Furious3, 2012
Day 1 was a 42kms day, with only a stocked chain that I had to help get fixed and a flat repair.. I started back at the end for a good 8kms of flat paved road and quickly as we approached the climb I started to pass people as it is always the case riding a single speed :-))) oh man got to love my ss. Legs felt good and was picking up the pace every time I could (without getting in the way of racers of course as I wasn't "racing"). Up to hyper ventilation and I found my first customer with the chain stocked between the cassette and the spokes ouch!!, we had to break the chain to be able to take it out and finally (like 15min later) managed to put it back together. Then a second guy needed my help as he had a flat and couldn't remove the valve from a tubeless rim :), managed to help him out with that and back he was on the race !! I finished the day in 3:45 and was ready to eat and get some walking around with Maria and Nick that were waiting for me in the finish line.
Day 2 was a 46kms day, but with over 5,600ft of elevation gain/loss that for sure were felt in my legs !!. It was raining all night Saturday and the trails were getting pretty soak... We started that day by the ski hill (right in front of the condo where we were staying, so it was perfect). I started with wave 1 and was at the back again till we hit the first climb, caught up with Alana and was riding with her for a while, but ran into my first customer of the day with a flat ### got it fixed and off I went. 5 minutes later ran into the second customer of the day with a double flat !! crap ! just as I was starting to catch up with the group, well, got off the bike and changed his two flats since the guys didn't even know how to take the wheel off ??? can you believe that?? maybe he was just pulling my leg :-). Anyway, back on the race again this time behind wave 2 and on the left side of the trail I saw a black bear !! sweet, what a treat to my eyes. Up the hill on a double track for a while when I ran into a single speed guy (John from Vernon) whose chain was coming off cuz it was to loose. Talked to him for a while as we were climbing and then stopped to get his chain fixed. He was riding a centric bb frame and was quite a major operation to tension the chain, but we got it probably after 20 minutes (in the rain) :-(((( back on the bike again for more climbs and this time didn't see anyone in need, instead witnessed a lot of crashes in front of me. When I hit station 1 I saw Andy and Amit coming down and I kind of knew that they were about 45 min ahead of me and that probably I was at the begining of a major climb !! yeap, up I went into a major steep unrideable climb that was even tough to hike. This time I ran into Michelle and started to yell at her GO GO GO, she was riding strong and drooping a few guys in the climb. Down after a while things got better as gravity always helps :-)))) stopped again to help another guy with a derailleur issue that we got fixed in about 10 min and took off again till I caught up to Michelle at station 2. It was taking 30min to the faster guys from there to the finish line, so I knew I was at about 45min. Talked Michelle into keeping a tempo pace for a while and were pushing consistently for a while. As soon as I realized that she was talking to comfortably I ask her to push harder until she couldn't talk any more :-) (she probably hates me for that, but she managed to finish second in her category !) it was a 5 hours day and I was ready for a shower and lots of food.
Day 3 was a 36kms day, but with lots of climbing again including hyper ventilation again and south castle. This day was a good day for me since I didn't have to fix any flats, any chains, etc... Ran into Alana after she slowed down due to a major crash where she banged her knee pretty badly.... Decided to ride with her all the way to station 1 where we were able to get some advils and extra water. After that, there was a long and sustain climb to get to hyper ventilation, where I managed to speed up and made a good gap. Climbing felt pretty hard today and I was definitely feeling it >>> the downhill was amazing, fast, rolling, smooth, awesome !! and last part of the course was a gravel road where once again I dropped a few riders.. (not that I care cuz I wasn't officially racing, but I guess I was in racing mood by that time and wanted to get over it already !!!) done after 3:25 and happy that I could finally sit down and relax.
Mark and all his team certainly know how to put a race together, I can't imagine how much work that takes ! but I am glad that there are people out there that love to do that so that people like me and 300+ others can just show up and "enjoy" of the great event.
Things I learnt from this event: I ate better, I worked on motivation (it is hard when you are not racing to motivate yourself to go harder, but I think I did well), lots of "hands on" mechanicals and flats repairs, helped lots of riders and enjoyed while doing that, had a blast volunteering on such an epic race.. and last but not least AWESOME time with Maria and Nick before, during and after the race, couldn't have done it without them.. love you two !!
Comments
Post a Comment