I wasn't really looking forward to this one (90 miles of hot dusty whoops just didn't sound appealing) but figured I would reserve judgment until after the race. There was definitely some really fun stuff on the course, some trails I haven't raced before, and a nice mix of everything.

However, it was extremely tough on everybody to run that course, twice, in that heat. My stomach was killing me halfway through the second loop, thought I was going to puke many times. My legs gave out on me on the second loop, so I sat down a lot and my butt is bruised and my back does not even move today. The only thing that kept me going were the guys at the checkpoints telling me what place I was in.

200 yds before the finish I was doing about 60 when I heard some nasty noises and my bike just went dead. I was so exhausted from pushing it to get to the finish and I thought for sure I had seized my bike. After getting my helmet and goggles off, I see the chain is derailed, figure out that my sprocket is no longer attached, and then see that about 25% of my rear hub is missing. The chain is completely crammed up into the countershaft and it looks like it ruined my clutch slave cylinder as well.

So, being completely spent and ready to pass out, I had to push my bike 200 yards through sagebrush in 95 degree heat to get a finish. It took a long time, I almost passed out many times, and had to sit at the checkered flag and dump water on my head for what felt like forever. Chris Mast came and got my bike back to the pits for me, and I shuffled slowly back with everything I had. I sat down in a chair and struggled to maintain conciousness for at least an hour. Finally after ingesting a lot of water, chocolate milk, and ham and cheese sandwiches I felt good enough to have a celebratory beer.

This was the toughest race of the year in my book, no question. I'm sure this one is giving a lot of people second thoughts about racing in Jericho again. I finished 8th overall on the day, best finish yet and one that I'm pretty proud of considering how brutal the course was.