SUCCESS

So this post is going to be very, very long but I think you’ll understand. Right off the bat I have to say a couple of things. 1. I have a great family. They supported me from start to finish. They understood when I got home late from work because I rode my bike home and when I was gone for several hours each Saturday on a long ride. Grant didn’t hold it against me that I missed his first day of kindergarten because I was in Utah a week early to train. My parents took time out of their busy schedule to come watch the kids so Khania could come out and be my support crew. 2. Speaking of support crews, I had a great one. Khania, Mark and Sheila (henceforth the Supper Support Crew) were awesome. They were at every stop, gave me what I needed and nothing I didn’t. Said all the right things and sent me on my way. 3. I have amazing people all around me who donated to a great cause, the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which allowed me to be in this event in the first place.
With that, on to the race!

The Night Before and The Start:

The night before was a bit hectic. We had three things to do the night before, get me checked into the race, attend the pre-race meeting for “first-timers” and get ready for the next day (get my food prepared, double check the bike, pick out clothing, etc). We got to Logan later than we wanted to and we didn’t get a chance for me to check into the race early, which meant the line was very long. We decided to come back to check-in and went to the pre-race meeting. After wandering around the Utah State University campus we found the right place and went to the meeting, which was informative (slightly unrelated tangent…can someone, for the love of everything holy, tell the good people at Utah State University that it would be helpful to have signs on their campus to point people in the right direction? I mean honestly, would it kill them to have some signs on the road so people don’t spend 20 minutes looking for a building that no student has heard of?). And we’re back...after the meeting we were fearful that we were running out of time so we decided to divide and conquer; Khania went the grocery store to get some supplies and I got into the check-in line. After an hour in line I finally was checked in. We went to dinner, went back to the hotel, met Mark and Sheila and finalized food, clothes, bike, etc. I went to bed around 1 am.
I woke up around 6 am and started getting ready. We packed the bike in the car and went to get Mark and Shelia. We got to the start and did a final check on the bike, took some pictures and I jumped into my start pack. We rolled out at 6:55 am.

The Day Ahead

Logan to Preston (note, I included the elevation map with the towns and feed zones detailed so you can follow along on that as I describe the race):

Obviously, this part of the race was quite easy and fast since the pack of 50 riders or so that I started with stayed together the whole time. We cruised at about 20-22 mph for most of this leg. The only thing that was annoying was that the pace was never constant so I spent a lot more energy than I wanted to fighting the yo-yo effect. Other than that, this was a pretty easy part of the race. In the pre-race meeting it was suggested that the support crews may be able to skip the Preston Feed Zone. We all agreed that this was a good plan so I took a little extra food with me and planned on seeing the Supper Support Crew at Montpelier. I filled my water bottle at the neutral support station and I was off again.

Preston to Neutral Support at Strawberry Summit:

Coming out of Preston the group of 50 riders splintered into several smaller groups. For the most part the riders got in with their teams. Right out of Preston there is a pretty big hill, much larger than anything in the Midwest. I did my best to keep up with one of the teams that seemed to be one of the stronger teams. I did a fairly good job of this until they pulled over to attend to “nature”. It seemed a little strange for me to stop with them so I kept plugging (the unceremoniously left me in the dust up the big hill!). After the big hill there was a big descent, which provided a nice break. A few miles later the road turned uphill for the first climb of the day. It didn’t seem like one steady climb but rather several large rolling hills followed by modest descents and false flats followed by another hill. After this pattern for several miles the road finally turned uphill for good. It wasn’t terribly steep and I felt pretty good. I made it to the what you would think is the top because you start heading downhill but after a brief decent the road turned uphill again, this time steeper. Just after the return to climbing was the Neutral Support. I grabbed a water bottle, banana and Cliff Bar on the bike and kept plugging. I felt great for most of the climb (in fact I passed a lot of riders in my group on the way up), until near the end I started to feel pangs of pain in my right knee. I figured it was just a little tight after such a long climb and that it would settle down after the descent.

Strawberry Summit to Montpelier:

During the descent I joined up with several riders and we seemed to get a pretty good pace going. Then, two riders at the front started going faster than the third guy in line could go and started to pull away. I was 5th or 6th in line at this point and didn’t see this develop until it was too late. I made my first mistake of the day by trying to chase those two down (besides the obvious mistake of not paying attention to the front of the line in order to allow myself the opportunity to prevent what happened). This was a mistake for two reasons, first it didn’t work and eventually I was caught by the same group. Second, I over exerted my knee and the pain really cranked up. At this point we were still several miles from Montpelier and I was in a lot of pain. I stayed with this slower group all the way into Montpelier. I told Mark about my knee problems and he took a look at it. He thought it was just tight and worked on my quads for a couple of minutes to try to loosen it up. I took on some more food and water and I was off.

Montpelier to Neutral Support at Allred Flat Pullout (Feed Zone 4):

Out of Montpelier the road turned uphill again. My knee was really causing me problems and I was over compensating by doing more work with my left leg. On my way to the Geneva Summit my left leg started to cramp. Now I had a bum right knee and cramping left leg, perfect for climbing!!! I fought up to the summit and stopped at the top to stretch. I was out of water and more than 20 miles from the Neutral at Allred Flat. I was in trouble. So I took out the electrolyte solution I bought the day before the race and took it straight. It was like drinking super concentrated salt water, in other words, horrible. I hung out at the summit for a few minutes and waited for a big group to summit and head down the descent. After a couple of minutes of waiting I found what I figured to be a suitable group and jumped in. We descended for several minutes. I got myself into second position in line, directly behind what I eventually nicknamed my “Savior of the LOTOJA”. This guy was an animal. He pulled from top of the Geneva Summit almost all the way to the Neutral Support. I took one pull, but for those 20 miles I did almost no work. However, I wasn’t out of the woods yet. The road turned north and we got into a nasty head wind. I could sense that we were close to the Neutral so I sat up and decided to coast into the support, my second mistake of the day. Outside the protection of my “Savior”, I got pounded by the wind and my right knee pain and left leg cramping started up again and I limped into the Neutral Support. At this point (and for the only time in the race), I considered dropping out. I had just struggled up to the base of the steepest part of the hardest climb and I wasn’t sure I could get over that mountain with my legs in their present condition. I filled up one water bottle and put a cap full of my electrolyte solution in and drank the whole thing, filled it again with water and solution, put it on the bike and stretched for a couple of minutes…the whole time looking up at what lay ahead. I decided to give it a go and see if I could get to the summit of this last climb. I had always told myself that if I could get to that point with anything left in the tank I could make it.

Neutral Support at Allred Flats to Afton:

I am not sure how it worked but somehow I made it to the summit. I grinded big time, got passed by tons of cyclists, felt horrible but I made it to the top. The descent was a huge one and I spent the next 10 minutes or so just coasting. Along the way I picked up two cyclists. They followed me for several minutes until the one finally decided to pull up beside me. He thanked me for letting him suck my wheel because he was really struggling. I was surprised by this because he looked like a very strong rider. I told him it was fine and we started to work together. At this point I was feeling much better. We were making good time (28-30 mph) with minimal effort down into the Salt River Valley. A few miles outside of Afton, the three of us were passed by a huge group of 20-30 riders. I had met one of cyclists in this group on one of my training rides in Salt Lake prior to the race. He recognized me and told me to jump in, which I (and my two buddies) gladly did. Once in this group I knew I was going to make it. We were flying and I was doing very little work. As we approached Afton we agreed to regroup just after the feed zone. I pulled in to the feed zone, pulled off my arm warmers, took some water and headed out feeling very confident.

Afton to Alpine Junction:

This was the best section of the race for me; it was in my wheelhouse as they say. I had gone from nearly quitting the race to being a workhorse in the group. We rode in the 22-25 mph range for almost the entire section. With such a large group I did very little work overall, despite being one of the stronger riders. I felt really strong; in fact there was one time when I dropped the entire group by about 10 lengths. I didn’t know it until I went to peel back…I looked back and there was no one there! The worst part of this section was the rumble strips. These were not just some little lines in the road, these were deep and nasty. The strips were not continuous so every 20 feet or so there was about a five foot break in the strips. When we would encounter slower riders, we would have to slowdown and wait until one of those breaks in the strips and then hurry to the left side of the strips before they started again. Once we were past the slower riders would do the opposite routine. If you looked at this from above we must have looked like the centipede in the old Centipede game on the Atari, with each rider representing a segment of the centipede’s body. When the centipede would come up on one of the those mushroom looking things (a slower rider) you would move the head of the centipede just before it hit it and each body section would move in turn just before it hit the mushroom thing. Because the move the outside was so abrupt between sets of rumble strips and each rider would generally take advantage of the same break in the rumble strips, we had to look like that centipede going around one of the mushroom things. In addition to that, after you took a turn at the front, you would wait until a break in the strips, hurry out in the 5 foot break and then hurry back in once you were at the end of the line. Fortunately these strips were not on the road all the way to Alpine but where they did exist they were a pain. I would guess we could have covered this section even faster than we did because we did have to slow down a lot for slower riders and the rhythm of the group was not consistent. When I got to Alpine nausea had started to set in and all I wanted to take on was water. Since I had run out of water between every feed zone I told the Super Support Crew that I wanted a second bottle of water to put it the back of my jersey. I should have done this from the beginning. I could have prevented the cramping and feeling of desperation I felt each time I ran out of water 15 miles from the next stop. Too bad I didn’t do it until mile 159.

Alpine Junction to King’s Wave Pullout:

When the group entered Alpine Junction we agreed to meet up after the feed zone to regroup. However, I did not see the group at the end of the feed zone as had been agreed on. I looked up the road and saw the guy that had originally told me to jump into the group way back before Afton. They had left me behind! I worked my butt off to try to catch up, which I did on one of the big rollers we encountered on our way up the Snake River Canyon. Unfortunately, the group had never regrouped fully for whatever reason and I was stuck with a motley crew of about 10 riders, most of them not overly strong. Despite that we still made pretty good time. Given that there were several large rolling hills along this section of road, we didn’t lose much time up the hills or down (my way of measuring this was the fact that we didn’t get passed by other groups). I ended up doing a lot of the work up the hills and I would pay the piper later on towards the end of the race. This section was all about sticking together as a group and being as efficient as possible. This was one of the few places where the Super Support Crew was able to pull over and watch me ride by.

I am the one in the middle waving!

It was fun to see them and it produced the only picture I have of me riding in the race. This section of ride also brought back a lot of memories for me. The road runs next to the Snake River and this section of the river is well known for white water rafting. I rafted on this section of river many times with family and friends. The last time I was here, Khania, Grant and I watched a bunch of “surfers” ride one of the curling rapids like a wave. That was really fun to see! Maybe it was because I was nearing the end of my energy or I was going crazy but this section actually seemed to go by quite fast, before I knew it we were pulling into King’s Wave Pullout, the last feed zone.


King’s Wave Pullout to Teton Village – THE BIG FINISH (or just finish):

At this stop I found the cyclist I picked up on the descent from the Salt River Pass. I was happy because he was a strong rider and I knew it would be helpful to have him in the group. However, our group was reduced to 4 riders, including me. Many of the riders from the group I had been in the Snake River Canyon were not ready to go when I pulled out. The four of us worked pretty hard for about 10 miles and then we hit the last hill of the day. Now, considering what I had climbed earlier in the day, this was a tiny hill. But at this stage in the day it seemed massive. It was just long enough and steep enough to turn our group of 4 into a group of three…the strong guy left us in the dust. I could have gone after him but I figured there was little point at this stage in the race. I stuck with the other two riders until we made our way onto the final road into Teton Village, about 5 miles from the end. At this point, I let these two go ahead. After just a mile or so I was caught by another rider who politely sucked my wheel for another two miles. I pulled over to let him by and he pulled me almost the whole way home. At this point I started to feel like I did about 5 miles from the end of my first century, when I had to pull over, get off the bike, sit down for 15 minutes and eat some food because I was basically on the verge of blacking out, not from exhaustion but from not having enough fuel. I was not surprised to feel this way because I knew I hadn’t eaten enough. From Afton onwards I ate very little, that was 70 miles without eating. So just after I passed the “5 KM To Go” sign, I decided to shut it down, shifted to a very easy gear and coasted the last mile or two. When I passed the “2 KM To Go” sign I could see the finish line around a long sweeping turn. The whole race I anticipated getting a bit emotional when I crossed the finish but I was so drained that all I could do was look over at Khania, Mark, Shelia, Philip and Aldara and smile as I crossed the line.







I grabbed my medal, they took off my timing chip and I pulled over and slumped over on my bike.

The look of success

Over the next several minutes I took clothes off, emptied my pockets, took my shoes off and did my best to stay upright. I felt really tired, dizzy and most of all, nauseous. I also felt pride and a certain amount of relief that I had done it! I had planned on doing this ride for almost 2 years and I worked extremely hard this year to get ready. To finish was a tremendous release of pressure. One funny story…the final 10 miles were the longest miles of my life. How did I get through them? Well, the only thing I could come up with was counting my pedal strokes up to 100 and then starting over again. Not terribly creative and by the time I got to the end of the race I was counting everything. I even caught myself counting my steps on the way back to the car!

The Aftermath:

The only lingering effect that was really difficult to deal with was the nausea. All I wanted to do was eat but it was also the last thing I wanted to do. I wanted to down a huge, greasy cheeseburger with a massive heap of fries but I just couldn’t. So what did I have for dinner? A hamburger bun and a medium Sprite. I was so nauseous that I had to leave the Super Support Crew in the restaurant and go out to the car and eat my bun. I didn’t eat anything of substance until I ate some fries and a deli sandwich on the plane ride home (about 2 pm on Sunday, approximately 20 hours after I finished). Other than that, I actually felt pretty good. Considering that I didn’t stretch after the ride my legs felt a little sore but not bad and my knee still hurt a bit but that was it. Also less than ideal was the fact that we all flew out of Salt Lake City on Sunday, hence we were staying in Logan, not Jackson, after the race. That meant that we had to drive back to Logan that night. I was passed out in the passenger seat the whole way, but for Super Support Crew this was murder after driving all day. By the time we got to Logan the three of them were ready to start pulling their eyelashes out.

Again, thanks go out to Khania, Grant and Evelyn; to my Super Support Crew; to each of you out there for your support!