Thursday Task 5 (final day)

Been battling a bug the past few days and last night it clearly won the battle.  Two days in a row of 100 kilometer racing (did I say RACING!?) isn't exactly what I'd define as taking it easy trying to battle a bug.  Seems I can't manage to just come down with a simple cold or flu....  Over the past 7 or 8 years I've managed to get whacked with walking pneumonia, or maybe I should call it "flying pneumonia?"  It's always at a comp seems like, and I can still function but it really taxes the body.  I'm told that once you get pneumonia, it's with you for the rest of your life, and can come back to visit quite easily....

So yesterday I really had to focus and had my array of over the counter medications to try and help the symptoms, and even had a bottle of aloe jucie in my flight deck that I could sip on now and then.  As long as I had a cough drop going I was ok, but clearly wouldn't have flown if I hadn't had some severe incentive.

Day 5 was the most difficult day of the week, and conditions early on in the race were very desparate with many pilots bombing out very early.  We crossed the Columbia much lower than I would have liked and ended up groveling low in the hills below the rim in very light lift that was sometimes sustaining, and other times not.  Someone out front finally caught a thermal which was just a bit stronger and my group all raced to join in.  We got just high enough to head back towards the top of the rim where we found another thermal which again gave us just enough altitute to push in a bit deeper towards the power lines.  By this time are group had shrunk to just 5 gliders and we were now just 3 hundred feet or so above the power lines, and we couldn't find anything but just gradually sinking air. 3 of our group lost it and were landing.... I decided to just take the little altitude I had and just headed down wind across the nearest big dirt field.  I blundered right into the first good thermal of the day and Josh joined me and we had a nice climb out and were one our way....

This was exactly how I wanted the day NOT to go.  I had a good cushion of points and I didn't want to hang back or take it easy on the last race, but I clearly didn't want to be in such a desperate position in risk of dirting and losing everything I had worked so hard through the week to gain!!  It was quite stressfull for quite awhile, so when I finally banked it over into a nice climb it was SUCH a relief.  After the initial climb it was quite fast and easy as is ususally the case here - once you get established in the flats it's full on racing...  As usual, Josh easily outclimbed me and pushed out ahead and was second into goal behind Dean Stratton who had gotten away a bit earlier than everyone else.  I did well coming in tied for third I think it was, but easily holding on to my 2nd place overall position, and first for the Americans.  Conditions at goal were interesting with large dust devils kicking off pretty close to where we were landing...

The awards party was short and sweet with a great catered BBQ to load up on.  My metabolism is off in the stratosphere somewhere and I can barely keep up... Staying hydrated is also a huge challenge but I'm doing ok on that front as well.

Time now to regroup, take a deep breath and see If I can battle this upper respiratory nastiness.... gotta get ready for week 2!