I got a call from my friend Rick last week asking what I was doing this (now last) weekend. After telling him not much he asked if I wanted to stay up all night. It didn't click right away. "Huh? A White Rim trip or something?" Nope. He had put a single speed team together for the 24 Hours in the Sage and had a guy bail because he had to work. He needed me to sub. I wasn't planning on it, but decided what the hell. I was in. I had two days to train, so I thought I'd just start off with the taper part of a training regiment. 🙂 I just did one low intensity ride Thursday night to test out my new NiteRider MiNewt.X2 light system (which is awesome, I might write something about it later) and generally tried to stay rested, fed, and hydrated. Rick got a great hookup on some cabins so we could have one for sleeping and one for staging. It was pretty plush for a 24 Hour race, but that's ok with me! At first I was nominated to do the LeMond start which was a short dash around a pond, but Rick changed his mind and wanted to do it himself. I wasn't going to argue with that. I'll run sometimes, but not usually in my cycling shoes. The race started and it was a bit of a cluster. We're still not exactly sure why, but some guy grabbed Rick's bar end and yanked on it right as he was riding out. We think maybe he felt he'd been cut off or something but it was weird. Rick made a recovery move and just continued on, having a pretty good lap. We might have gone to talk to the guy but the rest of us missed it and nobody got his number so he disappeared into the crowd. Oh well. I was fourth in the rotation and we all just did one lap per shift to try and maximize the total laps. I was fortunate to get both the sunset and sunrise laps, which were both beautiful. The course was a rolling 1500' of climbing over 13 Miles, two on the road and 11 on my home turf trails. I felt pretty good and had some great laps. We all did. I really enjoyed taking different lines than the masses and getting a cleaner shot through some technical sections. Unlike last year I didn't crash, which was a plus. That was one of my goals. I also posted times at least a couple of minutes faster, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately there are some laps missing fro the results. I think my last lap may have been pretty good. I'm hoping that data shows up. I'm also not all that sore which is a little surprising. Last year I felt like more of an old man afterwards. We wound up doing five each for a total of 20 laps, winning the single speed four man and being 9th over all. I'm happy with that. It was a fun event in a strange and painful way. It seemed to be all good vibes except for the weird thing at the start. I felt like I did well for not specifically training for it. It could almost motivate me to train for next year. Almost...
I got a call from my friend Rick last week asking what I was doing this (now last) weekend. After telling him not much he asked if I wanted to stay up all night. It didn't click right away. "Huh? A White Rim trip or something?" Nope. He had put a single speed team together for the 24 Hours in the Sage and had a guy bail because he had to work. He needed me to sub. I wasn't planning on it, but decided what the hell. I was in. I had two days to train, so I thought I'd just start off with the taper part of a training regiment. 🙂 I just did one low intensity ride Thursday night to test out my new NiteRider MiNewt.X2 light system (which is awesome, I might write something about it later) and generally tried to stay rested, fed, and hydrated. Rick got a great hookup on some cabins so we could have one for sleeping and one for staging. It was pretty plush for a 24 Hour race, but that's ok with me! At first I was nominated to do the LeMond start which was a short dash around a pond, but Rick changed his mind and wanted to do it himself. I wasn't going to argue with that. I'll run sometimes, but not usually in my cycling shoes. The race started and it was a bit of a cluster. We're still not exactly sure why, but some guy grabbed Rick's bar end and yanked on it right as he was riding out. We think maybe he felt he'd been cut off or something but it was weird. Rick made a recovery move and just continued on, having a pretty good lap. We might have gone to talk to the guy but the rest of us missed it and nobody got his number so he disappeared into the crowd. Oh well. I was fourth in the rotation and we all just did one lap per shift to try and maximize the total laps. I was fortunate to get both the sunset and sunrise laps, which were both beautiful. The course was a rolling 1500' of climbing over 13 Miles, two on the road and 11 on my home turf trails. I felt pretty good and had some great laps. We all did. I really enjoyed taking different lines than the masses and getting a cleaner shot through some technical sections. Unlike last year I didn't crash, which was a plus. That was one of my goals. I also posted times at least a couple of minutes faster, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately there are some laps missing fro the results. I think my last lap may have been pretty good. I'm hoping that data shows up. I'm also not all that sore which is a little surprising. Last year I felt like more of an old man afterwards. We wound up doing five each for a total of 20 laps, winning the single speed four man and being 9th over all. I'm happy with that. It was a fun event in a strange and painful way. It seemed to be all good vibes except for the weird thing at the start. I felt like I did well for not specifically training for it. It could almost motivate me to train for next year. Almost...
Matt
So you had 2 days notice and no training, and not only did you decide to join the 4-man 24 hr race, you did it on a SS team and won the SS division. Absolutely sick. You're inspiring man, seriously.
I got a call from my friend Rick last week asking what I was doing this (now last) weekend. After telling him not much he asked if I wanted to stay up all night. It didn't click right away. "Huh? A White Rim trip or something?" Nope. He had put a single speed team together for the 24 Hours in the Sage and had a guy bail because he had to work. He needed me to sub. I wasn't planning on it, but decided what the hell. I was in. I had two days to train, so I thought I'd just start off with the taper part of a training regiment. 🙂 I just did one low intensity ride Thursday night to test out my new NiteRider MiNewt.X2 light system (which is awesome, I might write something about it later) and generally tried to stay rested, fed, and hydrated. Rick got a great hookup on some cabins so we could have one for sleeping and one for staging. It was pretty plush for a 24 Hour race, but that's ok with me! At first I was nominated to do the LeMond start which was a short dash around a pond, but Rick changed his mind and wanted to do it himself. I wasn't going to argue with that. I'll run sometimes, but not usually in my cycling shoes. The race started and it was a bit of a cluster. We're still not exactly sure why, but some guy grabbed Rick's bar end and yanked on it right as he was riding out. We think maybe he felt he'd been cut off or something but it was weird. Rick made a recovery move and just continued on, having a pretty good lap. We might have gone to talk to the guy but the rest of us missed it and nobody got his number so he disappeared into the crowd. Oh well. I was fourth in the rotation and we all just did one lap per shift to try and maximize the total laps. I was fortunate to get both the sunset and sunrise laps, which were both beautiful. The course was a rolling 1500' of climbing over 13 Miles, two on the road and 11 on my home turf trails. I felt pretty good and had some great laps. We all did. I really enjoyed taking different lines than the masses and getting a cleaner shot through some technical sections. Unlike last year I didn't crash, which was a plus. That was one of my goals. I also posted times at least a couple of minutes faster, which is pretty cool. Unfortunately there are some laps missing fro the results. I think my last lap may have been pretty good. I'm hoping that data shows up. I'm also not all that sore which is a little surprising. Last year I felt like more of an old man afterwards. We wound up doing five each for a total of 20 laps, winning the single speed four man and being 9th over all. I'm happy with that. It was a fun event in a strange and painful way. It seemed to be all good vibes except for the weird thing at the start. I felt like I did well for not specifically training for it. It could almost motivate me to train for next year. Almost...
Matt
You are not human! I saw the way you climbed Apex on a singlespeed. You could have probably beat four man teams as a solo.
You are not human! I saw the way you climbed Apex on a singlespeed. You could have probably beat four man teams as a solo.
I don't know about that! Solo looks /really/ brutal. The guy who won the solo, Jason Stubie, is an old friend who's been Dave Weins' training buddy for years. He's truly an animal and did 17 laps which is 221 Miles and 25,500' of climbing! More than three times what I rode and posting pretty good lap times too. Dave was out there camping on the course with his boys cheering us on all night. It was pretty flattering to have Dave cheering for /me/! Anyway, thanks for the kind words. We had fun and I think that's the point. Winning was just the icing on the cake. I sure was pretty useless yesterday at work. Even more so than usual. Interestingly enough, the team I was on last year was guys all younger then me. This year it was guys who were all older. Not sure what it all means, but it was a little more relaxed this year.
