Photo Mark FarmerHaving blown a whole bunch of money last weekend doing the Tour of Atlanta and having to do this by myself, I really didn't want to spend the money to get a hotel room. So I had two options, drive up in the morning leaving Athens at 3am, or driving up the night before and sleeping in the car. I chose the latter. I worked the whole day and went out to dinner. I had originally planned on grabbing some food and eating in the car but I figured if I left too early, it would still be light out and thus I wouldn't be able to sleep. Anyway my departure time quickly got later and later. After dinner I packed and showered and headed off to get gas and some food/drinks. While I was pumping gas, I realized that I forgot my gloves! That would have been a serious mistake considering my ring finger and pinky on my left hand are still numb. So I drove back home to pick up my gloves costing me around 20 minutes. I arrived in Loudonville around 12-12:30, found a place to park and rolled out the sleeping bag. I have just enough room with the back seats folded down and front seat folded forward to sleep in the car. It was a little toasty in went I went to sleep and I thought about cracking open the windows but I decided against it. Good call since I woke up freezing cold.
I was up around 5:15, way before my set alarm. Rather than try to fall asleep again for 30 minutes, I decided to head to Radar's Restaurant for breakfast. I chose the buffet but certainly did not eat my money's worth. I was still a little full from dinner. After breakfast I headed over to Mohican Adventures where the race headquarters was located. I picked up my number and drop bags. A tube, coke and some food in Bag #1 for Station #2, two cokes, a tube and more food for Station #3 (I came through that twice), and a coke for Station #5.
I had to make a last minute bathroom stop so I did not get suited up as quickly as I would have liked. I kitted up with plenty of Beljum Budder and quickly rode my way to the start line, about a mile away. I met up with a bunch of stragglers and we made it to the start with 3 minutes to spare, perfect timing!
The race started promptly at 7am and we rolled out of town. There was a $200 city limit prime so the Pro's hit it hard. The ride out was about 3 miles to the trail head. I took it easy on the road and many people passed me but I had 100 miles to do that day. We hit the trail and it instantly became congested and slow. we rolled through some single track then came to this huge unridable hill, one of many in the day. Maybe if you had no traffic in front of you could you have ridden up some of these hills but it was definintely climbing up a wall. It was even hard to walk up these hills. After the short section of trail and riding through some camp grounds, we ended back at Mohican Adventures then rode to another trail head onto the trails of the Mohican State Forest. On of my friends, Bruce was at the trail head heckling and yelled at me "Tinker Juerez is only 9 minutes ahead of you!" We rode about 20 miles of really nice single track.
2 hours in, I arrived at Aid Station #1. I foolishly did not eat anything prior so I scarfed down some gels and PB&J. Back onto the trails and then we hit some road ways and back onto trails, but this time on private lands.
Aid Station #2 was at someone's house. Not sure where since directions to the station was not listed. I drank my coke stashed in my drop bag and ate some food. We were still on trails on our way to Aid station #3. On the way there, I crashed. I got my front wheel stuck between two rocks and went over the bars. Luckily the guys behind me were not going super fast and were able to stop and not run me over. Banged up my shoulder but I was fine. I stood around for a few minutes to catch my breath and continued on. We got out of the trails and hit the roads. It was a mixure of paved and fire roads. We dipped back into some trails to Station #3.
I arrived at Aid Station #3 with a large group. I ate a few gels but did not eat enough as I found out later. I would be arriving back at Station #3 after I did the 100 miler's loop. The ride to Station #4 was very long. It seemed to take forever. About half was some private trails and the other half roads. There was this one long wooded gravel road that took forever. It was the same thing for miles. The scenery hardly changed. I was definitely hurting for food and was running low on energy. I felt good to about 100K, then pretty dead at 110K. I felt the bonk coming and I ate all the gels I had on me and some oatmeal cream pie.
I came into Aid #4 at around 8 hours, the winners had already finished the race at this point. I was definitely running on fumes at this point. I had tried to beat the bonk by eating as much as I can when I started to feel low but it was too late. I ate and loaded up with extra gels. I was told 8 miles back to Station #3 (A lie) So I motored on. My granny saw lots of use at this time. I even had to get off and walk a hill I normally would have been able to ride.
Back at #3, I did not feel much better. I ate more gels and loaded up, it was about 16 miles to the finish. Half way to the last Aid station, I was feeling a bit better. The worst of the race was over and just had to tough out some road. By this point, I was having trouble sitting in the saddle, pedaling made it worse. I found myself pedaling out of the saddle a lot, something not increadibly efficient with a full suspension mountain bike.
When I arrived at station #5, it was literally just down the road from the finish but I had to ride more trail to get there. I filled up with some water and went out to finish the race. I was back into the nice single track and then finally popped out of the trail by the Mohican Adventures. I thought I was finally done! But nope, there was a 2 mile section I still had to ride, including another one of those unrideable hills.
Then I finally finished 97th @ 11:38.24, 4:47.58 back from the winner Jeremiah Bishop. Total ride time on the computer read 10:40, estimated TSS of 800! Luckily I did not suffer any mechanicals or flat tires and just one crash. I did have some less than optimal shifting which I'll swap out the cable and housing. I noticed the poor shifting on my last ride but neglected to take care of it. Actually I lied, I did have one minor mechanical. In the last 3 miles, I shifted to my top cog and it over shifted into the spokes. Then the chain proceeded to somehow drop below the stupid anti-mess up your spokes drop pins shimano puts on their XT cassettes. Luckily I was able to force the chain out of their. Lucky for me since I had lost the tire lever/8mm spanner/spoke wrench needed to use the chain tool on the Park IB-3 multitool. It's wierd because I cannot get the bike to overshift in the stand and 99% of the time. But I guess with high torque and right amount of wheel flex, it pops off over the top.
That race was hard, but a whole new type of hard. It is not Crit hard, not road race hard, not cyclocross hard, century riding hard, nor is it mountain bike race hard. Unless you are a Pro, its more a race against yourself, seeing if you can make the distance. The efforts were not that hard (I was shooting for riding at 80%) but its just long.
I do feel I can shave off a few hours the next time I do a 100 mile race since I now know what it feels like. Definitely with better energy management and not doing a stage race a week before. I feel great satisfaction that I completed this race. No I won't drop riding the road and cyclocross for endurance mountain bike racing but its something I would like to continue doing in the future.
Miles:340
Miles YTD 3363
