(click photo to view gallery)

The photo above is the 2008 course in 3D. Not a flat course! :’)

This was my first time racing the Shasta Lemurian. Yes, yes, yes I know… you are thinking WTF??? The first time??? I’m not sure why it’s taken me so long to actually attend the event. But I’m hooked.

You would think though, after I was eaten up by the course, that I wouldn’t want to race it again. Here’s a course that made both my quads cramp up solid. So much that I had to stop, yes stop, on the hike a bike steeper than heck section and massage out my legs. Then I battled cramping the remainder of the course. And I had half the course left. Ouch.

Somehow I managed to finish in 12th place with a time of 02:52:45. So I should be happy that I didn’t just roll over and wait for the cleanup crew to find me. Which, after the zillionth false summit, I thought seriously about doing. It would have been so easy to make a nice nest in the soft shiny green leaves of those bushes… of Poison Oak! Did I mention the PO? That evil plant is exploding all over the place. I swear I spotted leaves of PO bigger than my hand. And those leaves were high fiving me the entire course. Argh, where’s my Tecnu? I’m still itching.

Next time I must remember to:

• fuel better
• tecnu more
• oh, and train a wee bit more

Cheers!