stripped me of my race kit and wrapped me in warm blankets. Later I would find out that they took my core body temperature and it was 35.7 degrees - if it had gotten down to 35.5 degrees they would have shipped me off via ambulance to the nearest hospital. Fortunately I was under some excellent care and they gradually warmed me up - took the better part of an hour to get my temperature up just two degrees. Big thanks to the Dax who looked after me and his partner who kept a continuous supply of hot blankets coming. Rick and Matt eventually made there way over to me with some warm clothes, but not before Rick made his way onto the podium for finishing first in the Clydesdale category - nice job Rick!

Took me a little bit, but managed to get dressed and got into the truck and wrapped my sleeping bag around me for warmth. Was feeling much better. We stopped for a coffee and it all came good. Will take a few days off the bike to recover - my legs feel good, surprisingly after all the mashing on the pedals that I had to do to get through all that mud. Dax said that my immune system would be pretty low for the next few days following the race so to take it easy and rest up. That's what I'm going to do.