Lotoja 2013 Race Report - Part I

To give you the short version of the race report I'll tell you that I met my goal of beating last year's time of 11 hours and 5 minutes by almost an hour, finishing this year in 10 hours and 9 minutes. (9:58 ride time, 11 minutes stoppage).  This was nowhere near the top riders in my category but I'm happy to have bested my previous year.  The weather was good and I had perfect support from my wife and my bike road without any problems.  That's all you need to know I guess for the short version.





Now for the long version.....

This is my second year doing this.  The second year of training with this race looming in the back of my mind.  The crazy thing is that I'm only 2 days away from finishing but I already know I'll try again next year.  But this year was different from last year.  This year's lotoja race seemed to be just that, a race.  It wasn't a mere effort to just finish like it was last year.(though, at the time I felt like I was going as fast as I could)  This year felt like more of a serious race.  It made it all the more fun, if the word fun could be used in a suffer-fest like this.  In this case, the word is being used loosely.

Jen and I arrived in Logan about 5:30 pm Friday night and went straight to packet pickup.  Lines were short and pick-up was easy and Jen snapped a quick photo of me in front of the start line.

I'm feeling pretty excited.

After pick-up we went to dinner at Gia's Italian Restaurant.  The food was really good but it took forever.  Good thing we weren't in a hurry to go anywhere, but the food was worth it.  After dinner we checked into the Crystal Inn and did final prep on the bike.

I slept well and woke up at 4:30 am to shower and get ready for breakfast.  My start time was 6:15 am so I figured this gave me plenty of time.  Jen slept while I went down to eat.  Breakfast was more crowded than I thought it would be and it took a bit longer than I expected.  Still, I thought I had plenty of time.  I still had to fill water bottles but as long as I left at around 5:55 am I thought I'd be good.

We were out the door at exactly 5:55 am with everything ready to go.  It was still dark and I had a couple of conversations with fellow cyclists in the parking lot about whether or not to use lights on the bike.  I opted to go without and risk the danger of riding in the dark until the sun came up.  Somehow the risk seemed worth the weight savings.  Crazy I know, but it turned out okay.

I unloaded the bike and pumped the tires and by this time it was getting pretty close to starting time.

I think I over-inflated because I couldn't see in the dark.  Good thing I was running tubular's.

 We hurried over to the start line to find hundreds of people there getting ready to go.  I figured I better try to use the bathroom before we left so I left the bike with Jen near the back of the crowd.  The line for the porta-potty's was crazy long and I could hear the announcer saying that my starting group was up next to leave.  I bailed on trying to use the bathroom and hurried back to find Jen.  As I neared the place I left her I realized that it was really dark and that there were a lot of people standing around with bikes and I would be really lucky to find Jen in the next 10 minutes let alone the next 50 seconds as the announcer had just announced.  A feeling of panic came over me.  It reminded me of the feeling I would get as a kid in middle school on the first day and I couldn't find my class.  It actually made me chuckle a little being reminded of that feeling.  I started calling Jen's name in desperation.  The announcer said 30 seconds to start.  I wandered toward the start pack not thinking maybe Jen had brought my bike up there but sure enough in the distance I see her with the same panicked look that I had.  She saw me and with crazy speed she put my helmet on my head and I got on my bike to click-in just as the announcer said go.  Jen was able to snap this photo as I was trying to click in.

That's me.  Number 212.

I laughed with relief all the way out of Logan and couldn't help thinking over and over, "next year I'm getting to the start line earlier."  We cut it way too close.

Rolling out of Logan we had a police escort which is always a novelty that I enjoy.  We get to ride straight through town in the middle of traffic.  It's a neutral start but you can tell everyone is anxious, excited or nervous.  It was dark too.  Especially when not on main roads.  We had a near crash right in the middle of the pack right from the start.  I remember hearing someone comment on how bad of a start that would have been.  I agreed.

Once out of Logan the police pulled off and went one direction while we went another.  The race was officially on.  It was a pretty uneventful first 20 miles.  I wore arm warmers thinking that it might get cold outside of Logan but that wasn't the case.  In fact, it was a very warm morning.  Much warmer than last year and we didn't need anything as far as warm gear the entire ride.  I pulled down my arm warmers early on and never needed them again.  It was lovely riding weather.

There must of been a bit of a head wind into Preston as I remember thinking that our pack was going pretty slow.  I stayed in the middle conserving my energy as I planned but I heard there was a couple of guys off the front and in a small breakaway.  I thought to myself that it was a long ways out from the finish to be in a breakaway but to each their own.

There is a small climb just outside of Preston and then the road gets hilly.  I had no problem staying with the main group as was my plan to stay with them as long as possible.  I knew things would break-up on the Strawberry climb.  A number of riders decided to pull off the side and pee.  I didn't really have to go that bad myself but I thought with the number of people going off to the side this may be my only chance.  So after some hesitation on my part I pulled off to the side as well.  The only problem was I couldn't go.  I sat there and waited for something to happen all the while the main pack was regrouping and riding off into the distance.  The longer I stood there the more I thought I better keep waiting because I've already waited this long and I better make it count.  Still, nothing happened.  Finally, I gave up and got back on my bike cursing myself and my stupid stage fright.  By that time my riding pack was far in the distance and they seemed to be picking up speed.

I dug deep trying to catch back on.  I knew I was burning a lot of energy early in the race because of my stupidity but I thought I better try.  Just as I was giving up I saw another Infinite Team member coming up from behind me.  I guess he stopped as well and we commented to each other on how stupid that was.  We worked together with him doing most of the work to catch back on.  We were catching what I though was a split in our group but as we got closer I realized that is was actually the Pro-1-2-3 group.  That was a surprise to me but we latched onto them while our main group was still further up the road.  After riding with the Pro-123's for a few miles a race referee asked that we back off and not mix in with them.  This was a bummer as I knew it would be very hard to bridge to our main pack at this point.  The Pro-123 group seemed to accelerate shortly after this and I'm not sure we could have stayed with them anyway for very long.

The Strawberry climb came shortly after this and by this point I stopped worrying about who I was riding with and just tried to get into my climbing rhythm.  I'm not a fast climber but for some reason I still enjoy it.  I climb an amazing amount throughout the year so I actually long for the feeling of going uphill.  Strawberry is a pretty canyon as well so I figured I would enjoy the ride up but my legs had other ideas.  They seemed to hurt more than usual almost as if they were cramping without full-on cramping.  This got me worried as we were still considered early in the ride.  I had been eating and drinking according to plan but I thought maybe the effort of trying to catch my group may have hurt me more than I thought.  After reaching the summit I continued to worry as my legs seemed stiff and dead.  There is neutral support at the top of the climb but I didn't stop like I did last year.  I rolled on through and grabbed new water bottles that were being handed out.  That was a first for me.  To grab a bottle without stopping.  It worked easy enough and I was grateful for the cold drinks.

I found a group to ride with on the way down and we began taking turns with pulls as we made our way to Montpelier.  We kept a fast pace and I still wasn't feeling very good but I've learned that on long races like this things change.  If for the better or worse, you keep on riding, eventually, the way you feel will change.

We finally rolled into Montpelier about 76 miles into the race.  I was happy to see Jen at our meet-up point as she called my name.  She asked me how I was doing and I tried to act like I was doing okay but I think it was obvious that I was hurting.  She unloaded by pockets and restocked them according to plan and I was off.  I remember thinking that my stop was way too short.  Even though we planned on making as quick as stops as possible I was shocked at how quick it was and how little I was able to recover.  Oh well, on to Afton.....