12 Hours of Santos

This past weekend, I decided to go down to Ocala Fl and ride the 12 hours of Santos and spend some time with my wife and parents. I would be racing in the 6 hour solo open class.

On Saturday, race day, I arrived at the venue in plenty of time to get set-up and warm up, no stress. My parents showed up as I was putting my bike in the staging area, giving us some photo time. At this point, I had no idea that there were 97 total 6 hour riders, 76 in my class! I went to the start line to join the mob to do the "LeMans" start. We were not doing the technical part on the first lap, I figured that would let me take it a little easier on the start. I WAS WRONG! It was the biggest log jam I have ever seen in an endurance race, we weren't just off of the bikes, we were standing still! I knew this was going to cost me massive amounts of time, so I settled into a very up-tempo rhythm, but nothing too hard. I was catching people groups at a time, with the slow guy on the front of each group being dumb about letting people go, I mean come on, we have at least 6 hours more of this, 5 seconds to let some of us go is not going to hurt your position. Anyway, I passed about 50 people on the first lap, through the middle (easy) section, but I stayed with my group through the technical section at the end of the lap.

As I started lap 2 I was feeling good, but I hadn't figured out the technical sections at the beginning and end of each lap, this let a few guys close on me, and some got around me. I was patient and did not worry, I caught them on the middle section, put some time into them and made up some more spots. This went on for almost 4 laps.

This is where it went a little south, I didn't eat like I was supposed to (got too cocky) I started feeling week, even though my legs felt good. My right thumb was getting raw from not wearing full finger gloves and having to move my hand so much. I stopped in the pits to get taped up and eat a bite (too late). My wife did a great tape job, but unfortunately, it stiffened my thumb and caused my hands to cramp from having to white knuckle the grips with my four fingers. I finally couldn't take it any more and decided bleeding thumbs would be better than cramps. Now I had glue from the tape on my right grip!!! This made my thumb stick to the grip and very difficult to shift. (come on!!) I went back to the pits and put on some full finger gloves and tried to hold my spot. I lost 10 places on the end of my 4th lap and beginning of my 5th, but I didn't want to lose anymore. I never got back the energy to run those guys back down, but I didn't lose any more spots. I putted home with 7 laps and 25th out of 76 places.

I loved the course and felt good about my fitness for the race. I need to listen to my wife/pit crew, about eating, maybe I can nail down a top 10 next time.