2012 Alafia Classic Six Hour Race--Lithia, Florida (4/7/12)

This weekend, my dad and I went down to Alafia River State Park with our friend Dave to do the Alafia Classic Six Hour mountain bike race. My dad decided to try the six hour solo race, and Dave and I did a base team race. It was a lot of fun!

I started the first lap, which meant I got to do the sprint to the bikes with my dad. I had a good start, although the other grown-ups kept pushing me aside, so I moved to the outside and just went around a bunch of them. My first lap was pretty fast, (although not the fastest) and I beat my dad's lap time by 30 seconds. By the time Dave and I had completed a couple of laps we were the first place team.

Pam Swails got this picture of my dad and me.

My dad was in 5th or 6th place when the pain in his back got so bad he had to stop. He came back out and rode the last lap with me though, and ended up 13th out of 21 in his class.

The hand-off

My team managed to stay ahead of the other teams, including a 3-man team, for the first 4 hours, but as we started getting tired, they started to catch up. By the time Dave and I were on our last laps, we had gotten passed and Cody Burnett, the fastest rider on their team, finished ahead of us by several minutes on the final lap. We ended up finishing in 2nd place, which was still pretty cool, because it was Dave's first time ever on the podium.

Another boy I know, Blake Hina, also had his first time on the podium with a 3rd place in the Beginner Solo Men's division. He was very excited and I was happy for him because he has really  been working hard and riding a lot. Plus, I just think it's fun when the kids beat the adults.

I wore the helmet cam for this race and my dad edited a video which is my favorite one so far. I picked out the music and it's really cool. I hope you enjoy it!