Vision Quest -- Aaaah, what do doctors know?

The 2007 Vision (suffer) Quest is 56 miles and 11,000 feet of elevation gain. Sounds like a whole lot of fun, ya???? My good friend and Sho-Air teammate John (Fuzzy) Mylne and his friends came down from Arcata and stayed at my place since I live so close to the start . With a 5:30 start Fuzzy wanted all the sleep he could get. After knocking myself out a few days prior to the race, I was not sure if I was going to race or not. I went to the emergency room and got a cat scan of my brian. The doctor at the hospital informed me that I had suffered a major concusion and should probably not race. Aaah, what's he know?... he's only a doctor. So I decided to race anyway. After all, I had trained way too hard not to. 5:30 came awfully early. Still dark at the start, Cameron, Manny, and some of the other Team Sho-Air guys took off as if it were just some short XC race. To go or not to go??? Manny and Fuzzy said the race really started at the bottom of Maple Springs so I decided to stay at my regular pace and not push it too soon. Keeping a good pace, I was with my Sho-Air teammate Eric Parks and my friend Deejay Birtch at the bottom of Maple Springs. We started pushing pretty hard and I started to feel a little light headed. Could this be what the doctor warned me about? But I just kept pushing hard. Afterall Eric and Dj were on singlespeeds so I felt like I should be able to keep up. About 3/4 of the way up they dropped me. "What's the deal," I kept saying to myself. "I know I'm in better shape than this!" Finally I reached the top of Saddleback Peak and started to get very light headed and very nauseous. "Oh crap I'm going to puke!" After puking for about 2 minutes, I started down Holy Jim trail. and I saw Eric at the 2nd aid station. I had made it there in 3 hours and 54 minutes which was amazingly right on my schedule. Keep going!!!! I tried to drink as many fluids as possible because I new I had a 1 hour hike a bike ahead of me. Now the fun really started. By fun I mean cramping. At about half way up West Horse Thief, I saw my old teammate and friend Alexis Solisky. He said that it was great motivation for him to see me since he was not an endurance rider. "Gee thanks," I told him. So after suffering through the cramps, I made it down the Trabuco trail and finished the race in 21st place in 6hrs40min18sec. Next time I think I'll listen to the doctor.