News Updates And Latest Blog Entries

Sunday, June 7, 2009

24 Hours of Big Bear Approaches


Saturday is the 24 Hours of Big Bear. I've done Big Bear twice in the West Virginia Mountain Bike Series. It's a fast paced thirteen mile race with quite a bit of technical riding and a several big kahuna scary fast sections. I know how tired am after one single 13 mile lap. You only road less than an hour and a half and you feel so beat. When I get on my bike a couple days later my legs are so tired you feel like you can't make em go. This Saturday myself and my team of four will be doing about four of these 13 mile races (laps) in a 24 hour period. We'll each take our turn at a lap pass the baton to the next team mate take about a four hour break until it's our turn again. We'll start Saturday at noon, race through the night and probably through the rain and the last guy will finish their lap some time after noon on Sunday.

I don't know how I'm going to hold out. I'll just have to see. It's going to be exhausting but I don't plan on holding back much. My first lap out I'll maybe not mash on uber steep sections to try avoid burning out my legs for the entire race but that's it. Every other way I'm pushing it. We'll see how I hold up on lap 2 and lap 3. My strategy for pacing myself is to not really pace my self. I'll know by lap 3 how this works out. If I don't push it that first lap I'll never really know how hard I can go.

Other than that, my strategy is to keep myself fed. This year the one thing I've learned is that if you keep yourself fueled it's amazing how long and hard you can push yourself. So what's on the menu. Potato soup, bread and bananas. All carbs, low fat, minimal protein. Fat and protein take you liver hours to process into energy. Eat as soon as you cross the line so you can fueled up for the next lap, hopefully my teamies will help me out with that. Other than that we'll just have fun.

Still trying to figure out communication logistics. If a teamie has a major mechanical we're allowed to send a rescuer out to them or cancel their lap and send out another rider. It's hard to do that if we have no means to communicate. Cell communication will likely be spotty in the West Virginia sticks and no one has two way radios, especially not ones with a range of five miles that will work in peaks and valleys.

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Latest From Local Mtb Sites and Blogs