Long live the king :-P

Soooo Paul's Dirty Enduro.... stayed in Peterborough with the family to cut down on travel time, err I mean to visit.
Was cold the morning of when I got up at a less than favorable 5am. Picked up my friend Dave who decided to take a crack at the 100km route for the first time. Got to the forest center good and early which was probably a bit of a waste cause we just ended up sitting in the car in the parking lot to stay warm.
Race started at 8am as the sun was just starting to rise. Headed out at a pretty hard tempo. Despite this a group of 10 leaders stayed together for the 1st hour and a bit. I broke off the front about 1/4 of the way through. Not gonna lie, I put on the MP3 player, settled into what I thought was a pretty high tempo and figured that was that.
Well at about the 40km mark I was surprised to notice another rider only 15 seconds or so back. I got a little bit larger of a gap before the 1/2 way point and had a short stop for new bottles which helped extend my lead even more. I settled back into my high tempo and figured I was checkin' out. That was not the case! Was caught again at about the 60km mark by one rider and we rode together. I could tell he was stronger because I would get a little gap in the twisties and he would catch up very quickly on a hill or open section. Got another gap at the 70km mark when he got a puncture. After another 30 min on my own he caught back up, Stan's had sealed the small puncture. He rode right by me this time and I had nothing in my legs to do anything about it. I was at about the 90+ km mark when I got to a part on a forest access road where I knew there should be a turn but there were no arrows. I looked down the trail and just caught a glimpse of a pink ribbon which we'd been following.
Well I cruised in the last <10km where I found out that he hadn't made the turn and would finish 5min or so after me.
There you have it. I wasn't the fastest rider there that day but I did cross the line first lol. Gonna have to train next time if I want to go for #6.