12 Hours of Temecula #1

You can be the fastest racer, the best endurance rider but if you don't prep right all your training is for nothing. It is harder to realize it when you are doing a shorter race but nutrition is everything and a long race really shows just how important it is.

Going into this race I knew that prep was everything but because of school,  prep was harder than usual. I wasn't expecting this race to be all that great because my prep wasn't there. I did what I could to have the best race possible, trying to eat better and drink as much water as possible the week before. Another thing that helps with prep is sleep. Sleep is very important and it isn't good to stay up late or get up early so that is what I did.
On race morning everyone would think that I would be nervous but I really didn't get nervous because I had done long races like this before and I knew that this was my strong point. I woke up and helped get all of the stuff in the car, then I ate breakfast. When we got to the venue it was like 40 degrees and the first thing we did was register. After having to fill out papers to register my hands were so cold it felt like they were going to fall off. Once we were registered we started to set up the pit. By the time we finished that it was 8 o'clock and it was time for the racer meeting. Coach J talked about the rules, the course and what time each race would end. After that everyone got ready for the start of the race and the teams figured out which person was going first. For my group, we decided that I would do the first lap, and the second, and the third, and the fourth and so on. This was because I was solo so I didn't have a team, its just me, myself and I.

The race started at 9:00am and went until 9:00pm for me. My goals for each lap was to drink a full bottle every lap and try to keep the same cadence. If you have good cadence then you will have good power and if you have good power than you have a good heart rate ultimately leading to a good race. I think the hardest part about doing a solo 12 hour is keeping one solid tempo and not faltering from that the best you can. When you are a racer and someone rides by you and you know that they are not your competition, it is hard to not pretend like you are racing them. It is just something inside of us racers that tells us that we can stay with them and our ego can't take it when someone goes by us and we know we can keep up but we don't. It is hard to overcome this but in order to race a long solo race like this, you have to be able to do it. Not only do you have to do all of these things you also have to be able to walk up certain hills at certain times. You aren't walking because you can't ride it, you are walking so that you don't blow up. If I road up every hill every lap especially with this course I wouldn't have been able to do as many laps as I did. For young cyclists like myself, it is a rare occurrence to walk up something, because it hurts our ego to quit so this is a hard thing for us to do.

9 o'clock rolled around and we were all at the start line. The first lap is a little longer than all the other laps because we stay on the open road a little longer so people can get spaced out. Go! The first 6 and 12 hours of Temecula of 2018 was underway. The first 2 laps where the most crowded and slow because everyone goes off together and you get stuck behind someone that isn't as fast as you. I raced the first 2 laps without stopping for anything.  After lap 2, I stopped after each lap to fill up my bottle with water or half Gatorade half water and to get a few crackers, fruit or half of a PB&J. I only stopped for about 3 to 5 minutes in between laps. One of my nutrition goals, when I was on a lap, was to drink a full bottle and to eat a gel, block or some other form of bike food before I started to bonk or cramp not after the fact.

By the time the 5th or 6th lap came around the guys Devo 4 person team lapped me. This one team lapped me 4 times during the 12-hour race. The four-person Devo ladies lapped me once. When my own teammates lapped me it made me feel really slow but I knew that I had to keep my same pace no matter who passed me. After the six-hour ended at 3 o'clock the trails were practically empty. There was close to no traffic on the course and now you didn't get held up on the course hardly at all. At this time I was at about 7 or 8 laps in and was depressed because I realized I was only halfway done with the race.

At 5 o'clock it was required to have lights on our bikes. It is much harder to ride in the dark because you obviously can't see well. You can see about as far as your light will shine and most of the time at the speeds we are going downhill that isn't enough. Since we can't see, our lap times are a little bit slower than during the day.

Throughout the whole race I felt pretty strong up until the last 3 to 4 laps. I started to get fatigued and started to walk more of the climb that is called "bridges" to make sure that I didn't blow up. Each lap it got harder and harder to make it up that climb. When I went out for what I thought was the last lap I had about a little over 2 hours left in the race and I had been riding about 47-minute lap times. This was lap number 13, and I road it with two of my friends that were racing on a team. When we got back from that lap I had about an hour and five minutes until the race was over. I had plenty of time to go out for another lap but I didn't have to and since I had gotten to my goal which was 100 miles I decided that I didn't want to do another lap. Then my coach pulled me to the side and told me if I did one more lap that I would be rivaling the pros and that no other kid my age had done 14 laps. Ultimately the choice was mine whether or not I wanted to go out on another lap or not. This was enough to convince me to do another lap and I went out knowing that I had plenty of time to finish the lap, it was just a matter of turning the pedals over and surviving. When I got to bridges instead of walking I decided to ride it because it was my last lap so it didn't matter if I blew up as much because there was no next lap. Once to the top, I felt such a relief and even though my legs where on fire it was a good feeling because I knew that the hardest part was over. Coming through the finish and knowing that I had done the most amount of laps that anyone my age has ever done was the best feeling in the world. Like my coach said 14 laps will sound a lot better than 13 laps the day after, he was right.
Thanks to all the Devo sponsors for all the support. ASG, Ellsworth, F-tech cycling, Rudy Project, Sidi, Scicon, ESI grips, Ryno power, Ridefast, kenda and gup industries