12Hours @ John Muir
4:45am and I was up, ready to go. I headed over to dad's place to pick up Aris, Theo and Dad. We hit race site around 6:45. Registered, prepped bikes and applied some butt cream. The plan was :
Me: 12hr Solo Single Speed. Ride consistent. Eat Clif. Finish.
Cody: 1st attempt @ 12hr Solo. Goal, 3ish laps.
Theo: 6hr Solo on a single speed. Goal, ride for 6hrs.
Aris and Jeff: 6hr Duo. Goal, podium.
Chris: 3hr Solo. Goal, finish near the top.
My goal was to ride the rigid as long as possible and try to stay with all the fast guys at the start. Today(Sat.) was the day to get some bike swap practice in too. Up until this race, I never have had the pleasure of identical bikes. Again, not much of a warm up, I felt very slow the first lap. John Muir had gone under some major course changes over the past year. All for the way better. It just took me a while to get going. Turns out my what-I-thought-was-slow 59min first lap was actually my fastest lap of the day and the only time I would be under 1hr all day. Lap 2 came in at 1hr3min. For some reason I was only feeling so so. My legs felt great, I was riding everything, but with the knowledge that there were probably alot of SSers in front of me. Mentally, I was not good. Then on Lap 3 another SSer flew by me. I quickly caught up to him and held his wheel just long enough to tell him he was on a super fast pace. Way too fast for my liking. If I have learned anything from past endurance races, You must ride your own race. I let him go and felt even more crappy. I entered the pits after 3 laps for a bike change and hydration pack change. I was told I was only 5min back from 2nd and 3rd. Great. The only problem was that I felt like falling asleep. How am I going to shorten the gap when I feel like this. At this point the only thing going for me was my drink and food. I chose to eat exclusive CLIF all day. Bar and Mojo for breakfast. Shots and Shot Bloks every lap.
4th, 5th, 6th...I really start to slow down. My gap to 3rd had moved to 10 min and I felt like I couldn't do anything about it. My legs were still good, my eating/drinking was great. I just felt slow. Really slow. I then realized I hadn't peed yet since the start. That's it! I pulled over, leaned the bike on a tree and waited. Waited some more. Then booya! It was like I had jumper cables attached to my system. I felt like a new man. Did my lap time get better? No. Was I reeling 3rd place closer to me? No. I just felt better. That's it. As The end of the race drew near, I mentally started to give. After 8 laps I was STILL in fourth. I left the pit for my 9th lap knowing I only had two laps to go with the time available. As I was leaving the pits, Cody asked everyone in the tent if I knew I was in 2nd? Christie freaked! She knows me better than anybody and knew my current mental state was not going to keep me in second for long. She decided to run the course backwards with Cody to tell me I was in second. They caught me halfway thru the lap. I was in second by 8min. I turned it on. and blazed the second half. As I was rolling in to the pits I hear Theo screaming "Your In First!!!" I make a quick stop to ditch my hydrating pack. I was holding first place by 4minutes. I layed it down! My third fastest lap of the day. 1st Place! What did it for me?
CLIF - 100% CLIF all day. I have a new Endurance side kick.
ERGON - OMG! This is what these grips were made for. I put them to the test for 12hours and they passed with flying colors(Green to be exact)
Trek 69er(s) - I love this bike. Railed in the single. climbed better than any other singe speed I have ridden. Descended like a DH bike. There was not one person that could hold my wheel going down all day.
While I was out on the 12hr course. EXPO Racing earned much respect in the 6hr Solo, 6hr Duo and 3hr Solo classes. Aris and Jeff held off a 20+ team field in the 6hr Duo for a solid 3rd place! Podium! Theo decided to surprise all of us finishing his first ever 6hr Solo race on a single speed. Chris T. decided to throw in a top 5 in the 3hr race too. Hopefully Jeff r Chris will get to me a race report from there races.
My rigid 69er.
What a super weekend for EXPO Racing. There is nothing like loving the product you use, and making your sponsors proud. Trek, Oakley, CLIF, Lazer, ERGON. The team would have not been able to post these kind of results without your support. Thank you!
3 comments:
Congratulations everyone on a race well done! You all make me so proud!
Trixie - Team Manager
You had me at booya. Great write up and congrats on an awesome job out there.
Hey dude, your bro was kickin' my but at the first lap, he's gettin' strong, I should start trainin' more.
Good job at muir dude.
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