KRYPTONITE

Earlier this week I was convinced that the 12 Hours of Branched Oak race was going to be one of my most triumphant landmarks this summer while training for Leadville. I didn't expect to win, and I really didn't figure I would place much better than the 8 or 10 range I have been in for the Psycowpath marathon races so far this year... I did however plan to ride strong for 12 hours and demonstrate a new level of fitness achievement.This race certainly was a showcase, but it was an Anti-showcase, instead of displaying all my achievements, it showed every weakness until I was reduced to nothing and wondering if finishing Leadville is even possible. As the race started, I found myself riding harder than I should but not at a damaging pace, mostly I was unfamiliar with the trail and was struggling to conserve energy and ride smoothly. Just coming off of a recovery week I also knew it was going to take some time for the legs to get warmed up and not feel lathargic as they always seem to feel after a rest week. That was pretty much how lap 1 went, the weather was a nice 67 degrees and as laps 2 and 3 progressed I fell into a nice rhythm. Several miles of new trails had been "mowed" for this race, and when I say mowed that's literally how they were built, they were in an open field of praire like grass and a swervy path was mowed through them. It was done nicely, but they were rough, I was really thankful I had chosen the full suspension now, these trails were already making my lower back hurt by lap 3 and can't imagine having to ride them on a hardtail. In the middle of lap 3 I realized that the temperature was dropping, which I knew it was going to so I took a quick break, grabbed some food, more water, and put on my second layer of clothes. With an expected low of 36 degrees I knew I would need more clothes later on, but thought I would be fine for the time being. Lap 4 and 5 were ok, one noteable thing on lap 5 was that this is when I was passed by the leaders, they were rolling like a freight train through these trails. I decided to chat with them for awhile and rode their pace for about a half a lap with them. This was a good experience, my bike handling skills were immediately improved as I followed their lines and relearned old skills I had forgotten. Also, I realized they weren't riding at a pace that was that far out of reach for me. At best I could have only maintained that pace for maybe another 2 hours, certainly not 12, but after a half lap with them I let them go and went back to the pace I had chosen that I did feel I could do for 12 hours. Lap 6 was when every thing started to go bad, primarily my feet got cold and amazingly felt numb. Not beleiving this was possible I ignored this reality, but did decide to stop and put on another layer of socks and my winter shoes. As I jammed my feet into the winter shoes I realized they really were numb, but figured they would warm up in those shoes. About halfway through lap 7, I hit one final bump as I came out of the singlestrack and then heard and felt a massive crack right under my rear. Something in the seatpost had moved and the seat now angled up, it was still rideable so I figured I would stop after this lap and fix it at my basecamp where I had all my tools. It took probably 20 minutes to get the seat figured out and back to the right angle. So one problem fixed. Next I needed to figure out what was going on with my right foot, my left foot did actually warm upon the last lap, but my right big toe was numb and felt like your tongue after a novacane shot. I ended up burying it in my sleeping bag and rubbing it to get it warmed back up, finally it was pretty much back to normal, I mustered up all the mental strength I had left, put on more layers and got back on the bike. This whole ordeal took at least and hour probably more... It was somewhere shortly after midnight now and headed out for lap 8. Now I experienced an opposite problem, I had put on too many layers, it's a strange thing being hot from too many layers, it's worse than 100 degrees of sun. With my toe warmed up, I had put on everything I owned for foot protection. 2 layers of socks, winter shoes, and IP shoe covers. This lap was miserable, my feet felt almost warm enough and the rest of me was too hot, my back was starting to kill me. One strategy I had maintained this whole race so far was to use a high cadence, this was not only very efficient at conserving power, it also was much easier on my lower back, and other than the rough trails had worked well so far. On lap 8 I did realize I was out of power to keep this method up, (while still in the middle chainring), so I did have to drop down to the granny gear for climbing, I was hoping to make it much later into the night before this would be necessary. After checking in after lap 8 I made my final mistake of looking at the overall race standings, my 8 laps was pathetic, and I was probably in 40th out of maybe 50 riders. This was the final blow, despite losing all the time to fix the seat and the foot incident, I didn't expect to be so far behind.. It really was obvious why I was so far behind; of the 6.5 hours than had passed, I had only been on the bike for 4.5 of them and at 6 miles per lap, I hadn't even done 50 miles yet, and this terrain was by far easier thanwhat will be encountered in leadville... I was tired, cold, my back hurt, and I was mentally drained. It was a devastating blow to quit, but I did it. I packed up, drove home, and was in bed before the race was over. So I figured I better end this summary with a few positive thoughts as this whole experience has been rather depressing to say the least:


Click Here to see the Data at Garmin Connect

This whole time I thought this comeback was about training, losing weight, and updating bikes and gear, the last thing I had considered was the mental strength that I never realized I had lost. The upside to this whole thing is that I have never done well in the cold, and I don't expect I ever will, depsite everything that happened this night, my legs and conditioning weren't the weak link, yes they were getting tired but they would have made it to hour 12. Also, 48 miles in 4.5 hours does get me to the finish line at leadville, maybe not in 9 hours but certainly the 12 hour finish is possible. Fortunately the race isn't next week, and hopefully this day is as low as I'm going to get on this rollercoaster ride, that I'm calling a comeback.

Platte River Crash

This sort of sums up the day at Platte River, In my previous race summary write-up, I neglected to mention that I crashed on the last lap of the race. Mostly because it wasn't that note worthy of a crash because neither the bike or I got hurt, but as I was searching the web looking for photos this is all I've found so far... That's me taking a dive. The guy beside me is the reason I crashed, he was walking his bike through the rocks, I figured I could just ride around him, but when I got to where he was at I realized he was standing in the line and when I looked for an alternate path I couldn't find one quick enough.

Psycowpath #2 - Platte River Battle Royale

47 degrees is what the temperature gauge of my 4Runner read as I arrived at the race. It had already been a long morning as I really didn’t feel like getting out of bed at 5:30am, now I was at the race and it was cold. I thought about turning around or possibly just parking somewhere else and taking a nap in the car, but instead I walked over to registration and paid the entry fee, after all I was here to race. I was certainly not as excited about it as last week, but mostly I was still exhausted from that race last weekend. I didn’t even warm up, I just made my way to the starting line and decided I would follow the pack into the trails and warm up on the fly. It was interesting that this was the first time I have ever went into the single track so far behind, of the 20 guys in this race I must have been in near last. It actually took some effort to not get carried away passing guys on the first climb, not that I really felt that good it’s just that they were going so slow, especially for the first lap. The first half of the race was worse than any other race I have ever done; I was physically tired and mentally fried. This is a bad combination, nearly every 5 minutes I was thinking I would just call it a day after this lap and throw everything in the car and drive home. I never did of course, but I really wanted to… For lap 1 I wore all the clothes I had with me, I knew they would be too hot for the race, but it was just too cold standing at the starting line to take them off, so I stopped for a few minutes after the first lap and shed the extra layers. For the second lap I then cold, but by lap 3 it finally warmed up to be a nice day. I really thought I must have been in last place by now as my performance seemed terrible, besides the mental issues I felt terrible on the bike, I had no power, and was navigating the trails like I had all the skills of a beginner. Speaking of first times, I did have my new Top Fuel 9.8 under me. Extremely nice ride, the sizing felt good, and I was even using the lockouts on the climb.

Click Here to see my race data at Garmin Connect

Lap 4 is when the race took a turn for the better, this is when all the Sport and Expert riders started. The experts were already gone, but the Sport guys were just starting so I waited for most of them to get into the trails before I rounded the turn back in. At first it was nice to have people to follow and chat with, but I quickly realized they were slowing me down, so I had to start passing. Most of the guys I was passing were in the 40+ Sport category, and every time I passed a guy there was a new rabbit just ahead, this made the last two laps more fun and I rode them much faster. Where the energy came from I really don’t know, I still didn’t feel powerful, but at least I was riding at a reasonable pace.

It took forever for the results to be posted, but when they finally were I noticed that my last lap was missing… I talked to the judges and evidently it was cleanly missed, but they were gracious enough to give me a 5th lap time based on my 4th lap, and when I checked my Garmin with my lap times that was really close to what I actually did. So instead of being in 16th place I ended up 8th, which really seems a lot better than how I felt I rode.

So that was it for training race #2, now I definitely need to start resting and getting mentally prepared for the 12 hours of Branched Oak race next weekend.