24 Hours of Syllamo

(took me a few weeks to get this one posted - was waiting for pics but realized we didn't take any!!)

We knew it was pretty early in the season for such an event, but Karen and I headed down to Syllamo for the 24-hours of Syllamo race a couple of weeks ago.
My goal given this early season race was to simply stay healthy and ride it out as long as I felt comfortable doing so. Comfortable being a relative term of course because how could 24-hours on a bike seat be anything remotely close to ‘comfortable’!!!

Karen and I took off work on Friday to drive down to Arkansas and get our camp setup for the race. The weather was awesome on Friday and remained so all weekend long. We stopped in Rolla for what seemed like 2 hours to hit Wal-mart, Walgreens, and eventually Arbys for some grub. I think the Rolla visit alone cost $100!! Did we really need all that food?!?! – no, as usual we came home with most of it. But anyway, we eventually made it into AR and to the park where race HQ was. It was beautiful down there. Definitely rugged with plenty of opportunities to get some climbing in!

Race HQ was empty. We weren’t exactly sure where the race activities and our gear were supposed to go. But we did see the camp of Team Trailmonster/Segal so we threw our tent up next to theirs to claim a good spot. After scoping out the rest of the park we headed to the nearest watering-hole and had dinner to take in a good pre-race fatten-ing!

Even though we setup the tent, it was just a precaution. Our plan was to sleep in the back of the Yukon on a queen-size inflatable mattress. I had already tested this out at home prior to our trip and it worked perfectly!! And it worked as planned. We both got a great nights sleep!

The race started at high-noon on Saturday with a pretty small field: 5 solo men, 2 solo women (Karen and Wendy Davis), and about 3-4 teams. We were kind of hoping the race would get canceled but we’re glad it didn’t. As all races at Syllamo go, the gun went off and we headed for the infamous 1.1 mile climb up the gravel road. Yes, we’d have to do this on each lap! Half way up the hill on the first lap I went by Bob Jenkins as he was pulling over to fix his flat. Then almost to the top of the hill, I heard that dreaded sound myself – yep, I had a puncture in my rear tire. I got the stans sealant to seal up the puncture for about a mile then it blew open again. I decided to just throw a tube in it and got back on my way.

Each lap turned out to be 11 miles long. There was a 4-mile section where you literally ride the whole section without hitting your brakes more than a couple of times. Awesome!!!! Then the last 2 miles were a downhill delight!

Karen had an immediate battle going with Wendy Davis. The two single-speeding Chiquita’s were passing each other from lap-to-lap settling into their 24-hour paces. I too quickly settled into my 24-hour pace not caring about the random team racers blowing by me for their 60 minutes of racing in-between hours of resting.

With the exception of the flat on lap one, laps one and two went by pretty quickly. Lap 3 was going smoothly as well until.. yep, another flat! This time it was a torn sidewall that also tore the new tube I just threw in. With no boot on me, I used a zip lock baggy and hoped it would get me through the remaining downill section of the loop. Fortunately, I made it back to race hq and had a spare tire to put on and started more loops.

Just before 9pm after it had just gotten totally dark, I hit my head on a tree hanging over the trail that I missed on all previous laps. It hurt like hell, but I kept going. At the end of that lap I had a headache the size of Texas ! About 10pm Karen happened to be in the TA at the same time as me and she gave me a Tylenol – w/caffeine. W/o really thinking about it I also did a 5-hour energy. Note: how many times have you heard don’t try new things during a race?!?! From 11pm to 1am I was lit up like a Christmas tree! My legs were steam engines that no hill would deny! I was on fire from all that caffeine! Then 2am hit and I fell from that high real quickly! I was sick to my stomach and shaking. I tried to eat but that wasn’t working either. I knew I had to lie down a bit so I crawled into the tent – mistake! 5+ hours later I woke up!! It was daylight. Crap!! I felt better, but I slept through half the race. Not sure what I was expecting?!

So, I jumped back on the bike and knocked out two more laps before stopping about 11am. That gave me 16 hours of racing. Not too bad for April! I wound up 2nd place in the solo mens category.

Karen and Wendy were the race within the race – aside from the teams battling it out too. Those two were trading laps back and forth while each of them took their breaks. Karen battled some stomach issues too at one point but got back on the bike to keep going. Karen wound up winning 1st with 11 laps and Wendy did 10 laps.

What a great way to spend a weekend in April!

Results are now posted: http://www.syllamo.org/24hours/2010Results.pdf