Wilderness 101

Wilderness 101

Just wanted to say hi and start telling you about some of my adventures and what I've been up this year. I'll start with last weekend and work in some of the older stuff from the spring later. This weekend we made the trip out to Colburn PA near State College for the Wilderness 101.
There was four of us that set out Friday afternoon that included Ruth, Jake, and Steevo. The trip out was pretty uneventful except for finding out how fast a Ford F350 diesel can go.
We got to Colburn park around 6:00 got our compound set up, talked to some familiar faces and headed out to do a short ride. After the ride we made some dinner and started talking about tomorrow. This is when I found out that is was going to be Jake's first MTB ever. I met Jake last fall on one of Barry's Friday night rides and then ran into him at some road races earlier this spring. I felt kind of bad because I was the one who talked him into doing this race, I know Jakes a really strong rider but it's had to prepare someone for what there're going to encounter in a 100 mile MTB race.
Saturday morning came fast with wake up call at 5:15 after struggling to get out of my sleeping bag I finally made it out of the tent around 6:00. Headed over to get breakfast and some coffee. Then came back and started to get ready for today's adventure. I made it up to the start line by 7:00 and seen allot of famliar fast faces the group of 250 plus racers. Like Chris Eatough, Jeff Schalk, Harlan Price, Brandon Draugelis, Gerry Pflug, Gunner Shogren and some of the WVMBA racers just to name a few. This was going to be my third time and this race and my biggest goal was to finish in under 8 hours and finish feeling strong. I was really excited about doing the race this year because I felt pretty confident that I could achieve my goals.
Because I've done this race before I thought I new what to expect but that turned out to be wrong. In the past the race starts off fast but not crazy fast like in shorter XC races. But this year about 8 of the big guns just took off up the first climb and just put a big gap and never look back. I managed to get in a group of 10 people and we got away for the field but had no chance of catching the leaders. After about 55 minutes we came to the first aid station and this where the pace always picks up a little bit because it's the first bit of off road trails. The only thing that really changed between aid station one and two was sometimes you were in group with 3 and other times there would be 7 people but they were all the same faces.
I rolled in to aid station 2 with Gerry, and Wes Schempf. I made a quick stop just to get some liquids and headed out first. I seen Gerry asking for a pump and figured he was having some trouble. I knew there was a big climb coming and my plan was to get started up it before they did and when they caught up to me I could stick to there wheels. But after I got going I was surprised that the person that caught up with me first was Andy Gorski. So we took turns pulling up the hill and finally got to some sweet down hill single track. Then it was back to climbing again this is were everything changed for me. About 2/3 of the way up the climb I cracked and started to cramp a little and fell back from Andy's wheel. Then Steevo caught me and we finally reached the top and of the climb together. I was able to put some time on Steevo on the down hill but it didn't really help much because he past me few miles later.
I finally got to aid station 3 and was feeling pretty bad but was happy because I was well ahead of schedule to finish in under 8 hours. After having several glasses of Coke and filling up on water I grabbed a PBJ sandwich and headed out. I knew that there was a long single track climb coming up and felt a little better. So just geared down and started spinning up the climb. I was feeling better maybe it was the Coke or getting out of the sun a little bit. I felt like I had a nice pace going but I found out soon that wasn't the case, because I heard someone behind me and it turned out to be Gerry Pflug. This is how I found out that my pace was allot slower than I thought it was. It was also about the point that I realized the huge mistake I made. Thursday I decided to put bar ends on my handle bars. I have a love hate relationship with bar ends. I love them for climbing and they help with fatigue because of the different positioning. The hate I have is I feel confined on the bars and lose a little bit of confidence in the technical sections and always worry about snagging them on a tree. But the biggest problem with them today was after I put them on I didn't ride my bike. When I wrapped my thumbs around the bars my thumbs would hit the shift levers and constantly change gears on the long descents. I figured that I had two choices one stop and adjust it or two deal with it I went with number two.
When I got to number four I was very excited because couldn't wait to get some more Cokes. But to my disappointment there was none there but was promised that #5 had some. I also knew there was only 25 miles left and from what I could remember I only had 3 big climbs left and some sweet singletrack. Plus I still thought I could reach my goal of under 8 hours. I made it up the climb feeling OK and figured that the long rocky descent would pose no problems but I was wrong again. This is when I realized my second mistake that I should have stopped and adjusted my shiftiers. But after the descent when I was in the rolling singletrack and I had another surprise. I ran into some friends of my Gunner, Benji and Chris McGill I like these guys but wasn't to happy to them right now. This was the lowest point of the day not because they caught and past me like I was standing still. But because I felt really bad both mentally and physically.
I made it to #5 and was happy to get there and as promised they had Coke. I knew that there's was only 12 more miles that included some rail trail a big climb the fisherman trail and one last stretch of rail trail. After about 15 small cups of Coke I thought I was ready but that quickly changed. I was happy to get to the first rail trail section but my ass wasn't as happy as the rest of me. Then after the rail trail I started up the last and final climb I was glad to know that is was only 3 mikes long. After about 5 minutes of climbing is when I was wishing I was back on the rail trail.This was when it finally hit me that I wasn't going to make more than my goal of 8 hours. But finally I made it to the top and was treated to a long gravel descent. Then on to the fisherman's which is just short piece of very technical singletrack. I think it all ridable but after 8 hours and 96 miles of riding I wasn't too interested in trying it today. So I hiked though and made it to the final section of rail trail crossed the bridge went through the tunnel and onto the last mile of road. After eight hours and eighteen minutes it was finally over. I finished 16th in the men's open and there was 5 really fast SS that got in before me so that made me 21st in the overall standings. It always feels good to finish but today it felt really good. I headed down to the stream to cool down and relax for a bit. Then off to get some of the great food and too hear about some the crazy things that happened out there.
Here's how our group ended up Steevo had a great race and finished 11th, the ever fast and reliable Scotty Root got another 1st place in the master class. Jake finished in just under 9-1/2 hours not to bad for your first MTB I'm glad too that he still talking to me. Ruth finished in about 13 hours a little off her pace from last year. Next time you see her besure to ask her about her first rattlesnake encounter.
I would also like to say thanks to Chris Scott and staff for the awsome job they did of organiizing this great event also for keeping everyone safe and keeping our bellies full.
Men's top five list Jeff Schalk, Chris Eatough, Harlan Price, Christian Tanguy, Chris Beck
Women's top five Cheryl Sornson, Michelle Stopper, Carey Lowery, Karen Potter,Betsy Shogren
Be sure to check out http://www.mntouring.com/ for more coverage and to see some of the other great events Chris puts on.
Justin
Posted by Justin at 6:29 PM 0 comments