Leesburg Bakers Dozen

(A Trip Though Hell)

The Race

I've had better races. For this one Mike and I teamed up with Loren. As the first man out Loren turned in two good laps as planned. Mike went out next and was apparently doing well, right up until he went to pass someone at the end of the lap and took a header into a suddenly discovered tree. I guess he didn't hit it directly head on, because it was his shoulder that was most damaged. He was lying on the side of the trail for several minutes after that. I knew something was up after looking at my watch, and then Larry Camp came by our campsite that was along the course and yelled out, "Scardaville hit a tree hard!" Mike came in a few minutes after that and I went out, a little sooner than anticipated, but we were making sure we were ready to ride after everyone's first lap, so I was ready.

I went out with a lot of energy, though I could tell right away I hadn't had enough recovery time after my hard training ride on Thursday. The trail was a lot of fun though, and I was passing a lot of people, as difficult as that was to do on this course. About 10 minutes into my first lap I hooked the end of a fallen tree that was sticking out into the trail and banged up my knee and scattered my wits a bit. It looked like someone else had already hit it, so I spent a few minutes doing trail work moving the tree out of the way so no one else would get hurt. The crash deflated me a bit. Then, on the big drop-off about halfway around the course, I took a line to the left and my rear wheel landed hard on the edge of a rock. That dented my rim pretty well, so that it was leaking air (I was running tubeless) for the rest of the lap, and I had to pull over every few minutes to put more air in it. Luckily I always carry two CO2 cartridges with me. I was supposed to do two laps, but stopped after that one to make some repairs.

Loren was ready when I pulled in to the campsite, and went out for his lap. While Loren was out Mike decided, after having a few Advil, that he wanted to try a lap and see just how much it was going to hurt. While Loren and Mike were out having fun I pulled the tire off the rim, bent it somewhat back into shape and tried to air it back up tubeless. I couldn't get the bead to seat well enough, and ended up putting a tube in it. The wheel wobbled a bit after the operation, but was good enough to ride on. I was ready to head back out when Mike finished up his first lap, but the ride must have made him feel better because he cruised on through with a big smile and two fingers held up indicating he wanted to do two laps. That was a good sign, since I'd been a little worried about him.

Mike came in and I took off with renewed energy. It was by far the hottest day of the year, and I couldn't drink enough water to keep myself hydrated, feeling dry-mouthed the whole time I was out. I felt pretty fast on my first lap of this double, but had to dial it back a bit on the second one. Luckily I had no accidents or mechanicals to slow me down. My second lap was about 33 minutes, so my first must have been 31 or 32 minutes. I'll have to wait for the official results to know for sure. By the time I had finished both laps, probably an hour and five minutes, I had just about finished off the 40 oz. of water in my Camelbak, the heat and low humidity were sucking that much water out of me. Loren did another single after me, then Mike did another double. It's too bad about his shoulder, because otherwise he seemed to really be on form. That last lap, his fifth, put a hurtin' on his shoulder and he had to call it quits after that. I'm glad he stuck it out that far, otherwise I'd be a lot more tired today, but it was good that he didn't try to ride any of the night laps, when the potential for crashing and further injury were too much to risk I thought.

So it was up to Loren and I to bring it on home. I had the first lap where lights were required, and turned in about a 34 minute lap. Since we were a duo team now and doing single laps, there wasn't a lot of time between laps to recover for the next one, no more than 35 to 40 minutes to drink or eat some calories, take electrolyte pills, and just relax. It stayed in the 60's right through midnight, so at least we didn't have to fight getting chilled between laps. After Loren's second night lap he said his legs were cooked and was calling it a day. This was at about 10:15 pm or so. So, what to do? I went out and did a slow lap (it's funny how your mind will run in circles when you're that tired and just trying to keep going), making it back to camp about 10:55 pm. I was totally beat by this point, and weary beyond anything I've experienced in the last 7 or 8 months.

Riding a rigid bike was really beating me up and taking more out of me than I had reckoned on. I've only had the rigid fork on for a couple weeks, and have a lot to learn it turns out. I was getting into all kinds of funky in situations I wouldn't have thought twice about with a suspension fork, doing a number of nose wheelies before I figured out how the bike was going to react coming off the back side of obstacles. The worst wasn't the big obstacles like you might think, which I could prepare for and unweight at the right time to avoid any shocks. No, worst were the really fast sections of hardpacked earth, the cowpaths. Sharp transitions there of only a few inches were very jarring at high speed, and sent shocks traveling up the frame right into my arms and shoulders, neck, back -- pretty much everywhere. It was a little better after making an adjustment to tilt the front of my saddle up so I wasn't supporting so much weight on my arms. Also, as I was getting the crap beat out of me, it was a strong incentive to learn to relax and let the bike move beneath me, and keep a looser grip on the handlebars and let my arms flex. Anything to take the sting out of riding fast on a rigid fork. My body and my reflexes have still have a lot of adjustments to make for this kind of riding. Time will tell whether my body will let me keep racing with a rigid fork. I may have to pull out the suspension fork for Big Bear -- that trail can be scary enough with a suspension fork, I hate to think what it's like rigid.

So there I was at camp, with my helmet off, feeling like I'd spent all day being pummeled by invisible fists and trying to decide what to do. If I was going to ride until the end of the race I would have to do another two laps, based on the current time (no one could leave for another lap after midnight). As Mike pointed out, at the least I had to ride up to the scoring tent and cross the sensors with the team's chip. So I put my helmet back on, turned on my light, and started the pedals turning again. I rode across the sensors... and then kept on going, mostly from momentum. This lap actually felt better than the previous one. I was just keeping the pedals turning on the flat sections, not putting any force into them at all and conserving my energy for the few passes I had to make and the tiny little hills. Back at the campsite once again it was 11:40 pm. I sat there for just a couple minutes, and it started sprinkling. Well, that settled it. I had about readied myself for a last lap, but I didn't think it would be prudent to be out there in the dark, as tired as I was, on wet rocks (the few there were) and logs. So, I crossed the sensors and turned in the team's chip at 11:45 pm. It was all over. We were in 13th place out of 43 teams as of about 11:15 pm. By stopping 15 minutes early we may have lost a place or two; I didn't have enough wits left to see how far behind us the next place team was.

Epilogue

I awake in my own bed, my right shoulder so weak and sore I can only just move it, and not with much range of motion. I'm exhausted. Not post SM100 exhausted, but I definitely feel like I spent myself the day before. I'll spend the rest of the day napping to the sound of rain, eating occasionally. My whole body aches, and I don't have as much of an appetite as I think I should. My weight is good though, so I don't worry much about not being hungry -- I probably had enough calories between laps to replenish a lot of what I was burning. The exhaustion is a good thing, because I'll be stronger after I've had a few days to recover. I'll have to hope my body adapts to the new way of riding. I'm looking forward to the 12 hours of Lodi in two weeks!