Burning IV

This year's Burning was a strange one. I set up the course on Friday in the rain and trudged through epic amounts of standing water, but surprisingly little mud, to complete my annual duties. Needless to say, the ride left me less than enthused for the following day's activities. Running back to St. Louis and attending a wedding that put me to bed around 1am also left me with little rest and even less hope of respectable lap times. I woke three and a half hours later to get picked up by Breslin and have never in my life been so tired.

We arrived around 7 am and my plan was to log back to back laps and then take two off before completing my final lap to get it over with early in the day. The first two laps went well and even though I didn't set the world on fire, I felt reasonalbe good and was having fin as the fog burned off to reveal a crisp, clear fall day. I relaxed while Chritopher and Schweiker burned up the trail and finally headed out for a third lap hoping to improve my time. I felt as if I was riding faster, cleaner and pushing bigger gears so I was excited to see what time I had done. Luckily, my sleep deprived state led me to forget my timing chip and thus lose any possibility of finding out my time. Oh well, they added a lap to our score to compensate for my absent mindedness, but both Christopher and I were denied timing due to my oversight.

In the end, we finished sixth in the wicked fast category. Not a bad result and about what I expected. As always, the burning is one of the most fun races and parties of the year and I tried to make the most of it despite my lack of sleep. I finally went to bed around two and due to chronic insomnia, had plenty of time to think about next year and the upcoming cross season. Not sure I'll race here next year, but I'll always come back for the riding and the good times.