Crushed by The Crusher

If you've made it to this blog you've most likely already read other reports of the race and/or probably did the race yourself. I'm not sure I'm ready to talk about it yet as the sting is still fresh and new but here is the basic (meaning long and overly drawn out) recap.

Friday afternoon I packed up my truck and drove down to Beaver, UT for The Crusher in the Tushar road+dirt race. This race appealed to me because it was a mix of road and dirt. A normal road race just doesn't seem like fun at all. I drove, probably a little too fast since my speedometer only works sometimes, to downtown Beaver where the packet pick-up was being held. Oddly enough some sort of Polynesian festival was also going on. I'd expect this sort of thing in West Valley or even Provo, but it seemed strange and out of place in Beaver. I handed my waiver forms to a woman, I think it was the race director's wife. She asked my number when I told her "12" she said, "Ryan Hamilton from Orem, UT" then found my packet and swag bag and handed it to me. Did she memorize the people that registered for the race or maybe the first 20 or something? Either way it was impressive and kind of strange. Next I scouted out a place to park and spend the night. I needed an out of the way parking lot. I found that Beaver is just as small as I expected and happened upon the high school from which we'd lead out the next day. I soon found a parking lot shared by the LDS seminary building and the high school. There must only be 30 people that drive cars to that high school, that was a small parking lot. A perfect place to spend the night since I'd only have a block or two to drive the next morning to start the race. I blew up my air mattress, stuck it in the back of the truck, peed in the bushes and went to bed. Sometime in the night the sprinklers on the lawn I'd parked next to went on, everything in the back of my truck was pretty wet, but somehow it didn't soak through my sleeping bag.

I packed up and drove to the parking lot near the start area to find I was the first person there. I was able to use the porta-potty in peace without the usual race-day lines. While eating my oatmeal, mountain bike legend, Tinker Juarez pulled up next to me. I've always wondered what national champions do to get ready for a big bike race. Apparently they warm up for 5-10 minutes, fiddle with the bike a bit then sit in their car and text. Good to see I'm not too far off.

Since I was parked 50 yards from the start line I could take my time getting ready. I could hear all of the announcements so when I heard them make the final call for racers to get to the start line I went over to the Men 30-39 group. I was happy to see cyclocross buddies Josh McCarrel and Wesley Rasmussen near me. After a few words from the officials we took our turn heading out. We started out at a decent pace so I pedaled along in the peleton for a few miles. Then, some of the fast guys from the group behind us passed our group. I think that spurred the lead guys to go faster. Pretty soon I was in the last half of the group that didn't want to bust a lung in the first 5 miles of the race. It was nice to have a group to ride with and take turns pulling and drafting as the grades slowly got steeper and steeper up Beaver Canyon. By the time we turned onto the dirt the group was pretty strung out. I hung with a group of about 4 guys on mountain bikes for a while, but dropped them after a couple of miles. I this was due to the fact that I had to stick with my 34T chain ring and they had a 22 granny to drop into so they could spin away. I had to keep the legs pumping up the climb. About 10 miles up the dirt (20 miles into the race) the cramps in my legs got bad enough that I had to stop for a few minutes. Riders passed by and asked if I was ok. One guy who'd apparently replaced the torn off sleeves of his jersey with full sleeve tatoos (later found out it was big-drop crazy Josh Bender) asked for a knuckle bump as he rode past on his 7" travel Ellsworth MTB. After the cramps subsided I got back on and rode to the first aid station, had a cool slice of watermelon (tasted sooo good), refilled with electrolytes and continued on.

After hitting the aid station and refueling I got back to it. I had thought the aid station was at the top of the climb so it was a long 3 miles to top out. I'll also mention here that although I loved everything else at the aid stations, the EFS gel was the absolute worst gel I've ever had. No gels are really all that great, but this was like shooting a big gulp of runny honey into your mouth. My jaw actually locked up for a moment after the intense sweetness hit the back of my tongue, glad I had some water to quickly wash that down. After making it to the top and snagging a dollar from Slyfox I hit the downhill only to find that my rear brake wasn't really working at all. This made navigating the steep and loose switchbacks more than a little difficult. Not wanting to die, I took my time creeping around the corners with just my front brake to keep my speed under control. After what seemed like a hand cramping eternity I finally made it to the paved section, luckily still downhill. The curves were all nice and mellow so I shot down without touching my brakes and enjoyed the relief of not having to exercise any muscles for a few minutes. After the grade mellowed out a bit I tried to shift to different gear so I could start pedaling to maintain the speed I had. As soon as I started to pedal my rear derailleur locked up. Not wanting to rip of the derailleur in the middle of the race I was forced to stop and fix it. The derailleur looked fine but my I couldn't turn the cranks. It took me a couple of minutes to figure out that the bumpy descent had somehow made my cassette come loose. I popped off the wheel and did my best to hand tighten the cassette without a tool. All this time I watched rider after rider pass by. Once I got back on the road I and pedaled into town I realized that I hadn't seen anyone in quite a while and wondered if I'd gone the wrong way.

I made my way to the only flat section of the course, with the stiff wind it offered no relief of easy pedaling. I managed to catch up to one guy and sat on his wheel for a minute to catch my breath. We took turns pulling in the headwind. Once the course turned onto dirt and the wind was now at my back I dropped him pretty quick. That is until a couple miles into the slow dirt climb when my leg cramps came back with a vengeance. I suffered with them for a while until I couldn't take it any longer. Anytime my leg would straiten out it would lock up in a cramp, not only making it hard to pedal with any sort of efficiency, but quickly make my muscles very tired and sore. I pedaled slower and slower until I just couldn't turn over the cranks and came to a stop. After a minute the guy behind me slowly passed by. Then another couple of minutes after that the SAG wagon pulled up and asked if I was OK. I explained the cramp situation, that I was just waiting it out. Apparently my previous cramps, slow descent and mechanical problems had put me in last place. So I now had the decision to try to keep going with the SAG wagon creeping behind me for the next 3 hours, or call it a day. It was a tough decision to make. I had been training hard, harder than I've ever trained before. I was in great shape and had really looked forward to this race. But, I knew from past hot sweaty rides that once the leg cramps get bad there isn't much I can do to keep them at bay. Knowing that the toughest part of the race was ahead and my legs, if I could even get them to move again, would just get worse, I made the decision to get in the van.

It was both a relief and heartbreaking to sit in the van. It made it all the worse when we came upon my friend Wes who was clearly having a hard time on the steep switchbacks, honestly everyone was. Wes didn't give up, even with the van on his heals, he just kept on. He walked when he needed to walk and rode when he could ride. He may have come in last, unable to catch that last guy 10 seconds in front of him at the end, but had more grit and determination than most of the guys that rode the Crusher that day.

Three days later I still get a pit in my stomach wondering if I could have continued and finished the race. All I can do is plan for next year. I've got to figure out my sodium loss issue that causes my leg cramps. I thought I had prepared well enough for it by bringing a bunch of salt pills with me and taking in a lot of electrolytes. I need to own up to the fact that I'm more susceptible than most to salt loss and I can't just do what others do if I'm going to finish a race like The Crusher. One thing is for sure I'll be ready for it next year.

Training Is Not Fun

I wrote about a recent adventure I had while training for the Crusher In The Tushar race:  http://utahmountainclimbing.blogspot.com/2011/07/crusher-in-tusher.html I've thought a a lot about long hilly bike rides during the last month or so as I've ramped up my "Crusher" training. I've come to realize that I don't enjoy most of the tough hill climbs, I rarely ever do. It's hard, painful, hot and did I mention hard. I recall about 6 years ago driving up Provo and South Fork Canyon looking at the cyclists that were sweating their way up those canyons on their bikes in the July heat and honestly wondering why they did it. It didn't look fun, it didn't look like they were enjoying themselves. I said to my wife, "why would you even want to do that, it looks awful?" Fast forward to today and I can tell you why those suckers sweat and grind their way to the top of the hill. You get a supreme sense of satisfaction from completing a tough ride, especially if it involves a big climb. Time after time I push myself on my rides, especially my favorite Provo Canyon/South Fork time trial. I push as hard as I can, yet feel myself moving in slow motion as I finally reach out and touch the gate to the Girl Scouts camp that marks the end of the road. Sometimes my heart is beating so hard that I have to have to sit down and put my head between my legs to keep my lunch down. Not fun. But I feel stronger and tougher because of it and that 30 seconds I took off my personal record feels like my own gold medal.

Despite all this feel good I get from training I tend to slack off the training when it gets hard. During cyclocross season the training is all about hard intervals and hard intervals suck. They suck even more because they're done in my basement on the trainer in front of a movie that I'm bored of and isn't doing anything to take my mind off the pain. Because of this, it's easy to say that tonight is just a bad night and my legs aren't feeling it. I cut the workout short, take a shower and sit down to a nice bowl of ice cream. Probably the best thing that training for the Crusher has taught me is to keep pushing. If I stopped every time the road got steep on the Alpine Loop it would take me forever to complete those training rides. Quiting was not an option, I had to get in the miles or get crushed by The Crusher. So I learned that when it got steep and my legs felt limp that I had to push harder and dig a little deeper. Sure it hurt, but I gained a little extra heart in the process. Giving up 2/3 of the way through a 45 mile ride through the mountains isn't really an option. Turning around and heading back down means I'd then have to ride 30 miles back home in the heat of the afternoon sun.

One of my favorite parts of completing a really hard training ride or race is the silent satisfaction that I get when I go back to work on Mon. and know that I'm that much tougher than everyone else that went out for 18 holes or sat on their couch watching a football game. I have nothing against golf or tv watching, I'll probably take it up when I'm 60 and I have to slow down a bit. But for now I'll relish the grit and mud that I clean off my teeth after a hard 'cross race and feel just a little bit tougher than you.