Furious 3.5

This was supposed to be the "highlight weekend" of MTB racing this summer, and it was - however you choose to define highlights:

"High" #1: There was definitely a overdose of climbing. okay, I can hold my own on hills but not the most natural climber out there. But when you name a trail "Hyper-Ventilation" or my personal favorite "Slunt" then the pitch and duration is pretty easy to infer. It just seemed excessive, maybe day 2 had something to do with it...

Of course the downside (literal/positive connotation) of lots of climbing is tons of descending. There was no disappointment even down to the wire on Day 3, which ended in a Downhill-Death-Duel to the finish.

Day 1 included a Highlight I don't actually get too often - good old fashioned win. It wasn't a blow-out but felt good to get the extra 15 minutes of fame. Approximately 3 times that amount of fame is how much time we lost riding "bonus" trails while off-course and lost during Day 2. The

By Day 3 I was 0/3 with Sciatic problems, which pretty much meant that by default I was on the best form of the month, which I used to the fullest capacity for the short ~2 hour length and in dispatching one of the leading men's teams who had started singing to each other in the singletrack. Elastics were stretched, snapped, and Gnar was shredded. at the end of the whole Episode a 40-minute deficit had been converted to a 4th overall after 4 spots were reclaimed in what was essentially a cross-country race. Not bad and Devin held on to defend 3rd, so the condo unit took home a podium nonetheless.

After all that there was only one responsible thing left to do - Eat melted cheese! 3-beer induced nap also pending...