Go Fast 24 Hours of Erock - Race Report

Well this was my first 2 person race.  It was also my first 24 hour race.  And most importantly it was my wife's first race ever.  Yes she jumped into the deep end of the pool for this one.  We arrived at the race site around 3PM for the 6:30PM start time after both having worked a half day, yes this looked to be a hot one at around 90 degrees.  We quickly went about setting up the tent and I realized I needed one thing for my bike so drove home (nice to race 20 minutes from home).  I got back quickly and we had about an hour to go.

So the race works like this.  Any number of people from 1 up to 8 can enter as a team.  Teams can be male/female/coed.  Dana and I would operate as a 2 person coed team.  Each person must complete at least one lap.  A lap is 8.3 miles or so with about 565 feet of climbing.  Dana and I decided to alternate at the start with me going first since the start has about a 500 yard run with your bike.

At 6:30 I was lined up and ready to go.  I took off on my first lap with the run and finished it in about 38 minutes.    Pretty close to on target.  Our initial goal was to get around 240 miles.  The thinking was optimally I could do 140 and Dana could do 100.  But 2 weeks after TTT was too close for my legs and it became apparent early that I would not meet my goal, but my second goal was to at least go over 100 miles on my mountain bike.  After my lap I started to eat and get ready for lap two.  Dana finished way faster than I expected in about 42 minutes.  I quickly ran over to start our 3rd lap.  We did another alternating lap each and then at midnight started doing doubles through the dark so the other could rest.  Mistake one was not trying out our lights before hand.  Dana had some trouble with hers.  My front brakes busted on my first lap at night.  I was able to fix them with zip ties.

The thing about a 24 hour race is you can't really rest when there are only 2 of you with no crew.  We were always prepping food or bottles or something.  Plus you are kind of jacked the whole time so it's hard to sleep.  Dana had some stomach issues in the middle night with cramps etc.  I did fall asleep waiting which was good.  Around 4:30AM while I was finishing a double I could see the sunlight beginning to peak over the horizon.  Pretty cool.  Dana got to watch the full sunrise while I tried to nap again.  The middle of the night was quite difficult to stay motivated but once the sun started pounding us I wished it was night again.

As the day wore on our spirits wilted in the sunlight.  Around 1:30PM we started to meltdown.  We recovered after taking a brief brake and sort of walking it off.  We committed to getting at least 12 laps each. So that was finished and we had 199.6 miles or something.  So I decided to do one more lap to put myself over 100 and us over 200.  I was struggling with some issues downtown, with all that sitting in hot, sweaty sandy bike shorts.  Anyway we finished with 25 total laps and 208 miles.  Dana did awesome.  I was very proud of and happy for her.  It was a heck of an experience.  The after party at the race was quite enjoyable too, with Wahoo Fish Tacos and Avery Beer Company.

We beat one 3 person coed team and 2 all male teams in the 2-3 person category and tied another.  There was only one other 2 person coed team who we ended up making friends with during the race.  They slugged out 29 laps.  Quite an endeavor.

Happy Training!

Fruita Fat Tire Mountain Bike Festival

So the annual bash in Fruita took place April 29 through May 2.  Events like these have always been on the back burner for me.  Partially it's been confidence...am I really a mountain biker or similarly am I really a triathlete?  It's quite silly given the accepting, encouraging nature of both groups, but anxiety is illogical.  We often fear things and underestimate our abilities.  Bottom line my wife really wanted to go and since she is gracious enough to entertain my Ironman endeavors, I try to return the favor where ever possible.

We headed up for the 4 hour drive to Fruita, Thursday evening after work.  I received a Domino's email for 2 medium 2 toppings for 5.99 each.  So I tried the online ordering system, very slick Java implementation and easy to order for a 5:35 pickup time at 12 noon.  We ate the pizzas on the road, 2 thin crusts that were quite tasty.  Not our typical diet but very fulfilling for a drive.  The drive was peaceful and uneventful, though weather was expected around Vail Pass.  Thankfully our weather was sunny.

We arrived at my cousin Brad's just before 10pm, happily before we kept him up to late.  We chatted briefly and all got headed off to bed.  Brad offered us breakfast at 6 if we were willing to get up, but we smiled and said we'd go for sleep instead.  I slept like a rock and we woke up around 9:30am Friday.  Brad and his wife Brenda have a beautiful house that they designed and built with minimal assistance.  It is built like a fort, I never heard a sound the whole time we were there.  We sat at the counter and ate some fruit and a couple biscuits from Brad's early morning feast.  How cool is it that he cooks breakfast for anybody and everybody each and every morning?  I don't mean cereal and toast, I mean real American style, old school on the farm, breakfasts that will fuel Ironman training or long days of mountain biking.  His reputation is of the stellar, irrepressible host.  He is and so much more.  We felt welcome and comfortable every moment.

We chatted with Brad for a bit while we mapped the days plan.  He has the enviable luxury of working a real, paying job from home.  We got all our bike gear on and headed out with the bikes firmly mounted on the 4-runner.  Downtown Fruita is about 10 minutes from our abode.  We quickly found a close parking spot, thankful to be there for the first full day Friday.  It was unremarkably, uncrowded.  We headed over and it really appeared to be still setting up.  We decided to get some food.  Yes we just ate but not much.  We split a pulled pork sandwich, an italian sausage and a pulled pork platter.  Wow, this after pizza.  If this were fiction, I would be foreshadowing my liberal eating for the bulk of the weekend.

After eating we began to walk around.  Dana quickly determined that all bikes were free to try out.  She asked me if I wanted to partake and I quickly obliged.  This was a shock to both of us.  I am logistically inflexible for the most part.  I hate headaches.  Thank Brad's uncle, my Grandpa Don for that.  But I thought heck free, I am down let's try some fancy bikes.  I got a Titus Rockstar 29'er (big 29 inch wheels) and Dana got a Santa Cruz Blur.

We headed to the Kokapelli Trail for our first day out and rode Mary's Loop, Horse Thief, Steve's Cutoff and the short part of Steve's Loop.  The 29'er took a little getting used to and some oomph to get over the big wheel inertia.  Wow that thing rolled over stuff like a giant.  My chops are definitely better on a mountain bike than ever before.  I definitely don't lack confidence anymore.  It's amazing what an Ironman and a handful of half IMs can do for both your confidence and ability to endure.  Dana loved her Santa Cruz.

After we wrapped up our ride we went out to dinner with Brad and Brenda at Naggy McGees (yes Naggy not Maggy).  Awesome new restaurant in  Grand Junction.  Generous portion sizes, a little fusion with India (curry added to some traditional Irish dishes), and just right ambiance.  We shared our food and great conversation.  I learned my grandfather was in Time magazine in the 70s for figuring out away to crystallize steel to eliminate weak points (totally bastardized that but for me and the other laymen out there you get the idea).  Funny, he is so humble still in his 70s and living the American Dream.  After dinner we headed to a local brew pub that had some Dark Walnut Stout (I think if memory serves me).  Delicious.  After one of those it was time to head home, watch the Nuggets get eliminated and head to bed.

Saturday, I woke up at 8:30 with no alarm.  I headed downstairs and Brad was raring to go on the stove.  Omelettes and pancakes for the rise and shine day.  Incredible!  He could give Naggy a run for her money.  We got showered and headed over to the Festival.  This time we decided on aggressive downhill rides.  I got a Kona Stinky, 30 pounder I am guessing (that's heavy for the non-bikers out there).  Dana got a Pivot with similar aggressive build though it was not as heavy but had a lot of travel and no lockout.  We headed to area 18 to ride.  In general huge mistake on bike choice.  They were brutal on the uphill.  Most folks were getting rides to the top and then just downhilling it.  I have become a bit of a purist in that sense.  You need to ride up it to ride down it.  We gutted it out.  Dana took a doosy of a spill and her big gear snagged some ankle meat.  But we got back to the car and she found some antiseptic and said she could cleanup and continue.  STUD!  I love her!  So we grinded out some more essentially strength training workouts on these bikes.  I will say that I could not find anything big enough to jump off or ride over that my bike would notice.  Silky smooth.

After a solid day of riding we headed back to Brad's.  We grabbed some Guinness and Corona for the cookout he planned.  I decided to bang out a 7 mile run when we got back to stay on top of my training.  Brad grilled some perfect pork chops with a salad and baked beans.  My cleanest meal of the trip with unbreaded, nicely seasoned pork.  I did have a few chocolate chip cookies afterwards while we watched Old Guys.  Surprisingly funny movie, though I had a ton of endorphins with my long ride and run.  Early to bed again.

Sunday we woke up at 8:30 again.  Brad had us set to go with biscuits, eggs, gravy and bacon.  I tell you, maybe B and B for his retirement life???  I will have to suggest.  We decided today to ride our own bikes.  My wife says better the devil you know.  But we headed back to Kokapelli and headed out straight from Mary's Loop to the big part of Steve's Loop.  Wow spectacular scenery.  And our bikes were spot on.  I keep the shifting dialed in like butter.  That is the one thing a shop never gets right so I am happy to have basically a bike shop in my garage.

We enjoyed the ride and headed back to Brad and Brenda's to clean up.  We quickly showered, grabbed our stuff and made our way out of their hair.  A little trying time on the drive back, with a 20 car pileup near Vail Pass, but we were home within an hour of our projected time.  To summarize, we got it just under 10 hours of mountain biking.  I threw in an hour of running.  Brad and Brenda are awesome hosts!!!  Fruita is world class for mountain biking.  The opportunity to test ride bikes for free is unreal.  See you in 2011!

Happy Training!

Training as a Vacation

Triathlete magazine often talks about races as destination vacations. There are also a multitude of training camps out there to pay money and have them tell you what do. How about just picking a cool location and going there for an extended weekend focused on training and recovering (aka, relaxing)? I've done it in the past and was fortunate to do it again last weekend in Moab, UT.

My wife loves camping, mountain biking, road biking and skiing. This is instrumental in me balancing work and training with a happy marriage. We headed over to Utah on Thursday for a 3 day camping and mountain biking trip (a day and a half off work doesn't hurt) with the Denver Mountain Bikes Meetup.

Thursday night we met up with some folks at a restaurant and I kept it clean with some salmon on mixed greens. We headed over to the camp site and set up our tent in the dark (with the help of some headlamps). We headed to bed early to wake up for the big Slick Rock ride on Friday.

Friday morning we both woke up around 8:30. I broke out the camp stove and cooked some Canadian Bacon, toast, mixed fruit, banana and eggs (same breakfast again Saturday). After breakfast we headed over to Slick Rock. It was pretty crowded (as is often the case). We had about 15 folks so we just went out and rode the 15 mile or so ride. It's basically a practice loop and then a big lollipop course. Slick Rock is a bit of a misnomer because it's sandstone and you bike tires get traction like nothing else I've ever ridden on this planet. Anyway it took awhile to ride as we were liberal with stops to keep the whole group together. We finished a little over 4 hours later counting our lunch break.

We headed back to the camp site. Some folks went for showers. Dana decided to do some yoga and I figured this was the perfect time to get a brick workout in and changed gear for a desert run. I refilled my CamelBak and put on my trail running shoes, grabbed the iPod and was off. I headed out for about 9 miles (4.5 mile out and back). Theelevation gain on the way out was incredible. But I felt pretty good and after finishing it was time to shower up and head out for dinner. We hit Pasta Jay's with our big group and I had some chicken and penne.

I went to bed early again. I slept unbelievable well there considering we were sharing an air mattress in the tent. Saturday we woke up and had breakfast. Then we loaded the car and headed to Sovereign Singletrack. Some folks took a shuttle to do Porcupine. I've done and thought it was a little too technical of downhill for Dana. Sovereign was some good climbing and rolling hills so it worked well. We got ahead of the group along with Anelise another rider and so we waited a few times but to no avail. Then we kind of got turned around with some folks (Don and Jody who I did not get contact info for) we met out on the trails so we just kept at it. It was a long 5+ hour day of riding and we all ran out of water with about an hour to go. Given it's the desert I was beat by the time we were done (I took a little longer route back than the ladies).

We headed back to camp and dropped off the bikes and headed for showers again. We (about 30 of us) had dinner at Eddie McStiff's that night. Dana had Salmon Putanesca and I had a strip steak with mashed potatoes. We shared and then had 2 big desserts, which were well deserved and tasty. I had hoped to run that day but was totally destroyed and had a pretty good wreck on Sovereign hurting my right wrist and left shoulder.

Sunday we decided to head back in the morning instead of ride since it was windy and rainy and generally not so great. Plus my wrist was pretty banged up. We grabbed breakfast with the group at the Pancake House. I had an omelet and muffin. Then we hit the road for 5:30 hour trip back to Denver. We got back with plenty of daylight to spare and my legs felt pretty good. So I grabbed my 4 bottle fuel belt and headed out for a run. I decided since I felt good I'd just do a half marathon and call it a successful weekend training vacation. The 13.1 miles went well. I felt strong the whole time and finished under 2 hours without pushing too hard.

Dana was quite happy with her first riding in Moab. The last time we went she just had knee surgery so she read at the campsite. This time she got to fully partake and said it was blast. I was quite happy with the diversions of new mountain biking terrain and the joy of going hard all day and then resting well afterwards. I recommend it anybody looking to balance work, training and family.