That's a little taste of the trails that helped get me ready for the Bone Bender six hour race.
*Race Report*
Bone Bender six hour race in Paradise Missouri was Sunday. A six hour race essentially is seeing how many laps you can START within six hours. You have to finish the last one for it to count but as long as you start it by 5:59 you can do one more. Nick and my dad accompanied me down on Saturday night. Nick and I both rode singlespeed solo six hour class. About 15 Rassy guys and a gal were down there as well as Dennis, Wanda, and Matt. The trails were in pretty darn good shape; you could tell that they had done a lot of work in the last few days. The trails are pretty rough, maybe even more than Sugar, and really rocky in a couple of sections. Laps ended up being around 11.2 miles. As always thanks a lot to Q7 for the support and awesome clothes, and thanks to Dad for filling bottles and generally making life easier.
The race started with a Le Mans start. You run to your bike which you placed on the road somewhere. This video is with race director Chris Locke and shows the start of the race: http://www.youtube.com/usacyclingorg#p/a/u/0/SqzE5Ojj-oY.
I got into the singletrack in a long line right behind Nick. He made a few passes and I would follow. I think he had to get into the endurance mindset and realized that he would benefit more from just riding smooth and that the passes would happen with time. We rode at a good pace and made passes on the connecting asphalt sections and field sections. The trails were more technical than I was expecting, and in the first rock section Nick heard a guy behind us telling me that a tube had fallen out of my saddlebag and was wrapping up in my disc rotor. I got the bike stopped just in time to pull the shredded tube out before it locked up the wheel. Crisis averted, but I lost about 10 spots screwing around with it. I just kept riding though knowing that it was a long race ahead of me and that things would work themselves back out. I made some more passes and was right behind Nick heading out of the trails and through the start/finish line for the first time. We rode into the trails and at the first asphalt section I tried to prompt Nick to pick up the pace with me and he grabbed my wheel for a bit, but slowly fell back off. I felt pretty good going into the second lap and continued to weed my way through people. There were a lot of riders, not sure the total yet, but I would guess 250 maybe. I just kept trying to ride smoothly and stay on top of my nutrition. I drank Hammer Perpetuem during the second lap, but just water the rest of the time. At lap three the course was beginning to clear out some, and I decided I wanted to push the pace a bit. I was moving really well and then caught up to the back of the pack once more. I ended up still having a good lap though, and I knew that going into the fourth lap I would have a better understanding of what I would need to do for the rest of the race. Lap four was the first lap without the three hour class and the trails opened WAY up. You could really develop a better pace and ride more consistently even if fatigue was setting in. Went end over end once on lap four, but nothing too bad. I wanted to eat some real food, but my stomach was having no part of anything solid, and Gu's were not texturally something I was digging so I relied on Gu Chomps to help keep my energized. Going into lap five Dad told me that he thought that either I was far ahead of everyone or far behind one guy. It was hard sometimes to determine who was solo vs duo and people got really spread out. Rode lap five and was starting to feel it, but I had planned to ride for six-plus hours so I knew I had one more lap to do. At the beginning of the sixth lap the official asked me if "(you) got one more lap left in you?" I responded, "Did everyone else quit?" Once he shook his head I simply said, "Well I had better have one left because I have to do it." The sixth lap was really brutal. My arms and legs were both really starting to fatigue. I was definitely on danger control in the rocks and root sections. I didn't want to risk a stupid flat tire or wreck on the last lap. I rolled in from my sixth lap at 6:26. Good enough for FIRST PLACE in the singlespeed class. Whoop Whoop.
Race stats: 67.18 miles, 6 hours 26 minutes, 2304 feet of elevation, 6 laps, 3 Gu's, 2 packages of Gu Chomps, 1 package of Clif Bloks, 24 oz of Perpetuem, 200 oz water, 2 Endurolyte pills. Post-race: Burger King smokey chedder burger and onion rings, then a DQ brownie batter blizzard.
First place... I was so happy. I really wanted this one. I didn't race quite as good as I thought I could at Ouachita and Sylvan, and I was beginning to become worried that the training that I had done really wasn't good for the style of riding I am doing now. At the two hour mark I felt real good though, and at three hours I began to have more faith that the goal I had set to try and win this race was definitely a possibility. At one point I thought to myself that one year, one week, and one day ago I was in an ambulance after cutting my face off and smashing seven teeth out of my mouth. That added a little emotional fuel to the fire. I was really happy that I didn't end up cramping at all really, only felt pukey for a little bit, and was able to only allow my lap times to fluctuate nine minutes, and that I could have ridden the last lap faster if need be. I really really wanted to win this race, and now I just need to ride this momentum through the season into all the other races.
well done my man....well done indeed
ReplyDeleteprops. good to see the training paying off.
ReplyDeleteGreat job on the comeback. I'll be using this as motivation as I go through my recovery.
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