The Palmer Park 50 was nearly 3 weeks ago. I raced it as training for the Ring the Peak Race.

Heavy rains a few days before washed out some of the trails on the planned course so the course was shortened to 5 miles which meant 10 laps. The course had a nice mix of fast smooth sections and rocky technical sections. The advantage of doing short laps was being able to take better lines through corners and technical sections as the race went on. The downside of that many laps was by about lap 6 I was zoned out.

There was a decent turn out for a late season race. About half the racers where doing the 50 miler and half doing the 25 mile option. Russell Finsterwald won the 50 miler in 03:42:32 on his 20th birthday. Complete results are here.

I made a stupid mistake early on lap 2 on a smooth gravel section that sent me over the bars. Although I bloodied my knee, mildly bruised a couple ribs and had a couple painful fingers and shoulder, it didn’t affect my riding very much. A couple days later though, I was feeling it plenty.

By lap 9 I was getting some pretty bad cramps whenever I tried putting much power into the pedals. It wasn’t surprising since I hadn’t done any long rides after the Leadville 100.

Sand Creek Sports had moved the start back an hour but wasn’t able to change the cut-off time for starting the final lap. I missed the time to start my 10th lap. I should have been able to make it through another lap but with the way I felt on the 9th one I wasn’t terrible disappointed to not head out again.

Since I signed up for the Clydesdale class and no one else did, I won my category just by riding until I was told to stop.

Sand Creek Sports is planning on putting on the Palmer Park 50 again in 2012 on Sunday, September 16th and will again have a post race Pig Roast.

Below are some great shots of me from About the Shot. You can see the rest of their Palmer Park 50 photos here.

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