I feel like the living dead. I got home around 1:00 pm Sunday napped for a couple hours and then went out to dinner with my wife and friends for her birthday. Not exactly what I felt like doing but after a couple cups of coffee I toughed it out and went to bed around 11:30 pm. Now I'm really feeling it.
About the race - I had a great time. Many thanks to the volunteers that put on the race. I know they worked their butts off. Also - Thanks to Pain Freak for volunteering for our team. I have your shirt and volunteer award - Please pm me your address and I'll make sure you get them. Thanks to DStepper, Dukethe Nuke, Von Diggity, Dirt Torpedo and Cathy for coming out to support the teams. Cathy - sorry for blinding you with my light when I came into the transition area. I was totally out of it at that point and forgot to turn it off.
Edit - I forgot to include Armando - Thanks for the ice bro!
I went third in the rotation. I think my first lap was maybe the hottest of the day. Since I pre-rode the course a couple times I felt confident I could hammer it out in the middle ring despite the heat. I was ok for the first 2/3 of the lap but then I seriously started feeling heat stroke kicking in - chills, lightheadedness, nauseousness, it sucked. I toughed it out and came in with I think a 46 minute lap. My second lap was about 7:00 pm and it cooled off enough that it was much easier. I still took it easy the first half before I decided that I could hammer the 2nd half and came in with about a 45 minute lap. My third lap at about 11:00 was a disaster. My stomach was killing me before the lap started and it just got worse through out the lap. It was a lap of survival at this point. I put it in the granny ring for most of the climbs and tried to keep my mind off the fact that my stomach wanted to leave it's contents on the trail. I finished off with around a 50 minute lap and tried to catch some sleep. I laid in bed but I think I only actually slept around 15 minutes. Still the rest did me good and I was starting to feel better. My 4th lap came around 3:00 am. I did this lap Ride to Live and it was good to have company on the lap. I still felt like I was going to barf most of the time but we did an easy pace and came with about a 48 minute lap. My last lap was about 7:00 am at this point my stomach felt better, I was able to eat and busted off a decent lap of around 46 minutes.
As hard as this race was, I still had a great time. It was a lot of fun hanging out at our camp. I'll be back next year again. Great job Ride to Live and Shinken on the 2 man team. These guys were Iron men. Jon busted off three blistering laps in blistering heat to start it off but looked like he was going to die when he came in. Luckily he got himself cooled off and continued on once it cooled down a little. Von Skippy, OC Rider - these guys were like the Energizer Bunnies. They just kept going. I felt like I was wiped out doing 5 laps. These guys did 2-3 times the laps I did. Wow! The Sho-Air and Geoladder 5 man teams were amazingly fast. They absolutely smoked everyone else on the course. My main goal was for our team to not come in last place and we accomplished that

. I know everyone on our team had to dig deep at one point or another to continue on or even start their lap and deserve a lot of respect. Everyone did their fair share and sucked it up without complaint. As Rob mentioned no mechanicals or crashed to deal with so that was a big bonus.
Great job STR teams/riders/volunteers :bang:
Craig