The 2010 race season started with a bang literally. I woke at the usual 5am wake up call and got myself ready for the Cohutta 100, the first race in the NUE race series. It had been raining off and on all night long and was raining in the morning. By the time of the start of the race at 7am it had stopped and was trying to clear up and actually made for a beautiful morning. For the first 30 miles of the race I found myself in the lead pack of five riders I was felling great so I decided to go to the front and do some work. I traded pulls at the front with Jeff Schalk until about 35 miles in, and then at the second aid station, I had a slow transition and lost the group. After that I put a really hard effort to try and catch back up, but all I did was blow myself out. Now I was really starting to hurt, feeling the affects of all the work from earlier in the race.
By about 65 miles in the rain really started to come down with some extremely close lightning strikes. I’ve never really been very afraid of lightning, if it wants to hit you, it will. It rained hard for most of the rest of the race and I lost a couple more spots at the end and finished in 6th, not bad at all for my first race since October. This was the best I’ve ever felt in the first race of the season so I’m really happy, and from here I go to Ashville, NC to ride until Dirt Sweat and Gears, so life is good.