24 Hours of Afton

What an Awesome Experience!

I will give a recap of my race effort and a little bit on how impressed I am on Andrea's performance in her first solo effort. Andrea can fill in with her personal impressions of the race.

Prerace preparation.
During the week leading up to the race Andrea did the majority of the planning and organization. I took care of the bike prep, tools, and spare parts. Andrea concentrated on all the things necessary for a functional camp including any solid food. Since we were riding unsupported it would mean that everything needed to be easily assesible. The vast majority of our nutrition and supplements were prepared in mixed form and the bottles frozen. We also had grab bags of electrolytes and either energy bars, gels or bloks prepared.

Setting up camp
We headed out to Afton at around 11:00 AM Friday morning to get a good spot near the start/finish area. I personally did not want to have to waste valuable time on the bike getting in and out of the pit. When we arrived we found a nice spot part way up the hill slightly below the trail leading out from the start/finish line. The location was nice but kind of awkward because we were on the side of the hill. We decided to park the van with the noze facing uphill so that our heads would be above our feet and we wouldn't be rolling into each other. We set up the EZ-up and two tables for food and tools. We also Laid out the coolers of food bottles and ice so they could be conviently acksessed. I had some time to go over the bikes one last time and lube the chains. At around noon Ray, Stephany and Michole arrived and they set up next to us.

The Race
Race Start
After the mandatory prerace meeting at 4:30 we made a quick stop back at the camp before heading back down the gravel road to the start area. Ray, Andrea, and myself laid our bikes down near the far end of the bike staging areas and walked to the start area for the Lahmans start. As in past years they had us turn around to run part way up the hill around a chair lift and back down to our bikes. I started by walking but it turned into a decent job near the top and back down the hill.

Laps 1-3
Although I knew that the race would not be won or lost on the start, the thought of having to pass all these people on the first lap made my legs turn faster. Ray started out slightly in front of me but I made a pass after the bridge loop and made the most of any passing opportunities to move towards the front. The first lap felt really good, but I was surprised at how high my HR was the majority of the time. The HR was in the 160s most of the time and 174 on most of the sustained climbes. I came through the start finish line and headed strait for camp to get a new bottle and one of the grab bags and was out within a minute. The second lap I set into a good rythem and things were going well and I turned in a good lap time. The bike, however,was making a lot of creaking noizes and I suspected the drive side pivot as the problem. When I came through after the second lap I checked the drive side bolt and it was loose. I tightened it the best I could because the big chainring is slightly in the way and set out for my third lap. By the midway part of the lap I could tell the bolt had loosened up again and I could actually see the rear swing arm moving around.

Laps 4-6
To begine lap four I switched to my hardtail and grabbed my other helmet that had the lightset already attached. It was at this time that I could feel the legs starting to fatigue and could tell that I was slowing down. Although the hardtail hooked up nicely on the climbs and I felt like I could carry an extra gear, I took a beating on the downhills. In addition the helmet that I was using did not fit as snug as the other one and the additional weight of the light caused it to move around as I rode. Not really a big deal but it gave me a pretty good headache. OVerall Lap 4 went fairly well and I didn't have to turn on the light until the midway point in the lap. At this point I was starting to loose some of my motivation and my thoughts turned to the long duration of the event. In my mind I was justifying the fact that my legs were screeming at me to take a break by reasoning I could not keep riding for an entire 24 hours. I settled on a 45 minute break trying to sit and relax as much as possible. I think it was at this time that my Dad came down to check things out and I waited for Andrea to come in after her third lap. Starting Lap 5 the legs felt stiff from sitting and I was moving really slowly through the bridge loop and didnt' get things moving until shady lane. In general the hardtail was very rough on the downhills as I turned in a 53+ minute lap just slightly slower than the previous lap. After a brief break in the pit to get the essentials I headed out for lap 6. The legs were tired my mind was wondering why anyone in their right mind would think an event like this would be fun. My goal was to simply "grind" out a lap and see what my light situation was. I knew from testing that my light set would last for 3 hours and 10 minutes. I figured I used roughly 30 minutes on lap 4, 53 minutes on lap 5, and probably 60 minutes on lap 6; totaling 2 hours 23 minutes. That would leave me with on 47 minutes of light left for another lap and at the rate I was going would not be enough to complete another lap. I completed lap 6 at 11:15 PM and would call it a night. I would now have rought 4+ hours before the battery would be recharged and I could resume riding. On an added note as I came in from my 6 lap I fully expected to see Andrea taking a break after her 4th lap, but a quick glance at the board showed she had left slightly before I got in (Crazy Kid). I nervously waited for Andrea to get back from her 5th lap because I know what can happen when you ride at night especially when you are tired. Thankfully she arrived back at camp around 12:15 AM. We stayed up for another 30 minutes talking and getting some much needed nutritions and then headed to bed while our batteries charged. Andrea had already made up her mind that she would set her alarm for 5 AM and though I could use some extra sleep even though I knew it would limit the number of potential laps I could turn out. As it turned out We reset the alarm and hit snooze a couple of times and I didn't get back on the bike until almost 7:30 in the morning. I guess I didn't need to charge the lights.

Laps 7-9
I was really bummed that I had sleept so long and was dissapointed that I only had 6 laps completed and it was already light out. Ray did a great job getting up at a little after 3 AM to punch out 3 more laps and was three up on me. My thoughts now turned to other things, like fully supporting Andrea for the remainder of the race, taking pictures, wandering around, ect. I decided, however, that I had paid to race and I knew I would dissapointed if I did not at least match my 9 laps from last year. After grabbing a huge cinnomon roll and getting dressed I set out on lap 7 a little befor 7:30 am. The course was still wet with dew, but the slight rain in the middle of the night packed down the course so there wasn't much sand being kicked up in the drive train. I took it easy on the bridge loop because the legs were stiff and there was still a chill in the air. It was nice not having the extra weight of the battery in my jersey and the light off my helmet. the legs started to come alive on shady lane and I was pushing fairly hard on rises and false flats. I mananaged to turn my fastest lap at this point at 49:50. The breaks between laps were starting to get much longer. I think it was more mental than physical at this point in the race. After about 20 minutes I set out for lap 8 still one down from last year. By this time the temperature was starting to warm up a little and the course was starting to dry out from the overnight dew. The legs actually felt good considering I had completed 7 laps. The climbs felt good and I was flowing nicely through the single track. At this point I was considering 9 laps total didn't sound to bad. I could quit early and have some fun watching other people suffer for a while. That must have fueled something because I turned in my fastest lap yet at 47:55. After another 20 minute break I set out for lap 9

MNSCS #7 Welch MTB Jam

Overview

Large amounts of rain Friday and Saturday made for virtually unrideable conditions on Saturday. Andrea and I decided not to go out on the course, but Jordan had no problem getting herself and the bike full of mud. Instead of riding we just hung out and talked with fellow riders. We kept checking on the weather hoping that it would stay dray and a little breezy to let the course dry out. Unfortunatly another round our storms came through at dusk and the radar indicated that Welch was in the path. Fortunately behind the front the air was much drier and there was a nice breeze throught the night. Sunday morning it was cool and the skies were clear, but you could tell it was going to warm up. Arriving at the course around 8:30 things were in much better condition that Saturday. There were still some puddles in areas, but most areas had firmed up nicely.

Matts Race

Andreas Race

Jordans Race

Jordan was on auto pilot this morning. We often have to watch her and make sure that she is ready for the start of her race. Today was a different story, she simply asked us what time it was and took care of the rest. She went out and did her pre race warm-up

Kids Race

12 Hours of Mt. Kato

Rained Out!

Andrea and I made the trip down to Mt. Kato early Saturday morning being optimistic about the weather. Earlier in the week the forecast had hinted for rain Saturday night, but unfortunately it came in nearly a day early and was already raining when we arrive at 7:00 AM.

I wasn't raining very hard, so we decided to give it a go and see what happened. There was only 7 riders brave (or stupid) enough to race in these conditions and because of the low turnout there was no formalized start. Therefore, we set out a little after 8:00 AM to a trail that was already rutted by the first two riders. The first lap went fairly well and I managed to turn in a 30 min lap, not to bad considering the conditions. By the second lap, however, the trail had completely gone away. The downhill switchbacks on "Compressor" were treacherous, and "Luge" was un-ridable. Even the shallow uphill sections out in the open were so "sloppy" that it was impossible to get enough traction forcing you to get off and climb. All this time you could hear the sand/mud grinding in the drive train and disk breaks. When I finished my second lap I was expecting to see Andrea waiting near the chalet, but she must have decided to do another lap.

I used the time to clean off the bike and survey the damages. In general the drive train looked pretty good, but in a matter of an hour I wore through both front and rear brake pads. A little over a half hour later Andrea came in and we both new that our day was done. We cleaned up the bikes the best we could and packed up the van.

Before we left town we stopped in to the "Spoke" and I found a great deal on a pair of new MTB shoes. We also stopped at Chipotle for a Fajita Burrito and some Mello Yellow.

Not wanting to waste a good day for biking we checked the radar and it looked like the northern part of the twin cities missed most if not all of the rain. We hoped that "Hillside" was dry because we had expected to ride for nearly 12 hours and we only got about 1 to 2 hours. Driving up 169 it was obvious that it had rained quite a bit. Fortunately, shortly before Elk River the roads were dry and when we pulled into the parking lot it was bone dry.

We rode three laps with out second lap being a "hot" lap. Andrea turned in a new best time of 47:12. She rode the entire lap clean and was flying through the turns and killing it on the climbs. As time goes on she keeps getting faster and faster.

We plan on making it to three of the last four MNSCS series races, but my primary focus at this time is preparation for the 24 hours of Afton (Andrea and I will be riding it solo).

This week is the MNSCS race at Welch, I hope I have better luck that at Red Wing.