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My first 24 hour endurance cycling event was a big success! I was thrilled with my performance and pleasantly surprised by all the things that went right. This is the second Saratoga 12/24 race I participated in. Last year I did the 12 hour version.

Total mileage: 351.8

Things that went right

• Preparation. I had everything I needed with me in the Highlander base camp.
• No mechanicals. No flats. No slips. No spills.
• Great crew. Friends and family pulling for me helped immeasurably.
• My strength. The last month and a half I’ve felt stronger than ever on the bike.
• Pain management. Three ibuprofen tablets spread through the 2nd half of the day did absolute wonders for minimizing aches. A first time use.
• Chamois creme. Another first time use. Two thumbs up for that stuff. That’ll make the ADK540 a lot more pleasant.
• No sleep. No problem. Got a little heavy lidded at mile 15 of lap 10 but a RedBull gored that out of me.
• Lighting. Kyle’s NightRider halogen light and my CatEye EL500 did the trick.

Things that I had no control over but went right anyway

• The weather. It was a hot afternoon (I like the heat); and a pretty warm evening. No rain.
• The organization. The organizers never stumbled.
• The competition. Apparently I was strong enough to garner 6th out of 16.
• The course. I love the course. Even the hills. Well, OK, I don’t love the two mile bit between the Burgoyne Motor Inn and Bacon Hill. The pavement snob in me is turning up his nose at that stretch. Frickin’ seams.

Things that went wrong

• Nauseous stomach. After 16 or so hours of mostly liquid/gel intake and 8 or so hours of caffeine my stomach started to talk back. Saliva production seemed sub-optimal, it was hard to eat solid food. Because of this I probably didn’t eat enough for the final lap and a half. More study needs to be done on my fueling regime.
• Drivetrain. While it was MOSTLY aligned, some of my gearing combinations would rub, thus making noise, thus annoying the piss out of me.
• Headset creaked. More noise. Hate noise. Only during 6 hours of the hottest part of the day. Once the humid, foggy evening hit, the creak completely vanished. (It’s those damn, cool looking carbon spacers, I know it!)

My support was great–many of my friends and family participated in follow car duties (in fact, I don’t think any of the eight of them had ever done this before). They came out and crewed for me during really crappy nighttime hours. Luckily I managed to schedule an experienced cyclist into each of three shifts. Eight to midnight was manned by my Dad, Jim and Mary. Midnight to 3 a.m. was Kyle, Steph and Kellie. And finally the final shift of 3 a.m. to 8 a.m. were the dynamic, cheering, applauding, and enthusiastic duo of John and Anthony. Thanks guys, you made a huge difference. More thanks go to Kyle for lending me his NightRider halogen light–it worked great.

In a conversation with my Dad (and previously with Steph), I explained/explored that while I love cycling and I spend an inordinately large amount of time out on the road, I do it at a level just short of making myself sick of it. If I focused so hard on training for a specific skill or to increase my average speed by 0.4 mph or something, then I just wouldn’t have as much fun. I treat my group rides like the hard training days, sometimes I have a hard solo training ride, but much of the time on the bike is at about a 6 or 7 on the exertion scale. My comfort zone. Yeah, yeah, I know you only improve if you push beyond your comfort zone. But I know I’m doing enough to accomplish the goals I set. I think this weekend proves that.

Weirdly, I was actually looking forward to the climbs. While Bacon Hill was a royal bitch, there were only two out of eleven times I climbed it that I could NOT power up it out of the saddle for the whole thing. Even the little short steep thorn in West River’s side wasn’t enough to stymie my enthusiasm for the course. The detour onto Callahan and Stonebridge road came right after that thorn and it was a welcome diversion from the longer than average final miles of WRR.On lap 7 just after getting dark I had one of my highlights and passed two riders on WRR. Then immediately after that, climbed the short stinger at mile 25 and never saw those riders again. That felt good.

My first hundred miles (3 laps) was poor. I didn’t feel right, the time was mediocre–I decided to take a break. This would be the longest break I took all day, about 25 minutes. In this time I pulled out the folding chair, ate a roast beef and bread sandwich, banana, and drank a RedBull. My next lap was great and I was moving well for many laps after that. Oh and I changed my socks. Let me tell you… changing socks is like a little vacation for my feet. In total I changed socks four times that day.

Statistics

• 506. My mileage for just this week. A new PR.
• 14.62. Avg speed for whole 24 hrs
• 16.80. Avg speed while on bike.
• 144 bpm avg heart rate for first 200 miles (more heart rate data and splits to come later)
• 106. Number of spots in BikeJournal I jumped. (564 to 458)
• 21:23:18. Total time on bike.

Things I noticed

• I Couldn’t crack my neck, the muscles were so tight. Yet my neck and shoulders never really bothered me.
• During the night I was near cramping in the hammys, and left quad (all in the part of the muscle close to the knee) and also in the left arm briefly in the final couple laps, but they were just warning signs and they never progressed further that. That’s right. They knew better.
• Critters spotted: tons of cats, 1 skunk, and 2 deer (Kyle saw them, I never did).
• Neon pink plastic toy suction cup dart on 32.
• How dramatic clearing my nose looks when backlight by headlights.
• The glittering sea of broken glass in the shoulder after mile 16.
• How unconcerned the pickup truck driver looked when cutting in front of me to swing onto Peters road from 32. Jerk.
• How ridiculously smooth Sandy’s form looked. That bastard got a hundred miles on top of me. Congrats Sandy!
• Monster mosquitoes at north end of WRR
• Crew pickup truck stuck in mud on Stonebridge. I stopped at the next house and asked some construction workers if they’d help out–I think they did.
• Took off the seat bag of tubes, canisters, and patches while I had a follow car… didn’t really notice the difference.

I have to say I got a little choked up while completing the final half lap. I was finally realizing that I was going to complete this bastard and accomplish something huge. Several times I started feeling like I had just watched the scene in The Green Mile where the condemned man, John Coffey played by the towering Michael Clarke Duncan, is allowed to watch a movie before his wrongful execution. The incongruity of the happy Astaire/Rogers dance scene in Top Hat in the midst of this tragedy really gets me. I guess going so far outside my comfort zone brought out emotions I hadn’t expected.

After the race

I stayed on for some post-race breakfast (delicious… thank you Kathy!), and chit-chat with the other guys. Met a few people and had a pic taken with John B.
Napped from about 11am to 3pm. Went out for celebratory dinner with Dad, Pansy, and Steph. Eat heap big steak and potatoes. Mmmm… Kurt like steak. Fell asleep around 9pm, up at 7am with only a brief interruption by a thunder and lightning storm. Good thing that happend Sunday night and not Saturday night. I woulda had some words.

Photos from Dad:

Photos from John and Anthony:

Video 1 Video 2 Video 3

This entry was posted Sunday, July 9th, 2006 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Cycling. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.