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Friday morning - Day before the start

This is annually one of the biggest weekends of my year. Like a kid before Christmas, it’s hard for me to go to sleep and I wake up early. My adrenaline is as high as if I was racing. I look forward to meeting all the new faces this year as well as seeing old friends. I enjoy the vehicle inspections, the pre-race meetings, the late night fueling up the officials vehicles and even later at night set up of the starting line. Saturday morning it’s always fun to burn off some of the butterflies by joining the the riders for the neutral starts (and even more fun to be able to hop in the van prior to the first climb). The nerves all comes back as I follow along hoping everyone gets safely out of Portland and Sandy…watching rule after rule get broken leaving me to wonder if anyone actually listened during the rider meetings. It’s always fun to leapfrog the field shooting pictures up the easy slope to Government Camp and then watching the individual races begin to unfold as the field spreads apart. I always camp out on one of the Monument climb hairpins and watch the lead solo riders climb through the waning daylight then drive to Long Creek to phone in Time Station splits for a few hours. Then its a quick nap on hwy 26 prior to watching some solos climb Ochoco as the sun comes up. It’s always a little sad to come back to civilization as the course passes through Prineville and Madras but maybe that just intensifies the desolate beauty of Warm Springs where we begin to overtake the lead teams. It’s hard to leave the teams because the racing is usually intense through the Reservation but we have to hustle up to Timberline to set up the finish. We settle in for the sleepless night ahead and get food from Timberline’s Ram’s Head Bar. Once the last rider crosses the finish line we break it down, catch another quick nap and then head to the Dollar Store in Hood River to do some of the most fun shopping of the year. I have no idea why squirt guns, bottles of dish soap, oven mitts, action figures or bobble head clown dolls remind us of moments on the race course – maybe it’s the sleep deprivation – but it sure is fun to browse the store for a couple of hours reminiscing about the race as we select everyone’s ‘special’ prizes. Then it’s back to Portland for the post-race party and the weekend wrap up where we say goodbye and start planning for next year.

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