24 Hours of Rocky Hill

This post is waaay overdue. The race was forever ago now and I’ve just been procrastinating big time. I usually give myself some time to reflect on a big race, but this was getting out of hand. So let’s see if I can remember how this went. Get on the bike, ride around  in circles for a day and you’re done right? Ahh, if only it was that easy…

The two weeks prior to the race had been pretty miserable as far as the weather goes. I’m sure if I was one of the countless Austinites that were praying for rain, it would have been just peachy. But as a mountain biker, it sucked. Luckily I’d been out to Rocky Hill a few times to practice ride the course already, so knew what to expect. The days leading up to the race were fine, and I was hopeful that the course had dried up. That wasn’t to be the case, but it could have been a lot worse.

I did have a loose game plan for the race, which in hindsight could have been buttoned down more than it was. My first two 24 hour races were approached more defensively, with tactical goals like minimizing the amount of rest in transition, not sitting down or pacing to ride the whole race. I went into this race with the intention of making the podium. I knew I had an excellent chance of meeting that goal, with the obvious wildcard of not knowing who I’d toe the line with until race day. I also had a goal to go out hard and push the pace to see how I would respond, my rationale being that I could always back down on the pace later in the race. During the race briefing, I leafed through the list of racers in the Expert Solo category. I recognized at least three really strong riders, so I knew I’d have my work cut out for me and had to go out strong if I was to podium.

I had arrived around 9:30am and stood in line to register. It was a record turnout, and there was a nice buzz going already. A couple of good riding buddies had gotten there the night before and snagged a primo site right at the entrance to the transition area. I just needed to wander in and make myself at home. Thanks guys! Even better, their significant others were going to be there for the duration as “pit bosses” :)

 

I felt pretty relaxed, and took my time getting setup. This mainly consistent of filling 26 bottles with custom Infinit liquid endurance blends, the details of which are super secret (but posted on Coach’s blog…). Infinit is the only nutrition I take now, whether I’m training or racing. I know how my body responds and I can go for 24 hours liquid only with no issues. And it’s so much easier to deal with. Just ride in, grab a replacement bottle and ride out.

iPods are allowed for the solo racers (as long as you use just a single ear bud). My plan was not to listen to any tunes until the night hours. I wanted to be on my game and focused out of the gate, and have the option of listening at night to keep me distracted from the inevitable fatigue. I did crank up U2’s Streets have No Name immediately prior to the start to get me fired up. It reminded me of standing together with Coach at the start of the World Championships and was a great way to get set mentally.

Like World’s, the start was Le Mans style. I’m not much of a runner, so this type of start is not my strong point. I was also pretty leery of twisting an ankle as my shoes are super stiff and not really designed to be clomping along over lose gravel. Ironically, I was within 15 feet of the bike when I did feel my left ankle give way. I was just waiting for the pain, but luckily dodged that bullet. I grimaced an inner sigh of relief, jumped on the bike and pulled away.

Check out this video that captures the Le Mans start, together with footage from the rest of the race

In keeping with my plan to go out hard, I stepped on the gas and started to pull by the racers that had left me in the Le Mans dust. I knew I was pushing the pace pretty hard as I could see how high my average power was over the first few laps, and it was a lot higher than in the prior races. In the back of my head, there was the rational voice saying “slow down you’re pushing too hard”. Unfortunately, the emotional side of me was enjoying the feeling of riding fast and kept thinking about how I had told myself (and others) that I was going to podium. Compounding that was an assumption that the other strong racers would be pushing equally hard with a similar pace. So I had a constant tension between backing off a little and riding my race, or keeping on the gas and riding what I thought was their race.

Sidenote: Looking back over my ride data,  I found that I’d broken my personal best CP60, CP120 & CP 180s. Sweet, except that you don’t do that at the start of a 24 hour race!!

In addition to my PowerTap readings telling me I was pushing it, my lower back was also making itself known by jabbing me with a hot poker at regular intervals. I’ve had this before at the beginning of races, and it’s always gone away within a couple of hours. Unfortunately, this was not going to be the case.

Other than the intermittent hot poker in the back, I was actually having a blast on the course. The trail conditions were great, I was feeling strong and passing riders on a regular basis. Somewhere on lap three, I passed one of the solo riders I thought was going to give me trouble, which gave me another boost of confidence. My lap times were shorter than I had originally planned, but I was feeling strong. If only that darn lower back pain would go away. No worries, it always does…

For some reason, I remember lap six as being a particularly fun. I was nicely warmed up, feeling strong and just flying. At one part of the course, I actually yelled out loud I was having so much fun. Yeehaw!!

Just like at World’s, my pit stops were barely stops at all. I’d scream up, skid to a halt, yell out my time and indicate whether I needed bottle of Infinit with or without caffeine. Once the bottles were swapped out, I’d be right on my way. The only time I stopped for any appreciable time was to put on my lights and then again to replace the batteries after another 5 hours during the night. My goal was to minimize time in the pit, for obvious reasons, but also to maintain “mental momentum” and stay in a racing mindset.

I continued to knock out laps at a healthy clip, dropping the pace a little as the laps passed by but not significantly until lap 11 when my back really started to hurt. The intermittent poker had turned into a steady blowtorch which didn’t feel like it’d go away any time soon. Coming into the transition after lap 11, I really wanted to take a longer rest but that wasn’t part of the game plan. I took my usual minimalist stop and headed straight back out again. Maybe I should have had a more flexible game plan and given myself permission to rest? I’ll never know, but lap 12 is when I started to come unglued and spent an inordinate amount of time standing up out of the saddle trying to stretch my back and turn down the blowtorch. A few times I actually stopped entirely and stood over the bike to alleviate the pain. I’d never felt back pain like this before and I just wasn’t sure how to handle it. The physical pain was only part of it, as I started to think about the implications of toughing it out. Do I stick with my mantra (Keep Pushing, Stay Tough) and just push through the pain? Maybe. But could I have caused some more serious damage to my back if I did? Never having been faced with this before, I just didn’t know. So after an inordinately long lap 12, I rolled into the transition and sat down for the first time in the race. And could barely stand up again… Hmm, this doesn’t feel good. I eventually pulled myself up out of the chair and proceeded to hobble around like an old man. Definitely not good. At this point, I knew I wasn't going to jump back on the bike anytime soon, so assumed I had “failed” to meet my podium race objective. Still in pain, I hobbled slowly to the car, reclined the front seat and attempted to stretch out and get a little rest.

By this time, I’d decided that I wasn’t going to go back out again. Could I have taken a couple of hours rest and gotten back on the bike? Most likely. With 8 hours left of the race, I could probably have pushed out 3 more laps and taken 3rd place (although I didn’t know that at the time). But that wasn’t the game plan. If I had done that, would I still have back pains now? Probably not, but I do know one of the solo racers who gutted it out with knee pains and put in a superlative performance. He knew the score, elected to go for it and his results reflect it. Unfortunately, he’s still off the bike and now faced with knee surgery. That’s tough, and I feel for the guy. I was back on the bike after a few days, competed nicely in a local endurance race a couple of weeks later and have decided to got for it big time at a 48 hour solo in a couple of weeks (stay tuned for reports).

So after about 16 hours of solid racing, and a couple hours of sulking, I packed up my kit and headed out to find something to eat and get some rest. Another 24 for the books.

I’ve had lots of folks ask me about the race, and my response now is that I’m happy with the way it went. I’m not satisfied with where I ended in the standings of course, but I am satisfied with what I learned. A few things in particular I took away from the experience.

• Don’t go out too fast
  Well duh…
• Have a written game plan.
  I thought I had a good idea of what my strategy was, but I think it would have been better internalized if I’d written it out.
• Be flexible.
  There’s a lot of stuff that can happen in a 24. I needed to be more flexible and taken an occasional  “mental moment” to step back, reassess and maybe adjust my game plan real-time.
• Give myself permission to rest.
  In a similar vein to being flexible, taking some time to rest could have helped. Not so long as to cool down & get out of race mode, but long enough to get a mental & physical break.
• Ride my race and not ride what I think the other guy’s race looks like.
  Nuff said.

 

And for those of you that are into stats & charts:

• 12 laps
• 121 miles
• 14,258ft  elevation gain
• 1st hour – 82% FTP
• 1st 3 hours – 72% FTP
  

The ever popular heart rate chart. My back wasn’t the only thing getting worn out. My heart was getting pretty tired too :)

Not much of an elevation change at Rocky Hill, but the elevation gain over 120 miles was still north of 14,000 ft. Almost half way up Mount Everest…

Now I need to get my butt in gear and do a write-up of last weekend’s local endurance race – The Enchilada Buffet