xc ruined my life: 10 Hours of 12 Hours... Dawn 'til Dusk 2011

(Photo by Brian Leddy of Mountain Flyer magazine... thanks!)

Edit Wednesday 04.13: Mountain Flyer posted an article about the race on their site, including a quote from and a photo of yours truly. Sweet! Also, race organizers posted revised results, and I actually ended up in 3rd (not 5th) overall, still first in my category. Even sweeter! Link to the MF article: http://www.mountainflyermagazine.com/view.php/dawn-til-dusk-rages-on-despite-bad-weather.html

FAIR WARNING: This is a long, long race report. I got carried away (sorry).

This past weekend I drove down to Gallup, NM, for the 7^th annual Dawn ‘til Dusk 12-hour race with my girlfriend Sandhya and our friend Alex Howard. Having never spent much time in Gallup – certainly never any time riding there – I didn’t know what to expect. Adding to the mix was a very unpredictable weekend of weather. Sure enough, driving to Gallup on Friday afternoon provided its own challenge, as the wind was blowing hard enough to blow mini-sand dunes across 491 through the reservation, send hundreds of tumbleweeds blowing across the road all at once, limit visibility to 100 feet or so at times, and cut our gas mileage by a third. By the time we got to the race venue I was on edge just from the drive down – drivers on the res uniformly scare the hell out of me, but especially in sketchy driving situations, where they appear to have even less interest in staying alive than normal.

Anyhow, by race morning the wind had died down and Saturday dawned bright and calm. At the pre-start riders meeting they warned us that weather was on the way, however… fifteen minutes later we were lined up on a dirt road, waiting for the gun. The whole race course is singletrack, so for the first lap they had us ride road to the far point of the trail system, thereby sorting out a mixed bag of some 550 riders. I arrived at the line in time to find myself looking at the front of the pack through 100-200 riders or so, and not sure what to expect in the 12 hours to come. Having not pre-ridden the course, I was racing blind for the first lap. I knew from Doug’s race last year that the leaders were doing 10 laps on this 13.6-mile course, and that’s what I was shooting for. But I didn’t really know how fast that would feel out there, how hard the start would be, and whether I could effectively pace myself in a race situation. Although I’ve done a lot of long rides, I’ve never actually raced anything longer than a typical XC race… the pack began to move, and it was time to jump into a trial by fire.

Lap 1: Start lap. For the first couple miles the dirt road was smooth and well-used, and then they diverted us onto a less-used road. By this time I had moved up into the top 30 or so, but even this began to get sketchy, as there were ruts in this road, and riders began getting caught in them by surprise. After witnessing a few almost-crashes that would have taken down the pack, I figured I’d rather be on my own than in the middle of the potential carnage and jumped out of line into the rough on the side of the road. I burned some matches moving to the front of the main pack and found myself bridging up to the lead group – just in time! As we hit the singletrack, I was in 7^th overall. By the time we came through the Start/Finish area, I’d gained 6^th overall. Felt good, kept motoring.

Lap 2: Man, was it ever nice out there. The trail was dry and fast, fun and flowy, just enough technical difficulty to keep it somewhat interesting and to keep the road racers at bay. The sun was out, it was warming up, and I was having so much fun that I just couldn’t help but smile. Got passed by one or two team guys but didn’t much care – after all, I had eleven hours yet to go! Came in, realized that my first full lap time was an hour flat, resolved to slow down…

Lap 3: …But just couldn’t, as the trail was so much fun it begged to be ridden fast. Riding it slowly would have made it pretty boring. Came in a couple minutes slower anyway, and then stopped to have a Kate’s Real Food Griz Bar. I followed that up with a handful of M&Ms, which is sort of like drinking a really nice Bristol beer and then chugging a can of PBR (nasty!), but the M&Ms were in my race goody bag and I can’t resist chocolate. I then decided it was nice enough out to change into my cowboy shirt, complete with mother-of-pearl buttons, glittery embroidery, and a sick collar. Too much Lycra around – this race needed some levity! As I was changing I noticed one of my direct solo competitors coming through, eating as he rode into lap 4. What a novel idea, I thought… eating and riding at once, I’ll have to try that.

Lap 4: Freshly ensconced in my cowboy shirt, I rode off into the New Mexico… sunrise? Cranking up steep sections, railing corners, trying to be super-polite and encouraging when passing other riders, especially obvious newbies, I was just having a great time. I saw a few crashes on the more-techy sections, and after making sure everyone involved was okay I motered on. On, that is, until the turn-around point, where I turned back to the southwest and ran smack into the brick wall that was the suddenly-freshening wind. I pushed through it for the next 35 minutes, realizing that if it kept up, my laps were going to get much slower. It began to get colder, and in the distance I saw curtains of rain headed our way.

Lap 5: Headed out on this lap still channeling Roy Rogers, but already looking forward to a little lunch. In retrospect I should have eaten at the end of lap 4! The ride out to the turn-around was alternately ridiculously fast, annoying as hell, and impossible depending on which direction the wind was buffeting one from. The way back in was, simply, where I cracked. The wind was gale-force by this time – gusts to over 45mph. I became really hungry, my legs began cramping, and the wind literally knocked me to the ground twice. After cursing New Mexico out loud a couple times, I limped into the pit area and proceeded to sit there for 25 minutes. I ate the following in one sitting: 1 piece pizza, 1 huge PB&J, 1 Griz Bar, the remaining M&Ms, some pita chips and hummus, some trail mix, and probably some other stuff I can’t remember. By the time I was ready to go again it had begun raining a very cold rain, the wind was whipping around harder than ever, and the temps had dropped at least 15 degrees. I ruefully changed out of my cowboy shirt and into my ever-present black polypro, topped it with a jacket, soaked my drivetrain in Squirt lube (that stuff is killer, by the way), and headed back out.

Lap 6: After the first third of this lap was spent feeling horrid (maybe the M&Ms, maybe just all that food), a miraculous thing happened. My legs came back and so did my spirits. It began snowing – yes, actually snowing – between bouts of rain and the ride became just awesome because of it. I hate wind – if you know me, you know I hate wind more than anything – but I dealt with it, even when it knocked me over a couple more times. I just couldn’t help but remember all those sweet rides I used to do back in the Springs with Doug, Jon, and the crew… often we were out in less-than-ideal weather, but it was always fun. This race had suddenly become an epic ride, 13-mile easy singletrack loop notwithstanding. Somewhere in this lap or the one previous I came up on a rider who was just giving us all a bad name… ringing this ridiculous little bell 50 feet back in a gale-force wind when he wanted to pass someone, then getting aggro when they obviously couldn’t hear it and passing without warning, literally crashing two folks and scaring many others. Every time he’d pass someone he’d drop me a little, as I wasn’t willing to hurt anyone for a spot, but I’d wait politely and then bridge up to him again. After making sure he knew I thought he was being ridiculous and that he should just stay on a road bike if he was going to be a tool, I decided I didn’t want anyone to associate me with him any longer and I dropped off into the wind, losing my draft but feeling better for it. Come on people, be nice!

Lap 7: In the groove now, my legs just settled into the knowledge that they hurt. Okay, that’s fine, now we’ll just pedal… the trail was getting greasy out there. The outbound side is mostly clay and while it wasn’t yet peanut butter, it was literally slick as snot and quite difficult to corner in at speed. The inbound side is more sandy, and it was dialed with the moisture, so much fun! Back to camp, stop and eat, look for the Springs’ infamous Dan “Hyena” Durland, head out to catch him.

Lap 8: Even the wind didn’t matter any more. The trail was dryer already as the rain had stopped, but midway it began again and the slickness reappeared. Two soloists were on my tail as we left the staging area; I made sure they were on my lap and then kicked in a little extra to keep them behind me. As I crested the climb above the start/finish, I thought I heard, carried on the wind, a garbled announcement: “…acers… weather… nasty… alling the race!” I couldn’t be sure, but the idea was planted that they might be calling the race. That was unfortunate if true, because the weather wasn’t really making the trails too bad, and my lap times were consistent enough that I was pretty sure I’d get my 10 laps in. I decided to just keep my steady pace going and get the full story once I returned to the pits. A few miles from the finish, however, my friend Dylan Stucki, racing duo and flying along, passed me and told me that they had officially called the race. Any laps completed after 5pm wouldn’t count, making this effectively a 10-hour race. At that point I picked up the pace a bit, but it was a little too late, as I was almost back. Coming through the line, I had 45 minutes to complete another lap, and I had been turning consistent lap times of around 1:12. Not possible. Disappointed that I wouldn’t get to try for ten laps, I sat on the Subaru’s bumper, ate some food, looked at the snow coming down, and decided it was okay. I would have gone out again, and I felt good, but there wasn’t much I could do about it! It was fun regardless.

I ended up riding almost 110 miles, winning my category (Solo Male 0-30), and finishing 5^th overall soloist. Better than I was expecting, and I even beat the Hyena, who had dropped after seven laps. We hung around in the big tent as the snow fell, watched everyone else get silly drunk, had a sweet robo-trash dance party in the snow with some guys from Fruita, then crashed in our tent, waking in the morning to a white desert. The sun came out and began melting the snow, so we packed up in a hurry and hightailed it out of there, only to find a two-wheel drive van towing a trailer stuck on the steep dirt (mud) road out of the venue. After some pushing and directing and getting the van out of the picture, we rallied the Subie through the mud, drifting and spinning, getting on the highway with no problems. Back to Durango: Bike cleaning, unpacking, bicycle polo practice. Big polo tourney is only a week away!

Thanks for reading. I know this was a book, I got carried away. Thanks to Sandhya and Lauren for the food, Alex and the above for the company, the other Joey (Parent) for racing in a cow suit, Kate’s Real Food for incredible bars, and the DtD crew for putting on a sweet race. A few random photos that Sandhya took are below! -Joey

Beautiful sunrise, race morning.