My first race

I was pretty excited and nervous about my upcoming first race. So when the day came, I was ready.
On the way to my friend apartment we stopped at Steak 'n' Shake and got steak burgers and shakes.

When we got to the trail we unloaded our bikes and raced over to the registration tent. The lady handed us 2 long forms to fill out. We were like “Oh man, we don't have time for this!” So then I told her that we had previously registered, and we didn't have to fill them out. Whew! We got our number plates and started tying them on. Then our other friend (who wasn't racing due to a wrenched back) took a bunch of pictures with his camera.

We also got our jerseys that we had purchased and tried them on. I had to get a large. Those jerseys were tight! Unfortunately the theme this year was "Peace, Love, Mountain biking" I'm not opposed to peace, but it always seems to be unsupportive of our troops. They were colored like they were tie-dyed. We both decided to not wear the jerseys in the race. We have a bike tour this weekend and we'll wear them then.

We got to the Starting line, after everybody else, while the announcer was giving the rules. We had almost missed our first race!!! After the horn, we all took off raggedly like a bunch of noobs. LOL My friend wiped out about 30 seconds into it. About a minute later he passed me (like he always does) and kept up with the pack. I was tailing several of the stragglers and we kept trading positions in the beginning of the race.

When I cama to the overpass, I had to stop because my front tire's quick-release was loose. Some other racers from other classes passed me and yelled "Keep going!'... Pretty nice. They were all pretty friendly. I didn't have much trouble except for wiping out once and light stomach cramps. I was way ahead of the stragglers and behind the pack so I crossed the finish line alone.

When I finished, I saw my friend waving at me, and coasted to a stop. He came in 2 places ahead of me (he had taken a wrong turn somewhere and had to backtrack) We traded stories and more pics were taken. We traded in our number plates for t-shirts and sweatshirts. We unfortunately had to leave before the results were announced but I called the day after and found out. I placed 18th, and my friend came in 16th.

Anyway, I had fun and I'm looking forward to doing it again!

Lessons learned:
Always give yourself enough time for any unforeseen circumstances before a race
Go over you bike and make sure everything is how it's supposed to be, it will save you time in the race.

Thanks for reading!