Mission Project

Cactus in Sean's foot

The Team
So with 3 good friends comprising our race team called "My Religion" we drove the 16 hours to camp at the race course outside of Tucson Arizona [The name "What I Think About During Sex" was already taken]. The members of our team are, myself, Jonas Jackel, Gavin Krusor, and Pat Vigil. All members are local bay area bike nuts, obsessed with riding our bikes. Probably worst afflicted is Gavin, who has been racing ultra endurance mountain bike races. He does races of 200-300 miles completely unsupported. He has been known wander Mt. Tamalpais all night, wandering like Caine from Kung Fu. He is our ringer.

Getting There
So after driving shifts all day and night, and some surreal sleep deprived food shopping at a super wall mart in Tucson we set up camp at about 3000 FT in the arid desert outside of Tucson. We set up a Satellite DW and a Skyledge 3 for sleeping tents and a Stronghold tent for the communal area. Our pre-race ride of the course was not propitious. Both Jonas and Gavin wrecked in the first 20 minutes; most notably Gavin demonstrated the importance of staying on the course, landing in a frighteningly large, very prickly cactus. The course is a bit technical, a bit fast and all fun. It's some of the nicest mountain bike riding I've done. So with a few scrapes and bruises we were hyped to race.

The Race
The plan was for us to do each lap in about 1 hour and 30 minutes, maybe a bit more for the first lap since it included a Lemans style 1/4 mile mass start run to your bike. At high noon at shotgun rang out and myself and 400 plus other competitors ran down a dirt road like the bulls of Pamplona toward our bikes. So completely gassed from a ¼ mile sprint, I frantically pedaled my way round the 15 mile course. I handed off the Baton to Pat at 1 hour and 11 minutes. It wasn't till I got back to our camp did I realize how wrecked I was. I look pale, a pasty white from all the salt that was caked on my face and head; white salt striations could be seen in my jersey and shorts. Perhaps my choice of black jersey and shorts were the wisest for the Arizona sun. On our second lap, Pat answered me with 1:08. Jonas, not wanting to let the team down, pounded out an equally good 1:08. Gavin followed up by producing an impressive 1:20. I remember thinking, "Good lord, you road bike this fast, you don't mountain bike at this pace. So all day and well into the evening, we pounded out lap after lap, after lap 1:15-1:30 hours in time.

Night
Maybe round midnight, Gavin wasn't feeling so well from the antibiotics he was taking for pneumonia, and asked me to take his lap, obliging Gavin, I put on my Transition jacket and headlamp and headed out into the night. I hammered the first 2/3rd of the course as I seemed to do, but then faded. All the little climbs started to seem bigger and bigger and longer. During the last half of the lap I started having a bit of an existential crisis of sorts. I mean, I know were all dying in that Sylvia Plath sort of way but in the middle of the night in that desert, as I pedaled away, it felt a little closer. On a gully 2/3rds of the way through my 3rd lap I wrecked hard in a sandy gully. My front wheel dug in and I planted hard into the sand with my right shoulder. As I remounted and shakily pedaled round the next few corners, I thanked the stars that my pinned together collar bone wasn't broken again. Climbing up the last hill before the downhill finish I recklessly blasted the down hill and handed off the baton to Pat.

My routine between laps was to eat and drink until I felt nauseous, then to stretch. Between nighttime laps, I kept warm wearing Chugach pants and Phantom Jacket, stretching and snacking inside our Stronghold tent which was perhaps 20 Degrees warmer than outside. Somewhere during the night, I remember several symptoms of being worn down from everything. I would shout things, and felt like I couldn't hear quite right. I was also forgetting the names of simple things like "helmet." I even got lost going back to camp from a trip to the porta-potties. It should be noted that the Stronghold is a very, very large bright orange tent and that the porta-potties were only 30 yards away. I started thinking, good lord we have to bike till at least noon? I mean, that's like 10 more hours. Sometime during the night as I lay stretching in the middle of the Stronghold tent when I heard blood curdling screaming. It was Jonas, just back from his lap, his legs were completely cramped up. Obviously, the other members of the team were feeling the strain as well.

End Game
So the question we asked each other, if each of us already ridden over 45 miles of single/double track as fast as we could, how much do we have left in us? We surmised we each had in us 1 lap, maybe 2 laps if by gun point. I reassessed our game plan, and thought the best for the team was to rest till dawn, no broken bones and most importantly, no DNF. I proposed sleeping till dawn then ride again as many laps as we could till noon. Above all, I wanted us to finish the race fighting on our feet. So around 2 or 3 am I check in for my lap, grabbed the baton from Gavin and headed out for my lap, which happen to include a 3 hours nap in a Satellite DW tent. At dawn I suited up for what would be my last lap. I felt great, I must have passed 30 people on that lap. Sure my time said it 4 1/2 hour lap but I knew otherwise.

What We Learned
The truth is, racing for 24 hours is really hard, and you need to come into it with a refined game plan. We learned that pacing oneself and nutritional choices are keys to late race success. Above all we learned to not try and draft the Pro who just passed you 10 MPH faster, you will only blow up during the next mile. After everything, we all realized we were completely hooked on endurance mountain biking racing. March 31st we will be racing the Bogg's mountain 8 hours race, and April 28th we will also be racing at the Hurkey Creek 24 hours of Adrenaline. So all we can do is, plan, train, and try and do our best because after everything, the race is only with ourselves.

*MHW employees are eligible for a separate company wide Mission Project promotion.
(Don't worry, you're still in the Mission Project running)

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Pat gearing up for his next lap.