12 Hours Of Temecula Endurance Mountain Bike Race

I decided to mix things up a bit and try something a little bit different as far a endurance events go. On the 24th of January participated in the 12 Hours Of Temecula Endurance Mountain Bike Race. I was a solo competitor in the racing in the Clydesdale division. The main appeal of this race for me was to do a long event. It is all part of my training to do a full Ironman by 2011, I am on the multi-year training plan. So, 12 hours of mountain biking, how bad can it be? Well, it was difficult but not for the reasons that I expected.

Here is how the race goes. It is run from 9am-9pm. There is a 9.1 mile loop and you go around it as many times as you can. The loop had 1,359 feet of climbing per rotation. On Saturday there were about 300 riders, most of which were relay teams of anywhere from 2-5 people. I guess there were about 50-70 solo riders. Soloists were highly out numbered. Now I can ride a mountain bike but apparently not confidently, it is one skill that I do not have. For me the course was technical, not overwhelming but enough for me to ask the question; "Why am I doing this?" a few times. There were about three spots on it where I did not attempt to ride down, and I was not the only one. I came across the other solo riders, later in the race, who said "we have a long day, it is smart to play it safe", with that said I did a bit of walking.



Here is my lap by lap take. Lap #1 was uneventful. I took it slow and mapped the course out, took some mental notes. Fell over once on an uphill I could not time correctly. Most of the uphill portions were incredibly steep, lots of people jump off and run up. Lap #2 all was well on first half. I felt good and more confident. Then I was on a down hill portion that went to an uphill and I lost control on a ridge line single track section at about mile 6 and thought that I had impaled myself on a course marker. I totally thought that I had cut my self open and was going to get a ride to the hospital. Lying on the ground two riders came upon me, asked if I was ok. I asked them if I was cut open. Luckily they said no, just looks like you are going to have a really bad bruise. They took my number and said they would let an official know.

After, realized that I was more durable than I though, not in pain, and not cut open and bleeding , I got on my bike and continued on. The bike was not in good working order after that spill so I took a pit stop. I had a guy from one of the local bike shops take a look a it. It was nice that they had support like that at the race. As a result of the crash I had destroyed one of my shifter cable housings. I got it fixed in about 15 minutes and went on for lap #3. Laps 3, 4, 5 all went well. When I came in off of lab #3 to check in they said "#127 are you ok?" I think that the two riders that found me may have took a pit stop before the lap check station, therefore I made it in before them. There were no other crashes. One thing that I did end up doing was to ditch the spd pedals as I found it hard to get out of them when I needed to jump off in a hurry. I was lucky to bring some running shoes and regular pedals. That system worked well. At lap #5 I also realized that I had some other injuries in the form of a bunch of scrapes on my legs. I have no idea when those happened. At 8 hours into the event I had completed 5 laps. Physically I was feeling well, alert, and had lots of energy. I was able to fuel correctly. However, there was one thing that drove me crazy and that was salty sweat getting in my eyes. It was unbearable. I need to figure out how to control that. If anyone has any ideas let me know.

Going into lap #6 it was time to put my lights on. Riding at night was a whole other world. I was at the aid station at the half way point and I found that I had no front brake. After a closer look it appeared that I lost a front disk pad. Bad news. I was four miles from the finish and the bike was not safe. I tried for about 2 miles to walk it in but it was on single track, very unsafe. I was into hour 10 and I had to call it quits about 2 miles from finishing loop #6.

Overall, it was an interesting experience. Having been the second longest event that I have done I feel confident that I can handle events this long. I feel like that I have accomplished something. I have a immense appreciation for the technical skills that many of these mountain bikers have, they are absolutely fearless. I would like to thank my brother in law Joe, brother in law Eddie, niece Valkyrie, wife Susie, and daughter Sadie for the race support. Also a thanks from GU for the products. Will I be doing an event like this again? Most likely not as I don't have the skills nor do I see myself developing them. Several times out on the course I thought to myself it would be easier to run this thing. I kind of feel that way in general about mountain biking. One of the reasons I am attracted to mountain biking is because it is hard for me. After this experience I feel fortunate to not have really hurt myself badly.