1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Early season race recap ...
I’m sitting in my hotel room right outside the Orlando Airport right now waiting to fly home tomorrow morning. I’m down here for the 12 Hours of Santos at the Vortex Trail of the Santos system in Ocala, about an hour north of here off Rte 75. This was the second time I’ve done this race, the first being in 2016 when I managed a second overall in the Open Class. There is no SS class here so once again I lined up in 12 hour solo Open.
If anyone wants to stop reading quickly, here’s the top line result: no repeat this year as I managed 5th or 6th (didn’t stick around to find out which it actually was.) There are a lot of reasons for that, though, and that’s where the real story is ...
First, let me just say that racing in Florida is legit. This is a fantastic event for a community of riders who are really into riding and racing. And if anyone is picturing just flat, sandy single track a la Wharton, let me clear that up for you right now: this is among the toughest SS courses I’ve ever raced, no kidding. It’s really hard to be competitive with the Open geared guys out here because (1) they’re really fast and (2) the second half of the course is just too fast for a SS to keep up over 12 Hours. In 2016, the course was different - there was more of a mix of tech and speed throughout the 9 mile lap. This year, they mixed it up: shortened the lap to 8 miles, and basically made it 3 1/2 miles of pure tech and hills followed by 4 1/2 miles of more flat and fast single track. And that was the problem
ver 12 Hours, there is no way a SS is going to be able to gain enough in the climbs to offset the losses incurred in the flat. The tech just beat you up too much. And that’s not to say the course cost me the race - those guys up front were flat out stronger than me. The field was tougher this year than in 2016, for sure. I figured that out early when I had to back off the pace before the end of the prologue - it was just too hot for me for ja 12 hour day.
At any rate, it was a fun but very tough day. Early in the race, on one of the brutal short power climbs,a rider in front of me put his foot down halfway up and I had to react very quickly to avoid a crash. It was my own fault - I was following too close. But I pulled sideways to avoid him and popped a rib or something - I spent most of the first four hours unable to pull up on my bars without a lot of pain in my side. I really thought I’d have to quit, but eventually it worked out (or, more likely, other shit started to hurt just as much and pushed it down the list of agony ... #endurancelife ...) For an idea of what the climbs are like out here, the closest I can think of is Cathedral Pines - the one step-up climb early in the lap? Add rocks to that and make it a little steeper and longer and that’s more or less what most of the first 3+ miles of Santos is. It’s got North Jersey rocks with constant up and down. If that sounds crazy, just bear in mind that whole part of the course used to be a quarry.
So my first few laps put me pretty far down and once I started to feel a little better, I was pretty much already out of it. I didn’t really have a plan for this race, and even on Friday’s pre-ride I knew it was a much tougher course so I just settled in and tried to ride a solid pace. The difficulty in that - and I can’t stress this enough - was that the longer I rode, the harder it got to recover from the tech to put down a hard pace in the back of the course. I needed to recover for a bit before I could ask my body to push in the flat. This really was a course where a FS geared bike was the right tool and about the only thing I can think of worse than a hard tail SS would have been a rigid SS.
But don’t get me wrong.i had a blast ... 85 degrees in February, nothing to do all day but ride, and a crazy positive race vibe everywhere you looked. This is a fun, fun event (and for those who have no interest in 12 Hours, there are 3 and 6 hour options offered as well. It’s a chance to get out of the freeze and have some fun on a bike in February - if you get the itch, definitely worth a look.)
So ... after that pitch, here’s a quick rundown of what’s a pretty standard post-race experience that may change your mind if all this sounds great. Every time I do one of these, the physicals bill that comes due after I finish is, well, a little steep. This time around, as I sit here in the hotel, here’s a shortlist of what I got for the effort:
1. Sunburn on my face and arms despite regularly applying sunscreen
2. Cramped and sore upper back and shoulders
3. Bruised triceps
4. Core feels like I spent the last 24 Hours being punched in the gut by a boxer
5. Hamstrings and quads pretty much on the edge of cramping since the second I stopped (particularly fun when they actually do cramp while I’m sleeping.)
6. The always fun loss of body temp regulation after I stop. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve finished an endurance race and then had my entire body start convulsively shivering, I’d have ... a bunch of nickels. This is why whenever I finish a race early in the season, I make a beeline for my car and heat right away.)
7. Swollen and bruised hands with temporary numbness in my fingers - all of them.
8. Especially painful - on harder courses if I’m pushing hard, my feet tend to hit the front of my shoes enough to crack my toenails by the end of the day. (Doesn’t always happen but it did happen yesterday and I’ve had it happen before.)
9. For like three days afterward, I could everything in sight. Today alone I’ve already had 2 bagels, a waffle, a Jersey Mike’s Sub (large) and I’m ready for more.
10. Saddle sores ... there isn’t enough chamois butter in the world to stop saddle sores from happening when you ride that long in that kind of heat.
11. Finally, this doesn’t happen with anything less than 12 hour races, but I always have insomnia for a few days after longer races. I slept only 4 hours last night and I know it’ll be similar tonight.
But I still say it’s worth it. Despite the fact that I was a shell of a human being as I Gollumed across the finish line at the end, knowing I sucked it up and h7ng on for eight more hours when I thought I was done at 4 gives a genuine sense of accomplishment.
My ghetto pit ... $3 Lowe’s moving box ...
This climb is way steeper than it looks ...
... and so is this one ... and so were the other six or so in the first three miles of the lap
The drop-in ... this was soooo fun to ride every lap!
