Coolest 24 hours at Boggs race report by Rafeal
My report:
The course. Much different than the BikeMonkey race. You could definately feel the extra 400' of climbing per lap, and the new rocky section at the beginning was sketchy for a 24 hour race (in a good way, but had many people walking). The second fireroad climb (different and longer than the march event) was a death march every lap, and more rolling singletrack before the run into to the finish. I'd guestimate 3 laps was the same or harder than 4 laps in March.
My second attempt at a 24 hour solo. This time with less (endurance) training, and more xc racing. Its been a long race season for me, and I was starting to feel burnt out coming in, but I gave it a go anyways. The weather turned out to be perfect. Not too hot, not too cold.
My strategy was to ride most of the time, with a 3 hour nap if I was feeling good, and more if I wasn't. I definately wasn't feeling it on the first several laps. On the third lap, my legs were feeling dead, and I definatly wasn't in the endurance shape that I was last year. I thought hard about quitting early and joining mr. jameson at the shiela moon camp. Toward the end of the 3rd lap, I see my buddy dennis getting carried away on the stretcher, but he was in good spirits cracking jokes. (broken hip. ouch, heal up quick buddy!)
By the 5th or 6th lap, I started to just take each climb very slowly, spinning in the granny, and my legs started to come around. I thought maybe I could actually do this. Lap times weren't bad, ranging from 1:10 to 1:20's, so I kept chugging along. I then set the goal to do 10 laps before taking a short nap for the night. On my 8th lap, the wind picked up hard, and it got cold really fast. I was sorta struggling, and just wanted to get into warmer gear. Toward the end of the lap, right around the same point where Ogre crashed, I clumsily veered off the trail, hit a rock and flew over the bars. D'oh. I gathered myself, and slowly rolled in, but it was COLD. As I crossed the line, I was 50/50 about wether I should keep going or not. I thought about checking the scores/leader page, but just wanted to warm up, so I skipped the check. I figured that if I went out and had another bad lap, that could end my race, and I didn't want to see if I needed to go back out, so I decided to just get into warm clothes and take a nap. which I did, a bit early around 11. I down a recovery drink, some cold pasta, a cup of chocolate milk, and some advil first.
Alarm went off at 4:30AM, and I got ready, ate a bit more, and was back on the bike by 5. Surprisingly, the legs felt better than they did at the start of the race, but I still just spun up the climbs slowly. I figured I timed it so I could get 4 laps comfortably, and 5 if I went hard.
I finished with 12 laps in a little under 23 hours. For the first time I checked the scores to see if I need to go out for another, and I see the 2nd place person only did 5 laps. My goal was 14 laps (after considering the increased difficulty compared to the March race), but I am fine with the 12 after how I felt on the 3rd lap. I thought I should just start packing up early since I also needed to do the long drive home by myself too. Only 4 or 5 in my age group. Kind of a charity win, but I'll take it.
I did the race self supported, which I think would have been okay, but I should have brought a camping stove for something warm at night/in the morning (thanks Jen/Kyle, murphy, and the others for the generous offers to share pits). Also, congrats to Kyle and his team!
Totals:
120+ miles
~17,000' elevation
place 1st / 4
Food:
6 bottles of perpetuem
6-8 bottles of water+nuun
4 bananas
2.5 PB&J sandwiches
2 cans of mr. pibb, 1 cans of coke
2 shots of gu/hammer gel
1 pack shot bloks
1 cliff bar
bunch of fried rice and pasta
lotsa twizzlers
handfull of goldfish
4 girlscout cookies
1 bottle recovery drink
1 cup chocolate milk
1 powdered doughnut
The course. Much different than the BikeMonkey race. You could definately feel the extra 400' of climbing per lap, and the new rocky section at the beginning was sketchy for a 24 hour race (in a good way, but had many people walking). The second fireroad climb (different and longer than the march event) was a death march every lap, and more rolling singletrack before the run into to the finish. I'd guestimate 3 laps was the same or harder than 4 laps in March.
My second attempt at a 24 hour solo. This time with less (endurance) training, and more xc racing. Its been a long race season for me, and I was starting to feel burnt out coming in, but I gave it a go anyways. The weather turned out to be perfect. Not too hot, not too cold.
My strategy was to ride most of the time, with a 3 hour nap if I was feeling good, and more if I wasn't. I definately wasn't feeling it on the first several laps. On the third lap, my legs were feeling dead, and I definatly wasn't in the endurance shape that I was last year. I thought hard about quitting early and joining mr. jameson at the shiela moon camp. Toward the end of the 3rd lap, I see my buddy dennis getting carried away on the stretcher, but he was in good spirits cracking jokes. (broken hip. ouch, heal up quick buddy!)
By the 5th or 6th lap, I started to just take each climb very slowly, spinning in the granny, and my legs started to come around. I thought maybe I could actually do this. Lap times weren't bad, ranging from 1:10 to 1:20's, so I kept chugging along. I then set the goal to do 10 laps before taking a short nap for the night. On my 8th lap, the wind picked up hard, and it got cold really fast. I was sorta struggling, and just wanted to get into warmer gear. Toward the end of the lap, right around the same point where Ogre crashed, I clumsily veered off the trail, hit a rock and flew over the bars. D'oh. I gathered myself, and slowly rolled in, but it was COLD. As I crossed the line, I was 50/50 about wether I should keep going or not. I thought about checking the scores/leader page, but just wanted to warm up, so I skipped the check. I figured that if I went out and had another bad lap, that could end my race, and I didn't want to see if I needed to go back out, so I decided to just get into warm clothes and take a nap. which I did, a bit early around 11. I down a recovery drink, some cold pasta, a cup of chocolate milk, and some advil first.
Alarm went off at 4:30AM, and I got ready, ate a bit more, and was back on the bike by 5. Surprisingly, the legs felt better than they did at the start of the race, but I still just spun up the climbs slowly. I figured I timed it so I could get 4 laps comfortably, and 5 if I went hard.
I finished with 12 laps in a little under 23 hours. For the first time I checked the scores to see if I need to go out for another, and I see the 2nd place person only did 5 laps. My goal was 14 laps (after considering the increased difficulty compared to the March race), but I am fine with the 12 after how I felt on the 3rd lap. I thought I should just start packing up early since I also needed to do the long drive home by myself too. Only 4 or 5 in my age group. Kind of a charity win, but I'll take it.
I did the race self supported, which I think would have been okay, but I should have brought a camping stove for something warm at night/in the morning (thanks Jen/Kyle, murphy, and the others for the generous offers to share pits). Also, congrats to Kyle and his team!
Totals:
120+ miles
~17,000' elevation
place 1st / 4
Food:
6 bottles of perpetuem
6-8 bottles of water+nuun
4 bananas
2.5 PB&J sandwiches
2 cans of mr. pibb, 1 cans of coke
2 shots of gu/hammer gel
1 pack shot bloks
1 cliff bar
bunch of fried rice and pasta
lotsa twizzlers
handfull of goldfish
4 girlscout cookies
1 bottle recovery drink
1 cup chocolate milk
1 powdered doughnut
posted by McWalters @ 6/28/2009
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