Mildly confusing, sorta painful, and sweaty!

Possibly like the first time you had sex. I'm talking about 24-hour racing, specifically 24 Hours of 9 Mile, host of this year's 24-hour national championships.

With help from Kay's husband Dean, Heidi Godsil and Kay Levesque made the 16-hour drive to Wausau, Wisconsin, America's Dairyland, to compete for the women's duo national title. We believed Tough Girls would be fielding a duo team but they couldn't swing it so we were left with no competition. Of course, we still wanted to put in an outstanding performance. We agreed to beat the 2007 winning women's duo performance. We also agreed to beat at least one co-ed duo team. Then Heidi threw down the money. Let's beat half of the men's duo teams. "Half? That could be tough," I said. "Yeah, half," replied Heidi. Beat them we did.We came home national champions with a performance that would have put us on the podium in the co-ed duo category, in the women's 4-person category, and even in the men's duo category (yes, ahead of half the duo men's field). We each rode 9 laps on the 14+ mile course for a grand total of over 250 miles of riding. The course was amazing -- low elevation, minimal climbing, lots of twisting singletrack through tight trees (yes, a few cuffed me), wider ski trails, some technical rock gardens -- fast and furious but demanding at night. We swapped single laps until nightfall and then each of us put in two double lap turns so that the other could rest and even sleep. In my opinion, one key to duo 24-hour racing is to avoid caffeine so that when your rest opportunity comes, you can rest without suffering from monkey mind. Save the caffeine for morning coffee.Above: The running of the bulls. Standard le mans start whereby racers run out and around and back and then grab their bikes because the race is on.Above: Where's Heidi Of The Mountains?? She's the youngest so I make her do the first lap.
Typical fast singletrack. Locals say they don't mountain bike, they trail ride. Whoo-hoo!

Thank you Dean for being our support. 24-hour racing requires outstanding support.

Next year Payson, AZ will host the 24-hour nationals in September so put it on your calendar!

PS Eating deep friend cheese curds makes a 16-hr drive more...interesting.