At 8am Sunday morning July 24th, the family loaded into the car and drove out to Michaux State Forest. Michaux State Forest encompasses more than 85,000 acres in the South Mountain area of Cumberland, about 40 minutes from home.
We were there for Dave's mountain bike race. There were three races on this day, a 40/20/ or 10 mile race. Dave was indecisive, he couldn't decide between the 20 mile race or the 10 mile race. Sometime around the end of the school year in June, Dave started riding with a quality mountain bike group, Mountain Bikers of Michaux. Since joining the group and riding twice a week with them his skills have improved. That along with his new bike he felt more confidence to do the longer race but his endurance was not yet ready. He decided to do the 10 mile race this time and the 20 mile race on September 11, 2011 at the Terror of Teaberry. 
The kids were kept entertained as we waited for Daddy to start his race. They did their best to help him and couldn't wait to see him go.
During the pre-race meeting Dave discovered that the first few miles of the race were going to be different then what he had practiced due to an extremely difficult "rock garden" section. The race officials were worried about too many people getting flat tires or worse - serious crashes.
The race started down a dirt road and cut through the parking lot before heading into the woods. This was to thin out the pack a little due to the narrow nature of mountain bike trails. Dave managed to make it to the front of his "wave" of riders. (Riders were released in waves of skill levels/age brackets).
After watching Daddy for about 30 seconds and loudly cheering, "GO DADDY!!!" we went to a playground and then to play in the creek.
They weren't really interested in playing on the equipment - they couldn't wait to get into the creek!
We spent over an hour in the creek - walking up and down, looking at crayfish, racing sticks down the current, and even falling down quite a bit!
Luke fell in completely getting soaked (so did Cora) I let Luke take off his shirt much to the dismay of Cora who complained that she wanted to take off her shirt too!!
Arriving back at the race (they were in the woods for an hour and thirty minutes) we were carrying supplies back to Daddy. We went to the finish and sat down to watch him come out of the woods. When we got there, I asked a nearby spectator how many people have come out of the wood so far? She replied, "only the top 10 people." Looking at the time I knew that Dave would be coming through soon, so we waited. . . and waited. . .and waited. I started to get worried that maybe he got hurt or maybe he had a flat tire - I knew how disappointed he would be. About 20 minutes later, I heard someone yell my name. I turned around to see Dave walking towards us, he had finished 9th overall!!! We had missed watching him finish by 5 minutes!! But my disappointment quickly went away as I saw how happy he was with his race and time. He was angry that he came in 2nd in his age group (35-44) because the guy who beat him passed him with only two miles left to go, but overall he was content with himself - just a little sore!
We were happy to go out and support Dave/Daddy in this race. He has done 3 other races since I have know him but this is the first one that we could all come to. Before the race we ordered a nice race shirt - his favorite beer! Just a little reminder not to take any of this too seriously. What a fun day for the family - CONGRATULATIONS on a great ride honey!!!
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