Tall Oaks Challenge n other babble

Last Sunday Hoppe and I headed down to Jeff City to do the Tall Oaks Challenge 6 hour race, Duo Stylee....
Left Joetown early, way before sun up, drives like this kind of suck, but if you want some dirt lovin racing action, its what you have to do...

Now before I get into the racing part, let me introduce you to the "JDoug's categories of racers".... I am kind of a mental case so bare with me...

First you have the ridiculously fast... 

• Guys that either have their pro card or could get it if they wanted. 
• Best seen lapping you making XC racing seem effortless. 
• While laping you, you can't even hold their wheel for longer than 15 seconds.
• Their race reports actually tell of stories of racing against each other trying to take overall positions in Cat 1. (see wanna-be-fast for opposite)
• Usually lean as crap and know sheet about bikes, nutrition, etc...

Then you have stupid fast....

• These folks were either once ridiculously fast and don't train anymore, or upcoming wanna-be-fast dudes that started eating right, training right or quit drinking so much beer. (not necessarily in that order or actually may still be drinking beer)
• They can actually hold the wheel of the ridiculously fast folks for a half of a lap or so. (impressive!)
• After racing they will be seen actually taking in nutrition, BEFORE post race IPA's (also impressive!)
• Some of these folks would be ridiculously fast, but they are kicking every ones asses in the open field/Cat 1 on their singlespeeds.
• Usually lean and also know sheet about bikes, nutrtion, etc...

Which brings us to wanna-be-really fast...

• Folks (myself included) that aspire to be stupid fast and even ridiculously fast, but aren't for one reason or another.
• Can be found riding alone in XC races in no-mans land; Which is faster than the "just fast dudes", but slower than the "stupid fast dudes" and waaaay slower than the "ridiculously fast dudes". 
• Race reports are boring since after the start, they have been riding alone the rest of the race.
• After racing they will be taking in post race IPA's BEFORE post race nutrition.
• Know enough about bikes to be dangerous and enough about nutrition to give themselves diarrhea (or the "endurance race Cha, cha, chas" as I like to refer to them) during endurance races because they ingested to much liquid cab mix...(*See RIM race report 2010)

For time reasons I am going to skip the just fast dudes which are mainly comprised of Cat 2 racers that have bumped up to Cat 1 (or need to) or Cat 1 guys that don't train for crap but are just naturally gifted with superior genetics.

There is one last Category I want to touch a bit on is the Free Spirited XC Racer (FSR)... 

• My favorite type of racer, I wish sometimes I could be more like this dude. 
• Does not appear to be burdened with the Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as the rest of us.
• Can almost universally be found on a steel framed singlespeed and 25% of the time will have a mustache of some sort.
• Knows a ton about bikes and can weld a bike together with some spare parts from a junk yard and some pvc pipe. 
• IPA's ARE NUTRITION!
• *Disclaimer, FSR's are NEVER slow! Don't let his laid back persona fool you, he will whoop your ass if you let him, and on a bike that at first glance you would not buy at a garage sale. (until you look past the spray painted Kona frame to see Cris King Hubs and Ceramic Bottom Bracket).

So on to the race:
Ethos Racing was out in full affect with duo squads of:  TDonn and G (ridiculously fast), JPB and Jesse (Stupid fast), Myself and Hoppe (wana-be-really fast), Jamie & Sara (wana-be-really fast & girl stupid fast)
Then solo folks of: Burnsy (my favorite FSR!), Cole (Stupid Fast), KarenB (Stupid Fast) and Kay (borderline, stupid fast/ridiculously fast)

This is the first time I have been on this trail system and it was worth the drive. This turned out to be one hell of a fun race. Minus the fact that there were an ass ton of stupid fast and ridiculously fast guys there... Dude, it was crazy!

I took off first as I "thought" I was faster than my partner Hoppe. Once into the trail system, it was pretty narrow had tons of turns, which made it difficult to pass slower riders. Especially when they are not tired.
Got stuck behind a train of 4-5 for the last half of the lap and tried the best I could to pass as many as I could during the open sections to hand off the lap to Hoppe.. Hoppe went down a couple of times in the loose stuff but did pretty damn well...

Since I went on a tangent with my categories of racers, I will keep the race report short for the 3 readers I have left. All in all we had a great time at this race and pulled in 9th out of 31 teams. Not bad, not great... We both kept our lap times pretty consistent about the 38 min area, until later in the race when we dropped a min here and there.

I did learn a little trick from my Ethos brother Jesse....
Take in protein between laps and you won't cramp! Thanks man! Years of pain and cramps on virtually every endurance race I do, an NOW I finally find this out...Better late than never I guess... and it worked!

RESULTS HERE

After Swope a couple of weeks before doing the 6 hour solo, this duo action as fun!!! The event was ran very well and it was a great time! Ethos Crew was fast and awesome as always!

Next up RIM and hopefully Berryman! Then on to Cross Season.... I need to drop some weight, I got lazy on my calorie intake!!