Here is all you need to know about the race:

1. I finished it

2. I finished in better time than I was predicting

3. I did not win, but 2nd place isn’t all that bad

4. It was the most epic athletic endeavour I’ve ever done.

And now, for those interested in the details, please read on.

Leg 1 I toed the line at 9am on Thursday at Durango Mountain Resort with 5 other crazy bastards. I had done a little research on these guys and felt only one would bring good competition, and he did not disappoint. Markley Anderson, the eventual winner, is a badass rider from Virginia. He has won several 12 hours across the country and is an official finisher of the Tour Divide, the toughest bike race on the planet. His looks are a little deceiving. He is short and stalky, coming from a bodybuilding background. He also rides a tiny little carbon 26″ hardtail, something I thought for sure would beat him down on a course like this. I figured all that muscle mass and and low elevation origin would put him at a disadvantage, and perhaps it did, but his superior conditioning to y0urs truly and his mental toughness proved to be the key to winning in the end.

Markley and I hung together up the first climb on Hermosa Creek road. As we got close to the crest, I put it in big gear and started to pull away because I knew a long fast descent was in store and I was ready to get moving and beat the heat. I got to Hermosa Creek and the long arduous climb up to Bolam Pass began. I looked back and did not see 2nd place, but something told me he wasn’t far back, it was too early in the race.

I held a steady, but slightly fast pace up to Bolam. I was well rested and feeling good this morning. I remember being surprised that I reached the 11,500′ pass in only 2:05. By this point, my instinct told me Markley was quite a ways back, but I was on fire, and bombed the descent to the highway to finish stage 1 15 minutes ahead of him.

Leg 2 started with long climb up towards Dunton. I was still feeling good, so kept steady on the throttle. I was rewarded with a nice descent down to Burro bridge. After this though, it was a long hot climb up to the Black Mesa Hut. Fatigue began to set in and I initiated my mini breaks, short 10-30 second stops on the side of the road to bring the heart rate down and recoup. I also began looking for creeks to douse myself in and cool off, a few of which a found and greatly appreciated. At this point, I felt my lead was much bigger than it was.

I made it to the Black Mesa Hut and took my time to refuel and rest.  Should have got my ass back on the bike and the road, but the rest was nice. I was still out on the road before seeing anyone close to coming in after me, so that felt good.

Leg 3 started with more climbing, then a fast technical decent on a very rough forest road, then a a super fast descent on smooth forest road, then some gradual climbing, then some flat windy stuff, a loop around Miramonte Lake (which I jumped in to cool off), then a long steady climb to Sandy Fort Pass, then a long gradual descent down to the Dry Fork Hut. The scenery really began to change from mountain to high desert during this leg and the heat picked up.

I took a long break at hut 3 to restock and give the legs a break. I went to the bathroom, and when I came back Markley had arrived at the hut and was getting a coke. I was very surprised he had kept the gap so slim, and I all of a sudden my competitive side fired up. I hopped on my bike and took off, hard.

On Leg 4 I was determined to put a lot of time on Markley, so I rode very hard. This leg was hot, smooth, fast, and fairly flat. It did have some headwinds to contend with, but I just tucked down onto my bars and punched through. My plan was to reach the Wedding Bell hut, just grab what I needed, and get back on the road. Well, a plan is rarely executed to intention. There was a long gradual climb at the end of this stage that left me pretty tired after maintaining a pace around 18mph on the oil/gas roads. I decided to take a long break here as well, just waiting for Markley to come in before heading out again. There was a drop bag at this hut with new food, coconut water, and other provisions. I decided to only take a little, and to also leave some of my other gear behind to lighten the load. It was around 8pm at this point and night was coming.

I started Leg 5 rather leisurely. I realized at this point that I had let another racer influence my ride (something I said I wouldn’t do) and I had paid the price. I still had legs left, but not much. This stage to Paradox Valley was going to be at a nice and easy pace, so I focused on keeping the heart rate chill. This meant walking some of the steeper climbs. Watching the sunset over Bull Canyon during this leg was one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve ever laid witness too. At this point, something told me it was not my destiny to win this race, but deep down I knew I would still finish in good time, and so I was somehow at peace. I began realizing that I would probably have to stop and sleep at hut 5. As the night progressed, this became more and more evident. I become extremely fatigued and loopy in the head. I had to stop and lay down for about 10 minutes. I saw a few real shooting stars, but I was also seeing stars doing funny things they shouldn’t have been doing. I can see how people think they see UFO’s now. I got going and began the climb out of Bull Canyon up to a mesa that overlooks Paradox Valley below, even though I couldn’t see anything because of the dark. From here, there are lots of turns onto to dirt roads that are hard enough to navigate in the day, let alone at night. I had a really hard time finding the route and this was another factor pushing me towards sleep. At one point you get on a sandy road that doesn’t seem like much of a road at all. All of a sudden it turns into a very rocky narrow ATV trail. You crest a hill, and then proceed to do the stupidest singletrack trail I have ever done. A few parts are ridable, if you are very very good, the rest is all hike-a-bike. It’s a lot of switchbacks full of loose rock, ledges, and dropoffs. This thing must drop 1000 feet in about a 1/2 mile. It was dark, I was tired, and going down this trail was extremely frustrating and difficult. I probably fell 4 or 5 times, the last one really hurting my foot as it got jammed up against a sharp rock. Looking back, this definitely upped the ante on the “epic” factor, but at the time it did nothing but piss me off.

I finally reached the bottom and hopped on the highway a little bit until finding my turn for dirt road. From here it was about another 4-5 miles to the hut. It was a welcome relief to see those guys strobe lighting me from a distance to help me find it in the dark.  It was at this hut that I caught up with all the 7 day stage riders. It was 12:30am, most of them were asleep. I was all but certain I would be staying the night here too, but by my competitive nature was hanging on by a thread. I figured Markley was only 15 minutes back and I would rest for a while and wait for him to come in. My body was wrecked, it didn’t want food or water, it just wanted to sleep. After 10 minutes no one came in, but my decision to sleep was now final. I took everything off except for shorts and jersey, crawled into a bunk, set my alarm for 5am, and crashed. No pillow, sheets, or blankets. There was a slight chill that made it hard to fall asleep, but I tucked into a position that held most of body heat in and I was out until 5, at which point I turned off the alarm and slept til 6.

The stage racers were stirring at this point, including the chefs! I downed a few breakfast tacos, some fruit, some bacon, and stuffed another taco in my jersey before saying my farewells to everyone and hitting the road again by 7am to start Leg 6. No other riders had come through in the night so I was confident 2nd place was locked up. There was small hope that I could maybe even catch Markley. He had a 4 1/2 hour headstart, but word was he was looking rough and there was still a lot of tough terrain between there and Moab.

The day started out with something like an 1800′ climb out of Paradox Valley. My hope grew as I climbed the switchback road and saw footprints where Markley had been forced to walk, but having some rest, I was cruising up this climb. After the steep initial climb, the rest of the leg has several slighter climbs and a few flat sections, but basically this Leg was 24 miles and about 5400 feet of climbing up to the Geyser Pass hut. The last few climbs were steep and rocky and I did quite a bit of walking. This hut was a little difficult to find, but I stuck to the cue sheets and ribbons and met Joe, the owner of San Juan Hut Systems, and Sean, Scott Hudson’s son manning the aid station.

I ate quite a bit more food here and relaxed a while. I saw that Markley had checked out by 0715 so I knew he was well on his way to Moab and despite being in pretty rough shape was able to push on through the night. Catching him now was out of the question.

After feeling rested enough to move on, I began the final Leg 7. I still had a fair amount of climbing to make it up to Geyser Pass. The legs didn’t have much power left at this point, so it was slow go for a while, but once cresting the pass, I enjoyed a couple thousand feet of descending at Mach 1 before teeing into a paved road. Along the way, the trees opened up to views of Moab 25 miles away and 4,000 feet below.  My journey’s end was in sight..but still a ways away.

The paved road brought sadness as it started out with a steep climb, and then eased up with a long gradual climb. It was midday at the this point, and the closer I got to Moab, the more the heat cranked up. Even though this leg had the most descent, it was also the longest at 38 miles.  The paved climb up to Kokopelli trail was really baking me. I finally found my left hand turn and began descending ever closer to my destination. The Kokopelli trail dumped me out on Sand Flats road. Now it was really baking, and just getting hotter. I was also greeted with a stiff headwind that felt like a hair dryer as I continued the descent. I ran out of water with about 4 miles to go, but that wasn’t a huge deal, because I knew I only had 4 miles to go, even if it was 104 d out. After taking a break under the only shade I could find, a measley juniper tree, I mounted my trusty steed and rode into town.

I found the brewery, along with the timekeeper and a few other friends. First order of business was to down two glasses of water, then, order a beer and a burger. I walked over to Chile Pepper Bikes a few shops down and picked up my drop bag which I mailed a few days earlier, and talked to Scott, a mechanic there that was gracious enough to let me stay at his house later that night. Thank you Chile Pepper Bikes and Scott!! My kind of people, go check them out next time you are in Moab.

My housemate Laura, who had volunteered for the full 7 day stage race, was there, and pretty much free of duty for the rest of the day, so after lunch, we went up to the Colorado river and I took a very refreshing bath. We found Scott’s house and then I slept like a log til morning.

Saturday morning Laura and I had a nice breakfast at the Jailhouse Cafe. The rest of the day we hung out around the brewery and greeted the 7 day riders as they wrapped up their awesome adventures. After the dust cleared, Laura and I went back to the river for some more swimming and even found a cool campsite that we would crash at that night. Later, we all met back up at the Brewery for the awards ceremony and dinner.

The camaraderie surrounding everyone’s stories and experiences is something I will never forget. There was no trophy for second place, but Kathy and Scott of Terra Firma Racing still felt compelled to give me the “Man of Steel” award since I rode with the group the first day and volunteered before riding back to town and then doing the epic 3 days later. Good stuff.

Here are some things I learned about this race that I will apply in similar future races:

1. Minimizing weight is important. I raced on a steel hardtail and carried quite a bit of extra food, emergency bivy, warmers, rain jacket, water filter, few other odds and ends. If money wasn’t an issue and I had any choice of bike, I would probably do it on a Ti hardtail with a carbon fork and a 2×10 XX drivetrain. There were really only about 3 places riding a rigid would have been a little rough. The weight savings and stiffness would have far outweighed these.

2. Aero is important. I spent a lot time drooping over my handlebars to tuck into an aero position. The large sweep of my bars coupled with ergon grips lets me do this. For next time I would probably get some small aero bars to clip on. This not only makes it easier to cut through headwinds and go faster on long gradual descents, but gives your body a different position to work different muscles and spread the load out.

3. Use huts more to my advantage. One reason I carried so much food was that I knew the huts wouldn’t have food to my liking. I carried Lara Bars and homemade pemmican, and they both worked great up to about hut 5. At that point, all bets were off and started eating anything I thought i could hold down. So, even though hut food isn’t ideal for my diet, I think my stomach is flexible enough to be sustained from just the hut food.

4. Take shorter breaks. I think one reason I took 10-25 minute breaks at some of the huts is that at a 24 hour race, I’m used to taking a small break every hour or so. Here, the stages were 3-5 hours and I just felt like I needed longer breaks. Next time, I’m going to stick to the plan of being in and out. I could have easily been 1 hour ahead by hut 3, and that would have taken pressure off to go so hard  to 4 and 5 and left something in the tank to ride straight through.

5. Being in shape is necessary, having the mental toughness of a badass &*&G*(! is even more important. I felt like I had several advantages over Markley, but in the end it was his perseverance and mental toughness that won the day. There is tough, and there is real tough. A few more races like this and some top tier 24 hour races and I’ll know what it means to be real tough.

 

Well, that’s all the time I have for now. I’ll try to post up next week on some exciting new developments going on and maybe discuss some race plans for the future. Thanks for checking in. Have a great weekend.
Caveman Greg