I did that dumb 100mi mtb race again. it was hot and I still feel bad. My 5th time going so i thought maybe the'd make me a little copper mug or something for the "500mi club." Steve has done this 9 times now and last year they gave him one with his name on it for doing 8. But first i did have to actually finish.
I need to figure out a better night before sleeping situation. I thought i had it figured out by driving up there before the race meeting to grab a spot down the road a bit away from the highway but it was all full. I also thought my new giant air mattress that barely fits in the tent was going to help. But then I wound up on the ground and basically not sleeping at all so welp, fucked that up I guess. Ate breakfast in my car in the dark at 5am, managed to poop before the start, and off we went. First climb is about 10-15min in and goes up for awhile, I found myself sitting in 3rd behind last year's winner who is a real pro bike racer and is going to marathon worlds and then Adam, who finished 4th ahead of me last year and used to be a real pro bike racer and is also a pretty good nordic ski racer. But Adam was in sight and I was comfortable. John, who won the helena race and is also pretty good ultrarunner was back there, along with some younger kids like Aiden from Butte and Elliot from team stampede who has moved up to racing in u23 and elite categories.
Then we ran into either a mis-marked part of course or someone fucking with the arrows, because we get sent up this like steep rocky thing that doesn't seem right and we're all walking and wandering around. Like a dozen other people are there and going up higher and I'm like no i don't think this is right and go back down and by ignoring the arrow I get back on track with some other people. There's a group in front of me now and I have no idea how far ahead Chris or Adam are and it cost about 10min. I'm going up the regular course and John comes out of the bushes so it worked out for him and we rode together for awhile. But I'm kind of thrown off, pedaling harder than I should because of the panicky "must catch up" feeling and am thrown off a bit but I guess we're all in the same boat.
Throw my vest at AS2, I didn't plan on stopping there and didn't really need to wear the vest and it makes it harder to get stuff out of your pockets. I had some snacks in cargo bibs plus about 500cal in my two big water bottles so I mostly just needed to drink them both and have a few shot blocks before AS3 at mi 25. Stop at 3, get two more big bottles of mix and cram two gels in my face. am now with John and another guy (matt?") who don't stop but catch back up to john and we're back riding together. 3-4 you descent some actual singletrack instead of endless up and down sandy moto doubletrack. I had generally been a little all over the place on the thunder burts in the sand. Rode off trail a few times but stayed upright. John is descending faster than me and that I find a bit annoying because he's a runner and on a hardtail. I'm climbing faster though and on the sandy slog up to AS4 I leave him behind and then go by Matt who is stopped there. Get to 5 and grab a quick splash of water and then see someone up ahead of me. Oh hey it's Adam, I thought he was gone. He kept pace and didn't want to have me just go by but I put in a little bit of effort up a moderate climb and get some space going into the start/finish. We leave together, then you descend down from the pass to the butte valley on this ridiculously steep doubletrack full of huge washed out ruts. I let Adam go first and then get back to him on the road. You climb through a neighborhood then up a trail then drop down to the highway and climb back up a bit to AS7. I leave Adam on the climb, another quick half bottle of water at 7, and I'm on the way to basin creek. By now it's over 90f and the course only gets harder.
At AS8 I get two more full bottles of mix, one insulated, plus a 3rd bottle of just water in my jersey pocket. I needed it. You climb like 3k feet to get to the next aid station and it seems endless. I had been carrying two bottles of mix up to here but kept one full of just water the rest of the way just to pour on myself. Legs are starting to feel unhappy and the heat is unpleasant. I get off my bike and walk a few times. Start catching the tail end of the 50mi race. Start getting some light cramping. Get to AS9 feeling not great wondering how in the fuck I'm going to get up the next climbs and to the finish. It's still 20 fucking more miles. Two more bottles and maybe a gel and some blocks or something, plus salt cap chews and a tylenol. Legs work a little better but right out of the aid station is steep as fuck and starts to get a little more rocky and technical. This is the highest point of the course on the CDT, generally over 7k feet, and fuck it's hot. I feel like I'm barely moving. Misery. I think my max HR for the last 4 hours was 153, so tempo-ish. Keep looking back, see no one. Tell myself if I feel this bad they all do to. Kind of have fun on the descents, hei hei is ripping through the rocks and the thunder burts are much happier on the packed dirt instead of sand (i also let some air out at the halfway point because of the heat, and ran my suspension a little softer than normal). Thankfully the rocks are all pretty rounded. At one point I clipped a rock with my foot/pedal and tensed up and my legs cramped so hard hard I couldn't move them for like 10-20s. But then you just try to pedal and ignore how bad it feels. Finally get past limekin hill and have a pretty extended downhill to the last aid station. Have a shot of pickle juice, have a cup of coke, get a bottle of water and a bottle of mix, and just have to make it the last 9mi. Again, you're climbing off the bat, but the grade is more reasonable. It's not exactly a continuous climb and then a continuous descent but it's close. Couple of breaks on the way up, couple of short rises on the way down. It takes about 40min to get to the point where you're generally on the way down. Then 20 more to the finish. I see the R1k crew from town, say hi, and yell "this fucking sucks." but seeing friends out there is a nice pick me up. I think I went through about 14 bottles, most with 200-250cal of tailwind in them. And then about only ate shot bloks and vanilla gels. I tried a bite of a honey waffle at some point, and did put a few bars in my bags, but it's just really hard to chew and swallow things.
Get to the finish almost 20min slower than last year. My goal was to be faster and I had the fitness to do it, but the early detour, slow and sandy conditions on the first half, and really fucking hot weather conspired against that a bit. Surprisingly from the bottom of basin creek to the finish I was only 8min slower over 4 hours compared to last year. That shit really sucked and I didn't want to keep going. But uh, I did get 2nd overall so there's that.
For some reason they didn't do awards or a podium and then ran out of food before like half the 100mi finishers were done which was kind of shitty. Maybe they'll mail me something.
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