24 in the OP
It’s a done deal. The final numbers for yours truly came out at 9 laps, 144 miles, and 10,800 feet of climbing. 11th place out of 45 in the solo singlespeed category.
As has been illustrated time and time again, I am horrible at pacing myself on something this long. Lap times are here and you can see where things start to break down after about 12 hours of racing.
As you all probably saw, it was snowing on friday, so the course was kind of a mess on saturday until about 4 pm when things started to dry off. As usual, I went out too hard, and had 4 laps down by about 6pm. At this point I took a break, put on the lights, suited up with the warm clothes, and headed back out. The first couple night laps weren’t too bad, but I started degrading quickly, and took a couple 1-1.5 hour breaks by the campfire after some of the night laps (but never ended up sleeping, I probably should have).
I hauled myself out for the final night lap at around 2:30 in the morning, and tweaked something in my left leg on that lap. At first I thought I was just starting to cramp up, but it quickly became more of a burning sensation in my left quad. I took a little time off after that lap as well, and then hit up the dawn lap around 6:30 sunday morning. Unfortunately, whatever I did to my left leg wasn’t getting better, and after riding a lap that was well over 2 hours, I decided it was better to call it quits than to do more damage.
Hence, I threw in the towel at around 8:30 on sunday morning, cheered on The Vagina Monocogs in their quest for 5th place (they didn’t quite make it, despite Mike Raney throwing a double at the end with both laps being under 1:15), and then rolled across the finish line in my chacos and jeans at 12:07.
On a side note, the Vagina Monocogs did NOT win the best name contest. I personally feel that they were robbed.
I’ve decided that my pacing for around 80-100 miles is pretty much dead on. Longer than that, I need to take more breaks, and not go out so hard.
I chatted with Mark on a couple of the laps, and it sounds like he blew up in a similar way last year. This year he took the tactic of two laps and then a forced rest. It paid off, as he rolled in with 12 laps and a 6th place finish. Nice work Mark!
Other notables are MJ with 7 laps for just over 100 miles in his first solo 24 hour race, Big Gay Randy with a 3rd place solo singlespeed finish, and Chad with a very respectable 13 laps and 7th place finish in men’s solo. That guy is gonna be on his game for the AZT 300.
No Tinker Juarez this year, but Pua Sawicki was riding on a 5 person co-ed team with DeeJay, her husband Ron, Dave Wiens, and Jeff Kerkove. Needless to say, they won their category. Another big name there was Sue Haywood, who showed up and raced a Duo with Spring Klegg. They got 18 laps in, and were only 1 lap behind the winner of the mens duo. Damn.
It was a good race, I was a bit disappointed with my results, but as always, I learned a lot, and look forward to the next one. I’ll be recovering for the next few days, that’s for sure, but hopefully I didn’t cause too much damage to my leg, and will be back at it soon enough.
great riding and chatting with you during the race, Nathan! good effort out there too. every one of these biking extravaganzas works out differently for me, but i think the double lap strategy was worth repeating. if i stop too often in the dark i swindle time enjoying the security and warmth of camp. not stopping early in race and i dig too deep into the reserves that get me through the night.
as for glasses, i’m running Oakley Monster Dogs (with my near-sighted prescription lenses provided by Oakley). the lenses go from nearly clear in low light to very dark in full sunlight. this is super sweet when you’re doing something that will last through changing daylight conditions (ie- long rides or rock climbs that start or end in the dark (intentionally or otherwise). they provide excellent coverage without much loss of view from the frames. they do fog a bit in cold weather, especially if skinning or riding hard w/o much air flow, but that’s the price of killer wind block. as for cost, they aren’t cheap. if you’re like me where every waking moment i see the world from behind lenses, it’s money well spent.
see you in the mountains!
- Japhy rider
Link | February 21st, 2008 at 3:39 pm
I think the ‘swindle time enjoying the security and warmth of camp’ just about summed up what happened to me. I needed to not even think about sitting down by the fire, because that was my undoing.
I hear ya about money well spent. If my glasses aren’t on my eyes, they’re on my head, ready to go on my eyes. I take them for granted until I don’t have them, need to get a new pair soon. Those monster dogs are HUGE!
- Nathan
Link | February 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm