Spring Epic 8 Hour Mountain Bike Race - The Report

So the first 8 hour race of the season was held this last Saturday at Mansfield, promoted by Chico Racing.  It was a hot sunny day, and the trail was especially dry and exceptionally sandy (deep, thick, energy sucking, soul leaching kinda sandy).  The laps were 10km long, with three significant climbs (which became more significant with each lap), and a couple of fast, very rutted descents (of course this is where crowds of spectators gathered in hopes of seeing crashes).

Included in the list of competitors was our gang of friends Fig, NewfieSteve, Martin, and me to have a friendly competition amongst ourselves.  And my hot chick Heidi manning (womanning, personning, humanning???) our pit.

My goal was to do better than last year, with a stretch goal of 14 laps (which I had calculated would have put me in contention).  At the end of the day I ended up with 12 laps (same as last year but I completed them faster this year), so I met my goal, but was not near my stretch goal.  So, somewhat disappointing.  However, I was very happy to finally have a race without a significant mechanical problem to ruin things!!  Can only blame my own fitness and ability.

Fig managed 13 laps (almost 14!), so another goal for me for the next 8 hour race will be to beat him!  Steve managed 11 laps, Martin had to pack it in after 7 laps due to a couple of crashes (yes, one was in front of the crowd) that caused pain, nothing major (...I hope...haven’t seen him since).

So what do I need to do to improve?  Need to get in more road riding to build on the endurance.  Tough decision to stick to when the weather is as great as it has been, and the trails are mint!! 

Also need to get my weight down.  To help control my diet I have started to use an Ipad App called My Fitness Pal. There are many apps that track diet, but this is the most popular. What is great about it is the bar code scanner. Just scan it with the camera and it enters in all the data. Takes just seconds to enter in a meal. You can also track it online. Livestrong has a great app as well, but no scanner.

Next race is the 24 Hours of Summer Solstice on the weekend of June 23^rd.  In the meantime more training required!  I will keep you posted!!