Hello!!! We are in France currently, and so I told Janae I would write a blog post for while we are gone about my experience with my race a few weekends ago:
True Grit is a mountain bike race based in Santa Clara, Utah. Several different types of races are going on, such as a relay, a 100-mile mountain bike race, a 50-mile mountain bike race, and a gravel bike race. If you are up to it, you can do more than one! I decided to race this particular race because it was something that would challenge me and it would give me a goal to train for over the winter. Also, I’m sure I’m going through a mid-life crisis, and I wanted to be able to spend money on more bike stuff and have a reason to be even more obsessed about bikes.
Just so you all know, the distances in this race are relative. The 50-miler ended up being 44 miles, with around 6,000 feet of climbing. They justified the shorter distance because of the technical features and riding throughout the race.
Pre-race jitters got the best of me the night before. I was nervous. I have never done a mountain bike race, and I had several friends who were going to do it as well. I decided that I was going to do primarily liquid nutrition. I have a friend who is a pharmacist who sent me a recipe for nutrition that would give me 75g of carbohydrates that also included sodium citrate for salt replacement, and I added a few things that I like in my drop bag: snickers, sour licorice, a couple of guys, and some coca-cola. Drop bags were around mile 13.7/19.6 and mile 36.5/41.
Doesn’t everyone do a race with their wife’s ex-husband? Brooke loved having everyone together.
I am not a morning person, so the fact that this race started at 9:30 AM was the ABSOLUTE best! They started this race in waves. The very first wave was the 100-miler racers. About a half hour later, the pro field started the 50-miler, and shortly after that were the age groupers, which included me. The first mile and a half was on the road and gravel roads, allowing the crowds to thin out a bit before we got to the trails.
The first 10 miles were incredible! I have never heard racers talk and joke around as much as we were all riding. I knew it was going to be a very long day, I was anticipating around 5-6 hours on the bike so I was cautiously optimistic. One thing that I did that was pretty reckless was that I didn’t have any tools just in case of a mechanical problem or flat tire. I saw SO many people who had flats and problems with their bikes; I just had really good luck. Next time, I will be more prepared.
At this point, I was 13.7 miles in. This course is pretty technical, meaning it’s not just smooth trails. The trails had plenty of chunk rocks, boulders, and plenty of areas to crash. I saw at least 20 crashes, and at one point, I found a small puddle of blood. There were a handful of areas where I got off my bike and walked up or down. At this point of the race, I was at a Zen trail. Zen was one of the most technical parts of the rid; it is 5.8 miles long and about 978 feet climb. This route took me over an hour to complete; I saw most crashes on this part of the race. When I was about to finish this portion of the race, I saw a rider who had fallen, and when I stopped to see if he needed any help, I couldn’t unclip my shoes fast enough and tipped over and hit my dropper post (my seat post that goes up and down with a press of a button). After that crash, my dropper post did not work unless I pulled really hard up on it; it was not the end of the world, but it was a little annoying.
The bike race was on a closed course, so opportunities to see the kids and Janae were slim, but when I did, it meant the world!! I was about 20 miles into the race, and with the most technical parts of the trail over, I was ready to start pedaling and get into a groove. Billy and I decided that we were going to ride most of the course together until someone wasn’t able to keep up. We had been together the whole time at this point.
I had only ridden parts of the course, so at 20 miles in, my legs were feeling it. Nutritionally, I felt like everything was working pretty well, and I was forcing myself to drink a bottle an hour, which had 80g of carbs in it.
Things started to get a little interesting around 28 miles into the race. There was a headwind, and the next 10 miles were very up-and-down. At this point, there was quite a bit of distance between riders. Billy had told me to go ahead, so I was by myself at this point quite a bit. I felt pretty good; my legs were getting heavy, but I was in good spirits. Around mile 31, I had to step over a barrier, and my left leg fully locked up and started cramping – MAN, that did not feel good. I got off the bike, stretched, and forced a lot of liquid in, and I knew I had to make it to the next aid station.
I got to mile 37, and the aid station and the aid station had pickle juice. I was so stoked!! I downed about two shots of pickle juice, had some non-bubbly Coca-Cola, downed a Snickers bar, and stretched some more. Billy arrived at that point and I could tell we were both hurting pretty good. We had climbed over 5,000 feet, and we were almost 40 miles in! I waited for him to get settled, and we started off again. The next part of the race was trail called Barrell Roll, it had some technical climbing in it, but it wasn’t near as bad as Zen. I was hurting, so I was pedaling, and I thought Billy was behind me until I looked back and I was alone again. I kept pushing because I knew if I stopped, it would be REALLY hard to get started again.
A funny part that happened at the last feed station was that a 100-miler lapped Billy and me. We just looked at each other and laughed. He was SO fast, and I could not believe how fast he was riding.
Janae and these kiddos are all stars!! They were out before the race and outside all day, cheering for 8 hours!! I remember how excited I was to see them at the finish!
The last mile of the race was on the pavement, which felt so nice!! Over six hours on a mountain bike was very exhausting, my shoulders and upper body were so tired. I didn’t expect that at all; I just thought my legs were the ones that were going to hurt. Strength training, here we come for next year!
I felt so accomplished finishing this race. It took me much longer than I thought it would, but I was stoked to be able to finish and push myself. I enjoyed it, and there are so many things that I would do differently for next year!!
I was welcomed into a whole other world of racing, and I’m stoked to jump into this head first and keep going!
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Which race should I sign up for next?
Which area should we come out and visit for me to bike?
Most difficult race you have ever done?
Mid-life crisis? You too?
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