Payson Stampede

Last weekend was my third consecutive participation in this event, however every year I have competed in a different category. This time I was part of a 4-person team that eventually became a 3-man team, however even after being down one rider we pulled it off and won the overall with a total of 32 laps.The course was also different for third consecutive year. The 9.8 mile loop had over 1300 ft of climbing, most of it in a short stretch of fire road where we were required to climb 4 very steep hills in a matter of less than a couple of miles. That and the initial rocky downhill made up for a very difficult course.
Norma and I drove to Payson on Friday afternoon an after getting settled in we got pre-race food at Alfonso's. We got a pretty good night's sleep and got up next morning ready to get rolling. One of the cool things about this course is that everything is really close, so instead of improvising breakfast at the campground, we drove a couple of miles away to Denny's where I ate probably more than what I should have.Noon came quickly an after a short team meeting we finalized our rotation, however the $50.00 incentive to the first rider to finish lap 1 was enough to change our plan, so Matt went for it.
Unfortunately he couldn't hold on to Nat Ross' wheel but still finished the first lap in a respectable 3rd place behind Ernesto Marenchin. I gave it a try on the second lap but not knowing the course affected how I managed my efforts. My first lap was 42:58 then Chris Sutter did our third relay in just over 40 minutes and Darrin closed our first rotation with a lap just a tad over 41 minutes.Over the next few rotations we tried to rotate Matt as much as possible because he was planning to race until midnight but our lap times were consistently around 44 minutes which allowed us to get a lap and a few minutes ahead of the Schampa boys lead by Eric Neat and Scott Keller who were occasionally pulling under 40 minute laps.
Around midnight we had our only major mechanical issue of the race. Darrin crashed in the rocky downhill and broke his saddle. This forced him to ride off the saddle for 3/4 of a lap.
Results were not updated through the night, so we continued riding as fast a possible but when the first results were posted at around 6:00 am, the Schampa guys had narrowed the gap down to 20 minutes. Since midnight there were just the three of us riding, so our break in between laps was short and our lap times had increased by 2-3 minutes.We continued riding strong but by the time I went for my last lap at around 10 am we only had a 6-minute gap. I poured everything onto the pedals on my last lap and finished feeling a little "bonky" but I keep the gap at around the same margin. Chris did another hot lap to give Darrin a couple extra minutes advantage before the last lap.At the end the three of us rode 9 laps each and Matt had ridden 5 laps before midnight.
It was cool to have such tight race until the end. The Schampa boys event tried all kind of tactics to catch up to us and that made it even more exciting.
Team Adrenaline had a great showing at this event. In addition to us winning the overall, the Masters of Adrenaline with Art, Dan V, Dan K and Robert won their category and finished 3rd overall. Tom, Zack, Hayley and Kalan all won their respective categories in the 12 hour event, while Chad had an awesome race in the 24 hour solo.
Thanks to all the team for the support, especially my wife for getting everything I needed in between laps and for loading up the car after the race when I was too trashed to do much and driving my sleepy face back home. I love YOU!

I slept 14 hour straight after the race and have been taking it easy since then. I'll probably do some easy rides the rest of the week before starting my new training cycle under the Coach instructions.

Until next time!
Pura Vida!