Cheq 40

Raced 40 miles last weekend in Wisconsin at the "Chequamegon 40" - it's a land far far away from Michigan. Jim, Tom and I ended up putting 1500 miles on the Minivan, but it still was a fun weekend.

We stayed at a cabin of Tom's friend, awesome setup, in the middle of nowhere right on one of the thousand lakes of Wisconsin.

The race itself was close to what I expected: only 40 miles, not really my type of racing, way too short. The good thing was that I got in the prefered start group, you were chosen based on current race results. I heard it was crazy further back in the middle of 1500 racers, all leaving at the same time.


The preferred start group of 200 riders (I was in there somewhere) leading the other 1500 out of town.

The strategy was to go full out until I explode, which happened about 1.5 hours into the race. Took out some speed, recovered for about 15 minutes and dropped the hammer again. With 6 miles to go I was about ready to pass another rider, but for some reason he didn't seem to like that and cut of my line.

Three roots in a 45 degree angle on the trail caught my front wheel, and I high sided of to the right. My body landed in a mud puddle, but my helmet hit the ground hard. I must have been out for a couple of seconds, since once I could see again I didn't know for a second what was going on. That's when a group of 10 riders flew by me and I remembered that I was in a bike race.

My head was humming pretty well, so I took it easy for the next two miles. Once everything seemed to be OK I increased the speed again and made a decent finish, ended up 23rd out of 235 racers in my age group. Race time was 2h29:21

Stopped in Chicago on the way home for some deep dish Pizza, very yummy!

Alex