I was at a dinner party Thursday night before the Lumberjack100 and my friend asked me if she was my emergency contact. Then asked when it started and when I
expected to finish. I said – 7 am and I
expect to be done by 5. 5:00 p.m.! Inside my head, I thought to myself – I really
am nuts. What “older” woman plans to
ride a bike in an mtb race for 100 miles when you have zero chance of winning
and a lot of chances at feeling pretty crappy.
I got into competing in endurance sports pretty late in
life. A runner to manage my weight starting
at 18, I didn’t run in a race until sometime in my 30s. Racing in distances up to marathons and the
half size triathlons til maybe age 39. Running races are pretty forgiving when
it comes to awards with their 5 year age groups – so every once in a while I’d
get a ribbon if the field was thin. But overall
competing was about me, competing against me.
I was obsessive about split times and heart rate. I became a student of the sport. I loved my teammates and running was the
center of my social life. I left NYC but I kept running non competively until I
was 50. But thanks to triathlon I’d discovered
cycling and had done that pretty steady since my mid 30s also with no cycling racing. Then at 56 upon the suggestion of another
50+er and the excellent support at keeping me strong of Brockmiller Elite Endurance– I started racing again discovering mountain bikes.
Signing up for a 50-mile mtb race as my second race that
summer (I did a regular cx country race for my 1st) seemed like an
efficient way to learn how to ride the bike.
It never occurred to me I could not finish. After all, I had endurance work in my blood. I am nothing if not steady. Training – which is probably my favorite part
of sport – consisted of many long hour adventures and crashes with my dear
friend and inspiration, Sandra Dunn. But
six weeks after buying my first mountain bike I finished that 50-mile race. It
wasn’t pretty, I had to walk long sections of off camber trail that I was too
afraid to ride – I had to stop to eat because I had no calories added to my
fluids and I wasn’t skilled enough to take my hands off the bars and grab a bar
from my bike. It was amusing.
The next year I signed up for my first 100-mile mtb
race. Our beloved local NUE series race,
Lumberjack 100. In the intervening years
I raced it 3 times, did that August 50 mile race again and then did the 100
mile version, X100 twice (one year the course was shortened due to weather) and
I did Mohican 100K and a 99 mile race in Minnesota last year, Lutsen – so I’ve
put some miles in the last 5 years since I started racing.
But this year, at 61, I’ve been riddled a bit with
doubt. Am I too old? I feel slow, etc. So when my friend asked me what
time I would be done with my race – and my mind starting thinking “ you are
nuts” – it got me thinking about what does go on out there on the trail for 9+
hours.
Lumberjack is a unique format for a 100 miler because it is
3 laps. It is often discussed as a good
starter race for endurance because you can set up support for yourself or have
a friend help at the “base” – the pass-through “pit area”. The hard part is – that also gives newbies
the convenience of quitting – so keeping racers going is the supreme job of the
people who endure a day of people in lycra while batting mosquitos and being
charged with the responsibility an athlete’s “nutrition”.
I am not gonna lie – I absolutely obsess, gleefully, at the
minutia of this sport – the bikes, the methodology, the splits, everything –
even though I’ll never “be competitive”.
In my “self-doubt” year, I’ve been especially critical of my ride times,
whether my skills have improved enough, and just in general – not getting slower.
Yesterday the energy of the race venue and the jitters of
the racers around me was great. I was a “veteran”
now, I knew what to do, I knew how the race plays out. I just didn’t want to be “too slow” –
whatever that is. My bike friends tell
me I’m “incredible” and I don’t feel very incredible, I just hope I can finish
in what I deem a “decent time”.
Then the race starts and we’re off. The rain has stopped, the sky is dark and the
forest has a heavy moist fog. The rain
has heightened the scents and the pine and soil is palpable. I usually describe the first lap as a giant
group ride. We start in waves and if you’re
lucky you’ll shake into about your pace group – but you never know. Because the organizers made a solid effort to
stop the typical slow downs and stand stills on the opening climb we had a big
long run in to it and it worked! The cadence
of the long opening climb is good and I like to climb, I like to listen to the
breaths of the athletes. Mentally, I’m
thinking about the descents because early in the race people are antsy and if
they are further back in the single track line than their skill set, following
my wheel down the sketchy turns in the descent of the first miles may be
annoying. But no one says a word. I’ve trained down there twice this year and I
knew the sand had really piled up. We
were graced with rain and the fast racers ahead had packed a line, but I still wasn’t
going to chance it. I put my foot down
on the last turn and there were some grumbles, but I knew the rest of it and I
sped up.
So lap 1 continues and because of the various passing areas
or mechanicals (which I had 12 miles in) you may have various people in front
or behind you. Racers are polite and if
they hear you behind them ask you if you want to go by. We’re careful where we do that, so no one
crashes – the trail is for the most part pretty narrow with lots of little
treacherous stumps under the ferns off the trail bed.
I got to the “Aid Station in the Woods” – this year dubbed
with a sign that said “Cowboy Corral” and though it is by far my very favorite
place to spend a few minutes – I did not stop my first lap. I was so worried about making the cutoff to
do lap 3 I wanted to get the first lap (which is the longest because of how
they stretch the start) done as fast as I could - plus I was tired of having people
in front of me.
Going clockwise, the single track through the pines after the
aid station is some of the flowiest and most beautiful part of the course. It always brings back the best memories for
me because it was lap 3 at the aid station where I first met Megan Doerr (endurance phenom and best buddy) and we chatted our way through those
turns and forgot for a moment how tired we were.) Yesterday, I ended up with a chatty guy
behind me and we talked about Mohican 100 and his wife who was somewhere up the
trail on a single speed (aka #badass).
Eventually, I dropped him and I had the forest to myself. It was so dark in there that with my yellow
lens prescription glasses and the fog made it like night. Anyone who has ridden with me in the evening
at home knows how nervous I get riding in low light. Well, when you’re in a long race and you’re
worried about making the cut off – you gotta revel in the darkness. Listen to the birds, look up at the sky where
the canopy breaks through. Remember you choose to do this and you’re lucky.
I made the first lap in 3:16, I knew that was good. I had my “pit boss” Roberta Doerr taking care
of me to transition. She is the bomb and
makes the race so much more fun. And off I went lap 2. Feeling a little more confident now I just
needed to keep on going. During my first
lap I’d thought to myself – this is so freaking awesome I need to write this
all down. Lap 2, still awesome, but the
idea of writing about it not as easy to distract from the certain pain that is
ahead.
My friends who are fast always describe their races as
groups of riders, tactics, wheels – it’s nothing like that for me – the only
race in the year where there are people around me for the full race is Iceman –
and that is a blast. In endurance races –
it’s all about what happens when there is no one in sight. What keeps you going, how do you maintain a
tempo, what throws you off. At LJ in the
second lap at my pace there are a lot of racers, but it’s hit and miss whether
you’ll be with them because of the pit area.
Everyone does that differently.
Some faster racers might start flagging and end up in the pit longer and
then come back out and pass you, sometimes you will see the same guy (yes, it’s
usually guy when you consider less than 10 percent of the field is female) but
often it’s someone new. The climbs
define the race and I usually pass several in the 2nd lap. I had a little company in the road portion to
Firetower climb. I got a fun surprise
when Rob Meendering was squatted down in the trail for photos. And I discovered I had not refilled my food
bar or taken Endurolytes at the pit round 1 so I repeated to myself multiple
times that I would have a coke and enduralyte cocktail and get some food at the
aid. I had fully finished my hydrapak of CarboRocket on
lap 1, a goal I rarely achieve, so I wasn’t worried, and I sucked on pack 2
while I was enjoying the forest.
This is for me is the epitome of Big M. If you are lucky
enough to only be racing by yourself and you can be aware of the day – you will
revel in the trees, the light, the birds, the scampers of forest
creatures. You’ll get those moments
between remembering where the trouble root is, or where that rough tight turn
is, or the hang on for dear life straight down descents. It is a majestic forest. Because I’m close enough to train there in
the spring, I get to see it in it’s post winter starkness too. By the time the Plites and Tencates have
prepared the trail for us, Big M is simply exquisite.
I do other things to stay focused in these long races, getting
back to way I started with “long” on mtb – it’s skills. I cheered for myself on lap 2 and 3 when I
made that last turn of the opening descents without putting my foot down. Let
the bike do what it does best through “the easy stuff” (which is always so much
harder for me), listen to what Amy Powell told to do and think about a
different muscle when my left hip was hurting so bad. I’d try to let my whole upper body relax so
much it was just jiggling as I raced for home down the last mile descent – free
speed – it’s called. Oh, and since I
left my glasses with the Pit Boss after lap 1, I couldn’t read my computer
anymore and I focused a lot on the trail.
Giving it what it deserves – my full attention.
Lap 2 was accomplished in 3:07 – Jeff Doerr, my hero who had
had a DNF day but still worked to help the rest of us was there with Pit Boss,
and got me going and told me “you’re on a 9:30 pace”. I thought shit. Lap 3 is so hard.
I headed out, people cheer in the pit area as I ride by and
I smile. Staying positive as we all know
is the key to life, but it is a little hard in the last lap of anything. I break the lap down into 5 miles. The computer is shortening the course – not reading
through all the trees despite having a wheel sensor, so I used that idea that
the lap was only 30 miles and not 33 to my advantage. I’d removed my average speed reading from my
computer and the only thing I could read due to having no glasses was the total
miles and time of day. The sky is
lighter and it looks like maybe the sun will come out – nice – my mind thinks “this
forest is like f_g greenhouse, it’ll be 80+ in no time”.
I pass 2 guys on the opening climb and then I am totally and
completely alone until I catch a kid (he couldn’t have been more than 12) on
the Firetower climb and ride with him, willing him to climb better but
presuming he’ll be faster going down – he was, but he was just in survival mode
– I asked to go by before we got to the Cowboy Corral. I took a coke enduralyte cocktail and a
couple fig bars and kept at it.
A couple guys went back out right in front of me and I got
past them - wasn’t long before a sign said 15 miles to go. I don’t remember them ever putting up those
signs the other years I’ve done this race - 15, 10, 5 and then 1, but I really
appreciate them. That gels well with my
sense of order. At this point in the
race it’s really hard for me to tell how fast I’m going. Every incline feels slow – even slight ones
and only true descents feel fast. It is hard
to describe how slow is slow but you’re still rolling. I get to 10 miles and I look at the time and
think 4:30 pm is a 9:30 – I don’t think I can hit that. I just keep going. The last 5 miles of any race are
difficult. If it’s a short race and you
are really trying to hammer (I don’t really hammer but I imagine this is how people
feel) it’s very difficult. The last 5
miles of LJ are hard because you absolutely know what is ahead. In the clockwise direction you come back into
what I call the ‘inner hills” the ones they have names for. There are several long grinders with steep
pitches at the top, but worse are those shorter punchy ones you don’t remember
as “hills” because they are between the longer grindy ones. The last time I did LJ in 2016 I was gassed
with heat and I walked some of this stuff at the end I think. This year, I’m just rolling with regular endurance legs
- no pop – but my trusty bike with its 12 amazing gears and my extremely
tired upper body get me up all the climbs.
I get to the last long one and look at the time and think uhm – maybe I
will be close to 9:30 if I let it all loose on the downhill home. I get up there and scarily let it all rip down the descent. (Since I only descend
with any remnant of abandon in races I figure I minimize my chances of death or
major accident.)
I go as hard as I can, literally rolling over a big green
snake along the pit path! and I end up with a PR of 9:30:59, 12th place, (including 12 minutes of stop time –
which is important to pay attention to – maybe even more so if you’re racing
yourself). The post-races hugs, high
fives, and smiles are awesome. Love my bike
family.
 |
| Megan and me at the finish! |
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