When Kevin and I arrived at the Fat Tire Classic in Farmington, Connecticut we were sorely unprepared. Granted, the logistics were easy enough. We signed the waiver at the pre-registration table, wired our race numbers over our front cables and waited for the starting whistle.
Seated at the start line we talked to other riders and saw that we were the amongst least experienced in the race. Some riders had four thousand dollar bikes, clip pedals and many hundreds of miles of riding under their belts. The biggest surprise was the fact that there were 25 riders in what is usually a small division (First Timers). Kevin and I did do one thing right, we had practiced our sprints. When the whistle sounded we took off like bandits. I pulled into the lead, Kevin squeezed into fifth place. We shot up the first hill avoiding the accidents, took the sharp turn, jumped a small log and reached the drop off. For a full half mile I held everyone at bay but that was as far as my lead would go. After we came down the hill my legs and lungs were shot. The eighty degree weather and shortage of training had caught up with me. The other competitors shot past me as the course wound through the trees.
The trail seemed to go on forever and it was far more technical than we had heard. Kevin and I had practiced distances like this but not to this degree of complexity. We encountered steep twisting up hills, sideways down hills and straight out sand traps. I tended to go faster on the down hills and managed to jump all the logs. Kevin had a little trouble with the large logs and fell a little further behind. Nearing the end of the race we both got a second wind and passed at least one other person each. I heard the cheering at the finish line and that spurred me to speed up the final hills and cross the line in a blaze. Both of us were exhausted. We would have faired much better if we had brought our Camelback hydration systems. It was an unfortunate mistake not bringing them.
We checked the results sheet to see the damage. I came in 16th place and Kevin came in at 20th. We were happy not to have fallen into last and very happy that we completed our first race. We learned so much from the experience. The countdown to the next race has already begun.
