What an awesome race. The atmosphere was great. I liked it better than the triathlon scene. The start was a staggard start separated by age group. We were the second group to go. I was in the front of the starting line because my name was one of the first called during roll call. The whistle blew and we took off. I was about in the top 12 heading into the first turn of the start loop. Felt like that was a pretty good position. Passed about 2 people on the start loop and entered the single track in about 10th position. Great start.

The rest of the race was just a suffer fest. Being my first mtb race, I was not sure how to pace myself and I definitely went out way too hard. The last 2 miles I hardly had anything left. I've also only been training for 4 weeks, so I still don't have too much fitness yet. The course was so much fun. There were quite a few creek crossings. They were acutally pretty deep and long. You were riding through the water for at least 3 seconds and then you would pop out and have to go uphill. I had to walk a few of those uphills because it was just way to slippery coming out of the creek. There was still quite a bit of mud on the course.

Overall I had a blast. That was so much fun and a successful first race.

Maybe not go out as hard. I went out hard cause I wanted to get good position going into the singletrack. Try to control my pace.