2011 24 Hours of Great Glen

For the sixth time in the past seven years I returned to Pinkham Notch on the second weekend of August for yet another run at the 24 Hours of Great Glen. As was the case last year, my regular 2-man teammate Todd was spending another summer working on his new house and lacked the free time needed to train. Also like last year I didn't quite feel up to trying my hand as a solo competitor, so I joined a 4 man sport squad. Unlike last year where I raced with 3 randoms, this year I joined forces with my regular riding crony Curtis Lavoie, along with his friend from PA Francis Cuddy, and Temple NH's own force of nature/XC skier/road rider/trail runner Bob Treadwell.

Curt and Francis had coined the name 'Team Awesome!' as a spoof of the many 'extreme' and 'epic' type team names they had seen toiling at the back of the pack with matching jerseys at other races. We didn't have matching race jerseys, but courtesy of The Bride we did have matching t-shirts.

Sunday morning and still no rain.

A couple of weeks before the race Bob found out he had an unavoidable business trip the weekend of the race. Fortunately his son Bobby was ready and willing to fill in for him. This punted me clearly into the role of "old guy" on the team. And while Bob didn't have a lot of experience on a mountain bike, he was a veritable grizzled veteran compared to Bobby, who had all of 20-30 rides ever under his belt on race day. Potentially more worrisome was Bobby's choice of bike: A fully rigid 29er singlespeed with rim brakes. Having ridden a few times with Bobby I wasn't too concerned though, while still figuring out the finer points of technical riding, he could climb like an elevator and never seemed to get tired or discouraged.

Francis exits the plunge.
He's too big to ride this fast, but he does.

As always the weather was a concern; a lot of rain preceding the race and/or during the race makes for an "interesting" time. This year fate was kind, the course was dry and it only rained at the very end. The Bride and I headed up Friday night and setup our campsite then headed over to Gorham for the night. Being old I wanted to sleep in a real bed and take a hot shower before the race began.

In the weeks leading up to the race Curt and I had joked that we planned to win the sport class and take out as many expert teams as possible. He was feeling a bit ill the week before Great Glen and skipped the Top Notch Triathlon the week before to save himself, "for the race that matters" (This is an exact quote, exactly as I remember it at any rate).

Yup, he has a cotton shirt, a fully rigid singlespeed, and rim brakes.
Didn't matter.

Suffice it to say we were talking a lot of smack. When I saw that the number 2 and 3 sport teams from last year were registered I began to have my doubts. When the number of sport teams grew to 32 my doubts increased; that's a lot of teams to beat. When we showed up Saturday morning my doubts grew further yet. So many bad-ass looking racers, so many shaved legs, so many matching jerseys. How the hell could we beat these guys? We certainly didn't look like a contender, me with my Elvis Costello glasses and long travel trail bike, Bobby with cotton T-shirts, Walmart-special-looking ride and practically no riding experience, and Francis, well Francis had a great bike and appropriate kit, but he's 6'6" and 240lbs. No way a guy that big was going to survive multiple 8.3 miles laps with 1000' of climbing per lap. No way. Simply not possible. Admittedly Curt did look like he sort of belonged. He's got a giant tattoo, a Ti hardtail, and lots of fancy jerseys, but come on, those thick glasses...he's going to fog up an crash at 3:00 am.

I kept my doubts to myself, because everyone else seemed confident. I dispensed what little wisdom I'd picked up from doing this race previously. Mainly that advice was: Don't blow yourself up on the first lap and the race is won at night with consistent laps. Not sure if anyone was listening, not sure if it was even good advice, but I felt better saying something :-P

With my bum ankle we decided someone else should take the first lap. Since Bobby was on a singlespeed it didn't make much sense for him to go first and get caught up in the cattle call that is lap one. So first out duty fell to Francis, Curt was #2, Bobby was in the three spot, and I was last.

Curt on one of his early laps.

Noon. The cannon fires and 182 teams (including 12 hour teams and solos) started their running lap around the pond for the LeMans style start. Francis came through in the first quarter of racers and headed out on his Yeti Big Top. And then we waited.

The first racer in was from the sole pro team, coming in at a blistering 39:27. More riders came in each passing minute. Francis rolled in with a 47:10, putting us in 32nd position overall. I wasn't too worried though because we hadn't sent out our fastest guy first and sure enough when Curt turned a 41:32 lap we jumped to 19th position overall. Bobby's lap was 43:53 and brought us to 16th overall. Finally I got to head out and feeling good laid down a 42:27 which brought us to 11th overall and 2nd in the sport class.

The course was the usual mix of fast carriage road, rocky double track, and single track, with 100' of tarmac thrown in for good measure. It's fast, but you aren't going to win it on a cross bike, there's enough technical stuff to keep that from happening. There were a few reroutes, including the addition of a long switchback climb to the top of the plunge, which previously was a straight shot up the fall line. All-in-all if felt very familiar and it was easy to fall into a rythym (as well it should be given how many times I've raced here).

Yours Truly on the way to the top of the plunge.
The RIP 9 may not be the lightest bike, but it climbs like a champ and descends better.

Our gains on the overall came a bit slower after that but by the start of lap 10 we had moved into a narrow lead in the sport class and 6th overall. It didn't last long though as John Creedon from team 'Sucker Punch' threw down a 45:59 for lap 11, putting us almost 3 minutes back. Fortunately it's a team event, and as darkness fell, Sucker Punch's next rider managed only a 49:40 to my 44:23 (thanks in no small part to my ridiculous Niterider Pro 700 and Light & Motion Stella 600 which make keeping the pace in the dark a whole lot easier). We now had a 3 minute lead on Sucker Punch and 7 minute lead on Pure Adrenaline in third. We were still worried about Creedon's team, as has was clearly faster than any of us, but they were sending him out for double laps from the start of the race, which eventually had to take it's toll. We were committed to putting a fresh rider on course every lap and turning consistent lap times.

Through the night this strategy paid off, our fastest nighttime lap was 43:30 and our slowest was 48:32. By sunrise we had a 1 hour lead on Sucker Punch and 27 minute lead on the new 2nd place sport team, Team Adrenaline. Dumb luck played a part too of course; we had no serious mechanical issues and no crashes.

I knew what I was capable of and having ridden a lot with Curt he was delivering what I expected, but as the night wore on I was continually amazed at Francis and Bobby. How a guy as big as Francis continues to hit those climbs as fast as he did I'll never know. Bobby meanwhile decided he'd had enough of his rigid singlespeed with rim brakes, so upgraded to Curt's back up a bike, *another* singlespeed, this one had disc brakes though. If this kid decides to take up mountain bike racing watch out (I think Bobby doubled his lifetime mtb mileage during the race).

When the sun came up we knew it was our race to lose. When Francis headed out for lap 25 at 6:52 we were in 4th overall, with the sole Pro team, one expert team, and a 5 person team ahead of us. We went into crazy consistency mode, with our next 7 laps ranging from 46:37 to 47:53. When Bobby finished lap 31 at 11:34 am we knew we had won sport.

FEMA tent.

But let's back up a little. With the new rules this year we didn't need to have a racer on course at noon. We could call it a day at 11:34 and we knew that it would be impossible for any other sport team to get another rider out in time to attempt a 32nd lap. We clarified this with the race administrators, but I felt a bit guilty. The rest of my team had each done 8 laps, who was I to do only 7? While we thought about what to do it started to rain. Really hard. I didn't come to race to race the 23 Hours and 34 minutes of Great Glen. So when we spotted Bobby across the field I knew I was going out one more time.

It's all over, so we can smile now.

It was a formality and I didn't take any chances. I walked twice for the first time in the race, at the top of the first climb across the bridge and down the plunge at the end. I wasn't entirely sure if I crashed out here and DNFed if we would still be ruled the winners, so I played the slow-by-easy card. It was a bit disappointing to break the 50 minute mark for our team, but discretion, valor and all that.

Fastest laps? No. Consistent laps? Yes

As usual the awards took too long, with useless raffles and too many classes (e.g. Sport ;-). How the solo competitors didn't run from the tent screaming "I'M REALLY @!#$% TIRED AND WANT GO TO SLEEP!!!" I'll never know.

Not sure if this group will be back next year. If the other guys want to defend I'm game, or maybe I'll finally try my luck as a solo.

The Pinnacle

I don't race much, but when I do it's typically longer stuff, 24 Hours of Great Glen, Hampshire 100, 12 Hours of Bradbury Mountain, etc. This past Sunday I tried something a bit shorter, one of the Eastern Fat Tire Association's New England Championship Series races: The Pinnacle XII (#4 on this year's calendar).

The race was held in scenic Newport NH, a town I'm familiar with mostly from my motorcycling days as it lies in the western part of the state which is short on traffic and police and long on twisty roads.

The sport class raced three laps for a total of 13.6 miles (per my Garmin Forerunner). The course was listed at 16 miles for sport, but apparently some adjustments were made from last year. Weather was off-the-charts perfect. Dry, sunny, breezy, and warm but not hot; a perfect day in the mountains.

The Sport Class Course

Among my regular crew of riders there were two others competing: My 24 Hours of Great Glen teammate Curt and first-time MTB racer Jeff. Jeff deserves credit for showing up since he's still saddled with a toy bike with those adorable little 26" wheels. (To his credit he has a Ti 29er on order). "Big" Chris showed up to provide support with his lawn chair and umbrella, and sadly also with his plaster cast encasing his repaired foot. Pretty sure he would have given those young guys in the Clydesdale class some competition had he been riding.

I had no idea what the course was like, particularly how much climbing there was. Curt had gathered a little info and was under the impression that there was a good deal of up right away. Since that was all I had to go on I figured I'd take it easy out of the gate.

That Sport and Novice riders started in waves at 9:30 on a grassy field at the Newport High School. The climbing started at about 9:31.

It's either up or down on this course: 1905' of climbing

The climb while not crippling steep, was almost all single track and fairly technical in few spots. Nothing you'd worry about during a fun ride, but when packed with over-eager racers and your blood is pumping it made for a few interesting moments as the rider at the head of the line spun out or tumbled and everyone behind came to a screeching halt. I made a few passes on the way up, but lost almost all I gained when the rider in front of me crashed and laid his bike out across the trail causing me to dismount. I figured discretion was the better part of valor at this point and just focused on getting to the top without any more incidents, though my caution meant just about everyone in the Vet II class passed me.

I was feeling I might have brought a bit too much bike with my Niner RIP 9, but those thoughts evaporated when the course turned down. The descent was almost all single track and featured numerous monstrous berms (monstrous for a XC race anyhow). I've never seen so many crashes in a race before. One rider flew off the top of a berm and into the trees (and I assume onto the rocks supporting the berm). Several overcooked the numerous tight turns and laid it down. A few pivoted violently around their front axles and drilled themselves into the dirt.

The descent ended with a plunge down a gravel slope onto a grass field. Sadly I can't find a decent picture of it, but the terror of it is clear in my mind's eye. Well maybe "terror" is an exaggeration, but you really wanted to be sure you were lined up straight when you hit it, because mid-course corrections on the way down were likely to result in a DNF.

The second and third laps were extended versions of the first (5 miles vs. 3.6 miles). At the start of the second lap the racers were thinned out so I started chasing down everybody I'd let by before. My legs felt good so I upped the pace a little bit and was soon passing quite a few folks (well maybe my pace stayed the same and they were wilting...same thing really). Most passing had to be done on the climbs, the downhills were just too fast and tight to squeeze by all but the slowest racers. Didn't matter much as I was more concerned with staying upright on the descents.

The remainder of the race was pretty uneventful until the very end. On the final descent I was in the 3 spot of a tightly packed group of 4 riders. I recognized one of them from the start of my class, so I had it in mind to pass him at the finish. The guy behind me wanted to pass, but we were flying along and that simply wasn't in the cards. I cursed myself for not climbing harder since I was constantly braking more than I wanted as the two in front of me slowed for corners. I'm no downhill guru, but a RIP 9 with 2.2" Nevegals can carry a lot of speed compared to the typical hardtail XC race bike. Didn't matter though because there was no way I was going to squeeze by. Then it really didn't matter as we crossed the last bridge and my back wheel clipped a root hard, kicking my back wheel into the air. I road a brief nose wheelie across the bridge before riding right off it. The guy behind me got his wish and passed, though he did ask if I was alright. The bike and I were unscathed from the crash, we landed upright and my pride was the most serious injury. I confess to being a bit irate and hauled myself out of the ditch and threw caution to the wind in an effort to catch back up. My bike was all over the place but I managed to catch them right was we came out onto the final stretch of double track and the clearing at the top of the final plunge. I was in an ok spot to make a move, but futzed the line on the plunge: Thinking I could go right and pass them on down slope, instead I found soft sand and lost speed and all three finished ahead of me.

Oh well, I can't care too much, caring too much about your mid-pack finishing order means you are either racing elite class or you need to relax.

The Overall Sport Class Men's Results (6 DNFs)

While I was mildly disappointed with my finish, Curt did very well, finishing first in his class and 5th overall. Jeff did well too, finishing with a comfortable lead in the Novice Vet II class.

* This first place puzzles me. This racer finished the 2nd, 3rd, and 3rd in the first three NECS races...in the Novice class. Suddenly he's putting 15 minutes on the next closest sport racer, over a 13.6 mile course?! Bad data? Sandbagger? Most improved rider ever? Anybody know the deal?

100 Days of Stupid: Day 1-8

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business"

-T.S. Eliot

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

-Yoda

Blatantly ripping off an idea from Inspired by an old PCHS classmate's goal of practicing her musical art for 100 straight days, last week I decided to attempt the goal of 100 straight days of workouts.

In part I do this because I don't plan on doing any other major races this year; the Wildman will likely have been it for me this year. Now I don't race to win, there are plenty of people faster, younger, and/or more motivated than myself, plus I am fundamentally too lazy to train enough to win anything. I race because it forces me to prepare to race and preparing to race injects some healthy struggle into life -- If you think struggle is all bad then I weep for you. I'm doing it for other reasons too, some pragmatic some quasi-spiritual, but to talk about those would be either boring or would exceed my daily allotment of philosophical mumbo-jumbo.

So I'm trying to engage in a moderately hard physical activity each day for 100 days in a row. What's a "moderately hard*" activity? For me it would be:

• A road run over 5k
  

• Any track workout totaling 5 miles or more

• A trail run or hike equal to or better than my regular 2.56 mile 1000' vertical climb up Pack Monadnock

• Any mountain bike ride over 15 miles

• Any road ride over 20 miles

• 30 minutes or more of the Ashtanga primary series

* Please, spare me tales of "some guy you know" who has only one leg and ran the Obscurity 200 Nightime Ultra Marathon in January while juggling flaming chainsaws. Unless you are Dean Karnazes, Lance Armstrong, or Chris Sharma, then stuff it, because there is always somebody doing something harder than you :-) If you on the other hand are doing something, then let's hear it!

I'm fairly confident I won't pull this off without some luck and an unhealthy doses or self-deception since I face at least four daunting obstacles:

1. Injury (both my Achilles are creaky these days)
   
2. Vacation (a week at the beach in two weeks...in the middle of which is the Bride's opening)
3. Work (busy as always)
4. Going to the Kingdom Trails this weekend for a long Saturday day ride *and* a night ride. Sunday looks grim.

~~~~~

I had to get several days into this before I wrote about it (in case I fell in a hole on day 2). I've been at it eight days and so far, so good:

Day 1 - 6:

Starting last Monday August 17th I ran my regular run up the Marion Davis trail on Pack Monadnock and then down the access road. The heat and humidity here have been off the charts, with 90F/90% not being uncommon. Still it was pretty easy as I've been doing this regularly for a couple years now. I even managed my third fastest ascent this year on Thursday when the heat wasn't that bad. I'm already feeling cocky, this is going to be too easy!

Day 7:

I was pressed for time so went right out the front door for a 3.5 mile road run. Again the humidity was crushing, but it was easy motivation-wise because I don't want to deal with the self-loathing that ending the streak so early would entail. How long till that well runs dry and I simply don't give a shit?

Day 8: Nicest day so far, so why did I have the hardest time getting out? Somebody said this was going to be easy right? Couldn't face another trip up Pack so I went to the track and warmed up for 2 miles, then ran a hard 3 mile @ 6:32 pace. Sadly it really felt faster, but clearly I am getting old. The brain perceives pain consistent with 6:10 pace, but the legs can't deliver that.

Wildman

Friday night the Bride and I headed up to Gorham, NH as we have on this weekend for the past 5 years. But this time we weren't headed up for the 24 Hours of Great Glen, but rather the Wildman Biathlon. I was looking for something "easier" to than the two-man team Todd and I have fielded these past 5 years as well as a race that would better leverage the mountain running I've been doing regularly the past two years. I also wanted to spend less time training, and I figured something that lasted about as long as a marathon had to require less time training than the 24HoGG. That only proved partially true...

Coming into the finish of the first leg in Shelburne, NH
Looking Good & Going Slow :-P

In its 21st year, the Wildman is a 10k road run, 22.3 mile road ride with a stiff uphill finish up the "easy" side of Pinkham Notch, and finally a 3 mile uphill-only mountain run to the summit of Wildcat Mountain. A few competitors run the race as a relay, but the bulk, like myself, were doing it solo.

The weather was close to perfect when we arrived for the 8:00 race start; the humidity was low and it was about as cool as it could be without needing to wear warmup jersey.

I didn't want to cook myself on the first leg, a fairly flat out and back with a couple short hills. I figure I'm good right now for 6:30 pace in a standalone race, so my goal was a sedate 7:30 pace. Things didn't go quite to plan as my first mile was way too quick, but I calmed down and finished in 45:20 at 7:18 pace. If felt odd to be leaving so much in reserve, but I still managed to be in 36th place, out of the 96 solo entrants.

Leaving T1 for a quick "lap" before heading to Wildcat.

Having dogged it a bit on the first leg I had a lot left in the tank for the bike. I got through the first transition quickly enough, at least by my own very low standards. Before heading to Wildcat we were required to make one 7 mile lap around some local Shelburne roads and return to the first transition area before heading out to Gorham. The lap was typical rolling New England hills, no big climbs. For those first seven miles I just tried to get into a consistent rhythm, knowing there was plenty of climbing at the end. I passed a fair number of people and was passed in turn by the better cyclists.

Here's how you know you are dealing with a mountain biker out of his element:

1) Full fingered gloves*

2) Earth tone socks

3) MTB shoes

4) Giro Xen helmet

5) Cheap no-name road bike
6) Crazy Mountain Man Beard
7) Loose and flappy shirt

* Probably the only person who bothered with gloves of any kind! I am Safety Paul after all.

After the local lap we headed for Gorham and then turned onto Rt 16. The course stayed the same with no climbs of note until the 12.5 mile mark. At that point the course climbs from approximately 800' to 2000' feet in less than 10 miles, with the last two miles climbing 500'. Hardly Tour de France numbers, but enough that you're going to feel it.

With the start of the real climbing at 12.5 I my legs felt good, surprising since I'd only ridden about 200 miles in preparation for this race, so I started to reel people in. My slack pace thus far paid off I was able to pass several riders before I reached Wildcat in 1:19:29, the 28th best bike time of the day.

Coming into T2 is a quick turn onto loose dirt with jelly legs. Fun.

T2 was a bit pokey as my legs were quite wobbly when I got off the bike and I grabbed some Sport Legs pills from the Bride. When I started the 3 mile 2000' trail run to the summit of Wildcat, my legs felt awful, forcing me into a painfully slow trot, but they would soon feel worse.

The Final Insult

After about a quarter of a mile my legs detonated and started cramping uncontrollably. If I straightened my leg my quad would seize, if I bent it too much my hamstrings locked up.

Master of the "Power Limp" (tm).

I gave serious consideration to quitting the race since I had barely started the last leg and could barely walk. Clearly I'd overdone the bike leg. But then I came around a corner and glanced at the other "runners" strung out up the trail. Almost all of them was doing some variant of the limp I was doing. Then I realized, "Ah ha! This is how it is supposed to be!", and I plodded on.

The merciful end!

Occasionally I was able to start trotting again (I hesitate to call anything I did on that last leg "running"). The one mile mark passed and I didn't feel any worse. I kept waiting for the 2 mile mark, thinking I'd try to run the last mile.

The finish area.

My thinking wasn't very clear and even as I approached the summit and saw the Bride snapping my picture I thought, "Gee, she (having taken the gondola to the summit) hiked down an awfully long way".

The course elevation profile...you get the idea.

"How much further?", I asked her dejectedly, that stupid 2 mile mark couldn't arrive soon enough. She looked at me with a puzzled look, and said "Only a hundred yards or so." I wasn't sure if I should believe her, since her distance estimation abilities are quite dubious, it might be 1600 yards. But I started running as best I could and sure enough, around the next bend was the merciful end.

Added another 4000-footer to my list today...the hard way.

I finished the last leg in 51:05**, the 37th best ascent of the day. Overall I finished in 32nd place and even beat 11 of the relay teams.

** For some reason my splits for the first two legs were missing in the race results. The splits listed above for the first two legs are from my Garmin 405 so the totals don't foot exactly. The total time per the 405 was 2:55:48, per the race results 2:55:49.

The Bride likes working support for races that last only a few hours and take place while the sun is shining.

If I was to do this race again, beyond the obvious of more miles training on the bike, I would definitely go harder on the 10k, something under 7:00 pace. I don't think it would effect my cycling too much and I don't think I could do the last leg any slower without going backwards. The main thing I'd do though is to train more for the second transition. My body was simply not prepared for getting off the bike and running. I'd done two shortened dry runs of the race in the past month but clearly this was not remotely enough. After every other bike ride I think a run, no matter how short, would be what is needed to prepare for this race.

I've only taken in this view previously with skis on.

And as to this race being easier than Great Glen, I'd tend to say it is, since it's certainly shorter, and mountain bike racing at night when you are exhausted is unrelentingly trying. But I've never done any race where my legs felt as awful as they did on the last climb; mentally I came pretty close to folding then. I suppose the real lesson is that while the race is shorter, you till have to train just as much!

Hampshire 100: Results

Spun this round approximately 44,871 times last Sunday.
Rotor squealed for about 42,744 of those.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

Something *always* goes wrong, otherwise it would be called road racing. The weather was cool and dry and my legs never cramped, so far so good. But my new front brake, after much fiddling and tweaking the night before, started up its brain-numbing, will-sapping, death squeal about a mile into the race. And it continued to torture me for most of the race, stopping after some hard braking, only to return 30 seconds later or until I thought "Hey! It's stopped, maybe it fixed itself!".

Other riders would become annoyed and seemingly try to sprint away from me or drop back. One fellow appeared to drive right off the trail and crash into a thorny shrub in what appeared to be an effort to avoid the "Squealing Brake of the Apocalypse" (coming to theaters this fall, don't miss it). To those tortured racers I say, "Sorry folks, I know it's tough to be near my bike, but imagine having to ride the Squealmaster for 100k". I'll have to try some sintered pads and if that doesn't work I'm moving on to Voodoo.

"How bad could it be?"

I am comfortable in saying "quite bad". The race description led me to believe this was going to be a relatively mild course...well as mild as 62 miles off-roading in New England can be. The reality was 6000' of climbing (according to another racer's wrist altimeter), lots of overgrown double track, and some Mensa candidates on ATVs taking down the course arrows. There was one particularly charming stretch along a newly graded section of power line. Steep. Soft. Ugly. That was one of many low points. While there was some sweet singletrack, my rough estimate is that this only made up 20% of the course. Creating a 100k loop in this part of the world is always going to entail a few paved and dirt roads to hook everything together, so I didn't mind those. It's just that there were too many parts of the course that were simply crap riding. The kind of things you find when exploring for new riding spots and later report to your friends, "not worth it, it can be ridden, but why would you want to?".

Particularly "fun" were the fast double track downhills with random tree limbs poking out at eye and crotch level and covered with luxurious undergrowth which obscured the numerous rocks, logs, and unconscious racers ready to catch your front wheel and catapult you into next week. Now don't get me wrong, I like a challenge, but walking on your hands across a floor covered in broken glass and lemon juice while blindfolder is challenging too, I just don't want to do it.

Impressive performances and other factoids:

• As usual the nut job single speeders continue to awe me. On this decidedly SS-unfriendly course, just finishing was impressive.
  

• Elite class racer Michael Broderick won the overall, beating the next closest rider by a staggering 41 minutes! I do think I could beat that though, I just need a new bike.
  

Unimpressive Performances and Other Factoids:

• After 7:31:18 I rolled across the finish line. I came in 75th, which is pretty lame, but is better than 90th (which is what I though I came in when eyeballing the unsorted PDF results. Thanks the cky for the correction).
  

• Out of 175 registered entrants, there were 15 DNFs, 22 DNSs, and 1 disqualification.
  

• Gobbling down Sport Legs pills like a kid with a Pez dispenser did seem to stave off any severe legs cramps, but by mile 48 my legs had imploded and my pace slowed way down. I guess a lack of training can actually slow you down, who knew.
  

• The Bride and Scorpion #2 came to watch at the various food stations and give me helpful advice like, "I really think you should stop stuffing your face with Power Bars and get a move on". Seriously they were great, and without them there I probably would have dropped out in the last 12 miles. Amazing how a little encouragement can spur you on.
  

• Apparently I wasn't the only one getting encouragement. After the race I found the Scorpion sisters at a table of EMS sponsored racers and it came out that at each food station they would wait for the volunteers to yell out, "water, Gatorade, bananas, PB&J" then they would yell out "wine!" and motion to their box of wine. No one took them up on the wine, but a few guys almost crashed at the offer.
  

ptb

Hampshire 100

I must be mad. After a weak showing in the 24 Hours of Great Glen, mostly due to lack of training, I decided there was only one logical thing to do: Immediately enter another endurance race. I'm concerned that this is the lack of prudence that leads to substance abuse and singlespeeds.


Regardless of my misgivings, a quick bit o' Googlin revealed that this Sunday, right in my neck of the woods, is the inaugural Hampshire 100 in Greenfield, NH. Fortunately the '100' is kilometers, not miles. Even better, the race description states:

"The single loop, 100 kilometer course will give participants a good mountain bike workout, while not being so extremely challenging the entire way that one never wants to return for a second year."

Sounds like a nice ramble through the woods. How bad could it be? What could possibly go wrong? A quick check of the forecast (70, partly cloudy, 10% chance of precip) sealed the deal and off my money went.

The Bride and Scorpion #2 have generously offered to come along and cheer me on or carry my spasming body home as needed.

Check back soon for a report, hopefully one that covers the entire course, not just the first 18 miles, a stout tree, and a gruesome spoke injury.

ptb

24HoGG

Camp setup on Friday afternoon. Miraculously my $25 tarp shade would survive the night this year.

Well, it's over. The 2007 24 Hours of Great Glen are in the books. After last years 4th place Todd and I had dared think of a podium spot this year. Regrettably it was not to be and I must take the blame. A new job and home expansion cut into training this year, but not so much that we couldn't have done better than our 7th place in the men's pairs this year. The thing that killed us was a rookie mistake on my part, electrolyte imbalance.

The Bride and I's glamorous hotel room. New job pays enough to not sleep in tent Friday night. Still slept like poop and woke up at 5:00 am.

Last year we just alternated laps the whole race, except when we each went out for two night laps to allow the other racer to sleep for an hour. Noticing that all the teams ahead of us were doing multiple laps we thought we should do the same too. It worked well for the first 9 laps. We were in the 6th spot and feeling good, knowing that night would bring a host of problems for many teams (hopefully some in front of us). But on the end of lap 9 my left hamstring just went bezerk, cramping horribly. I went out for a tenth lap, but finished that in a glacial 1:25:18.

Ready to roll under a dry blue sky.

Campmates, team 'Still No Faster'. They lived up to their name :-D In fairness Chris did the fastest individual lap of our two teams, a tidy 48:12. Of course there were *FOUR* of them!

That was it for me for a while. My left hamstring would cramp if I even so much as bent my leg. I thought about dropping out, figuring there was no way it was going to come back to life without a full meal and good night's sleep. My "epic" lap had dropped us to 10th position.

"What'd you get?"
"Decoder ring, you?"
"Fake tattoos."

"Think the mandatory meeting will start late this year?"
"Yup."
"Think they will just tells us what we already know?"
"Yup."
"Think people will leave before it's over?"
"Yup."
"You ever say anything but 'Yup'?"
"Nope."

Todd of course just said he'd go out and see what he could do. He did two more laps which got us to 1:12 am, but he was hurting too. This was the low point of the race for me. My leg was still all screwy and riding was out of the question. I considered just pushing the bike around for a lap and maybe rolling down the flats. But that seemed rather pathetic, and feeling rather pathetic and wallowing in self-pity I couldn't bring myself to do it.

Arty-farty juxtaposition of synthetic and natural mountains.

Todd tries his luck at the ancient Chinese bike puzzle...

...hmmm, trickier than it looks...

"Out of my way fool!"

"See, it's easy!"

"I am Todd-Lor. I come to wage war on your puny and insignificant planet. Even now my battle cruisers have trained their plasma cannons on your major cities! Your only hope is to bring me your finest popcorn. Now hurry you sniveling dogs, don't force me to demonstrate my fleet's firepower on Manchvegas! Because I WILL SO DO IT"

So we decided to catch a few Z's and see how we felt in a few hours. Before sleeping I downed a few electrolyte pills and ate a box of Annie's Shells and Cheddar. Todd got back out sometime in the dark as I slept away with my guilt ridden dream, and proceeded to do three straight laps, nothing fast, but somehow during the night we managed to crawl up to the 7th spot.

For the benefit of people like my mom, this is the battery charging station. It's where, well, we charge our light's batteries between laps. I have nothing funny to say about it. Sorry, batteries just don't lend themselves to humor.

The cattle queue up for the start.

Todd follows my sage advice for this year's Le Mans start: "Run faster"

Todd-Lor contemplates calling in an orbital strike to thin out the pack.

Riders hoof it up the first climb on lap 1.

TM rails the plunge.

Max roars out of the start/finish area. Alas my alter ego would soon falter, and pitiful Paul would soon return clutching his left hamstring.

By this time I had gotten my sorry butt out of bed and was stuffing myself with food and more electrolyte pills. The leg started to feel a lot better. I went out for another lap and was able to do a 58:50, the leg was getting a little suspect so Todd went out for another after me.

Max Power is so fast he can barely be caught on film. Or possibly Scorpion #1 doesn't know how to operate the camera. Honestly, at first I thought this was some cool pan and blur shooting technique. Until I saw that all the other pictures she took were blurry too. Unless they were of Todd, those were all fine, in crystal clear sharp focus. I heard her muttering something about, "you look better blurry". Not sure what that means.

Still feeling fine and cruising to a 51:12 first lap.

Looking over the selection of sport beverages, it dawns on me, "blue" is not a flavor.

Do I like to wear my helmet at a jaunty angle? Or is my head just not symmetrical? The latter sadly.

Todd got back at 11:08 am. I headed out for the last lap. The power of your last lap is great, knowing you don't need to go back out lets you lay it out and not worry about saving anything. Of course when you haven't trained enough, laying it out only results in a 56:49 lap, but hey, I'll take it.

Haircuts like these just don't happen people, it takes preparation, poor grooming, and hours of helmet wearing. Giant Elvis Costello glasses complete the look.

We can all smile now that it's over.

So we held onto the 7th spot in the end. A tantalizingly small gap of 1:26 separated us from the 6th spot. Sorta wished I'd known we were that close before the final lap. Of course then I would be killing myself for *6th* place and that does seem rather pathetic!

The Bride says: "Ride faster next year you maggots, 7th place is unacceptable!"

So while it could of been worse, I must say I finished the race pretty disappointed. I had fun, the bike didn't give me any serious problems (aside from the front brake squealing like the proverbial pig for the whole race), but can't help but feel I didn't do my best. Not sure exactly what went wrong with the leg, it could just be a case of O-L-D. The lack of training miles compared to last year wasn't helping certainly. Or maybe just doing 2-2 alternating laps got me out of my eating and drinking rhythm. Whatever the case we'll be back next year if the fates allow.

This brings me to my parting random thoughts on this year's race:

1) Soloists are crazy right? So what does that make the single-speed soloists? I'm not sure, but kudos to both groups, it's a tough race when you are alone *are* the team, gears or not.

2) The weather - Three straight years I've done this race and three straight years the weather has been great. Why do I feel like we're due a monsoon come 08?

3) Peter Ostroski - Damn this kid is amazing. Two years ago his Red Jersey two man team just crushed everyone. This year he won the overall solo title with 24 laps. And he is still in the 0-18 age group. Yikes.

4) Even more impressive is Melanie Brown, winning her second women's overall solo title. Amazingly she beat all the men but Peter. Nice job.

Until next year...

ptb