The Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race

Okay, so I've gone and done it now.  I don't know what possessed me, but I've gone and got myself all wrapped up in the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race.  The 2012 version happens on August 11 in beautiful Leadville, Colorado. 

For those unfamiliar, this is actually a 103 mile race that happens at 10,000 feet of elevation and above, and includes a total of 14,000 feet of actual climbing.  Because it's an out-and-back course, that means there is also 14,000 feet of descent.  The weather is known for being quite unpredictable, and the course has some very challenging spots, particularly if it's raining.  So, in a word, it's brutal.  But another word, and the one I'm going to focus on, is epic.

Epic is the reason mountain biking exists.  I'm sure at first it was just some kind of experiment in riding on hiking trails rather than on the road or on a BMX track, but the challenges faced when riding those trails is what caused people to continue to push the envelope in terms of skills as well as machinery and turn the sport into what we have today.

What we have today is a wide variety of types of "mountain biking", and this race even pushes the limits of that to something I'd call "ultra-endurance mountain biking", I guess.  There are only a handful of races in the entire world that are significantly longer than 100 miles, though there are a bunch of races that are basically this same length now.  Well a "bunch" as in probably 10 or 12 in the US, anyway.  More common is the "6 hour" endurance race for mountain bikers, and often those are on MUCH shorter courses and you just do as many laps as you can within some cut-off time (usually around 5.5 hours).

So why do something this extreme?  Because this particular race is considered the pinnacle of mountain bike racing in North America.  To be considered a finisher, you have to complete the course in 13 hours.  Complete it in 12 hours and you get a small, but very cool, belt buckle.  Complete it in 9 hours and you get a large belt buckle.  I know, most of you are thinking "what the hell would anyone go to all that trouble for a belt buckle for?"  Yeah, me too, in a way.  I'm certainly not going to wear the thing, but then again I'm sure most people who win them don't wear them, either. 

It's really about completing the thing and being able to know you did it.  It's kind of a bucket list item for many folks who like to ride mountain bikes.  Most of us ride a few hours per week, and often do one ride per week that's 2-3 hours long, and that's it.  If I train my butt off between now and then (and I'm already in decent shape), and have a GREAT day, I might get close to that nine hour number.  Realistically, my goal is 10 hours (and that'll take a very good day).  If I manage to finish in 12 hours by even the closest of margins, I'll still be VERY happy.  If I squeak the 13 hour mark, I'll be happy.  If I don't make 13, it won't be a good day at all for me.

What can screw it up?  Illness.  My body not cooperating with the altitude.  Mechanical failure.  Not following my hydration and nutrition plan.  Crashing.  Oversleeping.  Not training well enough.  And probably other things.  I've got plans to deal with all those things (well, except maybe illness...I don't think there's much I can do about that!) and then some, however, and over the course of the next year I'll bring you all up to date on what they are.  I plan to blog fairly extensively about it (and given recent history, that may mean I don't blog about much else...who knows, though, maybe this will rekindle my blogging fire on other topics, too).

My next blog post will be about how you can help.  That's right, you can help.  How?  Well let's just say getting into Leadville as a first timer is very difficult.  There's a lottery system and first timer's have a less than 10% chance these days of getting in.  But there's a couple other ways to get in now, and one involves raising money for charity.  That's the one I chose, and I feel pretty great about it because it's a pretty great charity.  More on that in a few days. 

For now, it's nearly time to get myself ready for a rainy day long run.  That's right, a run.  I just wrote a huge blog entry about mountain biking and I'm going for a run.  Why?  Well, cross training is good, and apparently running is becoming widely accepted as a very good compliment to biking.  Which is annoying, because I don't love running nearly as much as I love biking, but that's okay.  On this rainy day I've got a running partner, and that seems to make running so much better.

I plan to give a shout-out in probably every one of these posts to my awesome coach, Sage Rountree.  She is, without a doubt, one of the world's leading authorities on athletic recovery.  But you don't get to that point without being pretty great at how to become an extreme endurance athlete, so she's a great coach for this in so many ways. 

So hang on, it's going to be a fun ride...

The Great Marriage Debate

As most readers of this blog already know, the NC General Assembly has placed a referendum on the ballot at the upcoming Republican primary election to add a state constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. This would simply be a stronger position supporting the state law that already says the same thing, and would certainly make it harder to change that law in the future.

This has caused a lot of backlash, most notably with this def shephard blog post that's been making the rounds. It's good reading, even if you disagree with the stance. I have a much different take, however.

To me, this boils down to an argument between those who prefer marriage to be defined as a union between one man and one woman and those who want it defined as a union between any two people.

But why? There are lots of reasons that the LGBT community wants legal marriage status, but the only ones that really matter are the ones that are government influenced (as far as this discussion is concerned, anyway). Things like tax breaks for married couples, insurance issues, etc. Otherwise, it's really just about "recognition." Now, I think the folks who want this change are attacking it from the wrong angle. I'd personally rather see, and would support, changes that take the government out of marriage entirely. No tax breaks for simply being married, no link between insurance and marriage, etc. No laws whatsoever governing "marriage." It would simply be something that churches or other entities can recognize. Why does it need to be anything more?

The ultra-conservatives would say that taking away this government recognized system is further eroding some sort of moral fiber. I say hogwash. People already do what people want to do, and the fact that we have gay couples living together in NC and ready at the instant the law is changed to become married (or those going to other states to do it), is proof of that. Just because the government stops telling people NOT to do something does not mean the government suddenly supports DOING it. It simply means the government doesn't have any interest in it, and in this case, I don't see why the government needs to have that interest.

The last question is fairly simple...for those who believe allowing the LGBT community to marry, why draw the line there? Why is polygamy illegal? What's so special about the number "two"? I don't personally care about polygamy, but it is just another line in the sand...

Anatomy of a perfect day

A perfect day starts with a trip to the North Carolina mountains. Do whatever prayer or sacrifice or other bribe to the weather gods that you have to do so that you get a 75F partly cloudy day. Next, mix in plans for a completely empty day to start with breakfast at the Dan'l Boone Inn with some good friends you haven't seen in a while. From there, plan to take the kids to the park in Blowing Rock, but stop by your respective houses on the way to get appropriate gear for a short hike to a swimming hole. Meet back up at the park.

From there, it gets interesting. First, I decided while at home to add my motorcycle to my "gear." Yeah, I threw my hiking gear in Ashley's car and went my own way on the bike. It's a new-to-me 2009 BMW G650X. For those that don't know bikes, it's a street legal dirt bike that is just perfect for mountain exploration. Anyway, I hadn't actually even had it out on public roads yet (we trailered it up here). So, back to the park...

We let the kids run around and play while the adults did more catching up. Then we loaded back up and headed from downtown Blowing Rock toward Globe. Our intended stop was the China Creek trailhead off of Globe Road. Well, it was our stop, but unfortunately we found that the China Creek trail had been closed by the park service for a year! It's due to reopen in a few weeks, but given the penalty for hiking it was six months in jail, we decided we should head to choice number two, Huntfish Falls. The only reason it was choice number two was that it's a good bit further of a drive, but it's a better swimming hole anyway, so off we went. It's worth noting that I wasn't crying at all, since I got that much more chance to explore the limits of my new bike on twisty dirt roads.

So a short while later we found ourselves at the Huntfish Falls trailhead:


It's six or seven miles of dirt on The Globe Road, and another ten miles or so of dirt between Highway 90 and Pineola Road to get to the Huntfish Falls trailhead, but let me tell you, it's stellar riding. Particularly today and particularly for someone on this kind of bike that's new to them. Why? Because it rained a good bit yesterday. I had every surface type imaginable to play on. Loose gravel, occasional large rocks, that really awesome tacky clay, soft mud, and occasional soup. Sometimes you even had weird mixes of those. And yet I never over-stepped the limits of this fine machine. I am impressed, and I am looking forward to a lot more seat time on this thing. Back to the day...

The family and friends caught up, and we headed down the nearly-a-mile-long trail that's pretty much straight down. It lands right at a very awesome set of waterfalls with a large swimming hole that leads to a pretty decent sliding rock (at least for small kids). The best part? There's a pretty decent rock ledge about five or six feet above the water that you can jump off of and into about five foot deep water (so you have to be careful to only cannonball, but it's still great). The water temperature is quite brisk, but you do get used to it quickly. Or at least I get used to it quickly, anyway, but maybe that's because I get addicted to that ledge jump. I think I did it ten times today. Both kids did it, too, and even one of our friends, who apparently had never done anything like that!

After an hour or two or three (who keeps track of time in a place that wonderful?), we headed back out. The hike back up isn't so wonderful, but it's tolerable enough. We grabbed some snacks and headed back toward civilization with a plan to meet at the friend's house to grill some supper. Notice we had missed lunch, but between the awesome breakfast and the snacks, I don't think anyone cared. I left first on the motorcycle...hehehehe.

I did some more limit-seeking along the ten or so miles of gravel road back to the Parkway, where I started to notice gray skies. Uh-oh, might get wet! And sure enough, as I rode the Parkway back to the house, there were occasional showers. Never enough to soak the road, but just enough you knew it was raining and not drizzling. I didn't much care as it was just warm enough it was no bother, and I was still damp from my swimming excursion anyway. I got home, showered, watched the US lose the World Cup, and we headed back out for our supper engagement.

We found our friend's fairly-new-to-them house with no problem, and enjoyed a great meal and conversation. They have a wonderful place that I'm sure they will enjoy for many years to come. They even busted out some sparklers that had been intended for July 4 festivities, but were rained out. Much to my surprise, my children had yet to experience the wonder that is dazzling fire on a stick that you can hold in your hand, so much fun was had by all. Sadly, the sun decided that it was time to end the festivities, and we called it an evening. But it was quite a nice way to cap what was a perfect day.

What a long strange trip it's beeeeeeen...

Today's ride was an interesting one. My coach had me scheduled for a 90 minute road ride. Unfortunately with other stuff I had scheduled today the only time I could do it was in the hottest part of the day. Thankfully the humidity is finally down to tolerable levels and even though it was definitely hot, it wasn't as stifling as I thought it might be. The sweat could actually evaporate for the most part, which made things tolerable.

I decided to try a new variation on the route I've been riding lately, and boy did I screw that up. You can see the data here, which includes a nice map of what I did. As you can see from the map, I did about four miles on highway 87 north. That was NOT intentional. For some reason I had it in my head that Mt. Olive Church Road went straight from Chicken Bridge Road to Old Greensboro, but in fact you have to turn right on Mandale to do that, which I missed. And then I stupidly decided that it probably wasn't but a mile or so up 87 to Old Greensboro, so I'd just go that way instead of turning around.

Oops.

Want to know the worst part about all this? I have a GPS on my bike with full mapping and navigation and I didn't use it! Talk about dumb. I'm so used to leaving it on the data screen that I didn't even think to hit the map button and see what I was doing. Turning around would have been no big deal to go to Mandale, but riding four miles on 87 sucked big time. It's not fun getting passed by semis and logging trucks at 65MPH, that's for sure. Especially with traffic going the other way, too! And all this the day after a post about crashing. Seriously, that's just not bright. It made me want to quit riding altogether. Okay, not really.

Along the way, I also had my first bad dog encounter. Okay, I say bad, but in reality it was basically as bad as you can get without actually getting bit (or crashing). It was a black mutt that appeared to have a goodly amount of Chow in him. I'd put him at about 85 pounds and you'd have to say Mr. T has a sunny disposition compared to this creature. He came out of a yard to my left, but I never saw him until he hit the road running and around to my right side. I was probably doing about 16MPH at this point and it was basically flat. I sped up a little, and he matched me, barking ferociously the entire time. Then I noticed he was staring at my ankle appearing to be timing my pedal strokes and easing closer. I figured an attempt to kick him would just result in a crash, so I took the other option and put the power down.

My data shows I peaked at nearly 1,000W for about five seconds. Not too bad. As I hit it hard, I pulled in front of him. I looked back to see him try for another gear, which he did have, but he only stayed with me another second or so before my continued acceleration got the better of him. He pulled up and turned around. I have to say that was quite annoying. I've never been scared of a dog while on my feet, but at speeds over 16MPH while clipped into a road bike, I felt a lot more vulnerable to a beast like that. He'd inflict some damage, but I know I could inflict more in a straight fight. My problem was the fear of the crash he was about to cause on top of it. Hmm, now we're back to yesterday again.

But I've learned that lesson, too. I will be better prepared on my road rides from now on, and dogs who do this will not like the outcome, that much I can assure them. I have a right to pedal on the road without fear of being injured by a furry beast, and I intend to exercise that right. Trust me when I say I'm truly a dog person and always have been. I know when a dog is in "attack" mode versus just "get the hell out of here, I'm protecting my turf" mode. The latter will be tolerated, the former, well, no. Today was the former. I could see it in his eyes and in his actions.

The last interesting thing was near the end of the ride. A truck approached from ahead and slowed and rolled his window down as he met me. A gentleman stuck his head out and warned me about a "fox" around the next bend that I should watch out for. I said thanks and gave a thumbs up as I rolled by (I slowed, too), and thought "what kind of moron bothers to warn someone about a fox? You barely see one and then they're gone. Oh well, he was being nice." Then as I rounded the corner I see a critter on the left shoulder. He sees me, hops to his feet, and jogs slowly back into the trees. As he did that, I realized not only was he a coyote, but he had been hit and was injured. So the guy who warned me was actually probably the one who hit him and saw that he was alive but too injured to flee. Now it all made sense. Still a bit odd of a thing to happen in the middle of the afternoon, but on this day, nothing was completely out of line, apparently.

Crash and Burn

Just read this article about crashing while road cycling and the mental effects it can have.

I'm twisted, but I kind of had to chuckle a bit. No, not at her pain, but at the exploration of this phenomenon and the somewhat obvious conclusions. Well, obvious to me. But then I realized why it seemed obvious.

I have a lot of experience crashing.

Now, let me start out by saying while I do have a lot of experience crashing, I actually have yet to crash while road cycling (though I'm sure it will happen...and the article just reaffirmed that quite nicely). So what is this experience I am speaking of?

I have vivid and very complete memory of my first bicycle crash that resulted in an injury of significance. I was in the fifth grade and was riding the badass black Schwinn Stingray that my Dad basically built for me. I don't know of any surviving pictures of that bike, but it looked a lot like this:


I remember it like it was yesterday. I was making a left turn off of a sidewalk at my school onto a dirt trail. Somehow the front tire caught a big rock that was semi-embedded in the trail and just sort of threw the bike sideways and me onto the ground. Unfortunately, my left knee hit right on top of another jagged rock and cut it open pretty good. I think that was the first time I ever got cut open like that, and it scared me. Big time. I screamed and screamed as I rode furiously home. Blood had run down my leg and stained my sock. I'm sure I scared my Mom half to death, too.

Now, I was a kid then, so there was no thought of not riding again. But of course, it's not the same. I think the problem is I learned pretty quickly that if I was going to have much fun on this earth, well, I was going to have to take a few chances. And occasionally, or maybe not-so-occasionally, those chances were going to cause me to crash. It's always just seemed part of having fun to me.

Fast forward through a lot of dumb kid stuff. What else have I crashed? Mountain bikes. Heh, that's so often the stories aren't even interesting any more. But in every one of them I'm like the guy in the Times article I linked above who crashed on ice and realized it was his own dumb fault. I'm the one piloting that bike and choosing to do it where and how I do it, and when I crash, no matter how "out of my control" it is, well, it's my fault. No doubt about it.

Race cars? Yep, more than a few times. At triple digit speeds. First big crash was just a rookie mistake, honestly. I took a corner faster than I thought was going to work (it would have worked if I had trusted myself) and then did a classic panic for a half second. Blam, I went sideways at 60MPH+ into a wall. Minor concussion, lots of bent metal, but I was able to race the next day (thanks to Reid, the best crew chief ever). I'm sure at the time I wasn't so quick to just blame myself, but nobody else hit me, there was nothing slick on the track, and I just made a mistake. So deep down I knew it was just something I did wrong.

The last big race car crash? I made a TINY mistake and just did a little half-spin with two wheels off the track...I'm not even sure I ever came to a complete stop, in fact. I kept going around that corner and down a LONG straightaway where I built speed to over 115MPH while catching another race car. I pulled out to pass by braking later than he did. Oops, no brakes. Five presses later (sometimes after going off track you can experience what we call "pad knock-back", which means you get one press with no brakes, then they come back) and some major league awesome driving to NOT hit that car I was passing, I was leaving the pavement and done for. My last ditch effort after making sure I cleared that other car was to attempt to point the car in a direction that would have been a hell of a downhill ride and would have missed that first wall, but all I was able to do was get it turned a little. As soon as I left the pavement it spun quickly and slammed the wall at almost exactly 100MPH (we have it on data). Another minor concussion, a lot more bent metal. That car does race now, but it wasn't racing the next day, that's for sure.

I lost brakes because I hit something in that little spin that resulted in the two wheels off track and bounced up and cut the brake line. Never knew it. Was that "my fault"? Was that "fair"? It was absolutely my fault, and absolutely "fair." Always check your brakes. And I shouldn't have made that mistake to begin with.

I've crashed bicycles, motorcycles, race cars, street cars, gokarts, golf carts, and probably a lawn mower or two. I've crashed while skiing, tubing, sledding, and even while just chasing my child around the house (that one resulted in 12 staples in my scalp a mere 36 hours before getting on a plane to Hawaii!). Heck, just the other day I fell YET AGAIN while running. I decided to run down a huge log skinny feature that we built for mountain biking. I've done it before, but never when it was wet. I knew it would be a little slick and was prepared for it. Almost. It was way slicker than I thought possible. First step went out from under me and I went straight down on my butt and hands. And slid like I was on a sliding board. For a while. Ouch.

I could go on (and probably have gone on too long already), but I just couldn't help but chuckle at the analysis and publishing that came from one bicycle crash. One could say that perhaps most people are more skilled than me at what they do and don't have my vast experience to draw from. I'd buy that. I just found it funny that I live so far on the other end of the spectrum and yet can't recall ever having a "I'm never going to do this activity again" kind of moment. But I always try to make sure I learn how to "never have this particular accident again." A more interesting article, to me, would have been a slant on turning the "I'm never riding again" reaction into "learn from your actual mistake and move on" kind of thing. Because there were several things you could change...don't mix with slower (or unknown) riders, don't draft quite so close, pay more attention to your surroundings than your data (NOTE TO SELF HERE!), etc.

One thing I do know, injuries suck. But making them worse with knee-jerk reactions to them doesn't help. Learn from it and move on.

The most important training day is...

If you ask my coach, she'd probably answer off-the-cuff that the most important day in your training plan is your recovery day. But I was thinking this morning that there is one easy day to single out that's the most important. It's not recovery day, or long distance day, or hill day, or film day (you professional ball-sports athletes get that one). Nope.

It's today.

I know, it seems simple and cheesy, but I've got a deeper point to make. Okay, maybe just slightly deeper, but bear with me. My point is it is easy to look at your calendar and think "I need to save up for that day" or "today's workout isn't as big so I can take it a little easier" or "today is my last day before recovery day, so maybe I can get away with a little less and get more recovery that way." Don't fall into the trap. Here's why, in a nutshell:

Today is sacred. Whatever you complete today is all that will ever be done today, and all that you have to apply to the future. Make the most of it for once it is gone, it is gone forever.

My run today wasn't stellar, but it was better than it would have been if this hadn't just sort of hit me this morning. I got everything out of that run that I had. I hope to apply this idiom every day from now on. Even on recovery day. Endurance athletes, you get what I mean here...we don't always make recovery day everything it could be in terms of recovery. Hydrate better. Do a little more recovery yoga (get those legs up the wall!). Make time for a massage. Spend time just relaxing with your pets or taking in an episode of Phineas and Ferb with the kids. Then on workout days, well, you know what that means. Get after it. Own it. Make today special. Every day.

I promise you'll feel better for having done it.

The epic that wasn't and then it was again.

Sometimes a friend just has a stroke of genius, and sometimes it's not exactly how you'd expect it.

Today was the last day of a four day mountain bike trip with eight other guys (plus one for today only). Thanks to the weather, we waited for our North Fork Mountain Trail ride until today. It was supposed to be the best ride we would do, and today was the only day where there wasn't a chance of rain. So it seemed obvious, even though we were told it would be our longest and hardest day (which you usually wouldn't save for last), that we'd do it today. It would be epic.

It took a little bit of work to find the trailhead, but we found it and headed out on our last great adventure of this trip. Little did I know just how adventurous it would be. The total trail distance was 24 miles, but that's only if you have a bike capable of going that far. On this day, well, it just wasn't to be. At just 2.5 miles in, and going down a long downhill section, a stick popped up into my rear wheel and derailleur. Poof, many parts were destroyed. Now, my group plans pretty well for this kind of thing and we had every part and tool needed to replace the chain, derailleur, and hanger. What we didn't have, unfortunately, were any spokes to replace the two broken spokes in the wheel. Considering how close we were to the beginning of the trail, we considered this terminal. There was just too much riding left to risk injury or more bike damage trying to ride a wheel missing those spokes (and thus now very warped as well).

I assumed my day was done. I might as well walk back to the trailhead and just go back to the cabin and surf the internet. But Steve had a better idea. There was a way to get to the middle of the trail by car (or very close to it, we weren't sure). But we didn't know how, and I needed a bike. But it seemed that I might just have time to find the answer on where to go AND go to the cabin and back to get a different bike, if I hurried. We hatched a plan that even included an elaborate communication mechanism in the event that I got to the meeting point too late (no cellphone coverage worked up here with any carrier). And fortunately I brought a spare bike (or two).

So I hoofed it pretty hard back out on foot. Took exactly 40 minutes to do 2.6 miles while carrying 3.5L of water and another five pounds of gear on my back and pushing a 32 pound bike over rocky singletrack. I got in Bob's truck, and headed down the valley to a store where I'd find my answer on where to go. Only they had no answer. In fact, the kid behind the counter said "I've lived here all my life, and I've never heard of that trail." Damn. I then inquired with the guy at the deli counter. His answer? "The kid up front should know." Ugh. But just then another customer piped up and pointed me to the Seneca Discovery Center across the street, which was really just a state park visitor center! Voila! Eureka! (Why that didn't occur to me to begin with, I don't know. I was in a hurry.)

I headed over and found a very nice ranger lady who whipped out a map and proceeded to show me exactly what to do. I jumped in the truck and headed to the cabin for the spare bike. I might have driven a tad briskly, but I got there, got the bike swapped and offloaded some of the gear I now wouldn't need since I was only doing half the ride. Then I may have driven a tad briskly again to my new trailhead for the day. This involved a good bit of two lane highway before I passed where we had dropped off our other truck to run shuttle. Then it was a TIGHT two lane paved road for about ten more miles, complete with switchbacks and miles of guardrail. And then another four miles of gravel road almost straight up ("High clearance vehicles are required."). Oh, and I ate my lunch while driving there. Briskly.

I tell you, it was a great sight when I rounded a bend in the gravel road and saw Alan on his bike strolling down the hill toward me. I picked him up and we headed back up to where everyone else was waiting. Turns out they had been there almost an hour and I was on the clock for another six minutes before they were out of there. So I geared back up, grabbed my new sled, and off we all went for the other 12 miles. Wow, that felt good.

The trail itself was amazing. Some of the best views ever, and some of the best riding around. A great mix of terrain all ending in an epic downhill. Sure, there were a few more technical issues, some sight seeing, and just a ton of fun. We really killed it out there today. I would have certainly loved to have done the entire thing, but sometimes you have to learn and grow in different ways than what you expected. On this day, I learned the true meaning of rally. Sometimes you rally up a hill. And sometimes you have to do something a little bigger. It would have been easy to just pack it in for the day. It would have been easy to have wondered "why me?" It would have been easy to eat some lunch and take a nap.

This trip isn't about easy. It's about epic. And it almost wasn't.