24 Hours to Destroy a 25 Year Old Knee

Smart athletes can tell the difference between pain-pain and injury-pain.

Apparently, I'm smart on the inside, but have a tremendous ability to override reason with narrow, misguided focus.

The pain started somewhere around midnight during the Boggs 24-hour mountain bike race.

It was a 24-hour race, it was supposed to hurt, right?

Deep down, I knew it wasn't good pain. But I wasn't going to not ride for 24 hours. That was the point of the race.

I kept riding. My knee got worse.

I rode hills for the first time since Boggs today in an effort to gauge just how evil my knee is actually being.

I passed an older man on a fancy LeMonde in a fancy Ironfly kit while pedaling up a steep incline. I thought I was really chugging along, passing Mr. Fancy.

"Hi!" I said.
"You're doing great!" he said as he pulled up beside me, matching my effort.
"So are you!" said I.
"I'm 86!" says he.

Thus, I realized my 25-year old knee had gained approximately 60 years of wear and tear in 24-hours. (Either that, or my mtb saddle was too low...and the knee will heal.)

Now, 10 days after Boggs, I'm praying the lasting, point-specific pain in my inner right knee will somehow heal itself in the next 9 days, even though it hasn't in the past 10. 9 days are all it's got.

To prove my dedication to healing the rogue knee, I have iced it with peas, and done things against the very grain of my being, like taking Advil more than once a month, and sitting in icy-water. I hate cold. But I love my knee more. It should know that.

When the 9 days are up, it's showtime at Race Across Oregon. I'm asking my kneeright to at least hold off of the injured-pain until mile 526. Please, oh please.

And for fun, check out the only photos taken at Boggs. Coachubby spent the rest of the time making me pb&potato chip sandwiches.

Start!

Can you find me?

Just before the start.

Thank you, sir, may I have another loop?

Pre-race meeting. Spot the Erin?

Qeee chilling before getting dirty.

The "Coolest 24-Hour Race Boggs Mountain": Hurts So Good

(Update: To view Boggs results, click here.)
There are two reasons the trail became strewn with wet spots at night. Well, actually one reason: pee.

But there are two reasons it was on the trail:

1. There's nobody around for hours on end, so why waste time hiding behind a tree?
2. Sticking your bum out into the cold, dark unknown at night is like asking to become a human midnight snack.

The first few night loops, I tried not to stop for too long--just long enough to add purple leg warmers and eat a pb& pretzel sandwich.

Then two things began to sabotage my chances at winning. Big time: A propane heater, and a 5-hour energy.

I found the heater at midnight. Then I didn't want to leave.
I. Hate. Being. Cold.
The terrible thing is, if I had just kept going, I wouldn't have gotten cold; I got cold standing around eating.

Then I took a 5-hour energy--the first I have downed in my entire life, and began chatting. With anyone and everyone who was up and willing to listen to me. I had energy, and I wanted to talk, dammit.

I discovered on my subsequent loop that I was lonely. The excitement of having all of the 8 hour people out there was gone. I saw nary a headlamp for more than half an hour at a time. I wanted to talk to someone. To jump up and down.

My breaks began to get longer as I started to talk to race leaders for other teams, other teammates being staged, random people who couldn't sleep. Coachubby.

To my delight, a drunken crew of 8-hour racers plus coachubby had walked over to the course's only aid station to heckle riders as they passed in the night. I stopped.
"Hey! You're beating this guy's wife!" one said, while coachubby gave me salt pills.
"Dumbass, that is his wife--why else would she be taking pills from him?"
I needed the comical interlude.

My 5 hour energy lasted 4 hours. I ate a Red Bull and kept on going.

Then, the magical loop came: the Dawn Loop. It was beautiful. I would be able to make out at least a silhouette of a mountain lion before it pounced on me. However, I'd have to be more careful about willy nilly bladder emptying--other riders could more easily sneak up on me without lights blaring.

I was re energized. I wanted to keep riding, but my right knee, bless her, was a mess. I started to walk parts of the big ass backside climb like a little sissy. I also started to get technically impaired (not that my technical skills were too great to begin with). I rubbed up on some trees instead of going around them.

Then, I had my one fall of the race: I stuck my foot out to balance a sharp ziggy-zaggy turn, then fell over. (Make that fall number two, after I stepped to the side to let someone pass, then just fell over. Classy.) I checked to make sure nobody saw, then continued through the chute to my almost final lap.

At 8am, I came through the chute. If I didn't stop for too long, I could do two more loops.

Thus began a big, failing brain battle. On the previous loop, I figured I had one more loop left in me. The clock thought differently. So my brain made me take a big, fat break at 8am, for like 20 minutes, essentially making it impossible to squeeze in a loop after 10:30am in my damaged condition.

The bike karma gods were out strong on my last loop. Some male member of a 24-hour team screamed at me to get out of his way while he was bombing through the last technical section. I was pissed--how rude! Every body else for the past 22+ hours had been encouraging and kind.

Just when I was thinking what a d-word that guy was, I came around a corner, and saw him struggling to fix a flat.

Thank you bike karma gods. (He must've been really, really mean earlier, too. I later learned the same guy had crashed and broken his finger, then snapped it back into place himself!)

I rolled in around 10:30am. Done. No more loops--the final one would not count if I did it. Then another woman rolled in behind me--a loop ahead. Bah! Curse the glowy warmth of the propane heater!

I was covered in dirt. My teeth were covered in dirt. My purple leg warmers looked like compression socks on my swollen legs. Life was good.

Except we were in the middle of nowhere...how to get un-covered in dirt?

Coachubby and I drove to a hotel down the road and offered $20 to the maid to let us use the shower, while I hid in the car so she wouldn't see exactly how gross the shower was going to get from my being in it.

We had to skip awards to make the 9 hour trek back to LA.

But the rule of race-to-driving ratio was obeyed; with 22.5 hours of racing and 18 hours of driving, the ratio was greater than 1. Totally worth it.

Who's up for the Tahoe-Sierra 100 Mtb Race September 12th?

The "Coolest 24-Hour Race Boggs Mountain": Chugging Along

"We have to stop at CVS if you see one!"
"Why?" asked coachubby as he navigated up windy roads through Napa and beyond.
"Because I want to dye my hair!"
"Are you kidding me? You've never dyed it before."
"So?"
"Shouldn't you be thinking about, I don't know, the race?"
"What's there to think about? I just ride until 24 hours are over. Done."
"You should think of motivators for when it gets tough."
"Because I can. Done."
"Ok...."

In an act of boredom, I had cut bangs into my hair a few days before, and in the act, had lobbed off the natural highlights that came from spending hours in the sun with the bottom of my hair sticking out of my helmet. The bangs were oddly dark. That's what I was thinking about going into my first 24-hour mountain bike race.

Coachubby was appalled. We hadn't driven 9 hours north of LA to dye my hair, apparently.

I tried to wake up at 9am on race morning, but at about 7:30, I had already had 9 hours of sleep and couldn't sleep any more. Ah, the joys of a noon race start. I waited until 9am for coachubby to come back from his marathon-length recon run--2 loops of the 11-mile mtb course, plus a few more miles.

"You're gonna like the course!" he said, "A big sketchy part in the beginning, then there are some rollers, and a sketchy downhill that turns right just at the bottom, then a big ass climb for a mile up a fire road."
"Great."
"I ran with a huge stick just in case I saw a mountain lion."
"Great."

I downed a skinny Elvis, packed my stuff into Laree, and off we went down a very dusty dirt road until we came upon the campground housing the race directors and my competitors. And by campground, I mean forest--there were no facilities besides about 8 porta potties somebody dragged in. Just us and mother nature. Hardcore.

"Here's your number with the timing chip on it. And here's another one for your other bike. Do you have two bikes?" asked the check-in lady.
"Am I supposed to have two bikes?"
"Well, you can come back and get this number if someone loans you one."

Was I going to destroy Qeee, my 6-month old baby mountain bike?

After a pre-race meeting with all 69 24-hour participants--39 of whom were on teams--and 85 8-hour participants, I killed an hour reading about renegade DIY Los Angeles bike-lane builders in Bicycling, then stood in the back of the mass start.

Good idea for placement, bad idea for breathing in dirt. Lots of dirt. One smart, yet uber dorky, competitor had a bird flu mask on. No dirt spores would be prodding around his lungs.

A few of the other four 24-hour female competitors introduced themselves to me. We all had red numbers to distinguish ourselves from the 8-hour racers, and make a statement about our mental health.

I was apparently in the right spot, sitting in the back. And I must've looked like I had no idea what I was doing, since they all said, "This is your first one," with the slightest bit of a question mark at the end.

We were off! Then two minutes later, we were all bunched up as 114 riders approached the coachubby-dubbed "super sketchy part in the beginning".

Pam and her cohort Tom, two of the solo 24-hour racers I had met at the beginning, who were apparently there to ride the entire 24-hours in unison, would have none of this bunching up, picked up their bikes, and tried to run down the mountain. Chaos and a flat ensued.

I stuck to the course. I had 23hours and 58 minutes, after all, to make it through. The laid-back mindset of riding for more time rather than less was easy to adopt.

Unless you're world-class mountain biker Tinker Juarez.
Yep, he was there. And he was racing like there was only one loop to do.

I rode the first 6 loops without stopping for too long. Then, at the end of my 6th loop, not only did the 8-hour race conclude, taking away the bulk of the riders on the course, but also night began to fall.

Oh the creepiness of twilight in the forest with nobody around to forge ahead and scare the mountain lions away from the trail. Just like swimming in the ocean with real swimmers, I imagined that by riding through the forest with real mountain bikers, I would look like the gimpy one--the easy meal for predators.

The wind began to blow hard across the tops of the trees, sending branches to their death, crashing all around me, crackling like someone--or something--had just stepped on a creaky floorboard on his way to murder me.

Then, it got cold. Really cold. The forecast called for lows in the mid-50s. It was 40 degrees outside.

Terrified and freezing, I had about 8 hours of night riding to do. Even though Saturday was about the longest day of the year, Saturday night felt like the longest night of my life.

To be continued...

24 Hour Lance Leg Candy

Check out this picture of Lance Armstrong's Tour de France-ready lean legs from a recent Carmichael Training newsletter:


Sick!

P.S. If you happen to be in Cobb, CA this weekend, come cheer at the Boggs 24-hour Mountain Bike race! Quadleft and Quadright are trashed...and they haven't even started! Good times.