I have had lots of people ask me about the IMT 100k on Sunday. Yes I did it, yes I finished and yes it hurt. The first 20ish miles weren't bad, aid stations every 15 miles made it a little more tolerable. The only bad thing is that between aid stations I would be starving, but when arriving at said aid stations I couldn't bare to eat anything, but ate anyway. This, of course, was with exception to the second aid station where I downed some PB&J sammies, chips, squishy orange slice candy and a cup of soda. The rest I was pretty much miserable.

The course was very demanding, either we were climbing the steepest grade known to man or we were descending the steepest grade known to man with very little cruising on rolling terrain. We started out riding through town and picking up the Creeper Trail at its crossing of Hwy 58. I kept a good warm-up pace behind the front group that I was certain would bottleneck at Beech Grove. Sure enough I caught up to a lot of them there while we were hiking our bikes up the trail. The rest of the ride, I don't remember much of. Anet Lamberson caught me at the fireroad going to Jerry's Creek. I had seen  her a few times behind me going up climbs and I knew that when she caught me it would be at a climb. She took off well ahead me at the aid station at the bottom of Jerry's Creek. Apparently my cassette lockring came loose during my descent and had to have it fixed at the aid station, thanks Doug! Send my regards to your mustache!

I had Pretty Noose in my head the whole time, but it's strange how your mind wanders on some of these rides. While going through, 'I caught the moon today, pick it up and throw it away alright' I was thinking...Jefferson Airplane and Jefferson Starship...same band members, two completely different bands, remember 'Feed your head'? 

Anyway, I met some cool people along the way, the race was very well supported and I finished in just over 8 hours, 7.5 hours of actual ride time. The course ended up being around 55 miles, short of actually being 100k, but I'm not complaining.

Look at that, lunch time...here I come Big Pal!