Sunday, March 10, 2013
Monster Cross 50 2013
This is one of my favorite races to date. It may not have any single track, but it is fast. With nearly 400 racers and only 24 of us being in the single speed mountain bike category I knew this would not be easy. I lined up somewhere close to the front to hopefully jump on with a fast group of geared riders I could jump on with for the flats and downhills. The first mile was a neutral roll out, but still a good place to weave through the traffic. I stuck to my plan and once we were let loose I jumped in a group of riders and we were off making up ground on a group ahead of us. We were within 100 yards of them when a rider went down going across a bridge, so we had to slow down to go around him. Just when we were making good time again we were held up at a road crossing for the ambulance to pass to pick up the injured rider. Once we started rolling again I jumped out front of the group and pulled away until we started downhill or long flats and they would pull back up to me. This went on for the majority of the race. I would catch up to small groups of 2-4 riders at a time when hitting the inclines and leaving them behind. Roughly 38 miles into the race me and 2 other racers came to an intersection and followed the sign straight instead of left. We came to another intersection about .4-.5 miles down the fire road, so I started asking riders coming up from our left what mileage they were at and they were only 35 miles into the race. We turned around and started pedaling as hard as we could go. I kept this crazy pace for the next 7-8 miles until the leg cramps started creeping up. I backed off the crazy spinning I was doing and just started dumping everything I had left in my last bottle and a GU. I was hoping to catch another single speeder, but it never happened. I ended up finishing 9th in the single speed mtn bike category in a time of 3:22:34.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
North Bend Rail Trail
Up here in WV visiting my wife's family, and since we celebrated Christmas yesterday I took some of today to check out North Bend Rail Trail. Lucky for me they live about 10 miles from the Happy Valley Parking on the West end of the trail system. It has rained right much the last two weeks here with some snow mixed in and it was raining yesterday. The trail was very soggy as you can see in one of the photos which made for a slow trip and in some areas lucky to be doing 9 mph at times. I ended up going through five tunnels and that is where I had my highest speeds with it being dry in there between 16-18 mph. I ended up doing a round trip of 62.5 miles with my turn around in Ellenboro. For a rail trail it had more elevation than I thought it would after looking at the elevation profile on Strava, but it is in a mountainous state. I look forward to riding the entire 72 miles one-way and turn around for a 144 mile round trip this summer when the trail should be dry and fast. It is a beautiful trail and well maintained. Here is the new bike (Cannondale Super X Rival) I got about a week ago, so this was the biggest ride on it and it is comfortable and worked like a charm. Here are a few photos from the trip.
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| Eaton Tunnel (first tunnel) |
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| Country Trail Bikes in Cairo, WV |
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| A little soggy made for some hard pedaling |
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| Another tunnel |
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| Ellenboro - nice to place to refuel on future trips |
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| It was a dirty ride |
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| Had fun getting it dirty |
Monday, September 10, 2012
Fool's Gold 100
I had been putting in lots of miles for this race with it being my first 100 miler and was ready for this race. Mark Farnsworth and my endurance running buddy Ryan Liska headed up on Friday and did all the normal pre-race check-in. We drove out to where Aid Station 2,3,5 and 6 were going to be located since they were all the same location.
Saturday morning came quick and we were out the door by 5:30 to head over to the race. We got a few sprinkles of rain, but they quickly went away. We lined up for the start and we were off. The first 5 - 6 miles were all on the road leading us out to the big climb that would last for 9ish miles. I was nervous about this climb since I had never climbed for that long and not knowing how my legs would take it. Mark and I were together on this climb passing other racers going up and we had a good pace of 9-10 mph. I knew it was suppose to get steeper the closer we got, but my legs were feeling great. After about 7.5 - 8 miles I backed off because my legs were feeling it and somewhere around 8.25 - 8.5 miles into the climb I was not turning my cranks as hard and jumped off and started pushing the bike knowing I would save some energy and hopefully catch back up. I got back on once it flattened out and started making up my time I had lost. I caught a few of the guys that passed me while walking. I skipped the first Aid Station at mile 18 and kept rolling to Aid Station 2. The decent from the top was roughly 2.5 miles with 1500 ft of elevation loss and parts of it were steep and was winding down the mountain. Had some more climbing and another hike-a-bike section that everyone had to push their bikes up. I could see Mark about 50 yards up the trail, so I knew the walking didn't hurt me earlier. I hit Aid Station 2 (27-28 miles) after some good singletrack trail and Ryan was there waiting to help get whatever I need. Having someone there with you to be support crew makes endurance races go smoother. I knew I would be coming back around on the other side of this Aid Station area which was number 3 (40 miles into the race).
There was some more fire road that we were on and then it dumped off onto the single track and it was more good flowy trail. I was coming into a downhill section around miles 37 when another rider was standing there having us slow down for an injured rider. There was only 2 other riders standing there and I stopped not knowing if they needed help moving him or what the deal was. Come to find out he was going fast into this blind turn and went wide left and hit a good size bump that sent him over his handlebars landing hard on his hip area. We were figuring out where all the injured rider was hurting when he said he had a warm feeling in his pelvic region, his leg looked to be shorter than the other, and over the next 2 hrs of waiting his leg was changing colors. One of the other riders there Eddie is a ER nurse and Robin was an anesthesiologist which it was great to have those guys there to keep an eye on Marcus's vitals and any change that most people may not have picked up. We talked to the rider a lot because Marcus was in some serious pain and was trying to make him as comfortable as possible until EMS got up to us. We were trading off between us on standing up the trail to slow riders down coming down the hill and around the blind corner. After my buddy Ryan running the 3 or so miles from the Aid Station and he hung around for about 30 minutes. He told us that EMS had been at the Aid Station for at least 15 minutes before he made the run and by this time they may have been there for at least and hour. We decided that he should run back down and grab a litter since the EMS down there seemed to not be making there way up even though they were trying to have a John Deere "Gator" come up a different way which would not work in this terrain. You should know it is a lost cause with the Gator when you are having to cut trees to make it down the trail. It took Ryan and 2 other guys to get this litter with some big wheel under probably an hour to make that mostly uphill climb to us. In the meantime a couple other volunteers had made their way to us also. It was time to move him and they got him loaded up and we started the trek down the mountain with roughly 6 people on the litter at a time constantly rotating out. It took well over an hour to go the 3 miles. While another volunteer and I hung off the back of the group by 10 yards or so to keep riders from running up on us we came across a yellow jacket nest and both of us got stung at least 2-3 times. We got him down to the Aid Station and my buddy Mark was coming through with roughly 21 miles left to the finish. It took close to 5 hours from his accident until we got him to the Aid Station and then EMS took him to the helicopter. There were so many more details, but this was the Reader's Digest version.
Ryan filled a couple bottles for me and I took off on the bike to catch Mark and give him some company to the finish. I ended up catching him after a good 6-7 miles and he was very appreciative of that extra push, and I would have been the same way. He cross the line in 9:45 and next thing you know they were calling him up for 5th place in the single speed category. He rode a good race and was well under what he had expected for his finishing time. This course was great that I had ridden and Mark said the other parts were awesome also. The promoters put on a great race and had done all they could do with the situation from placing the phone calls and there were some great volunteers that made multiple trips and helped get Marcus off the side of the mountain.
Unlike the local EMS that sat on their asses for at least 2+ hours at the Aid Station instead of making the effort to hike up there and do their job. They are willing to put on the uniform of a civil servant then they should uphold the oath they took to protect the injured. Maybe they need to go back and read what they have on their website: "It is our mission that the men and women of Lumpkin County Emergency Services provide protection of life, property and rapid emergency response services to the citizens of Lumpkin County and its visitors. Above all, be courteous!"
On Sunday we got up and went over to the Fool's Gold Trail Race for Ryan to run the 6 mile course of hills. Ryan didn't know how he would do after putting 12ish miles on his legs the day before going up and down the side of the mountain. He ended up placing 2nd overall and 1st in his age group. As Mark said, "Those 12 miles were like priming the pump for the race today."
I'll be back next year to race it again. Great location and well organized by 55nine.
Saturday morning came quick and we were out the door by 5:30 to head over to the race. We got a few sprinkles of rain, but they quickly went away. We lined up for the start and we were off. The first 5 - 6 miles were all on the road leading us out to the big climb that would last for 9ish miles. I was nervous about this climb since I had never climbed for that long and not knowing how my legs would take it. Mark and I were together on this climb passing other racers going up and we had a good pace of 9-10 mph. I knew it was suppose to get steeper the closer we got, but my legs were feeling great. After about 7.5 - 8 miles I backed off because my legs were feeling it and somewhere around 8.25 - 8.5 miles into the climb I was not turning my cranks as hard and jumped off and started pushing the bike knowing I would save some energy and hopefully catch back up. I got back on once it flattened out and started making up my time I had lost. I caught a few of the guys that passed me while walking. I skipped the first Aid Station at mile 18 and kept rolling to Aid Station 2. The decent from the top was roughly 2.5 miles with 1500 ft of elevation loss and parts of it were steep and was winding down the mountain. Had some more climbing and another hike-a-bike section that everyone had to push their bikes up. I could see Mark about 50 yards up the trail, so I knew the walking didn't hurt me earlier. I hit Aid Station 2 (27-28 miles) after some good singletrack trail and Ryan was there waiting to help get whatever I need. Having someone there with you to be support crew makes endurance races go smoother. I knew I would be coming back around on the other side of this Aid Station area which was number 3 (40 miles into the race).
There was some more fire road that we were on and then it dumped off onto the single track and it was more good flowy trail. I was coming into a downhill section around miles 37 when another rider was standing there having us slow down for an injured rider. There was only 2 other riders standing there and I stopped not knowing if they needed help moving him or what the deal was. Come to find out he was going fast into this blind turn and went wide left and hit a good size bump that sent him over his handlebars landing hard on his hip area. We were figuring out where all the injured rider was hurting when he said he had a warm feeling in his pelvic region, his leg looked to be shorter than the other, and over the next 2 hrs of waiting his leg was changing colors. One of the other riders there Eddie is a ER nurse and Robin was an anesthesiologist which it was great to have those guys there to keep an eye on Marcus's vitals and any change that most people may not have picked up. We talked to the rider a lot because Marcus was in some serious pain and was trying to make him as comfortable as possible until EMS got up to us. We were trading off between us on standing up the trail to slow riders down coming down the hill and around the blind corner. After my buddy Ryan running the 3 or so miles from the Aid Station and he hung around for about 30 minutes. He told us that EMS had been at the Aid Station for at least 15 minutes before he made the run and by this time they may have been there for at least and hour. We decided that he should run back down and grab a litter since the EMS down there seemed to not be making there way up even though they were trying to have a John Deere "Gator" come up a different way which would not work in this terrain. You should know it is a lost cause with the Gator when you are having to cut trees to make it down the trail. It took Ryan and 2 other guys to get this litter with some big wheel under probably an hour to make that mostly uphill climb to us. In the meantime a couple other volunteers had made their way to us also. It was time to move him and they got him loaded up and we started the trek down the mountain with roughly 6 people on the litter at a time constantly rotating out. It took well over an hour to go the 3 miles. While another volunteer and I hung off the back of the group by 10 yards or so to keep riders from running up on us we came across a yellow jacket nest and both of us got stung at least 2-3 times. We got him down to the Aid Station and my buddy Mark was coming through with roughly 21 miles left to the finish. It took close to 5 hours from his accident until we got him to the Aid Station and then EMS took him to the helicopter. There were so many more details, but this was the Reader's Digest version.
Ryan filled a couple bottles for me and I took off on the bike to catch Mark and give him some company to the finish. I ended up catching him after a good 6-7 miles and he was very appreciative of that extra push, and I would have been the same way. He cross the line in 9:45 and next thing you know they were calling him up for 5th place in the single speed category. He rode a good race and was well under what he had expected for his finishing time. This course was great that I had ridden and Mark said the other parts were awesome also. The promoters put on a great race and had done all they could do with the situation from placing the phone calls and there were some great volunteers that made multiple trips and helped get Marcus off the side of the mountain.
Unlike the local EMS that sat on their asses for at least 2+ hours at the Aid Station instead of making the effort to hike up there and do their job. They are willing to put on the uniform of a civil servant then they should uphold the oath they took to protect the injured. Maybe they need to go back and read what they have on their website: "It is our mission that the men and women of Lumpkin County Emergency Services provide protection of life, property and rapid emergency response services to the citizens of Lumpkin County and its visitors. Above all, be courteous!"
On Sunday we got up and went over to the Fool's Gold Trail Race for Ryan to run the 6 mile course of hills. Ryan didn't know how he would do after putting 12ish miles on his legs the day before going up and down the side of the mountain. He ended up placing 2nd overall and 1st in his age group. As Mark said, "Those 12 miles were like priming the pump for the race today."
I'll be back next year to race it again. Great location and well organized by 55nine.
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Huck-A-Buck 2012
Another Huck-A-Buck at Lake Crabtree is in the books and for once it was not 100 degrees. The race is put on by Happy Fun Racing and they do one hell of a job. This race always draws a pretty big number of riders and the Single Speed Category isn't lacking either along with the competition in it. The trail got some rain last night which helped tighten it up since it has been dusty and slick, but the trade off was slick roots and bridges along with 80 degree temp with about 85% humidity. We had three 7 mile laps to sort it out on the trail.
For placing 3rd I got this nice poster of vintage Tour de France image of the racers drinking that I plan to frame and hang in my office at work. Along with it was one of these handy dandy recycled bike parts bottle opener key chain that will get plenty of use.
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| Rockin' the 29nsngl kit Photo by On the Mark Sports |
They let the Single Speed Category loose on the course at 12:20 and it was on from the start when the siren went off. The start line was maybe 40 yards from the entrance to the trail, so I had to mash on the pedals hard to hopefully get the hole shot or at least be close to the front. I hit the trail running 3rd, but there was a nice line behind me that was pressing hard. It seemed 1st and 2nd were trying to keep the pace down and with really no passing areas on the trails were going to be tricky. So, I thought I would be nice and ask to pass, so that is what I did. I can't blame the guy when I asked I got the response of, "what?" So, I asked again and he said sure at the next time that it was possible. I went around in the first 2 miles and sat on 1st places rear wheel until about 5.5 miles when it widened out and was smooth, so I took a drink from the bottle and let 3rd go around me. We crossed the start/finish line nose to tail and stayed like that until about 10 miles when 2nd made his move and he was gone. We tried to stay with his pace, but backed off since 4th on back looked to be maybe a minute behind us. I spent the rest of the race seeing 2nd through the woods and looking back and seeing 4th and 5th not that far behind me also. There was no letting up for the entire 3rd lap for it looked like 4th was trying to close the gap and he was. I crossed the line in 3rd at 1:32:19 for 21 miles (3 laps).
I only ended up drinking one bottle of fluid and two Gu packets the entire race. After uploading my Garmin 500 to Strava it really showed what kind of suffering was going on during the race for me by my heartrate.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Run from the Cops 4 HR MTB Race
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| photo by Preston Scott |
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| photo by Preston Scott |
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
2012 6 Hours of Warrior Creek
This was my first time racing the 6 hours of Warrior Creek and my first time riding the trails at Warrior Creek in Wilkesboro. The week before the race did not go as planned because of being out of town for work all week and working some crazy hours. Drive 5 hours back home on Friday then the 2 hour drive to Wilkesboro followed by some camping the night before. I knew when I woke up on Saturday morning it was going to be a rough race because of how the body was feeling. Since I wasn’t feeling fast I at least looked fast in the new METAL Kit. I sucked it up and lined up about mid-pack since I knew the road section at the beginning I would be eaten up by some people with gears. With the mass start and about one and half miles to sort it out and hopefully make up some ground before hitting the single track. I fell in with a group of about 5-7 riders and made my passes when possible since some people geared down and spun up the hills unlike I was doing on the single speed and mashing up every hill. Never riding here and not riding a lot of berms it made for a fun first lap with some learning at the same time. With each lap around 12.5 miles and the first being slightly longer I was hoping I could make up more ground in the single speed division. IT was difficult to know exactly where you may be in your division which made me want to not back off the pace on the first lap. First lap down and as I roll into the pits I let my buddy know that is there as support that I am over geared and should have put an easier gear to spin. There was a lot more climbing involved then I had suspected. It ran through my head a few times to take the time in the pits and switch it out, but of course I decided not to do that. This is where I will start to pay for that decision toward the end of lap three and through lap four. A little over halfway through lap three the cramps started setting in slowly and I tried to fight them off, but turning the harder gear was taking its toll on the legs. Lap four was a tough one, but I sucked it up and pushed on until I got to the top of one of the longer climbs and had to stop because the legs were cramping pretty bad. I ended up rolling across the finished line in 18th out of 37 in the single speed division. Not what I had planned, but this was the hand I was dealt. 
Sunday, March 11, 2012
Curse at the Crab 2012
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| photo taken by On The Mark Sports |
This past weekend I raced the Curse at the Crab 6 hour race at Lake Crabtree here in Raleigh, NC. What makes this race really awesome is it runs from 2pm to 8pm, so you get at least 2-3 laps in the dark. Going into the race I knew the course was going to be a fast 6.75-7 mile course. No major climbing just lots of hammering the pedals. The Single Speed category was 10 deep with some really good racers in it, so I knew it would be a fight to take a podium spot. They started us about half a mile down the main road in the park to try and get us spread out. When we started it was a mad sprint to be somewhere up front since we had about 75 racers jumping into the singletrack at once. I hit the woods running around 4th in the single speed category being sandwiched between two other single speed racers, James and Mark. These are two buddies that I ride with, so I knew what they could do for the next six hours. Not even 2 miles into the race by buddy was running in front of me and he wrecks, which moved me up to possibly 3rd in the SS Category. Somehow I came to a stop without leaving him with a tire tattoo. Then not even a mile later going through some switchbacks I was carrying to much speed into a 90 degree turn and ate it. I got up and never lost my spot in the four person train we were running since they had no way of getting around me. Somewhere during all of this 2nd place fell off and moved me up another spot. The next three laps were the same with me leading the 4 person train through the woods until we got to this flat straight away that I would use for eating and hydrating. I backed off and waved them around while I ate some food moving me back to 3rd place. Somewhere on lap 5, I moved up to 2nd place without knowing it. Then on lap 6 I rolled into the pits and saw who I thought was 2nd place off to the side getting some food or something. At the time I had no clue that I was now in 1st place, and tried to pick up my pace or at least stay consistent. So, in my mind I was trying to chase 1st place down, but at the same time I was running scared and hoping to not get caught. Halfway through lap 8 it was time to switch on the lights. The last two laps were in complete darkness and my goal was to not let any lights catch me and try and catch as many as I could in front of me hoping it would be 1st place. I started my last lap 10 minutes before the cut-off time, so I knew there was plenty of time for someone to still catch me. Lap 10 was uneventful and I crossed the line at 5:58:37 with 10 laps/70 miles. It was not until I got to my pit that I found out I won the Single Speed Category and when I started looking at the results I learned I had been in 1st place since lap 7. Lesson learned: Hammer it like you are chasing and running scared at the same time. Stay Metal.
This race like all the others wouldn't be possible without TORC (Triangle Off-Road Cyclists) and all the volunteers. On The Mark Sports provided the timing and photos. It was really cool that they did live updates on the website every few minutes and had the photos uploaded within hours on their facebook page. The trophies were really bad ass also.
I think I have finally dialed in my nutrition also. I ended up with no cramping or stomach issues for the entire race and that was a first. More on this in a future post.
I think I have finally dialed in my nutrition also. I ended up with no cramping or stomach issues for the entire race and that was a first. More on this in a future post.
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