To start off the title is miss leading. It was actually only 10 hours of John Muir after being weather delayed by 2 hours. After one of the soggiest weeks that I can remember Saturday can after a Friday full of wicked weather and heavy amounts of rain. The night before the course at John Muir Trail head in the Southern Kettle Moraine had received about an inch to 2 inches of rain. Great for a race the next day. Got to the trail head at about 8 a.m. and got set up and by 8:45 ready to go. Race director gives his pre-race talk about how the course seems to be drying nicely with only a few patches of wet. LIER!!!! Race got underway with a short sprint to the bikes and we were off. Entered the single track on second wheel behind Carlos the speedy South American and then wam! MUD everywhere. I have ran some muddy races but this lap was close to the worst I have seen. Ended up going down once in the first lap in about 7 inches of mud so didn't hurt anything, just got really muddy. Scotty ended up catching me after I went down so I stayed with him as long as I wanted to beings he was on a 12 team and I was solo. Came through Lap 1 right where I wanted to. The next 3 laps would prove to be much the same as the first, once again going down on lap 2 because of the conditions. I ended up yo-yoing with the other two single speeders for most of the race. By lap 4 conditions were improving and it was time to start putting in a little more effort. Was second single for most of the race after lap 4 content just to finish on a hot (90's) and humid (80% and above) day. Came through my seventh lap with about 1:28 left to race and said, here we go, one more lap. Started the lap cooking looking for a good time and hoping to at least get 2nd Single beings the guy that was beating me for second I had past in my 7th lap with his 2nd flat of the day. Cooking along on my last lap putting in some real speed and halt!!!! Rider is down on the trail, mountain bike patrol everywhere, firefighters putting rider on a back board. Held up there by the bike patrol for about 3-4 minutes waiting to see the other single come up on me. Allowed to get by and I was off. I felt great last lap enough to hold off the single chasing me for second I thought. Check results and little did I know I had won the single speed division. 1st place after 7 laps took a chance and didn't do a last lap so I ended up beating him by 1 lap. AWESOME. Streak continues, 3 in a row at the WEMS series. Really there were only a few downfalls of the day:
1- Getting a parking ticket because the ranger wasn't in his shack when I showed up for the race and duh I was racing for the 10 hours then on!
2- Crappy Trail Work! Not talking about trail conditions, BRUSH OVERHANGING! If you are going to host a race such as this, at least trim up the trails. I am mainly sore today after all of the scraps and bashed I encontered because of overhanging brush and trails that were not trimmed at all prior to the race. This course is a kick but course that was sort of ruined for me because nobody decided to take the initiative and do a little trail trimming!
3- Mud on the first couple of laps. Not a down fall but just plain sucked being caked in that stuff for the 10 hours of racing!
That is enough for my report and ranting. Lap times below! If you read this far, good for you. OUT!
8 Laps 9:43:30 305 Team Wisconsin/MC2 Trevor Rockwell
Lap 1- 1:07:47
Lap 2- 1:10:12
Lap 3- 1:11:30
Lap 4- 1:15:27
Lap 5- 1:14:29
Lap 6- 1:15:18
Lap 7- 1:17:39
Lap 8- 1:11:08
