I'm sore. 40+ miles on a dirt bike in my first desert race and the 3rd time I've been on a bike in 15 months or so. This pain isn't just your average, "ooohh, that's a sore spot" kind of pain either. As long as I don't really move much, everything's fine, but when flexion or extension are involved, things get ugly. It's referred to as DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness. I pretty much blew through every one of the suggested preventative measures for DOMS.

The first lap of the race was pretty rough. The guys on my minute were faster than me in the washes. The race started out in a wash that had a good bit of gravel in it, which was good. It went through some nice sections of trail, then turned into what's sometimes referred to as "sugar sand". This was not so good. Throw in some whoops that were the size of VW bugs and it was a recipe for a good helmet fire, you know, where you have to dive off of the bike head first to put it out. I did this a few times. The first couple of times, I used a tree or a creosote bush to break my fall. After this, I was thoroughly beaten and then it got interesting. They sent us into a narrow wash section that was about 6-10 feet wide. It was full of rather large rocks. Anyway, I made it back to the finish and I've never been happier to see 20 miles on the odometer in my life.

I didn't really think that I'd go back out for a 2nd lap, but Eric and Joe wouldn't let me DNF. I thought about it for a bit, then decided to go back out and finish. We had about 30 minutes to rest between the two 20-mile laps- I ate a snack and juiced up with some Cytomax.

I learned some things from the first time around and was able to use them on the second lap. Don't get me wrong, I still got smoked here, but I changed the way I approached things a bit. The first time around, I was running the little XR in a gear that was too high most of the time. This didn't really help much because the throttle response was sluggish (putting it nicely). On this lap, I ran it in a lower gear and revved it out. This helped with throttle response and made it so that I rarely had to use the brakes. Just like riding the ATCs with no brakes that Jason and I learned on. (Yeah, and dad said that motorcycles were too dangerous) The sand wash and whoops were considerably easier this time around and I was able to negotiate most things....except a hill where two guys stalled in front of me. I wasn't racing for money, so I just sat and waited it out. It was ugly, but I made it up on my run at it and got the thumbs up from the guy behind me. I did have to take a break though. After that hill, I got back into my own little groove and had fun. It was a beautiful day, the dust wasn't too bad most of the time, and I proved to myself that I could do it. It's the longest I've ridden since the Colorado trip a couple of years ago.

I camped again on Saturday night because the thought of driving home from Wickenburg was more than I could safely accomplish. I loaded everything up and settled in around the campfire for a bit. It was nice to hear the different things that had happened to the others and to hear about their experiences. Everyone had a good time and there were no really serious injuries.

I got up this morning and headed for home just after sunrise. It was a beautiful drive out by Lake Pleasant. When I got here, the LW was nowhere to be found, so I walked back into CP's room. There she was, in her crib watching the mobile. She smiled when I asked, "where's the beautiful baby...?". It was the best! 2 days away from CP and the LW and I couldn't wait to see and hold them both.

My folks sent my camera cable out, so look for some new additions on the flickr spot soon. I'll try to get a link to the main cache of photos once I get them posted to the yahoo account as well. I have some videos too for all of you on high-speed. I'll put links in the blog.

Life is good.