Han-grrl - congrats! What an awesome job!

So how did you train or overcome "getting into" the race by jumping into it? I have darn slow twitch muscles and I absolutley DIE the first half a lap. I was gonna try a 3 hour solo ride tomorrow but I tried to pre ride it 2 nights ago. The course is a 7.5 mile loop on brand new single track. Half the course is single track (and I use that word loosely). There are 8 DIFFICULT hills on this thing and both up and down hill is unbelievable steep. There is very little flat terrain and i was walking up and down hill in the first two miles. It's loose, soft and steep and I have a hardtail. I didn't finish the lap - a first time for me. It was discouraging because I'm in better shape for this than I was for my 12 hour team race. I thought a 3 hour solo would be a great start for me since I"m not a sprinter, but I feel this course is simply over my head. There's no room to pass on the singletrack because if you go off of it you'll fall down the hillAnyone have anythoughts on how to approach a race like this?