EX2 Cranky Monkey: 9 Hours of Rocky Gap

1^st Place: 9 hour solo, 12 laps 9 hours 21 minutes

Strava Link: http://app.strava.com/activities/54966330

Nutrition: Started with CeraSport and ProBar, switched to Infinit for the second half of race

Weather: Luckily even with all the chance of showers and thunderstorms, we never got rained on during the whole day. Wonderful low 60s all day!

Pre-Race:

This pre-race started out a week prior, when Saturday evening I started to get an itchy throat. Didn’t think much of it, Sunday I still had a little itchy throat, but still not much worry. Monday I went to work and as the day proceeded, I noticed I was picking up a cold, not good! I went to bed early Monday night at 8PM got up for work the next day, got into work and just felt, weak and tired. I ended up going home early and going back to sleep. This started my, I need to get better FAST regime. With some advice from Patrick Blair, I stopped cycling and went into deep hibernation mode of 12-14 hours of sleep a day, with no other activities. I think I watched about 12 episodes of Prison Break through the week. Friday I was finally feeling about 95%. I needed to get my body out of hibernation mode so I did a nice easy ride with Ty Long around the race course Saturday and threw some hard efforts in there to help wake the body up. Ate some good local food for dinner and got some good sleep.

I woke up Saturday morning, somewhat groggy and feeling a little “blah”. My wife, Leesa, kept telling me, I’d come around. I knew once the race started she would be right. In EX2 fashion the race was a later start at 10AM so we had plenty of get ready time. I had my yummy oatmeal for breakfast with a banana. It really didn’t taste good to me today, so I continued to dwell on not feeling good. We showed up at site and got all setup I went into my pre-race zone where I am just thinking about the race and focusing on making sure everything is already. 10:00 finally rolled around and it was time!

My awesome wife Leesa!!

Race Time:

The race was a Lemans start, I have never done one before so I wasn’t sure how to approach one. A lemans start is where you run a predetermined distance to your bike, then start biking. It gets rid of the mass start accidents and thins the crowd out a little. I lined up front lines next to my old XTERRA friend Dominic Van Der Veen, He decided to start the race with running shoes and then do a transition at his bike. The horn went off and I decided to go with a strong jogging pace, nothing too hard but, I didn’t want to be in the back. Luckily EX2 had reserved the section after timing for 9 hour solo racers, so I got to have all my stuff waiting for me at my pit. I left my jersey pocket stuff there (pump, tool and probar). Got to my bike loaded my pockets and I was off, probably mid field. We had one mile of road on the first lap until the single track. I hit the gas hard once on the bike and gunned to make up all the time lost running. I was flying past everyone, and got to the singletrack probably around 15-20^th place overall, a good group sitting for the race start. I was surprised that people sprinted out the run so hard to then go slowly on the road. I looked later at my results and saw that I was pushing 650 watts for that section though.

Lemans Start

Once on singletrack I was happy with my position, it kept me moving at a good pace, no one dabbed and we kept moving strong. The first four miles of the course are twisty, rooty and some rock garden single track. It is fairly fast and rolling. Then begins the 2.5 mile section that is most of the climbing for the whole lap, it would start with a road climb for a bit and then go to single track. After some quick descents followed by climbs we would really start climbing. This is where we hit “Evitt’s Revenge, a 200 meter section that climbed a little over 100 feet, nice and steep and semi-technical. After Eviit’s Revenge we would go begin climbing rocky single track, go through a rocky technical stream that I managed to clear 7 out of 12 of my laps, a nasty muddy re-route that just got about 6 inches deep of mud by the end of the race, another stream, a steeper climb and then finally a steep bone jarring long rocky downhill that you would expect at Greenbriar.

When I reached Evitt’s my first lap I managed to slip out as I turned the corner into it, nothing big. I got back moving again and got past the people that had just passed me up. Made it through the rest of the climbing and down through my first lap. Things were smooth sailing for a bit. I did start to get concerned a couple hours in as my lower back started to complain to me, I was worried I was going to have to stop and make a bike fit adjustment. This worry went on for a couple laps as a continued to contemplate if this was fit, or just a bone jarring course doing this to me. Probably a little of both, I never made adjustments and the pain did seem to leave me diminish later in the race.

I remember at one point during the race thinking that nothing large is really bothering me. Seems like my back is treating me all right, legs are holding up, I’m moving along fine. Sure would be nice to just flow through a race nice and easy and put it in the bag. HA, what a utopic world I was living in! During my fifth lap I decided it would be a good idea to go over my handlebars and slam my knee into rock. Upon later inspection after the race I would find that it hurt so much and maybe bleed a little bit more because it is exactly where I got stitches in 2010 when I crashed at a different race. There is no longer a scar from the stitches, because I replaced it with a new knee bashing incident. This same crash also twisted my handlebars a good amount to the left. I decided to give riding with the bars crooked a try. This was an ok idea…. Ok not really, but I would need help to get them straightened out. I went down the rocky downhill carefully and noticed how low the air was in my tire, I had felt it slowly losing pressure for a little bit now. I decided stopping at the aid station at the bottom of the hill was a good idea. They had a pump and a helpful volunteer who held my tire while I got my handlebar straightened out. My tire at that point was at about 15 psi. It pumped up and seemed to hold so I was off.

I had got a time gap around my 4^th lap and heard I had 8 minutes on 2^nd place. Around laps 6 and 7 I was feeling a little weaker. I think it was a mix of my crash and being sick during the week. I had been sleeping so much during the week that I think my body had got used to afternoon naps and was wanting one at this point. I thought, maybe if I took a 3 minute pit stop, stretched a little and recouped it would be a good use of some time. As I came through the timing station I asked for my gap…. 1 minute, oh my goodness! No time for leisure, I had to bear down and turn this thing around. I had to air my tire up again. I stopped and while getting aired up by awesome teammate Ty, I talked with Leesa about the race, she thought maybe I needed a little rest. I told her about my 1 minute gap and that I had to keep pushing.

Lap 8 and 9 were hard ones. I went hard at them, not too hard, but I felt like I had been taking it easier during rooty and rocky sections to make it easier on the body. I started pushing a little harder on the flatter sections. Every time I hit the road climb it would be the closest thing I had to a break, I would lay down on my handlebars, droop my head some and just pedal. I still went up the road faster than most, and spun my legs hard, but I just laid on the bike relaxing my whole upper body. Then I would hit the singletrack climb and I would stand up on the pedals and this would help stretch the body out and relieve some stress, then it was time to dig back in. 

After going hard for two laps I came in about to start lap 10. I just felt like 2^nd place was nipping at my heels, I never knew when I was going to have to start chasing. I came into pit to put some more air in my tires and asked Leesa what the gap was, 45 minutes! How is this possible, I found out that there had been a mixup with the chips when I asked earlier and the gap was never at 1 minute. I had almost lapped 2^nd place at this point (or possibly had). At one point during the lap I passed someone and he said, “congrats, your now in third”. I informed him that I was in first and told him my laps. I don’t know where 2^nd was in relation to him.

I went into lap 10 feeling ecstatic and had energy I didn’t know about. I had to be careful with this new found energy, I knew I couldn’t just dump it all right now and then bonk 20 minutes later. Every lap race I do there comes a point where you start doing the math of how many laps you have left. This number is usually in two forms dependent on the cutoff. I was pretty sure I could get 11 done before the cutoff allowing me to do a 12^th. I wanted to do 12 coming into the race, but now I knew I didn’t need to. I have made the decision in the past not to do that final “uneeded” lap, later I always wish I had done it. As hard a race it had been, I decided during lap 10 I wanted to get that 12. I came through and asked Leesa if she could get one of my buddies to come out and ride with me on my 12^th lap. I knew I didn’t need it for the win, but the company would be awesome.

Lap 10 is where my legs started getting that jello feeling and also wanting to cramp up on me on the road climb. Lap 11 on the road climb is where both my thighs started to tighten up and then they cramped up, I couldn’t stop because then they would go into a full cramp and since it was both legs, I would probably be laying on the ground writhing in pain. This is at least what I pictured as I decided to drop gear and pedal through some nasty leg cramps. I ended up gritting and groaning loudly up this road climb in pain until finally they went away and I could get on sweet singletrack. This still didn’t deter me from wanting my 12^th lap, I just hoped I would have a buddy willing to throw a final lap with me, I wanted some companionship for the ride.

 Harris Melby, my good buddy from Frederick came to the call, after busting out fast relay laps during the day was waiting to see if he had time to do a final lap. He said he would take the lap with me at my pace if they didn’t make the cutoff. I waited the three minutes and their team missed the cutoff and I we took off for the final lap. That companionship was so great. I had worked very hard on my 11^th lap to make it in time for the 12^th, I even threw down some air on a jump for the camera. All my hard work on lap 11 made my 12^th very rough! I felt like I was dragging on that final lap, I made it up Evitt’s for a clean 12 for 12 on the climb that day. I then dragged up the rest of the climbing and then went slow down the rocky downhill, because I was beat. Then we booked it back in to the finish to claim my 12 lap win.

Thanks to everyone who helped me get here the list gets larger everytime, but I can’t seem to do it without all of the support I receive! Thank you for everything!

 

 

A muddy day out there, this was after "some" cleaning up