Completly Normal...

Sunday evening after a weekend of wet racing Monkey and I spend an hour in the side yard doing laundry and washing bikes.

with the high pressure washer.

Totally normal.

Solid weekend of racing. I like wet, muddy races. Usually it allows me a chance to punch a little bit above my weight class. Not so much this weekend:

sometimes I have to cry myself to sleep at night.

Beacon:
Had a really nice start, and felt like I was riding with in myself. Sniffed the top 10 at the end of  2. Then I struggled a bit and couple of large groups caught me. I fought to hang on, but the penultimate time up the amphitheater of death, I felt I could barely move and gave up a spot to Piccillo. I chased hard the final lap, but didn't make up any time on him. His teammate Johan was charging and at the base of the amphitheater on the  final lap I had to dig really deep. The effort allowed me to pass Geoff House, and hold on for a solid  finish. It was a pretty good day. Had opportunity to be a ride of the season for me, but it didn't turn out that way.

Jake models our Halloween skin-suit which

was inspired by this

and has secret bear arms for the full effect

HPCX:
Snow turned to mud. Fun day. I admit I don't always have the best mental attitude when it comes to this race. The course is kinda like Fatmarc Kryptonite. Anyway, I got a solid start, hemorrhaged a few spots at the end of the lap on in a weird power section before the finish climb. With 2 to go I was feeling it. Legs felt good, I was moving forward and frankly felt poised for maybe my best finish ever at HPCX.

Then my bike was making funny noises and I starting to have trouble shifting so with 1 and 1/2 to go I took a pit bike. I was closing in on the group directly in front of me and in the exchange the group I just got a little gap on got back to me. Worst, my pit bike did not have mud tires. All the quick little chances I took and that worked out early in the race, were slide outs and foot downs in the final lap and a half. Once again I overestimate my technical abilities.

Last lap, last section of the course I was in a group of 5 with Benny da Jewlar, Arenberg, Zurawski and Biese chasing Morrision just a head.  I made my move that the opening of the last power muddy section and got to the front of the group. Then I started spinning out, and freaking humping the bike trying to make it move forward.  I failed as 3 of the group rode away. By the grace of god I hit the pavement before Benny could make contact and I scampered up to the finish line just a head of him.

I will admit, I hate losing spots, much less 3-4 on the final lap of a race. I was pretty grumpy on the way home over it. I question if I should have stayed on the bike that was shifting poorly, or been smart and had mud tires on both bikes. Failure to prepare, is preparing to fail you know.... I know better...

Monkey, usually a mudder, is having some power issues this year. She persevered and picked up some MAC points.

At the end of the day, I did have fun, I do enjoy racing in the mud and based on my finishes the last two years (ghost riding my bike through the pit, and sprawled out on the asphault) I'll take it. I can't say that I accomplished the goal set out for me by Auer (exorcise the HPCX demon!)... But it's good enough for today...

1-1 with crossresults this weekend. (6-4-2 on the year)

I'm going to do something normal now, like eating a plate of nachos.

thanks for reading

respect
fatmarc

PS to super congrats to Dennis Bike who swept the weekend... (Booo-ya!)

photos from monkey, dennisbike.com, and D.Lowe!