Well, yet another race weekend has come and gone and I have yet to come away without scratches.

I attended a wedding on Saturday evening left Bellevue around 9:00 pm and rolled into the Mt. Spokane parking lot around two in the morning. Luckily, there was plenty of place to park and sleep for the night. The alarm went off too early and I turned it off. Needless to say, I woke up a little late and was rushed to get up the hill. But, my car didn't start. It randomly does this. This morning it started just fine. Anyway, so i packed what I needed and started up the hill. I'm about a 15 minute car drive away from the chair lift and it's all up hill. A van drove by and offered me a ride. Thank God for them. Things went pretty smoothly until the race. I had only one practice run and that's all my body could really take.

The day was hot, sweaty, and dusty. And waiting 2 hours at the top of the hill for my start time, was not the ideal place to be. But the view up there was spectacular. I'm glad I took the time to look around. They couldn't choose better venues for these events. I'm really looking forward to the next one at Schwietzer. The race...started off fine, there's a rock section you could go around or thru, i went around and crashed and some how my right shoe flew off. Searching around for that in the dust took a few seconds and then scrambling to put it on because the next person is coming down and is sure to catch me. And the whole while people yelling at me to get back on my bike. "I CAN'T FIND MY SHOE!!!" I find my shoe filled with dusty dirt, slide it on, go up the hill to get my bike and then head down the hill. It's a tough rutted, dusty course. In and out of a few trees and then my chain comes off. SHIT! Gotta stop and put it on, but don't really want to. Just around the next bend, my front tire washes out and now I can put on my chain. Of course it just doesn't slide easily on. Get it on and then i'm back down the hill. I knew for sure my time was going to be terrible, but I also knew the other guys are going to crash. I was sucking air and dust at the same time all the way down until the fire road, which was a nice relief from the constant thrashing from the course. This course was pretty tough on the body, but needless to say, I ended up placing 3rd. A time of 8:42. The pros were running the same course at six minutes. Don't know how they do that. The winner of my catagory had a time of 8:18. 3rd place might still keep my in the running for the overall champion, but we'll have to wait and see in two weeks. After each race they have prizes they give away and my name was choosen for a pair of Smith Toaster glasses. These retail for about $100 someone said, so that's pretty cool, but they're too small for my head.

Oh, and my van. That's what I was thinking about the whole day...I'm screwed, but luckily some guys helped my push start it and I was off on my way home. Dusty-dirty, sweaty and sore. And a medal hanging from my rearview mirror.