RACE REPORT!
Yesterday was the GBC 10 Hour Heartland Challenge. This is the 5th year I have competed in the Challenge. In the prior 4 years my team mate Bubba Hicks and I have podiumed every single time, even managed to win one in the A class. Things changed this year with Bubba still on the mend from a bad crash. So needless to say it left me trying to figure out what I wanted to do. About 2 weeks ago I decided it was time to try out the Iron Man class, 1 man/1 machine/ 10 hours of racing.
I started the race out very slow trying to set a sustainable pace that I could carry to the end of the day. I think I was around 9th place on the first lap out of the 16 riders in the Iron Man class. Around the 3 hour mark I had worked up to 4th place but ran into an issue with my handle bars. I had to go back to the pits to get them fixed and lost the lap I was on and had to restart it basically. From there I was able to put my head down and make my slow charge forward. I tried to keep a solid pace all race that left me with enough energy to make a battle for 1st place at the end of the night. Around the 7-8 hour mark I had found myself in 2nd place and working on the lead that 1st place had built up, He was around 15 min ahead at that point. I managed to keep working his lead down until with about 1 hour to go, I passed through the checkpoint and it showed me in first place. I was so surprised to see that #1 by my name, I felt re energized and ready to push to the end. That momentum carried me to the end of the night and put me on the top spot of the podium.
