Over the weekend I did the 24 Hours of Adrenaline race at Laguna Seca. It was an incredible event that really pushed me to the limit in many ways. Click the link below for more details.
First off I want to thank Dan for getting me into this. Then I want to thank Steve, Dave, Nick, and Carl for being great teammates. Plus a great big hug to Wynona for being understanding (you know what for).
This was my first 24 hour race and I wasn’t certain what to expect. The beginning of the race was incredible, 250 racers grabbing their bikes and swarming over the Bridge looked more like some massive migration of heard animals than a mountain bike race. Then it was a waiting game, 1 Hour 11 minutes and it was my turn. We started out with a short roll then we grabbed our bikes and carried them up 2 flights of stairs then rolled across the bridge and down the stairs on the far side…
I was suprised at how consistent my times were after the first, I had 5 laps: 1PM – 57 min, 7PM – 60 min, 1AM – 64 min, 7AM – 60 min, 11AM – 62 min. 54.5 miles, ~6000′ of climbing
The first lap was actually the worst. The heat really got to me, I thought hydrating before the lap would be enough so I skipped the camel pack and I paid for it. On the second lap I had some nasty problems with my derailer but was otherwise a blast. I got my bike fixed between laps by the Mavic support crew and the bike was stellar after that. The night lap was foggy so visibility sucked but I only lost a couple of minutes. After my night lap I found the showers then got 2.5 hours of the best sleep I have ever had. My morning lap was awesome, the views with the sun rising over the fog were incredible and the temperature was just perfect for shorts and short sleeves.
Carl opted out of his 4th lap and no one else wanted to do a 5th so I went out again at 10:56. I came back in from my final lap at 11:57. If I had finished my final lap 5 minutes earlier I would have tried to get a 6th lap in before the 1PM cutoff. Fortunately I came in just late enough and I didn’t have enough food to get me through my 6th lap so I just called it a day. Otherwise I might have been with that poor guy who rolled across the bridge to see 30 seconds remaining on the clock, knowing full well that it takes 2 minutes to circle around the venue to the actual finish line.
What a killer event, it’s going to take me a day or two to recover from that.