Double Boundary Trail race

68.5 miles, 11,500ft of climbing at elevations of up to 11,00oft, the Double Boundary Trail race was going to be physically very demanding. It also proved to be even more demanding mentally…

Like all endurance events, physical conditioning is just one side of the equation. Mental conditioning is also super important; the longer and harder the event, the higher the likelihood that this will become the limiting factor. This was one of those events, although that turned out to be a very good thing.

The prior two night’s camping had been decidedly chilly, so  I wasn’t looking forwards to the 5am alarm. As luck would have it, the temp was around 10 degrees warmer than the day before, approaching 50 degrees. Perfect!

I rolled into the parking lot of The Bean coffee house and joined the small group of riders gearing up for our little sojourn in the mountains. After my obligatory 2nd cup of coffee (and prolific application of  Assos), I was ready to go. We lined up for the photo while Lenny pulled out the the camera. The group was pretty relaxed and they all seemed to know each other well. As the sole Texan, I felt decidedly out of place, although I was made to feel welcome by the friendly crowd.

We rolled out of the lot and headed up the road towards the trail, following side roads for the first couple of miles before hitting the trailhead. I was still feeling the elevation, even on on the flats, so took it easy while I warmed up. I didn’t want to get drawn in by a brisk early pace by the “locals”. It wasn’t long before I was left behind and began the long ride alone.

The first part of the event consisted of a number of individual trails hung together to form what was referred to as the North Boundary Trail (which doesn’t exist as a trail per se). As I pretty soon realized, the trails were cut with hikers in mind and many sections were unrideable. I’d been warned about the hike-a-bike nature of the trail by a fellow MoJo – and now I really understood why. It was starting to feel like a hike, with the occasional stretch of biking thrown in to remind me why I was there :-)

Having a decent GPS was critical for this event and my trusty Garmin 705 was loaded up with the course track. I lost count of the times I found myself off course and had to backtrack, or realized I was actually on course, but the GPS track was off by 50 ft. One section in particular was a long series of downed trees that I had to climb over with no trail in sight. The trail had been flagged in these sections with the occasional small pieces of orange tape, a welcome sight just when I was thinking “there’s no way the trail could be going through this mess!”

The initial rocky ascents/hikes gave way to beautiful vistas once I reached the tree line. I didn’t take much time to get some good shots (despite explicitly being told “take lots of pictures of the race”). Hopefully you'll get the idea from this one…

Having spent the prior days at a similar base elevation in Durango, I was hoping to feel better adjusted, but that just wasn’t to be. Maybe I’d ridden a little too hard in Durango, but ascending even relatively mild inclines seemed unusually difficult. By this time, most of the race was between 9,000 - 10,000ft elevation and it was draining me. At least the weather was still nice, so I toiled up the ascents and had fun blasting down the fire roads that joined a large section of trails.

Somewhere around 5 hours into the event, the mental side of the equation started to tip the balance. Coming in to the event, I hadn’t given much thought to not finishing – it just wasn’t part of the equation. Now it was right on the table in front of me and I struggled to come to terms with it. The few endurance events I’ve competed in have typically used the Solo term to identify the athletes who are competing without teammates. A quick online search gives this definition from the Collins English Dictionary:

“Solo: To undertake a venture alone”

24 hour solo races are decidedly not “alone”. There are certainly times when you are riding alone, but you are never very far from other riders and there’s usually a host of people in the transition area (pits) on each lap. This event was most definitely solo, and was an experience I wasn't mentally conditioned for. Physically I was fatigued and suffering from the elevation, but I’ve been tired and worn out before and was equipped to deal with that. This was different.

On a side note, there were quite a few “gates” across the trails that consisted of barbed wire tensioned with a big stick that you had to leverage into place by brute force. I wasn't feeling like much of a brute at this point, more like a wimp as really struggled with a couple of them!

The event was designed with a single “cache” area where a truck was loaded up with each rider’s extra water, nutrition and any extra clothing they might need. The truck was parked in a lot around the midway point and was ostensibly the last bailout point before heading back into the mountains for the southern part of the event. I’d been warned about the temptation to bail at this point, and had laughed it off back in Austin. Now I wasn’t laughing.

As luck would have it, a charity road ride was taking place the same day, and the parking lot was full of roadies and support staff. I’m sure a few of them wondered where the heck I’d just rode in from! With all the other folks milling around, it felt a little like the transition area in a 24 hour race. And, not surprisingly, I got a little mental recharge from the energy of the folks around me. Feeling much better, I quickly refueled and headed on up the trail.

By this time, another factor outside of my control was quite literally moving in. The weather. At this elevation in the mountains, changeable weather goes with the territory, and the forecast had been 50% chance of thunderstorms in Taos. The temperature had dropped and ominous black clouds were starting to roll in. It was looking like I’d be on the wrong side of the 50% pretty soon. Crap!

The mental recharge I’d received at the cache area only went so far. I was getting colder and the clouds were getting blacker.  They weren’t overhead, but with hours of unknown trails ahead of me the little mental bailout demon was beckoning again. I was moving away from the only bailout point I knew, so had to make the go/no go call that I hadn’t given any thought to prior to the race. No go. Feeling disconsolate, I turned around and backtracked up the trail and out to the road.

Highway 64 descended directly into Taos, and was downhill all the way. At this speed, I outran the black clouds and the temperature increased  Now I was feeling really bad about bailing. Despite the fast downhill, the ride into Taos still took over an hour, and the weather was nice the entire time. Back on the trail, it was a very different scenario.

I rolled back to the car, changed into my ever-so-practical Sport Kilt. Cameron’s my clan, and yes,  I wear it like a true Scot ;-) Suitably attired, I drove over to Eske’s Bewpub, the official finish line. Start with coffee, end with beer! I was the first to roll in, so I ordered a big burrito, chowed down and waited for the others to finish. The “locals” started to come in a few hours later bantering about the their exploits on the trails.

As we sit around chatting, it becomes clear that the storm has picked up over the mountain, and there’s universal agreement on “damn, I’m glad I’m not up there”. If I hadn’t bailed when I did, that would have been me getting pounded. I’m emotionally really bummed, but intellectually damn glad I’d bailed. The storm eventually rolled over the pub and we were treated to a nice downpour with the beer.

I found out the next day that the temperature had dropped to the point where snow had fallen for about an hour on the pass. I had extra clothing with me, but I certainly wasn't prepared for snow. Dang!

My first true solo endurance event ended with a DNF, bummed me out big time for a few days, but proved to be a tremendous education.

Here’s the race profile. The trail ends about two thirds of the way in, then it’s downhill on Highway 64 into Taos.

So now I’ve had time to recover and reflect, the event has taken on a very different perspective. You learn more from losing than winning, and I learned a lot from this event. The biggest realization was the mental conditioning it takes to compete truly alone and the accompanying mindset that’s required. As with any conditioning, depth comes from experience and I’ve barely scratched the surface. I have a very different perspective, and whole different kind of respect for the the folks that compete in the truly epic endurance events like the Tour Divide and Colorado Trail races. I know that  future events I’ll enter with a very different mindset.

Being ill-prepared mentally for this race also served to emphasize to me how well prepared I was for the Solo 24 Hours World Championships. Coach worked my ass off physically, but also “trained” me mentally on how to approach the event. I was super-focused and entered the event with no doubts in my mind. Physically and mentally it all came together and I blew away my expectations. The course was an incredibly tough one and my results could have been very different if I had entered with less mental conditioning and focus.

We are all capable of far more physically than most of us can ever imagine, we just don’t believe it…

Durango day 3 – Andrews Lake

After the last two days of fun, I decided that it was time for a recovery ride. I took the opportunity to get some easy elevation work in by driving up a mountain rather than riding. A buddy in town recommended that I head up to Andrews Lake and take an easy noodle around up there. At approx 10,800ft , it was a similar elevation to the highest point in the upcoming Double Boundary race.

 

Andrews Lake is a picturesque spot, popular for fly fishing, & turned out to be the perfect place for an easy ride. Essentially flat, with a short looping trail around the lot, it was just what the doctor ordered (Coach in this instance).

 

 

Not one to break a trend, I had to do some parking lot work again. As far as parking lots go, this was by far the most scenic one I’ve ridden around :-)

I’m sure the folks up at the lake were wandering what the heck a mountain biker was doing riding around the parking lot at the top of a mountain - in the rain. That’s right, beautiful sunny weather on the drive to the lake. As soon as I’m geared up, in rolls a friendly little black cloud & down comes the rain. Sigh. The Saturday forecast for Taos shows a good chance of rain, so I’m expecting to get wet at some point in the race. This was just another opportunity to simulate race conditions (at least the elevation & precipitation – certainly not the trail conditions, unless there’s a parking lot up there ;)

 

As soon as I started, I could tell my legs were feeling a little flat. Hopefully I didn’t overdo it the prior two days and they’ll feel fresh after a couple of days rest. After an hour of spinning & keeping the power output low, I rolled back to the car, loaded up the bike & headed down the mountain. At least the rain had stopped by this time.

So no major riding today, but I was out on the bike in a beautiful spot. Ain’t life grand!

Durango day 3- Horse Gulch

After yesterday’s little sojourn on the Colorado Trail I was thinking of doing more of the same, with even more climbing. Maybe if I was here for pure fun that’d be OK, but I needed to be reminded that I had a race coming up. My instructions from Coach  were  “something a little more flowy and fun today with not quite as much climbing … let your body recover and also adapt at a cellular level”.

Hmm, what to do. Telegraph Hill had been recommended by a few folks, and it seemed to fit the “not much climbing / flowy trail” profile, so off I went to the Horse Gulch trail system.

I still wanted a reasonable time in the saddle so had enough liquid for up to 5 hours. I met a couple of locals close to the trailhead and they recommended heading up Telegraph Hill then hitting the trails on the far side, before coming back & doing the rest of the system.

Telegraph Hill is a nice easy climb, nothing technical, which fit the bill perfectly. Once at the top, I stopped for a brief photo stop.

Hmm, I wonder why they call it Telegraph Hill?

Now it’s time to explore the “far-side” trails. From Telegraph I headed down Sidewinder to Cowboy. Damn, that’s some fast flowy trail. Way too much fun (not). Out of the saddle, stupidly fast, throwing the bike around the smooth trails. On the flat sections I gunned it in the big-ring to maintain momentum. At this speed, maintaining focus is critical, so I put on my best serious-scowl-of-concentration face. Inwardly I had a shit-grin though :)

The trails are really well marked with little white placards at major intersections. I had to laugh at one point, as a little uphill on Cowboy was marked as “rugged climb”. It was smooth as a baby’s and reminded me of the smooth steepish ascent on Rudy’s trail in Austin. Rugged is all relative. HaHa.

After so much downhill fun, I was expecting more climbing to get back than it actually felt. South Rim->Carbon Junction->Crites Connect was a pleasant climb with plenty of switchbacks and some smooth, short, flowy downhill sections. Now I was back to the top of Telegraph Hill and headed down to the “near-side” trails.

Despite the name, Anasazi Descent isn’t nearly as fun a downhill as Sidewinder /Cowboy. I was on the brakes most of the time, to the extent that I noticed some fade towards the base. At this point, my legs were feeling nicely “warmed-up” and I remembered Coach’s “not quite as much climbing” instructions. I didn’t want to head out just yet, so made my way towards Cuchillo thinking that it looked like a relatively flat trail. Nope. More climbing. Nothing major, but by this time I was definitely feeling it in my legs. No big deal for a regular ride, but I did have a bunch of real climbing to do on Saturday. The good news was that this climbing led to another “serious-scowl-of-concentration / inwardly shit-grin”  flowy downhill back to the Meadow Loop. Yee-frickin-haw!

All good things must come to an end & I finally headed back to the trailhead. I spun around on the road for a little while before calling it a day. The actual ride time was only about 3 hours, and I ended up with 24 miles and about 3,300ft of elevation gain. Fun stuff!

 

Durango day 2 - Colorado Trail

What a beautiful day for a ride. I started the day pretty slowly, not having gotten much sleep, and putzed downtown for a while before finally getting to the trail around midday. My plan was spend about 5 hours out on the trail and get a decent amount of climbing in.

The trailhead marked the start (end?) of the Colorado Trail. As soon as I started the ride, my prior post comments about not feeling the elevation came back to haunt me.  Now I’m feeling it! The first 10 miles was pretty much all climbing, starting at 7000 ft and ending up at 9600 ft. I typically take a couple of hours to get warmed up, so heading straight up the mountain was a little painful. At least the weather was cool, unlike the 100 degree temps I’d gotten used to in Austin. OK, “getting used to” is a little bit of a stretch, but you get the point. The climbing wasn’t too technical, but it was a little slick from the prior day’s rain. Just a couple of short hike-a-bike sections, so nothing major. I did a fair amount of  granny spinning to keep my power output down to conserve energy. Although my perceived exertion was 7-8, my heart-rate was still pretty low for me (140-150) because of the altitude.

I came across a couple at a scenic overlook, and stopped to get a shot. I’m really bad when it comes to taking pictures in general, and I’d been told by a MoJo buddy to “take lots”, so I pulled over and posed. He did ask me to get closer to the edge, but I suffer from mild vertigo, so elected not to do that…

The vertigo got really bad for me at one stage on the ride, with a skinny trail on the edge of a very long drop. I’m puckering up just thinking about it now. I had to really concentrate on the trail and do my best not to look right. Gulp.

About two hours in, the black clouds behind me were looking ominous, and there were a few loud claps of thunder. I layered up, thinking that the weather might turn colder, and was ready to throw on my raingear. Luckily the cloud didn’t catch me and out came the sun. Now I’m starting to overheat. Sigh.

At the peak of the climb, there was a open area with a couple of guys grabbing some food and taking a breather. We started chatting, and one of the two looks at my Hammerhead bike shorts and says “so are you from Austin?”. Turns out he and his buddy drove up from Austin for the weekend, and he knows with some of the same MoJo riders I ride with. Small world! The first riders on the trail I meet and they are from Austin. What are the chances of that happening?

I started back down the other side of the mountain and met a small group of full-faced downhill riders pushing their rigs up. They’d been shuttled up to the top of the next mountain pass, hit a downhill and were now pushing up towards the peak I was coming down from. They informed me that the trail just went down for another 3 miles, then straight up a “wicked climb” that was washed out,  muddy and pretty much unrideable. At this time, I was 2.5 hours in, with the potential for the black cloud to come back and catch me again. I had the option of going down another 3 miles, only to turn round and climb straight back up the 4 mile climb.

Hmm, decision point. I started off down the trail again, but was faced with more of the vertigo inducing skinny trail. After another 15 minutes of this, I decided that enough was enough and I should head back up. At least I remembered to take a shot of the turnaround point.

I caught up with the other group at the top of the climb, and we chatted for a little while. They were from Fort Lauderdale, where apparently the hills maxed out at about 50ft. HaHa. They were all equipped with long travel bikes, and were anxious to do the bomb down the mountain I’d climbed from the trailhead.

I started off ahead of them, only to be brought up short by a cow in the trail. Yup, a big assed cow running down the trail ahead of me. Oh, I gotta get a picture of this! By this time, the downhillers had caught up and zipped by. This spooked the cow, who galloped down the trail ahead of the group (do cows gallop?) and eventually veered off . So much for that picture.

I soon caught up with them, and pulled by on a flat section. The lead guy didn't seem too happy about this and yelled that he’d catch me up on the downhill. Hell no! I gunned it and pulled away without too much problem. Man that was a fun downhill. My front brake started to fade after a while, which was interesting to say the least.

The 10 mile climb took on a whole new complexion going back down. I actually enjoyed having a shorter travel bike as I was forced to take much better lines and employ more body English to throw the bike around to avoid rocks & roots. More rewarding in a strange way.

What took about 2 hours to ascend whipped by in about 30 big-ass-grin minutes. Yeehaw! Now I was getting close to the trailhead, but was only 4 hours into the ride. Time to start exploring some more. I rode for another 30 minutes or so, and finally popped out at the trailhead feeling tired but invigorated.

Now that was a fun day’s ride!

 

Durango – day 1

Arrived in Durango mid afternoon & headed straight for a bike shop to get a map & some trail ideas. It had just rained, so the guidance was a small area close to town that typically dried quickly. The map called the area Durango Mountain Park Trail System – it’s just referred to as “Test Track” by the locals. This was perfect, as I wasn't planning on a major ride, just a quick one to get the legs working and start to acclimatize.

Once I found the trail (well hidden in plain view!), I started to get ready. Just then a small black cloud rolled in overhead & raindrops start to fall around me. And not small drops – these were the kind that splash up a small crater in the dirt. Crap! On goes the rain jacket & away we go. Not 5 minutes later and the sun was out again & the rain had stopped. Phew.

I was a little surprised at how the altitude didn’t seem to bother me. Sure, my HR was lower for the same perceived exertion, but I wasn’t gasping like a chain smoker, unlike my first rides in Canmore prior to the World Championships. And Canmore was only at 4600ft, my Garmin had me at just under 7000ft at this point. Hmm, maybe there’s some kind of “altitude memory” that my system developed - something to ask Coach about.

 

I did a little noodling around to get warmed up and soon found a beautiful view of Durango. I was just 5 minutes ride out of town. Man this place is cool. I ran into a true local on the trail (she was from Durango), who told me she almost never drove her car to get around to all the trails. I realize that’s possible in Austin too, but cruising Hwy 360 is not quite the same as cruising around here…

After a couple of hours, I elected to head back to the car and go find my campground. I could have kept on riding – this being my favorite time of the day – but I though it’d be prudent to get my campsite setup before the sun came down.

You can’t tell from the pikkie, but the campground is in a beautiful spot on the Animas river. Perfect – except for the screaming infant in the adjacent tent. Damn that kid could bawl. I thought I’d get an decent night’s sleep & hit the hay around 10pm. I was still awake at 12:30am. Geez. Ahh, the pleasures of camping…

I used this time to study the map little more closely and elected to start my exploration with segment 28 of the Colorado trail – the beginning of the epic trail that’s on my “bucket list” of rides to hit someday.

I eventually fell asleep thinking of the upcoming days of riding. Yeehaw.

New Mexico Parking Lot Ride

There’s a disturbing trend starting here. As you may recall from my prior post 11 Miles Around The Parking Lot, I’ve been known to ride around a parking lot to accomplish my training goals in an efficient way. Today was, in a way, no different. Coach had instructed me to get about an hour in the saddle during my day’s driving out of Austin into New Mexico. After over 9 hours behind the wheel, I was only too happy to jump on the bike and open up my legs with a short ride. The challenge was finding a decent spot. I’d considered taking a diversion off the highway, but decided against that so I could get to Durango in as short a time as possible.

When you are driving along a major freeway, there aren’t too many options for a quick ride. Hence the parking lot. I chose to stop at an information center just across the New Mexico border, so it was actually a pretty nice spot.

Unfortunately, it was a very small parking lot, so I was really going around in circles on this one. I did get a few quizzical looks from folks in the info center, and one young couple asked me what the nearby mountain bikes trails were like. HaHa.

It was approaching sunset, my favorite time of the day, so it was actually a reasonably enjoyable ride. I did a few sprints to open the legs up, but could feel the elevation difference, having gotten to 4000ft by that time. A small taster of the riding at elevation to come. My total elevation gain for this ride was a massive 147ft. But it was a tough 147ft (OK, maybe not…)

Total distance covered – 10.3 miles

In a parking lot

Again

What Was I Thinking!

Road Trip

I’ve been considering the Double Boundary Trail race for a while now. One of the New Mexico Endurance series events, it’s been on my radar as a definite maybe until about two weeks ago when I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. I’ve heard from a couple of MoJo buddies that it’s a tough race. With a planned 68.5 miles & 11.5K of gnarly climbing, it should be “fun”.

The event takes place on Sept 12th, the weekend after Labor Day, so I thought it’d be a good idea to take the whole week to explore and get acclimatized to the altitude beforehand. I’ve never ridden in the area before, so elected to head out to CO first and spend a few days on trails in Durango, then buzz down to Taos for the event.

My plan is to post up each day with ride reports. It remains to be seen how diligent I’ll be…