Headed back down to Arkansas once again for Syllamo's Revenge 50 miler. Loreen and I arrived in the early evening with time to check in to our cabin and head to Angler's for a little dinner. We placed our order for our big pre-race meal. Within 10 minutes, the owner came out and announced to all that we had to leave due to 2 tornadoes heading our way! Ok...where do we go? We were 7 miles away from our cabin. So, we booked it back west to our cabin without dinner. 2 cop cars were speeding the opposite way with lights/sirens on. I decided that our cabin wasn't going to provide any shelter so we pulled in to another local restaurant. I asked if they had a basement and they said no but, they had a walk in fridge. Sold! We stayed there for about an hour until everything was safe. There ended up being tornadoes/funnel clouds all around us but, no damage for us. Race on!Conditions were wet and slick for the race but, better than the previous year from what I heard. My goal was top 10 for this race knowing some of the competition and that I would be racing my single speed among the geared women. I was also going for the Arkansas Marathon Series and this was the last race of the series.
We speed off on the park's paved road for a short bit just to hit a huge bottleneck on the 1 mile gravel road climb which is a 8% grade. I managed to weave through a lot of that because I couldn't really climb it too slow on the single speed. Once I hit the single track I felt like I was bushwhacking on the bike! This 1st section was really overgrown. I know I wasn't the only one who came home with scratches all over my arms and poison ivy. The second section was pretty technical with lots of slick rocks. I was feeling great through this section and managed to hold 6th place. Eventually, I lost 2 spots about 5 1/2 hrs in. The last section was what I remembered from 24hrs of Syllamo, nice fast flowing single track. I finished the race in 8th and accomplished my goal.
Loreen and I headed to Mountain View for a little dinner that night. On the weekends, small acoustic bands are playing music all over town. Here's one of the bands we listened to. They were awesome. Just click the play button to hear them.
