FORD #1

Leeger, Ezzel, Lisa and I headed up to conquer the FORD. I know we are a mountain biking team, but several of us enjoy running as well so a duatholon is only natural. We have been training by doing a psuedo duo using both Forest Hill, for running, and the full JRPS loop to mimic the FORD course.

I have to say, I did a quick run to warm up a bit before the start and I really wasn't feeling it. My legs felt heavy, no doubt the hibachi from last night was not the best choice. Nevertheless, I started out strong and led the field coming down the first fire road. I have learned in the past that you need to stay out front here if you want to do well. Two people had past me by the time we entered the woods, I felt like this was good enough. I knew the bike is where it would really get interesting anyway.

Once on the bike, I really felt like I had pushed it to hard. I felt a bonk coming on. I had passed some guys and was now sitting in second place. The leader was nowhere in sight. I settled down to a nice spin, grabbed some water, and was feeling much better after a few minutes. The bike portion of this race was very hard! With the tight singletrack, wet roots, and a bit of mud here and there, it kept things interesting.

One cool thing about this course is that you can see just how far ahead, or behind your competition you are. Heading back to transition, I saw that the leader was quite a ways ahead of the field. After transition, I saw the third place guy was a nice ways behind me as well. After the top three, there was a huge gap to fourth. I was really feeling this second run, but was relieved to know I would finally get a podium at this race which has eluded me thus far.

At the finish, I was second!! Felt great being that the conditions were so tough and the mountain bike portion had been cut short. This is normally my strength in past FORD's.

The whole team had a great race. Leeger finished with a strong 6th, and first in class. Lisa finished 1st for women. Not sure how Ezzel finished, but he wasn't to far behind Leeger so no doubt he finished well. It was a strong showing for sure.