Miles of DisComfort Marathon

Comfort, TX 01/24/2009 Well I have completed my first marathon of any kind, and if I had to sum it up with one word, it would be "brutal". The race took place at Flat Rock Ranch, which is one of my favorite places to ride. Flat Rock Ranch is smack dab in the middle of the Texas hill country, which includes some climbs up hills that contain beautiful views, and some wicked technical downhills. There are two sections of the ranch, a lower and an upper, each having to be ridden twice for a total of 52 miles.

One of the events leading up to the race for me was breaking the frame on my only mountain bike during a pre-ride of the course the week prior to the race. At first I thought that my race was over, but luckily one of my friends, Jim T., loaned me his back up bike, a Cannondale Prophet, for the race.

The Prophet is an all mountain bike so it has more travel in the suspension. Theoretically, this should make the bike better at downhill, and it should make me lose power climbing. I didn't notice any difference while climbing, but I sure had a lot of confidence bombing the downhills.

One downgrade on the Prophet was the mechanical disk breaks. My Mongoose Canaan has hydraulic disk breaks, which give me full skid stopping power with just a light squeeze of one finger. I needed all my fingers on the break levers to get enough power on the breaks to slow enough to make the corners on some of the downhill sections. Twice during the race I forgot I needed the extra power, and found myself squeezing the breaks with one finger which sent me off the trail, and into the woods. I will never take my hydraulic brakes for granted again.

In the spirit of Texas winter, the Friday before the race had temperatures reaching up into the 80s. Therefore, on Saturday of the race it was a balmy 36 degrees with high winds. Luckily for me, I brought all of my warm cycling cloths. I learned long ago that the weather here can swing 40 to 50 degrees in a few hours.

I didn't ride very hard since I wasn't sure how much energy to expend for a marathon. There were a lot of riders around on the first lower loop, but the upper loop is mainly climbing so the group really strung out during that part of the race. I have ridden both this lower and upper section before during training rides, but I was getting tired towards the end of the first upper loop.

With half of the race complete, I stopped and ate half of a ham sandwich that I had stashed in the pit area, and refilled my Hammer Gel flasks. I regret two things during this pit stop. I wish I had taken more time to take in more calories, and I wish I had applied more Belgium Butter.

As I climbed out of the pit area to start my second loop, I already knew I was in trouble. I was fading fast as my legs burned like the sun, and I could not muster any power. Normally, I ride using mainly my big and middle ring in the front, but I found that I needed the little ring more often as I got closer to the upper loop.

By the time I finished the second lower loop, I had decided that I was not going to finish the race. I mean, nobody would think less of me if I didn't finish a marathon, right?

As I was eating the rest of my sandwich in the pit area, one of the other racers that had been around me most of the race yelled to me something like: "Put down that sandwich and finish this thing". Then another guy that had just finished the whole race told me: "You might as well just do the upper loop. It will only take like a hour or so".

An hour or so!!! Most of all I didn't want to disappoint myself, so I reapplied some Belgium Butter, and off I went to complete the upper loop. I'm not sure how much time I spent walking my bike up some of the more steeper hills, but I finished the race with a time of 6:22:52. It was brutal, but I can still live with myself.