Registered for Ring of Fire, 12 hour

I just registered for the Ring of Fire 12-hour race (no way I'd do the 24-hour race this year!). It will be my first 'race' as opposed to a 'ride', and the idea is to learn about it before the riding season is over and see if I want to jump in with both feet next year. So my goal is to finish - anything besides last place would be a bonus. :)

Completing RAPSody in just over 12 hours is what gives me the confidence to try this race. It will be considerably more difficult though. RAPSody was 7800 feet of climbing over 168 miles (or possibly 9600 feet, if you believe the RAPSody website). The 12-hour Ring of Fire is over 9,500 feet of climbing in the first 112 miles, and another 2,000 feet every 25 miles after that. So I'm hoping I will get to about double the amount of climbing as with RAPSody. Yikes, after typing that out it is finally starting to sink in... :-O