I've been wanting to do another 24 hour race since I participated on a 5-man team two springs ago. The final 24 hour race of the year is typically held during the fall at Hurkey Creek Park near Idyllwild. This year the race fell on the same weekend as the US Cup unification race. After much thought about which race to do, I decided I would much rather do the 24 hour race. The course is really enjoyable and the experience is always top notch. Next, I needed to decide how to compete in the race. I thought about a 4-man team, but I felt that wasn't going to be challenging enough for me. The only other option was a 2-man team, or doing the 8-hour solo option. I wasn't even thinking about attempting the 24-hour solo. I'm no way near ready for that. I decided on doing the 2-man and I recruited Matt as my teammate. I knew he would the perfect guy for this type of race. He's a really strong rider and always does well on endurance type efforts. I figured we would balance each other out for the entire 24 hours. I'm glad that Matt agreed to do this race and with that, Team Ludicrous Speed was born! "Evil will always triumph, because good...is dumb."
For those of you that don't know how a 24 hour race works, here's the deal. Racers have the option of putting a team together of up to 10 people or as little as 2 people. There's also the crazy endurance athletes that race it solo. The race starts at noon on Saturday and runs until noon the next day on Sunday. The object is to do as many laps as possible in that amount of time which means racers are pedaling during the day as well as through the night with lights of course. When it's all said and done, the winners with the most laps in the quickest amount of time walk away with the victory and a sweet new winners jersey to add to their collection. As you can see, this type of race can be pretty tough on your body physically as well as mentally.
My race weekend started out with me driving up to Hurkey Creek Friday night after work. Matt decided to drive up Saturday morning, the day of the race. I pretty much packed anything and everything preparing for what could go wrong. I know I overpacked, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I also decided to bring both my Blur and my Superlight which got transformed into the SuperNIGHT! I would ride my Blur for the day laps and the SuperNIGHT for the night laps. Matt and I were also very fortunate that my good friend James was also competing in the 24 hour race with a 5-man team. James was kind enough to allow us to use the facilities of his trailer while out there. That really proved to be helpful during the race. You just can't beat the trailer. Way better than camping it with a tent in freezing temperatures at night. I can't thank James and his wife enough for their hospitality.
I was able to get a decent nights sleep, but not as much as I wanted to. Not much I could do about that at the time. I picked up our race packet after I woke up and had some breakfast. I ran into Tom and Roy of Troupe racing at the registration booth. They were doing a 5-man team. I wished them good luck and I knew I would see them out there on the trails. Matt showed up not too much later with this car full of stuff. He brought Rita and his GT to race on. We got him all settled in with the pit setup and headed over to the Captain's meeting. Since I was the one starting the race, I wanted to make sure I understood exactly how the LeMans race start worked. I left the meeting still a little confused, but I'm sure I would figure it out when the time came which I did. The bikes were all ready and noon was approaching. Matt and I decided that our lap strategy would be to start out with alternating laps until nightfall. At that time we would do 2 laps each in hope that would give us enough rest while one of us is on the course. The weather was a nice and clear day with temps in the mid to high 80's, but there was a cool breeze.
About 20 minutes prior to noon, I checked in with the time keepers and placed my bike on the provided racks. Since it was a LeMans start, that meant I would be running about 1/2 a mile before hoping on the bike to get the show on the road. I lined up with the other racers at the Start/Finish line anticpating the start. I was trying to get pumped up with some bad 80's rock in the band Survivor since they were blasting "Eye of the Tiger" before the start. The countdown began...3...2...1!!!! and we were off. I consider myself a decent runner, but for some reason this run really sucked. My mouth was already dry and I was already sucking wind. I think I had the loudest of all cleats smacking against the pavement. All I heard was CLACK..CLACK..CLACK with each stride. That was quite annoying. I was able to finish the run in about 3:15. I grabbed my bike and took off trying to get ahead of the traffic. I knew the first climb called Keen Camp was going to get boggged down and I did get stuck behind the slower riders. It was expected so I just went along with the flow until there was an opening where I could go around those riders. I do remember passing about 10 riders just before the summitt. I think about 5 other riders followed my line as well. Just after the summitt was a fun flowing singletrack that would take you out to Johnson's Meadow. Of course I got slowed up by another rider, but I had to keep telling myself that it's ok. This is only the first lap out of many and there is no reason to go balls out as I needed to conserve. I eventually passed the slower riders before Exfoliator. At that point the course really opened up and traffic was no longer an issue. I was feeling good and the course was in decent shape with some sand here and there. It didn't prove to be too difficult. My first time down Tunnel of Love, I was hauling ass. I almost made a bad decision as I hesitated on a line. I really wish I could explain what happened, but I don't know how too. My Blur basically made me look like a bike god as I should have been out of control, but it managed to keep me in control as I drifited into the proper line with my front wheel not even on the ground. It was quite amazing and I really wish I could see the replay. Anyways, the rest of my lap went great and I crossed the line in just over 53 minutes. Matt was waiting for me and I gave him the baton. Off he went for his first lap.
I headed back to the pits to refill the water bottle and refuel a little bit. I knew I didn't have much time to rest and I was already back at the check in tent before I knew it. Matt came in hot after a blistering lap of 48 minutes! What was he thinking? He didn't listen to his own advice and went really hard. I know it's hard to hold back sometimes, but I was pretty confident he would be ok. One of my goals for this race was the break the 50 minute mark on a lap. I knew if I was to reach that goal, it would have to be on my 2nd lap. I pushed on that lap, but still left some in the tank. I was able to match Matt's lap time of 48 minutes. One goal down. Matt was still feeling good as he went out for his 2nd lap and put in a nice time of 51 minutes.
My 3rd lap would end up not so great for me. Everything started out great and was flowing. I was feeling strong, but started to get an upset stomach before the Demoralizer climb. As I cleared the climb, my right quad and calve started to crap. How is this possible so soon in the race? I was drinking alot and I even took some endurolytes before the lap since it was pretty warm out there. I was able to fight the cramps off, but the damage was done. I met Matt at the exchange and I felt sick to my stomach. I asked him if he had 2 laps in him and he said he felt good. I needed time to recover and fix my upset stomach. I told Matt I would check on him after the 1st of 2 laps. I got back to the pits and tried to eat and drink, but my body just didn't want to cooperate. I had to force liquids down. I decided my body needed some sugar so I started drinking Coke. About 5 minutes after have a cup of Coke, my upset stomach was gone and I was able to eat. I chomped down a turkey sandwich and some fruit. I was coming back to life and felt 100% better. I also decided to take a shower and go for a short change at this point. The shower made me feel alot better as well. I prepared a cold water bottle for Matt just in case he needed it and I headed back over to the exchange. I met him and he was still looking good. He took the cold water bottle and headed out. Meanwhile, I was able to rest some more before I went out for my 2 laps. Nightfall was approaching so I prepared the SuperNIGHT and headed to the exchange.
Matt came in and was not looking too good. I think he was suffering from the same thing I was. He had the cold shakes. I told him to go get some rest and drink some Coke since that made me feel alot better. I think we had about a 1 lap lead at this time and I knew the other teams had to be going through the same type of suffering as Matt and I were. I remember getting spooked out by one of the photographers just kicking it on the side of the trail in the middle of nowhere. I would pedal by and all of a sudden I would see a huge flash. Spooked me in a good way because it woke me up. My legs felt decent, but they did lack the strength to push it over the tougher obstacles. I spent alot of time in the small ring and at times I wish I had a 34 tooth casette, but I'm glad I didn't. I probably would have been diving into that too often which would make me go even slower. The 28 tooth was perfect on the SuperNIGHT and still kept the speed up. One thing I remember vividly about those night laps was how awesome the sky looked that night. The stars were absolutely incredible and it seemed I could just reach out and grab them. It was one of those times where I was reminded how much I love to mountain bike. My back to back laps went well and even though the times were slowing, they still were fairly fast. Anything quicker than 1 hour is still really good. I was able to put down :57 and :59 minute laps. Back at the exchange, Matt looked like his old self again and thanked me for the Coke tip. I was releived to see him recovered. With the baton exchanged, Matt went out for 2 more laps.
I think it was around 10:15pm by the time I got back to the pits to refuel and rest up. Since Coke was my savior, I decided to stick with drinking that. My stomach was no longer upset and I was able to put down some decent solid food. I remember having a can of vegetable soup and some more pineapple. I felt pretty good for doing 5 laps and I knew the halfway point was approaching. I was sleepy, but still alert. It's amazing how fast the time would go by while resting. It seemed like before I knew it, I was getting my gear back on to get ready to pedal again. The weather was still great. Of course it was colder, but it could have been much colder than it was. 50 degree weather is great pedaling weather for the night. I got away with just a long sleeve jersey and some winter gloves. That was more than enough to keep me warm.
Onto my 6th and 7th laps. I don't remember too much about those laps. I kept the pace fairly slow, well slow for me and everything went smooth. I do remember stopping more often at the aid stations to down some Gu-Tang drink or whatever it was they had. The drunks that were cheering all the riders throughout the night on the "The Tunnel of Love" trail really helped get the blood pumping again. It would be dead silent out there until you rounded left into the yells and cheers of that group. Really was surprising to see them there especially at 2am. Your mind does start to wonder quite a bit when you are pedaling all by yourself in the early morning in the middle of a forest. I started to question myself if I had it in me to keep it going at the current pace and actually finish the whole 24. I also started to question myself, "why in hell am I doing this". At times, I wanted to give up, but that's not my nature. I wasn't raised as a quitter and I would finish the race. I finished up my 7th lap and Matt wanted to switch back to the 1 lap strategy and I was totally on board. He didn't think he had another set of back to back laps in him and I either did I.
This is where things really started to get tough. I was feeling spent and I was struggling with trying to stay awake. All I wanted to do was to get out there and start pedaling again. I thought that would help to keep me awake. This time around it seemed like I was waiting around forever for Matt to come in, but it was ok. I was able to keep busy by checking out the current standings. We were in 1st by about 2 laps at this point. That was a relief. If we could just keep our current pace, we should have no problems winning this thing. That is of course we can finish the race. As I was waiting around the Start/Finish area, they were playing movies on a projector screen. I remember watching parts of "The Benchwarmers". I never saw the movie, but it looked really, really lame. Matt eventually showed up looking ok for the most part. Off I went for #8. Legs still felt ok, but really had to take it easy on the techy stuff. I had to back off a bit to make sure my legs would start to cramp up again. I remember getting of the bike and walking some tougher parts of the climbs. I really didn't want to risk cramping again. I took my time out there and it showed on my lap time. I was close to the 1:15 mark. Again, I wasn't too concerned about making up time on the 2nd place team. We were well ahead. The 2nd place team was suffering as well. I really was having hard time keeping my eyes open on this lap. I would close my eyes just for a few seconds and it felt so relaxing. My steering got really lazy and it was hard to keep the bike moving in a straight line. I needed to get some rest. After my lap, I conversed with Matt telling him that I need a small nap. We were still on the 1 lap strategy and I told him to just come and get me at the pits if I wasn't at the exchange after his next lap. I think he agreed with that and off he went.
I got back to the pits and I needed to get some rest. Luckily I had a human alarm clock with Dan and he was kind enough to wake me up. I slept for a good 45 minutes and Dan did his job waking me up. However, it took me a few more minutes to get really started. I was slow to get my gear on and I still felt sleepy. I think I drank half a can of Monster and I started to wake up again. I pedaled to the exchange and I didn't see Matt. I went to check in and the time keeper told me that Matt just left for another lap about 2 minutes ago. What!? I couldn't believe it. Why didn't Matt come and get me? I thought we were on the same page. I was a little upset, but at the same time relieve. Upset because I could have gotten at least another 45 minutes of sleep and I would have to do back to back laps next time out. Relieved because I got more rest time. It must have been around 4:30am at this point. Oh well, no use crying over spilt milk so I headed back to the pits where I just kicked it for another 45 minutes or so. I didn't want to go back to sleep cause that would have been next to impossible after drinking half a Monster. I ended up finishing the can before meeting back up with Matt. Matt told me he waited about 3 minutes for me to show and got tired of waiting. He decided it was better to just do another lap since he assummed I was sleeping still. I couldn't believe Matt was able to pull off back to back laps. I was very impressed. I told him not to worry about the next 2 laps as I would have them covered.
The next lap would be last lap with lights. I was so glad that dawn was rapidly approaching. I was totally sick of riding my heavy ass SuperNIGHT and it was starting to become uncomfortable. The shitty fork was really pissing me off as well since it required more energy to keep the handling in check. About 20 minutes into the lap, I could finally turn off the lights as there was enough nautical light to work with. It was such a sight for sore eyes. It's amazing how much faster things got from then on out. I was able to flow down "Exfoliator" and "Tunnel of Love" with ease again. The fun factor was back and I felt like a new rider. I was putting in a really good effort and finished that lap under an hour. Wow! I was back into the upper 50 minute range. After that lap, I decided to finally ditch the SuperNIGHT and went back to the pits to do a bike exchange. I said hello to Matt as he was resting in the trailer. I put on a fresh jersey and headed back out with the Blur! That bike felt like a feather compared to the other. Things were feeling even better. Almost like the sun supercharged me. I like to think I'm solar powered. There's no other explanation for it...lol. Things felt great and I was really flowing on my 10th lap. I was able to put in an even faster lap time in the range of 56 minutes. I was really happy. Maybe it was because I knew the end was near and it was. After my lap, I met with Matt and I told him how incredible I felt and was hoping he would feel the same. We went back to the 1 lap strategy.
11th lap in the books.
After Matt's lap I informed him that we were well in the lead. We agreed that 1 more lap each would be more than enough to hold onto the win. That would put us at a total of 22 laps. We would be short of the 24 lap goal, but I could care less at that point. I went out for my 11th lap and took it very easy. Spent alot of time in the small ring and just enjoying the lap as much as possible. I stopped wearing my HR monitor as I no longer cared about that. I didn't even look at my Garmin to see my progress on the lap. It was a great feeling to round the final corner and walk (not run) the bike over the finish line for the last time. I was completely spent and entirely relieved. I came in just past 10:30am and we had to send another rider out as that was the rule. Matt was the man for the job and the crazy guy decided to finish the race off on his single speed! Not the friendliest bike on the legs, however he did it anyways. He finished off the race with a pretty good time. We still had time to do one more lap, but there was no reason to kill myself any further. My ass took the worse of the punishment. It was completely sore and rubbed raw from riding a bike close to 11 hours in total. We were finally done and we did it! We won the 2-man 24 hour race!
To end the day we collected the winner's jersey at the ceremony, but for some reason the orgainizers didn't have our medals. They said they would mail them to us. I sure hope we get them soon. Here are the stats for my half of the race. Over 105 miles with 13,844 feet of climbing in 10 hours and 38 minutes with an average speed of 9.8MPH.
I learned alot during this experience. I didn't think the race was going to be as tough as it turned out to be. I guess it humbled me a bit. I also learned how important nutrition is with an event of this caliber. It was difficult at times to eat and drink. I think there needs to be more structure on what to put in the body instead of a free for all. I think both Matt and myself paid the price with that. Lucky for us that we recovered strong enough to finish the race. One thing to note is that the winner of the Solo Competition completed 21 laps in total! Those guys are just nuts. One guy did 1 less lap than Matt and I did as a team. Just insane. I don't know what is next for in terms of an endurance race. Maybe one of these days I can attempt a 24 hour race solo? I should probably start with a 12 hour solo race.
Results:
We were plate #23
