Just when you think you can't go any further...

This weekend I did an event that I was so excited for, that my enthusiasm might have even eclipsed ironman in my head. In my head is one thing, my mouth didn't tell too many people outside my head about this event, because, well, it was a bit nuts, or at least it sounds that way. Almost at the last minute I signed up to do the Saratoga 12/24, a 12- and 24-hour ultracycling event. If you've never heard of ultraendurace events like this, it's pretty simple: there's a course (in this case a 32-mile loop), and you just go round and round for the allotted time, and whoever goes the farthest wins. I may be crazy, but I'm not suicidal, so I signed up to do the 12-hour division.

Friday I left the office for the very last time and drove directly to Tetas's house where she and her friend Jocelyn (Joco) piled into my tiny little Corolla with their big backpacks and we all drove to Saratoga Springs, NY where Tetas and Joco went to school. We stayed in their friend Nichole's house which was conveniently (for them) only about 1/4 of a mile from the bars, and conveniently (for me) only about 20 minutes from the race site in Schuylerville. How do you pronounce Schuylerville? "Sky-ler-ville" of course.

In the race booklet there was mention of a 6:30 am meeting and bike check, so I was sure to be out of the house at 5:45 to leave plenty of time for me to get coffee, get to Schuylerville, and get ready before the meeting. I woke up, ate a ginormous bowl of Bear Naked granola (bringing breakfast to out-of-town races is a lesson I learned the hard way), and went to find some coffee. I had the bitchy lady in the GPS direct me to the nearest Starbucks, which was, of course, closed. I had to settle for gas station coffee, and as I was trying to get the apathetic 20-something attendant to get up off her seat atop the ice cream cooler and drag her ass the 20 feet to the register to ring me up, an older guy asked me if there was a bike race today. We were out in farm country, and you never can tell if you're talking to a hippie or a redneck in those parts. "Yeah, but it's not here, it's in Sch... Schleck... you know, that town that sounds nothing like how it's spelled," I said.
Now another older gentleman joined the conversation, "Beautiful riding country out here. I just rode here from Boston yesterday." Boston was about 200 miles from here; that's a 3-hour drive away.
"Is it very hilly out here?" I asked. The web site was relatively low-key and didn't offer a course profile. I guess they just figured we'd figure it out after the first loop.
As the world's laziest gas station attendant dragged her feet and rang me up with sloth-like speed the older men discussed the terrain. "This is some of the toughest cycling in the country. In the Rockies you have those long climbs where you're climbing for miles and miles, and you just get into a groove and keep going. Around here it's just relentless and rolling. You're going along and then suddenly there'll be a real short, steep climb. A bunch of those'll take it out of you faster than any longer climb in the Rockies," the Bostonian said. Uh oh. Today's course was described as "rolling".

The bitchy lady in the GPS directed me to the address given on the race web site and I rolled up around 6:15. This couldn't be right. This was just... a HOUSE. A block or two back I'd seen some people setting up some picnic tables on a church lawn, maybe that was them? I got out of the car and asked, but no, they didn't know anything about a bike race, they were setting up for a church yard sale. "I'm guessing by the way you're dressed that you mean a bicycle race," the woman said. "Because I know that a lot of motorcyclists come around here a lot... Are you sure you're in the right town? Are you looking for Skyelerville?"
"Ummmm... is Skyelerville spelled S-C-H-U-Y and then a whole bunch more letters that don't belong in a word that's pronounced like that?" I asked.
"Yep, you're in the right place," she said. Now I was running the risk of not only missing the 6:30 meeting, but what if I never found the race start at all?! I hate that bitch in the GPS machine. Why would she lie to me other than to be malicious?! I got back in the car and started driving around in a circle, waiting for a car with a bike on it to turn up. Schuylerville only ammounted to 2 roads about 4 blocks long each, so I figured that someone would turn up. Luckily, before I even finished my first loop, I saw a car with 3 bikes on the roof and I followed it to a bed and breakfast with a large tent in its side yard. I should have known that I wouldn't have to worry about a big meeting with a lot of hoopla, I was the third person to arrive, and the "meeting" consisted of giving my name and getting my t-shirt.

The guy with 3 bikes on top of his car, and a whole crew inside of it seemed like a real jerk and didn't seem very interested in talking, but I chatted to my heart's content with Jeff, a skinny little bike geek from DC who travels all around the country to events like this, and John, race director, volunteer, and ultracycling nerd extraordinaire as I nervously twiddled my thumbs before the start. Jeff was signed up for the 24-hour race and showed me the bedroll that he had set up in the back of his SUV. When I first heard of timed events like this, I thought that you had to just keep going and going until the time cutoff or until your legs fall off. I thought that if you stopped at any point, you got a DNF. I was surprised to hear the story of an ultrarunner who did a 24-hour event during which he stopped, took a shower, went to the movies with his sister, came back, ran some more, went home, took a nap, and came back in the morning to run in the 24-hours. There's no such thing as DNFing a timed event, just as long as you show up.

Much like ultrarunners, Jeff explained to me how much nicer ultracyclists are than regular century-and-shorter riders. He told me stories of how race leaders would slow and offer encouragement, food, and even the help of their support vehicles to mere mortals like him. And this whole time, there was John, race director extraordinare, who remembered everyone's name, remembered things I mentioned in my email about work, and comprised the one and only race volunteer for that first hour or so. In fact, the only person who was acting like a sourpuss was the guy with the 3 bikes on his car who turned up again after about half an hour wearing... (I couldn't make this up) ... an Mdot jersey!

I had spent all Thursday evening trekking all over creation tracking down my favorite flavors of Clif Shot blocks, Lära bars, and Mojo bars (Clif really should sponsor me, they're pretty much all I ever eat!), and some pretzels, then cutting them into bite-sized chunks, mixing them up, and putting them into zip lock bags. Once I got my bike put back together I went to put my drop bag together when I noticed that... MY FOOD WAS GONE!!! Jeff pointed out that there were tons of Hammer gels on the table, but I do not do gels. Gels make me retch. I couldn't imagine riding 12 hours on gels alone. I showered poor Jeff with about a million obscenities before I thought to check my front seat. There was my grocery bag full of snacks. "Sorry," I said sheepishly to Jeff.

Finally it was getting close to 8:00, and John, Race Director Extraordinaire told us to huddle up. He explained the rout and the course markings. There would be two checkpoints: the B&B, and a school at the 15-mile point that would be manned by his wife. There would also be a mobile home at the far checkpoint (provided by one of the racers) where we could use the bathroom. No drafting after the first 5 miles (no penalties were mentioned though, guess it's the honors system). We had to obey all New York traffic laws including coming to a full stop before making a right on red, yielding to cars, etc. Then he gave us all his personal cell phone number so we could call him and tell him our mileage at the end (again, the honors system), or in case we had any problems, or just wanted to chat. "Okay, well it's almost 8:00, so let's just start... how about here?" So we took our bikes out to the street and John told us "1, 2, 3 go!" or "ready, set, go" or something, and then some people rode away. Then a truck passed us and the rest of us rode away.

Photo from the actual course.

Lap 1 (0:00:00 saddle hours)

Aside from one steep and short climb at mile 2, the course was relatively flat. There were some rollers at the very beginning and end, leaving and entering Schuylerville, but for the most part, the course was flat. On the way out we rode through farmland (mostly corn fields with one farm around mile 6 that smelled like the poop of cows that were fed nothing but berries). I rode through the first checkpoint and called out my number and rolled on through the second half of the course which went alongside the Hudson River. It was crowded at first, but pretty soon I had no problem avoiding drafting.

There was an MS ride going on at the same time, and it was easy to spot who was an MS rider and who was a 12/24 rider. The MS riders were heavier individuals on hybrids and mountain bikes wearing regular t-shirts instead of jerseys and camelbaks in lieu of bottles, and the main challenge in passing them was not getting hit when they swerved to stare at you as you whooshed by. Still, they cheered us on, and we cheered them on. Well, except for the Mdot guy. He was on a mission.

Lap 1: 31.7 mi, 1:36:35 saddle time, 19.7 mph

Lap 2 (1:36:35 saddle hours)

My plan was to stop every lap and a half to refill water bottles, go to the bathroom, get food, etc., so I rolled through the B&B in Schuylerville, pulled a U-turn, and hit the lap button as I headed back out. I had my aero bottle as well as 2 bottles in the cages on my bike, so I had about a 60 oz of liquid on my bike as well as a snack bag in my bento box, and one more in my jersey pocket. I had my watch set to beep every 10 minutes, and I would eat 2 items every time it went off. This might have been excessive if I planned to stop for a meal at any point in the day, but I knew that my legs would stiffen up if I were off the bike for too long. And anyway, I had high expectations for myself in this race. The women's course record for this race was only 186.5 miles. I'd only ever ridden 115 miles in one day, but I thought that if I paced myself right that I could maybe break that. Maybe.

I knew that I couldn't take it out too hard or else I'd blow up and wouldn't be able to ride well after about 100 miles, but I couldn't ride like I was just out to see the sights or I wouldn't be able to keep up the average 17.25 mph that I would need to break the course record in roughly 11 hours' saddle time. I rolled over the 56-mile mark in roughly 2 hours and 51 minutes.

I stopped at the far checkpoint to refill my bottles and use the bathroom in the mobile home. Inside the mobile home looked so comfortable! If I had all the money in the world I would just travel around the country in a mobile home hopping out every day to explore a new place on my bike or run on new trails. But right now, I just had time to pee and rung back out to my bike. Kathy, wife of John, Race Director Extraordinaire was manning the checkpoint with their two children. All looked very bored and slightly sweltering in the sun. Off in the background a man was yelling at his "crew" (wife) for not being ready with a bottle of water when he rolled up. "Rule number 1 of ultracycling," muttered Long-Suffering Kathy, "NEVER abuse your crew. My god, it's only the second loop!" I thanked her and rode away. Rule number 2: ALWAYS be polite to volunteers.

Lap 2: 63.48 miles, 1:39:50, 19.1 mph

Lap 3 (3:16:25 saddle hours)

Man, it was getting pretty hot. There was no shade at all on the course, and the sun was getting really strong. Also, my feet had been killing me pretty much all day. This was a new pain, it felt like growing pains, or after your feet fall asleep and when they ache as the blood flows back into them. It radiated up to my butt, that was weird. When I checked in with another rider in a green Clif jersey, he was having the same problem. Maybe it was from the heat. I made an unscheduled stop at the far checkpoint to pour water on my head and exchange my warm Accelerade for some cold water that I put a Nuun tab into. I wasn't too worried about calories, but this kind of weather could be bad for electrolytes.

Some time in this loop I pulled my second bag of snacks out of my back pocket and found that the dipped Mojo bars I'd packed had melted all over the bag. Every time I stuck my fingers in to get a tasty morsel, they came out covered in that yogurt/white chocolate stuff. Gross. That was when eating started getting difficult.

When I rolled in to the B&B after the 3rd loop it was about 1:30 in the afternoon and it was boiling. I sat on the ground and put my feet up for a couple of minutes, groaning and trying to choke down an almond butter sandwich. The guy in the green Clif jersey was spraying his head with the hose to cool off, and Mdot guy was lying on the ground moaning while his crew stuck a camera in his face and offered him a cigarette. It was hot and all, but he was really hamming it up for the cameras. We hadn't even quite hit 100 miles yet, for goodness' sake! One rider said that his thermometer was measuring 92* in the sun (the whole course was in the sun), and we postulated that the heat and humidity was what was making our feet swollen, and thus sore. I knocked back as much water as I could, but figured that if it was going to be like this all day long, then I'd better cut my rest times short because I wasn't going to be riding like lightning.

Lap 3: 95.14 mi, 1:43:51, 18.3 mph

Lap 4 (5:00:16 saddle hours)

I had 3 bottles of Accelerade, but after about 30 minutes, they were so warm, it was revolting to try to swallow them. The heat was bearable on most of the course because there was a bit of a breeze, but whenever I got to a hill and slow down, the wind in my face would stop, and I would be stuck climbing in this still, hot, stagnant, saturated air. Every time I hit a hill I would get woozy. I started dreading my watch beeping every 10 minutes, because that meant I was going to have to eat. Eating sounded like a truly disgusting proposition. In the last 5 miles before the far checkpoint I started taking mouthfulls of Accelerade from my aero bottle and spitting them out the side of the bike to try to empty it out for some fresh, cool liquids rather than waste time undoing the velcro strap that I would need to undo to dump it out. Swallowing this gunk was not an option. So much for stopping every loop and a half. Now I was stopping at each aid station just to pour water on my head and put cool water into my bottles.

I hit 100 miles in roughly 5:17 of saddle time, and later hit 112 miles in about 5:56:30. Now that I'd broken the magical 6-hour mark, I didn't much care about speed anymore. I started sitting up high to try to relieve the pressure on my neck and shoulders. The headwind was picking up on the back half of the course, but I didn't give a flying fuck. It felt nice to sit up into the wind with my hands on my elbow pads and have it blow some of the sweat off my face. The idea of riding another 75 miles right now sounded pretty awful, but what sounded even worse was the idea of running a marathon. I thought about maybe just DNSing my ironman. I was hot and nauseous, but I was having a blast. I LOVE riding my bike, ESPECIALLY when I don't have to run afterwards.

Coming back towards Schuylerville there is a stretch of a few miles where you can see the riders ahead of you coming back out from the aid station. I saw 1 woman, then another, then a pack of about 4 of them. I didn't remember seeing so many women at the starting line. Where did they come from? How did they get ahead of me? Could I catch them? They were several miles ahead of me... Right now I just needed to relieve my feet for a few minutes and drink all the water I possibly could. My accelerade had gotten warm again, and I let myself get good and dehydrated, while still drinking enough to make my stomach mad at me. Those protein/carbohydrate drinks curdle in the sun, you know.

When I got back into the B&B checkpoint I lay on the ground in the shade for a little while before I went back to the business of drenching myself and trying to coax my stomach into taking more food. John, Race Director Extraordinaire encouraged all of us to take the Enduralyte pills on the food table, and I took his advice. Anything to get my foot to stop cramping and offset all this sweating. I'm a pretty lousy pill taker, though, and the pills got caught in my tonsils and made me gag. Now I REALLY felt like I was going to vomit.

"Hey John," I said. "I'm almost afraid to ask, but how many other women are doing the 12-hour?"
"I believe there's one more young lady, and I think she might be about half an hour ahead of you," he said. Those other ladies must have been on the MS ride.
That skinny bitch?! I thought. I'd been seeing her coming in as I was leaving the checkpoint for the past couple of loops. "Well, when she comes in next time, encourage her to take a nap for me!" I said.
John went and checked the standings. "No, she's about half an hour behind you," he corrected himself.
That was enough to get me off the grass and back on my bike for the next loop. As I left Schuylerville, I saw her coming back in. If she didn't stop for as long as I did, she could start to close the gap.

Lap 4: 126.85 mi, 1:49:51, 17.3 mph

Lap 5 (6:50:08 saddle hours)

Okay, now I was really starting to feel ill. I complained out loud every time I had to eat and did my best to dump as much liquid down my throat as I could before it got warm. The air temperature just seemed to be warming up as the afternoon wore down. I knew that if I could just keep riding at a half-decent speed the course record was mine, but I wasn't sure if I was going to have to go off and puke into a corn field before I got there. This loop was the hardest physically that I did all day. I just kept checking my watch and dividing the distance into smaller and smaller chunks. I only had to do 1 more lap after this one to break the record. I could stop at each check point for liquids, which meant that I could stop at least 4 more times, and then I could let myself quit if I wanted to. Then I started dividing each leg of the loop into half-legs, and then dividing those legs into the flat parts and the hilly parts.

Coming back into town I saw Mdot guy's pace car yet again. I came up behind him on a hill and passed him on the way up. I didn't expect him to stay back for long, but Mdot guy never passed me again for the rest of the day. I hope his camera crew got him being passed by a girl on their little video. Too bad Mdot guy did the 24 hour division, so I don't have the official win on him.

Lap 5: 158.57 mi, 1:46:42, 17.8 mph

Lap 6 (8:36:51 saddle hours)

I tried to keep my break in the tent short, but I still sat around for a good 10 minutes trying to cool off and rally for another loop. I still had over 2 hours left, and I knew I had the record in the bag, so it was getting harder and harder to convince myself to push. I loosened my shoes, despite the chance of losing power from looser shoes. The focus was mostly on just keeping moving. I'd been bouncing bugs off my face all day long, but when a gnat flew right down my throat, I seriously thought it was going to make me puke. I chugged half a bottle of water and dug some crystalized ginger out of my bento box, and still had to do several minutes of deep breathing before I felt like I got my gag reflex under control.

At the far checkpoint there was a cyclist writhing around on the ground trying to stretch out his lower back, and a new volunteer had replaced Kathy at the table. The sun had finally gotten to Kathy too, and she'd had to go someplace cool for awhile, so her father was manning the aid station. "How are you feeling?" he asked.
"Terrible!" I said. "I'm nauseous, I'm sleepy, my head hurts, and my feet have been aching all day! Luckily I'll be done in an hour and a half, and I'll never have to get on my bike again for as long as I live."

Riding back, I was still about 10 miles short of the record when suddenly I felt like I was going to cry. I don't know why, it just got hard to breathe around the lump in my throat and my eyes started to well up. Chill the fuck out, Claire. I told myself. Just cowboy the fuck up! So I did. I rolled past 186.5 miles and shifted my mindset to getting as much distance between me and that record as possible. I set my sights on 200 miles.

I got into the B&B at a little past 7:15 and hopped off my bike to run to the bathroom and refill my bottles for the last time. I'd thought of popping a squat in a corn field, but the corn stalks looked pretty dense, and I kept picturing some awful children attacking me Children of the Corn style. I went into the bathroom, and just as I was walking up to the door an elderly B&B customer came at the bathroom from the other direction. We had a stare down. He looked me up and down and decided he'd rather go in ahead of me than behind me, and scooted in front of me. I lost about two and a half minutes waiting for him to come back out. I needed those 2.5 minutes on my bike!

Lap 6: 190.31 mi, 1:52:37, 16.9 mph

Lap 7 (10:29:28 saddle hours)

There was a new volunteer checking us in (girlfriend of another rider) and out and she asked me if I wanted to just wait here for the last half hour, or if I wanted to go back out. I said I'd go back out, although I might not make it more than 5 or 6 miles at this point. "Look at you!" she said. "You look so young, and healthy. You look so strong! You don't look tired at all."
"So nice of you to lie!" I said as I slowly coaxed my leg back over my bike.
"You should see yourself right now!" she said. "You look great!"
"I just saw myself in a mirror," I said. "I looked frightening!" But her enthusiasm was just enough to get me pushing again, and I rolled out of there pushing the pace as hard as I could.
"You could get the course record!" she called after me.
"I thought I already had it?!" I yelled over my shoulder. Shit, now I really had to push it. On the way out I passed Mdot guy coming in. I waved and gave him a half-smile. He actually smiled back (or maybe it was a grimace).

As I rode the first mile a wave of nausea hit me that was stronger than when the bug had flown down my throat. I took a couple of deep breaths, grabbed some ginger out of my bento box, and chomped it down. I was prepared to puke all over myself if need be. I tried to think about something else, until it finally passed.

I had just crested the hill when John, Race Director Extraordinaire pulled up beside me in his van. "I'm just going to ride behind you until it's time," he said. "I'll beep when it's time to stop."
"Okay," I breathed, and started booking it. I passed the 6 mile mark, and shortly thereafter he beeped. I stopped where I was, just went from about 23 mph to nothing and got off my bike. I walked my bike back to the car, and handed it to John.
"You broke the course record!" he said, and hugged me.
"I know!" I said. I thought for sure I'd cry at this point, but now I didn't feel like it.
"What was that last mile marker?" he asked. "6? I actually stopped you a minute early because there was no way you were going to get to the next mile. We round up to the next mile anyway. That means you got... 199 miles!" My garmin only registered 196.5, but I wasn't going to argue. Then we went back and picked up Emily, the skinny bitch, who was not a bitch at all, and was only a few miles behind me.

Lap 7: 196.57, 21:12, 17.7 mph

Total: 196.57 miles (or 199), 10:50:40 saddle hours (12 hours total), average speed 18.1 mph, roughly 3,000' elevation gain/drop.

Afterwards, John, Race Director Extraordianaire took Emily and me back to the B&B where we dropped off our bikes, and then (this is where he was REALLY amazing), he took us back to his house to shower and change. The whole affair was just so casual, and at the same time, John's dedication to the riders was really amazing. He handed me a trophy so big that I could bludgeon someone with it and invited me back to his house in the morning for a pancake breakfast and Long Suffering Kathy's world-famous quiche.

It doesn't show up that well, but at the bottom I put a quarter for scale.

As I drove back to Saratoga Springs I passed a cyclist going out for another loop. It was totally dark now, still humid as hell, and there were no streetlights. After dark all the cyclists were required to wear reflective vests, tail lights, and headlights that could be seen from 500' away. I felt like such a scrap only riding the 12 hours. I felt like I could have at least hit 350 if I could keep going. I wanted to honk and yell something encouraging as I passed, but I figured that would probably scare the shit out of him, so I just drove on.

Back in Saratoga Springs I ate all the pizza I could fit in my mouth and then went back to the house bone tired. "Oh, man, we were just about to play some music," said one of the housemates. I thought he meant on a CD player, not that the band was going to be practicing.
"Don't worry about it," I said. "I'm exhausted, and I have ear plugs."
So the band started practicing at 1:00 and played till 3:00. I did not sleep. I got an hour or two of sleep before people started yelling outside my door. It was the kind of yelling of drunk people trying to work their way through a problem. I covered my head with a pillow, but still didn't get back to sleep until after 5:00. It turned out to be one of those epic nights full of fights and tears and emergency rooms, and more fights, and more drama, and the end of friendships, but I didn't know that yet, and you don't care about all that. Anyway, I was glad that I didn't drink anymore and didn't have days like THAT anymore. The point is, when I got back to Schuylerville, there might have been riders that had gotten more sleep than I did.

As we ate breakfast I listened to the 24-hour riders recount their experiences from the night: like the redneck kids that hid in the dark with a hose, blasting riders every time they went by, the cold spot at the bottom of the hill, and how the headwind next to the river just got stronger and stronger overnight. All our lungs were bothering us, and someone looked up the ozone levels for the day before and found out that they'd been at a dangerous level (between orange and red, not quite to purple). The winner (a guy who'd done RAAM this year) had crammed in 450 miles in the 24 hours, with another rider right on his heels! In the 12-hour division I came in second overall, with Emily in third overall. We both broke the women's course record (both masters and regular), and I felt bad that Emily didn't get the recognition that she deserved. I had only edged her out by 12 miles.

I couldn't stop thinking all weekend about how great this ultracycling thing was. I've always wanted to do RAAM someday, and Shane has gotten me looking into it more seriously for a nearer "someday" than I might do on my own, but I really didn't expect to like it THIS much! It's a sport made for a Claire: lots and lots of cycling for as long as you can, with no packs and no running afterwards. I wasn't even that sore by the 12th hour, and I could have kept going for much longer. The things that gave out first were my feet, my stomach, my back, and my mind. My legs could have kept going forever. I've got some non-cycling plans for this winter, but you can DEFINITELY expect to see me doing more of this ultracycling stuff in the future.