9 to 5

I put in a full day of work on Saturday at the 9 to 5 in Idaho.  I fought for a podium spot all day, and rode quite a bit with a really nice guy from Jackson, Paul Nash.  Near the end, after two dozen stream crossings and sixteen mud wallows, my right Oury grip got wet, started to move, and eventually came off.

I rode for a while with it in my hand to get it dry.  Then, I stopped to put it back on.  I fought with it for a while, finally got it on about half way, and started riding again.  My buddy Paul was gone.  So was the podium spot.  But, that's not really all that important.  Overall I think I rode pretty well.  It was good just to be out there, listening to the conversations in my head.  There were quite a few of those.  Here are the results.

Looking at the numbers, it's amazing that four guys could ride for eight hours and all finish less than 16 minutes apart.  What did I really learn from all this?