2007 12 Hours of Lodi Farms

2007 12 Hours of Lodi Farms
May 6, 2007
Fredericksburg, VA

In reading many of my past race reports I realized that the reader must leave thinking WHY would anyone do this stuff? It doesn't sound like he's having fun. I suffer a lot during races. I don't gloss over that, so I think many of the negatives come out when I write. I hope the positives come out too. I'm not sure WHY I do this, that's another post, but if you're up to read about HOW I totally flog myself by all means keep reading...

Another Race In The Mercy Seat

"My body is on fire
And God is never far away.
Into the mercy seat I climb"

My expectations for this race were low. I wanted to race to work on my night riding, see some friends and get some hours on the mountain bike that I hadn't been getting out of competition. I of course still wanted to be at least a LITTLE competitive and not make a complete fool of myself.

Many folks would call this "training through a race" I don't particularly like that phrase since I feel it's often used in hind sight after a poor performance. I call it "C" level race. Racing but not gonna lose sleep over where I placed. I pretty much KNEW I wasn't gonna place, but really wasn't expecting the suffering that would come.

The reports of The 12 Hours Of Lodi Farms demise have been greatly exaggerated. It was in fine shape this year. Yes, they lost some trail, but they also put more trails in, they did a great job and are already planning for 2008. Do the race. It's cheap and it's fun, whether it's dry or wet. Kinda like picking up an ugly hooker whilst drunk.

This was my fourth year at Lodi and 3rd as a Solo. I dig the tight, rooted single track. It's very much like some of my local trails and I look forward to racing here each year despite the 5+ hour drive each way.

What I don't dig are races in the rain. Ma Nature dumped showers all over Virginia on Saturday night, making for some soggy camping and slick trails. Lucky for me, Wifey and B-Man that we were on the business end of the generosity stick and would be camping inside my friends Fernando and Loretta's Prowler® RV. (Thanks guys!)

Wifey drinks coffee from the crystal chalice that is Loretta's Dolly Parton mug.

Made it down to F/Burg late afternoon, poo-pooed the pre-ride for the sake of keeping my bike in good condition and my ass dry and warm and just got all our gear set up.

Later as I walked through the venue I ran into FatMarc, and received a hand shake and a wet kiss on the cheek, given under the orders from Twin-Six's Brent Gale. I told Marc, "you know Brent told me to give you a big kiss too, but I didn't take it so literally!"

Speaking of Marc, the Spot Brand/T6/Henry's guys had a set up that was roughly the size of a small shopping center. B-Man and I stopped down to say hi later in the evening and B-Man even got some tasty birthday cake thrown his way. Thanks guys! It was great to see you all and meet some of the other Henry's folks.

B-Man munches on some birthday cake provided by the Spot/T6/Henry's folks.

After I cooked up some pasta and olive oil I took a nap in the Prowler® and listened to the rain fall. It was a bummer that it was raining, but I was happy I at least brought my rain jacket. I also had to keep asking myself why I was there. I didn't pre register because I told Wifey "If it looks like rain I'm not driving 5.5. hours to race in the mud". Well, there was a 90% chance of rain in the forecast and I was there? I might have some "issues".

Lodi Farms Mud

After my nap, I lubed up the Dos Niner's chain, put on my bottle mounted light (courtesy of Tom/Kevin), got my pack loaded with my helmet mount and got my race food ready.

I would be rolling the Dos Niner exclusively again for this race and was looking forward to trying out my new IRD (Panaracer) Fire Pro 29er tires and and my Reba now set to 100mm.

Once I was satisfied with my bike/light/nutrition set up I headed over to the Princeton Tec trailer to talk to Justin and check out the Switch Back series of lights. DDDDDDDDDDAMN these are some nice lights. I ended up riding with Justin on part of our first lap. Anyway, I was super impressed with the gear. More on those later this week. Thanks for the info Justin!

Before you knew it it was time to chamois up for the rolling parade lap start (thank goodness! my 2nd race with no running start!).

Gettin' all gussied up for the dance.

Started with my rain jacket on, since it was still looking like rain and the night air was damn chilly for Virginia in May. The jacket made it through about 2 miles before I had to pull over and stuff it in my jersey pocket. Damn I got warm. From the looks of it I wasn't the one one pulling off stuff either.

The first lap there was a LOT of bottle-necking. The slick roots, and muddy climbs made for a lot of riders dismounting. Normal 1st lap stuff. It's a long race so no big deal.

With no pre ride I was using the first lap to feel things out and get familiar with the course. Laps 2 and 3 I found a pretty nice groove, found myself riding alone for much of them and was enjoying myself. Lap 4 was strange, not sure why, but I was getting sloppy on the course and went down hard a few times off of some slick roots hidden by mud. The bike was staying in once piece and that's what I was most concerned about.

After lap 4 I switched out my batteries and headed back out. The sky was really getting clear now. The moon was out in and riding alone at times through the woods and fields in the moon light was a seriously cool experience that every mountain biker should experience.

During one climb as I got to the top there was bitchin' Cammaro and a group of "course marshals" camped nearby listening to southern rock and getting drunk. They were having some political "discussion". I was freaking giggling like a school girl as I ducked into the woods.

The cool parts of lap 4 were being interrupted by the fact that I was realizing I was not eating or drinking enough. Nothing was tasting right. Heed was nasty, my Perpetuem/Hammer Gel mix was worse. This was a bad sign. I wanted to use this race to work on some alternative eating plans. Not eating and drinking was NOT the plan.

Soon the sky was getting light and before you knew it the sun was peeking through the trees. I defy you to find a racer who's mojo doesn't shoot up during the sun rise lap. Good stuff.

Sadly after this enjoyment of the sun rise lap I found myself doing some serious damage control. I switched to straight water, since the taste of Heed and Perpetuem literally was gagging me. When I stopped I changed out of my wet jersey for a new one and tried to choke down some fig bars and continue on.

Trying to get it done. Photo via Gary

On this lap I could NOT escape two guys riding together with a boom box strapped to one of their bikes blasting bad heavy metal music. You gotta love 24 hour racing! Puking solo racers, single speeders in skirts, naked post race riding, and more.

Each lap was getting harder for me. I wanted to stop. But figured I didn't drive 5.5 hours to sit around. I took a little brake, and tried to drink a little Gatorade. I also took a couple sips of coffee to try to jump start my sleep deprived body.

And I think my head is burning
And in a way I'm yearning
To be done with all this measuring of truth.

After what I thought was my 8th lap I chatted with Spot Paul for a bit at the check in tent and then told them I was going to go sit down for a second. I wasn't sure if this would be a second, a few minutes or an hour and a half until the end.

As I sat there I decided I would at least go out and get my 9th lap (I thought) in. So I mounted up and started out for a nice hike in the woods with some occasional mountain biking.

During one climb I heard the familiar voice of Bob Anderson (the eventual winner with 14 laps). Bob and I seem to end up at just about every race together. He kicks ass and is a super nice guy. He had the time to stop and chat a second with me as I hoofed up the hill.

Then in his friendly southern drawl says "c'mon, lets go" he put the hammer down and I jump on his wheel. We went flying down some sweet single track, weaving in an out of trees, down some sweet rooted descents, and then I bonked. HARD. Bob was gone in a flash, that 2 minutes on his wheel gave me some good mojo and the tow and motivation was much appreciated.

I then mounted up and tried to get going again. I soon stopped and had some SERIOUS dry heaves. I'd call it puking but since I was eating and drinking nothing, it's was dry heaves. Guttural roars echoed through the woods as my eyes nearly popped out of my head. All I wanted to do was make it back to the start/finish.

I was sure that I wouldn't be back to the finish before noon, but I was back at 11:45. There was a group down the trail waiting for the clock to hit noon. I joined them. Somewhat content in getting that last lap in.

Waiting for the end.

Noon hit and we rolled in order to the line and clocked in. I was sure I finished with nine laps. Not sure if it was an error in my bonked mind or an error in the scoring but it looks like "officially" it's 8. This may have been the difference between 5th and 8th or 9th, but seriously, Who cares? This is a great run grass roots race, run by some great folks and I'm not gonna bitch over something that may or may not be my fault.

Getting undressed interrupted by needing to lay down.

One of the highlights of my dismal finish was as a laid in the sun, with my eyes closed (see above), B-man comes over, kisses me and tells me not to be sad. That made me very happy and very proud. Thanks B-Man.

Even though I went into this race with low expectations and knowing it was a "c" race, I didn't expect to walk (crawl) away from this race with the mental drainage that took place. On one hand I did what I sat out to do. I got some quality night racing in, saw friends, and got some riding in. 25 hours of racing in 3 weeks for someone with my less than stellar abilities may be too much. Hell it may be too much for seasoned pros.

Consider yourself webbed.

Race nutrition was off the charts bad. No reflection on the products themselves, they've worked in the past, but HEED, Perpetuem and Hammer Gels just have not been working for me during races this year. I need a Plan "B" when shit goes bad. I plan on working on that over the next month or so and have some things in the works.

No racing for a while. Next up is the Mohican 100 in June. Time to get my shit together.

Sorry for the long report. Thanks to Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and Troegs Brewing for providing inspiration. Lyrics reprinted without any permission or care what-so-ever.

UPDATE 5.23.07 Official Results have me in 7th Place, doing 9 laps, as I thought, out of 28. The odd thing is that they have my finish time at 12:14, even though I crossed the line at just after noon. Hmmm. Strange.

Later.