I sucked. I took 4th place, and will not be placing in the Top 3 over-all. This is a pathetic picture of me nearly in tears, seriously considering NOT finishing the last loop.Ok, so there was this new little girl who raced: she is 13 years old, like 100 pounds, and she placed 3rd in the NATION. She spanked me like a naughty schoolgirl, and even beat Trish by like a good 10 minutes!!
The course was some of the deepest, nastiest, most horrible whoops ever (a "whoop" is a little/deep "hill" in a series of closely compacted hills, that you have to either roll your bike up and over, which is exhausting, or you have to hit them so fast you skid over the tops of them - which is scary as hell). I forgot to pack earplugs, so I did not get ONE MINUTE of sleep the previous night before. I was already pooped before the race began and just didn't have the energy to perform like I needed to.
Secondly, I was NOT prepared with the skill and speed necessary to do well, and got my ass handed to me. Here is some crazy cool footage of the Big Bikes trying to get up "THE HILL." We didn't have to go up this hill on our course, but you can see how deep and sandy the terrain was, and how difficult it can be once you lay your bike down, to pick it up and get going again without sinking.
youtube.com/watch?v=vUSZRGocVwM
Third, I feel this is somewhat of a conspiracy: toward the end of the first loop, there as a 45-degree angle turn-off that was market with yellow ribbon (signaling a wrong-way) as well as some pink ribbon down in the near distance (signaling the correct way and part of the course) so initially I thought it was a wrong way, HOWEVER-- there was a little kid standing at the intersection POINTING to GO DOWN the turn-off. I ended up miles down the course, in the middle of the freakin' desert, in some construction site. I had to turn around, find my way back to the nearest race workers and ask them for directions. Turns out, the turn-off was NOT part of my course, and that I had lost nearly an entire loop's worth of time by the time I was back-on-course. So Trish ended up LAPPING me, along with another girl who placed 3rd place.
I am trying not to believe it was a ploy to see me fail. After speaking with the other racers, the course was poorly marked and we ended up missing a couple turns throughout. But I was the ONLY one that got re-directed off course. I'm trying to chalk it up to an inexperienced/young race worker's mistake... and not something else.
More drama: Chris was attacked by some dude who is a member of the Sage Riders club (the club that hosted the race). I was sleeping back in our room, but apparently he and a couple of our other friends walked into another hotel to go watch some footage of the race, when this huge drunk dude (A member of the Sage Riders Motorcycle Club) asked him, "Are you Chris? Let's go outside" started mauling him!! The drunk dude got pulled off, so Chris walked back into the hotel lobby, upset and loudly asking where this dude was, what his problem was, ect. Then the dude attacked him again! The police got called, so when people ripped the huge guy off Chris the second time, apparently he "went for a walk" in the desert and was nowhere to be found when the 5-0 rolled in and cuffed Chris.Long story short: Chris didn't go to jail. But when Chris walked up to a couple of our close friends (who are also Sage Riders) to ask them for information about the attacker with the police present, they flat out REFUSED to even acknowledge they even KNEW Chris! These are people that we've been really good friends with?! So Chris had his feelings really hurt, and he was pissed at how spineless our friends where. The whole circumstance has spiralled out of control due to people only seeing/hearing part of the episode and blaming Chris in person, on the phone, and on the Internet. It's not pretty.
All-in-all, I don't believe we'll be driving 700+ miles to go to the Arizona race next year.
I'll let you know how I place over-all when the points are tallied and become available.
