8 hours 2009

cramps suck. crashing sucks. cramping and crashing in a race sucks. rather than bore you with a lap-by-lap analysis of the 8 hours of labor, i will merely rant about 4 elements of the race that pretty much decided how things went for me.

1. the start - man my start was just awesome. i ran just about as fast as i can to my bike, which i placed just about as far from the start as was allowed. this was good as there was generalized chaos as riders ran thru and mounted their bikes in the same small area. i hadn't done any pre-riding, and quickly noticed that the course was being run in the opposite direction this year. that meant miserable hot grassy field riding first, tung nut last, that's cool. overall, start = very good.

2. crashing - i was leading a pack of 4 or 5 guys through tung nut towards the end of the first lap. at the base of the final climb, i fucked up and fell over turning in some soft sand. it was a painful fall, compounded by 5 guys immediately passing me. i felt shaky and my arm hurt, but not too bad. i pushed up the climb to try and give myself some time to regain my composure before i got back on the bike. 5 more people pass me. (all numbers guaranteed to be rough estimations) i start riding again and complete the first lap within the overall top 20, not bad, but could have been much better without the stupid crash. still, the first lap was by far my fastest - the only one i did in under 50 minutes. but everything went downhill from the point of that crash. (i would go on to crash twice more later - one in a grassy field and the other on the last lap just to remind me that i suck) overall, obviously, crashing = bad.

3. cramping - starting on lap 2, my legs were cramping. by lap 4 i would experience the most painful and debilitating cramps i've ever had. standing to climb? cramp. big ringin' it on the grassy fields? cramp. any climbing at all at a reasonable speed? cramp. lightly lifting myself off the saddle on a rooty descent? cramp. getting off the bike in the scoring area? horrible, horrible leg-locking, face-deforming cramp. diagnosis: not enough fluid (one bottle per lap was not enough). prescription: a bike that i can mount 2 fucking bottle cages to. next year. without cramps, i surely would have finished a couple places higher. overall: cramps = very very bad.

4. pit strategy - nailed the pit strategy here. i had the most wonderful person handing me bottles, food and providing encouragement. i was probably stopped in the 'pits' for nor more than 120 seconds of the whole 8 hours. overall: help in the pits && stopping as little as possible = very very good.

so lessons were learned. did i meet my goals? i wanted to do 8 laps and make the top ten, both which i did. but i left the race feeling like i could have done much better without the problems i've identified in #'s 2 and 3 above. oh well, that's what next year is for. do i dare set goals for next year? well, i'll have a full season of xc racing under my belt, and another season of local 6-hour races, so i should show continued improvement. how about a top 5 in 2010?

2009 results
2008 results

FSC 1&2 reports coming soon!