2:45.41 of H8T

I finally did my first H8TR after a few years of forgetting and missing the deadline I finally got in and am glad I did. The H8TR so much fun, so much suffering. It turns out the H8TR is basically a 2+ hour 45 mile out and back cross race on grass, and chat trails with a nice steep pavement climb and some rollers thrown in on the way back, in my case to give my body a rest from the pounding. Headwind - yep we had that to all the way to the turn around.




Lots of bike set up choices at the start. Mostly cross bikes with a mix of cross tires and larger volume road tires. I chose the Roubaix Pro tire - 25 casing with a 23 tread, not a horrible choice but probably not the best choice. I think an old school 28 or 30 file tread cross tire would be the perfect choice for the dry condition H8TR we had. Ben Popper had an interesting find in the parking lot pre-race and it found it's way to his SWEET new Rock Lobster



Once the truce of the neutral start was over all hell broke loose. I had no idea what was coming and then...



50+ riders battling for the good line and absolutely hauling. "Race" mentality took the best of me and I tried to stay on the back end of the second group a little too long, for which I payed dearly later. After too many miles of riding on the grass with road tires we hit the chat trails. I started feeling a bit better, but still not great good enough to not whip out the camera until the return trip. So I did not get a shot of the tunnel entrance. After riding into the sunlight for over an hour even taking off my glasses and turning on my light didn't help much. Thankfully? there were some "supporters" in the tunnel with a boom box, flashing lights and fireworks - AWESOME! After coming out of the tunnel there was a slight downhill and I accelerated just a bit and the group I was with sort of just disappeared, that was it I would be in no mans land for the rest of the day. I didn't have anything left to chase to the next group and everyone was so split up behind, the next 20ish miles were mostly solo. So I managed to catch a few pictures.

Mile 33. Pretty much hanging on for the end at this point.

Most of the 45 miles looked like this.

On the home stretch...

The H8TR was fantastic despite my lack of endurance this time of year. It was great to see all my friends from the last cross season out for a spring punishment. Next year I will have to put a few more miles in my legs before I make my trip back out to H8trville, but I will be back - It was just too much fun. Maybe, just maybe I will get my gravel crazed teammate from down south to make the trip...

New Kit

Here's my new MWI kit. The Pactimo stuff seems to be pretty nice. I especially like the fleece/thermal long sleeve jersey. I'll give a full report after a ride this weekend.

Photo courtsey of my wife - really, my wife took the picture.