of races to do; once. Looking at the race description, 8.4 mile course, ~500ft of elevation gain, 100%
doubletrack, it wasn’t something that really got me overly excited. And for camping, no fires! Honestly, I
wrote it off and had no intentions on signing up.
After being talked into it by Tom based on the close vicinity, we were signed up, 4 person coed, Tom,
Whitney, Nick and myself.
Race Preparation:
Have put up some big miles lately, over 100 mile weeks the last few weeks leading up to race day. The
Indian creek debacle was still fresh so I had wanted to really do well, but, my bike was still in the shop.
Was going to have to turn to horse #2 for this race, but no worries, she is lightning fast. Thursday I had
woke up not feeling great, legs were dead from two days prior when I dropped a quick city park run.
Decided a quick run around green mountain would loosen them up. Wrong. Its been some time since I
last ran GM so I had forgotten the general distances of the trails, 8 miles later and 2500ft of climbing I
was limping back to my car. Drove straight to Mcdonalds to get a protein fix from their vanilla Mcshake.
I hear that’s what all the Pros are drinking after their races these days. Delicious! Turns out, Sankoff
totally forgot to tell me about this in his nutrition plan recommendations.
Race day:
This is a 6pm race start, 6p-6p. Another weird one. These type of races really challenge you on how to
plan your sleep before and during a race. Do I wake up early and try to get in a nap before the race while
im all amped up or do you sleep until noon and take your chances you can actually sleep until noon.
I take things one step further/dumber...lets wake up early and go re-ride indian creek since it is right on
the way. Great idea!.....no, really bad idea!!! 3 hours later I am loading up the car at Indian creek, legs
felt ok but could tell they definitely just climbed 2500+ft in 18 miles. Off to Erock to set up camp.
Race start:
Windy. Really windy. Blowing 15mph with a few gusts to 20. The tent is barely staying put. Since it is less
than 24hrs after my DG weight loss challenge weigh in I get blown over, twice. Tom does lap 1 with the
Le mans start. He gets out early and finishes 4th
Race 7pm-630pm:
We each do 1 lap at ~30 mins per lap. Since it is only 4 of us we decide to pull double laps through the
night to give everyone enough time to change clothes, eat, maybe sleep for an hour before having to go
back out. It worked well that way. Since the course was not technical and had no big climbs it was easy
to pull doubles, could have even pulled triples. We munch on some brats, asparagus, squash, trail mix,
in 28 mins. We are off to a great start!
etc all evening and night. Nutrition is going well. Hydration is going poorly. Being so cold we pretty much
avoid liquids. Whitney was smart and brought hot chocolate but I was too cold and tired to make it. 1
hour laps and your back at the campsite. Wind dies down at night.
The course is fast. Being sandy doubletrack though you really have to watch the corners. One guy had
some gnarly road rash. The first 4 miles were the climbing of the course, 2 climbs, about a mile each, but
very low grade. I was big ring’ing it the whole way. The back stretch was 4 miles, straight. You just made
your last turn and dumped your gears and let it rip! It was quick, averaging over 22+mph (this is fast on a
mtn bike, on flat terrain). You could just drop the hammer, I wish I had aero bars on my bike.
The temps continued to plummet. The lowest temps we saw were 32 degrees. I tried to stay warm
in the tent, in sleeping bag while wearing two pairs of pants, gloves, winter hat, down jacket, arm
warmers and long sleeve shirt. I was still shivering. No fire = no racing for me ever again. We somehow
survived the night. There was even a Muscle Milk sponsor truck and cooler filled with bottles of MM and
electrolyte drink on the course. I stop to pick up some free bottles each lap and some E drink. Why not,
we aren’t winning anything right? Whitney and Nick pulled the coldest 4-6am laps. Frost everywhere.
Finally, Daybreak!
The sun comes out but not for long. Clouds come out and make the temps seem like they are
plummeting again. Its 11am and I still have my down jacket on. The sun finally stays out around Noon,
but the winds pick up again. This time a little less than the day before. Blowing about 10-15mph, steady.
6 hrs to go. We eat some breakfast burritos, snack of random stuff, sandwiches, etc. Keep trying to
hydrate.
We finally get around to checking the leaderboard. 2nd
dogged our night laps. We were not at the start/finish waiting to go out one the other person came in.
We stayed in our tents trying to stay warm as long as possible before getting out to put on all our gear.
We keep riding. We will recheck in a few hours to see where we stand.
3pm rolls around. We drop to 3rd
ourselves and pick up second or just keep coasting and stay put in 3rd
since 1st
is out of reach.
We finish with a podium spot at 3rd
Strava top 10s. Cold race, but a good race.
place!? How is that even possible? We really
place, 1 lap behind second. OK so what do we do? Do we try to kill
. We decide to keep our game plan
with 37 laps. 72 miles ridden for each of us. We each pick up a few
Final impressions:
Glad to have that race done. The course was actually tougher than I had expected because you could
red-line yourself the entire lap. You didn’t need to back off on the throttle anywhere. It would be the
perfect beginner 24hr race for someone looking to get into the ridiculousness that is the sport. The
no fire thing is a scam. I will never race a no fire event unless temps are expected to stay above 60
degrees. It just wasn’t fun at 3am when I almost chipped my tooth because my teeth were chattering
so rigorously, inside my sleeping bag wearing 15lbs of clothing. The 3rd
podium as a team. If we had been really serious we likely could have won it.
Up next, 24 hours of Enchanted Forest, Gallip NM. June 15-16th
Championships.
place finish was cool, our first
. Also part of the 24hr National
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