12 Hours of Mental Defeat... ugh
Last weekend brought the 10th annual 12 Hours of Lodi Farm which was my first attempt at a 12hr format race. The race was extra special because it started at midnight , completely throwing off your natural circadian rhythm. I was set to drive down with Zach, Don, Brett, Donna, Rick, and Jill. We left PA around 8:30 Saturday morning and headed south, arriving at the race in Fredricksburg, VA around 1:00. Once our Ez-up and tent city was assembled we mounted our bikes for a lap of the course. I suppose that this course was your typical southern Virginia singletrack, tight and twisty with a lot of short steep root-littered climbs thrown in for good measure. There was nary a rock in sight which was an interesting departure from the Michaux riding I typically enjoy. I could tell from our preride that the course was going to be hard.
Preride Fun on the Lodi course
After the preride we ate some dinner, hung out and I started getting my food and drink ready for the long haul. The plan for the race was Brett, Don, and Zach were doing a 3-man team, Jill and Donna were doing 2-person, and I was solo. This would be the longest race, by 1 hour, that I had ever done. Around 8:30 I crawled into the tent to get some sleep and was rudly awakened about a half hour later by the band beginning to play. Fucking band ruining my sleep and all. Luckily they only played for an hour so I got an hour nap before the race. Zach came in and woke me up somewhere around 11, I got dress and rode a few laps around a short piece of singletrack that went right by Tent City. The 11:45 racers meeting rolled around and the promoter announced that we would not be doing the traditional LeMans start, but would instead be doing a parade-style start being led out by one of the local riders around that short singletrack. The gun went off and I moved myself towards the front of the group so I wouldn’t get caught in any pile-ups once the singletrack came around. We rolled back through the campsite and the real racing began, hurtling riders through a short field and into the singletrack. The race had begun.
I started enacting my plan of “ride conservatively through the night and pick it up in the morning” on the first steep climb. This consequently caused me to be passed by a lot of people, most of them team riders. I began sitting in and knocking out laps. Night laps were interesting, and I started to get tired quickly because of the damn band (side note: I blame this entire race on the band). The next interesting thing happenned around 3:30AM when I was rolling through one of the field sections on my 3rd lap. I had just come off of a steep climb and was in my lowest gear, took two pedal strokes at the top and the crankarms stopped moving and my bike jerked to a hault. I stepped off to find my chain stuck behind my cassette. It was stuck pretty good and wouldn’t come out, so I flipped the bike upside-down and took the chain apart. That’s when I noticed that there was a spoke that was completely broken in half. Joy. Just what I needed. 3 hours into the race I would have to switch to my backup bike, aka my singlespeed. Joy. I was really looking forward to that. Brett caught up to me and stopped to see if I needed and assistance. I told him that I could make it to Tent City (about half way through the lap) and he rolled on, pedaling away from his chaser. I made it to Ten City just fine and decided not to switch to my SS. I rode the rest of the race with a broken wheel.
Unfortunately, by the time dawn came, I had completely lost the will to ride. Must have been something about riding alone in the dark for so long that messed up my mind. My lap times were getting progressivly slower because I was procrastinating and taking progressivly longer pits. The sun started rising and I immediately stripped the light off my helmet and went on with my lap, still not wanting to be on my bike. Consequently I did not turn it up as I had planned. I stopped eating on the bike and took food and drink breaks. I would get pissed when I saw someone pass me so I would hammer for the rest of the lap, only to fall off again at the beginning of the next lap. It was bad. I had to resist sitting down in Tent City every time I came through. I rode a fast half lap with Fernando, around 9 or something. We came in about 15min before his partner expected us. The moral of the story is that I still had legs, just not the will to use them. I left for my last lap at 11:30 after much debate on whether to pull myself early and be finished. My last lap was one of my favorite laps. I was so focused on getting this damn race behind me that I actually rode consistently attacking the climbs. After taking my usual long pit, I rolled away to finish my race. All the sudden I got really angry with myself for not riding a better race. I started looking to my anger for motivation. I remembered what I had told the kids and the MACDC camp last March, whenever you think you’re hurting, think of Craig Gordon. I started repeating Craig Gordon, Craig Gordon, CRAIG FUCKING GORDON!!! over and over again in my head. I finished my lap about 10 or 15 minutes faster than everyone expected me too. I was done and that was all that mattered. All told 9 laps, don’t know my final time or my final place, but I think I was around 7th. I suppose that’s pretty good for my first 12hr race. I will say, though, that this was the mentally hardest race I have ever done. I look forward to doing it again to get some sweet revenge on this course. I’m putting you on notice:
12 HOURS OF LODI FARM: I HAVE A BONE TO PICK WITH YOU!!!
Post race face...
Other notable mentions are Jill and Donna who rode a great race to win the womens duo class. Brett, Don, and Zach of Team Troegenators got 2nd in the Expert 3-man after an extremely heated battle with the City Bikes Team. It came down to the very last lap and Zach absolutely turned himself inside out to catch the guy but ended up bonking hard about a half mile from the finish line. Oh well, they all rode a strong race. Also worth mentioning is Fernando and Rob of Team Bike Line that won the Men’s Duo by a fair margin. Everyone had a great race.
I’d like to thank all my sponsors for making stuff that doesn’t break and performs consistently for 12 hrs of hard racing. You guys rock. The next challenge is the 6hrs at French Creek this weekend (5/9) which is back in a new, improved, and much more difficult version then before. This race opens my podium campaign for the Mid Atlantic Super Series Endurance Series and I’m hungry…
Peace,
Jake