Race report- IMBCS #7 Seven Oaks

The frenzy of summer is slowly cooling down and with it, I'm finally finding some time and motivation (the latter being more scarce) to write a few updates. My season has been a fickle one, but all in all, I've managed to find some positive points in each of my races and continue to work on my form and fitness. I also managed to squeeze in a trip to Breckenridge and a 24 hour race in here as well, but I'll try to get the low down on those put up separately as they both deserve individual attention.

The Seven Oaks race is always a tough one. I spoke about it in an almost awe like state after racing the beginner race here a scant 2 seasons back. Now I find myself lining up with the big boys in Cat 1 and wonder what the hell I've gotten myself into. I know the course is a tough SOB and has no mercy. On the other hand with this year being wetter than most, we found the course in only partially passable conditions. The course was therefore shortened to the wicked opening climb and then popped out on the upper beginner loop which has most of the fast and flowy sections without many of the steep pitches or hard obstacles.

As with most of my races this year and in years past, my opening salvo off the start has been less than spectacular. I headed into the woods near the back of the expert field with only a couple female riders behind me. We all rolled pretty well into the first section before hitting the one hard switchback on the upper loop. Sure enough, my lack of time riding technical obstacles came around and bit me hard as I failed to negotiate the switchback (in part due to the person in front of me failing it too). I flopped backwards down the trail banging myself hard on the ground and dropping the chain off my bike. After remounting the both, I shot back off the trail like a scalded cat chastising myself for not keeping right side up. The next switchback is one I've never had issue with, but the rider in front of me again spun a tire and slowed me up just enough that I spun and tipped over again. This time I managed to snag a pointy root and tore a large hole in my bibs. I think at this point I was more pissed about the clothing than being on the ground again. I got my bearings back together and slowly rolled back to the tail end of the riders.

Post snag repair:

Log Ride

Trying to focus

The race was a scant 6 laps long with average laps in the 16:45 range for me. It ended up feeling more like a Cat 2 race with the short distance/time and the temps were near perfect. I managed to find my legs near the end of the race, but failing yet another time on the first switchback and a few other bobbles had already left me too far back on the day and unable to real in many people.

I did slow down a bit the last couple laps noting my rear tire felt a bit "squishy". A couple weeks later, I went to change out for some different rubber to use in Colorado and found some souvenirs.

5 total thorns:

I ended up 10th overall and 8th in class with only a few people behind me. I felt good at the end of the race, but left a lot on the table and a lot that needs changed. I knew that I needed to work on my technical skills for sure considering I was cleaning the course on multiple laps last year. I also need a lot of work on wedging myself further up in the start sequence. A couple of my spills were at least in part due to where I placed myself in the opening line up and being behind riders that I shouldn't have been.

24 hours of 7 Oaks race report- the first 12 hours

Boone 24 hour course map

This weekend was it, numero uno, the big one, the event that I really wanted to look back at this winter while sweating my ass off on some trainer in a funk filled garage or dark basement and know that all the work was and is worth it. I won't leave you hanging in suspense or even make you read past the first paragraph to find out the answer on how it went. We won! Now that the excitement is all out of the way, I'll work on boring you to death with the plethora of details and notes I have swirling in my head as sort of a journal on how it happened.

The team:

I don't think anyone can call it "their team" as we all played equal parts in securing the victory and took equal amounts of punishment inflicted on our bodies. I will say though that Jason and Nate taking an extra lap each just to make sure we were fully cemented in first place was an awesome thing! Jason, Nate, Tom, and myself came together to make the 4 man Rassy A squad this year. While I tried not to think about it much, we had some big shoes to fill. 3 straight years the A squad has delivered the team/overall 24 hour win for the shop. I think we were all thinking, hoping, and planning on doing whatever it took to bring back another winner's check, but we really didn't talk much about it. We'd all find ways to put the pressure on ourselves and I think talking about winning might have been our undoing. Every time someone said we had a strong team and should be contenders for the win, I did my best to shake that thought out and respond that we just wanted to go, have fun, race hard, and come away with something near the top. I think we achieved all of that and more.

The prep:
It's funny how things come together. I've been thinking about this race all year. I've been planning on doing this race all year. As of a month ago, I had no idea in what category I was going to compete or if I was going to attempt solo or find a team. My early season plans fell through on doing a 2 man 24 hour team and I was a bit awash on where to go from there. A few emails and a bit of scouting around opened a few doors. After a week or two of emailing around and checking availability of people, we finally secured a full roster. Looking at the IMBCS results from 2 weeks ago, it was pretty apparent that we were all about equally matched in looking at raw time data. We all had some pretty solid times and should be putting up a good fight.

In getting ready to race, I took my final preparation pretty seriously. With the understanding of my gracious wife, I hit the training pretty hard with a couple weeks to go and then worked on doing a smart taper with 1 week left. Of course, my taper also left me passing up on doing the East Village Crit, which I was a bit bummed about, but I had a touch of tunnel vision going on and wasn't to be deterred. Beer was gone for the week prior (ouch!), hard riding was gone by that Wednesday, and all systems had been checked over. I got some night laps in at center to make sure I was dialed in on night riding again and then had a couple easy spinning days on Thursday and Friday just to keep my legs primed. I knew at that point, the only thing I could do was make myself slower by crashing or hurting myself, so just keep it in check and be ready come Saturday was the plan.

The race:
I took the Rassy truck up Saturday morning to set up base camp for any of the shop racers that wanted to partake of the awesome support that the shop provides us. With a full compliment of generator, awnings, tables, work stands, etc, we couldn't have asked for a better setup. OK, so maybe a team bus, mechanics, and personal masseurs for next year would be cool (Greg?)...


Base camp:




After the setup, it was hurry up and wait. Jason had all ready planned on being our lead out man and I don't think anyone wanted to challenge him for that spot. We all gathered for the mandatory pre-race meeting and I began to wonder who we'd be contending with. A strong team from Chicago gave last year's squad a hard run, but we weren't sure if they were back. There were also some strong looking 3 man teams in the running as well. I did manage to find out later that not only were we competing against the other 4 man teams, but the prize for overall winner was open to any team, regardless of numbers. That made for some interesting moments late on Sunday morning, but I'll get back to that.



Finally, we lined up at the start with Jason ready to rock. Per the usual fashion, the start of the race involved a 50 yard LeMans style run to the bike, then pegging the heart rate up the gravel hill to the upper section of singletrack, bombing back down to the start, and then diving into a full lap. Sounds fun, right?! As Kyle pumped the tube until it's bursting point, I held my breath in anticipation. Bang! The tube exploded and a surge of riders dashed towards their bikes. Taylor Webb was leading the pack onto the gravel with Jason and Keith nipping on his heels. Apparently at the base of the hill, Taylor's legs turned to stone and Jason along with a few others motored past. I headed towards the start/finish line to see who would come through the opening section in first. About 10 minutes later, Jason was leading the charge into the first lap and had put us in the lead and was charging into his full lap.


The LeMans start:

With open trail in front of him, he put it to full use and came in with over a minute gap on our next chaser as Nate saddled up and took over the push. He smoked his lap as well and came in with around 2 minutes on the next team. Tom was our 3rd man up and headed out for his pull. The 2nd and 3rd place teams were in full pursuit mode. A team from Peoria was our closest chaser and put in a hard charger for their 3rd rotation. He chased down Tom and was basically sitting on his wheel as we made the exchange for my lap.

I still don't have great legs for the start of any race, but I was determined to make it hurt for both myself and my chaser. We wound our way through the grass track to the entrance of the singletrack. He was sitting just far enough back from my wheel that he wouldn't be in trouble if I bobbled and would slide right by without losing any momentum. I stood hard on the pedals and about the 2nd switchback in I heard it. Some clanking and banging, followed by a few cursory words about a chain. Not sure what was happening for sure behind me, I took this as my cue to pour it all out and go from there. With several laps in my mental bank from the race 2 weeks prior, I felt comfortable letting it hang mostly out on the downhills, keeping my momentum for the short steeps, and downshifting just enough to hammer out of the saddle for the longer climbs.


I hadn't pre-ridden the new section of trail on top of the ski hill that was added, but the reports were that it wasn't overly technical, just rough. Luckily, the reports were right on and I was able to keep some pretty good speed going through this section before bombing back to the start. One thing I had noted was that most people were just cruising along through the grass switchbacks and I decided to employ a different strategy. I hammered them as much as possible and would slam on my brakes at each of the 180's before sprinting down the next lane until I reached the walk point at the check in. A quick cyclocross dismount and run by the scoring table put the lead back into Jason's hands. I managed to turn my lap in 42:45 and was ecstatic since it bested my laps from the XC race even after they'd added in another 1/2 mile+ of length to the course.



Feeling good on the first lap:


The Peoria team had dropped back a few spots with the mechanical costing them about 10 minutes as their rider ran back to the pits and sent another rider out in his spot while he stayed to fix the chain. At this point, I think we were back to a few minutes up on the chasing teams with Keith's team hunting us now. With it looking like the racing would be tight for quite some time to come, we started settling into our rotations. The plans was for each of us to time trial every lap and hopefully continue building whatever gap we could. By first flush, it appeared there weren't any appreciable differences in our lap times versus the other top couple of teams. It seemed to boil down to a mere minute or two per lap and that was all we could hope for.

As the afternoon wore into evening, we focused on staying hydrated and ready for more laps. My 2nd lap came in a shade slower at 43:19, but was still plenty fast for me. I'd set a goal for myself before the race of cranking out 44-45 minute laps during the day and hopefully 50 minute laps at night. The good news was, we were all popping off 43-45 minute laps during the day and would take slightly more than a 10 minute lead into the start of the night lapping. Tom was the first night lapper and headed off a bit after 7 with dusk starting to creep in. He ran about half a lap with his lights on before handing the reigns back to me for my first night lap.


2nd lap took a little more effort:



I had mixed feelings going into this lap. I had good faith in my light setup running a 400 lumen helmet lamp with an 800 bar mounted light. I've been mistaken for a train running loose through single track on more than one occasion! However, my legs were feeling a bit cooked all ready from the 2 hard day laps I'd put in. As I took off on my lap, the cool air, instinct, and something else took over completely. I'm not sure I've ever felt that type of energy surge before. It was absolutely electric as my legs came to life and the thrill of screaming down every descent pumped surges of adrenaline through my body. I was literally giddy with excitement as I screamed into the finish line for my handoff to Jason. The look on my team mates face, matched my own euphoria when we checked it over and I'd ripped off a 43:35 lap IN THE DARK! Between a solid lap from Tom to start the night, my follow up lap, and another fast one from Jason, we had built the lead to 20 minutes.


Taking a breather after my first night lap:

At this point, Nate was feeling pretty good and we decided to break out the double laps in hopes that we could each get some sleep. I hopped into my bunk which I'd set up in the back of the Rassy's truck with a sheet diving the space in halves and my air mattress in the back half.Though sleep wouldn't really come, I managed to get some rest as I tossed and turned listening to both our music and that of the wedding party going on some 100 yards away. I set my alarm for where I thought I'd have about 15-20 minutes before Tom came in and called it good. I got up a few short hours later and checked the time sheet we'd been keeping.

Damn, something had happened and we were back to a scant 11 minute lead. I'd been anticipating that we'd keep opening the gap and we'd be closing in on 30 minutes by the time I was up again. Alas, our luck had slightly run out in the form of some whacked batteries putting Nate in the dark halfway through his 2nd lap. Some forethought on his part though left him with a small commuter light to pick his way through the final parts of the trail. We avoided disaster for sure as losing a complete lap would have been nearly impossible to overcome, but it definitely put some hope back into the legs of our competition. A little hope can be a dangerous thing.

Part 2- the last 12 hours coming shortly

Photo credits to Angy and Tom

Boone or how I learned to climb

7 oaks rec area in Boone seems to be the one course in Iowa that is spoken about in hushed tones. You here whispers of it in dark corners and people tend to be at a lack of words when you try to directly question them about it. The moons aligned this weekend and I was able to take some time to find my way to Boone for my first mountain bike race.

With the perfect storm of my lack of training, the fact that Boone seems to be regarded as extremely difficult, and my first off road race, I decided beginner was the way to go. Call me a sandbagger if you will, but we all have to start somewhere. I pre-rode about 80% of the course and realized that even on the beginner loop, I was going to be in for some hard work. Talking over with the race organizer's, it was a question of whether we should do 2 or 3 laps and I felt to get our money's worth we should do 3 since the pre-ride took less than 20 minutes.

6 of us towed the line for a sprint up the gravel road and into the singletrack before hitting a pretty gnarly and rutted descent before we made a 180 to start the real portion of the beginner loop. Apparently all the gravel riding this winter paid off as I drilled it from the start and made it to the singletrack with a small gap on the rest of the field. Coming into the section I pre-rode, I felt a little more confident and kept my pace high. I cleared all but one obstacle on the first lap and came out with somewhere around a 30-45 second lead over 2nd place. I may have went out a shade too hard as I was starting to feel it coming into the 2nd lap.





I unravelled on this lap. I was just gassed enough that I could make it up to the obstacles, but not clean them. I fell, I flipped and I rolled somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 or 6 times on this lap. I lost my entire lead and let two guys by. Damn. By the end of the lap, I had caught back and passed one of the guys, but the leader was now long gone. Towards the end of the lap I started feeling some pinching in my left shoe. I wasn't sure what it was and it didn't feel very good, but what can you do? I kept the pace as pushed as I could and was starting to regret that I had voiced my opinion that we needed to do 3 laps.




By the start of the 3rd lap, I was in 2nd, but not by much. I had one guy breathing down my neck and I wasn't sure how many more were behind him. I knew I didn't have much left in the tank so I decided early on that I'd be much quicker jumping off the bike and running the obstacles I knew I would have trouble cleaning versus trying them and falling. This would be what saved my goose. I was faster than the guy behind me on the riding portions and he was having to run the same areas I was so I wasn't losing ground. I finally put some time back in the bank and just focused on drilling the rest of the lap without hammering a tree or any other equally gnarly fates that you might find at 7 Oaks. All in all I made it to the finish line in 2nd place and I think less than a minute behind the first place rider.




Some fun facts and stats for just the beginner portion of the ride can be found here. Probably my favorite stat is that I reset my max heart rate to 197. On the final lap I was way beyond gone and heard my computer beeping at me. I looked down to see it wasn't just my head telling me that I was about to go beyond the point of no return. My previous best was 195 BPM and I had set my max at 196 figuring that was a pretty safe figure. Now I just need to figure out how I can get those numbers down to more manageable levels. Any tips?

Alas, with mountain biking, podiums apparently are shunned as we gathered around to here the awards. A number of the death squad members had a pretty good day. They rolled all the way through the expert, single speed, and sport classes, but nary a mention was made about the beginners. Hey, I know we're the little guys, but a shade of recognition would have been cool. All in all a good day to race.

Oh, and about the title, I still don't know how to climb... I just happened to get a lot more practice at it today.