The Huntington Challenge

Warning! this is a ridiculously long blog post! Call in to work sick, skip school, cancel the plans, drop the kids off at the daycare! You're gonna need to make some time.

Last weekend Dad, Brad Nelson and I traveled up to the Huntington Challenge. This is no ordinary race. It's two days long with 70 miles each day, based on time. But the real kicker is that there are cyclocross/mtn bike sections thrown in between the road sections. The off road parts were between 3-7 miles long, varying from short track to mountain bike trails to zig-zaging fields with miles and miles of yellow caution tape. So if you only bring a road bike you're SOL. I found out last year when I got in a break about 30 mins in with Chase Hoeffer. We took a wrong turn somewhere and got about 30 miles off the course. Guy East and Weston Luzzader had reached the off road sections and they said there was no way a road bike could win this race. This year, thanks to my coach, Dean Peterson, I was equipped with a superb cross bike.

We arrived pretty early to get registered and man was it cold! It was a frigged 40 degrees! We get there, unpack the bikes, get dressed and as soon as I'm done pumping up the rear tire, the pump rips the valve clean off the tube. I scramble around looking for a tube and luckily find one and slap it on the wheel. After our freezing pre ride, we line up for the start and I get another flat just sitting there! Dad and I then run back to the car and throw another tube on the wheel and get back just in time for the blow of the whistle. OK! First adrenaline rush of the day out of the way! Now we're off and cruising until a masters rider with a road bike attacks and gets away to get a bit of a cushion for the first cross section. 50 mins into the race we hit the dirt(or actually freezing wet grass) and I keep my lead position for the first mile or so until I take a wrong turn, luckily Brad saw me and yelled at me to get my butt turned around. I then turned my butt around and sat on Brad's wheel to get the hang of handling the bike in dirt, then put in my own attack and got a few seconds gap. I proceed to hammer and gain about 2 mins by the end of the first cross section. By now I'm the first cyclist on the road portion, which also means I have the lead vehicle. Not 2 miles out from the cross section I get a flat, again!

By the time I get it changed the lead group(Brad's group) and the entire pack passed me including Dad. He stopped and readjusted his seat, because he was having a disappearing seat post. In the trails it kept on dropping down on him. So we got going again and started pacing our way up. But to no prevail, I hit the most historic 40 mile bonk that anyone has ever seen on the face of the earth! I'll spare you the minor details, but I lost all my strength, my vision(for about 5 mins), and around 40 mins to the leaders. Dad had to baby me all the way to the finish. He told me to go on alone with about 10 miles to go, because he was still having major problems with his seat post. With one mile to go I had ANOTHER flat! Dad caught up and switched wheels with me, so I could at least have a minuscule chance on GC. Brad got 6th on the day only 5 or so mins down. OK! Glad that day was over.

Day Two

The next day we woke up around 6ish to pack up and take advantage of the free hotel continental breakfast. We get to the course a little behind schedule courtesy of me for not having a clue on whats going on. We have just enough time to put our numbers on and we're off again! I had totally learned my lesson the previous day, and that is............... to attack as hard as you can and as many times you can in the first 10 mins..........ok maybe not. The game plan of the day was to sit in for the road sections and stay in contact in the cross sections, and maybe make a few moves by the end. We get to the first cross sections only 10 mins into the race. (We rode the course backwards from yesterday for the first 20 miles) When we hit the off road section, I'm about 10th rider back. Not exactly the place where I wanted to be, but I make my way to the front eventually and take Brad's wheel. He is one of the most knowledgeable and street......."trail" smartest person I know. Its a safe bet that Brad will pick the right lines, plus I can see over him if I need to look ahead. The group gets to a log barrier to dismount and my speedplay pedals get so clogged up. I couldn't get clipped in for another mile. I got fed up when my left shoe came loose on a fast downhill and I nailed a log at the bottom straight on........racking myself........big time! I though I was gonna puke! After I regain consciousness and remember who and where I am, I grab my only bottle (the other one had fallen out some time in the trails) and hosed down both cleats. FINALLY! I can get back in the pedals. By now the cross section is over and I bridge up to the break in a few mins. Maybe 20 mins later we hit a gravel road which leads to another off road section.

You have to remember that it was 40 something degrees, and we crossed 2 or 3 river crossings. I couldn't feel my feet for the rest of the day. So after the river crossings I almost bite it on the gravel, and tempo it at the front until the road. Right before we got to the road section, I heard this big BANG! That sucks for somebody. The group I was with had all 3 major teams represented with at least 3 people from each team, yet no one was driving it. I looked back and Brad was no where to be found. It turned out that the big bang was both of his wheels flattingat the same time. He only had one tube, so he fixed his rear wheel and just kept on trucking with a flat front! He rode 2 HOURS with a flat front wheel including the off road sections. There was a ramp in one of the cross sections that I luanched off of, and apparently Brad tried also! (with a flat front tire!) He then lost control of his machine and shot off the trail. I asked him why he did that with his flat tire and he responds "I had to jump it." Ladies and Gentleman, Brad "B-Rad" Nelson for you!

So anyways........... there was this one master in my group with a road bike who kept on hammering trying to get a break on the guys with the cross bikes, yet he wouldn't quite attack. He would more or less role off the front and we would just sit on his wheel. He kept on getting frustrated so he just kept on tempo-ing it at the front, for some reason. Which amused the entire group. We get to the 3rd cross section and I get to the front and tempo it, not going to soft or too hard at all. I look over and Dad is yelling at me from the feed station, he's actually talking to me and demanding answers from me, as I'm concentrating on the course. He apparently got lost in the first cross section. (Should have had that GPS on you, Dad.) After this section I look back and have a gap. I started picking the thorns and pricklies off my jersey, drinking and eating. I then look back and there is still no one there! he lead vehicle in front of me, so I know I'm not lost . I start tempo-ing it again and going harder and harder. Now I have about 40-50 more miles to go and I'm trying to decide what to do. Fall back to the group, or try soloing it in, while the master pulls everyone back up to me. Hmmmmmmm........Its clobbering time! So I start drilling it, and it was so incredibly boring! The only incentive I had was to get to the next cross section as fast as I could! Not to have a repeat of yesterday crisis, I kept downing bottles and gels. The people in the lead vehicle were very nice because whenever I finished a bottle I would wave it up in the air and they would come back and hold on to it for me. It felt very pro tour-ish. I'll try to condense the rest of this for you guys: I TT it all the way to the finish and after 2hours and change of being out alone by myself, singing hundreds of song lyrics and talking to cows about politics and the weather, I only gain 5 mins. That's actually a fair amount of time but it was no where what I needed to gain back from the catastrophic amount of time I lost yesterday.

We waited and waited and waited about 1 hour for Brad to come in. We then got some pizza from the race promoters, some schwag(they had a random drawing for free stuff), some ice cream and our money. Dad was one of the first to be drawn in the giveaway so he got to pick out a zipp carbon bottle cage, Sweet! We just paid for our entire trip! Brad got a zipp shirt with the funniest instructions I have ever seen in my life. Yep, the shirt had instructions! (I'll post them some other time when you people get out of the coma I've just put you in) I got a mtn bike tire. The thing I got out from this weekend is that......CYCLO CROSS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And hopefully you'll be seeing me out there soon tearing it up on the trails! Sorry for the lack of pics. I forgot the camera. I'll get some up soon! Thanks for reading!