Canadian Nationals - Race Report

Summary:
Place: 2nd
Details of ride: ~275Km, 18,000 feet of climbing, and 18 hours on the bike

Details:
The drive up was amazing - great scenary and great company. I drove up thru Vancouver to pick up Kate - amazing friend and support crew extraordinare - and her roomate Lila. The drive flew by - we were catching up and just enjoying the great views along the way. Road trips with good friends always fly by ...

The weekend was relaxed .. Kate and I woundered around town, found some good food, did some shopping, and went up to the site to set up the pit and get in a ride. We found the course in pretty good shape - about 18km and 1450ft of climbing per lap. Loads of single-track but most of it was not really technical ...but super fun none the less. It wasn't a course that played to my skills but it was a fun and challenging course - worthy of Canadian Nationals.

Race day brought warm weather (about 30C) and blue skies ... so we got the ice scarfs going right away. The first few laps flew by ... stomach was holding together pretty well and eating was on track. Kate was giving me double feeds (2x per lap) so my drinks were always cool and I never ran out of liquids. Around lap 4 my stomach started to feel funny but i couldn't quite place it. Looking back eating Perpetuem in the heat was the wrong call ... later in the race we figured this out and the Hammer guys hooked us up with some Heed (thanks Hammer!) ... it's the only thing that got me through the race ...

After 10 hours of racing I ws right behind the leader - about 8 min back. But my stomach felt funny so i decided i should take a quick break. After an hour i went back out and my first lap felt great. I think i ate too many salts though ... my second lap was painfull. I had to stop. Unfortunately I was sick for a few hours before Kate convinced me to shower and offered chicken broth which was amazing ... i was back in action after 4 hours off the bike.

I had some catching to do ... 2nd and 3rd were both ahead of me. I like to chase though so off I went ... my legs felt great and i ws turning out the laps. I passed 2nd and 3rd in my first lap out and continued to gain on them. 1st was too far ahead so i knew it was out of the question ... but i still pushed hard.

All in all it was a good race - a great effort despite the stomach.

Thanks again to Samammish Valley Cycle for keeping my awesome Norco's up and running - and of course, thanks to Kate for her amazing support!

The race that was over before it started ...

Yup, it's true. I'm talking about the 50 miles of endurance a few weekends back. It was so bad that it's taken me 2 weeks to write about it. Yes, that bad!

Going into the race I was exhausted. Mentally i was tired, emotionally i was drained, and the physical follwed suit even though it had no business doing so.  June was a bit of a rough month ... The best part of the race was being seeing Karen and Matt again ... what a great couple! :) And their kids ... too cute!!!

The race started out well - i was determined to beat my time from last year but a good measure and knew I had the fitness to do it. Unfortunately i had nothig else and when your mental focus is gone ... i just couldn't pull it together.

The good
The technical single-track... i passed sooo many people. That was fun.  Unfortunately there is like 4 miles of technical single track in the whole 50 mile race. Yeah, I needed more :)

The bad:
Lost my left contact lense about 15 miles in. Too much mud ... Also, I forgot my climbing legs at home. No juice. Normally this year I've been flying up the hills. Not so much my friends. I was slower than heck. ouch, it hurt.

the ugly:
i just didn't have it. Zip. Nil. Nadda.  Nothing to give, nothing to fight with. I was suffering like 5 miles into the race. I've never wanted to quit a race so bad ... I was totally suffering and had no metal ability to push. I was going sooo slow.

But I finished. it took wayyy longer than it should have, it was hard, and i am proud of myself for not quitting :)

Next up: Canadian National 24 hr Solos!