This article is from the excellent Dirtworld.com To read more like this go to: http://www.dirtworld.com Article written by Elden Nelson

The headwind on this road was a brute. I took it personally--this wasn't just wind, this was wind from hell, sent by Satan himself just to piss me off. It worked. 
Obviously, I wasn't entirely rational anymore. 
Then, right at mile forty, a volunteer pointed me off the road and onto the Virgin River Rim Trail. Now, before I recount my experience on this section of the course, let me first say that this may be some of the nicest singletrack I have ever seen. It twists. It turns. It climbs and drops and switches back. You're in the trees on packed, smooth soil. It has views of cliffs (the Vermillion Castles) and mountains that just about knocked me off my bike. I will absolutely positively go back and ride this trail--and I understand that there's miles and miles of this primo stuff--when I can enjoy it. 
Okay, with that out of the way, I can now say that during the race, this section of trail punished me in a way I have never encountered on a bike. There was steep, blood-spurting-out-your-ears granny gear climbing, and lots of it. The descents that followed never seemed to last very long, and they were hard enough that you couldn't recover anyway. So I started compiling a list of very mean things I would say to the organizers when I finished this race. I would lead off with "I hate you." I'd then follow up with, "I hate this course." I'd probably then continue on with, "I hate you a lot ," just to underscore my original point. The only solace I could take was that the difficulty of the climbing here meant that I'd have to be catching Eddie soon. I mean, after all, if I was granny-gearing, he must be off his bike and walking, right? For some reason, though, he managed to stay ahead. Oh well, just a matter of time. 
The third aid station came at the fifty-mile mark, and brought--hallelujah--a gentle two-mile downhill, mild enough that I could eat a sandwich while riding. This was followed by about six miles of uphill, as if the organizers were saying, "Don't think we're going soft on you, bub." A couple of miles of fast downhill dumped me back onto Strawberry Point Road. I was exhausted and had forty miles--most uphill--left to go.

And so began my new Cadence Mantra of Pain. As I pushed down with my left foot I'd grunt "knee." Then down with my right foot: "hip." Knee-hip-knee-hip-knee-hip. Oh, what fun. 
Another guy caught up to me, but didn't seem in a hurry to pass. We rode together for a while. I asked him if he'd ever done a 100-mile race before. He hadn't. I told him he'd picked a lulu as a first. We talked for a few more minutes, then he rode away, leaving me to grunt "knee, hip, knee, hip" to myself again. 
8 1/2 hours had gone by. As I rode, sometimes as slow as 4mph, I kept doing the math, trying to figure out when I'd finally cross the finish line. My estimates kept getting later and later. Ten hours seemed about right at one point. Then, as the road kept getting steeper, I switched to eleven. At one point I even considered the possibility that I wouldn't finish the race by the twelve-hour cutoff. I kept sucking down Powergel and hoped for the best. 

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