gun went off, and i made the lead 4 man break with two team riders and fellow solo competitor steevo cummings. we pegged it several times before the little turn at the climb, then they pegged it again right before the single track. with about 5 hours and 55 minutes left in the race and my heart rate at 185, i backed off and figured steevo would chase and eventually burn out with the pace and the heat.
lap 1 would have me hot on the heels of steevo and i could still see him for most of lap 2.
on lap 3, steeve kept the pace up as the temps went up and his gap grew.
on lap 4, a team rider finally caught up to me and i was passing more and more lapped traffic which was a nice break as it seemed like i had been riding by myself for a long time.
on lap 5, coming down the decent on the backside, i hit my front wheel sidewall and sealant starts squirting out. hoping that it would seal up and hold pressure, i continue on and near bite it about a minute later. i hit with some CO2 to get me through the start finish and then switch out my front wheel. steevo now has a pretty solid lead at this point.
lap 6 i decide to hold a steady pace and stay safe. all is good and i roll through the start finish with about 45-50 minutes to finish up my last lap. 3rd overall is close behind, but i hear from my pit crew that he is cramping up.
so i roll out on my 7th lap with little chance of catching steevo so i stayed safe and rolled through the techncial sections not taking any risks figuring i would up the pace if i caught site of my chaser and force him to do another lap.
with my garmin pretty much dead on tracking my overall time, by the time i reached the start of the last decent, my time was almost at 6 hours - and i would roll through the finish line a few minutes past 6 hours for 2nd overall.
sologoat out
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