What a weekend.  I've been thinking about how to possibly describe what it was like riding in the 24 hours of Clear Springs, and I don't know if words can accurately do the job.  I'm sure we'll see some pictures from Aaron and Brian soon.  Anyone else with photos, I'd love to see them and I'm sure many others would too.  I'm sorry there wasn't anyone out on the trail taking pictures because there would have been some priceless moments.

Here's my slant on the whole thing, it’s turned out to be long, so sit back:
The weekend started off crazily for me because of some network changes I'd made at the bank on Thursday night.  I ended up pulling an all-nighter and finally went to bed for a couple of hours Friday afternoon.  Late to be later that night and up early Saturday didn't help either.  I don't know if there's any such thing as training for sleep deprivation, but if there is, I did it. 

Saturday morning brought about more frustration as more problems at work got me running late.  I'm sure Don, Lena, and Brad were all wondering where in the world I was, and if I was going to make it for the impending festival of pain.  Word I got was that some people (I don't know who) said I wouldn't be there.  I was glad to hear my teammates had faith in me.  Packing for a 24 hour MTB race?  How do you do that?  What do you take with you?  What sort of food?  The week had been so busy that I'd not really thought much about it and now it was late, and I was late.  Oh well, throw a bunch of stuff in the truck and go.  My teammates will cover me if I forget something.  How in the world did the cowboys ever carry all the stuff they needed for a cattle drive on their horses?  Looks like I'm riding on pop-tarts, granola bars (Butterfinger, nothing too healthy), bananas, and Mountain Dew.  Oh yeah, and a giant box of Cap'n Crunch.  It worked for road-racing all those years didn't it?  As I drove down the driveway I did my necessity check as I have at least a hundred times before; bike, shoes, helmet; I can wing it from there.  It's already 11:30 and the race starts at noon.  I've still got to stop and grab some lunch and ice!

I finally arrive at Clear Springs at about 12:30 wondering if my team has been DQ'd for my not being there.  Aaron shouts as I drive past the check-in point that they're looking for me at the campground.  No sh_t, I'll bet they are....  Pull to the campground and there's Don's blue truck;  at least I've found ground zero.  Don informs me that everything's cool, we're racing.  Lena's already out on the course.  Great, I made it. 

Now, the waiting begins.  Remember that I've been up since 7am on not much sleep, and racing around all day trying to get things squared away at the bank and together for this race.  I've been hurrying all day.  Lena's out on the course and Don's riding next.  We always have a rider in between Lena and Brad so that one of them is always at camp with the boys, Hunter and Sterling(who are having a great time playing in the rain).  This means that I won't be riding until 5:30 or so.  Man, I could have taken my time!  The waiting for your turn on the course was some of the most mentally taxing time of the weekend.  I've been rushing all day and now I've got to sit around for 5 hours.  Under a camping canopy and a tarp, watching it rain.  Talk about a momentum swing...

The rain wasn't too bad during Lena's first ride.  Don't get me wrong, it was raining, and everything was wet, but then Don took over.  Brad took him up to the exchange in Lena's truck and we caught some flak from other riders about shuttling our riders back and forth instead of riding.  Look, when you're doing 24 hours, you save all the energy you can.  So Don takes off, and I swear, Brad said he hadn't even gotten out of the parking lot when the bottom fell out.  It rained hard.  As you all know, Don's a little skittish about crashing and rightfully so, so I'm sure he's just loving this downpour and the slippery conditions it's creating.  At least at this point, there haven't been that many riders on the trail yet to rut it up too bad.  It'll get worse though, you can bet on that. 

Lena had come in at about 1:36 in wet conditions, so we were off to a good start.  Don turned a respectable 1:48 or so I think in absolutely atrocious conditions.  He probably had trouble seeing at some points due to the rain.  OK, Brad's next.  I don't know who he paid his dues to, but right before his lap started, the rain stopped.  Don must have felt betrayed by the rain gods, because he definitely rode the wettest lap.  Now keep in mind, the rain stopped, but the water did not go away.  Brad goes out and even more riders have sloshed through the trails.  There's lots of standing water and mud at this point.  Don got a continuous shower; Brad got a mud bath.  As I waited for Brad, all those thoughts of how to ride this thing went through my head.  Take it easy; this is only your first lap.  Take it easy; it's wet, muddy, and slick out there.  Take it easy; you don't want to crash and get hurt.  Brad came in after about 1:54 I think, and there I am, all clean and dry.  He was covered with mud.  Is that what I'm gonna look like?!  It's about 5:45 or 6:00 at this point and Aaron and Brian ask if I'm taking a light.  Light?  I don't need no stinking light!  I'm suddenly confident and ready to go.  So I take off down the trail on my shiny Trek Y-22.  The rain is still holding off, so I'm figuring Brad overpaid his weather dues.  That made no difference.  There's so much water and mud everywhere by this point, you just don't even think about trying to take the "clean" line.  You just try to keep the wheels somewhere that they can get a little grip and not slide out from under you.  The section down to the flats by the campground was that “just how slick is it?” section where you experiment carefully to determine just how far you can push it before you lose traction and crash.  It actually wasn’t too bad.  I got across to the bottom of the climb out of the “swamp” and actually was able to climb the hill towards the beginning of Mill’s branch.  Hey, this isn’t too bad!  Crossed the road at checkpoint 1 to some cheers and tried to make it look good as I entered the first section of real trail.  Mill’s branch was in pretty good shape.  It drains well and didn’t give too much problem.  For some reason though, I don’t remember everything from this section.  I get in the zone and everything just goes into and right back out of short-term memory.  I do remember checkpoint 2, I think Melissa was there cheering me on.  2 to 3 wasn’t too bad either, but it was getting worse. 

Checkpoint 3 was on the gravel road as you enter the Richardson’s Creek trail.  This was definitely the hardest section of the race.  Right off the bat it starts climbing and winding, and there’s lots of little ledges to slide off of.  The mud was getting worse and the trail was much slicker.  Traction wasn’t much of a problem on the Mill’s branch trail.  Richardson’s’ was a different matter.  All the little dips and whoops had big puddles filled with a muddy soup that just sucked the tires in.  The many short, sometimes steep climbs that are so much fun to power through in dry conditions were really slick and dangerous.  If I didn’t hit them just right, I was off the bike and pushing.  This was OK though.  Some sections I could just hop off, run with the bike for a few seconds and hop right back on.  No real time lost.  Everything was so wet, a lot of the mud just ran off like thick water.  Of course, by this time you could hardly tell what color my bike or my legs were, and my clothes weren’t much better.  Then about halfway through this section, things began to change.  Chain suck.  For those of you who haven’t ever ridden in mud, this is the result of getting too much mud in the chain and the chainrings.  When you’re in the small chainring in front, the rear derailleur doesn’t keep much tension on the chain.  The mud makes the chain stick to the ring, and it just gets pulled up into the rear chainstay, completely stopping the pedaling motion.  If this happens when you’re grinding up a slow, steep section; well, you fall down.  At least I did.  From this point the chain suck got worse, and within the next mile, I had to shift to the middle ring and keep it there.  No low gears.  This was not good, but it could have been worse.  Most of the small chainring climbs were so slick with mud I couldn’t get the traction anyway.  Every now and then there came a section of trail that was fairly flat and well drained.  It was so relieving to get to wind it up and go fast for a brief period.  The mud would start flying off the tires and just go everywhere.  I’d bunny-hop the bike hard just to try to knock some of the mud off.  These sections were a lot of fun.  Finally, checkpoint 4 in the distance!  For some reason, on every lap, I had trouble with the last couple of hundred yards to that checkpoint.  The boy scouts were out cheering and yelling for my number, and I just couldn’t seem to muster that impressive surge to the line to make them think I was doing well.  But at least I was there; one more section to go.

4 to 5 wasn’t too bad the first time through.  I’m getting close to the finish, it’s my first lap, and I’m still feeling pretty good.  The chain suck it the only big problem at this point.  Sure, the trail’s slick, but I can deal with that.  A little pushing up the slick hills is OK, right?  Let me tell you something, if you do much of it, it starts to get to the lower back.  Lena had complained about her lower back after her ride, and now I knew why.  I just kept cranking it out, and knew I was getting closer.  Then, the motivation I needed; a rider ahead.  Aha!  I caught one!  This ride was so absorbing with the rain, mud, and mechanical problems, I’d virtually forgotten there were other riders on the course!  Well, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m pretty competitive in a race situation.  That was all I needed.  Somebody to chase down, then once I passed him, somebody to leave behind.  Ooh!  Another one!  This is too good!  I was going for broke now; I’m not letting these guys catch back up.  I caught these guys right before and around the primitive camping site with only about a mile left in the course.  The big “dismount” hill is coming up, and I’m wondering just how bad it really is.  There’s a particularly nasty hill not far from the finish the way we were riding the course, and it was so rutted, rooty, muddy, and slick that the organizers had decided it was too dangerous to ride down.  I love this sort of sick challenge, so I’m going for broke.  It’s a good chance to put some more time and distance on these guys behind me too.  I bailed off right through all the flagging and past the big dismount sign and never let up.  It was actually one of the funnest parts of the whole course!  I did have to dismount at the bottom though; I don’t think I could have gotten up the other side on my four-wheeler!  That was a tough run up that hill, and getting back on at the top to start riding again was tough as well.  The final climb up to the pavement at checkpoint 5 was too much as well, especially with no small chainring, so I ran it as best I could.  I was hurting pretty bad at this point, but managed to get back on the pavement and sprint it to the exchange point.  It was raining pretty good and it must have been a sight to see riders flying down the pavement with mud being flung from the tires as they spun up to speed.  I slid into the exchange area and passed the baton to Lena.  She had the first night ride as it was starting to get dark early because of the heavy clouds. 

I don’t think any of us had ever ridden at night before, so we really didn’t know what to expect.  We’d rented a Jet light system for the event, and Don had made sure everything was charged up.  I knew Lena was prepared and ready for action, but I was still worried.  Things just look different in the dark, and I just didn’t want anyone lost or hurt out there in the dark.  I went back to camp, scarfed down what was left of the food brought by the Pig-Out Inn, cleaned up my bike (no small feat itself), and went to take a shower.  It was nice to be clean.  Then all we could do was wait.  It was too early to go to bed for me, but I swear I can’t remember what I did.  I guess I just ate.  I just wanted Lena to come back in with a good report.  Like I said earlier, the waiting was often the hardest part of the weekend.  Don was going next, so we got him ready, and I think I took him to the exchange in the truck.  Lena did not seem to enjoy the night riding.  She said it was really unnerving.  This surprised me a little, and after thinking about it, I realized what probably happened.  I rode the last leg in daylight, and got in about 7:15 or so.  Lena had to ride in that weird dusk light with heavy cloud cover and rain, where it’s not light, but not really dark either.  For some reason, the headlights probably don’t do much with this type of darkness.  They worked great later in the night, but Lena definitely had the hardest lap as far as light conditions go.  Her lap was longer too, because right after the first laps in the dark, the organizers cut out the Mill’s branch section of the course.  Some riders were having trouble completing the whole thing before their batteries went out and the conditions were so bad I think this was a good idea.  It kept us from trashing the Mill’s Branch trail too.  I came back and went to bed, setting my alarm for 1:00am.  Ouch!  This was a difficult sleep.  It’s raining outside, and I’m wondering how we’re doing and when Don will come in and Brad go out.  I don’t want to miss my start, and I’ve got to get batteries and get set up for the night ride.  I finally got up at 12:30, just as Don came rolling back into camp.  Brad was riding and it looked like I had a couple of hours to go.  The rain has pretty much stopped by now, but I think Don got the worst of it again.  He enjoyed riding at night, so I’m not so worried about it now.  Don helped me get a few things squared away and ready to go.  We sat around the fire and waited… and waited…. It goes so slow sometimes when it’s dark.  Every little while we’d hear a buzzing in the dark and another rider would appear, lights aglow, as he coasted down the hill into camp.  Others were slowly riding out, on their way to the exchange area to take their turn in the dark.  Don and I finally went for my turn and hung around the exchange area waiting for Brad.  Aaron had been called to Natchez on a small emergency, but Stan had arrived and was there keeping everyone in good spirits as the night rolled on.  Brad finally rolled in and handed me the baton.  He was covered with mud from head to toe, and it was noticeably thicker on his bike.  It was getting stickier now that the rain had stopped.  We had to unhook the lights and get them switched over to my bike and helmet, but at this point in the race, there’s no huge rush.  He told me it was a really difficult ride because of the conditions, and I was not surprised.  I couldn’t believe I was heading out in the wet darkness on a mountain bike ride at Clear Springs at 2:40 in the morning.  I learned later that I was the last one out that night.  Everyone else had bagged it by that point.  The ride to checkpoint 1 was fine.  Just getting used to the light.  Those things work really well!  Boatner took my picture as I rolled by and headed down the gravel road to 3.  Checkpoint 2 is gone now because that section was take out of the course.  Flying down the wet, muddy gravel road toward 3 produced a constant spray of orange mud and sand, but I knew this was the only speed I’d see for the next hour and a half, so I took advantage of it and pushed it on down the road.  I groaned as I passed 3 and got on what I knew was going to be the longest, hardest part of the trail.  It was too.  The mud had thickened up and was now sticking to everything.  Throw in the pine needles and leaves and you could make a pretty good house out of this stuff.  There’s a lot of clay in the ground at Clear Springs, particularly in this section.  I had to stop fairly often to dig handfuls of mud and pine needles out of the front and back brakes as well as behind the bottom bracket at the chainstays.  It was packing in there and actually stopping the wheels from rolling!  There were a number of times where I got off to push up a slick hill and noticed it was really hard to push.  The wheels were sliding along the ground instead of rolling.  What a mess.  I have to say, this was a very exhausting ride.  On and off the bike constantly, digging the mud out with my hands, slipping around on my feet even!  The grips got so covered with mud; I could hardly operate my gripshift.  This was tough going.  I finally got to the boy scouts at checkpoint 4 and they had troubles of their own.  Their tarp was strung up over their fire, and it had collapsed from the rain.  They were scrambling around trying to get it all fixed as I came through.  They got my number though, and radioed in that I was alive and well and rolling toward 5.

Most of the last section wasn’t too muddy compared to the previous section, but right at the beginning of it was pretty bad.  I hit one big hole on a downhill and went right over the bars onto a big pile of logs.  I saw it coming and made a pretty good landing, but I was glad there was no one there to see it!  Quite frankly, I just don’t remember a whole lot of this.  It was kind of surreal riding through the darkness in the slop.  I was so focused on the trail in front of me and keeping the bike running, it all faded together.  The chain suck continued of course so again I didn’t have the gears I needed.  I ran and walked up a lot of hills, and barreled uncontrollably down a lot of them too.  I was actually looking forward to the big dismount section again, and just like the first time, it was a lot of fun to go down.  Boatner was there with the camera at checkpoint 5, I guess since I was the last one out, they didn’t need him at 1.  Some of the pictures are now posted on the website for the race.  I rolled it on in to the finish, chatted with Aaron, Stan, and Brian, and headed to bike and body cleanup again.  I did my lap in around 1:36, so it was around 4:15 at this point.  No one should be awake at this hour!  It was good to get clean and crash.  Brad, Don, and I had talked before my ride and decided that we were done for the night when I finished, and probably for good.

No one checked with Lena.  She had said she wasn’t riding again, but they misunderstood.  She meant at night.  7:00 am woke me with Lena knocking on my truck window.  “What’s this about not riding anymore?  I’m going!”  “That’s more like it.” I thought, and said “If you’re riding, I’m riding.”  She took off and I got up and started getting ready.  I was tired.  2 hours of sleep since my last ride wasn’t enough of course, but I was awake now and figured I had about 1:45 or 2 hours at the most before I had to be on the trail.  I spent most of that time fiddling with the fire to pass the time and keep warm.  I was trying to dry my gloves and shoes from the night before, but it wasn’t much use at this point.  I munched on pretty much all the aforementioned snacks trying to get just the right mixture of junk to fuel this next jaunt through the slop.  At least I had dry clothes to put on.  Of course, once I put my shoes on, my socks weren’t dry anymore.  Don drove me up to the start, and we waited for Lena.  A couple of riders came in, and we couldn’t believe the mud and debris stuck to the bikes and riders.  “It’s gotten sticky” someone said.  I couldn’t argue.  It was just caked in huge globs in all the places that would make it hard to ride.  I hadn’t thought it would get worse than last night, but obviously it had.  Never underestimate Mother Nature and what she can dish out.  Lena came in, exhausted and frustrated from the mud.  “It’s really unrideable.” she said.  Her Cake2 was caked and I asked myself why I was going out, but I figured Lena had done it, so I couldn’t let down the team.  We really needed one more lap and I was ready, so why not?  Off I go, and I knew it was going to be a long ride within the first mile.  I had to walk the first big hill, one that I’d been able to ride during the night.  Conditions were definitely worse, and I wasn’t even to the first checkpoint.  Well, to make this long story um… not too much longer, this was the most difficult lap.  Not much sleep, terrible sticky mud, constant gumming up of the brakes and wheels, chain suck to no end, and just plain old fatigue all added up to a tough ride.  Again 3 to 4 was the worst, but this time 4 to 5 was really bad too.  At least I didn’t crash on this lap.  I don’t think I ever went fast enough to crash.  There was one guy I caught sight of about halfway through, and I spent the rest of the ride playing cat and mouse with him.  It was kind of like a stock car race, with our stops to clear out mud serving as pit stops that let us catch and pass each other.  The one thing that kept my confidence up was the fact that he’d started about 10 or 15 minutes in front of me, so I knew I’d already made up a lot of ground.  I had one really long stop after checkpoint 4 and thought that was it, I wouldn’t catch him again.  I caught another guy right before I got to the Tally’s trail at the primitive camping area, and that made me feel better.  I kept pushing it and got to the dismount section, which of course I wasn’t about to dismount on.  I’d spent enough time off the bike already.  As I barreled down the muddy descent, there’s my prey at the bottom of the hill, walking down the last little bit.  I caught him again.  This time, I figured I could hold him off to the end.  I jumped off my bike and ran up the other side, leaving him at the bottom.  This hurt; I’d been pushing the bike a lot on this lap and the old back was about ready to give it up.  I got back on as soon as I could and put the hammer down.  When I got to the final hill back to the pavement, I had to run up that one last time, but there were people cheering at the top to keep me going.  I think someone took a picture as I got back on the bike, but I don’t think I had the strength to make it look good.  I did my best to crank back up to speed down the pavement to the finish. I’d managed a 1:38 and some change, passed another 2 riders and was glad to be done.  As I pulled in, I looked for Don or Brad to pass the baton, but obviously, they’d decided enough was enough.  I was not about to tell them otherwise.  I rolled back down the hill to the camp and they were finishing up packing the place up.  At least I got out of that chore!  I couldn’t have done it at that point.

We were finished with the 24 hours of Clear Springs for this year and glad of it.  It was long, tiring, and brutally tough with the conditions.  No sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya this time!  We managed 10 laps and some really good lap times along the way.  I think everyone was pleased with their performances as we took 6^th place out of I think 10 teams.  We were tied with the 5^th place team on laps, but their cumulative time was 3 minutes faster.  One of the things that made us proud of our placing was that there are no lightweights in an event like this.  All of these guys were pretty serious riders and we went head to head with them.  I’d like to thank Don, Brad, and Lena for asking me to join them in this adventure.  I was honored to be invited, especially since they know I haven’t been able to ride very much this year.  To all of the volunteers, thank you.  This sort of event cannot happen without you.  I’m sure you’ve all got your own memories and funny stories from the event.  Of course it goes without saying to Brian and Aaron.  Well done.  This was one of those things that you wonder why on earth you’re doing it, until it’s over.  Then you know.  The memories will last a lifetime, and I’ve felt pretty proud of myself all week for having completed it.  Everyone make sure to come out in some capacity next year.

-Curtis