My first 24hr solo.

Lesson #1: takes a ton of planning to go and do a 24hr solo race. Training alone is not going to do it; of course you need to be able to pedal for that long,  but I think nutrition, hydration and bike fit have much more to do with it.

Anyway drove up to Boggs on Friday afternoon, getting there right before dark, right on time to steal a plate of pasta at Impy’s (yum, best restaurant in the camp) and then pitch the tent by my buddies, racing 24-4 men with the team “Nocturnal Emissions”….

At around 8PM it was obvious that it was going to be a hot race the next day, since temperature was still in the high 70s

Next day woke up early and started prepping all the food I would need for the race: I had no dedicated support crew, so I had to make sure everything was ready. Got some pasta, miso soup, bunch of cheese sandwiches and PBJ, plus fruit and a variety of caffeinated drinks. Race started at 11AM, so in no time I was goofing around on my bike and ready to go.

The plan was to start real slow and keep it that way for the first 6-8 hours, after that no real plan, just survive as long as I could. Being the first 24hr I had no idea how I would react after the first 8 hours.

I geared the 29er bike really low with a 32×21 to make sure to stick with my plan and also to be able to keep going when really tired.

Gearing turned out to be perfect for me and the course also was very single speed friendly. There were basically 3 steeper sections, one on fireroad 600, the second on Bear Bones trail and the 3rd one on Highpoint trail, but all pretty short.

From the very beginning it was clear that heat was going to be a big issue: pedaling was really hard and HR would go much higher than I wanted to on most climbs, so I had to back off even further, my main concern being cramps. I hadn’t planned any stop for the first 3 laps and during the 3rd lap, less than 3 hours into the race I started contemplating the idea to quit the race: I was bringing two bottles per lap and was out of water before the end of each lap: that’s how bad it was.  Started popping endurolites at 2-4 per lap but still started cramping during lap 4.

Lap 5 and 6 felt a little bit better as temperature slowly started to drop and some cooler breeze helped me breathing better. I finished 6th lap by 6:57, together with some 8hr race stragglers. Started asking myself if racing 8hr solo wouldn’t be just enough…

One third into the race I decided to tale a longer break, around 30min. Got a shower, cleaned up, ate some pasta (yum!) and fruit and then started setting up lights for the night hours.

I was out for the sunset lap, everything felt much better and I found my legs so that I could pedal several sections that I was previously walking. By the time I got at the top of Boggs peak it was dark: as I started riding down Gail trail and turned on the lights I had a huge grin on my face and I couldn’t wipe it off. During the night I took laps two at the time. My riding time was close to 1:15 so the lights would last easily two laps and at that point I was feeling pretty good.

Got lapped by the winner of women Pro category in the middle of the night: She passed me at least 3 times during the race and always had something funny or encouraging to say. We chatted shortly about clicking noises in the cranks  and then at 7AM she yelled at me as I was walking up the steep section of fireroad 600, to get back on the saddle and pedal.

The morning hours were the more difficult and even when sun started to come up I started to be pretty worried about crashing, as my riding got sloppier.
By 10am I decided to stop as I was firmly in 3rd place for the race.
This was an awesome experience and left me with a great sense of accomplishment, with 112mi completed in about 21hr.

Boggs is probably one of the best course for endurance racing and If I close my eyes I see singletrack: awesome!

Summary
Distance: 110.75 mi
Time: 20:50:33
Moving Time: 15:59:33
Avg Speed: 5.7 mph
Elevation Gain: 14,896 ft
Results are here.