Monday, June 30, 2008

Levis / Trow - a little longer write

John G and Chris T.

Jdubs starting the 50mile Duo


I showed up with exactly one hour to spare before the start. As we drove in to find a parking spot we saw the ever scary Lee Unwin all kitted up and ready to race. He is just one of those guys that is clearly faster than you so all I do is spy from behind trees to see his secrets. However on this day I had zero time for spying. I had to unload, set-up, get dressed and poop.


Trixie took charge and set up the pits. And the boys would fight about chain of command after I asked one of them to grab something. Na, really. The "O" was a nice dedicated help all day. Aris, Brandon and Jordan rode hard and helped great. The biggest help of all was when The "O" held my place in the doody line while I got ready. Only one doody hole? Who cares?!?! The course was way to gnarly to let this get in the way. It was flush anyways.



I made it the the back half of the Pre-Race meeting and scanned the field. Yup, Lee was racing. I saw Charlie Farrow too. I smile every time I see that guy after his performance at TI. A few other really fast 24-9 peeps as well. The shotgun start had me running to the bike.


The bike creaked all day back at the drop-outs, which is already fixed as I type. Aside from the noise, the bike rode like a dream thanks to new 5 degree bend bars. The only thing this bike is waiting on before 24-9 is a XT crank and some new Ergon bling w/bar ends...can't wait.



I started slower than everyone. which I expect. I have a problem with this in every single endurance race. I start slow and stay slow err...consistent. I usually can reel people back, however these 12hour races seem to be getting more and more XC-like. I'm working on it.



I was riding almost everything in this amazing 12.5mile course. It was so so fun. I managed to dump my bike twice on wet roots on the first lap. After that I was pretty much smooth sailing. I regained my speedy descent confidence too. After my first lap, I would almost beg peeps to let me get in front for the downs. When they would graciously let me pass, I would be able to super gap them. Let's just get faster on the ups, ok?


I tried Cytomax for the first time and it seemed to work quite well. 20oz of Cytomax and 6-12oz of H2O every 1.5hours...Is that enough fluid intake????? I rode fine and felt really good all day. But is that truly enough for 24hours? Prolly not, but it at least has me thinking.


BTW, Aris "I'm faster than you" Peters is the 2008 WI Single Speed Le-Mans Start State Champion.

3 comments:

SquidBuzz said...

The key question on the Cytomax is how many calories an hour is that?

Sponsor plug here, Hammer's train of thought is about 200-300 calories an hour and 20-30oz of water an hour. Then enough endurolytes to keep you from cramping. One must figure out during training what works best for your body.

For me, I'm about a 210 calories, 20oz of water and 6 endurolytes an hour type of guy. Yup, that high on the endurolytes. Without that, I'm cramping up in a ball. The water intake varies depending on the temps of the day.

EXPO Racing said...

I'm still a leaning towards HEED. HEED has gotten me through too many 24 hour races for me to ditch it so quick. However, the Cytomax tasted sooo good that I have to give it a chance. The problem with the cytomax is that if I try upping the scoops per bottle, the taste too strong, I can't even put it down into the gut.

That being said, I have to thank you for the calorie talk...I will start counting calories between the two.

One thing is for sure, an extra scoop of HEED(lemon-lime) is almost un-noticable to my taste buds, which I think is a good thing.

SquidBuzz said...

The other thing that I didn't mention, is that I use Perpetuem instead of HEED on events over 2 hours. The main reason is that Perpetuem has soy protein in it, where HEED does not. One thing you need to remember with Perpetuem though, is that it doesn't contain any electrolytes. Therefore you must get them another way. ie using Endurolytes.

I mix up a 6 hour bottle of Perpetuem and sip off of it. Getting my water from my Camelbak. Then taking my Endurolytes every hour. On the bottle of Perpetuem, I will mark off 6 setions so that I will only sip off 1/6 of the bottle per hour. Make sense? If not, let me know.

As usual, all of this should be tested out in training before exercising this in a race. =)