Lumberyack 100

The Lumberjack was quite possibly the hardest race I've ever done. I went into it without much mental focus and never found any while I was there. For the Mohican I had some goals. I wanted to beat Topher and Keith. For the Lumberjack I was more curious how my body and training would stand up against two 100 miles races two weeks from each other. That's not really a strong mental game plan if any at all. The format of the Lumberjack is also very different. Instead of a point-to-point adventure, the Lumberjack is four twenty-five mile loops. Once you've done the first lap, there's no mystery left. There's no curiosity to keep the fires burning.

The first lap was fun. The course had decent flow, beautiful scenery, and climable ascents. I rode most of it with Simon (one of many traveling partners). We had a great time ripping through the twisties and barely hanging on through the downhill tree slaloms. He kept saying "We're going so fast!".

Finishing off the first lap at around two hours, I ate a Z-bar, an apple and stopped to fill my Camelbak. I don't typically use a camelbak, but decided it was a good idea for the first few laps in order to ride fast and drink without having to slow down and deal with bottles and avoiding trees. With the food down and water consumed, my stomach got full. Not too bad, but it was noticeable. Something else I noticed were my quads cramping a little on the climbs. That's not good, so I slowed it down and started pushing more water into my already full belly. At the only supported aid station halfway through the lap, I stopped for more water. Shortly there-after, Simon caught up and passed me feeling really well. Simon had goals that day. Going to school in Michigan, he had two local rivals to keep ahead of. I never saw him again.

The second half of the course is no-mans land. Not far from the aid station there's a decent climb, then it's flat forever. It was out there I totally lost focus. Most of the time I was by myself just wandering through the trees. I was on the trail, but I wasn't riding with any kind of purpose. It was hot and I was hot. I was just riding. My legs weren't cramping anymore, but they weren't feeling like riding hard either. Near the end of the lap, there's some more hills to climb. I started walking these hills. I finished the second lap in close to two hours. I was holding steady, but obviously a little slower - smart (sort of) for a race of this length.

I grabbed another apple, dropped the camelbak for bottles and headed back out for my third lap. I noticed as I went by the start/finish a young singlespeeder (SS kid I'll call him) I'd been yo-yoing with standing with his parents. It didn't take long for him to catch and pass me again. When using bottles, I have to actively drink more, so I slowed down and did just that. In the flat area before the supported aid station, I ate another z-bar. At the aid station I had two of my three bottles filled with water and headed out to the dead-zone, that I now completely hated. Riders would pass me now and again. When I went to drink the water the aid station gave me, I nearly puked. It smelled like sulfur. It was nasty. I kept trying to drink it, convincing myself it was fine, but it was awful. Two guys rolled up behind me. For some reason it provoked me to ride a little harder. With the right motivation the back-side of the course was a lot of fun, so I cranked it up a bit and went spinning through the trees. At some point I asked the lead guy if he wanted around. He said I kept pulling away from him, so he was happy where he was. Finally at the first of the big climbs near the end, I got off and let them by. I also swapped my bottles around, so I had one little bottle of my own drink and one large mix of mine and theirs. Even with my water in the bottle, I could still taste the sulfur mix.

The course was mostly loamy and sandy. Rarely was there any hardpack, so you had to work to get your bike moving quickly through this stuff. There were hardly any roots or rocks, but it wasn't smooth either. The first lap was mostly leaf covered. In some places it was hard to follow the trail. The second lap was the smoothest. Two hundred seventeen riders through on the first lap left a nice groove to follow. The third lap started to get shitty. Two hundred seventeen riders of different abilities and bike setups braking in the same turns (for two laps now) on loose material left huge brake bumps. They were kind of like rumble strips, but bigger and more painful on my hands as my rigid fork plowed over them. These various locations throughout the course quickly became water bottle graveyards. Each lap more and more water bottles would pile up along the sides of the trail where people were braking or hitting these bumps at full speed. Luckily I didn't loose any bottles, though would have been glad to with the taste they gave me.

Walking the rest of the climbs on the third lap, I really started to lose focus. I was really hot. My head was swimming. I couldn't focus or get charged up on anything. I started rolling up my jersey and letting my belly hang out to cool. A few more people passed me, then the women leaders came through. It was only two of them. The first got away. The second I passed back (while walking), dropped and never saw again.

I was miserable. I started to get sick. Every time I brought a bottle to my lips, my stomach turned. Eating was out of the question. I started considering quitting. Why did I need to suffer this way? I was thinking I was a perfectly capable human being who didn't need to do this. I had nothing to prove and it didn't make a difference whether I quit or finished. I should do the smart thing and quit before I hurt myself or made the rest of the week miserable with some kind of injury or something else to recover from. I thought about a DNF. I didn't care about the money I paid to enter, though I should have cared about the money I paid to get there. I realized DNFs are the biggest waste of anything. They represent nothing. They speak for nothing. There's no story. No one cares. You gave up. You didn't finish. You have nothing to show or talk about. You did not finish. You may as well have not even been there. But I was there. I felt like ass but I was there and I was going to finish. I didn't want a DNF to ruin that for me.

Without thinking more about it (or anything really), I finished the third lap, stopped and swapped bottles and began the fourth lap. On my way out I saw the SS kid now sitting with his parents. He'd been catching me before and quite easily dropping me. I knew by the way he sat and looked, that wouldn't be the case on the fourth lap. Also headed out on his fourth lap was Ezra. I met Ezra years ago at the Ohio SingleSpeed State Championships. Ezra was strong as hell. He rode really big gears and quite easily won a lot of stuff. I could tell by the look on his face, he wasn't winning it today. Walking the first hill of the fourth lap, I dropped Ezra and never saw him again.

I started out hard. I figured it was the last lap. That should be enough motivation to ride it strong and be done with it. I finished the third lap at something like six hours seventeen minutes (so I thought). That wasn't bad. At this rate (with a strong last lap) I could quite possibly do it all in eight and a half hours. My legs had other plans. What was twinges of cramps in the second lap was now full on twists of muscle from my knees to my hips. Ok back it off and suffer another slow-ass lap. At least I had my own water to drink and try to fix the cramps. Nope. I couldn't even drink my own stuff. Whenever I got my bottle near my lips, I gagged. Once I even dry-heaved. Miserable suddenly seemed nice as I was somewhere way beyond miserable.

The brake bumps started to really hurt. My hands were raw. My feet even felt bruised as my bike bounced wildly over the bumps. Sometimes I had enough awareness to try and ride around them, but mostly I forgot where they were or didn't have the dexterity to steer around and through them. My head was completely in a fog. On Friday Tim and Harlan talked about heat head-aches. Not necessarily from dehydration, just the heat and your body telling you so with a dull ache in your head. I was going on a four plus hour heat head-ache. I wanted it over.

All the bouncing had another effect. My chain-tug (a bolt-like device to keep my rear wheel straight, bolted and tight in the frame) had come loose. My wheel was slightly cocked to the left and occasionally rubbing my frame. Part of me wanted it to rub clear through and crack the frame, so I'd have a legitimate excuse for a DNF (severe mechanicals are ok), but mostly it gave me something to freak-out about. At the supported aid station, I stopped and asked for a tool to fix it. I was so busy with the tool, I didn't ask why their water tasted like ass when they filled my bottles for me (I was able to drink some of my own). As I was headed out the woman said "You're almost done. Only 10 or 12 miles left to go." I said "Yay. That's at least an hour and a half." She looked at me kind of funny and I quickly told her how much I hated the back section of the course as I headed off.

Yep. It sucked. I rolled along at about 8mph. I didn't care. I was just going to finish it. The heat was ridiculous. I was cooking. I kept wondering what they would do if I took my helmet off and finished without it. I thought about quitting racing altogether. Going home and selling all my stuff. I was burned out from it. It wasn't fun anymore. Suffering isn't fun. I kept rolling. I thought about all the damage I was doing to my body from not drinking. I thought about puking. I thought about going to the hospital and getting an IV. I thought for sure I'd collapse at the finish and ride off in an ambulance. I nearly cried out when I hit the brake bumps.

I started watching my time on my computer. I was looking good to finish around eight and a half hours. I decided to switch over to mileage and count them down. The final hills started at around ninety-six miles. That was only four or so to go. There was at least a mile prologue on the road at the start, so I wasn't sure exactly how long the race would take to finish. At a hundred miles I was still a ways out. I was a zombie. I really didn't know what I was doing. I just kept heading down the trail. I got off to walk all the hills. Stopped to drink and not puke. Finally I saw the cars and crossed the line at nine hours and two minutes.

I saw Simon at the finish. He looked beat. He said I looked worse. I got back to the car where Tim was changing. He said he puked and felt horrible. I started taking off my stuff thinking I was going to die, but I didn't. As soon as the helmet and jersey came off I felt better. I finally cooled down some. We headed up to eat. It took a while, but it was good. My legs tried cramping off and on, but I was feeling better. Simon said he puked too, but felt better afterwards and crushed his fourth lap. Tim finished fourth SS at eight hours and twenty one minutes. Simon finished 26th at eight hours and thirty minutes. For feeling like the worst ride of my life, I did ok. I finished 6th (out of 27). My splits were 1:55, 2:10, 2:23 and 2:34.

I won't be doing the Lumberjack again. It was a great course, but the format didn't suit my style. When I think about it, the back half of the outer loop (as it's called) wasn't physically any harder then the inner loop (the inner loop had the most up and down). It just sapped me every time I got out there. Also the SS awards were a bit lacking. The first place guy got a Walmart hatchet - no cash. Tim and I lucked out with a raffle. Tim got a free Cannondale Rush frame (ironic, he races for Cannondale) and I got a pair of Surly hubs (ironic, I don't need them).

All in all it was a good trip. I met a lot of nice people and had some great traveling companions. Now if I could just rest a little, maybe I can get my head back in the game for the next one.

-b