I’m about to post a novel here, but I’m super excited and wanted to share for those who like story time. I accomplished a major milestone this past weekend by completing the Barn Burner 104 endurance XC race in Flagstaff, Arizona, my first MTB century ride!
A bit of background: The Barn Burner 104 is one of six qualifier races for the Leadville 100 in Leadville, Colorado. It is the longest of the qualifying races. It consists of 4 laps at 26 miles each or 104 miles total distance with 8760 ft of total elevation. It is mostly doubletrack and fire roads with a couple of decent climbs and very rock descents. Basically if you’re going downhill on this course it’s going to be rough.
I attempted this race last year (June, 2013) as my first MTB race. For a variety of reasons (all tied to mental or physical shortcomings on my part), I only completed two laps before throwing in the towel. At the time, it seemed like an impossible task to complete this event. I didn’t train enough. I didn’t know my gear. I didn’t have a strategy. I didn’t understand nutrition or eating. My mind wasn’t right to deal with the stresses during the ride.
I sat around all year thinking about the race and this past February, I started training again for the event this year, which was moved to September. Thinking back on last year’s performance I was embarrassed. I used this as motivation to train and step up my game. I have been doing spin class at least once a week, long rides on weekends and at least one night a week, short hard efforts at least once a week. All totaled, probably 6 to 10 hours on the bike a week as work and home life allowed. I’m certain I can (and will) do more, but that is a huge improvement from basically zero consistent training schedule going into BB 2013. I even built a new bike for the race, which many of you have seen.
Fast forward to this past weekend: Myself, three riding buddies, and our SO’s headed up to Flagstaff. All week, the weather forecast was predicting rain. Lots of it. We drove up Friday afternoon to set up camp and pick up packets and all. The drive up from the Phoenix valley was beautiful as the temps dropped from ~105° to ~75°.
Here is the trusty Subaru Forester (204K miles!) ready to go. The bike in the back is my new carbon hardtail. The bike in the front was my buddy’s seasoned Pivot Les carbon hardtail.
We stopped at a reststop between the valley and Flagstaff. It was beautiful, but clouds were rolling in and it was obvious a storm was coming.
Just as we rolled into Flagstaff, it started to rain hard. I found out my windshield wipers were shot (we don’t use them much in the valley) and I stopped at Autozone to buy new ones. The race was down a 10 mile dirt road and I new the bikes would be covered in mud unless I protected them somehow. My wife and I spent a few minutes coving the bikes in trash bags which the Autozone customers looked at us like we were nuts.
On the way to the trailhead, the storm blew past and it was nice again.
When we arrived at the race area, there were already a lot of people there. The place was SOAKED and all of the roads were rutted and barely passable. Many non-AWD/4WD vehicles were stuck everywhere. We set up camp and got soaked in the process (wet trees, grass, ground). It was dark just as we finished and went to pick up the race packets. There were some instructional and motivational speeches that night, but we were all so nervous and tired that we made dinner at camp and went to bed. I crawled into bed at 9:00, but didn’t fall asleep until 10:30 or so. Mostly due to nerves and stragglers coming into the camp area late.
I got up the next morning at 5:00 to start eating and preparing. Line-up was at 6:30 and start was at 7:00. Even at 5:00, there was a steady stream of participants coming in. Due to rain in the night, the roads were WAY worse than the day before and cars/RVs were stuck everywhere. Some started the race late as a result. You can see the string of headlights in the distance below. It was brisk, but not cold and the sky looked relatively clear. Maybe we would get lucky with the weather! As nervous as I was, it was so peaceful out there.
After breakfast and kitting out, I took my pre-race bathroom break. Everything was going good until I realized the Port-o-potty I was in was out of paper… I ended up using a folded up paper in my jersey pocket because it was the only thing I had. This would be the theme for the day.
Traditionally, this race is a LeMans style start, but due to all the mud it was canceled and replaced with a standard roll-out. Shotgun start. Tons of riders.
The first lap felt great. One of my buddies was gone immediately as he is fast. Me and the other guy set into a good pace (we train together weekly) and got to work. Things were going great until about 13 miles in he punctured his tire so bad the sealant wouldn’t hold. So we stopped and threw in a tube. This set us back about 10-15 minutes, but no big deal since we had hours and hours ahead of us. This was our only mechanical for the whole day. We polished off the first lap with ease. I felt strong on the climbs, steady on the straights, and went SLOW on the rock garden downhill sections. The mud at the start and end was crazy.
This is the elevation profile of a single lap:
The second lap was OK, but I really over did it on the second climb trying to pace my buddy. I had to let him go and met up with him back at the pit stop a bit later. Coming in from the second lap, I was pretty beat up. I started to think about last year and was worried I was no stronger than before. This was the start of me getting up in my head, which is probably my biggest weakness. My buddy and my wife ultimately pushed me out of the pit.
The third lap was painful for the first half. Again, I tried to pace my buddy, but was struggling. While he won’t admit to it, I know he was sandbagging to keep me in sight. He was super encouraging and kept telling me to light the last match. The clouds turned grey at the end and I got dumped on which made me cold and wet. Third lap was over before I knew it.
Once in the pits before the final lap, I was super excited, but also SUPER tired. To make matters worse, my gut was acting up and I could feel trouble brewing. The longer I stood there, the worse it got. I tried to use the bathroom to no avail. My buddy told me he wasn’t going to leave the pit unless I was with him. I convinced him I would be going out, but that he should leave, so finally he did. After about 5-10 minutes of screwing around feeling like I was going to throw up or **** myself, I decided to just hop on the bike and go for it. I still had 3.5 hours to make the cutoff.
Immediately out on the fourth lap, the adrenaline hit me as I realized that I was going to finish this beast. And that as long as I didn’t die, I would even make the time cutoff! I banged out the first 10 miles like it was my job. But then my guts went south. I rolled into the only aid station out there and flew into the port-o-potty. I literally threw the bike down and was stripping off my jacket and jersey to get to my bibs as I waddled to the toilet. I made it and all was well. No sooner did I get out of the john (with strange stares from the aid station workers) and got all dressed, it hit me again. I stripped back down for round two. Before I left, I grabbed a huge wad of paper as I knew this wasn’t over and there were no other toilets on the course for the next 16 miles.
The next 4 miles went smoothly. Then the gut struck again and I ended up ****ting my brains out 10 yards off the trail behind a rock. I left my bike, jacket, jersey, helmet, and headphones by the side of the trail and ran off, which must have been strange for anyone who passed. That toilet paper I used came in handy. Once again, I got dressed and no sooner did I swing my leg over the bike, I felt it coming again. I ran back off towards the rock as fast as I could manage without letting everything go. I made it just in time, only to realize I had zero to wipe with. Damn. I briefly considered the leaves on this velvet looking weed, but was worried about a rash. I then thought about just sticking it out and getting dressed. The thought of that meme with the poor marathon runner crossing the finish line with **** running down his legs came to mind and I decided that wasn’t how I wanted to remember my finish. I then realized I had an Uncrustable PB&J sandwich in my pocket. Actually I had two of them. I realized the plastic wrapper was useless, but the sandwich would work great. And it did. Feeling pretty smart, I got dressed and went on my way. I finished the forth lap with time to spare. And a funny story to boot.
Rolling into the finish area was an incredible feeling. I didn’t think I was capable of this. And as painful as it was, all I can think about is doing it again. How do I get stronger and faster?
I ended up very solidly at the bottom of the pack. Out of all the solo riders, 168 finished. I placed 157. But there were a heck of a lot of DNFs and I wasn’t one of them! With rest stops and all included I was 10 hours, 17 minutes. 104.96 miles. 8760 ft of climbing.
Myself (middle) and my teammates. Super stoked! The guy on the left was the buddy who pushed me the whole way. He did a 9:46 (he’s done this race successfully once before). The guy in on the right killed it with a 9:09 (he’s done this race and Leadville successfully once as well). We all go the belt buckle awards.
The rain cleared up for the end of the forth lap and it was beautiful out:
My buddy coming in for the finish:
My support crew and my bike:
