The Wilderness 101. Wow, where do I begin with this monster of a race?
The race was scheduled for Saturday August 1st, so Kelly and I got packed up and left NH Thursday to make the trip to State College, Pa where the race was held. A brief stop at my parents house on Thursday night had us show up at the race venue around 4pm. Along with setting up camp, I was all checked in, registered and ready to ride by about 6. Unfortunately, there isn’t much to do in that area, so we pretty much just sat and waited for night fall so we could call it a night for the bright and early morning.
Morning seemed to come fast and there certainly was excitement in the area. A quick breakfast of some oatmeal and protein bars and I was ready to ride.
The gun went off at 7 and so did we. There was a nice roll out for about a mile of pavement before the dreaded left hand turn over the bridge and there was nothing but climbing for the next 45 minutes or so. I didn’t know what to expect from the race, so I just sat there pedaling, keeping the heart rate in check the best I could and rode along. On the downs, I tried to follow and draft as many people with gears as possible (I ride a single speed) to keep the speed high.
For the first 20 miles, I rode with a bunch of people, all who were willing to help drag along a single speeder through the flats, as long as I could keep up with them. At check point one, which was about 20 miles, I hit the lap button on the GPS, grabbed a few things to eat from the aid station, filled up the bottles and off I went.
The second 40, well, those miles didn’t go so grand. They started off with a nice uphill grind on a dirt path, which really wasn’t that bad, which was followed by some sweet, sweet, downhill single track. Because this was a national series race, I could definitely tell who was an east coaster and who was a west coaster. In the west, trails tend to be a bit more buffed out compared to the east, where there are rocks and roots everywhere. This course certainly was no different than normal east coast riding. I was picking people off left and right on the downhill, then came the uphill. That is where most of those folks passed me back. With a single speed, there is siting and standing while pedaling, no granny gear. While all the folks around me just happily spun their way up the hill, I grunted and moaned most of the way, and even walked a bit, just enough to put my ipod in so I could listen to something other than the heavy breathing that I was doing.
After a few ups and downs, we entered into some more sweet single track which I was really digging. That is, until I went down and went down hard. I was floating along so super smoothly with a dumb grin on my face at about 20mph and suddenly, I was on the ground…hard, on my right knee. I got up, checked everything out to make sure everything still worked and when I got back on my bike, the pain shot up from my right knee into my back. Great. Mile 25 into 101 and I just crushed my knee. Either way, onward I went. I rode a little, walked a little because of the knee and finally got back onto the gravel roads again. This was my saving grace as I could pedal lightly to keep the knee nice and loose. Then, more ups. Jeez, this course never gave a break. At this point, I was starting to lose the ability to put out any power with my right leg. Any time I did, I had to back off because of the pain. YEAH!!! More walking. However, due to the way I landed on the knee, for the next 40 miles or so, I had to remove my foot from my shoe in order to unclip from the pedal. Fun stuff. Another sweet downhill on single track, which I took a bit easier due to nerves and not wanted to fall again, and drafting from a gal for the next 7 or so miles led me into aid station 2, mile 40ish.
You can see how disgruntled I looked when it happened. This picture was taken about 5 minutes after the crash while trying to navigate some serious technical terrain. Notice the blood on my leg, which was just washed off right before the picture. Man, I am good looking.
With some more food, filled bottles and a little stretching, I was back out for the next 20 miles. For the most part they were quite uneventful. I would pedal and walk some hills, blast down the other side, back up, down some more, up 5 mile hill, which involved a little walking, back down some more sweet, sweet technical stuff and into aid station 3, mile 60.
Food, water, some duct tape for my heals and I was off again. This time, the hill leading out of the aid station was single track, so at least this time, I was able to walk in some nice soft dirt vs the hard pack gravel I was pushing the rest of the day. When it leveled out, i was greeted by some pretty technical trail. Maybe it wasn’t the most technical thing, but after 65 miles, it was more baby heads than I wanted to see. Plus, there was still a slight uphill grade, so it wasn’t the most exciting thing I saw all day.
After a few miles, came some of the sweetest downhill I have ridden in a bit. Sure, it was super off camber, and pretty dusty, loose and steep, but it sure was fun to ride. Plus, I got to see all the folks who were from the west coast. This certainly was some of the finest downhill singletrack that is famous on the east coast. Some more flat rooty sections, which I ripped through, and I came upon another super techy downhill. This time, it wasn’t loose, but pretty rocky. Again, all the west coast folks were walking their bikes and carrying them on their shoulders as us east coasters could ride it. When ask how I rode it, the answer was simple. I walked up the damn hill, there was no way in hell I was walking down it…
Mile 75ish was another feed station and I quickly grabbed some things and ripped on through. Right after the feed station was another decent up hill, which had me walking, again, but this time, the big difference was I was walking in a downpour. Gotta say it was quite nice to cool off from the heat.
Honestly, the next 20 miles really were all that memorable. There were a few hills, a few nice rooty sections, a stream crossing, another check point and a bunch of flat fire road riding. The only real thing I remember is coming around the last few corners back into town and just being stoked that I was done. My first real endurance race, 101 miles, on a completely wrongly geared single speed and the last 75 miles or so was done with a pretty sore knee. I remember coming around the last bend back into the park, seeing the finish line, hearing all the people yelling and clapping and crossing the line. The first thing I did was ring the gong and got me my free pint glass.
All together, I have to say it was a pretty sweet ride. I finished in 47th place in my division and 224th over all with a time of 12 hours 10 minutes and 05 seconds. What a day on the bike. I may not have won anything, but there was a good sense of pride of the finishing with the couple of problems that I did have. That, and I gained a TON of experience and knowledge that I will take with me from here on out.
As for the race itself, I think it was one of the best venues that I have been on. The organizer did a great job with communications, course markings, post race meals, stocking the feed stations and just about everything else you would want in a race. If you were ever thinking about doing some sort of endurance race, I would say this certainly should be one to be considered.
The map course as recorded by my Garmin 705:
The Elevation profile from my GPS:
You can also check out everything else from the ride that was recorded from my Garmin 705.
The following week had me doing a couple recovery rides to keep the legs loose and the next weekend was the 24 hours of Great Glen.
