For
a long time I had a 24 hour solo race on my bucket list, that was until I met
several riders at the BC Bike Race who had raced one. They said it was the hardest thing they’d
ever done and they’d never do it again.
So last year when I was invited to join a 4 man team to race the 25
Hours in Frog Hollow mountain bike race I figured it would be as close to a 24
hour race as I’d get. We ended up having
a great time and planned on doing it this year.
Towards the end of Summer I started asking my teammates from
last year’s 25 hour race whether we were going to get a team together. Nobody was sure what the plan was this year
until unexpectedly several riders entered the race in the solo category. I was stuck with the decision to either race
solo or forget the race. Since misery
loves company, I decided to go for it and race solo alongside the others.
After forking out my entrance fee, I had to figure out how
the heck I’d train for the event. Not only will I be riding hours and hours, I'll climb over 1000 feet per lap.
By the third lap my back was killing me. I couldn’t figure out why only three hours
into the race my back would hurt but training rides up to 5 hours long didn’t
cause any problems. This also happened a
few weeks before at the 6 hour race.
Laps 1/8
I kept telling myself that I would take a break after 8 laps
or approximately 100 miles. Laps 7 and 8
were tough because I didn’t eat or drink enough. So after the eighth lap I was ready for a
break and hopefully re-energize. I
decided to lie down for an hour. Lonnie
brought an extra cot so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor of the tent. I unrolled my sleeping bag, hopped in, and
tried to zip it up – nothing. I could
not get the two pieces of the zipper to stay together. After several minutes of trying I gave up and
lied down. I was freezing.
Laps 9/10
Laps 11/12
The numbers:
12 laps
155 miles
13,000 ft climbing
18/29 riders
0 mechanicals
What
I learned from my first 24+ hour race:
- Make sure to pack warm sleeping stuff.
- Drink two water bottles per lap
- If you feel good keep riding
- Bring a bike work stand
- Never go out without both bar and helmet lights
- PB&J works
- Eat – stupid – 250 calories/hour
- Bring 2 bikes
- Start slower than you think you should
- 5 hour energy worked
