My first ever attempt at solo in a 24, and wow, I learned a lot, about myself, about my firends and family and about how tough one of these endurance races can be...
I had spent a month off the bike in June due to cold after cold after gastro, brought home by my kids as it's their first year at primary school. So when I recovered, I committed to 12 weeks of training. Most of the benifits I gained from the training came from half a dozen epic rides I did. After every one I felt fitter and stronger and by September I felt ready to solo.
Due to the month off, I figured more illness was sure to happen, so I trained as often as I could, figuring more time off the bike was inevitable. Incredibly, even though two of the kids got gastro, and Kylie and Cam had a couple of colds, I stayed well. The weather was also more than kind and I was lucky enough to never miss any training rides, the perfect lead up really. Inevitably though, 3 days before the race, I caught Kylie's cold. I wasn't too concerned, I had finished training and hoped it wouldn't affect me too much on race day.
I had typed up a race plan for Kylie to follow as she would be my support person when she wasn't out lapping for her mixed six team. Basically I planned to eat 1250KJ/60g of carbs per hour, as some internet research told me this was a good target. My plan revolved around a predicted repeatable lap pace of 1:30, as that is what I thought I would do... so each transition I tried to eat as much food as my plan dictated: jam sandwiches, power bars, cookies and sports drink. I was running fine, I felt great and my lap times were very consistant, but they were about 15mins faster than I was planning, so I was eating way too much, during the first 5 laps I was eating 1700KJ/90g of carbs per hour, 50% too much!
I paid dearly for the over eating, I could not face another sandwich, infact any solid food was hard to take. So I basically stopped eating... the result was predictable, I ran out of fuel and ground to a halt within 2 laps. This blow up was like nothing I have ever experienced in my life, my body was fully functional, but my brain was out with the fairies. I was talking to myself, babbling as I pedalled along, I was singing, I didn't care what anyone thought, I was laughing at nothing, basically I had gone insane :)
My rear derailuer had stopped working, so I was riding a 3 speed, I figured I needed WD40 to fix it (I dunno why, but I thought spraying that on it might free it up enough to make it work), I knew I had to change batteries this lap and although I needed food badly, all I could think was that I needed a Red Bull. As I rode along I tried to remember these three things, but I couldn't, I kept forgetting one or two of them. I felt brain dead and disconnected from my body, so I decided to chant the three things as a mantra, so I wouldn't forget them at transition, "wd40, battery, red bull... wd40, battery, red bull"... I kept saying this out loud over and over the whole way around this lap, ocassionally breaking the chant with a "track", then back to chanting. I am sure anyone that rode by me or I passed must have thought I was mental!
I made it back to transition and repeated my chant for the last time to my stunning support crew, which had magically grown from being just Kylie, to being Bek, Dad (who had flown in from QLD as a surprise!) and Nicole, plus a cast of at least half a dozen other friends that gave me some assistance along the way. It was really mind blowing to see such an out pouring of unexpected generousity from from my friends, I felt a bit selfish really, I mean I was there for me, no one else, and they should have been doing their own thing (they were all in other teams that had their own issues to deal with too), but instead took time out to look after me. I'll never forget what they did for me, it was amazing. Anyway, I put in my order for WD40 and Red Bull at the next transition, and took the battery. Although I was mentally gone, I was at least able to explain my plight to the guys and that's when we worked out I had over eaten, then under eaten... the fix was pretty simple really, eat :) I couldn't stand the idea of anything solid though, so I threw down a Gu and within a minute I felt my brain rejoin the party my body was having and I was back from the dead! Then my body sung out for chips and I stuffed down half a bag and felt great, totally back to normal.
It was right then and there that we decided to stop racing, I mean what the hell was I doing? I had gone into the race knowing I was fit enough to race, and I was enthusiastic to do so, but being my first solo 24, we decided to go have fun and see what it was like (and if I could even finish the thing), and next year, we would try and race it. I travelled so well at the start that I very quickly got into racing "mode", and before I knew it I was going against our plan of not racing this one, pushing out some good and consistant laps and keeping the transitions as short as possible.
Stopping racing was the best thing I could have done, I chilled right out and took in some slower laps, and at each transition I stopped and chatted with the guys about things, ate some more chips and drank a little water and took it easy, we threw away my racing plan and made up a new one on the fly, which was gels (as solid food was not appealing) and Endura Opti, this plan went pretty well, and the blow up taught me to just chill out and have fun.
I was back in happy mode, but my rear derailuer had become a real problem, one I surrendered to putting up with. Prior to the race the limit screw on the thing broke and I couldn't get it repaired in time. The dealer was supposed to meet me at the race before the start and replace it, but he missed his plane. So I raced on it with one of the limit screws missing, which wasn't a major problem, but the chain would ocassionally fall off the cluster and I would have to stop and put it back on. That problem was pretty minor compared to the dust issue though, it was so dusty and dry that every 3 laps the chain got so dry you could hear it squeaking and grinding away, I did lube it every 3 laps or so and that kept things ticking over. In hindsight I should have done it every 2 laps, so it wasn't dried out and squeaking at me for a whole lap :) The dust also glogged my cables, and that was what had stopped my derailuer working altogether. I was limited to 3 speeds (the front gears), the only saving grace was that the one gear I had on the back was granny ;)
Around midnight my first battery went flat and I had to switch to another one that I had stashed in my pocket. Also in my pocket was a powerbar (out of it's wrapper), I didn't know it, but some of the power bar got stuck in the battery connector. When I plugged it into my light the connector would go in, but not 'click' and stay connected, so several times as I was riding along the connector would come loose and disconnect, leaving me in pitch black. Luckily though it only caused me one major crash, I left the trail unable to see anything, including the large pile of logs I ran into, it just wouldn't be a 24hr race if I didn't do my impersonation of superman ;) When I limped back into camp on my backup light, we could see the powerbar stuck in the connector, and I felt like a bit of goose, it was easily cleaned out and I was off again.
The Endura Opti I was using for fuel was awesome, but as the night wore on it got colder, and I drank less and less, often coming into transition with a half full bottle... which meant I was taking in less energy and by 4am, I was starting to run out of puff again. Stupidly though, I couldn't see why and pushed on. The final lap in this set was pretty hard on me, the pre dawn is famously tough and I was tired and under fuelled, I was hurting in places I didn't even know I had (I swear even my kidneys were hurting!), and it was soul searchingly hard to keep going. I went right to the bottom of emotional lows and I was in a very dark place indeed.
I came into transition and Simon had been out doing 4 laps for his 3 man team had kindly waited for me so we could do one together, I was ruined, so I threw in a pancake. It was hard to eat, solid food made me want to vomit, so instead I skulled a coke, ate a mini snickers and a banana and headed out again, wondering if I would even make it. The lap was hard, but after a few minutes the sun was fully up and the "breakfast" I'd eaten kicked in, and I started to ride well again. It was awesome to do a lap with a matey too, it really picks you up!
During the night I had kept trying to fix my rear derailuer by spraying the whole thing with WD40, which of course didn't fix it but I at least felt I was doing something positive :) Instead of stopping and fixing it properly and risk getting sleepy, I pushed on and kept moving, putting up with it. After my lap with Simon, Andrew came down to transition and when he heard of my plight he took my bike and went to work, fixing the clogged cables and cleaning the driveline in under 20 minutes, a truely amazing feat and it meant my bike would run clean for the rest of the race. He was scheduled to go out on a lap for his team at this time, but decided to wait, fix my bike for me, then head out and ride with me around the course to motivate me. What an amazingly generous guy! It's times like these, when you are deep in a hole, that you find out who your real friends are.
This lap with Drew was the best of the race, I struggled at first, but bizarrely as we rode along I started to feel really really good. Maybe it was the 20 min break while Drew fixed my bike, maybe it was the snickers I had at transition or the fact the sun was fully up now, I dunno, but I felt absolutley fantastic.
I flew into transition and Kylie told me I was in 14th place! How could that be after the problems we'd had? I imagine that all the other guys had problems of their own, so we were all in the same boat. I was totally lifted by a fast lap with Drew and feeling recovered from the pre dawn fatigue, I went straight back into racing mode! I kept this transition quick and opted for high sugar food; jelly beans, snickers and coke. Another amazing friend of mine, Dan, who was due for his lap had also waited for me to motivate me around for lap 15. I mean, wow, I have some amazing friends. He's a fast bastard though and pulled me around in quick time, well out of my comfort zone, it was real hard to try and keep up with him (and no, I couldn't, he had to stop and wait for me all the time, but it never bothered him, he's just too nice I reckon). I had to keep shovelling in handfuls of jelly beans and skulling Opti. We did a scorching lap and I overtook at least 6 solo riders that were riding much faster than I was on previous laps.
Totally pumped I did another quick transition and headed out for Lap 16, I took water this time, no Opti, I was sick of drinking it. We'd run out of gels, and another mate, Brad, donated enough for me to finish the event (again, it's incredible how much support there can be around you, it's overwhelming really).
This lap went pretty well and I knew I was coming into transition at 11:30. I had to make the decision to go out again and finish at 1pm with 17 laps, or pull into the early finish area and be happy with what I had achieved, and be damned with placings, allowing those 6 guys I passed to criuse on by while I sat on my butt. It was getting hot (30'C by now) and half way through the lap I finished my water... the fact it was plain water wasn't good either, I started to run out of steam again. With no water, hot temperatures and fatigue catching up with me, I knew my race was over. I was dehydrated and tired, so I pulled in to the early finish at 11:30am, dropped my bike, leaned on the guard rail and had a good long cry. I'd been right to the bottom of my soul, pushed through pain, battled fatigue and dehydration, and on the flip side, achieved my goal of 16 laps. I also had some the best fun on a bike I ever had. The whole event was one amazingly huge roller coaster ride of the full range of human emotion and at the end, I was wreck!
Kylie came up to find me and I knew I needed coke and water fast, so she ran off and got some for me. I drank those quickly and had some Ibuprofin, we had a cuddle and the realisation that it was over and what we had achieved together left us both in tears. It was tough, but we got through it, together.
I couldn't have done it without the support of so many of my amazing friends and family, so a big thanks to everyone that helped me along the way, you helped me realise a 4 year dream, to complete a 24hr race solo.
Some stats for fun:
Race Distance: 327km
Climb: 4.54 vertical kilometers
Speed: Average 14.9km/h
HR: Average 123bpm
Blow Ups: 2
Crashes: 2
Result: 14th out of 129 (11%)
Driveline Cleans: 5
Amazing People That Helped Me: 8 (solo, bah, we were a huge team)
Training: 180 hours over 12 weeks
Climbing Including Training: 41 vertical kilometers
Here are some nice words people had to say afterwards
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| Here's a break down of each lap, I held a good HR for 5 laps, but the over eating and then resultant under eating quickly left me depleted and I ran down into the lows of the first blow up. After that incident we stopped racing and I took it easy on the course and social at transition. Just before dawn I ran very low again, before recovering after the sun came up. |