By the numbers:
Miles riden: ~60
Feet climbed ~10,000
Laps completed: 9
Hours riden: ~7.5
Temperature: 95 F (that's 35C)
Humidity: 70%
Bottles of water on the head: 9
Finishing place: 3rd (15th of 60+ riders overall)
The Lead Up
You can read about my lead up here on my blog ... I had put in 16 hours of training in the 6 days leading up to the race ... what better way to end a 24hour training week than with an 8 hour race? I sure as heck wouldn't have gone as fast on my own ...
The Race
As per tradition (well, for the past 3 years anyway), July 4th was hotter than heck. It was 85 F(30C) at 10am and promised to get up to 95F (35C) with 70% humidity. Trying to stay cool was definately a factor in this race - and for those of you who know me and my track record for hot races ... well, staying cool was a major focus of my race.
We didn't have the oppertunity to pre-ride, haven driven down the night before - so the first few laps were about getting to know the course. It was a ~6.5 mile course with ~1112ft of climbing per lap. The course started with a short 0.5 mile gravel road climb - one of only two road sections on the course and then dumped us into some singletrack. The climb continued for another mile or so and then we came out to the 2nd road section - about 0.25 mile of road. Off the road we were treated to some of the funnest and fastest singletrack downhilling I have ever done. We were racing on a dirt-biking trail and it was very well maintained. The downhill seemed to go on forever with some tight turns and deep (2ft) ruts to keep us on our toes. At the bottom of the downhill we crossed a bridge and then began the 'arizona' climb back up. It was called the 'arizona' climb because it was fully exposed, sandy, and did not offer any wind or repreive from the heat of the day. It went on forever - the grade ranged from 15 to 28%, at which point I was off my bike and walking. At the top of the climb we were treated to a short but sweet downhill and then were spit back out on the road where the feeding zones were.
It was a super fun but unforgiving course. There were no flat sections so eating was done on the climbs. I am really good at getting bottles out of my jersey now ... that is where I stashed my bottle of cold water each lap ... critical part of my 'keep it cool' strategy. Ok, back to the race ...
The goal of the race was to go out hard and try to blow up. The problem with this strategy is that I really have no ability to 'go out hard'. Going out hard for me is going at the top of my z1. But I went out faster than my 'pacing' effort would have been. The first two laps felt slow. I was pushing but didn't seem to get anywhere - and I was feeling the heat. I took a bottle of ice water with me each lap and doused myself with it, trying to stay cool. Just into the 2nd lap Fraser passed me ... 'did you just lap me?' I asked incredulously (you never know with Frase, when he's on, he is ON ... and he is getting fitter every day). Turns out he took a wrong turn (follow the ribbons) and got a flat tire. Oh ...
We were both self-supporting and had made up some drinks and water beforehand - with 5 bags of ice everything stayed nice and cool. Because we didn't know the course we didn't estimate well with the calories per bottle - I had to stop every 2nd lap and adjust my bottles for the next few laps. Around lap 3 I started to feel good and my lap times started dropping ... 30seconds faster, 2 minutes faster, 5 minutes faster- I just kept on getting faster and faster. It was great - I ended the race feeling strong ... a great sign given that Worlds is a short 3 weeks away!
I ended up in 3rd ... the two girls in front of me also did 9 laps and were ahead of me by 15 and 7 minutes respectively. Another few laps ...
Frase had a good race until about 5 hours in where he broke his chain 4 times. Pretty frustrating!
And now I am cleaning the dust off my bike and clothes, getting caught up on work, and getting ready for worlds!
