Many of you know me, ridden with me so you guys would be best to offer advise to be better preparred for this being its my first race.

I didn't enter to be competative, its a "goal" to do it and finish in a decent time frame, plus for the pure fun of riding with all of you.

I've been riding all I can, been improving endurnace greatly. Been doing paved riding on my marlin and riding plenty of hills to do the best I can to train. Even hit another goal yesturday, there's a long nasty hill on Clinton bike path on north end of town, never could get past just over half way and getting that far would wipe me out for ride home. Well not only did I beat the hill but i continued riding around town and back over the river home afterwards and felt great. Though at the top I had to take a good minute or 2 to catch my breath.

But now its the matter of my last avg speed for trails was 6.5mph at SCP, 5.9 when I rode in st. Louis a month ago on trails similar in hills to Sbp.

Is there any advise/pointers you guys can offer to help me train more effectively.

Anything I shouldn't worry about carrying on my bike during the race to remove weight (i have a good sized underseat pouch with tube, multitool, patches etc and frame pump on my bike normally)

Oh and I do carry a backpack with my lock, extra water and such to simulate carrying about double what my hydropack weighs when full.

Sent from my HTC Sensation Z710e using Tapatalk 2