Organ Grinder Enduro, Canmore

The Organ Grinder didn't let down at all today, my organs were hurting after.

It was great sleeping in Canmore as we could get up a little later and watch COPS after dinner, which is a small town Motel 8 bike race tradition. Shawn made some great coffee at breakfast and the commute to the Nordic Center was under 5 minutes.

The course was longer than the XC, laps for me were 45 minutes vs. about 30 I think yesterday. Achilles seemed ok, rain didn't become miserable, upper areas were like riding a waterslide covered in peanut butter, but lower portions were fine. Yesterday's eye dropper and Devonian drop technical sections had the ass-whooper to help pummel us too. I rode everything individually, but never linked a totally clean lap. The laundry chute was the hardest for me as it was so slick. Some people saw a bear there on one of the later laps.

I got lapped by leader at 3 laps, then Shawn at about 4.15 laps. I felt fine up to fifth lap. Rolled into end of fifth lap thinking it was time to quit as it wasn't likely I was going to hammer out a 45 minute lap on my last one to get to 6, but then the timing clock said 56 minutes which was confusing relative to my watch, and I was encouraged to go out again. I got back in 50 after not feeling good for last time up the big georgetown climb, and finish was taken down. Ryan Draper lapped me (ugh) and finished a bit ahead and apparently he was first one they declined, and nobody else was between us. Not like this weekend was about impressing anyone with my results, it's just the work for nothing thing. At least I got my full 5 hours in - Nordic Center is hard riding for that amount of time.

Fun day. Geoff Clarke blew up his bike somehow, Steve Walsh had an awesome day but timers missed it, Shawn podiumed, Devin did great, Jon finished it all. Kate won, and the new girls Heather and Kate seemed to have fun.

The post race food was good, but not enough to keep me off making a bagel/steak/dijon/cheese snacks after when showering at Claire's. The Erfle family was travelling en masse, then I stopped for a totally entertaining slice of pizza at the Erfle's when I dropped his bike off on the way home. Way more dishes, cleanup, and action than an average dinner at my house.

So tired, but in a few weeks I need to do 7 of these back to back again.