When The Student Is Ready…

As you’ll see from my prior post, I’d gotten it in my head that I should try a 24 Hour Solo mountain bike race. 12 hours seemed OK, what not 24? HaHa. I had no idea what I was doing, (but then that’s never stopped me before) so I signed up for a solo spot in 24 Hours In The Canyon, being held in Palo Duro at the end of May. That gave me a few months to figure things out. In the mean time, I started looking for other endurance races I could compete in before then. I had been told that the Ouachita Challenge was a great endurance race, but registration had already passed & it typically fills up within hours of opening. Luckily, a MoJo buddy couldn’t use his spot, so I was able to transfer in.

It was at the OC that I met Shaun for the first time. You know the Buddhist proverb, “When The Student is ready, The Teacher will appear”. I didn’t know it at the time, but Shaun was The Teacher.

I’d arrived at the race the night before after a 9 hour drive, and was chatting with other bikers outside registration. I overheard a badass looking racer talking about the 24 Hour Solo World Championships. Naturally that piqued my interest, so I introduced myself. Little did I know that he was a serious ultra-endurance racer who’s experience and knowledge of the subject was off the charts. I later found out that he’d taken 2nd place in a 48 Hour Solo Race just a few months prior. That’s right, 48 Hour Solo! Geez.

We chatted for a while & I picked his brain for as much information about 24 solo’s as possible. I saw him again briefly the next day during the race meeting. Needless to say, I didn’t see him thereafter, as he disappeared with the leader pack as soon as the gun went off. My race was pretty uneventful, and I did OK except for losing 30 minutes after two flat tires. Sprinting through rock gardens isn’t the smartest strategy… After the race I headed home and my thoughts quickly moved to planning for my first 24 Hour Solo.

Turns out there aren’t too many good resources available describing how to train for and race a 24 Hour Solo. Oh crap! Now what the heck do I do?

A few weeks pass by and I get an email out of the blue from Shaun. He’d gone to the trouble of tracking me down to see how I was doing. Nice guy! We exchanged a few emails and the subject of the 24 Hour Solo World Championships came up. Turns out that my placing at the Dirty Dozen race had qualified me to apply for a spot in the race. Whoa. Now that’s a bigger step than I’d previously planned on. Shaun was heading to his third World Championships so knew a thing or two about race prep.

That’s when the “offer” came. If I was seriously committed to racing at Worlds, and was prepared to do whatever it took to “make it happen”, then he’d become “The Coach”.

You know the scene from The Matrix when Morpheus offers Nero the Red and Blue pills.

I took the Red pill… What Was I Thinking!

The next few months were, as Coach put it, a Kamikaze dive bomb of ass whipping training 6 days a week, and a fire hose education. After taking the top spot at 24 Hours In The Canyon, and with Coach’s incredible guidance, I found myself on a plane for Canada.

Next stop, the 24 Hour Solo World Championships.