|   World Solo 24 Hours of Adrenalin Race Report | flattop
Sep 11, 2003 6:32 PM | | Noon, August 30th 2003, a day and time I had thought about for a whole year. Packed into the starting chute. Shaking hands with strangers you're sure you know, wishing everyone a good ride. The countdown ends. The gun goes off. This is it. All the hours of riding, all the planning, all your hopes have led to this point in time. Running with the sound of 160 riders clopping along in bike shoes with hundreds of spectators cheering and ringing cowbells, the announcers screaming, the music blaring. It's easy to see why someone came up with the name 24 Hours Of Adrenalin. If someone could bottle the feeling and energy you have at this point of the race everyone would subscribe to a lifetime supply.
What the next 24 hours had in store for me was not what I had in mind.
The course was 14.2 km long with 1350 feet of climbing per lap. It seemed to be either straight up or straight down with only one easy gradual climb section where you could catch your breath. The downhill's were so fast they were over too soon and the uphill's were littered with lots of big loose rocks that made it difficult to ride. It was a great course to ride. Lots of challenge, as it should be for the Solo 24 Hours of Adrenalin World Championships.
Unfortunately three and half hours into the twenty four hour race I started suffering from painful muscle cramps. I continued to ride with the cramps until about 2 in the morning. At that point I was told, by my pit crew, that I was in 9th place in my age group and would move up if I could keep going. I couldn't. I thought if I had a rest for a half an hour my cramps might go away and I would be able to ride the rest of the race faster, easily making up the lost half hour. It didn't work. After the half hour I set off on what would be a long lap. I had no power left in my legs and my balance had somehow left me. I couldn't ride my bike up the technical climbs and I had a lot of trouble keeping the rubber side down on the steep rocky downhill's. I crashed a lot that lap, and I witnessed another rider crash so bad at the bottom of a really fast (50 60 km/h) downhill that it scared me. Mentally I was done. I was struggling forward so slowly, with every part of me hurting, especially the legs, that at 5am I did something I have never had to do in all my sporting endeavors. I quit.
I didn't have the courage to tell my pit crew that I was done. I asked for some food and another 30 minutes rest. After 30 minutes of fading in and out, Cheryl Ann woke me up. I still couldn't tell her I was done, I asked for another half hour. After that I asked Blaine to turn in my baton to the timing tent, this tells the race organizers that you aren't out on the course, you've stopped.
At around 9 am I had a cold shower, put on some clean dry riding clothes and headed out for one more lap. Now that I am at home and had some time to think about it, I realize that I enjoyed that last lap. It hurt to do it but I had a great slow ride looking around at all the awesome scenery that I didn't get to look at during the race.
I crossed the finish line for the last time after 23:20:52 completing 10 laps and giving me a 12th place finish in my age group. I had some help to do this race. Reynold Cycle provided me with a lighting system and other bike related help. Thanks to CN my employer and the United Transportation Union for supporting me. Also Frank at The Messengers International was great for supporting me and a huge help in doing all the work to get my bikes out west and back.
Thanks to Blaine for coming out with me and being a great mechanic. I couldn't have done it without his help. Thanks to Anne for looking after Siobhan, thanks to Becky for help in the pits and mostly, thanks to my wife Cheryl Ann for taking care of feeding and watering me during the race, but mostly, thanks for showing me the support you did all year during my training.
This was my fourth 24 hour mountain bike race. The mountain beat me this time but I'm still up 3 to 1. Next year I hope to make it 4 to 1.
Barry |
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