Shenandoah 100 Recap.

This past Sunday i completed and competed in my first 100 mile off road race, also known as an Ultra-Endurance MTB race...

I must say, hearing people talk about these for a few years now, i never could understand why you would want to race 100 miles on your mountain bike. It just seemed like it would be long and slow.

So i got to the campsite around 8pm the night before and signed up. I got some Hammer gel from Chris Scott, the organizer, and decided that drop bags were not needed. My rear tire on my bike was leaking a bit, and reason for some concern , but i went to bed around 11pm.

The race started at 6:30am and i was lined up in the front row basically, ready to race. No warm up needed, this is 100 miles! The race started at a brisk pace, but i wanted to get into the woods ASAP so i stayed with the leaders up the first climb, having to back it off a bit towards the top, because my heart rate monitor wasn't working and it would be a long day to blow up!

This particular race has about 12,000 feet of climbing, and i would tend to stay on the climbs with people, then drop them on the downhills. This could have worked against me in some sections as i was left exposed on many roads, but live and learn, i wanted to rip downhills!

Around mile 50-60 was really tough, i had seemingly blown up and was being passed by all sorts of people on the dirt road to aid station 5, before the climb. I decided to limit the damage and back off, eat and hopefully recover a bit. Lucky for me, by station 5 i was ready to go again, and dropped 4 of the guys who caught me up the the highest point in the race. From there on it was easy, and i came in at 8:13 in 24th place. I was hoping to do sub 8, but next year this is a realistic goal.

I did however, win as the fastest local (Jeremiah does not count!!) and i got me a picture on the interwebs !

It was fun, and i do now understand why these events are so popular. Chris runs a great race, and the atmosphere is super cool. It was great seeing friends from back home. Dennis of EBS fame did well for himself and beat his old time by about 1/2 hour!

Surprisingly, i don't feel tired, and i am about to go for a hard ride, later!