 brewer's Comments:
This was the fifth and final race of the
Sprint Series. We hadn’t won a race yet but came damn
close in Huntsville
and were ready to chalk up a win in Glen Rose. We knew
we were going to get second place in the series but
really wanted to get a race win under our belts.
I left Austin at 0730 am on Friday so I
could get a pre-ride of the mountain bike course in
before it broke 100 degrees. I hooked up with Scott, who
is one half of
Terra Firma (the race promoter), and we did an easy
ride making sure the course was marked well. It was
about 8.5 miles long with lots of hills. Steep and long
hills. I love hills. NB hates them. I knew he was going
to be hating life on the bike leg.
After we finished I went and checked
into the hotel, grabbed a shower, drank half a gallon of
water and watched the first five minutes of Caddyshack
and then fell asleep for two hours. NB rolled in just
before 1800 and was starving as usual, so as soon as he
unloaded we went out and had some Italian food where the
owner greeted us with "Welcome Amigos." I don’t think
I’ve ever seen a Mexican Italian restaurant before. The
bread was good and the portions were large so we were
happy. After a 15 minute wait at Dairy Queen for NB's
ice cream cone dessert, we made a quick swing by the
race course to check in and then hit the hotel and were
off to sleep. That two-hour nap came back to haunt me
when I woke up at 0300 completely wide awake and raring
to go and couldn’t fall back asleep.
We rolled up to the TA and started
unloading around 0730 and then moved our cars about a
quarter mile away into the woods. NB was all ready to go
about 15 minutes later. I had my head up my ass and kept
having to run back to the car for my heart rate monitor
and then my bike shoes. At least I was good and warmed
up for the race start. We got our 15 minutes of fame and
were interviewed on camera and then ran to the race
start and just jumped in front of 150 people and lined
up on the front row.
Chillin' in the TA waiting for the
race to start. Again, we have to give HUGE props
to Laura for taking pictures again this race! And
thanks to Bob and Wes for the shade!
Off we went on the run. I’m not sure
what our pace was, but it was quick. We ran about 0.3
miles and then hung a left up a steep hill out of the
creek bed. This soon turned into an extremely steep hill
that was covered in loose rock with lots of ledges (we
would get to ride down this hill on the bike leg). We
made it to the top without blowing up and kept up a
quick pace for the next couple of miles over rolling
terrain. We then dropped off the ridge and ran on a
trail along the edge of the creek. NB was in front and
pushing the pace really good. I was close to redline but
was able to hang on and wasn’t hurting too bad. We were
behind a team that had a bungee hooked between them (to
help pull the weaker runner along), and NB made a move
to pass them. I went with him and this shot my heart
rate up pretty good just in time for the worst part of
the course which was numerous steep descents and ascents
in and out of gullies feeding the creek. I knew we were
close to the end so I hung in there and before too long
we were back in the creek bed and then back to TA. I
showed 27:15 for the run. A 9:05 per mile pace isn’t
crap on the road but it was pretty damn fast on this
terrain. In fact we entered the TA only two minutes behind
the overall race leaders.
NB on the trail run...
brewer on the trail run...
We spent 40 seconds in the TA putting on
our bike helmets, grabbing our boat seats and jumping on
the bikes for a 0.6 mile ride down to the kayak starting
point. We dumped our bikes and helmets, grabbed our
kayak and ran down to the river. We had to run in the
river (which was knee deep in this area) for one hundred
yards before we could enter our boats and start the
paddle. It took us a little over six minutes from
leaving the TA until we started paddling.
Heading out of the TA on the bikes
with out boat seats to ride down to the kayaks
There wasn’t much to say on the paddle.
NB muscled us along, and we had a good pace going. We
were in the top ten teams overall as we rounded the buoy
and headed back to the start point. We both noticed that
we were ahead of the series leaders in our class at this
point which meant we were in first place. They are
better paddlers than us so I kept expecting them to pass
us as we neared the kayak finish, but we held them off.
We jumped out of the boat and carried them up a hill
about 40 yards to the drop off point where we jumped back
on our bikes and rode back to the TA. I wasn’t too good
on getting accurate lap times at this point but it looks
like we finished the kayak and dropped the boat off in
28:30 and took another 6:00 minutes to ride back to the
TA.
We spent about two minutes in the TA changing
into our bike shoes, getting our Camelbaks on, popping
some Endurolytes and getting our water bottles for the
bikes out of the cooler. Right as we were finishing up
the series leader team passed through TA. Apparently
they geared up for the mountain bike when they came
through for the kayak so they didn’t need to stop and
just passed on through. I knew they weren’t more than 30
seconds ahead as we rolled onto the mountain-bike course
and was confident we could catch them.
We hit the mountain bike course pretty hard and within
¼ mile was the first hill--full of loose gravel up out
the creek bed. Yeah baby! We crested this and hit a
short section of flat ground before another loose gravel
climb up to the pasture. We hit the top and were only
about 30 yards behind the first place team. Based on my preride, I knew we had about 200 yards of flat to recover
and then had another long hill where I wanted to attack.
It looked like one of the guys was hurting on the climbs
so that is where I wanted to fly by and make him feel
like shit.
brewer and NB on beginning of the
mountain biking section
Off we went and NB was right on my
wheel. We passed one of team members on the hill and
then caught the other one as we made a turn into the
woods. There was another long steep hill coming up so I
kept the hammer down and gassed it up that hill too
trying to put as much distance between us as possible. I
think this is where NB popped. My training program peaked me
at the perfect time, and I was feeling great. I was just
flying up the hills. NB wasn’t having as much fun. I
was putting him into the hurt locker on every hill and
would wait for him at the top, which I know pissed him
off. Once he got to the top I’d take off fast on the down hills keeping our pace up which really didn’t give
him anytime to recover. About five miles in there is one
super long hill that gets steeper and looser and you get
higher. I was able to ride 90% of it on Friday with
fresh legs but stalled out about 1/3 the way up during
the race. We both got off and started pushing up.
The Team Pure Sport boys were behind us. They are in a different
class, but they yelled that the other team was coming and
was only 30 seconds back. From that point on every time I
heard voices, I just knew it was that other team right on
our wheel coming to pass us. So I started going harder
on the hills. NB was a trooper and was hanging in
there but was hurting really bad. I was waiting for him
at the top of one hill and as he rode up I could see he
was in granny gear spinning away. I started giving him
shit and told him to push a bigger gear, and he told me
he was getting tunnel vision so I knew he was giving it
all he had. Luckily we only had one major hill left. He
asked how far to the finish, and I lied and told him two
miles. We still had about 3 miles to go, but it was
relatively flat so I knew he could hang in there. NB
is a really good technical rider when he isn’t about to
pass out. He told me he fell over twice in the last mile
because he couldn’t unclip going up some rocky sections.
Finally we came to that long hill we ran up but now got
to ride down. It is one of those where you have to get
your butt back behind your seat and keep both brakes on
the verge of lockup just to avoid picking up way too
much speed and totally wiping out. I made it down that
and then though some turns and hit the creek bed for the
last push to the end. But there was no NB. I waited
and waited some more and yelled for him. He rounded the
corner and said he had crashed. I had already heard this
two times before and didn’t think much of it and said
lets go and put the hammer down again. We rode around
the edge of the creek, through the water up the hill and
then to the right for the special test.
For this event there were five singlets
(racing jerseys) in a pile. One teammate had to put all
five of them on
(one at a time) and then take them off (one at a time)
and then the other teammate had to do the same. We
finally got the hang of dressing and undressing each
other (that sounds about as gay as it looked) and then
we sprinted to the finish.
Aww... the mystery event!
Most of the time it's something
silly... and it was this time too...
I was full of adrenalin and
took off like a shot not realizing how bad NB was
hurting. He yelled to hold up, and we crossed the finish
line in 2:04:54 and beat the other team by 5 minutes and 23
seconds.
WE WON!
As soon as we crossed the finish line,
NB made a
right turn to the medical tent and collapsed. He spent
about 40 minutes in there getting rehydrated, cooled
down and having his wounds scrubbed and bandaged up. The
pictures I took from the mobile phone don’t do them justice. They are much worse
than they appear. Nice and deep.
Kimery patching up
NB's arm
Nice! NB's hip (I can tell you, it
HURTS! The cut pain is gone... now it's the bruise
pain! --NB)
We each won a new pair of Salomon
trail-running shoes for our first-place performance. We
got 2nd place in our category overall for the
State Sprint Championship. We missed 1st place by 2
points. But that title is ours again in 2010!
brewer enjoying the post-race
win--day-old pizza!
Big smiles for our first-place
finish
Scottie giving us a little
direction...
And to the podium again for our
second-place awards for the entire series
Second place overall for the 2009
series. We will be first again in 2010!
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