 |
| Race Day, Out on the course! |
Woke up saturday morning at 3am had my regular race morning breakfast, pre-made all my nutrition the night before, loaded everything up in the car headed with Pat from Breckenridge to Leadville. I was feeling good all morning and confident, we arrived in Leadville and Pat dropped me off at the hostel, I hung out for a bit and headed down to the start area. I haven't raced the LT100 since 2011 where I crashed out, I have finished it twice in 2002 & 2010 so I have my buckle, but not having a recent finish time, I was in the very last corral the white one. I went down to town from the hostel and set myself up in the corral, I always start on the right side and stay on the inside of the group, this way if something goes wrong I have an easy out to the side, plus being on the left side keeps you on the inside of all the first turns. I had a bunch of riders around me but didn't talk to anyone, it was 36 deg out, cold and I just wanted to get going, the start of the race is the worst part for me, I actually hate it, standing around in the cold and then riding 6 miles down to the valley shivering the whole time, but you don't want to overdress as you will soon warm up, its better to start cold. Finally I hear the countdown and shotgun goes off, it took me 2 minuets to cross the timing pad but thats expected with 2000+ riders. We head down, then up Harrison, then down to the valley, other than a gauntlet in the road, it all went well. I'm shivering the whole way down just waiting to get to St Keven's and start climbing and get warm, I find myself at the base and feeling pretty good but in the lower part of the climb its real crowded riders getting off bikes and walking in the trail are getting on my nerves, this is where my race ended in 2011 when someone knocked me off the side of the trail. I'm making my way thru the walkers, but notice discomfort in both my knee and butt cheek, the pain in my cheek keeps getting worse, once again my saddle is not right, totally my own fault! I keep riding and make my way to the top, happy to have ridden the whole climb without having to dismount. Start the descent down the backside I'm standing most of the way so I don't feel the same discomforts. At the bottom on the paved road the crowds break up and there's more room to ride, back to climbing and now the pain in my butt cheek is really starting to get to me, I find myself standing up to get relief, before I know it I'm at the top of Powerline, without stopping, this is good. Descending down Powerline I am again standing for most of it, feeling good and nailing the line down without a single incident. At the base we are again on pavement, I now jump on to a group of 6 riders who are fast just like in 2010 we are riding 15-18 mph into the wind. Approx 2:40 I find myself at Pipeline, I don't ever stop at this aid station since its only another hour or so to Twin Lakes. Continue down the Pipeline and my both knee and butt cheek are really hurting now, again I stand every so often, still feeling confident on a great ride as I have yet to stop riding for any reason, thru both horse shoes, down little stinker and up the back side to the single track, down and I find myself 1 climb away from Twin Lakes. I arrive at Twin Lakes at about 3:45 the right side of my body is hurting, I stop swap out camelbak's and head up Columbine happy that I have kept moving forward without stop other than nutrition. My goal on Columbine is to ride all the way to the A-Frame which is a triangular steel frame right at Tree Line, this is where the climb gets steep and is mostly hike a bike, I meet my goal and ride there I get off and start hiking the steep rocky part of Columbine. the walking relieves my right side a bit, once I continue hiking portions that I should be riding, having walkers in front of me and riders coming down the the other side of the trail makes riding difficult, at the very top I find room to ride and I remount the bike and pedal my way the last mile to Columbine turnaround, my body hurts but ignore it, at the turnaround I don't stop, just keep moving forward. Now the winds are really starting to pick up, its getting really cold and before I know it there is rain and hail so I hurry to get off the mountain, but I am already wet & cold, I can't ever think of a time where I have been colder, I fly down Columbine with numb hands and feet, hail is sticking to my jersey, so where was my rain coat you ask, well it was in my other camelbak, my own fault!! Now I'm really starting to question why I ever came back to race in the Leadville 100, after getting my buckle in 2010 I vowed to not come back, yet here I am wet, cold and hurting, I did allot thinking on the way down Columbine. I love my Leadville friends, they are some of the best people ever, I love riding in the area, but I hate the race! I have a buckle and could really care less about getting the 1000 mile buckle, spending $2000 a year and using up 2 weeks vacation is not what I want to do for 9 more years, there are so many other awesome races in the world that I can spend my money on. This year I found myself having a difficult time getting motivated for the race, don't think I will ever feel what I did in 2010 again, that year I was very driven nothing was going to stop me from getting a buckle. Last year I raced in Europe in the Bike 4 Peaks race and again I was very driven to complete the race and worked hard for it, I worked hard this year, but I didn't have the drive to want to race Leadville and that realty came to me on the way down Columbine, what was I doing here again, this is not fun and I don't want to be here! Once I got down to Twin Lakes, that was it, I wasn't going to go on, I probably could have ridden thru the pain and cold, but I had no motivation to do it, so I turned in my timing chip and called it a day, I quit!! No excuse, just me saying this is no longer fun, I've done all I wanted to do in Leadville and no matter how deep I dig it just wasn't going to happen. Pat said she could see it in my face before I head up Columbine, she let me be when I came back down, one friend asked me sit and think about it as I did have plenty of time to make the cutoff's, I did, on the descent and it was over. I know many of my friends were cheering me on and hoping for me to finish it again and I apologize to all of you, there will be other races in awesome places that I will compete in, I just need to keep it fresh, thats where I find my drive & motivation in uncharted waters! Before writing this I looked over my Strava data and I had actually set quit a few personal records, go figure. Congrats to all of this years finishers, its quit an accomplishment!
Comments
Post a Comment