Mas O Menos 2008

What a beautiful morning! We were a little worried about what the weather would do today, but other than some cloud cover, race time was nice. The temperature was a little cool at the start, but really pleasant as the morning went on. There were a lot of riders lining up for the start of Mas O Menos - about 450 in all. There were 30k, 50k, and 100k routes. The 50k and 100k routes were the same, just done twice for the marathoners. The 30k was a shorter route. All of the routes had the same nasty climb. Jim describes the hill as brutal - steeper than Steamboat, lots of loose rock, and about 30 minutes to get to the top. The hill was about 10 miles into the race, but once you made it to the top, the rest of the race was basically downhill.

The TMBRA racers did the 30k route which meant that they did the shorter loop and climbed the beast once. Jim was in this race. He did well - finished 6th in his age group and 9th overall. He had just caught the two leaders on his way up the hill when his chain broke. That took a little time to fix. Oh well - there's always next time!

The marathon winners (100k) were flying! If we figured it right, the top guy averaged about 16 mph. And that was with the nasty climb that he had to do twice. The marathoners started out on the 20k portion that the TMBRA riders did not do and then joined the TMBRA route. They did start first, about 30 minutes before Jim's group. Even with that extra 20k, the 4 marathon leaders passed Jim on the downhill and he said they made him feel like he was standing still. They were fun to watch! Well, they were fun for me to watch, maybe not so much for Jim.

Of course, what TMBRA event would be complete without a Kids' Kup? It was held after lunch and had quite a few of the little ones out racing. It's always fun to watch them go ride and get so excited about the medal at the finish. Right at the end of the Kids' Kup the wind picked up which made us very glad that it was time to go back to our campsite. It is howling out there right now with dust blowing everywhere. We sure are glad it waited until after the race!

So, TMBRA has started back up. Even if you couldn't make it to Mas O Menos, there are still plenty of other races to catch. The next one is in St. Jo's (northwest of Dallas) in two weeks. Hope to see lots of y'all there!