Cactus Hugger Camping

This past weekend we camped in St. George for the Cactus Hugger race. I hadn't done this race before. Although it is in the same area as the Rampage that we did a month ago, the course is different (and even more fun, it turns out).

The plan was for I to drive one car, and Kim another, so that I could leaver earlier and pre-ride, and then after camping she could take some kids with her to CA for spring break, and I would bring back Scott, Heidi, and Ian with me back home (Scott and Heidi have play practices all week).

Ian, Tanner, and Crista rode down in the truck with me, but we had some last minute kid-delays, so I ended up pre-riding in the dark. While not ideal, I bought a light and it was OK.

Saturday when I was about to warm up, I found my headset was coming loose. The Anthem stem uses a shim that seems to cause problems, so I tried to tighten it more than before and broke the bolt off. After fussing with it for a while, I swapped the stem off Kim's bike (which Ian used in the Jr. race) and got a late start to warming up.



For some reason, everyone lined up really early, so we stood around a few minutes. I don't know if it was the standing around, or the rush to switch the stem, but I was feeling a little apathetic when the race actually started, and I fell back several places on the first climb.

I thought I was going slow, but was surprised how quickly we caught and passed all the pro women, which in hind-site was because actually our group just started fast.

Anyway, I kept pushing and passed several people, but by then we were all mixed in with the other categories ahead of us, so I didn't really know who was who.

After the first lap, my rear brake lever was pulling nearly to the grip, but fortunately didn't get worse. Then on the second lap I got a flat rear tire. I nursed it to the end of the lap and pumped it back up, then headed out again, reminding myself to keep pushing.

The third lap went fine although I was mostly riding on my own. When I finished, Bob asked me if I'd won, and told him I thought I was in fourth or fifth. He didn't think so, and it turned out he was basically right. I was in second, a few minutes behind Christoph Heinrich. I don't know anything about Christoph except that he was won the last couple races now.

After the race, we all (the family) went swimming at the Sand Hollow Aquatic Center. We had fun, but I forgot to take pictures.

After swimming we ate at Costa Vida and then Ian, Scott, and I went to the LDS General Conference session at a random local church.

On Sunday we spent the morning listening to conference on the radio while the kids shot BB guns.

After the morning session ended, we drove to Toquerville Falls. It tooks a while to drive there, with several miles of dirt road, but we made it and had a great time climbing on the rocks and eating lunch.

Starting Friday continuing to today (Wednesday), Melissa, then Crista, then Kaitlyn, and now Ian have all sequentially contracted some bug that has given them a fever for a day or two, but fortunately we were mostly in between on Sunday and everyone felt pretty good.

We had planned to hike to another waterfall place on Monday, but Scott and Heidi had practice scheduled for Monday afternoon, and there wasn't going to be time, so instead we left Sunday evening and Kim got to spend a night with her Grandma on the way down. Also at the last minute, Ian decided to go with Kim to CA. The irony was Monday morning Scott and Heidi's director announced no practice, so we could have stayed. Ah well.

This was probably the last race at the Green Valley staging area, although people have been saying this for quite a while now. Anyhow, I took a picture of it, just in case. Lots of great memories here.