Vision Quest

Wow, Saturday was a cool day!  It's taken me until Wednesday morning to get my normal routine back though.  I left a lot out there at the Vision Quest (which is what made it such a cool day for me).  After struggling at the Bonelli and Fontana Nationals I was truly just looking to have a day where I rode the best I possibly could on that given day.

So when the lead group rode away from me 40 minutes into the 5+ hour Vision Quest, I remembered the advice Beth gave me the night before and simply rode in the moment.  I took in an amazing sunrise, railed the Motorway descent, and the next thing I knew I was cruising up the 3,700 ft main climb of the day to Santiago Peak well ahead of my personal best time from previous years!  Oh, I was also back up to 2nd place in the race and got to ride with Tinker briefly near the peak.  That was pretty cool in itself!

Then the rest of my adventure began when Tinker and I passed Manny Prado (previous VQ winner, and race leader up to that point) on the side of the road fixing a flat.  A couple minutes after that Tinker let me by on the Holy Jim descent and I quickly went to work building up my lead over the amazing, 30 plus minute, single track descent.  Mountain biking doesn't get much better than what I was experiencing during that downhill, and I was taking it all in.  The other thing that was starting to happen at the same time though, were some pretty severe cramps creeping into my legs.  At the bottom of Holy Jim there are several creek crossings where riders have to hop off and run over the boulders and it seemed like each of those crossings caused a different muscle in my legs to completely seize.  I knew my only hope was to push directly through it and get back to pedaling as soon as possible, so that's what I did time and time again.

The next 45 minutes were aided by some coke from the feedzone and knowing I was leading, but I was sure Tinker and Manny were somewhere not far behind, doing what they do best, up the final climb of West Horse Thief.  It took a lot longer than I expected, but Tinker eventually caught me near the top of West Horse Thief and I let him go by, without lifting my pace even the slightest to try and follow.  I wanted to, but my body simply didn't have the extra effort left.  I also knew we only had about 10 minutes of rolling fire road before the final technical descent of the day down the Trabuco trail.  If we both rode similar to our descents of Holy Jim I knew I would catch Tinker again before the bottom.  But as soon as I rolled into the downhill it was my turn with a flat tire and my chances of getting back into the lead were over.  That was the first time I really switched from riding in the moment to just wanting to finish...  About 20 minutes later I made it in for 2nd place a good 15 minutes faster than my personal best time from 2 years earlier.

3 days later and the stories are still flowing from everyone out there that day.  For me the Vision Quest truly is one of the coolest and toughest mountain bike events of the year.  Thanks go to God for my abilities and opportunities, and Beth for being such an amazing wife!  Also a really big thank you to the Warrior's Society for making this event happen and for all they do in maintaining the local trails! 

MTB RACE NEWS ARTICLE

FINISHING TIMES

TINKER'S WRITE UP