Well the morning of Saturday 7 June arrived and it was not looking good - rain the previous evening, and the view from the bedroom window was limited due to the thick fog outside. Mixture of disappointment and relief that the race would almost certainly be cancelled.
Rewind twelve hours.
My LBS had (despite promises and heroic efforts) failed to repair the rear wheel of the "faithful 29er monocog". So I am in the Bollux-garage sweating and swearing trying to build up a wheel George had kindly loaned to me - a wheel for a shifty with QR so some efforts to add spacers to get a good chain line and playing with the chain tensioners to make sure the wheel wouldn't move (in the absence of sturdy bolts to hold the wheel true). Long story short, by the time the monocog and MLW's mtbs are dialed in, washed, lubed and the other pre-race preparations are finished (i) I am knackered (ii) I am as cranky as a monkey and (iii) it's bloody raining again!!!!
Fast forward
A call to the "race-hot line" brings the very unexpected revelation that all is good and race is a go!! So headless chicken time - MLW has to hightail it to the eye doctors to get contact lenses and I am loading bikes and arranging child care! Tempers flare and are extinguished as we arrive at the race start with 25 min let to the "gun". Sean and MLW are racing coed duo and "Yours Truly" solo - register, pin on numbers arrange Bollux-mobile as food station/pit and time to toe the line for the "Le Mans" start. After much deliberation MLW is assign ed the first lap so she is there right by my side.
It is HOT, real HOT! How hot? Think Nicole Kidman in "Dead Calm" - oh yes! Sweat is beading on my arms and running into my eyes just standing at the start. Together with a potentially slick course (after all the recent rain) this looks like it could be a doozy of a race! I look to my left and spot Chris "eat off" Eatough lining up - woah so the "big boys" are out to play!
At just after 11 am the start is signaled, rather undramatically, with a whistle - and then all hell breaks loose. Hot as hell and six hours of riding to go and everyone heads off like hares! Along River Road and left up what I now know to be called the "water break" - I've always just called it "that bloody great hill on the Howard County side". Within 5 min of the start riders are becoming walkers as a combination of the hills grade and the mud bring wheels to a halt. Some step aside to let riders behind pass, some don't - chaos - it's wonderful! MLW very sensibly starts off gently leaving the stupidity to the stupid. I grind up the hill making it to 10 yards from the top when the guy two bikes in front stalls and stops us all in our tracks. Nevermind, moral victory over the hill on lap one (the only victory for me over this hill all day) and short run to top and back on the bike. Onto Ridge and after the next sharp uphill I realize I am almost cooked (HR is close to max and my legs are screaming at me)! Settle down there boy! I try and take things easy but with lots of other bikers around it is not easy, the pace is far too fast to be sustained but I go with it. Knowing the course is a huge help and so I know that once on the Cascade trail things get easier and I can recoup on the second half of the lap.
First lap is pretty crowded and there is always someone to talk to, couple of times the bottle-neck caused by a rider stopping ahead means sections that should be ridden are walked but on the whole its pretty smooth till the "Old Trail Loop" when some dodgy lap marking and an inconsistency between the course on the website and the course on the ground leads the six or so riders in front of me to go straight on off the course!! I stop and shout for them to come back but they reply that they know the course! I am conflicted! The guy behind me (being more decisive) makes the decision for me, "hey I'm following the course markers" wise words! The meadow sections are "hotter'n'hell" - "like riding into a furnace" one guy tells me! After the rooty and greasy Morning Choice section and the right turn onto Rockburn Branch, the only surprise of the first lap - instead of hanging a left at the trail junction at the top of the slight climb we went straight on (over lots of very newly cleared tree litter) and thence on to the rooty steep downhill before heading left up the (newly reinstated) Rockburn Branch climb and back to the top of the water break - after a slightly adrenaline releasing ride down the water break lap one was complete. Through transition, shout a few words to Sean who is all "kitted" up waiting for MLW and head straight back out for lap two - I was intending to use the Lodi "two-lap" strategy again.
Start of lap two and BIG surprise!! Instead of heading straight up the water break we carry on along the road then left onto a short piece of "hike only trail" this leads over a short bridge to a set of five log steps leading back to the water break. No choice but to dismount and carry the bike up the steps! So then we have a standing start to the steep sections of the water break! I am a broken man! With neither the legs nor the heart to make the climb from this position I make a feeble (token) effort and then walk the majority of the hill. By the middle of lap two I am toast!! It is all i can do to keep moving. Any idea that I would push myself is forgotten and it is survival that takes priority. When the going gets tough - I get off - and walk! Slow painful progress but by the time I hit Morning Choice I am beginning to recoup. and finish lap two feeling O.K. At some point on lap two Chris "Eat off" laps me for the first of several times, flowing over terrain that rattles me around enough to make my teeth loose!
Back at the Bollux-mobile I see MLW's bike but no sign of her! Not sure what to make of this, but just get myself restocked with Gatorade and grab a couple of handfuls of Pringles and Oreos and it is "back into the fray". Lap three and my right pedal starts to play up - I can only clip in one side, I ignore it, and with the exception of a rather embarrassing fall in front of the trail marshals at the junction of Morning Choice and Rockburn Branch lap three passes much like lap two - lots of pain and heat! All ideas of doubling up laps is forgotten. At the car after lap three and I meat Sean - his first lap has taken it's toll. He has a headache and is feeling dizzy, turns out he went out on his first lap with only a small amount of water and ran out half way round!! Still he is at least vertical and tells me MLW is safely out on her second lap. Before the race MLW was adamant that two laps was her limit, so the fact that only three hours into the race she is 40 min into her second lap is fantastic! For me quick refuel - check my pedal - turns out I have sheared off one side. I tighten the remaining side and hit the trail for lap four.
Pedal damage - Patapsco stylee!
That bloody hill is miserable!!! I am quietly resigned to the fat that this is my last lap - despite having 2.5 hours left on the clock (the organizers decided to have a drop dead cut off at 5 pm so any laps completed after this time did not count). I'm hot, nauseous and sodding bad tempered!I test the legs attacking some of the climbs on Ridge and in all honesty they are holding up! Even the climb to the Cascade rock garden goes O.K. until I hit a root about 3/4 of the way up. My newly tightened right pedal refuses to relinquish my cleat so I collapse in an exhausted sweaty, swearing heap on the trail. Fortunately, no-one there to see my pathetic performance as I am (for a few seconds) too tired to even push my bike off me and just lie there like an up-ended turtle. But, the knowledge that the climbing for the lap is essentially over spurs me on and I even clear the rock garden to lift my spirits even more. Lap four done and despite my half decision to call it a day I refuel at the car and decide to go out for one more!
More pain, more heat, more swearing! Finally I am back on the Purple Trail and the end is in sight, one last hurtle down the hill that has been my Nemesis for the past five hours and I am back on River Road, thanking the Park Ranger who has stood at the junction of River Road and the water break all day!! It's all over - for me! When I get back to the start there is only 43 min let till the course is closed! Not a prayer of another lap. Just behind me Chris Eatough finishes his 8th (count them 8) lap and calls it a day when it is clear the guy in second place will not have time to complete another lap.
"Everybody Hurts" - Even Eatough!!Of more importance to me however is the news from Sean that MLW has gone out for a 3rd lap (5th for the team)! This is above and beyond! She had just under 90 min to do the lap so it will be tight! We join the group of Eatough et al. under the tree just by the finish and scan the road for MLW. At two minutes to five she appears and enters the finish area in tears! She has left EVERYTHING out there on the course today. Absolutely fantastic effort. It is minutes before she can even talk.
MLW - speeding to third place!!
The results are posted and Sean and MLW have third in mixed team, all three teams having done 5 laps!! Podium finish - certificate and $40 gift card, all smiles! I am somewhat off the podium, 16th in solo men , but I rode as hard as I could and with the competition looking pretty strong I was happy. Good day! Excellent race! Bloody HOT!
Sean and MLW at awards!! Congratulations!
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