24 Hrs of Temecula

24 Hrs of Temecula OR a fine line between pleasure and pain.

Hey all,

At long frick'n last....my race report. Don't even ask, of course it's a long one. Pop open a beer, kick back and enjoy....

 

Venue: 24 Hrs of Temecula

Date: April 23-24th

Team name: Los Dos Meshugenuh: Part Deux

 

24 Hr racing, especially on a 2-person team, is an interesting experience. You cannot go out and hammer out laps like a 4-5 person team, cause if you do you'll burn out, yet you can go a little harder than just the endurance pace of a solo effort. Last year, Jason and I tossed around the idea of doing the 24Hrs of Temecula as training for the Cascade Cream Puff 100 (www.puff100.netfirms.com). After hearing Julie Barrott and Kathleen rave about the technicality of the Temecula race course, we were convinced that Temecula would not only be good training, but it would also be a blast. So we signed up for our first ever 2-man team 24hr effort.

 

So that was last year, we were just a couple of Meshugenuh (crazy guys) out to have a good time and we ended up winning the event. This year, the pressure was on, as we were not only going back to have fun and get some good training in, but we were also going back to defend our title! I found that this played and interesting role, in the pace I was pushing during my laps. Funny how a little competition can change the whole outlook of a race.

 

Anywho, just like last year, we decided that I would do the Le Mans start (i.e. bike are parked about 100ft away and cyclist are lined up at a race start and must run to their bikes and then jump aboard them). I take my time knowing that I'm in it for the long haul and I want to conserve as much energy as possible. I trot over to my bike and hop on my bike. I am careful not to let my competitiveness set too high of a pace for my first lap. Last year I went a bit to hard and suffer pretty badly early in the race.

 

Lap 1: time - 58:05

So our plan was to alternate laps and then to do back to back laps as it got later so we would have a chance to get a good rest. Typical expert team lap times were 50mins-1hr and change. I found that during my first lap, it took me about 45 minutes to really get warmed up, temps were pretty cool this year, and at 58 minutes I finished my first lap. I decided that doing back to back laps would be better for me. The first lap would allow me to warm up in the first lap and then be able to move faster during the second lap.

 

Laps 2&3: Double lap times - 57:50 and 1:01:42

As a 2 man team, most of your communication happens during the baton transfer in the transition area. After Jason came in from his first lap, I said I'm gonna do a double lap, meet me back here in about an hour for a water bottle hand off.  He was like cool, I'll follow your lead. First double lap went as planned. I didn't get faster in the second lap, but my legs did feel better. Plus I knew I'd have a chance to rest for about 2hrs before my next lap and I got to hang out with our friends, Los Conejitos Gorditos (The Chubby Bunnies), who were racing in the jut for fun category.

 

Marty, the team captain of the Los Conejtios Gorditos, is a gourmet chef and took good care of us, both mentally and physically. Although, for endurance racing I'm mostly on a liquid diet (Hammer Nutrition products of course), so I only really got to enjoy some miso soup in the evening and then some pancakes when I was done the next day.

 

Lap 4: 1:00:21

It's starting to get a wee bit dark (6:18pm), but I know I can squeeze another lap without lights. I feeling pretty rested, although my legs are a bit tight, so I head down to the time tent\warm area\transition area. I stretch out the legs a bit and then hop on one of the spin-class type bikes while I wait to go our for my lap. It looked like it was gonna rain and the wind was kicking up quite a bit. Such a sharp contrast to last year where the temps were in the 100's during the day and the terrain was dusty, brown and dry.

Turns out that it was really windy out on the race course. I was getting into a groove on the sketchy descents and the wind was so strong that it almost knocked me off course a couple times. Speaking of descents, did I mention that this is a "real" mountain biker's course. I mean there is none of this crazy, stupid, road sections like the SOC. There are honest to goodness, scary Ares decents, littered with rocks and step drops, that actually require technical skills. The super fun part was that if you had the courage to bomb the decents you could usually make it up the other sides of the hill completely or at least 1/2 to 3/4 of the way on the hike-a-bike sections.

 

Lap 5: 1:12:41

This was my first night lap (8:41pm) and boy was the wind blowing with full force. It wasn't really cold, it was just more resistance to push against as you tried to ride both up and down the hills. Nothing to exciting in this lap, except that I rode a wee-bit slower, just to get familiar with how the course looked at night.

As an aside, I found that the blue-ish light of the HIDs I was running although bright, caused a strange reflection of the sany sections. This sucked because, there were good lines thru the sand and you couldn't make them out at night with the HID light.

 

Lap 6: 1:16:05

11:22pm.  More of the same. A bit more tired. Had some coffee and felt a little bit more peppy.

 

Lap 7&8: Double lap - 1:16:16 and 1:45:38

 

Jason flatted one of his tubless tires and had a tough time repairing it and was actually walking when somebody was kinda enough to stop and give him  a tube and pump. So I got a good amount of reset before my second double lap. The time was now 2:42am and I hadn't slept a wink yet and didn't really feel sleepy.

So I took off on my first lap and felt pretty good, I was re-learning the good lines on the course under the illumination of my HID and was feeling more comfortable riding at night. The wind was still going, but it wasn't really too cold.

 

I felt good finishing my first lap and decided that I could do one more lap and then crash out for an 1hr. So when I arrived in the transition area, I told Jason I was ready to bust out one more lap. He was like cool and gave me his water bottle. I took off feeling pretty good and then it happened...about 5 miles into the 10.5 mile course.....I hit a wall so hard that I thought I wouldn't finish my lap. My neck and shoulders hurt so badly that I had to force myself to take deep breathes so as not to panic from the pain. I guess the fatigue from being on the bike all day and no sleep was taking it's hold on me.

 

As I mentioned, there were a few hike-a-bikes in the course that you could usually make it up about 1/2-3/4 of the way, depending on the hike-a-bike and the amount of speed you carried coming down the other side. On the steepest hike-a-bike and I was so tired that I could hardly push my bike up the hill. I would kind of push the bike, rest, push the bike, rest, the bike would roll back down, rest, push, finally I made it to the top, after what felt like an eternity. I was so tired at that point that I put my bike down and laid down to rest, then I quickly jumped up, afraid that I might fall asleep and freeze to death! Luckily, I'd hit the point in the course where there were no more horrendous climbs, just super gnarly, technical descents and some rollers.

 

I mustered up the little energy I had left and forced myself to focus. I reasoned that if I could focus, I could hit the descents with max speed and therby conserve energy by carrying my momentum up the other side of the hill. This worked out and I was soon hitting the rollers and then the flat single-double track back to the transition area.

 

I rolled in looking like death. Even the friendly folks in the transition area knew that I had suffered miserably. All I could mumble was, I have to sleep, I have get some sleep. My second lap time says it all, 30 minutes of time added to my first lap time and honestly I felt like I was out suffering for an eternity.

As I dragged myself back to the campsite, all  I could think was, the race is over, I'm not doing anymore laps, I don't care about the competition anymore, I just want to sleep. I arrived at camp dropped my bike on the ground and mumbled to the crew that i had to sleep. Wake me in an hour I said. I crawled into the tent, stripped off as much wet clothing as I could and just crawled into my sleeping bag to get warm. I shivered, no joke, for about 20 minutes and finally passed out. Dave woke me up an 1hr later, which felt like just second after I fell asleep and I said, no I got sleep. He told me he would go check on Jason's time and then let me know home much more time I had to rest. Dave came back and said I had about another hr to sleep. I crashed for another half hour.

 

I forced myself to get up and dress out in my cycling clothes. I was felt much better, but was still not too excited at the prospect of going out for another lap. Marty was going to make me some oatmeal, but then decided that some hot miso soup would be better. Gosh damn, was he right, the salty warm miso soup did just the trick and on of our other buddies, Bruce, was kinda enough to have got us coffee. I loaded up with warm fluids and headed back over to the transition area to stretch and warm up.

 

I think the folks in the transition area were as surprised as I was that I was getting ready to do another lap.

 

9th and final lap - 1:08:41

 

The time was now 9:16 and I was off to do my final lap. I started slow and got into a good group. The next thing you know, I was hammering and feeling good. I climbed and descended well and was happy to see the finish. I was sooooo happpy to be done. I managed to knock a nice chunck of time off my previou lap. It's amazing what a little bit of sleep can do for you.

 

The time was now 10:25. I wished Jason well, on what would be his last lap and went back to the campsite for some recovery food of champions:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/isaiasjob/detail?.dir=/595b&.dnm=9548.jpg&.src=ph

 

I crashed out after my recovery food and had the guys wake me in time to go down and welcome Jason in from his last lap.

 

The end:

With my last lap time and the pressure on Jason to pull a fast lap, which he did by knocking 15 minutes of his previous time, we sealed our victory by a margin of 28 minutes.

 

Granny Gear 24 Hr races rock! These are courses designed for mountain bikers, not roadies on mountain bikes. Another super awesome feature of Granny gear race is the RealTime Results. Everybody gets and RFID card, that they use to scan in and out with. The results of each lap and team's standing is available "RealTime." Check out RealTime results by looking us up Duo Pro category at :

http://www.grannygear.com/realtime/public/index.php

 

Here's our Team page:

http://grannygear.com/Register/show_teams.php?race=temecula&year=2005&team_name=Los+Dos+Meshugenuh%3A+Part+Deux

 

Finally, if your interested here's a buch of pics:

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/isaiasjob/slideshow?.dir=/595b&.src=ph

 

Last but not least, thanks so much to our fellow races and support crew: Marty, Joe, Dave, Bruce and Randy. Big shots out to Bruce for staying up all night with us!

 

Cheers,

Isaias