Now that I'm home I'm finding my palms are slightly bruised, the cramps that were making some of the climbs unbearable have left my legs feeling like they were run over by a truck, and my arms are so tired I can barely lift them.
When I pulled into our tent after finishing I was so out of it I almost felt like I hadn't finished and needed to go back out onto the course. It took over an hour with a cool towel on me before I could even think about walking to the car, and when I did whatever was left of my nutritional strategy made a reappearance. After a long shower and an entire pizza to myself, I actually felt ok.
Within a three hours or so of finishing I realized I had a blast, I pushed myself beyond anything I'd ever accomplished, I'm so proud of all of my teammates, and I'll be back again next year. If ever there were a course designed around my mountain biking skill-set, it's Lumberjack. When the trails get really dicey and technical, I lose a lot of time. But when you can really see where you're going, the trails are fast, and the course requires you to pedal a lot, I can manage.
My goal time of 8:30 was met with an 8:27. I missed my dream time of 8:00 because of some outrageous leg cramps which started around mile 55 and stuck with me until about mile 80 pretty solidly, then reappeared at various times throughout the remainder of the course.
I'll leave you with this screen shot. The elevation profile for the entire Lumberjack 100 course. The opening climb is about 5 miles and 500ft of climbing. The first time up it's not so bad, but when I hit it at just over 5 hours into the race and 66 miles behind me, it was rough. The true killer for me was the final climb, which is extremely sandy and steep. At about 3 miles long and 400ft of climbing, with feet that were on fire and legs cramping, that climb almost got me.
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