Burn 24

The Lemans start

My happy suport crew chief
Jubal gets to race
Jubal, just before his race, runs across the finish line with daddy
Jubal wins

They are out there In the middle of the night the local bike club hosts, "Alien Invasion". The set up a bunch of these aliens, with green lights and glow sticks. It can be a little startling in your middle of the night ride. Later that morning, they were cleaning up and left the aliens in a pile. I could not resist tying one to my back and riding back to camp with him flapping behind me. It was great to hear laughter and cheers rippling through tent city as I rode through!!!



Having fun

The Janes Team Car
Thanks to Liberty for the tent
Ready
Waiting
Blast off

I went into this race fairly complacent. I set a goal for myself because I knew that I should at least accomplish something. The goal was two-fold. 1. don't bonk. 2. ride 100 miles. I accomplished both.

1. don't bonk:

I'm not sure what I did that was right, but I did a lot of stuff that seemed wrong. Like eating two pieces of pepperoni pizza and a Wendy's JR Bacon Cheeseburger at 7:30pm. I had completed 6 laps at this point and went out for 3 more by 11pm when I was so tired and sleepy that I decided to go to bed. With the course at 7.5 miles in length, I figured I could still reach the 100 mile mark in the morning.

2:30AM: Rhonda, Jubal and and I are sleeping soundly in our tent. We are in the middle of tent city, right by the start line, just before the course narrows down. We are 100 yards from the transition area where team racers hand off the baton to team members. We are 100 yards from the huge lights that are generator powered and give off enough light to make it look like the sun. Yet, we sleep soundly then. Then suddenly, the Trek/VW racing team mechanic fires up a generator 30 feet from our tent. The thing had been running earlier in the afternoon. Generators are fine and all but the the saying for motorcycles:" Loud pipes save lives", does not go with generators. And no one had informed this guy. That generator was obnoxiously loud. Louder than loud. It sounded like the muffler had rusted off. Even the huge generator powering the four giant football stadium lights was quieter!!

Knowing that I was not going to be able to sleep, and wanting Rhonda, to be able to sleep some more, I got out of the tent, walked over to the dude and said" Hey man, how long are you going to let that thing run?". To which he replied" About 20 minutes, I need to make some coffee, why?" Why? Are you serious? At 2:30am ? Why? I said," Well, because there are people around here trying to sleep". He said" Sir, this is a 24 solo, I need it, and I am allowed to have it". What? That's fine, you are allowed to have it, but are you allowed to be so rude and inconsiderate to every fellow human being in a 500 yard radius? I had so many things I wanted to say, but I just said "OK", and walked away.

I was, by that time, not going to sleep, so I started getting ready for a night lap. The lap was not great, but it was good that I was able to get another lap in, before sleeping again for a couple of hours.

5:30am: Jubal sits straight up in the tent, throws back his sleeping bag, says" Daddy where's Pooh", and starts trying to unzip the tent. I coaxed him back into his sleeping bag, after which to my relief, he fell back to sleep. After asking him about it later, he said that he just wanted to make sure everyone was still out there!!

2.ride 100 miles:

6:30 am: getting ready to go out for some more riding, I ask Rhonda and Jubal to make a biscuit run. I bum some coffee from the Vassago guys ( not the Trek guy, the respectful Vassago guys were able to get their coffee without anyone in a 1 mile radius even knowing what they were doing!!). Back on the bike for a ride with the rising sun. At 7:30am I am feeling good and realize that this is the time of day that I usually ride. The temp is cool and my body likes it. Back to tent city, eat half a sausage biscuit, drink coffee, ride. Another lap, another half of a biscuit, ride. Another biscuit some Burn energy drink, ride. I'm feeling good, and still able to power up the hills.

One lap to go and I'll meet both of my goals. The I make a mistake. I had a sample of some Clif Shot Bloks, they are a candy like energy supplement. Jubal had been asking all morning for a taste, so I decided to try them too, and let him have a taste. I ate the serving and took off. Suddenly I realized that I had never used these on a ride before. Big mistake. I still felt fine, but 15 minutes into the lap, I didn't felt sluggish. Half way through the lap, I eat a GU. 5 minutes later, I get some energy. I feel a little bit funny from the Clif Bloks, but I am able to finish strong.

15 laps, 112.5 miles!!!! I placed 26th out of 55 riders, rode 1 more lap than last year.

I'm not going to say never again, but I will say that these are not my favorite format. I'd rather do a cross country 100 miler any day.

Have a great day.