MudMan 2008 - Ski/Board --> Downhill Mountain Bike --> Run

Actual name of the event is Leadman, on Silver Mountain. I really thought I had this race in the bag. After a 2nd place finish last year due to slightly inadequate snowboarding and downhill mountain biking skills (some people call it "yard saling") there were some changes that I made this year.

Here were the changes:

A) I am a father

B) I had a tricked out mountain bike demo model with sweet shocks, even better than Pedro's

C) I did not party the night beforehand, unless ginger tea and a hot bath is considered the wild side

My strategy going into the race start was a massive success - I leapt off a snow cliff in front of the entire field and beat everyone in the 100 yard dash to the snowboards and skis.



The rest of the race progressed as follows:

-Watched the field disappear as tiny little specks in the distance while I tried to tighten my snowboard bindings

-Tried to catch up with everyone and rode my snowboard off the course because I went too fast and crashed

-Hiked back onto the course and kept snowboarding

-Crashed again on the uphill into mountain bike transition

-Hiked up into transition

Where's Ben's bike? Oh, it's just like one of the only ones left in transition, pretty easy to find really.

Well, I have a tricked out bike so now I can catch up, right?. Wrong. I swear, the entire 7.5 mile downhill bike was ALL mud. I had no fender or visor. I held my glasses in my teeth once they became too dirty for sane vision. I lost count of the times I slid off course and crashed. I was literally a ball of caked mud and bruises by the time I reached run transition. You could have started a nice little garden on my face with some pumpkin seeds and maybe some nice little tomatoes, the yellow kind that are really tasty.

I took off on the run and glanced at my reflection in a store window as I ran through downtown Kellogg. That's the first time in awhile I've busted up laughing in the middle of a race, because I was like that comic book character in Spiderman that looks like a giant piece of dirt.

Running and flailing and blowing muddy snot out my nose.

I hosed off after the race and drove home. I had been soundly defeated.

But it was a beautiful day and I had my adrenaline fix for the weekend. Life is good.

OFFICIAL RACE VIDEO FROM HELMET CAM: http://www.youtube.com/user/SilverMtnResort