The Prescott Punisher was #5 in the MBAA series. It was being held at the Alto Pit OHV site outside of Prescott. Erik had warned me that given the location it would likely be a lot of jeep roads and very rocky. He had decided to not do the race but left me on the fence. He decided to sign up for El Tour de Phoenix instead. At the last minute I decided that I should do this MBAA race just in case something came up preventing me from doing the one of the other races. (You need 5 races to qualify for the State Championships or something).
He decided to stay in Mesa on Friday night because of his early start time on Sat. I decided to stay in Mesa with him because I was halfway to Prescott and could just leave at 6am to get up there. On Friday night I got a text from Elaine letting me know it was snowing. Fabulous.
I was up and ready early Sat morning and on my way. Made it to the race site at about 8am and picked up my packet. The nice Polar waterbottle sort of made me feel better about the 35 deg temps that morning. Liane, Elaine, Zac and I started getting ready and talked to a guy parked next to us. He informed us that the course was easy and fast - but was never flat, you were alwyas going up or down. Non-technical is a plus for me. Fast = awesome. Climbing = not awesome.
My course was 2 5 mile loops. Not even .25 mile in and people were literally tipping over. I don't even know what caused them to fall, but it was getting messy. Finally we spread out on the ATV course. Because it was an ATV course, the corners are all cambered. This is good when you are carrying speed. When you are slow and on small pea gravel like stuff - you just slide down the turn because you are not perpendicular to an angled line. The climbing started immediatley (and the desending). The climbs in some spots were horrific - short but steep. Lots of people chose to get off an walk those. The descents were loose gravel. A few clusters of large rocks/boulders made it interesting. I walked a lot, a LOT! I should mention that the marathoners (who started at 8:30 - 19 mins before me) started passing me at mile 1.5.
Lap 1 = 1:15:54 (4.2 mph)
By lap 2, I felt like I was alone. Then, less than 2 miles in and the Cat 3 men started passing me. And there were lots of them. I spent a lot of time on the side of the trail letting large groups pass. When I finally got going, I came across a guy fixing a flat who warned me to be careful around the next turn. Luckily, I knew I was walking down this section anyway, but I discovered Zac and another guy tending to some guy who missed the line through a rocky dip and must have just endo'd into a rock. The guy didn't look so fabulous and I offered up some Tylenol to help ease a little bit of the pain. Turns out the guy broke his collarbone, a couple ribs and likely punctured a lung. I learned you can use a bike tube for a sling. I kept trudging on, thinking that Elaine and Liane should have passed me by now (they were doing 3 laps). Finally at about mile 4 Elaine caught up to me. She'd had a small wreck and scratched up her knee. We chatted and hiked for a few minutes before she continued on. I kept hiking up hills. I was able to chat with a lot of people on that lap who got hit by elevation and hill climbing. It didn't seem to be a great race for a lot of people. Finally, we hit the last descent that lets you know the finish is near. Naturally it is followed by a steep climb which I decided to hike until the last bit where I forced myself to ride across the finish line. Again - you can't walk across the finish line unless your bike is broke or you are broke.
Lap 2 - 1:36:04
Total Time - 2:51:54
I came in 6th/7 (7th DNF'd). I was so ready to get out of there. Horrible, horrible race. All told, I probably walked a total of 5 miles of that race. I hate climbing and I hate fast descents.
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