Friday, February 21, 2020

24 HOURS OF OLD PUEBLO


Dedication, determination, and motivation are your strongest allies in endurance racing. If you are motivated, dedicated and determined to keep going, you will. The amount of pain you are willing to put up with determines your endurance success. It isn’t just physical pain. Staying mentally focused is just as hard as the physical pain. Determination and the support of the people around you get you through it. 

I would like to give a big shout out to gup industries and Kenda tires for all the support this weekend and all the amazing products. Gup does a great job of keeping me riding and giving me no excuses to walk anywhere. This weekend I ran the Kenda boosters and I have got to say when there is that much cactus on the side of the trail you have got to have a tire you can trust. The Kenda boosters saved me in more than a few corners this weekend and there is no tire I trust more.  

Old Pueblo has a very unique start. You don’t start on the bike, you have to run a quarter-mile to get to your bike. For cyclists that are wearing cleats, that feels like forever. I started in the front with the mindset that I’ll just jog and get there when I get there. Well, things didn’t go according to plan. The
race started and all of a sudden I get swallowed into the middle of the group and there is no room at all. I was getting pushed and bumped and was worried someone was going to trip me. In a field of adults, I was tiny and had no way to push back. So I threw the plan out the window and started sprinting. I strategically put my bike at the end of the racks so that I wouldn’t have to walk through the crowd of people and bikes with my bike. When I got to my bike I was relieved to not be running anymore. Since you don’t warm-up for a race like this my hamstrings were so tight after the run they didn’t feel good till about halfway through the first lap. People were passing me like crazy on the first lap. On you left, on your right, when you get a chance. It got really annoying really fast. It didn’t help that it was literally 90% single track and cactus everywhere. Even if there was a small space to pass you had a risk of getting stabbed by cactus if they were a little too risky. 

By the second lap, I was catching a few solos that I am sure regretted going out so hard. By the third lap, I had most of the course memorized and wasn’t getting passed as much because all the fast people were so far up the course. The fourth lap was my last lap before I had to go out with lights. I got back from that one at about 5:30 and it got dark at 6:00 so I put 1 light on my bars and turned it 

on about halfway through the lap. There is a section of the course called the seven b****** and they are seven fireroad climbs that are no longer than 2 minutes each and one after right after the other. All
the previous laps I went the way of the hills. Except, this lap I decided to take the other way and go around them. It was a lot of fun and a single track the whole way. Although I couldn’t see hardly anything because the sun was setting. For most of that section, I was riding straight into the sun. When your face is in the sun and the trail is in the shade it is impossible to see anything. For this reason, I took it really slow to ensure I didn’t blow a corner right into the cactus. When I got back from that lap I put a light on my helmet and kept ongoing. At this point, I’ve been riding so long that I’m zoning out at times. I’ll be riding and I’ll zone out and a few minutes later I’ll be further down the trail but I can’t remember riding what I just did. I would just be in another world sometimes all by myself with no one except the Occasional person that is on a team that blows by me. 

At this time the sun is long gone and it is getting colder and colder. Every lap I get to camp and add another layer to what I am wearing. It was much colder than the weather app anticipated but I was ready for it. The night laps are by far the hardest mentally. It is cold, lap times are slower, you can’t see and there aren't as many people. When I got to a certain point on the course every lap you could see the venue and it looked like a small city. There were so many lights, trailers, and tents it just looked super cool. But you knew that you had such a long way to go.

Now that is it night time I stopped taking the line at the end of the course with the really large rock roller right at the end of the course. Instead, I went around which isn't any longer. 

There was a point on the course where you are about 45 minutes into the lap and you start going back towards the venue and it looks like you are almost done but you really aren’t. You are barely halfway but because it is so close to the venue, there are crazy people that walk out there to cheer you on at the closest point to the venue. That section is extremely unique in that it smells like beer, smoke, and fire and the people are screaming wildly as you go by. It gave me just the right amount of motivation every lap to keep going. By this time I’m on lap 7 and it is getting late. People at that spot are disappearing. By the time I got there on my 7th lap, there wasn’t a single soul there and neither was the needed motivation. Now the only thing to motivate me was myself. 

Now it is 1 or 2 o'clock the next morning and it is absolutely freezing. As I was riding I was watching the trails turn from light in color and dusty, to darker in color and like hero dirt because of the dew. Watching that change makes it feel even colder than it actually was.  There also isn’t half as many people passing me or me passing them, making me want to stop even more. But I had to keep going for now. 

After lap 8 was over I stopped for 10-15 minutes to get some food and warm up a bit. I went out on this lap with the plan to stop for an hour when I got back to rest. That thought is the only thing that 
got me through that lap. When I got back to camp it was about 3:30 in the morning. I went into the tent and fell asleep for an unexpected 2 hours. I woke up at about 5:45 and I told myself I would go back out a few minutes after 6 because I thought there would be light. Well, when the time rolled around the sun wasn’t up and I couldn’t find the motivation to go out on another lap. I had finished 9 laps by this time and was 146 miles in and the only thing holding me back from going out was the darkness and the cold. I finally forced myself off the chair and onto the bike at 6:30 to head out on number 10. I had to start that lap with lights but by the middle of that lap the sun came up and the venue and the trail were coming back alive. Now that it was getting warmer I had a newfound motivation. I couldn’t wait to get back to camp and take off my warm gear and go back out without lights. 

Now I have done 10 laps and I realized that in my head I was counting wrong and I thought I was done with 11. This meant that my pacing for the whole race was off and now my goal of 13 or 14 laps was going to be really hard to get to. I went out on what would be my second to last lap, feeling
good but by the end, as you would expect I was feeling cooked. After that lap, I realized there wasn’t enough time for me to get 2 more laps. I had 2.5 hours till the end of the race and a lap had been taking me between 1 and a half hours and 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete. I stayed at the tent for a bit, refueling myself before I went out for my last lap. When you get to this point there is nothing better than telling yourself, this is the last lap. The only thing better is actually finishing. My dad decided to ride with me this time for a little extra motivation. By the middle of the lap, I just couldn't wait to be done and go to sleep. When we got to the last climb that takes you to the descent into the venue I picked up the pace a lot. A climb that was usually taking me 10-15 minutes took about 6 or 7 and when my heart rate never got above 145bpm or zone 2 previously, this time my heart rate was pegged at 170bpm. I was very tired of riding slow and I just wanted to be done and that is what drove that crazy action.

Now that the race is over I feel very accomplished and even though I didn't get the 13 or 14 laps that I wanted 12 is still good for me. I feel more accomplished because I never quit. I have done a similar race in the past where I stopped in the middle of the night. Even though I still did good I didn't feel accomplished. Riding through most of the night and only stopping for a consecutive 2ish hours, made me feel that I did the best I could and that is all I can ask of myself.