My pulled calf muscle was driving me crazy. I had to either walk or just barely jog most of the course in order to keep from pulling the muscle worse. Thus the very slow pace and terrible time. In one place, there was a very steep, slippery drop into a gully. I was (like an idiot) babying my calf muscle down the drop and keeping almost all of my weight on one leg. Well, that leg slipped on the mud and I went head first into the stump of a tree. I gave myself a pretty good knock in the head and for a moment I thought i was going to loose concsciousness. Needless to say, this slowed me down even more. I momentarily weighed the wisdom of quiting the race... then trough wisdom out the window and kept hobbling my way along.

Most of all, I would have done more training on difficult off road courses. You really need to be prepared for what you are going to be hitting on a course like this.

Also, despite my own foolishness, I would advise others against running a course like this when injured. Forget about pride and the entry fee. You can hurt yourself on a course like this when you are starting it with an injury.

I spent a lot of time in the transition thinking about my cracked open head. Like the moron I am, I eventually decided to keep going. Drank some gatorade while thinking... did some breathing... decided what would hurt my pride more, quiting or coming in dead last.

Oh, yeah... nothing more humbling than your bike being the only one left in the transition area...

What would you do differently?:

Whine and cry less and just get going!

Tough course. My calf hurt when I had to climb my bike up the muddy hills, but it wasn't too bad. I was feeling the head injury and about 1/2 way in realized I really should not be riding just because of that. I did take a serious chance of doing myself a lot of damage. well... on lives and learns... Living being the key word here!!

Like the run, I would ride more trails like this. I ridden some hard trails, but they were cakewalks compared to this.

I can't wait to do this one next year. I want to do it without an injury starting out and see just how good I can do the d$mn thing.