24 Hours of Great Glen

Sometimes it's best not to know all the details when you decide to do something different. If I was a little more informed about 24hr mountain bike races I probably would not have ventured outside the comfort of my nice little running world....and I would have missed one heck of a good time!

UPDATE: I've added some random video I took during the first lap of the start, blueberry hill and the boneyard.



This past weekend I headed up to Mt Washington for the 14th annual 24 Hours of Great Glen mountain bike race, part of a 4-person relay team. acidotic RACING had two 4-person teams competing in the Sport Class, but really we were there to compete against each other (in theory). Chris Dunn claims he setup two evenly matched teams, one called acidotic RACING and one called acidotic RACING B. That's right, not an A and B team, just a B team. Let the head games begin. Me thinks me smell a rat!

Chris has an excellent write up on his blog about our 24hrs of head to head racing so I won't rehash that part again. Check it out, it's a great read.

The acidotic RACING B team (shown below) included yours truly, Austin Stonebraker, Nick Pennell and our capt Steve Sprague. The actual racing order would be Steve S, Austin, Nick and finally me.

Now a little perspective from a non-biker about the dark side...I mean this festival called a mountain bike race. Everything (except the riding) takes place in one big area. Most riders come up on Friday night and camp for the entire weekend and we were no different. The actual race starts at noon on Saturday and ends at noon on Sunday.

The start was a Le Mans start, with the riders forced to run (gasp) maybe a 1/2 mile before mounting there bikes and hitting the trails. The course was an 8.3 mile loop, mostly on the trails of Great Glen. Each loop had approximately 1,100 feet of climbing, and was a mix of carriage roads (60%) and single track (40%). Each rider was given a RFID card which was scanned before and after each lap. The race used a fantastic timing system called Realtime Scoring which allowed us to check our overall position, class position, lap time and more importantly monitor where the other acidotic RACING team was at any time during the race via monitors setup in the scoring tent.

Chris' son Brayden and I rode the course on Friday night shortly after we setup camp. This helped a great deal with my nerves since I knew what to expect now. Although I couldn't ride 100%, I estimated I could ride 85% or so and 'hike a bike' the rest. I'll take it!

The Course
Most of the first mile was climbing up through the blueberry fields next to and behind Great Glen, with a lot of it on decent single tracks. A couple of narrow bog bridges would test your ability to ride straight.All but maybe 30yds (steep uphill prior to the cottage) were rideable, even by me. The second mile was a chance to open it up a bit and catch a breather on the mostly downhill carriage road. Miles 3 and 4 were a mix of rideable short single tracks and hilly carriage roads. Miles 5 and 6 got a bit more interesting and challenging for me. First, there was Whiplash, a hellish single track that literally beat the heck out of my legs (from falling/crashing several times on the rocks). Each time through I'd try to ride further than the last but never really managed to ride more than a 1/3 of the trail before bailing ship and pushing my bike the rest of the way. It was way to technical for me to even attempt to ride. After jumping back on some carriage roads again the race jumped back onto the longest section of single track on the course. My guess is most riders were able to ride the majority of this section, at least early on. It had a little bit of everything. It started out as a nice rideable rocky single track, climbed a bit (maybe even a lot), had a fairly technical descent and then went through the muddiest section of trail I've ever seen. This was that thick, black, wheel sucking mud which was nearly impossible to walk through, let alone ride through. I think they buried rocks and logs in the mud just to add to the difficulty. Early on I tried to ride as much as I could. Actually, I tried to ride more than I could. I eventually swallowed my pride and went to the ole standby, hike-a-bike, mostly through the mud sections. Finally it was back on the carriage roads again for some fast downhill riding, sprinkled with some 90 turns at at bottom of most hills. A Couple of short single track sections and we were onto mile 7, the most technical section of the course. Not a single time was I able to ride more than 50yds of this single track. I pushed my bike up and down this difficult trail, ending at the bone yard,

an evil downhill that took out more than a couple riders (including our capt on lap 1). Once past the bone yard, and within sight of our camp area and finish area I was able to get back on the bike and ride most of the remaining mile or so through some nice single tracks, carriage roads and finally the field to the finish line.

Logistically, this race was much harder than a running relay (like Reach the Beach). Most of us were taking approximately an hour per lap so we'd ride every 3 hrs or so. In that 3 hrs you'd have to

• wash your bike because it was trashed after each lap
• wash yourself
• change your clothes
• eat
• fix your bike
• get ready for your next ride
• sleep?

At night each rider would do back to back laps, riding for 2+ hours which gave us nearly 6hrs of downtime and did allow more time to rest. Once the sun came up we were back to the short rest. In fact, Nick was spent after 4 laps so the last few laps were done with 3 riders, reducing our down time to under 2 hrs.

Although I wasn't the fastest, I never really felt fatigued, staying hydrated, eating as much as I could and popping Endurolytes before and after each lap. I ended up riding the last 2 laps of the day for a grand total of 7 laps, 58.1 total miles, 8,295ft of climbing and 7hrs and 18 minutes in the saddle.

Nick and I took a few photos early on in the race which can be found here. I have a bunch of video from the start that I'll post to Youtube eventually.

A couple of random thoughts to leave with:

• It gets cold at night
• Even without rain the trails get greasy at night with the dew
• Get the best light you can afford. I thought mine was fine until someone rode by with a spanky HID light. Wow. NOTE: Night Rider was renting for $40.
• Plan your food carefully. Not a lot of time to cook.
• Bring a generator if you have one. You can use it except between 11pm and 7am.
• Bring the best bike you can, full suspension if you got it.
• Where the heck can you wash your dishes?
• A camp fire is awesome at 3am (although it needs to be contained, no open fires)
• Take more pictures, further out on the course if possible
• Need a bigger (or is it smaller?) granny gear. Those hills were tough.
• Two pairs of shoes would be nice
• Plan on mechanical failures (chain, flat, etc)
• Shower early, the hot water runs out
• Get to the BBQ early. It was terrific. Hot food and plenty of it.
• The volunteers were great, especially the folks in the timing tent
• The $5 breakfast was worth every penny.
• Have a plan between legs, you don't have a lot of time.
  

Next year we need a camp mechanic and a camp cook! Wait, did I just say next year?

Built in Rest

I have no such rest period built into my training routine. Coulda woulda shoulda but don't. I continue to subscribe to the time tested, often repeated standby....injury.
Even with the best intentions, I still manage to sneak an injury in every once in a while and last week was my latest installment. Enter the big white toe syndrome.
Anyways, after a solid week off with zero running (or 3 miles in 10 days) I finally hit the roads last night for a very enjoyable 5 mile run...and I didn't hurt anything (or should I say nothing hurt)!
Whoo hoo.
Ahh, it's good to be back :-)

Try, Try Again

If at first you don't succeed....
As promised, I got back on that 2-wheeled horse called a mountain bike and headed over to Massabesic again. This time I adjusted the tension on my pedals to make it a little easier to get out of prior to hitting the ground. It's one thing to crash and fall, but it's embarrassing to fall and still have your feet firmly attached to the pedals. Technically, I only fell once in about 1 1/2hrs of riding but had MUCH more fun this time! Lots of new trails, some I could actually ride, what a concept.

With my newly restored confidence I now began to wonder about the difficulties associated with riding a mountain bike at night. With no firm plan yet on what the heck I'd do for lighting I decided to take a trip to my local bike shop. The first light he shows me costs $450! Hey buddy, my bike doesn't cost that much, are you friggin serious? I'm sure these lights are bright and all but I'm thinking my night mountain biking days may come to an end sometime on Sunday. Let's face it, I can barely ride during the day, why would I want to ride at night...on purpose?

I left without a light, but not empty handed. I bought some new cleats for my shoes, multi-directional release cleats. Anything to make it easier for me to get out of is a good thing. When I got home I found out one of my RTB teammates (Douglas) was letting me use his bike light, via NYC. Phew, one less thing to worry about.

Later in the day I decided I really needed to get at least one practice ride in at dark so I duct-taped a flashlight to my bars, a headlamp to the front of my bike and tie-rapped another headlamp to my helmet. At 8pm I headed over to Horse Hill for a ride. Well 50 minutes later I made it back to my truck, unharmed. Imagine that? It ain't easy but it is definitely doable, even with crappy lights. As it turned out, the flashlight pretty much just came along for the ride. My Petzl running headlamp mounted to my helmet was really providing all the light. By the way, my new cleats were awesome!

Confidence fully restored, I'm ready to go!
This might actually be fun after all.

Heebe Geebees

Ok, I'll warn you this isn't a pleasant post and most likely will not add any value to your life today.
Following last weeks 33 mile epic adventure I developed a painful blister under my big toenail. It would fill up with fluid and try to push my nail off my foot and was generally very painful. I eventually popped it with a needle and have repeated this several times a day for over a week. In fact, I could actually stick the needle under my nail almost 1/2 way down my nail, like some sort of Chinese torture technique or something (or was that bamboo shoots?). I was doing it to myself and it was creeping me out!

At times, there was so much pressure on my toenail that I couldn't even put weight on my foot. Ever try to walk without using your big toe? Exactly. In the last week I ran 3 painful miles, all because of my toe. Every runner is familiar with black toenail, but have you ever had white toenail?

I finally went to the doctors on Friday to make sure it wasn't infected and see if there was something I could do to speed up recovery. She said as long as it was draining it was fine but she could do something to help it along - drill a hole in my toenail to let it drain. Are you kidding me? Of course I said no but then reluctantly agreed when she said it wouldn't hurt too much. It wasn't the pain I was worried about, it was the idea of someone sticking something through my toenail. Certain things just creep me out. This happened to be one of them. Anyways, I had it done, it didn't hurt but I was never comfortable during. The nurse tried to relax me by telling a blond joke but totally botched it (no, she wasn't blond but could have been).

Now when I push on my toenail fluid bubbles out the end of my toenail and through the little hole in the top of my nail, like a mini volcano....you know, sort of like KrakaTOEa (sorry, I couldn't resist). So far I haven't seen much relief. It still hurts and I still can't run, but I can bike (for now).

Dare Stupid Things!

Last winter I joined acidotic RACING, an adventure racing team founded by Chris Dunn. The motto of the team (and the title of Chris's blog) is Dare Mighty Things, part of a famous quote by Teddy Roosevelt.

And I thought I was joining a snowshoe racing team....HA!

2 weeks ago I responded to a team email from Chris looking for one more teammate for a 24hr relay team. Awesome, I love relay teams, especially 24hr ones. This one was slightly different though, it involved those 2-wheel contraptions that I rarely ride, mostly because I stink at it - the dreaded bike (or more specifically the mountain bike). I'm still not sure what possessed me but I decided to sign up for a 24hr 4-person mountain bike race at Great Glen, at the base of Mt Washington called the 24 hours of Great Glen.

Up until yesterday I was pretty excited about it. I still am, but I got a dose of reality yesterday while practicing my mountain biking skills. You see, I'm not really a mountain biker. I really don't even own one (if you don't count the rusted rigid in the shed from the mid-90's). Thankfully, others in the family have them (come to think of it, everyone but me has one). I do take this event seriously and I'm generally intimidated by the whole thing. I know I won't master mountain biking in 2 weeks but I wanted to give it an honest effort and not let my teammates down. So I've been practicing (aka riding) in Horse Hill (my local stomping grounds). A few days ago I upgraded from plain ole pedals to Shimano SPD clipless (and shoes!). Yesterday I decided to ride again with my new pedals and headed over to Massabesic, armed with a trail map. I clipped in and headed to the first single track I came to (Fireline trail for those familiar). No more than 5 minutes in I got myself stuck on some rocks, failed to unclip in time and down I went (still firmly secured to my new clipless pedals). I successfully split open my elbow on my first try.
&%#$@! did that hurt! I saw a little blood but couldn't really see the damage so after stomping around for a few minutes I got back on the bike and continued. I swear, I didn't go 10 more minutes before I friggin did it again, this time on the other side. Ah, but I was smarter this time, I saw the obstacle, and assumed I'd screw it up and get stuck and immediately looked for an out. An out meaning a place I could fall without causing too much pain. Down I went. I knew I was over matched and I knew part of the reason. The tension was WAY too high on my pedals. Easy fix, head back to the truck, make an adjustment and I'd be back on the trails in no time. My second mistake (wait, maybe it was more than that...) was thinking this trail was only 1 mile long. I'd just ride the rest, grab a fire road and swing back to the truck. Turns out I was mistaken. Fireline is 3 miles long, and in my humble opinion, is not a learning trail, especially with tight pedals.
Well long story short, I made it to the end (after falling no less than 3 more times), started heading back and decided to try ONE more trail first (Ladyslipper), since it was only a mile long (I checked this time). Although slightly better to ride, this mudfest trail still offered enough obstacles to humble me once again, taking me down one more time, conveniently on the same injured elbow from my first spill. As I limped back, lacking confidence and dragging my pride behind me I began to wonder what exactly I got myself into....

I'll shake it off and I'll get back on that horse (after I adjust those stupid pedals). The Wolfe will ride again Bwah Ha Ha!!! Ok, the Wolfe will most likely ride, fall, ride, fall, repeat again.

Kids, don't try this at home.

PS: thanks Mike Wade for my blog title!

Pemi Wild Ultra

Lots of folks have done the infamous Pemi Loop in New Hampshire's White Mountains (voted the 2nd hardest day hike in America by Backpacker Magazine in 2005). The 33+ mile loop starting at the Lincoln Woods trialhead, summits ten 4,000 footers with nearly 10,000 ft of elevation gain. Now that's what I call a day hike!

Chris Dunn of acidotic RACING wanted to add a new twist while maintaining a friendly competition so he organized what he affectionately called the Pemi Wild Ultra. Five teams of 2 would head out at 4am on Saturday morning and the first team back wins (and winning means you get to shower, eat and drink beers first).

The teams headed down to the suspension bridge for the start and were told the rules:

1. teammates must stay together the entire race
2. have fun and enjoy this epic adventure

At 4:11am (I know, I said it was a 4am start but come on, we all got around 1-2 hrs of sleep and got up at 3am so we were a little slow out of the gate!) we were off....sort of. All five teams started to walk. Wait a second, I thought this was a race?? After about 10 seconds most teams began to run easy. We were officially racing.

As far as I know, only one of the teams (Chris and Ken) had done this loop before, although they had done the clockwise version. Today we'd be doing the counter-clockwise loop. Mike Wade and I had a simple plan: run the runnable sections if possible and walk the climbs (no exceptions). Turns out we'd be doing a lot of walking. Who knew there was so much climbing in the White Mountains!

It had rained during the night and was raining lightly when we started. My the time we got to the first climb the rain had mostly stopped but not before contributing to some of the wettest, muddiest trails I've been on in quite a while. We had traded places with team Jay and Steve a few times since the start and would generally stay together nearly half the loop.

At one point early on we put some time on them but they got it all back on Bond when my I haven't been a Boy Scout since the 70's navigational skills totally failed me. In fact, we got so turned around we (ok, me) actually started heading down the same trail we just came up and only stopped after running into Jay and Steve coming UP. Whoops. We were in the clouds with no views but that was a major screw up. Thankfully it would not be repeated (much).

(photo-from the summit of Bondcliff)

We'd get a glimpse of team Chris and Ken and team Kevin and Scott a little later at West Bond. We were returning on the spur trail and they were heading out. We'd do this one more time at Galehead Hut, as they were coming in and we were heading out. Galehead would also be the last time we'd see any of the other teams until the finish.

We rested about 10-15 minutes and refueled at Galehead hut before continuing on the second half of our journey. It was around 9:30am and we'd covered 15.9 miles, knocked off 5 of the 10 4000 footers and been going at it for over 5 hours. I was surprised how little running we'd actually done. If we weren't climbing we were sloshing through wet, muddy trails. I felt great but wished we could run a bit more.

The Garfield Ridge Trail from Galehead to Mt Garfield and Mt Lafayette was easily the hardest of the day. This 6.9 mile hellish section of the Appalachian Trail took roughly 3 1/2 hrs, maybe a bit more. Standing on the summit on Mt Garfield we could see (barely through the clouds) the summit of Mt Lafayette but there is no ridge between the two, we'd have to climb all the way back down Garfield before heading back up Lafayette. Ah crap.

(photo-Garfield Ridge Trail)

The good news was the skies were beginning to clear and Lafayette came out of the clouds just as we got there, offering spectacular views of the Pemi Wilderness. Just after 1pm we reached the summit of Lafayette, chatted briefly with Jim Dunn who was offering support and encouragement to the teams, had a photo op and finally we were off. 22.8 miles down, roughly 10.5 to go!

(photo-Mike and Steve on Lafayette)

Standing on the summit looking down Franconia Ridge was a welcomed sight. We were both looking forward to running....finally. The Franconia Ridge trail at least offered some runnable sections not to mention GREAT views on both sides. Plus, our last peak was in sight (Mt Flume).

(photo-Mike on the Franconia Ridge Trail)

Although I enjoyed the time on Franconia Ridge, mentally (and physically) I was getting tired. I wanted to be done. I had plenty of food and water but my feet were starting to get tired and sore. 9+ hours of wet, muddy trails will do that. As it turned out, the muddiest trails of the day were yet to come (somewhere between Mt Lincoln and Mt Flume). We had no idea where or how close the other teams were. In fact, we started hearing voices behind us around Mt Flume and thought it was the other teams. All this did was make us run faster and harder (gee thanks guys!). We would later find out it wasn't the other teams afterall but at the time we really thought they were close.

I had hiked the Osseo Trail up Mt Flume about a year ago so I had a good idea what the last 4-5 miles were. Once you get past the ladder section, the last 3+ miles to the Lincoln Woods Trail is very runnable. Mike pretty much dragged my down the mountain as my feet were killing me. I ran just to keep him in sight. Near the bottom we started checking our watches a bit more. Initially we figured (guessed) we'd be somewhere in the 12 hr range. That wasn't going to happen this day. However, we did want to keep it under 13 hrs so we ran the final 1.4 mile stretch along the Lincoln Woods Trail and finally rolled into the finish in 12 hrs 53 minutes.

My first thought: never again. A few days removed, well maybe once more :-)

Of course our prize for winning was a shower, followed by Lasagna (thanks Ken!), washed down with a couple of Redhooks (thanks Chris!). Once cleaned up we packed up the cooler with a few beers and headed back down to the trailhead to meet the other teams, offer congrats and of course a cold beer!

Good times.

A few pics from our adventure.

Finally, a long run!

I went for a real long run today for the first time in a long time. I've generally been limiting my runs to not much more than an hour (not counting mountain half marathons of course!). My side-hip-back-previously-injured-but-never-fully-understood area seemed to get irritated if I cranked up the miles too much. I missed the long run so this morning I headed out slow and easy for nearly 16 miles on the back roads of Merrimack and Amherst.

I learned 2 things this morning:

1. My side is fine, even after 2+ hrs of running.
2. When the dewpoint equals the air temperature you have 100% humidity. Who knew?