The beast hath been slain.

Me: Dismounting from bike at finish, hobbling away.
Staff: “Sir, do you need medical?”
Me: “No, I started the race like this.”

This race is my cycling nemesis. When I first did it three years ago, I had pretty much the only bad day I’ve ever had on a bike. I signed up again last year hoping to redeem myself, but threw my back out pulling some weeds the week-of and wasn’t able to ride. $200 💸 This year, awesome training, lost 10 pounds in preparation, and then ended up in the ER with a sprained knee 13 days out. I worked my butt off with rehab, somehow managed to make the start line, and got the job done.

I finished about an hour faster than last time, although that course was a tiny bit tougher (not an hour’s worth) and put out roughly the same wattage as I did at Detoor (oops! I forgot to write about that – a great adventure), but at 10 less pounds. That’s a gain even though it is harder to quantify.

Considering I couldn’t stand up on the bike (really hard to not on some of the steeper pitches), there was HIKING (really bad on a knee that can only move nicely in a forward plane), and with limited max power (can only do so much without a pull upward ability), it was a huge win and I feel I can put this one to rest.

While I’d love to continue to support the race, it clearly has something against me, has a strict no refund policy, and at $200? There are too many other races to try out.

Worth noting – I use Claude for my 14 week training plan. I spoke to it in regular English every day, had to check its work from time to time when it’d suggest things that didn’t make sense, but it proved invaluable. The ability for it to adjust schedules, look up scientific training stuff… priceless. It also built me the outstanding rehab plan I used for the final two weeks. I handed it off to my PT and she was impressed.