This is my second time tackling this monster challenge. For most of the last 10 years, I have been competing in 100 mile mountain bike races as part of the NUE series. Deciding to branch out a bit, I went last year to try my hand at 200 miles of gravel racing.
Last year's event (2014) was a blast. It was SUPER hard. Once I crossed the finish line I remember clearly promising "I will never do something that stupid again!" It literally took every ounce of my energy last year to crawl across that finish line in 16 hours and 4 minutes. But I was smitten on this new racing format. What I didn't accomplish last year was to "race the sun" and win the special award/recognition for beating sunset to the finish line (about 14 hours 44 minutes). Once my body healed and my mind returned to its regular version of insanity, I vowed to return to conquer the race-the-sun challenge. What I didn't realize is that 2014 provided nearly idea weather conditions.Fast forward to 2015 with a larger than normal field of more than 1500 total DK racers. I think something like 1000 alone raced in the full 200 mile event. It is remarkable how quickly Jim Cummins and his crew have grown this event. It also speaks to how terrific is this racing format and this particular event. My Dad came with me this year as support crew. I was actually born in Emporia, KS and so my father wanted to return partly to see the town again that he had lived in so many years before. We made the 12 hour drive out on a Thursday.
Friday is all about race preparations. We stayed in the Emporia State dorms, ate breakfast, got my racing packet and attended the pre-race meeting. What was painfully obvious was the weather. For the prior two weeks, this part of KS had been inundated with solid rain. Non stop almost all month. Same thing in Ohio too. A freakishly wet spring. All the rivers on the course were so swelled that several re-routes were needed. But clearly it was shaping up to be an epic mudfest of a ride!
We depart at 6am on Saturday morning, still in the morning darkness. It wasn't raining at that moment, but it had rained steadily most of the previous day and that night. The ground was wet everywhere. All 1000 riders headed out of town in the predawn light. It was also chilly, but I like chilly.
We hit the first gravel section just outside of town and could see the pools of standing water everywhere around us. The road was muddy and we immediately got sprayed by the bike tires in front of us. Still we were managing good (20mph) speeds through the first 10 miles.
At mile 14 the world came to an end. My racing buddies have told me stories of B-roads in TransIowa where the mud is so thick and gooey that you have no choice but to walk in the ditch. It is one thing to hear about it, it is quite another to actually experience it. I recollect arriving at that section of B-road and wondering why is everyone suddenly dismounting? All these riders in front of me "going down" in waves. It reminded me of the horrible opening scene of Saving Private Ryan when all the soldiers are mowed down by machine gun fire.
I ignorantly rode straight into the B-road mud fest (it looked so innocent) and my mountain bike doubled in weight almost instantly. Thick goo covered my tires and immediately became encased in every nook of my bike. My shoes tripled in size (cement shoes they call it) as goo stuck everywhere. I joined the throngs and marched over the ditch on the side of the road, hoisted my now way-too-heavy bike on my shoulder and started walking.
It was four miles and 60 minutes of agonizing hell. My bike was way too heavy. I kept slipping. People were piled up everywhere so there was no place to go around, or to stop and rest without clogging up the line behind you. It seemed to go on and on and on far into the horizon. In retrospect, the challenge was more mental than physical. Because it was so unexpected, I think I handled it rather poorly. It really seemed to defeat me. Plus I realized, almost at the very start of the race, that I had little to no shot of my race-the-sun goal. It turns out that this was the only real hike-a-bike section, but I had no way of knowing that then. For all I knew, I would be carrying my heavy bike for the next 200 miles ... possibly into the next week.
But that stretch eventually ended. I made it to the first checkpoint (Mile 75) about 2 hours later than expected. I regrouped mentally and checked my attitude into a "can do" frame. And I got to work.
The rest of the ride alternated between "rideable" and "very muddy but still barely rideable" sections. I confirmed what I had suspected ... that I was in very good shape for this race. I passed people all through the race once I got beyond the four mile hike-from-death. I passed hoards of people, fast people even.
I ate well and kept the pedals moving. A highlight was catching up to Tim Ek and chatting for about 15 miles as we rode into Checkpoint 2 together (Mile 150).
I once again needed lights to finish. I once again crossed the line in 16 hours and change. Had the weather been better, I would have easily beaten the sun-setting goal. Some things I learned:
- I was in great shape. Probably the best cycling shape of my life. The course felt easy all the way through.
- My GPS died at night. This cost me about 25 minutes because I needed to stop and wait for a GPS person behind me to catch up so I could follow them. I had to stick with them for the rest of the race even though I had energy to jump ahead.
- I had a great nutrition/eating plan. No bonking, no cramps.
- I could finally ride into the wind strongly. This is my nemeses as a cyclists. But I plowed through 40 miles of a 10 mph headwind without trouble, averaging 15mph over rough sloppy terrain.
- I'm glad I rode my mtn bike tired Fargo instead of my cross tired Warbird. The bigger tires helped in the sloppy mud and I could plow through the rough creek bottoms at the bottom of each hill without worry about flats. The Fargo only hurt me in the hike-a-bike where it's heftier mass was literally a pain in the neck. I think in dry conditions I might try the Warbird.
- I am so coming back next year to kill that silly race-the-sun goal!
