Joe at the Fairhill 50!

Last Sunday was my second endurance race ever, my first was a duo race at 9 Hours of Cranky Monkey. Last Sunday however was my longest consecutive amount of time on the bike and longest race I have ever done. Yes I have ridden 50 miles before but I wasn’t racing the clock and it wasn’t on all single track. I was nervous and excited to be doing my first true endurance race, I had no idea how well I was going to hold last, how long its was going to take me, and how much it was going to hurt. So me and Zach loaded up the truck and hit the road at the crack of dawn heading towards Elkton, MD for the race. We go there about an hour before the race started and rushed a bit to get ready, but luckily with an endurance race a warm up isn’t really needed. So with less than 10 minutes to spare before start I was riding back to the truck to grab a couple last minute things to get ready and POP my chain snaps in half, shit! I recruited some help to help me fix my chain as I finished getting ready and with 2 minutes to spare I pulled up to the start line with my fingers crossed that nothing else was going to happen today. So 8 am sharp the race was off and being at the back of the pack the started was relaxed which is how I wanted to start off my long day anyway. About 2 miles into the race in the prolog section POP goes the chain again, double shit! So my nerves were about shot already and the day really had not even began yet. So I fixed the chain with the chain tool and got back on the bike praying that there would be no more incidents for the day, but now I was super paranoid. While fixing my chain the entire field more or less passed me and that was just awesome….time to do a little catch up without killing myself. I started to ride halfway hard trying to gain some time back but without killing myself and I was able to catch a good bit of riders. I had a plan for the race and I had mounted my GPS to my handlebars so that I could watch my distance, average speed, time, etc, but I could never get my average speed up to were I wanted during the first lap (27 miles). So after completing the first lap with no more mechanicals I pulled up to the finish line to re-stock supplies and my GPS was reading about 20 miles, so crap that wasn’t reading properly and now I know its not going to reflect my information accurately. So second lap was underway (23 miles) and I was definitely feeling it. I started to find a rhythm and not push to hard but I was getting a little sloppy, whipped out twice pretty early in the second lap in a couple turns, which I always enjoy…not. As the lap went on I really had to start reserving my energy and enter survival mode so that I could finish. I started to take advantage of the aid stations getting water and some food, I didn’t gauge my supplies as well as I should have for an endurance race. So after 5 hours and 31 minutes I finished the race a babbling idiot but with a sense of accomplishment. I was glad I did the race, probably would do one again, but there were several times during the race I did have one of those “What the hell am I doing moments”. I really am enjoying this bike racing thing for some silly reason, a lot of people I talk to say I’m crazy, but to each his own. Until next time…