If Misery Truly Loves Company, Syllamos Revenge Aid Stations Were Mardi Gras

Syllamos 125k. I'll make it short: No flats or mechanicals but I did run out of water twice so I suffered from dehydration and fell into the pit of despair - the life sucking machine was thrown to 50.

Out of 156 registered, only 57 finished. Somehow Steph and I managed to be among the 57. I heard only 137 out of 300 50mile racers finished. It was brutal: the aid stations looked like a MASH tent in a warzone by the end.

In races like these where you come to the same aid stations multiple times, the middle of the 100mile race gets mixed in with the back of the 50 mile race. I got to witness the transformation of the aid workers from cheery and motivating to beat down and impatient. Granted, I would not sit outside in the heat for eight hours to manage a sale of knick knacks in my front yard so I really don't even know where these generous people with positive attitudes come from; maybe they bus them in from local churches? If ever I am roped into working one, It would not be long before I took a box of cookies and hid from the wretches behind a shade tree and wait for it all to end. Maybe that is why the put the aids in the middle of absolute nowhere... not for the benefit of the racers, but to keep the volunteers from wandering off!
At the very least, It was an eye-opening reminder that the volunteer aid worker is not who we should be confiding in during our darkest moments on an endurance race course. Even a seasoned bar tender could not carry the burden of 300 successive cries of despair without it taking a toll.

Here is my wife: I do not know how or from where she maintains such a positive attitude. I came across the line in tears. She came across it all smiles. Even though I had about 30 minutes to recover while waiting for her to finish, I still wanted to say “what do you have to be so happy about?”

We could all use a little Stephanie positivity in our lives.

Cohutta 100 - First Nue Of The Year

Cohutta 100; first  100 miler of the season. I really didn’t know what to expect seeing as this is the first time I’ve race Cohutta and only my second 100 miler. I have been riding well in the pre-season and was hopeful for a sub-10 hour finish, though the goal was arbitrary at best.

I still have trouble pacing and thought it would be wise to start out with Brenda Simril to help meter my initial effort. Looking back, that thought process sounds more like the punch line to a joke because when the gun fired I think Brenda was the bullet. She, along with most of the front field, shot across the line like we were in a BMX race. She charged up the climb, standing, slinging her bars side to side in a blur.  I quickly saw 187 bpm which is a little higher than I like to be 3 minutes into a 100 mile race so I had to do the responsible thing and say goodbye to my silly plan of hanging with B at the start, dropped 5 gears, and settled in.

First 15 miles were mostly singletrack and an uneventful train of cyclists. Even though I went into the woods a good 30 places behind the Simrils, I still felt like I was getting pulled along faster than I like, with a HR of 175-180. Shooting out of West Fork midway down Chestnut Mountain begins the endless, featureless slab of fire road that would continue, mostly uninterrupted, for a good 80 miles with 14,000 ft of climbing. We always speak to the altitude gain, and it was especially appropriate here. It did not ever feel that we were descending.  It was more like we climbed, stopped pedaling, then started to climb again. I would not call any of the downhill descending, I would call it “not pedaling.”

An interesting observation on the beginning of the race was that so many of us raced as hard as was reasonable during those first 15 miles just so we could get to the fire roads and start surviving. As they say, the race would not start until the fire roads, but it no longer felt like a race once we got there. For an hour we jockeyed for position and fought for every scrap of trail in the paceline but, once the fire road started, it became a time trial.

To add to the agony that comes built-in to a race like this, I bought the double dose self-torture pack by installing fresh brake pads the night before and failing to install the retaining pin. The pads decided to stay in the bike for about 50 miles and popped out on the way down Potato. I descended Pinhoti-2 without rear brake pads which actually wasn’t too bad. I decided to stop in at Mulberry Gap Cabins to see if any of the patrons might have an extra set. They did not, but I got to work on my door to door salesman skills:

“Good afternoon. I’d like to talk to you about an exciting opportunity concerning your Avid brake pads and my bike.”

“Uh…”

“This is a limited time offer. I have no money but can I interest you in some used gu packets or this attractive seat bag?”

“Uh… “

“Is this Missus home?”

If you want to know what this course is like, I can tell you to go ride up any deserted dirt road with some trees and Cohutta will be no different, only more of it. There is some new singletrack that was added in but we had to give up some to get it so I’d say it’s about a wash in terms of the FR/ST ratio. Pinhoti-2 is a great trail but, when the looming darkness of climbing back up Potato lies ahead, all I could think about was how it wasn’t worth the trip.

I made it back up Potato and down Pinhoti-0 running front brake only, praying that my mostly reliable elixir front brake would not choose today to be sometimes unreliable.

It all worked out and I was able to make it back to Aid 6, about 75 miles in… where Sam from Cycle South had a set of brake pads. “Praise Be…” I said. Sam was great but you know how guys and tools are: As soon as they start working, 3 more have to wonder over and see what’s going on:

“hmm.. what’s the problem…?”

“Installing  brake pads”

“hmm… yep… “

“hmm… think it might be a frozen piston?”

“Did you check the fluid levels?”

“His brake pads might not be bad… coulda got lube on it.”

“He doesn’t have any brake pads”

“How’d that happen?...”

I had to walk away to keep from seriously embarrassing myself. This is a race people! Not a guy working on an el camino in his front yard! Leave him the hell alone so he can get me back on the trail!

Last 29 miles (4 miles long… those bastards) went by pretty uneventful except that I felt like a rock star descending with both brakes.

All in all a good race. I didn’t catch or see Brenda but there’s always next time.