2010 Wilderness 101 Race Report

2010 Wilderness 101 Race Report

“The hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

On Saturday July 31^st 2010 I rode and completed a 101 mile ultra mountain bike race in central Pennsylvania with my buddies Dan and Tom.  It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done – Mostly because I didn’t train well enough and largely because I’m still a mountain bike novice.

As I lay on the ground, in the soft Pennsylvania grass, I was unable to move.  I was too exhausted, too overall body fatigued to celebrate accomplishing a goal that was two years in the making.  For 11 hours and 46 minutes I had ridden, fought, dragged and willed my Motebecane 29er through the woods.  Now I lay crumpled.  My broken rib made breathing hard and blood seeped from multiple contusions mixing with and coagulating the rich dirt I was covered with.   Good God, what a suffer-fest.

Seeds of suffer

In 2008 when I ran the Vermont 50 miler I passed many of the back of the pack bikers that we shared the course with.  That’s where I got reacquainted with Dan and Tom who by coincidence were riding that day.  They were college buddies.  Dan had been an usher in my wedding some 25 years ago.  What independent turns of fate had brought all of us to this mountain?  All of us had become passionate endurance athletes on our own trajectories, all of us were still moving forward, and all of us were still nuts.

That day in Vermont, while waiting for me to finish, my wife said to Dan.  “If you get him into mountain biking I’ll kill you.”  I remember running down those steep tight switchbacks on the mountain and wondering how the heck anyone could ride a bicycle through them when there was barely enough room for my shoulders to fit through.   Even though Dan was not the vehicle of my corruption I still found my way to mountain biking in 2009.

So in the spring of 2009 I decided I would learn how to mountain bike and do a race.  I figured the goal race should be something challenging.  I had already run 50 miles so 101 miles seemed appropriate.

To be perfectly honest I figured it was going to be a breeze and I was essentially taking the summer off for a lark.  I reasoned that when I dabbled in triathlons I was excellent on the bike.  In fact, I thought biking was easy.  Mountain biking was simply riding the bike in the woods, right?

The Kona and the folly

After the Boston Marathon in 2009 I bought a used mountain bike off of Craigslist for $300 and began my journey.   I quickly discovered the there was more than peddle power involved.  There was coordination and max-heart rate.  There was shear, handlebar gripping terror and painful inelastic collisions with inanimate objects.

There was also much futzing over the mechanical machine.  Things always needed to be replaced and tightened and lubed and most usually bought.  Owning and maintaining a mountain bike is a constant and ceaseless stream of parts and maintenance activities each with its own secret terms.  The enthusiasts are a monastic order of mechanics that all walk with limps.

To guide me through all of this learning curve was Anthony.  Anthony taught me the basics of mountain bike riding and kept my bike functioning.  Most importantly Anthony encouraged me and told me I was doing great.  He lied to me.  I was not doing great, but I was getting better.

I learned a great deal from the bike in the woods.  I learned to look ahead and anticipate, how to choose a line and stick with it, how not to focus on the stream, but instead to focus on the bridge, how to peddle through the lung searing max heart rate of a steep hill and relax on the cartoon fast descents.   Most of all I learned how not to be afraid.  If you are afraid, you will crash.  Once you commit to a line, you focus on the execution of that line and all thoughts of failure are banished until you are through the obstacle or you are lying on the ground bleeding with your broken bike.  That’s a life lesson.

In 2009 on this wispy fragment of learning and training I went with Dan, Eddie and Tom down to the Wilderness to ride my race.  I rode the first 40 miles of the course and broke my bike.  I had ridden the old-style brakes on my used Kona so hard on the down hills that I had split a rim and it could not be fixed; no one had parts for a bike that old.

Physically I felt ok at the 40 mile mark and thought I was doing well.  I was disappointed and pledged to return.  The first 40 miles taught me some lessons.  The first was that I was going to need a ‘real’ bike.  Second was that I should train less technical and more long hills and cadence.  The part of the course I had ridden was a series of long uphill dirt roads and fire roads with steep downhill, not the rocky, rooted up-and-down technical single path I had been training on.

Once more into the breach…

Fast forward a year – 4 more marathons under my belt and my endurance engine is in good form for another summer of mountain biking.

After the Boston Marathon I worked on procuring a new bike.  I decided on a 29 inch Phantom Pro by Motobecane.  Anthony helped me put it together.

Due to heavy travel requirements I didn’t get as many rides in as I would have liked.  With less than 3 weeks to the race I had an awkward slow speed crash that skewered my rib cage and something was bruised or broken.  I could still train but I couldn’t do any core work.  This would prove to be unfortunate.

Race week arrived and with the fickle nature of fate I didn’t taper well.  I tried to cram too much riding into the last 2 weeks.  I had a business trip to the west coast scheduled and with delays I didn’t get back into Boston until after 1:00 AM Thursday night/Friday morning.

With 4 hours of sleep in 48 hours I was bundled into Dan’s truck on our way for the 10 hour drive through summer construction season down to PA.  My plan was to nap, but I was too excited, I wasn’t tired.  What could be better than to be off on an adventure with a couple buddies?

Woodstock in Coburn

Our destination was Coburn Pennsylvania.  Coburn is off the map in central PA – the heart of horse-and-buggy Amish country.  Dense green forests climb the sides of regular mountains separated by corn and soybean fields.

The Wilderness 101 is a loop course that starts and ends in Coburn, traverses 2 state parks, several mountains, and a couple of unused train tunnels.   We and a couple hundred other bikers set up a tent city in the park for the weekend.

Dan, Tom and I set up our tents, eat some pizza and go for a test ride as the sun sets over Coburn.  We climb the first hill and I don’t feel too peppy after 3 days in planes and cars sans sleep.

I finally crawl into my tent in the dusk and sleep.  Friday night is the best sleep I’ve had in weeks.  It makes no difference that I’m sleeping on the ground with just the sleeping bag between me and the cold Pennsylvania grass or that some of the bikers revel late into the night.  I’m out.  Sleeping like a dead man and letting the stress of months drain into the earth.

I didn’t believe Dan.  But everything he told me was true.

First he told me that the first 40 miles of the race are easy.  It doesn’t get hard until after 60 miles.  Second he told me not to get caught short on fluids on the course. There are some long sections that can surprise you and you don’t want to be without fuel and fluids.  Third he told me that cold Coca Cola tastes really good when you’re late in the race and have nothing left.

Into the Wilderness

We rolled out of Coburn at 7:00 AM Saturday morning in a parade start down the road to base of the first climb.  I had a strategy to move aggressively to the back of the pack, maintain my own pace and stay out of the way.  No heroics today.  With my lack of respectful training and novice ability I was just looking to survive.

Even though it was the last day of July, it was a chilly, clear 55 degrees.  It was perfect dry and cool weather for the race.  The first 40 miles I had seen before.  Into the 20 mile aid station was two longish but manageable dirt road climbs with corresponding steep down hills with a short section of single track.  There was nothing too difficult or taxing, but I managed to crash anyhow.

On that brief single path section I got waylaid.  First I stopped to lend my pump to a guy who had a flat.  Then I stopped to give my patch kit to another guy.  Then as I was trying to get back into rhythm, letting someone pass I mishandled a rooty section and crashed into a tree.  I got a nice contusion on my chin, crunched my junk and in general pissed myself off at being such a klutz so early in the race.  I also tried to get lost twice and was luckily called back onto the course by the riders behind me.  In general I felt like crap, but it was a long race so I ignored my pains and foibles and peddled on.

(By the way both those jokers who I leant help to would pass me later in the race as I was suffering.)

With the cool temps and lack of any real effort I cruised through the first aid station without much fluid and fuel consumption.  I was riding with my Norhtface hydration back pack and one racked bottle.  I had a good 2 dozen Endurolytes, a Hammer Gel flask and a handful of Power Bars.  I filled the backpack with water and the bottle with Gatorade or whatever they had on the course.

One advantage I have is my engine.  I’ve gone long before.  I know how to burn fuel efficiently while I’m moving forward.  I can burn just about anything without problem and when push comes to shove I’ve got plenty of body fat for fuel.  My engine is built to grind.  It may sputter, but it doesn’t stop.

From the mile 20 aid station to the mile 40 aid station are 3 more long climbs on dirt road and fire road.  This whole section of the course is long climbs followed by long descents.  Long is a just under a mile or more, gaining 1,000 – 2,000 feet.  Nothing too bad but just constant low gear grinding and cadence.  In this section the climbs are a little bigger and the down hills are too.  The descents are scary fast.  They are on rutted fire roads.

To paint the picture and put you in it imagine the following.  You climb continuously at a 4-6 % grade for 45 minutes or so at 2 MPH.  You crest the hill, unlock your forks, and turn into a 6-foot wide fire road trail with occasional rocks and water breaks across it.  You descend the fire road trail at 30 – 40 mph.  Your triceps, back and quads scream from the high speed washboard punishment as you look forward down the tree tunnel hoping there are no tight turns ahead and holding on for dear life.

And that was the easy part.

I came into the 40 mile aid station about 20 minutes slower than the previous year, 3:20-ish, but feeling ok.  Not having ridden the second half of the course I foolishly started projecting my pace and thinking that 11 hours was certainly doable, maybe even 10? Who knew?

I got the mechanics to clean and grease my chain.  I got a fresh bottle, but in a critical mistake did not fill my backpack bladder.  I had been drinking so little with the cool weather that I forward projected that consumption rate.  I said out loud that now I was in undiscovered country and now the real adventure began.

And begin it did.

Out of the 40 mile aid station there are two climbs and two descents.  Not the hardest climbs, but the longest climbs of the race.  I found myself climbing for over an hour.  Then the down hills were no longer fires roads; they were precipitous, tight single path with obstacles.  I remembered Anthony telling me to use the down hills for “active recovery” and smiled with a gallows humor.

There was no place to relax on these down hills.  My lack of core training was becoming apparent.  I was being buffeted and beaten, muscling the Moto down these descents.  I’m a fit guy.  I‘m a strong guy.  But fighting my body weight, crouched behind my saddle, my whole body was screaming with muscle fatigue.

You can’t sit in the seat. You’ll crash.  You have to get your weight back behind the seat and ride in a tense crouch with your weight balanced on your quads and calves, your upper body steering and braking when appropriate.  It is very much like holding a plank pose for 30 minutes while someone jumps up and down on your back.

Then I ran out of water.  Somewhere mid-way through the second long hill my backpack ran dry.  It was starting to get hot.  I had to tough it out until the 60 mile aid station.  The long climb made the going slow.  The sun was up now and it was getting warmer.  I just kept peddling.  Without the water I couldn’t take any fuel.

That second climb was a fire road that got so steep I finally had to dismount and hike-a-bike on some sections.  It just kept coming.  It was unrelenting.  There were some people at the top of that hill and I asked them where I was.  They said “somewhere around 50 miles”.  There was another long, tight dangerous downhill and I started losing track of where I was and what was what.  My upper body had moved beyond the painful part of fatigue into a numb semi-operability that I dragged down the trail like a punch drunk prize fighter.

I kept my head down and focused on making it to the next aid station.  I kept peddling.

At points people would pass me and try to talk to me.  This happened a lot throughout the race.  It wasn’t that I was going too slowly, I was keeping up.  I was passed by the riders who had mechanical problems early and were coming back.  I was so focused on moving forward that I didn’t talk well.  I couldn’t converse.  And they would always try to start a conversation in that secret MTB code like “Are you driving a 36 on that?”  and I’d just say “I dunno.” And keep peddling.

By the time I dragged into the mile 60 aid station I had gone over an hour without water and fuel.  I was dehydrated and my low battery light was flashing.  But, I’ve done this ultra thing before so I know that you can recover from a nutrition hole in a long race.  I ate gels and drank as much as I could stomach.  It was getting hot.  I was losing track of time but it was 6-7 hours into the race.  I was beat up and tired, but I was going to keep peddling.

I was looking for Endurolytes because I thought I had lost mine on one of the rattling down hills.  Turns out I just put them in a different pocket.  I was just too funky to figure it out at this point.  I kept my fuel in my back pack and had to reach around while I was riding to dig them out by feel.  This turned into quite the circus trick at times with the fatigue and challenging course.  The bite valve was sticking on my hydration pack at one point. I had it in my mouth and got surprised by a difficult downhill.  I had to fight the hill with my mouth filling with water!

That long hill section had depleted all my energy and now I had to recover, right?  Wrong.  Turning out of the aid station was the hardest climb on the course.  A long, technical, single-path.  I looked at it and crumbled.  On another day, when I was fresh, maybe I could ride this.  But today beaten and depleted it was hike-a-bike time.

And so I hit the low of lows as I dragged my bike up that awful hill. If there was a way for me to quit right then I would have done it.  If somehow a sag van had materialized in the trees with an open door I would have climbed in.  I was done.  I was done with 40 miles left to go.  My progress now was under 2 MPH and doing the math I wondered if I’d make the cutoff or even beat sun set.  I hadn’t packed a light in my newbie hubris.  I kept thinking, “This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done…”

I kept walking, dragging and peddling.

Finally I got to the top of that hill and was treated to the scariest downhill I have ever seen.  It was tight, rocky and as steep as a cliff face.  It didn’t matter if I had good brakes this year because on this loose, cliff-face, slope brakes were irrelevant.

I take back everything I ever said about biking being easy.

Exhausted with a full body fatigue that went way beyond the operating parameters of my body I fought those F#$%^ing down hills.  I fought shale chunks the size of fat pizza boxes strewn haphazardly about a skinny bench trail with a sharp drop off. I crashed.  I got up and fought some more.  I crashed.  It didn’t matter.

I kept going because I had reached that point in the ultra race where you forget why you’re doing what you are doing.  You move forward like a shark swims because on some unconscious level it is the only imperative left.  You no longer think.  You no longer feel exhaustion or pain.  You just go.  You just move.  Your universe telescopes down to the act of one step, one peddle stroke, one rock, one log and so on.  You transcend.  You move.  There is no reason for it.  There is only the movement.

At this rate I had no idea if I would finish, but there was no other way than forward.  If the rest of the course was this hard, (or, Gasp! harder…), I would be finishing well into darkness.  That 20 miles from 60 – 80 took me as long as the first 40 miles of the race.  At this rate, again projecting forward, things didn’t look good.

I rolled into the mile 79 aid station beat up and hurting but I had managed to get my hydration back.  I was actually starting to feel better, energy-wise.  The 79 mile aid station is under a highway over pass.  There were riders there who had given up and sat on the ground sullen and silent waiting for their rides.  I heard I guy say “I can’t keep anything down…I have to stop…”

I had the mechanics clean and grease my chain. I did something I had never done before.  I drank Coke. Real, sugar and caffeine filled honest to goodness Coca Cola with ice in it.  It was so good.  So I had another and another.

I croaked to the mechanic apprehensively, “What’s the next part of the course like?”  He replied that it was mostly rutted fire road.  I went to remount and my leg wouldn’t go over the seat.  My brain was telling it to swing up and over, but it wasn’t getting there.  I awkwardly mounted and rolled out.  As I entered the next climb I thought to myself that “Sketchy Downhill and the Rutted Fire Roads” would be a good name for a rock band.  I let out a long and satisfying Coke fueled belch and feel strangely human again.

The next 15 miles were nice ridgeline single path and beautiful swooping valley trails.  I would have very much enjoyed this section if I hadn’t been so thoroughly traumatized by the previous sections.  I got into the flow and peddled along.  I tried to avoid technical sections because I just didn’t have the strength to ride them properly and didn’t want to crash anymore.  The Motobecane had been flawless so far and I figured I would stay in the saddle and not give it any excuses to break through my heroics.

The course was not done with me.  The hard stuff was passed but it still had some insults left.  The next insulting section was a long downhill of ‘baby heads’.  Baby heads are grapefruit size rocks that stick up from the ground and beat the crap out of you when you have to ride them.  There was a long downhill covered with baby heads.  At this point your legs are too weak to hold a crouch so you’re basically defenseless.

You are forced to sit in the saddle.  After being in the saddle for 9 hours of hard riding your back side is hamburger already.  Each high speed baby head is like a sledge hammer blow to the raw and cowering flesh that used to be your bottom.  But you take it because you have to and there is less than 20 miles to go.  At this point pain is not an issue.  Pain and exhaustion are there but they are not present.  Or maybe you are not present.  It is like you are standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and pain is outside in the front yard looking at you.

The mile 89 aid station comes up and now I know I’m going to make it.  Someone takes my picture. There is plenty of sunshine left and only 12 miles to go.  They are very cheerful at mile 89.  They’ve been out there all day.  There are still riders with me.  Some are bailing out on the race here with bikes or bodies too broken to continue.

This is where the tandem bike passes me.  The husband and wife team passed me early last year, but this year she is only 4 months out of childbirth and they aren’t going as fast.  They don’t pause at the aid station.  They are still in a race.

I don’t feel too bad.  Beaten, bloodied and exhausted, but I can smell the finish line and that is always a source of hidden energy stores.  The aid station guy tells me there are 12 miles left, one hill, a mile of single path and 9 miles of easy riding.  Sounds good.

Like I said the hard part of the race is over.  Now there are only insults.  One final insult is a ¾ mile climb at the 95 mile mark.  At any other point on any other day it would be an easy climb, but here it is just unnecessary punishment as my legs seek to find something like a rhythm to grind it out.

I catch the tandem on the hill and chat with them a bit.  The husband is in good spirits and chatty.  It turns out she is nursing the newborn while racing today.  Grandma is bringing the baby to aid stations so she can nurse.  Amazing.  That baby is going to be weaned on some serious endurance endorphins.

Next I am passed by a woman.  She is fresh and clean and singing to herself like it is a Sunday stroll.  Where the hell has she been all day?  I am fixating on finishing.  On the act of finishing.  I am visualizing myself riding across the finish line falling over and laying in that soft green grass.  Just laying there.  That’s all I want in the world right now is that soft green grass 10 feet beyond the finish line.

The hill is getting to me.  I play mind tricks to keep moving.  I tell myself that this is just any afternoon ride and I’ve just started.  I got home from work early and jumped on the bike.  I have gotten plenty of rest and am full of energy on this ride.  I put myself on THAT ride and leave this one.

After the hill is conquered it is easy riding on an abandoned rail trail.  Easy, flat, crank, peddle, crank, peddle, move.   The sun is going down and it’s cool again.  I’ve been out for over 11 hours.

The course has a few interesting features left to share with me.  First is an abandoned train tunnel.  Coming down the rail trail dirt road into the darkness of the tunnel you are instantly blind.  There are two of these tunnels and I know one of them is pretty rough inside.  This one, the first turns out to be paved but I stop and walk it to be safe.  The tandem passes me again for good.

Then there are a couple of skinny plank bridges where the railings are only just wider than your handle bars.  I have to chase some picnicking families from these as it would be physically impossible for me to stop at this point.

There is one short extremely technical rocky section along the river at 97 miles called “Fisherman’s walk” and that’s what most people do.  I did.  And that Motobecane felt like it weighed 250 pounds as I dragged it down that trail.

Then another skinny bridge.  There was a excited posse of day-tripping teenagers screaming at me.  “You’re almost there!  Just through this tunnel and you’re almost there! Keep going!”  Yup.  That was my plan.  Thanks for your support.

Into the last tunnel and darkness again.  This was the one with the rocks in it.  Did they say stay right? I can see the rocks glowing white in the gloom as the late afternoon sun slants in from the other end of the tunnel.  I ride part of it but don’t have the will or the momentum to stay with it.  Once out of the tunnel I remount and it’s nothing but dirt road now to the finish line.

Fishermen in waders nod to me as I crank down the dirt road.  I think, “You know, I bet fishing is a good sport, those guys look happy, I think I should consider fishing…”

Crank, peddle, crank, movement, spinning, I’m on the road now into the village of Coburn and I see the turn into the park.  I am filled with a grand joyfulness and stand up in the saddle to sprint out the last 100 yards.  I cruise through the finish line with my fist in the air and a grim smile to cheers of the lawn chair spectators who are well into their post race beer.

The clock reads 11 hours and 46 minutes.  I can stop peddling.  101 miles – the longest race distance of my life and the hardest event I’ve ever experienced.  I can stop peddling.

I let my momentum carry me past the finish line; fall over into that sweet green grass and collapse.  Some people ask me if I’m ok.  The race director says “Hey, you have to bang the gong or it doesn’t count.” Funny guy.  It hurts to lay down so I drag myself back up, remount my bike, ride to the finish table and kick the gong over with my foot.

I collect my finisher’s beer glass and stagger off to find Dan and Tom.  They are at the tents.  I ask Dan why he didn’t come to see me finish. He says, with the frankness of old friends, that he really didn’t think I was going to finish.  The two of them had the same suffer-fest I did, just two hours less of it.  We all get cleaned up and limp off to dinner.

Postscript

I kept thinking the whole time I was out there what I could do differently.  What could I have done to not merely survive, but to race this race.  I feel like I disrespected the course.  I feel like I cheated and did not train honestly.

Frankly I thought it would be easier than it was.  Now I see that to race this race would require the same intensity of training as a qualifying marathon.  More miles, more quality.  More respect.  The other two things I would do differently would be first to train my upper body and core like a prize fighter.  Because once I lost my core to fatigue I was unable to ride properly.  I was like a big jellyfish hanging on to the bike for dear life and not riding.   Second I would learn how to ride my bike.  Those guys ride those sketchy cliff-face down hills and they ride them well.  There is no reason I shouldn’t be able to learn how to do the same.

Am I going back next year?  Too soon to say.  Even if my mountain bike racing career were to end here it would be a success.  I met my goals and I had my  grand adventure. I learned all about another sport and I continue to learn the miracle of the human body and what you can make it do.

Give it a try.  Just keep peddling – and I’ll see you out there.

Chris,