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Ten minutes to race start and they're already lining up guys and Crossmax shows up to say hello and see us off. I tell James about my plan to run the sick bike and James does something that is pretty friggin' cool. He's not racing and has a spanking brand new Lenz 29'r full-sus bike. He offers to swap cassettes right there and then. We run to the mechanical support table and start tearing wheels off and pulling cassettes. It's five minutes to race start and I'm fumbling gears and spacers on hubs. We get it going. It's shifting good. I fly over to to the start line and there's 14 other guys in my class. Pretty good turnout and I take a place up front. One minute to start and we get the countdown.

At "GO"! we're putting legs into cranks, slapping gears and taking off. Jim Scarry takes the lead and I'm second. He's looking good, but about a mile later, I slowly catch up and pass. I'm running beyond threshold. The pace is brutal and I've got fourteen guys on my behind. We hit the fireroad climb and it's just me and this one pretty young looking guy on my backwheel. We've dropped them all and it's now just us.

We duel back and forth for the lead. It is some tough work as I suffer the best I can. We get to the ugly little climbs about halfway through the course. I plan on grannying these things. There's about eight to ten of these short steep little beyatches that go up on a long incline along the mountainside. They seem to go straight up. You die on these things as you struggle to maintain some kind of momentum. The younger guy slowly pulls away, but I keep him within a block of me. Not only does he climb well, but now I can see that he rocks on the downhill too. I've got a loaner fork to boot, a Manitou Scarab and it ain't nothin' like my Fox.

Fitness wise, I wasn't at my peak for this race and am in one of the troughs, but starting to come up. So to do, what I have to do, I have to work a little harder. I get caught by a guy in my class riding a cyclo-cross bike. Sheesh! We battle it out back and forth. He rides that thing pretty friggin' well. I'm impressed. I finish ahead of him for the first lap and we're into lap #2.

Here we go again. Pure suffer-fest. About a 1/4 way through, the hard wind that's been blowing takes a soft contact lens out of my weak eye. I stop to try to get it back in as it's resting in the bottom of my Oakleys. The wind picks it up and it's in the dirt. Oh well. 2nd place has pulled away by a couple of blocks. I get back on the faithful Razorpig and give chase to the 'cross bike.

My vision is totally blurred on my left side. Heck, I can't even read billboards with this eye. So now I'm hauling down singletrack half-blind and with little depth perception. I have to dial it back just a hair and use my memory of the first lap. We hit the sawtooth beyatch climbs and I am busting a set of lungs here. Roll into super-tough climb after endless climb with legs protesting, harsh breathing and trying to keep the whole thing under control. We sail down sweet S/T while I try to pull it all back in for the long 'Pearl Harbor Drive' climb. The fireroad is tough and steep. I see guys walking the steep part and I'm grannying and trying to catch 'cross dude, but he looks back and I can't close the gap.

At the top, there's one very tough little climb by the fence line and my poor body is screaming for mercy. I'm hanging on to the bar, exclaiming 'sweet mother of God' suffering. My back is killing me and I'm running at nearly red line. I'm rolling across the ridge for the final descent to the finish line. Thank God it's nearly over. What a suffer-fest! I roll across for an expected third place, but found out 'cross' dude flatted a mile back. Second should've been his, but it now goes to me. I would've been good for a podium spot with third and would've been happy with that, so I'm ok with second. I later find out, first place is an Antelope Valley local too from Edwards AFB and he's only 40 years old. That seven years makes a difference. His name was Mark and he's a great competitor.

He admitted that my pace going out nearly killed him and if I would've passed him one more time, he might have cracked, but in all fairness, I cracked first. Running up front with the fast dogs is a brutalizing experience. You're running in the high yellow zone of your cardio capacity for the whole race and nearly red-lining at times. It's the experience of knowing just how much gas you've got for a particular effort, so you don't over-rev and blow up.

There's a bond that you get with your competitors that's unlike anything I've ever experienced. When you're out there duking it out, side-by-side up a tough hill, you're sharing the currency of suffering at it's best. There's a mutual respect that goes beyond the usual ego-driven sports. No trash-talk here as it always gets settled on the race course mercilessly. It's an unspoken brotherhood and as we sit at the picnic tables in the wind and the cold, we swap tales of races and race courses, wrecks and rides and even subjects non-mtb.

A special thanks to James (aka Crossmax) for coming through in a crisis moment and helping an old-dude sports racer out! It was great seeing Papo as well and he gave me an excellent run-down on the race course and weather conditions the night before. Got to see a lot of race buds, including Mt. Bike Mike (sick semi-pro, who does FOUR friggin' laps on this course!). Finally, great talking at Jim Scarry! Man, I wish FFW could've come up and raced. He would've loved the course!