24!

And another 24 hour race is in the books!

This one may go down as one of the most fun weekends I've had. We were surrounded by a fun group of people and really had the best time.

One of my goals for this race was to figure out how to eat, race and digest - yes in that order. I've had a lot of problems over the years trying to digest my food during this race. I tried a different tactic this year. I sought the advice of my wise coach and much to my surprise it really worked out well. Here is what I ate for the 24 hours of the race, in this order:

1. Chia seed and date pudding
2. Brown rice with cooked carrots
3. coconut water
4. sweet potatoes
5. coconut water
6. chia and date pudding
7. coconut water
8. sweet potatoes 

By the middle of the night I was actually gagging while eating my sweet potatoes. I tried to play it off as no big deal while I had a conversation with my teammates, but I wasn't too successful. The dry heaves aside, I was really happy about being able to digest my food during the race. 

Mmmmmm.....chia seed pudding is sooooo yummy. Let me know if you want the recipe.

The other great part of the race was our Camp Bitch Karen. She gave herself the name Camp Bitch and we love her for it. She took so much care of us and was the best support you could ask for. She put up with all of our crap and really made the race one of the more enjoyable events of the year. 

Do you see her "Bitch Belt"? She wears a belt that contains the finishing rider's recovery drink. She has a timer and restarts the clock for each new lap to help us keep track of our time. If we require a warm coat after our lap - she has it ready for us when we are there. She walks the finishing racer off their lap and then goes to our lap board to write down our times. She has our food ready for us and makes sure that we eat, drink and recover in time. It is really pretty amazing. All of us crazy racers and our very own Camp Bitch. We were so very fortunate to be able to share our race experience with Karen. 

Each year when I am done with the 24 hour race I tell myself that it will be the last one I do. I have a love hate relationship with the race. It took me until January of this year to decide to race it again. Now that I've completed my 4th race, I'm am once again thinking that I will not participate in another 24 hour race.

I probably could be talked into doing it again, but at this point the answer is - no. 

Ok, well, maybe not a definitive no, but more like a probably not. 

Thanks to all my teammates and good friends that helped to make this race so great.