True Grit In True Wind

The Stats:

• 84 Miles
• 12,000' of elevation gain
• 2nd-Place Singlespeed, 8th Overall
• 7:14:14 to the finish.

That's 18 minutes faster than last year, and I wasn't nearly as crushed at the end as I felt in 2013.  The course was changed this year, a couple of miles shorter but apparently with 2000' more climbing according to Mr. Garmin.(?)  Regardless, I felt faster this year, and enjoyed the race way more.

I was pretty keyed-up in the days leading up to this year's True Grit Epic.  We're buried under snow here in Victor, and the ski guiding season has been full enough that I was concerned about being rested going into the race.  With big guiding outings on 4 out of 7 days prior to race day, lack of rest seemed a legitimate concern.  But that's how the cookie was crumbling--all I could do was try and get good nights' sleeps and eat well.  At least I wouldn't be sluggish from lack of activity.

And it felt really good to drive away from 6-foot snowbanks with my front bumper aimed towards southern Utah.  Mom offered to accompany me to St. George and be my fill-in support crew, as Erica was off on a work trip, so I picked her up at the SLC airport on Thursday evening and we spent the trip's first night cooking up a massive pasta dinner with Mary and Nils before getting a deep night's rest and making early tracks out of town.

Arriving in St. George, the intensity of the sun was pretty intimidating!  70-degree temps felt great, but I could feel any exposed flesh crisping as I stood at the Zen trailhead contemplating an afternoon pre-ride on this legendary slickrock route.  Ahh, sunscreen.

I was surprised (and pleased) at how comfortable I felt riding the technical, ledgy drops and climbs of Zen having not ridden dirt since October.  It just felt fun to rally through sections that made me pause last year.  Maybe visualization really does help?!  Feeling confident after having fun riding Zen, we set up camp at Snow Canyon and put dinner on the campstove to cook while I made a few final adjustments to the LES and Mom went in search of the hot showers.

An 8am start time felt luxurious as I rolled out of bed after a full night's sleep--normally these long races start ridiculously early to make use of maximum daylight hours for everybody to finish the course, but after last year's pre-dawn True Grit start (including postponing for 30 minutes to get us closer to daylight) Race Director Cimarron decided to just plan a sunrise start this year.  It did seem important to be able to see the rocky 2-track we would be riding for the first few miles.

The Men's Open division went off at 8, and then we had a 7-minute gap before the rest of the field would start this year.  It was good to see a bunch of familiar faces at the start line--friends that I hadn't seen since last summer.  Gerry, Trevor, Ernesto, Cheryl...  And, as expected, when we were given the go Gerry took off like a rocket.  That guy loves to start hard!  (I actually heard him tell a newspaper reporter afterwards that his advice is to start slow and build up to pace.  What?!)  This proved to be the start of my day's undoing.

"Gerry, wait up!"  That's me in orange chasing Gerry with the red helmet.  Brutal.

A full season of skiing, with some inside riding-on-rollers time mixed in, has been effective for building overall endurance, but I have no capacity for speed right now.  I could feel myself launch right out of aerobic land and into the hurt of anaerobic hell as I gave chase after Gerry and his new full-suspension singlespeed steed.

Coming into Feed Zone 1 for the first time, right on Gerry's squishy rear wheel.

Returning from the Zen Trail.

We went back-and-forth a bit through the first 20 miles, and then he got a jump on me out of the Feed Zone after the Zen Trail and I spent the next 30 miles chasing a ghost--I'd see him for a bit, close the gap a bit, then he'd go out of view around a hill.  The course took us down a romping descent for seemingly miles and miles of banked turns, rolling airs, and pumps with what I soon learned was a tailwind.  Perhaps the most fun stretch of riding I've ever done in a race, ever?  So fast, and so fluid.

And then we turned 180-degrees and started climbing into a stiff headwind that got stiffer as the day progressed.  The forecast was for 5-7mph winds, but when I turned north the first time it felt more like 15 or 20, with a long uphill ahead.  The kind of wind that made everybody take down their tents at the start/finish, and kept NUE Director Ryan O'Dell from setting up the Kenda finish-line arch.  Bucking that headwind was one of my low points for the day, and the knowledge that I would have to do it again on Lap 2 started forming niggling doubts about finishing this damn race.

The climb ended after about 6 miles and we turned onto more interesting, fun riding again, but it had taken its toll.  When we came out of Rim Runner and Barrel Roll I was maybe 200 yards back from Gerry and gaining ground.  Steadily closing the gap helped boost my confidence and stoke me up to maintain a hard effort and get back up with him, and then we hit a steep climb and my legs went into full-cramp.  I gritted my teeth, willing my legs to keep turning the cranks until the cramps passed (I could have gotten off, but that probably wouldn't have helped and my progress on the course would have ceased, and who knows if I could have gotten back on?)  That was when I followed some perfect white chalk arrows in the dirt, right off of the race course.

It was my own fault, dammit, but that doesn't make it any less painful.  Cimarron was clear in her directions to follow the orange flagging tape.  I knew I should be looking for orange flagging tape.  But my legs were staging a revolution and the majority of my brain's capacity was engaged in trying to bring them back onto the team and those perfect arrows pointing uphill to the right seemed like such clear direction to a brain seeking clarity, and so I turned right.

And that made all the difference.  It took a couple of minutes for my legs to agree not to secede from the effort and for my brain to recognize that the last flagging tape was back at that junction and that I had to turn back down the hill I was currently climbing.  When I arrived back at the white arrows it was not at all surprising to see many pieces of orange flagging tape going left instead of right, back toward Feed Zone One.  I had only lost a few minutes, but Gerry was gone, baby, gone.

I spent the rest of the race (the second half) riding hard, willing myself to get Gerry back into sight again, but it wasn't to be.  Re-passing guys that I had passed miles earlier in the race was somewhat defeating.  On the flip side, my legs pretty much ceased cramping and I was able to mostly enjoy riding the second lap.  Eventually I managed to catch my friend Matt Woodruff during the second trip up the Windy Climb and managed to croak out, "Maaaatt.  F*!k this wiiind."  He just muttered, "I don't know how much more of this I can take."

And just like that it started blowing harder.

Riding Barrel Roll for the last time (probably my favorite stretch of trail on the course) I was struck by the added challenge of fighting to keep from being blown sideways off the trail into the copious cacti out there.  Everything was rolling fine and then the wind would shift me a few feet to the right--scary.  I managed to totally blow it on the two most technical moves of that loop--pulling a nut-crusher on a drop, followed by a blown line on the punchy climb 100 yards later.  More lost time, with temporary discomfort-down-under.

Then at the final Feed Zone, Alex Phipps (who had wisely decided that one lap in that wind was more than enough, and was mucho helpful with feeding me water bottles and information) cheered me up with the observation that I just wasn't going to catch Gerry.

Grrr.

So, with that bit of information I was able to focus on finishing the race and having some fun with cranking a fast tailwind-aided pace.  The closing few miles were kind of a blur of pain and dehydration last year, so I was unprepared for what a blast it was romping through the washes and then rollicking over the rocks of the two-track to the finish.  I might not have been winning, but I was enjoying it anyway.

In the end I crossed the line 6 minutes behind Gerry, a bigger gap than last year's minute-and-a-half but without the sensation of being thoroughly crushed.  I was even able to smile a bit.

"How about that wind?"

Despite feeling better at the finish this year, I don't think I could have ridden any harder.  So what learning can I take away?  I'm able to maintain a good endurance base through the winter, but mid-March is early for me to have any kind of speed in my legs.  Planning in a few more days' rest leading up to the race would probably have been good, although I didn't feel fatigued so maybe it wouldn't have really made a difference.  My Roctane hydration/nutrition plan continues to work for me; I know most people feel the need to eat solid food, but I find that I can't stomach anything while I'm racing so liquid calories are what works for me.

And I am still seeking a balance of starting the race slow enough to allow my body to warm into it while going hard enough to stay competitive.

Though I had hoped to take the top spot, second-place singlespeed and top-ten overall make me optimistic about my season to come, and stoked to get back out on the race course soon.  Next up: the 6 Hours In Frog Hollow.  Look out, Gem Trail!


True Grit Epic Gearlist on AXLPATH