Cheq 100… really 100?

100 mile race.  On a bike to the uninitiated seems like alot.  Just think of a place 100 miles away via car – and biking there in a single day.  Now if you’ve got experience riding a MT Bike on single track trails – consider doing that 100 miles via that means…

Eh?  Smarts alittle bit doesn’t it?

The boys at Chequamegon 100 put together another edition of an impressive piece of work.  Think of just trying to map 100 miles of singletrack?

Well, it’s wasn’t the most kind day of biking for me but pretty good for several other riders (if riding 100 miles of single track in a single day is good for anyone…).  For me, I prefer to concentrate on normal CrossCountry MTB length races (90-3hr races)  & cyclo-cross (60min) – never have had a particular skill or affinity for these super long races (8-10hrs).  Doesn’t mean I won’t give them a whirl, but I don’t put any pressure on myself to do well.  It’s takes a mentality & ability I wasn’t born with or have yet to develop (may that never happen…).  

Honestly for myself, I liken participating in more than one 100mile offroad MTB race to that of a women who gives birth more than once.  It can be incredible difficult, lengthy & painful …..BUT in time those aspects of the event are forgotten and somehow a person “signs up” to do it again!?  It’s nuts.  Faded memory of past events can be such a bad guide to the future decisions.  Which is why I empathize with how my wife managed to have 4 kids.  I’m not saying a 100mile MTB race is like giving birth, but it is difficult and can leave you wondering why you’d do it a second time.

This year wasn’t as good as a result as 2010 when I placed 8th.  Leading up to the race I was on my 6th week of hard training & racing without a significant break, I’d been in a slight auto accident, not to mention fallen down a flight of step leading up to the race and I’d put in 15hrs of trail building in the days leading up to the race – in hindsight I was probably doomed before I even started.

Long & short of it – things went well for the first 3hrs, but by the 4th hour I was hurting all over, my vision from dehydration or a head first crash into a 8” maple tree was spotty at best.  I’d keep blinking to try & clear the “fuzziness” but it just wouldn’t go away.  Around the 5th hour I knew it wasn’t probably safe to be out riding single track in my condition that wasn’t improving so at 6hrs I called it quits & got a ride home.  (I hate quitting anything!)  My wife & kids picked me up and I spend the remainder of the afternoon eating pizza and hanging out at the wonderful Rivers Eatery in Cable, rather than finishing the race in the rain…..

I gotta hand out a couple comments on racers & people I spent time with during that race however.

-Chris Schmidt – you dirty dawg, you are devilishly fast in single track.  When I said you made the 2010 UP series cyclo-cross champ go cross eyed trying to stay on your wheel I wasn’t kidding!  You’ve got some mad skillz my man!  Really enjoyed riding with you, would love to do it again sometime soon.  I could learn alot from how well you finesse the one-track. Congrats on a great race, you should be really proud.

-Larry Sauber, always like riding with you.  You appear to be the non-typical bike racer as you could probably kill any animal of the forest that tried to attack you by flexing your bicep.  You marched on brilliantly after I worked to catch up to you…only to leave me for the wolves later on…. thank alot.

-Ryan Hokey, Tim Ek, Greg Pattison, Geoff Schley & a few other guys, thanks for the riding companionship & conversation along the ride.  Help the time pass and kept up a pace that a guy by himself may not have done alone.

-Mike Haag, always good to see you out there –not a bad in the saddle for you considering it was 100 miles on a single speed!!

-Diana McFadden – all I know is you looked in alot better shape than me after 5hours!  Hope the rest of your day went well.

-Todd McFadden & Charly Tri– faint shadows I was chasing as long as I could – you guys put in some pretty impressive finishing times for runnerup & 1st place respectively.

150 starters or so, 80+ finishers – saw a bunch more of you  congrats for being out there & giving it a try.  But Charlie Farrow…. words can’t escape my dismay at your non-participation…

Will I do it again?  Give me 8 or 9 months to let time abate the memories and I’ll probably be signing up again.  What I won’t forget is how to better prep for sizeable task that the Chequamegon 100 is.

I’m now onto a nice well accepted rest & recovery week before getting back to training.  Next races upcoming look to be WORS Wausau, Keweenaw Chain Drive & perhaps the WORS Cup.