My feet hurt.

Seems as though my new insoles didn’t hold up as well as I would have hoped for 114 miles of singletrack in Cortez. They packed out to pancakes after the first couple laps and my feet paid the price.

But really, that is neither here nor there. My feet will heal.

What is here and there is the fact that yesterday was a great day on the bike. The final tally for yours truly was 7 laps (at 16.4 miles apiece) in about 12.5 hours for a not-too-shabby 7th place finish in solo singlespeed.

If you ever get a chance to ride the phil’s world trails, do it. The trails there were incredibly fun. This made for a great race, but also contributed directly to the fact that I blew up after about 4 laps around the course.

The day started bright and early with a pre-race meeting at 6:30 and the lemans start promptly at 7am. Unfortunately, as many of you are well aware, I am not a runner. Even more unfortunately than that, I didn’t have gears, so the initial .5 miles of dirt road that were added at the beginning of the course to spread everyone out left me spun out and in the back of the pack.

So, naturally, even though I was feeling frisky when we hit singletrack, I would pass group after group of people, only to be caught like a caged elephant behind the next group of folks who had bested me at the start.

Fortunately, that kept me from blowing up on the first lap (which I am so good at doing). I rolled through the start/finish, swapped some waterbottles at our tent, and headed back out for lap 2.

Laps 2 and 3 greeted me with open arms and amazing singletrack. The trails there are super-flowy, and take you through some absolutely stunning viewpoints.

I knew that I was going too hard, and I knew that the inevitable blowup was coming, but I was just having SO MUCH FUN on the trails, I couldn’t contain myself.

Fortunately, experience has at least taught me to take care of the necessities, in good times and bad. I actually surprised myself as to how much food I was getting in my system (all while on the bike) and the fact that I was downing two full waterbottles per lap (one of drink mix, one of water). I think that’s what kept me in such good condition through lap 4. I rolled back from lap 4 in high spirits with 65 miles under my belt.

Then it all came crashing down on lap 5. I wasn’t surprised when it happened, as I knew where my faster laps were headed, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

I settled in, and made it back to camp with a mission to get a couple more laps in.

After a peanut butter sandwich, I rolled back out and hit up lap 6. It was admittedly slow, but I was into sit-back-and-try-to-relax mode and went though the motions.

After a nice 30-minute rest at camp after 6, Adam and I headed out for a mellow lap 7. We were intending to ride it together, but Randy passed us around mile 8, and Adam took off and left me with my thoughts and sore feet for the remainder of the final lap. I took my time, and enjoyed some of the final flowy turns of the day back into camp.

You may be asking yourself “Alright, so you got 7 laps, and 7th place. That hardly warrants a blog title, what’s with the 7? And isn’t 3 the magic number anyways?”

Yes, 3 is normally the magic number, but here’s the team Flagstaff breakdown from our campsite:

• I got 7 laps, for a 7th place finish in solo singlespeed.
• Adam got 7 laps, for a 7th place finish in solo geared
• Troy and Dara got 7 laps, and I believe came in 7th in duo co-ed
• Jared and Ben got 7th in duo male (although they had more than 7 laps, I think they got 8, maybe 9?)
• Randy and the Gnome (on “Team Double Cock”) are off the flagstaff team, because their race had nothing to do with 7. They had 9 laps, won duo singlespeed, and had the 5th fastest overall time.

As usual, a great weekend was had by all. Bikes were ridden, beers were drank, good times were had, and a new destination has been added to the ever-growing list.

Congrats to everyone who was out there racing, and thanks to everyone involved for putting on the event. I think this one may have to become a yearly journey.