8 hours, 10 laps, 110km and I live to tell the story!

I'm going to keep this post short because I'm half asleep and I need to get to bed. I had an awesome day, it was a lot of fun. I managed to ride right until the end of the race (only stopped to get food and water from Cari) I was able to get 10 laps in 8 hours, which would be about 110km of trail riding. I entered the Open Male Solo Category, there were 42 guys in this category and I came in 17th. The course was awesome, the weather was really hot (about 30 degrees) and I had a great time. The bike worked awesome, not a single mechanical problem, and I held up really good, I never felt over tried or too hot, I drank a crap load of water, sports drink and protein shakes and I had something to eat after almost every lap so I never felt hungry.
The above pic is a view of the lake that part of the course went around.

Some how we got all of my stuff in.

The property was awesome, very beautiful piece of land.

Putting on my race number, if you make the pic big it looks like I have a smoke in my mouth.

Starting area.

Going past Cari after the first lap, I didn't stop at this lap, I think I had a time of about 40 minutes. As the day went on the lap times started to go up.

Cari passing the time between laps by taking pics of herself.

Coming in after my second lap to get some sports drink and a little bite to eat.

Coming in again after another lap, not sure which lap this was.

Mmmmmm protein shake.

Bike is starting to get dirty, lots of dust on the trail, the whole course was very dry, made for a very pasty mouth.

Not sure what to say about this.Coming over the finish line at 7 hours 58 minutes.

Dirty bike and rider.

Not sure why the pic is upside down, but you can see the difference between my white foot and my caked on dirt leg.. Actually helped keep the sun off.

Watching the awards at the end of the race. The winner of the Open Male Solo Category did 16 laps.... that really is mind blowing. There were also teams of 2, 3 and 4, male, female and mixed. There must have been almost 200 racers there today, not a bad turn out.

My wife, head of the Dickinson pit crew. She was awesome. Always had food and drink waiting for me, make sure I was always covered in sun screen and was my biggest fan. Thanks bub for giving up your Sunday and cheering me on!

My next race is a Mountain Bike Trialthon that is in 3 weeks. Its a short one, 350 meter swim, 10km mtb ride and 4km trail run. There's 4 races in the series and each one gets longer. The last one is a 1000 meter swim 25km mtb ride and 10km trail run. I've already started swiming at lunch to get ready for it, most of my runs now are in the evening, its starting to get really hot here during the day.

Steve (arse feels like someone spanked it with a paddle, over and over and over again) Dickinson