The Burn 24 hour is an extreme race. The idea of tackling it in any conventional sense is pointless. You must be preparred fully on all fronts. Sadly, I made some errors somewhere that left me in a sleeping bag at 5am. More on errors in a minute, but first, the course-rootier than last year, by a ton. Areas that were mostly new and smooth last year, had worn into super cool root garden style areas. They were really fun and made for some really good lines and some really bad lines. The course saw rain last week and as such was tacky and mostly non-dusty.
Now to the errors.
Error 1: Keep using a 4 year old fork- While my Reba WC's are awesomely light, They are no longer 'small bump' compliant after so many years. The first fork on the bike started leaking air from the negative air chamber right from the start. This meant that while it would soak up big things like large logs and drop ins, it would not do much if anything for the roots. This made the steering also less than predictable at times as well when the fork would open on one object but then not the next. This fork came off the bike by lap 4 thanks to Jason and Scott-tae who between their laps swapped the fork from my hardtail over. This fork also is a Reba WC that has seen even more miles. While it held air in the air chambers fine, it is due for a rebuild of all internals and is also, sadly, not small bump compliant to a large degree. But it worked for the remainder of the 18 hours I would ride.
Error 2: Don't bring a dedicated pit crew. Our group rallied around the whole thing really well and did what they could to help, but when you come into pit at 3am and there is no one awake, and you can't find a lantern, and you are 'lights out' from the end of your lap where you rode in on another guys light tail: it is physically and mentally really hard. With aching wrists from error 1 and unsure of where my stuff had been moved to it was confusing...which leads to my mext error.
Error 3: switch from what had been working nutrition wise. Up until 11 pm I had been using nothing but Infinit and an occasional Clif block, endurolyte, and water in the pit. At 11pm, I took some extra endurolytes, ate some sun chips and a pop tarts. It was going OK. At the 3am 'Shawn is stumbling around in a lonely stupor' pit, I grabbed a sandwhich, water, and endurolytes. Also, with my wrists, elbows and upper back sore from the fork fight, I grabbed some Advil.
With everyone sleeping in or around the pit, I was coherent enough to realize if I stayed there, I would be asleep also. Leaving the pit 'quickly', I grabbed a bottle and gel for my pocket, and headed out. The bottle I grabbed was not my Infinit though, and I realized this about 2 miles into the lap when I got to a climb I was using as a 'feed point' on the course. Thinkin marginally clearly-I realized that I would need extra calories to offset my plain water bottle. In went a gel...
I am not sure if it was the advil or the sudden change in feeding or what, but by the time I came through and went out on the 4am lap, I was very, very ill. It was not the nausea and uneasiness I am used to on a 4am lap of a 24 hour race, this was real pain. Denelle had gona out on a lap somewhere behind me and found me on the side of the trail...sick. She managed to coax me along and get me headed towards the finish line. It took forever, but we got there. There was no going out again, I was gone to far. So at 5am plus....I was in the sleeping bag pile with 18 laps completed. By midnight 15 of those were done, so you can see where the slide occured.
The team did well:
Denelle took 2nd in Expert Solo women, even with a few naps taken through the night.
Mike an Scott-tae won the duo men for the third year in a row as team 'off constantly'.
Cyrus and Danny-O took 3rd in duo men. There persistance and support of each other throughout was very impressive to witness.
Hippopato-Jason managed to get in 11 laps over several surges of riding intermingled with sleeping, feeding, and generally heckling others along the way. Somehow he managed to even gain places while hanging in the pits....not sure how the math works on that one.
-Shawn
Sent on the Now Network� from my Sprint® BlackBerry
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