Hey-ro Whiskey 50

This past weekend found me not blazing across the country to get to the Cohutta 100, as planned, but driving my little honda up to the fine town of Prescott, AZ for the Whiskey 50. I gave up 80 miles of dirt road climbs that would leave me too exhausted to enjoy the singletrack at the end. Gave up 12-14,000 ft of climbing on said dirt roads. And gave up 2-3 insano days of pounding coffee and driving non-stop to torture myself on my bike for 8-9 hours.
Bummer.

Instead I made my way up to Prescott on Friday evening after work. I was greeted by an already set-up campsite, primed bike, and sweet foam sleeping pad. I fell asleep almost immediately and woke earlier than I wanted, but excited to be heading out for a day on the bike.

The Whiskey started off with a "longish" pavement climb that ended with the most surprising singletrack descent. This first climb grabbed my attention as I quickly realized I wasn't feeling so hot and that my start was less than ideal. I've had a lot going on and been feeling sick lately, so I wasn't surprised that my body/fitness was sub-par on Saturday. Surprised, no. Dissapointed, yes. I guess I wanted my Superwoman to come out and play even if I hadn't taken good care of her lately.

The singletrack immediately following the pavement climb was super-flowy and fun, but I ended up stuck behind some slow-motors and it took me longer than usual to recover and get in position to get my groove going. After a couple of miles, the trail turned from rolling climbs to blazing downhill and all of a sudden the giggle monster surfaced. I don't know what Dj did to my bike, or my tire pressure, or if I'm still freaking out because my fork is so amazing, but I was raging the singletrack. 4th place girlfriend had come off her bike on this section, so I had a brief 30 minutes or so of holding the 4th place spot, which changed quickly after 7 miles of dirt road descent, "Skull Valley," ending in a flat-spin for a mile or two. 7 miles of descent turned into 10 miles of climbing and dumped us into a final singletrack descent (again, blazingly fun), followed by a downhill~flat spin-o-ram into town. End result: 1st place Single Speed Female, 5th if I'd been racing the geared gals, including the beautifully elusive Lynda W.

Here Mark kindly shares 3:44 of his helmet cam experience climbing the last 3 miles of Skull Valley. Yes, that is Fuzzy who comes blazing by toward the end.
http://www.vimeo.com/4400639