If
you’ve never descended a brand new trail, while completely cracked and seeing
crosseyed, and with the chorus of Starship’s We Built This City going
through your head on repeat… well I can’t say I’d really recommend it but it’s
definitely an experience. Plus, it accurately sums up the last fifteen miles of
my High Cascades 100. But on the positive side, I actually remembered my pillow
for this trip. It’s the small victories.
Quick
background: the High Cascades 100 is a hundred-mile mountain bike event in
Bend, Oregon. It’s part of the NUE (National Ultra-Endurance) series, which
basically means it attracts a bunch of crazy masochistic people from around the
country all looking to enjoy some good old-fashioned type two fun playing in
the moondust of Bend. This would be my first experience with the event, and my
first experience riding one hundred miles on a mountain bike. Promising to be the
longest, and likely the hardest, event of my career, I was incredibly nervous
leading into the weekend. Couple these nerves with heaps of life stress and
you’ve got a rock-solid combination of a fragile mental state. What could
possibly go wrong?
On the
Wednesday before the race, we were all hit with the news that a gigantic forest
fire was threatening to smoke out Bend, and the forecasted AQI for Saturday was
set to be in the triple digits. (Not ideal for eight-ish hours of heavy
breathing.) So just to add to the stress
levels, we decided to postpone the decision on whether to even attend until
Thursday night. To make a long story short, the weather gods smiled on us and
the wind stayed steady out of the west, providing Bend with perfectly clear
skies and no chance of permanent lung damage for racers. Although in hindsight…
the sheer amount of dust I inhaled may have done similar damage…
When
Friday morning rolled around, Jeff and I hit the road early, hoping to make it
to Oregon in time for a quick preride. I forgot how much quicker road trips go
when there’s someone else to talk to, and it’s not only my own self-deprecating
thoughts to keep me company. Before I knew it, we were pulling into Bend along
with all the other decked out Sprinter vans. (We had a built-out Tacoma… when
in Rome…) After packet pickup and meeting Jeff’s friend Phil it was out to the
trailhead to spin out the legs and attempt to remember how riding on dust
works. My friend Landon was playing the tour guide and decided that since we
were riding the best of Bend tomorrow it’d be worth showing us the worst. We
struggled down a trail of awkwardly angled sharp rocks, which I have no shame
in saying that I walked most of the quarter mile trail… claiming ‘I didn’t want
to risk a puncture,’ which was true enough.
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| Proving my privateer status |
That
night I made clear my privateer status one more by setting up a single person
tent adjacent to two decked out adventure vans. To make up for the inadequacy,
I won the dinner game… which wasn’t hard I just used two colors of pasta,
somehow vaulting me into the ‘dinner envy’ position. Since my alarm was set for
an ungodly 4:00 am, it was bedtime before the sun, listening to the sound of my
own heartbeat setting the tune of nervous excitement for the day to come
Four am
rolled around far too quickly, and after a rushed breakfast of cold rice,
bananas, and coffee it was into the truck and down to the Safeway parking lot
which would be out base camp for the day. In the pre-dawn light I barely found
all my food, and during the inevitable rush to the start line I forgot only a
few items… not necessary at all for a full day in the saddle. I rolled to the
line without a tube, tire plugs, only one banana, and somehow had forgotten my
gloves. (Later found sitting right on top of my bag… almost impossible to miss.)
There
was a feeling of collective nervousness palpable in the air around the hundreds
of riders lined up in the Bend Athletic Club parking lot. Everyone was either fidgeting
with something, awkwardly making small talk, or sitting in complete stillness,
lost in their own private thoughts. Being
late (naturally), I began to work my way through the throng and attempt to get
as far forward as possible. Even with the neutral rollout I didn’t want to be
caught up too far back and burn a match to move forward. Making it to the third
row with only a few seconds to spare, the gun went off and our mob of spandex
and carbon began to apprehensively roll forward into the dawn.
I made
the call not to bring a vest, jacket, or even arm warmers for the rollout, as
the temperature downtown was hovering around fifty degrees… very manageable.
What I forgot to consider, however, was the fact that we were going to be on
the road (i.e., moving fast) for the first 10 miles or so, and climbing a
decent amount (i.e. going into the cold). So, within only 30 minutes of the
start I couldn’t feel my fingers and shifting required a combined movement of
my entire hand and forearm, not ideal but I somehow made it work. We jumped off
the road onto some gravel doubletrack, and instantly the field began to spread.
It was clear who the heavy hitters were in the group, and everyone who was
anyone began to up the tempo. Kyle Trudeau and Landon Farnsworth were the two
people I had in my sights for the day, both being experienced in this distance
and incredibly strong riders to boot. Other among the field were Jason Rathe,
Carter Hall, and other fast-looking riders that I’m sure would all be
challengers to the podium.
We raced
along the doubletrack for a while before hitting the first quick descent… which
proved to possibly be the most terrifying experience I’ve had in a long while.
Imagine being cold, relatively not awake, moving at about twenty miles an hour,
and being completely blind. And when I say completely blind, I mean unable to
see anything. The dust was so thick from the riders in front that I could
basically see my front wheel… and that was it. As rocks the size of my head
whizzed past, I realized it was very possible to end my race before it had actually
begun. With an uncharacteristic moment of sanity, I slowed and gave the riders
in front a few second’s gap. Although I was able to see marginally better than
before, having to give a little kick after every descent to catch the wheel of
the three leaders. Slightly concerned about how high my heart rate was, I let
it slide thinking the pace would eventually slow down.
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| Just doing everything I can to keep up |
It
didn’t slow down.
Well, I
guess that’s not entirely true… the pace did slow a touch, but only when the
track decided to pitch upwards, and the true climbing began. Climbing in Bend
is different than anywhere else I’ve experienced, as it’s never too steep, but
feels more like the erg mode on a trainer. There’s always some sort of
resistance which unconsciously saps your energy, and only on the short little
punches do you realize how tired you are. I once heard a term called ‘Creepy
Fatigue’… and that about sums it up.
The course profile basically follows
a lopsided “M” shape, with one major climb to begin, followed by a short
descent, after which there is the main climb, and finally a ‘descent’ down to
the finish. I was under the impression it’d be a relative cake walk from the
highpoint back to town, and boy was I mistaken… more on that later.
Reaching the top of the first climb
our group had begun to split up, with Kyle and Landon pushing out front, Jason
and myself following a few minutes behind, and the rest of the group strung out
in some fashion behind us. All I can say about that first descent is… holy shit
was it fun. Another aside about the riding in Bend; it’s fast. Not fast in the
same way here where there’s an exponential pucker factor when the speed ticks
higher (especially on an xc bike), but faster in the sense that the track seems
to flow better and there’s a sensation of being in the cliché ‘zone’. Winding
in and out of forest cover we flew down to the first aid station, where we
caught our first (and last) glimpse of the leader. Not stopping we plugged on
ahead and started up the main obstacle of the day: the Mrazek trail buffered by
some gravel road climbing to boot.
Jason
and I reached the base of the climb together, and we were together at the
second aid station. I refilled my bottles, grabbed some bananas and a sandwich,
and hit the road before Jason had finished swapping out gear. From that point
on (mile 48) I was flying solo. I knew the climbs were my opportunity to pull
back time, so after aid two I set the power at endurance+ pace and sat in for
the long haul up Mrazek. Feeling strong throughout the entire ninety-minute
climb, I was able to pull Landon into sight and move past into second place…
which offered a huge adrenaline burst. Cresting the top it was some rolling
terrain to aid three, where I stuffed my face again and refilled the bottles
one last time. From this point on it was (almost) all downhill.
Or so I
thought. The first few miles were down a sandy access road where speeds
exceeded thirty miles per hour; absolutely exhilarating to feel the miles tick
away but slightly terrifying on tired legs. Pushing the pace I tried to
maximize my time on the descent and pull back any possibly second I could. An
hour later I reached the bottom of the road and ducked back into the
singletrack… and immediately realized I was bonking. When the track turned back
uphill, I downshifted and set the legs to go again, but that hollow feeling of
glycogen depletion was all too evident. Immediately realized the mistake I had
made on the previous climb, I downed come calories which staved off the
inevitable for a few minutes. More rolling terrain offered some precious
descents where I could recover enough to struggle to the top of the next hill;
repeating the process over and over with slightly fewer matches to burn at each
crest.
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| "How many calories can I possible consume right now?" |
Around
mile ninety the wheels fell off; not literally, but figuratively. I’ve bonked
hard, but this may have been bonking to a new level… there was a point where I
truly didn’t think my legs would be able to keep spinning the pedals. About six
feet away from having to lay down on the side of the trail there was a fortuitous
descent, although having to focus on hitting doubles and executing proper cornering
technique while completely cracked is easier said than done. Some I was able to
survive the Tiddlywinks trail, even though I’m sure my method of riding a bike
was not in exemplary form to say the least. Then we hit a trail called Catch
and Release, which by all accounts would be fun… nice flowy corners and the ability
to keep speed and fly through the open trees. But that’s expecting that I was able
to corner correctly and keep any sort of speed. Therefore, I can confidently say
that Catch and Release was absolute hell. The two-mile trail was lengthened to
what seemed like ten. To make matters worse, at mile ninety-two a rider flew by
me so fast that I initially thought it was a hallucination. (Later I learned he
was a previous NUE champion who actually knew how to pace for a hundred-mile
race… made me feel slightly better.) Maybe it was a blessing in
disguise, as this sucker punch to the ego lit a sad, smoldering fire in my
chest and gave just enough of a flame to get me to the final road section: a (mostly)
downhill section. From this point on it was get into TT mode and force the
screaming legs to push just a little further. Swerving precariously across the
line I was handed a cold towel and Coke, which tasted better than anything I’ve
experienced in a long time. Stumbling over to a chair I sat down and stared off
into the distance feeling the sugar and caffeine move through my system and slowly
bring me back to some sort of life.
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| Pretty sure I was almost unable to stand up at this point. |
Writing
this a few days after getting home, I feel slightly more recovered, but there’s
still some residual fatigue that shows up in the strangest of times. It’s a weird
juxtaposition of peak fitness and absolute exhaustion: able to set KOMs on
local trails while still deficient on overall calories. So, it’s been a few
days of a mini-offseason and quite a bit of time spent in the ice bath, hammock,
and dinner table.
But as I’ve
always said, endurance athletes have some of the worst memories… I’m already looking
forward to the next marathon day on the bike.
