It’s done. I have completed my first 24 hours race of 2006 and I have a lot to write about. First I would like to thank my “support crew” for all the work. I know that it’s cheesy to start things like this. I feel like the Hollywood stars when they go to the stage to receive their awards with the difference that they get a chance to thank people only if they won, which in my case it was not the case. Anyway, in case that you don't know, it takes a lot to compete on a 24 Hour Mountain Bike Race. Very few riders (and unlucky to say the least) compete on a race like this unsupported, because it’s way more that just staying awake and pedaling for 24 hours.. Thankfully I had a great crew to help me with the various task associated.
Here are the positions within my crew:
Logistics coordinator to help me plan what things to bring, things to buy, how to train. Riding partner to keep me motivated. We even squeezed in a last minute ride to recognize the race course for this event and my riding partner even took one for the team by crashing hard near the end of the race and obtaining some road rash on her knee.
Nutritionist provided the food needed to propel me to the next lap and keep track of how much I had eaten. Whether was soup, cereal, snickers bar, fruit, sandwiches or power gels, without the support of my nutritionist I couldn't have done it.
Hydration Specialist who refilled my camelback with ice cold Accelerade (sports drink) and handed me a bottle of iced water.
After completing the first half of the race, some of my muscles and joints started to malfunction. The knees hurt, my lower back was really stiff and my calf muscles saturatedraded with lactic acid, thankfully my massage therapist worked her magic to get me off to the next lap.
In a 24 hour race, keeping track of how you fare against your competition is really important, luckily I had a great score and data keeper that would keep me informed about how far behind the next rider I was and how close was the rider behind me. I also had a great coach that used all the info from the score keeper to determine what was the proper racing strategy. My bicycle also needed maintenance during 24 hours of rolling over sharp rocks, steep downhills and dusty trails, but my mechanic made sure that my Trek Fuel was ready to roll after every break. Another member of my crew that was critical in the outcome of this race was my motivator. After every stop the thoughquittingiting crossed my mind however my motivator remind me how hard I had prepared for this race and how close I was of completing it.
After 24 hours of riding, the last thing you want to do is drive a car or stay awake for that matter. That's where my crew driver comes in to make sure that "all" of us make it home safely. Now you are probably wondering who are all these people in my crew, in reality my crew consisted of one person...Norma, the love of my live and my greatest supporter, who went on as little as a couple hours of sleep to be the best pit crew I've ever had. Thanks Amor!
The Race Course
The 10 mile course at the Stampede was heavy on the technical side for a 24 hour race. Three white knudownhillshills and a lung busting, mile long hill made up for some interesting laps which most riders completed in an average of 1 hour and 10 minutes.
The competition
This event turned out to be a low key event. In the 24 Hour solo category there were 17 participants and the grand total for all categories didn't exceed 80, however there was quite an atmosphere of racing and partying at the Rodeo Grounds which served as the transition area for the event.
The Race
Like all 24 hour races, the start was LeMans style (run to your bike). I knew I could out run most of the competition but I knew I had 24 hours ahead of me, so I positioned myself near the front of the start line and at the sound of the gun I we took off. I figured some of the runners ahead of my were in teams so I didn't need to compete against them because our race objectives were very different. We had to run about a quarter of a mile around the Rodeo facilities then go through the rodeo arena while passing by the timing station set right in the middle of the arena and out under the judging stand to pick up our bikes and head into the woods of the Tonto National Park. By the time I got on my bike I was in the top ten which was the position that I wanted to be. We slowly starting to make our way up to the first moderate climb and down the most dreadful rocky and steep downhill I've had to race. I allowed some distance between me and the rider ahead so I could have some kind of reaction room in case things went wrong down this hill. It's probably worth to mention that the official name for this downhill section was The Rocky B!tch. And it sure paid honor to its name. There was a short and steep climb halfway down the hill just to give the breaks enough time to cool before another half mile of rattling down hill action. The middle section of the trail was open double track trail with a couple steep climbs and a couple fast downhills. Unfortunately, everything that goes down must go up, or at least that's the way it worked in this race, but once we reached the second to last Support Station, there was no where else to go but up. The climb to the Top of the World as they called it was a 1.2 mile long climb. The grade of the climb plus the fact that it was very rocky and narrow made more than one person to opt for walking the whole way up. I chose to ride it and even though I didn't use my small ring on the first few times that I climbed it, I sure used my granny gear (smallest or slowest gear combination) for all the laps past number 4. At the end of the climb, The Top of the World the view was breathtaking, or could have been the effort needed to make it there. In any case it was not time to enjoy the view as the trail quickly turned downwards and we gave our brakes another workout. After a couple more rocky climbs and a long fast descend we made it to a paved road. It sure felt good to ride on a smooth surface after all the bumps in the trail and on after a short downhill we had a flat section to shift to the big ring and speed up to 25-30 miles per hour. Of course I wanted to save as much energy so I found a very aero position that allowed me to crank up to those speeds without the wind resistance. We passed near a lake and made a right turn to head back to the rodeo grounds. A final paved easy uphill that later would turn into a Category 1 climb would complete the lap. I worked my way into the arena and dismounted my bike to cross the timing station and looked at the race clock with surprise at noticing that I had completed the first lap in 53 minutes and some change including the run to the bikes. Norma was waiting for me at the exit of the arena and informed me that I was just the third rider to finish. At that point I realized I had to pace myself, otherwise I would be done before midnight.
I started the second lap a little more relaxed, however that quickly changed when I felt my front tire sliding around shortly after getting down the Rocky B!tch. Sure enough I had a flat tire and event though I was running tubeless tires I knew there was not enough pressure to finish like that. I found the shelter of a tree shade to shoot some CO2 onto my tire and hope it would maintain pressure. I did have a spare tube but I really didn't want to change the wheel set up to put a tube in there. Thankfully the slime inside the tire sealed the hole enough to make it back to the campsite. There I ate some while Norma refilled my camelback then I pump some more air onto the front tire and headed out for the third lap. On the third lap I caught up with Ian Leitch who ended up winning the race, however at the time he was riding at a pace short a little slower than me, so I decided to stick with him for the rest of the lap and we got to talk for a long time. He knew we were just minutes behind Chuck Wheeler who was the leader of the 24 hour solo at the moment. The name sounded familiar and the quickly I remember that I had seen his name as the winner of the previous year's edition of this very same race.
As it turned out Ian wBritishitish rider from London who had been in a bicycle trek across the American continent. He said he started riding down in Argentina earlier this year and made it through Panama. Then he went back to England and brought his girlfriend back to Panama. From there he rode through Central America (Including Costa Rica where he spent some time in Jaco) then made it to Arizona. He was on his way to Alaska and this race was just a way to take a break.
The rest of the race went on uneventful, Chuck rode ahead of us and I just made sure to keep Ian within striking distance, however when night fell things changed. Personally I had problems with my lights. I had two sets of lights that I though were fully charged so I rode two laps with the first set then when I mounted the second set the battery lasted only 10 minutes which would've left me in the dark in the middle of the trail. Thankfully, the day before I have bought a pair of clear glasses a Target that have LED lights mounted on the sides (Mission Impossible style) and I wore those on that lap, so when my lights failed I switched to my new gadget and even though the created a major glare, I was able to finish that lap. Very slow but I finished. By the time I got to the campsite it was midnight and the other batteries were not fully charged so I took a close to a 2 hour nap.
Waking up at 2 am to ride my bike was hard, in fact I snoozed my alarm a couple times but eventually made it up and started riding. It was getting a little cold at that time so I wore a couple extra layers. Two more laps went by really quick and I was able to trim my lap times to just over an hour thanks to the rest break. On one of those laps I completed the whole 10 mile loop without seeing one single rider on the trail. I did run into a coyote who seemed a little curious about my lights and stared at my for a few seconds before he took of running through a house's yard (yeah, he was partying out in town). By the time I started the next lap it was close to 5 am and the sun was starting to come up. I timed my climb to The Top of the World just in time to see the sun break over the plateau rim which was a really cool sight. Once I made it back to the transition are I discovered that Ian had attacked Chuck hard during the night and they kept exchange the lead until Chuck took a short break while Ian kept going. I found myself in third place but too far behind Chuck to even try to contest the second place, so Norma and I simple focused on the riders behind me with the goal of staying onpodiumdioum. And that's the way it went. I caught up to Ian again on my 14th lap and gave him an update, however I forgot if Chuck was one lap behind him or two which really freaked him out, so he sped up and finished his 18th lap just to find out that Chuck was two laps behind him.
It always gets a little technical towards the end of a 24 hour race. After finishing my lap 1statustused with Norma to find out that Ian and Chuck were unreachable however there were two riders just one lap behind me so I had to keep going to secure my spot. At the end of the next lap I went to check the results again. It was 11 am and we only had an hour of racing left. The scores hadn't been updated since 9:30 am so they showed two riders still on my tail. Another rider who had already given up for the day came to check the results and his friend asked him how was he doing. I couldn't hide the grin on my face when I saw him pointing to the name of the rider trailing me, which meant that he was no longer a threat to my position. It was even better to hear him say that his best friend, the other rider with chances of passing me was two behindbehin and by that time it was impossible he would finish two laps in less than an hour, so I called it a day and went to find Norma who was waiting patiently for me on the side of the trail to give her the news.
Post Race
After getting cleaned up and eating something, it was time to start picking up camp. Norma had an injured knee from her fall two days before awhinniedinned and moaned for every step I took, so it was a slow process to get all the stuff loaded onto my car. We finished at 1:30 PM and decided to head to the arena for the awards ceremony schedule for 2PM, however as we got closer we noticed that there were barely a few people left. I was really confused, "They did the awards without us" I though! We asked a volunteer that was loading stuff on a truck and he said the awards had been moved to a nearby bar and it was supposed to start at 1:30. Norma drove us there but it was too late, they were down to handing the last award for the team racers. I still got my prize but no podium glory or pictures. Oh well next time.
What was the prize you wondered? Well, as I tell people, we don't race for the prize but for the challenge. A nice price from time to time it's nice however this timefabulousoulos prize consisted of a boot shaped pint glass. This was the same award for Ian who completed 20 laps and defending champion Chuck who completed 18 turns, as many as he did during his winning effort in 2005.
Since we missed the most part of the awards, we were in and out and a few minutes which was good for us because we were starving. After getting some Mexican food and some coffee we... I mean Norma drove us home where I ate again and slept tight for the next 10 hours.
On Monday, I woke up a little tired but ready to go back to real life.
What's Next
I don't have much as far a racing goes in the coming months. It's way too hot here to race and the races in nearby states are too far, so I'll take a quick break then start training with Chequamegon in mind. Which reminds me, I just receive communication from the Chequamegon organizers that my request to have a preferred start spot was denied. Chequamegon is attended by over 2000 and not everyone is there with the same goal. Some come to finish it, some to best previous year's results while others are there to win it. My goal this year is simple, finish within the top 100, however by getting my preferred start denied it means I'll have to start from the back and work my way to the competitive group then from there fight for a spot within the Top 100 elite riders inMidwestdwest.
For now I'll leave you with a link to a video filmed during the 24 Hour Stampede. Look for me on a white sleeveless jersey...
Music Video link:
http://planetpayson.com/sports/index.html
Here is the link to the race results (remember I raced on the 24 hr Solo)
http://www.tucsonracing.com/PSMres06.htm
The numbers
Here are all my numbers for this race as provided by my bike computer and my heart rate monitor.
Distance Ridden 145.59 miles/234.3 kilometers
Avg speed 9.1 MPH/14.65KPH
Max speed 29.9MPH/48.12KPH
Riding time 17 hours 49 min. (This is the time that my bike wheels were actually turning)
Temperature High 96 Low 70
Time slept 2 hours 12:30 – 2:00 and 6:30-7:00 am
Climbing 2000 ft per lap, 30000 in total equivalent to 9144 meters
Calories 1000 per lap, 15000 in total. About what a regular person would burn in 8 days
Laps 15
HR above 155= 5:55:05
HR under 100= 2:22:06
HR on target= 10:15:40
Avg HR= 137 heart beats per minute
Lap #/Time/ Average Heart Rate
Lap 1= 53:00.3/161
Lap 2= 1:10:05/162
Lap 3= 1:10:06 /159
Lap 4= 1:11:06 /159
Lap 5= 1:13:51 /153
Lap 6= 1:37:07 /155
Lap 7= 1:01:56 /156
Lap 8= 1:38:56 /133
Lap 9= 1:42:30 /114
Lap 10= 1:09:44/ 143
Lap 11= 1:18:06 /126
Lap 12= 2:08:35/ 108 includes 30 min of sleeping
Lap 13= 1:07:53 /140
Lap 14= 1:21:25 /128
Lap 15= 1:30:27 /123
