I don't know what drives me to keep waking up at insane hours on Saturday mornings. Last week was a 50 mile, 8500 ft elevation ride (woke up at 4:00 AM), and yesterday was 3:45 AM to prepare / travel to Snowbasin Resort for the Mt. Ogden 100K bike race. Sadly, the pain associated with waking up early was only the beginning for me as I finally experienced my first endurance bike race.
Aside from narrowly missing running over a skunk on the drive up Ogden Canyon, the trip to Snowbasin was rather uneventful. The Wife and I rolled into the Snowbasin parking lot at 5:30 AM and everything was still completely dark with few cars in the parking lot. I was a bit surprised as registration was supposed to end at 6:15 with the race starting at 7:00. Oh well--early bird means no lines. Yes, no lines, but because I'm a doofus, I originally registered at the volunteer table before realizing my error. Oops.
After completing a few pre-race preparations (namely, taking four dumps in the glorious Snowbasin private bathrooms--don't be grossed out, EVERY racer does this) I checked my tire PSI to make sure it was just where I wanted it--it was a little high, so I let some out. I let too much out. No worries, I'll just pump it back up to the 27 PSI I wanted. I got out my pump, and the presta adapter was broken. Wonderful. Thankfully, I bummed a pump off a fellow rider, but over inflated my tires. Over inflating my tires alone equated to a LOT of pain during the 2nd lap. More on this later.
I dawdled after the pre-race meeting so I just barely made it to the starting line as the Pros took off. Thirty seconds later, my group took off with the resounding 'boom' from the shotgun.
Race conditions were practically perfect. It had rained the night before so the trail was very buff / tacky with practically no dust. The lower section of the first lap was a bit muddy, but had dried nicely by lap #2. It was generally cloudy with a nice breeze throughout the first lap of the race, so the weather definitely cooperated for the start. I got into my cadence quickly, and I was passing several riders very early in the race. I made a mental note to pace myself as I knew this wasn't going to be a 1-2 hour ride--6+ hours pushing it would definitely kill me. After the initial shakeout, we were greeted with some quick downhill, after which the real climb began. This climb was actually quite nice, and I continued to keep a good pace--passing all but 6-8 non-Pro men. It was at this point where I made my one wrong turn of the day that cost me ~1 minute. Ironically, the fellow racer who followed me was the same guy with whom I crossed the finish line at the end. Did I use ironically correctly? Was that even ironic? I don't want to say something is ironic when it isn't. People tend to do that (I'm apparently one of them). Update: it wasn't ironic. It was coincidental. Kudos to The Wife for pointing that out.
After getting back on the main course, I continued my climb up into the nether regions of the Snowbasin resort where the wind grew strong, the trees grew scarce, and the course became ever more rocky. No worries though--I was still fresh, eating / drinking calories at good intervals and I felt good. An aside: do NOT eat peanut butter sandwich crackers on an endurance (or ANY) ride. I ended up chewing half of the plastic wrapper as I was trying to get them out, and because the crackers are so dry, with every breath I would wheeze out half of the remaining crackers in my mouth. Oh, don't eat Chocolate Brownie Clif Bars either, those are gross too. Free advice.
When I reached the top I knew I had several guys ahead of me in my category who I wanted to catch in the downhill section of lap #1. As I began the descent, I quickly passed a singlespeed rider who was very gracious and let me pass (more on him later). I felt very good on the downhill, which seemed to last forever, but I never caught the wheel of any of the riders ahead of me. I was a bit surprised as I am pretty good on the downhill sections and figured I could make up some time. Oh well. I was down at the bottom of Art Nord?!? (I don't know the course names well) and had some climbing to do to get back up to the starting line. This climb wasn't too bad, and I kept a pretty good clip to get up to the starting line / feed zone. I rolled in to the feed zone where The Wife was cheering me on as I briefly breezed past her to refill my bottles.
After a quick refill, I headed over to The Wife to send the remaining peanut butter crackers in my jersey back from whence they came and to get a banana / Clif Bar for the 2nd lap. The first words out of her mouth were "You have a massive booger hanging out of your nose." And that I did. When I ride hard, I generally don't care too much about my physical appearance--very frequently I have snot running down my nose, drool coming out of my mouth, and my teeth are covered with dirt. No biggie--I'm a hard core rider. But this dangling modifier out of my big nose was definitely embarrassing. But no time to worry about that! I had just noticed two of the racers with whom I had been jockeying for position on the uphill roll into the feed zone. I gotta split! (I didn't even say good bye to The Wife or anything I found out later. Oops.)
With temperatures rising as the sun came out, I wanted to get through lap #2 as quickly as possible. Sadly, I was beginning to feel the effects of riding 3+ hours already. The second climb up to the top of Snowbasin was definitely not as fun as the first. My body was aching, I could feel fatigue setting in, and the two guys who had caught up to me at the feed zone were on my tail. Drat.
For the next hour+ I exchanged positions with a few different riders as we each had our own moments of energy during the brutal climb. As we neared the top, I had re-overtaken 'American Flag Jersey Guy' but 'Autoliv Guy' (who seemed to come out of nowhere) passed me quite easily. Oh, and that singlespeed guy from earlier? He was happy to jump on my wheel for the remaining climb as he knew I'd pass him again on the downhill.
At the top, I had the first jump on the downhill as 'Autoliv' guy seemed to be dropping his seat post down for the long descent (probably was a good idea). It didn't take long for me to realize I was in serious pain, however. I had tightened my Sidis a bit TOO tightly at the get-go and the extended downhill was wreaking havoc on the outside of my soles. Over inflating my tires also came into effect here as I felt every little bump and rock on the trail (so much for a full suspension bike, bah). Downhill #2 was the most agonizing part of the race. Trails I would normally bomb down I had to gingerly maneuver my way through. 'Autoliv Guy' passed me easily. I had to frequently unclip from my pedals to try to stretch out my feet so as to alleviate the pain. Chock this up to an inexperienced racer.
At LAST, I had made it to the water station near the bottom of the downhill in which my foot pain could be numbed down by my general fatigue as I began the long climb back up to the finish. The day had finally become warm enough to become uncomfortable and this section of the trail doesn't have very much coverage, so I was hot, tired, and very achy, especially with each pedal stroke. Lo and behold, 'American Flag Jersey Guy' passes me as I am slowly making my way up the trail. His pace isn't much faster than mine, but enough to make me realize how slow I am going. Then comes the singlespeeder--he cruises past me on the trail like I'm not even moving. Definite kudos to him for doing the ride and having that much energy at the end. As I reached the pavement for the last ~2 miles back to the finish, the only thought in my mind was, "I don't care what my time is, I just want to finish. This is terrible." I look behind me and recognize 'Orange Jersey Guy' (he's the one who followed me on the wrong trail) closing the gap between us. I don't care. Let him beat me!
As it turns out, he catches up to me and we just hold the same consistent pace for the last little bit, chatting as we make that last push to the finish. I really like 'Orange Jersey Guy.' He mentions before we get to the finish line that we will likely make it under 6 hours. I really don't care at that point, but that seemed nice. As we rolled in to the finish line, we see the official time: 6:01:xx. Drat--we didn't make it under six hours, but hey, I survived, and that is what mattered.
I got my finisher's glass, ate a few orange slices, and walked gingerly to my cheering wife. I was done. Thank Jeebus, Buddha, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and all other omnipotent beings for that.
Overall, I had a great time, learned a lot, and will definitely be doing more endurance races in the future, but I am glad that my trial-by-fire 'Ogden 100K' bike race is now in the archives.
6:01:43 finish time and 7th place out of all open men isn't bad either.
Don't be fooled by the smile, I was in serious pain.
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