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…