Some days there is just nothing you can do

I'm not a big fan of endurance racing, but since West Branch was part of the NEO Powerseries I didn't really have much choice. The last few weeks I had been training really hard for this event, working on my endurance mostly. With several grueling rides under my belt I figured I was at least ready to survive this thing.
However, I got pretty sick last week and wasn't able to ride for 5 days. Friday night I had a fever but was feeling a little better by Saturday evening. I was already preregistered and the wife was racing also so I figured why not give it a try. At the very least I should have fresh legs right?
The first lap was 14 miles and aside from some gastric disturbances I was able to ride with Lorson. After that first lap though things really fell apart for me, I just felt like all the energy was drained from my body. As I came around to the aid station I just pulled off the course and told them I was done. I then crawled my way down cable line road back to the van at a snails pace. Oh well, I wasn't going to win anyways and hopefully I am still in the fight for the series. Cochran won with relative ease and has a pretty sound lead over Lorson and me. He is not totally out of reach yet, and there are two races left so it's still game on for the three of us at this point.

Pendleberry got 2nd and actually wasn't bleeding too badly. The only thing he needs to decide now is whether he wants to make a living racing on the road or mtb.