Hoffman before the race
Just started cramping on the singletrack in this section
The best pepsi ever
Finishing the 64 miler!
Yes, I was feeling that bad
About mile 62 after climbing the Banner grade, I unclipped right and fell left.
A sun burnt Hoffman taking a picture for his peeps
If there is a ride with the word "death" in it, I get a little intrigued so when I heard about it about a year ago I knew I had to do it. They have three distances: 50 miles with 7000' of climbing, 64 miles with 9000' of climbing and 86 miles with 11,000' of climbing. A couple months ago I signed up and as usual figured I would be riding alone. Turns out that Hoffman thinks the same and wanted to do it too.
The week before Hoffman completed Vision Quest which is 55 miles with 10,500' of climbing race and I doubted that he would join me on this. Apparently he didn't want to hear about my ride knowing that he could have gone so he signed up too. After emailing the race director, we found out that you can pick your distance during the ride. For most people that would mean you can bail out earlier. For Hoffman and I, we started debating about doing the 86 miler as long as we were within the time limits, weren't cramping or bonking. At a minimum we would do the 50 miler.
On Friday night after dinner, I left home to pick up Hoffman at his friend's house in LA and we were on our way for our 2:30 drive to the campground. Luckily the campground is 5 miles from the start and it was very quiet. I slept in the van on a slope and Hoffman was in a tent. We were going to wake up at 6:00 and get over to the start. Turns out that Hoffman was awake since 4:00 and was just waiting for daylight to get going.
Once we got there, it was a very laid back group and we got registered. Even at 7:00 it was getting warm and ideas of wearing arm warmers and a vest changed. It wasn't scorching hot but hot enough to still overheat on the long climbs.
Once we got going, we quickly realized that Hoffman's in better form than me especially since he's been training for VQ versus my 3 hours a week of exercise. He recovered from last week's ride better than he thought and had to lower his pace for me to keep up. Even then I still started cramping at mile 30 but I still was able to keep going albeit more cautiously. By the time we hit the fork around mile 42 for the 50 miler versus the 64 miler, it was my call for which to do. According to our requirement, we were still within the time limit. 1 out of 3 but that was enough to go. At the end of the loop was Oriflame: a steep, technical hike-a-bike portion and Hoffman and I both bonked. Luckily at the top of Oriflame was a volunteer and we had the best pepsi and the sugar and caffeine helped a ton. It was also at that time that I was able to check voicemail (there was actually a signal on most of the ride since Hoffman was getting messages and texts the entire ride) from Nancy and found out that Megan has pneumonia and got some antibiotics. At that point if there was a direct way to the car, I would have quit the ride but there was none and considering we were still 3 hours away, we finished the ride. I spent the rest of the ride thinking about Megan and wanting to be home. The last climb before the finish was Banner grade which is an old toll road and it was steep but at least it was rideable. By the time we made it back to the start, we were 30 minutes past the time limit to go for the 86 miler so that was lucky. Knowing us if we were within the limit, we would have tried it.
In all the race was good. For doing things off the couch, I'm not surprised to cramp or bonk, it's actually expected. The things I loved about the ride was the remoteness and beauty. It helped that it was spring and some wildflowers were out but I loved that at places we couldn't see any other signs of civilization. It was great.
In terms of food, my brown rice and bacon rice cakes with skratch mix worked perfectly. I had no digestive issues during or after the race. To keep fueled, I drank about 2 bottles and ate 2 rice cakes in first 1.5 hours, then a bottle and rice cake an hour. I still bonked but that is due to lack of fitness and not fueling issues I think. Only problem though is eating rice cakes while mountain biking is hard. Although I don't like using a backpack bladder, it is the way to go for mountain biking. I was able to keep hydrated and drink through technical sections instead of waiting for mellow spots to reach for a bottle. Using the Geigerrig is great too with the pressurized system squirting water instead of having to suck water from the bladder.
Now the next question is what's the next adventure?
