A good time had by all

Had a great couple of days. Luther and Jayne came down last night from Muncie to stay here before today’s race. The three of us went out and rode an easy lap last night and after it had rained Thursday night, the course was a complete muddy mess. It was really bad. Only 2 of the 4 hills were ride-able and all of the corners had to be taken very slowly so to not washout. I was not looking forward to today.
We went and ate and had couple beers at The Crazy Horse, sat around there for a while and talked and had a generally good time (it’s ALWAYS a good time w/ Luther). We got to bad around 11-11:30, again, not looking forward to today.
We got to the race site around 10:30, and thankfully, the course had dried out significantly. It was wet still, but not sloppy at all, just tacky and perfect, really. One of the hills was non ride-able, for most people, but otherwise it was great. It was cool, and sunny, a perfect MTB race day. I rode great, passing a lot of people and beating all of my key rival people. I felt good the whole time and never really felt worked. Plus having set up the course and ridden several laps on it, I knew the course really well, and there’s no substitute for knowing a course.
Jake Prater (ex-Muncie fast guy, long time friend and brother of Josh, Dan and Luther) showed up and raced to. I haven’t seen Jake since my wedding, last July. It was good to see him, and he rode good too. Jake’s kind of the border between a pro and expert. He could be fast enough to be pro if he had the resources (money) to train and not worry about working; so I was pumped to be closing the gap on him every lap. He ended up beating me (10th for him, 14th for me), but I had a great race and can’t complain at all.
Thanks to G. Parry for coming out and supporting. It was great to have a race a few mile form my door and have several locals out cheering. Knowing a lot of people at races is awesome.
After racing we went to Laughing Planet for burritos and coffee. We sat outside, ate and talked for probably more than an hour. It was awesome to have the whole old clan together (-Josh, but +Lindsay and Jayne) for a good ol hanging out session.
When the "northerners" left, Lindsay and I walked over to a free concert in the park down the street form our house and checked out the bands for awhile. It was a fun-filled, but long day w/ over two hours or MTB racing in the middle. Yeah, I’m tired now.

===========================Side Note============================

The Movie "Cruel Intentions" is on and that movie made popular the song "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve. The opening line of that song goes down in my book as one of the greats:
"It's a bittersweet symphony this life. You try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die."
-and ain't it so?