I am a rock
star. I rode my fatbike 70 miles in the
Laramie Enduro race last Saturday. Some things went wrong and some things went
right but the things that mattered the most went right. There was a good amount
of luck involved too (cool weather, no mechanicals). Most importantly, it was FUN, and I learned a
few key things for next year.
Holy shit,
did I say “next year”?
If you are a
racer looking for beta on the Enduro, you won’t find it here. I am not a racer, I just ride….
Non-racer
status aside, here are the stats:
Bike weight:
41 lbs including gear and two water bottles
Rider weight:
126-127 lbs, soaking wet, which I was for the last 15 miles of the race
Rider age:
47
Time: 10:27
Place:
198/200 (yes, third to last)
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| Foggy cool start, a lucky break. Last minute decision to mount another water bottle cage. |
There were 5
aid stations on the course, the first one at mile 17. There is a cutoff time for each aid station
and if you don’t make the time then you get a ride back to the finish line and
a DNF. This was my biggest worry. I have the endurance to ride that far, but
I’m not fast so I was worried about making the cutoff times. My race strategy revolved around getting to
the first aid station because the first part of any ride is the worst for me. I thought that if I could do that, in decent
time, I probably had a good chance of finishing the race.
Let me just say here that the
volunteers for this race were AMAZING. There were super helpful at each
aid station and they were stationed at various spots along the course. The course was extremely well marked, too. Everything about the race was top-notch.
The
breakdown by aid station:
Mile 0 to aid station 1 –The first 3-5
miles were horrible (at least on the uphills), just as I expected.
I couldn’t catch my breath and I felt like my heart was going to
explode. Maybe it was adrenaline, or maybe it was because I am always slow to
start and need a warm up. I wanted to
cry. I wanted to go home. I hated
it.
To top it
off, my gas tank bag blew up on a section of singletrack, spewing gu’s, chamois
butter packets, etc. onto the trail. I
overloaded the bag at the hotel, then meant to transfer the extra gu’s to my
jersey but forgot. Rookie mistake - I
knew I was forgetting something when I left the truck that morning. It was a crummy place to have to retrieve my
stuff but leaving the chamois butter was not an option. Head Freak was behind me and it was a bummer
because it put us behind some slower riders on the singletrack log jam. But, whenever we hit flat or downhill on the singletrack, it was way fun -- following behind the Freak and feeling like I was actually racing. Probably one of the best parts of the race. Once on the dirt road, though, I couldn't keep up and just settled into my own pace.
A forever image
of the race will be of the next section when I was following fellow fatbiker Josh
down some fast dirt road with whoop-de-dos where he was blazing alongside a
herd of wigged-out cattle that had just seen 200 riders come screaming through.
It was wide open country, really pretty. I wondered for a split second if Josh was
going to shoot the gap and risk broadsiding a cow. But
clearly he’s from Wyoming and has good horse sense.
Aid station 1 (mile 17): When I hit the first aid station my
stomach hurt, not bad, but I couldn’t eat anything - no gu’s, no bars, nada. So
I paused just long enough to refill a water bottle and grab some food for the
road. Whenever I tried to eat something my
stomach would tie up in knots. I was
plenty hydrated, making a few pit stops, so that wasn’t the problem. But the harder
I pushed, the more my stomach hurt so I slowed down to see if I could recover. Finally I leaned my bike against a tree and curled
up in a ball in the woods and did some deep breathing. It seemed to help but as soon as I was riding
again it was awful. I was just hoping to
make it to the aid station 2, where I pretty much planned on calling it
quits. I didn’t even care.
To add
insult to injury there was a stretch of not-fun gravel grinding road. No part of me is a road rider. There was a headwind and I was demoralized
and lonely, wondering what the hell I was doing with some 60+ miles left to go.
Aid station 2 (mile 30): At aid station
2 they had some Tums!!! I was at the aid station for longer than I had planned
but at that point I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I ate a couple of crackers which seemed to
help. After a trip to the most beautiful
porta-potty ever, I was feeling at least mentally better so I decided to keep
going. The folks at the aid station said that the next
10 miles were fairly easy (fast and flowy downhill with no particularly hard
sections.) I decided to do an easy 10 and then reevaluate.
Aid station 3 (mile 40): From mile 30
to 40, I was super happy. Mile by mile I
started feeling better and by the time I got to aid station 3 I was able to eat
something substantial (PBJ squares, boiled potatoes and yessssss –
some coke and ginger ale!!!!) Finally my
legs were going to get some fuel, they were tanking. I spent more time here too than I had planned
but I knew I need to eat something, and slowly.
When I left this aid station I felt like I was finally in business! I
started reeling in riders that left the aid station before me and that gave me
a mental boost.
Somewhere… I
came across a monster truck heading in the opposite direction. It was a really, really cool truck – beautiful
piece of machinery, gorgeous paint job. It wasn’t just a cowboy in a Chevy with
a lift kit; it was a real monster truck that was as big as a house. The driver and I paused for a second to
admire each other’s rigs. I would have
loved to shoot a photo but in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t, it literally would
have cost me the race since my time was so close.
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| Aid station 4 |
Aid station 4 (mile 52): Going into this race I couldn’t decide which
bike to ride. I trained on the fatbike, my Salsa Mukluk, all summer for two
reasons: 1) because it’s super fun and 2) I can carry what I need for long
self-supported training rides. Most of
the advice I got was to ride my 29” hardtail which is light and fast. I fully planned on it until the last second
and then decided I wasn’t excited about the race unless I pictured myself on my
fatbike. I decided to stay true to
myself and ride the fattie. I’m not a racer
and it’s not about the time. For me, it
was about finishing and enjoying the ride.
The longest ride I’d ever done on the fattie was 6 hours and I only went
28 miles. There was over 6600 feet of
elevation gain.
So…. if I
could make it 50 miles on the fatbike, it would be a major accomplishment. I wasn’t even dreaming of finishing once I
decided on the fatbike (well, maybe a little bit!) I hit mile 50 on a pretty stretch of two-track
that was on a high open plateau with amazing hoodoo formations that looked
otherworldly. I did it! 50 miles on fat, fucking A! Then it was just a few more miles to the aid
station 4, with nasty storm clouds threatening and a pounding headache (complete with little blinking white lights in my right eye). I was kind of out of it with the headache.
I took a
long break at aid 4 and it started pouring as soon as I got off the bike. Volunteers refilled and cleaned my water bottles
and a friend of a friend gave me a beer (he might just be my new best friend). I took Tylenol with the beer, ate some
watermelon and more boiled potatoes, etc. and I was good to go. I left the aid station in a slight drizzle that
turned into hail that turned into a driving rain. No problem, I would much rather be sopping
wet than have 90 degree heat! There was
some really fun trail and I reeled in a few more riders who were pushing bikes
up steep and rocky singletrack. I heard
that this part of the ride was pretty hard but luckily it wasn’t as hard as I expected
- another mental boost. I was starting to
feel a little fried physically and not super confident on the technical
sections so I walked more than I usually would.
It was fine, though. I was in my own groove, enjoying the scenery,
basking in the fact that I cleared the aid station in time and still had a
chance for a finish. Funny, but I still
wasn’t expecting a finish.
Somewhere
after a boggy stream crossing (manned by a volunteer) I was headed uphill when
my left inner thigh cramped up. I had a
life-flash-before-me moment of sheer panic.
I’d had a blood clot 15 years ago when I was pregnant with our first
daughter in the exact place that was now cramping. The blood clot was about a foot long from my
knee to my iliac artery. It nearly
killed me, and I spent weeks and months in recovery going from wheel chair to
walker to crutches. And after that it
took years before it wouldn’t swell up and hurt when I exercised….I pushed the
bike slowly up the hill and tried to calm myself down. If it didn’t subside in a few minutes I planned
to ride back to the bog and ask the volunteer to call for help. Luckily, it did clear up in a few agonizing
minutes and I didn’t have any problems the rest of the day.
Aid Station 5 (mile 62): There was a guy on a flatbed pickup
giving away beers to riders at aid station 5.
He asked if I wanted a beer and I asked him if I made the time and he
said yes, by two minutes. And I said,
“Hell yes! I would love a beer!” I was
talking to him and his wife when one of the race volunteers yelled that riders
had 30 seconds to clear the aid station.
I grabbed more gu’s and was off.
My stomach still couldn’t handle anything like bars, honey stinger
waffles, etc. but holy cow, I made
it! I rode at a steady pace and caught a guy just
before the Headquarters Trail parking lot.
At the parking lot the race volunteer told us that we had to be at the
finish line by 5:00 or it was a DNF – we were cutting it really close. He also said that we had 2 miles of uphill singletrack
before the downhill to the finish. I
thought I had made it but really I hadn’t?
It was still a crapshoot? WTF?
I didn’t
have it in me to ride all of the Headquarters Trail – it was rocky and I was
tired. I figured either way, even with a
DNF, I rode the whole damn thing. At the
top of headquarters there was a super nice family and they said that I had it
in the bag, that there was indeed no cutoff time at this point and I was
not going to have a DNF. At that point,
I fully relaxed and enjoyed the rest of my ride. I stopped at an overlook and took a few
pictures, ate a snack saved just for the occasion, peed, and cruised the rest
of the way to the finish. I know I could
have shaved a few minutes off my time by not dallying, but the light was so
pretty – the way the sky looks after a storm clears and the sun dipping
lower in the west. I wanted to bask in
the moment and enjoy the quiet stillness of the forest and the success of the
ride. And it didn’t really matter if my
time was 10:20 or 10:30 when you are out that long! At the finish I did a stand up sprint and was
psyched to see people STILL out cheering racers on. And of course, the BPR crew was at the beer
tent.
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| Somewhere along the homestretch. |
The thing
that I am most happy with, besides actually finishing the race, was that I did it
my way. I rode my favorite bike, on my terms, and had an awesome time doing it.
The fattie was a blast; I am rechristening her the “bog-slayer.” She climbed like a demon… she blasted
through the stream crossings and plowed through the bogs – all with grace and
style - or at least as much as I could muster.
The big fat tires simply hummed on the flowy downhill. And
while not particularly fast, she did make me feel like a warrior. Besides, being fast is overrated; and time is
an illusion….
The illusion of time is akin to the old
world idea that the earth is flat, and we seem to be completely ruled by
the concept…. Quantum studies are showing science, at the
fundamental level, that our concept of time as thought of as a linear passage
of events is totally wide of the mark, and in fact there is no mark.
All
points of reference are arbitrary, they are conveniences, they are non-existent
in fundamental reality.
What’s
actually happening when we denote a point in space is we are collapsing a
fluctuating field of vibration into matter.
--From
The Illusion of Time by Larry McGuire
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Back of the Pack Racing, Wyoming style. |
