Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Epic Dreaming and Prep

I honestly don't remember how long ago I dreamed up this crazy idea. I think it might have been clear back in 2013 when I felt like I was actually on top of my riding and had the world by the ass before things came crashing down around me and I found myself in the rut of not riding, only fun riding, or getting half assed in shape again only to piss it all away in the subsequent months following whatever type of bike event I deemed necessary to have some modicum of fitness to get through. In any case, whatever continual and residual fitness I'd built up over continuous years of racing and training back in 2013 were now wiped away and I'd be starting over.

In 2015 I decided to get a little more serious about this whole Breck Epic 2 year plan. I'd been following the race for years and have had a number of riding trips out to Breck as well as having had one go at the Breck 68 (which was probably a lot bigger race than I should've tried at the time). I figured I could talk at least a few of my fellow partners in crime into volunteering with me for part of a week and thereby stamping our ticket to get into the race the following year. We'd use it as course recon and then be primed to have a better shot at finishing this monster off in 2016.

As it worked out, my powers of persuasion are pretty limited so only Taylor and I volunteered while the rest of the crew joined us later in the week for some fun riding after our work was done. We ran course sweep 3 days and worked an aid station the other day. We met some other amazing volunteers and had a great time. Even if you never plan to race it, I'd wholeheartedly recommend doing some volunteer work for the race if you're so inclined as the people are awesome.


Between the two experiences we got a great cross section of what the race had to offer, the daily logistics, and a nice preview of various stages. I left that week with a renewed spirit for wanting to ride and race my bike. I was in ok riding shape and while I wasn't in top physical shape, I survived the riding we did and vowed to come back stronger and fitter when we actually needed to race. I snapped a couple shots before we left Breck to remind myself I needed to get to work.


As so often occurs, Taylor and I signed on for the race and life happened. Between family health issues and a work project that ate me alive, I deferred my entry to 2017. Through 2016 I made a bit more serious attempt at regaining my bike legs and being more fit in general. About mid May the wheels fell off as work became busy to the point it was all consuming. Once my goal race of Cheq 100 was knocked out mid-June I only logged another 1-2 hours on average per week on the bike the remainder of the year. Plug in many 12+ hour days mostly confined to an office chair stuffing my face with whatever fast food was close at hand and evenings filled with enough beer to make me forget the day enough that I could get up and do it again the next day and it was a recipe for digging myself a deep hole. Thankfully, I kept the camera hidden, but toss on 20-25 lbs of fat on the above pics and you'll have a good idea of what I was fighting.

January 1 I decided I was going to really hit it hard and give myself a fighting chance to finish this race. I figured I needed a challenge to rise to and keep me honest about the work I needed to put in. While I have ridden and raced singlespeed for years around the midwest including a number of single day endurance races on the single, I've always taken gears to Breck. I was at least somewhat confident that if I took gears along, I'd be able to survive the week barring bad luck. Toss singlespeeding on this dumpster fire and honestly, it was a challenge that I didn't know if I could complete. This would be something totally outside of my comfort zone and to the point that it would drive me along on those days when I hated the very idea of jumping on the trainer or going for a ride. It took me quite a while to even sign up for the singlespeed class or to tell any of my friends that I was seriously only taking 1 gear to the race.

I didn't really have the resources to direct towards personalized coaching and have always kind of worked my own plans out anyway, but I knew I needed structure. Having run through a few of their plans in previous years, I decided to get serious about following a progressive training path using Trainer Road as my guide. I figured if I could stick with their base, build, and specialty plans with almost 8 months laying in front of me it would keep me accountable and give the structure I needed to my workouts. As it were, crawling on the trainer at 5 in the morning or 8 at night isn't the most conducive to enjoying life, but it kept family interruptions to a minimum and my training on track. I tried to get some long(ish) outdoor rides in on the weekends or on the occasional evening, but for the most part I poured hours of time and gallons of sweat into the trainer. I spent more hours on the trainer than outside in the run up to Breck.


As winter gave way to spring and summer, I still found myself indoors for the most part. The trainer had become a necessary evil. The downside was missing all the riding with friends, but at the same time, those social riding hours weren't going to haul my still too fat ass over the continental divide multiple times. Luckily, the weight and fat were slowly burning off as the previous 6 months of living in my office ratcheted down to a dull roar for the most part. I could see some glimmers of hope starting to resurface as my fitness levels came back up.

Determined to stay on track, I struggled through my share of issues when it came to training. From influenza putting me off the bike for over a week, to riding a trainer outside our pop-up during vacation, to hitting a hotel recumbent for over an hour, to spinning on the trainer for 3 hours the day after launching 8'+ into a ravine off a bridge, I made it work.




I kept the hammer down as long and hard as I could between the prescribed abuse Trainer Road was dishing out and my own self inflicted ideas of what I thought I needed to do for preparation until finally there just wasn't any time left. I'd done all I could and now it was time to taper into the race and see if it was enough. I worried clear through the start of Stage 1 that everything I'd done to this point would be moot and the mountains of Colorado would take one look at me, chew me up, and spit me out like the piece of gristle I was already feeling like.

100 hours on the bike, 110 hours on the trainer, 18 hours of core and strength, 28 lbs and 7% fat lost over 7.5 months.


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