On Being Epic---
There are few race experiences I can call epic. I want all my races and bike trips to be that way but "Epic" can’t be ordinary. Epic biking makes an midpack racer feel like he or she has just won something. As race amnesia sets in and I remember the highlights of the Iron Cross weekend I am not sure what more I could have wanted. Sometimes an experience is simply and completely beautiful. I feel this way about the IC weekend. Iron Cross delivered “epic”..a pair of simple wool socks with an embroidered red cross becomes every bit the winner’s medal for many riders. Perhaps this perception stems from the fact that the IC is an absurd course requiring tremendous sustained effort and attention. How to be aggressive without being thoughtless? Miscalculation and momentary slips of attention during the IC can result in a midpack rider suffering longer or more shamefully than most other 1 day events. Regardless of a rider’s lot that day, I suspect that finishing this race and earning your socks leaves most riders with an appreciative resonance I still feel as I make corrections to this report more than a week after I rode it.
Mansfield to Carlisle-
Before the race even begun, I learned a hell of a lot about my buddies who rode it with me, and a little about fashion in Carlisle PA…. For instance I learned that Jared tried to use a Jedi mind control trick that led us to a relatively unimpressive dinner at the Olive Garden… although the pre-race beers were excellent and cold. Tom likes to order the “all you can eat pasta platter”, but will only eat one helping (still struggling to make sense of that). I also learned that the dresses of high school girls in Carlisle (also in the Olive Garden) look to be missing the lower dress part. Every time one got up from their booth there was a "wildlife viewing event" for that entire section of restaurant. I think I would find this to be a very exciting fashion development if I was still in high school. I resolved to Jimmy that if the fashion does not change soon, I will still allow my girls to go to homecoming dances, but they will wear union underwear before they wear a “half dress”. After dinner, we fiddled with our bikes at the Rodeway Inn, filled our camelbacks and watched the Saturday night’s game between Florida and LSU. Jimmy was far more amused by repeating the names of the deep southern athletes on the Florida and Gator teams (Tebow, Pouncey, Tolliver etc) . Jesse and Josh mostly sat and passed carbohydrate-induced gas in a quiet fashion. To moderate Jimmy’s self amusing mantra of southern football names, I used the remote control to periodically flip to other games where players of a more northern representation were present. They had names like Hepp, Frank & Styborski. This annoyed Jimmy as it was intended to do.
Race Morning--
After breakfast, we hauled over to the race site with our 5 bikes reprensentin’ in our bitchin road machine (a Toyota Sienna Mini Van sans the child safety seats). The morning was cold, but it was clear that the day would be beautiful. On good advice from Jimmy, I didn’t layer on the biking clothes… just arm warmers and a short sleeve “polyprope” shirt would have to do for warmth layers. A good decision… Many other riders in jackets and shells must have overheated during many of the long climbs of the course.
I tried to ask a lot of questions about the course to get a feel for what I got myself into. I found veterans of past IC races talked about various aspects of the course with a mix of guarded joy and ticklish respect. I constructed mental pre-race pictures: A “powerline run-up” that looked like an death march trudge up a shear, shaley route; a first technical descent after checkpoint1 only fit for dual-suspension mountain bikes and Peruvian goats; a final leg crushing endless climb after checkpoint 3 where, if you were still on your bike, you could watch broken riders whose legs had left them and now pushed their bikes upward while wearily hanging their heads knowing that there was a third of the race left to “ride”. Largely, I found that this reverence was well deserved… none it was as scary as my own expectations, all of it was true enough though. Therein lies the essence of this event… its all true enough.
The Race ---
As the race lined up I grouped with Jimmy Eric and Jesse at the back of the pack that expected to finish between 5-6 hours… on hindsight pretty much everyone expects to do this which explains why review of the start photos around the spiral of death pretty much shows me near last place to begin. The women started right behind us on a different time. By the time we started to move however, the women pretty much were starting too and the first one passed me before I entered the circle of death field area. No big deal… I wanted to start slow and ramp it up as I became comfortable. I crashed in the Spiral lead-in (and was avoided by 2 nimble women… thanks ladies!). Not a graceful start, but the grass was soft and I was back up quickly… not much to do when that happens but get going again and be thankful there was no damage. Its all good I thought…
As the SOD spit us out to the flattish beginning of the race I passed Jimmy right before the beach... he mumbled something difficult to understand … it sounded liked he was still reciting the southern football players names…”Tim Tebow… Terrence Tolliver…. Maurice Pouncy…. Jevin Snead”… can’t be sure about that though. At a comfortable HR range between 140-145 I began to pass lots of riders pretty quickly. I had no idea that I ended the spiral in nearly last place so these passings at a modest effort was kind of curious. This curiousity ended fairly quickly as I grouped with riders putting out similar efforts. As the course changed to ascending double track, I enjoyed a brief conversation with a wild looking and pleasant outlaw single speed rider with a whitish goatee’. He gave me a few bits of advice and let me know what to look for over the next parts of the course. That was much appreciated. Thanks man!
At checkpoint 1, less than an hour into the race, it was surprising to see many people stopped to take on food and water. I chose to ride through keeping my HR steady. That was a good decision as I was able to tackle much of the VERY challenging single track that followed at my own pace without the distraction of other riders on my tail. The best rider of that stuff on a cross bike was a woman who passed me early and just floated over the same rocks that were pounding my bike, arms and neck… nice skillz. This single track was mentioned by Josh as particularly “ouchy”, to use his g-rated language. I guess so… I found myself distracted by the thought that I really appreciated the sadistic asshole who realized an absurd stretch like this could be “ridden” on a cross bike. This was just the first time of many that I appreciated the absurdity of some of the IC challenges. However absurd, they are a ton of fun to ride, run and slide over as you race smartly…. The beauty of race amnesia at this point is that these offenses to my bike and body are all fond memories now.
After that single track, I waspleased to find Josh pulling around me as we hit the pavement. He had a flat and had already repaired it. We traded some nice pulls on the open road, then turned into a park entrance as the pavement ended and the course started uphill again on dirt. We settled into a climbing rhythm up a nice dirt path. The pace was a touch harder than I was willing to go early in a race that I was unfamiliar with . After a few minutes I let Josh drift slowly ahead, until I didn’t see him anymore. As the ride changed again I found myself in field with powerlines overhead. I suspected I was close to the dreaded first section of hike-a-bike. It was truly unrideable. With my bike over my shoulder, I seached, step by step, for good places to plant my feet…after 5 minutes of hiking I settled into a rhythm and kept going. It felt good. Occasionally I looked up to peek a view at what remained. Looking too far up can definitely shift your weight backward (bad on steep hills), but the view of a 200+ athletes hulking their bikes up a long ass climb was worth it. I have seen a few pictures of this part of the ride… but the one in my head is still the best. It is my favorite mental snap shot of the race.
I saw Josh briefly as he was leaving the 2nd checkpoint. I figure he put 3 minutes into me in that short period. I wouldn’t see him again until the finish where he would come in 6 minutes before me. The next hour or so largely consisted of lovely single and double track climbing and mesmerizing descents on dirt/pea gravel roads where patterns of light and shadow on the road made it really hard to see the numerous gaping potholes until you where whizzing past them. These kinds of descents are great if one knows the road and the pothole locations, but I didn’t, so during this descent I was tense enough crack walnuts with my sphincter (I will leave this an untested hypothesis). As the descent ended and turned to meandering back roads. Ahead was another Oswald Race Team rider. The pretty yellow Mavic shoes let me know it was Jay. We talked briefly enough for Jay to utter… “I’m done” before I rode on. At the next checkpoint, a nice volunteer tolerated my adrenaline-induced clumsiness and inability to open up a camelback to fill up. During these few minutes of refill… I guess Jay wasn’t quite done yet… he blew by the checkpoint to start the big ascent. I passed him again near the bottom of the long climb next to another dude who was openly wishing for a granny gear he didn’t have. "How are you spinning that gear?", he said enviously. I didn't answer, but thought this guy must be in some trouble. Especially on that hill, well-intentioned stronger riders wish trite words of encouragement to the blown riders. “You’re the man” I said to Jay. Do such words serve to further remind the “walkers” of the wreckage that were once your quads, and that those riders encouraging you had been behind you for 3 hours until now? Shit. I imagine quite a few riders would rather not hear those breathy words of encouragement.
The climb was wonderfully mental. I enjoy the sweetness of long climbing and time trialing. It is jdamn cruel, but brilliant, to put a 4-5 mile ascent with a really steep section at the very top at that point of the race. I stuck my effort at hard steady pace around 160-65 bpm and stayed there. Trying to chase too hard or to surge were out… my legs would not suffer such foolishness too long. Keep steady right on the edge of the red zone…. A vicious little increase in grade near the top forced me to talk myself over the final quarter mile rise. "Well Done!", I told myself… "there should be little left to be concerned about now… just bring it home strong." This was wrong. There was plenty of nastiness left.
The descent from the big climb was frikin’ hairy. It seemed, steeper, wetter, rockier and as technical as Josh’s “ouchy” section after CP#1. My triceps and forearms were starting to scream. The return from thousands of push-ups, pull-ups and bar pulls I had done this summer was cashed in. I continued to think… this can’t go on too much longer. In the midst of getting rocked by the course, I was easily passed for the first time in 3 hours by a rider on a full suspension mtb… he was having a ball while I was bumbling. “Excuse me” he said… all politely. I said nothing. Again, I was praising and cursing the intelligent designer of this silly section. It is the one section I will fear next year. I race better when a little scared anyway so I am psyched this was part of the course. It’s the last kick in the crotch, which was chaffing nicely by then despite the chamois butter… as it should be on a race like this…. (“the Iron Crotch”??.. . nah too easy).
As the technical section mercifully ended, a section of slow single track climbing followed. I picked off 5-6 more riders who were hikabiking much of this. The time I had put in the weight room really showed as I rode all but a short very vertical section of maybe 50 yards. I finally broke on to some pavement and and made it out to the main road toward the finish line… Another Oswald Rider was ahead…it was Jesse. I love passing riders in general, but if someone has been ahead of me for 5 hours I would rather duke it out at the line. His helmet and sunglasses were slightly crooked on his head and he was lumbering. Its too close to mail it in so I screamed at him to hook on. This was the only stretch of the course I knew and I intended to jam it all the way to the finish. After I gave one hard effort I tucked behind another rider and Jesse. Jesse managed a mighty pull, albeit downhill—a questionable tactic. We all turned left with 2 hills to go… the other racer attacked hard. There was another hill behind this one and I wished the guy well if he could keep that up. I upped my steady effort to just under max and Jesse popped. He was toast. I would put nearly 1:30 into Jesse in the last mile or so. Apparently even the nicely paved hills on this course require respect or retribution can come quickly. I caught the attacker near the top of the hill and pulled him to the beginning of the final hill. Again he attacked and gapped me. I reached deep into my coin purse of persniketiness (much smaller than a suitcase of courage) and caught him again. I love riding like this way… its ballsy and aggressive and it made me do better. I yelled at him to latch on, fully willing to pull him the rest of the way. He burnt his last match and I rode away less than a half mile from the finish.
Shared Finishing--
As I cleared the last grassy turns, the winding sand trap and hopped over the final barrier… I looked at the clock …. 5 hours and 10 sec. (official time 5 and 18seconds). Some of the Oswald team was already in (Jared, Tom and Josh) and were barking at the line, already enjoying the post race high on a gorgeous day. Seeing those guys together was awesome. I was quickly welcomed into their ongoing conversation, between periodic hacking episodes. So many races finish quietly, inconspicuously or anonymously for a midpack racer. Being able to share a finish (and sharing in others’) and then to enjoy the race stories with your friends was a worth my entry fee all by itself. Regardless of one’s finishing time or place, that day we knew that the race completed was months in the training and something to be proud of. We watched Jesse roll in a minute or so after me. Despite his empty tank he made a strong final jump. Jay, who must have got his riding legs together at some point after CP#3, followed 20 or so minutes later minimizing the damage from his earlier fatigue. John Majors, Eric’s friend from Pittsburgh danced easily over the final obstacle. Jimmy followed about 20 minutes later using the little known “Apalacky Cross Wraslin’ dismount technique” to clear the barrier. Eric (aka “Papa Smurf”) saved the best finish for last. In a broken varation of Jimmy's technique, Eric's bike got caught on the final barrier tripping and crashing him across the timeline into a spectacular finish appropriate for a physical race like the Iron Cross. We laughed hilariously only to be scolded by the announcer for not respecting our elders. (Eric is only 87.. :-)… Nothing was further from the truth.
We ate good food at the event and drank bad beer in the parking lot as we packed up while continuing to bullshit with just about anyone around us especially if they had beer. Jared popped in and out of discussions as he looked for better coverage area to call his girlfriend. Jimmy didn’t spill any of his beer for the first time in a week. Jesse joined the Kountry Klub Malt Liquor beer club, although he nursed that beer like it he was revisiting his breast feeding days. I joined Jesse and had one of Jimmy’s PBR tall boys. No dainty microbrews for me that day…. they didn’t fit my experience. Eventually we hit the road for a relatively quiet ride home back in our rad minivan (with frequent relief stops to use only the dirtiest rest rooms along Route 15 .) We were worked over and deeply satisfied with a terrifically fulfilling day.
The Final Absurdity---
Appropriately there was still one more symbolic Iron Cross absurdity that remained. All day I thought breaking 5 hours would be a good 1st race for me. By checkpoint 4 I was pretty sure I could do it. For the next hour and 3 minutes, I suffered smartly and intensely. I reminded myself that I did not want to miss 5 hours by a few seconds because I walked a tough section or eased off even a little. After 5 hours, I missed by 18 seconds, a mousefart. I rode that last stretch well, so I can live with that. It doesn’t matter a whiff that my bike computer gave me a time I liked better, or as someone said… I could “round down”. That’s not for this race. Whiny rationalizations are for the guys who get dropped from our pacelines or who cannot finish strong despite sitting on someone’s wheel most of the race refusing to animate the group. Perhaps the course designer is out there laughing at this. Its cool and there is no better end I can think of. There is only one official time for this year and it mocks me to try my luck again in 2010. The beauty of midpack racing is that I race the course and myself. I am not in Jeremiah Bishop’s universe. For many riders like me, there is no end after epic races…only reduced suffering and the revised goals that keep many of us training through the cold winters and springs in Northern PA. I have a new goal for 2010… wanna guess what it is? No Eric, it has nothing to do with the half-dressed girls at the Olive Garden.
