Timari Pruis Takes Gold Again!

TOP OF THE PODIUM, TWO WEEKS IN A ROW!

I know you all probably feel like you JUST heard from me, and it’s because you have! I was nutty enough to decide to race, AGAIN, this past weekend (still riding high from my victory last weekend in Park City). The original plan was to do the 24 Hours of Willamette Pass, but after working my tail off in Park City, I thought that might be a bit much…….fortunately for me, there was also the 12 Hours of Willamette Pass going on at the same time! The real thanks for getting me to race should go to my mom-in-law, since she is the one that convinced me to come up to Oregon and race (her real motivation was just so I could come up and visit, which is fine by me, b/c I was missing seeing that whole side of my husbands family!). Fortunately, in my moms absence, my mother-in-law (Pam) said she would give it a go at pit crewing for me, along with the help of my father-in-law (Frank).
On Friday afternoon, Pam and I loaded everything up, and drove to Willamette Pass Resort, only to find out that our hotel room that was supposedly 3 miles from the race, was really about 30 miles from the race. Oh well, it still beat camping out (especially when we woke up Saturday morning to dew all over everything! It could have been a cold, cold night!). Saturday morning came quickly, and we headed up to the race to set up. Pam was a little nervous, I think, b/c this would be her first experience as a pit person, but when we found out there wasn’t a ton of competition, I think she eased up a bit (I told her the whole time NOT to worry about it).
Things finally got under way, at around 8am, note I say, around 8am. This was, by far, the most kick back start I have ever experienced. They showed us around to the start, the finish, the part of the course that had 2 way traffic, and then where we were laying down our bikes for the LeMans start. At the countdown of 5, we were off and kind of running (I have to admit, the casualness of it all helped calm all pre-race nerves). I had no idea what to expect of the course since 1) I had not pre-ridden it, 2)there wasn’t really a course description on the website, and 3)the map of the course on the website was pretty vague. I quickly figured out that there was a lot of climbing (it went up for about 6 miles), and then down (for about 8 miles—ALL singeltrack!!!). By the time I finished lap 1, I felt like it had taken forever………but the reality was that it HAD taken forever, each lap was taking around 1 hour and 50 minutes (which gave Pam and Frank plenty of time to put up the EZ Up)! By far the longest laps I have had to do in any 12 or 24 hour race (how ironic that last weeks race involved the shortest laps I have ever had to do in an endurance race!). This was not going to be one of those high lap count events.
Unlike last weeks race, this one was pretty uneventful (which makes it hard to write a good race report). However, there are some definite highlights from this race:
I had recovered wayyyyyy better than expected from Park City, and I was climbing like a goat! (Yes, a goat!)
I FINALLY got to de-flower my brand spanking new white Titus Racer-X, which worked perfectly thanks to Klint (aka. Special K) at Big Daddy’s Bicycles, who stayed really late finishing up my bike for me ----- the bike is FILTHY DIRTY now!
My mother-in-law did a great job at her first time pitting for me (she even learned how to lube the chain, and learned not to lay the bike on the drive train side).
My mother-in-law had a blast “collecting” all the freebies the race had to offer (Red Bull, electrolytes, fruit bars, and Hammer Nutrition products).
Everyone won something in the raffle
I WON, I WON, I WON!!!!!!!!!! (2 wins in 2 weeks, how awesome is that?!?!)
So, I ended up finishing the race with 5 laps under my belt (I could have easily done 6, but since there was no need to push it, I honestly didn’t b/c I really wanted to fully recover from both this race, and Park City). It was definitely a good day of climbing for me, and between the Death Ride, Park City Perfect 10, and this race I am super confident going into the 24 Hours of Adrenalin Solo World Championships in a month. I am ready to ROCK!

As always, thanks to all the sponsors who make it all possible! I could not do it without all of you!