Hey Old Dudes,
So here is my report for racing on those fat tires this Saturday at the Boggs 8 hour mountain bike race. My entire strategy was to never get off the bike the entire time. I figured I could make up time on the course when the other women did normal things like stop to eat, pee, etc. between laps (I have never claimed “normalcy”). The course was a 9+ mile loop with ~1,700 feet of climbing each lap, majority single track with some fire road. The first lap I took a little fast, I got caught up with the speed of all the racers (~400) around me, many who were doing the race as relay teams. On the course at the same time were novices like me as well as the pros, but after the first couple of laps, things got spaced out pretty well. Food strategy (what food??) was on each lap to down one water bottle of Perpetuem (Hammers endurance mix) that was mixed with so many scoops I was essentially squirting something the consistency of baby food into my gullet. Turns out my nutritive paste mixture worked fantastic! 800 calories/lap + one extra bottle of gu mix. For the whole race I never felt hungry. Who needs solid food? All those calories I would have wasted chewing were left for climbing!
Just over 7 hours later I ridden 6 laps, 55 miles (mountain miles dudes…there were things like rocks, trees, small animals, and sasquatch in my way…aka no pavement), climbed over 10,000 feet and called it quits. As I came through the transition area, the announcer yelled that I had 57 minutes left to get in one more lap. I opted to stop as my fastest lap at the beginning of the race had been 1:07. As I was already nearing delirium and contemplating future endurance mountain bike races on a single speed mountain bike, I thought it wise to finally dismount from my specialized beast of burden (which I needed some help with). As I placed myself in a lawn chair, I had the most overwhelming craving for parsley and promptly ate an entire bunch of it (I did get a few weird looks from my competitors that already had beer in their hands, but I decided to save the lecturer on blood acidity for later before I got dubbed some kind of alien).
The great thing is that including myself, there were 4 total racers in the DBC kit. Even though we only made up 1% of the racing population. We had at least two podium spots! Way to go Orange and Blue! My strategy worked, and I have learned that my forte may be in the longer races. Much to my surprise, I came home with a medal for second place in my category. Dan Patten, new to DBC race team also took home a second place for his category. I never had a chance to meet the other “dude,” so if you are out there…Nice Job!, and my brother got a great picture of you, email me and I can send it to you. Corina…nice to meet you at the race (also have a photo of you). Lets ride sometime.
-jmp
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