2015 Paul's Dirty Enduro

The night before the 2015 edition of Paul's loomed and this year was kind of ominous. I say that as as the evening progressed noted some signs that I was getting sick. Oh, great. Not a third year of Paul's being difficult.

Hoping to at best delay the inevitable, off to bed. Woke up and still felt the same but no worse symptoms. Okay...so not worse but tried to do some damage control. Grabbed some cold meds and making sure to take them with enough time to still cover the race. Hoped for the best. And off to Ganaraska.

Got there and felt okay. At the start since the year so far has not gone as well as hoped and not knowing how the cold would effect the day. Decided to go out harder than a normally do. Well turns out went way faster then I thought for the first 10k, at least what a course marshal said. Which I was okay with as I knew there was more technical coming and would see how it went.

Now, I do admit to losing some time as was laughing. Laughing you say? Well, there was a section of a kind of quad track which had on the right lot's of shrapnel from windfall and such. Lots of potential derailleur benders and wheel destroyers. So...leading into this section a guy had been following closely. Once in the section he half wheeled me a couple of times but said nothing. I held my line as it's the job of the rider making the pass to call the side. Now with a nice big space on my left that three guys abreast could pass you would think he would. But no....without saying a word. Genius goes for the pass on the right through through shrapnel. Yep...brilliant idea. Let's try and wreck your bike so I can't finish. About 4 of us are laughing at what we just saw. Thanks  for the laughs dude.

 Last years bike but lighter parts this year.

After our laugh of the day. It was back to work.

Unfortunately once into the later sections the cold did have an effect. Didn't have the feel to push it like I thought. But there was something else bugging me which I couldn't put my finger on.  But still didn't have the same speed as 4 years ago on the heavier Stylus. But as I mentioned before this year was not a good year riding and fitness wise.

Got to the aid station and heard it was 10k left. So resumed the steady riding for the finish. After some more flowing through the trees and ups and downs came out on the double track back to the start. Crossed the finish line and got a moist hug from the great KT Misner. Who despite barely knowing me and seeing me once a year remembered me, full name, and only interacting via the web. What can you say about that? Especially when she remembered last years  60k of Pain.

Always happy and smiling

Just glad that this year the most was my usual EIA induced coughing fit. A while later it was great to see my Lapdogs teammate Alex Bowling finally nail the 100k.

Thanks for the always great day KT and the evening hanging out with the legendary Paul's race crew. Think next year will finally camp out Saturday night instead after the 30k.