Believe it or not, Tyler did not race last weekend – I did! I fell off the wagon and did the Whiskey 25 Proof. Epic Rides always puts on great events and this one definitely was an “Epic Ride” for me! It was the toughest day I have ever had on a bike and I loved it! I can say that now, but during the ride I felt a whole lot different.
I had not trained at all for this event. What a great recipe for success! I had considered not even showing up at the race, but made up my mind that I was going to complete this one even if it meant coming in D.F.L. My whole goal was just to finish the race – no DNF. So, I started to prepare mentally a few days before since there was not much that I could do physically at that point. I found that my mental preparation was even worse than my physical preparation.
I started to type out a full race report, but realized that it would be about 10 pages long and take me about 2 hours to write. So, here is a little bullet summary of my day on the bike….
- Total Distance: 35-40 miles (my bike computer broke on a crash early in the day)
- Ride Time: 6hrs 56mins
- Total Elevation Gain: About 4850 ft.
- Times that I got lost: 2
- Place: Next to D.F.L. in the Men’s Open Class
- # of times that my bike had chain suck: 5
- Crashes: 4 (that I can remember)
- Nutrition used on the ride: 2 100oz Camelbacks, 3 GU’s. 2 Cliff Bars, 2 bottles of Cytomax, Gummy Bears, about 15 sugar cookies, 5 pretzels, and 6 electrolyte pills. (it was not enough!)
- Cramps: oh, yea!
- Calories Burned: 4866 or a plethora ("Do you even know what a plethora is?")
- Times that I cussed out Todd (event promoter) during the ride for creating this sick event: 174.5
Mission accomplished! (barely) I will definitely be back again next year for this event. I plan to actually train next time and see what happens. I highly suggest you give this one a try if you are into self abuse or maybe I should say... self awareness.
5 comments:
Kudos for finishing, Marty. It was a hell of a race... I've done it twice and only finished once, so I have a ton of respect for anyone who crosses that finish line.
But damn, it was a lot of fun, wasn't it?
Congrats on finishing, Marty. In endurance events, that's the biggest accomplishment.
This race wasn't easy for anybody. Everyone I talked to, all the way up to the race leader, was hurting bad during this race.
Thanks! Maybe next year I will be man enough to try the 50 with you all.
Yeah. The biggest hurdle - at least once you've started riding and done it for a little bit - to these types of events is the mental aspect. Or at least it is to me. My very first race was a 100km, so I guess I never got used to "only" doing 15 miles which is what stops some guys who race from doing enduro stuff.
For me, once I take out that mental part of the race, then it all becomes about just getting into that comfortable rhythm and going from there. Of course, I was still of my bike a few times on that climb from hell cause I couldn't find that comfortable spot.
Good luck in Prescott this weekend...
that was a super fun race, congrats for finishing. i know i'm gonna do it again next year, i had a great time, it went smooth, and everyone seemed really freindly. i bet you would kick ass if you did. rock on.
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