Unlike some people I traveled with....

Unlike some people I traveled with, I suffered through the pain and finished LOTOJA. Sorry I don't have any pics yet I'll put some up as soon as I can.

Friday night was a pasta dinner and a restless night of sleep. Saturday brought a 5:00 a.m. wakeup call with a waffle and egg breakfast at the hotel. After breakfast final preparations were made and the car packed up. I rolled out to the start line at 6:15 it was a bit chilly still even with a vest and arm warmers. Cole Sport Mark was in our start pack and we chatted before the start. I need to give some kudos to Mark he could have raced in the 45’s and yet managed to finish in 5th in the main sprint 3 seconds behind the winner of the 35’s. The guy may take a bathroom break every 10 minutes during the first couple of hours of a race, but man is he fast.

The start was good, nice easy pace and one point the DNF Elk and I dropped off the back for a break and we were able to bridge back with out too much work.

About 5 miles out of Preston the race took a turn. Suddenly I found a group of 3’s, 45 masters, the 2nd 35 start pack, a couple of 4’s and some tandems moving up through the back. Our start group had now become a mess of well over 100 riders all trying to move to the front of the pack. To make things worse the center line was tossed out as riders were trying to keep their position. Now throw in some oncoming traffic and you have an accident waiting to happen.

I didn’t stick around to find out what happened, I tried working my way to the front but after a couple of brake tapping incidents in front of me I decided to drop off the back and let it work itself out. As I started up the canyon out of Preston I worked with a few people here and there but I knew that the climb up the canyon would be a solo effort and my best chance would be to make sure I found a group to ride into Ovid with. Just before the false summit a rider came by that was moving pretty good I decided to jump on his wheel pushing me to race pace. I was able to hang on and we work on the decent to bridge up to a group of 6 or so riders and paceline all the way in to the next feedzone.

I was feeling good, took my feed and started up the closed road to start the next climb. I was starting to feel the effects of riding hard at this point. I decided to ease up and just ride my own pace to the top of the summit and hopefully I would be able to catch a ride down. Once again luck shined on me as I caught a tandem just before the summit. I went past them on the climb and started my decent when sure enough along came the tandem and 4 other riders in tow. I jump on and we moved along at a pretty good pace toward the Salt Creek feed.

Just before Salt Creek I could feel the cramps coming on and did what I could to stave them off while staying with the group but no luck. I had to gear down and increase the cadence as they rode off and I rode into the feed zone all alone. At this point I decided to rest for a minute and let my legs recover. I gulped down a bottle of water, let my body rest for a few minutes and carried on.

As I hit Afton I was feeling pretty good. I was with a good pace-line and a while after Afton we got yelled at by a cop because he said we were supposed to ride single file. I then saw him ahead pulled over and went to the back of the line to make it look like I was riding single file behind some DNA guys who I thought had the same idea. We went past with him yelling the same thing about riding single file even though they had said at the start we were allowed to ride 2 abreast. After munching on some food I looked up to noticed the DNA guys had fallen off the back of the group. I decided to stay with them anyway to Alpine instead of wasting energy trying to bridge back.

At Alpine I was told that the DNF elk was right behind me at Afton, I looked down at my cyclometer and decided to try and push for a 10 hour finish. I speed out of the feed zone and looked for people to work with.

I managed to work with a few people here and there, but no one wanted to keep the pace I did so I ended up losing most of the people I was trying to work with into the last feed zone. I quickly grabbed another bottle of water and energy drink and push hard to finish the race under 10 hours. At this point the solo effort was taking a toll and I had to let the pace die down. Having the DNF Elk drive by didn’t help me stay motivated either. I had been keeping an eye on a Cutthroat guy that was doing the same thing as I and focused on trying to close the gap between us. I wasn’t able to close the gap until just before Jackson when a group of 6 guys caught me.

I knew a headwind was coming and told myself no matter what hang on until the turn up to the village. We grabbed the Cutthroat guy as we made the left turn into the head wind. I stayed on the back and even took one short pull to show a good faith effort that I wasn’t going to just suck a wheel that I was going to try and do my part and was even happy that one guy acknowledged this by telling me as I rotated back just to hang on until the turn and the wind would be over. At some point the Cutthroat guy had been tossed. As soon as we made the turn they pushed the pace up above 25 mph and tossed me off. I could also feel cramps coming again and decided just to take it easy and if the Cutthroat guy caught me again I would just wait and save it for the finish. He didn’t catch me and when I saw that 1K mark I looked down and became concerned that I wouldn’t make a 10:30 riding time finish. At the 200 meter mark I felt well enough to push hard and finish strong. My official finish time was 10:37 with my riding time of 10:28.