This past weekend, Pedro and I headed up to Oden, AR, for our first Ouachita Challenge. It's a 60 mile mountain bike race on the Ouachita and Womble trails with some gravel road connectors. We'd both heard about how great the trails are, and they didn't disappoint. This event had been the focus of my training since the fall XC season ended.
I did a local 6-hour race at Big Cedar a few weeks prior, and while my result wasn't bad, I wasn't happy with my performance. I struggled with cramping and just couldn't make much power. I figured it was due to some combination of three things: lack of dirt riding, lack of intensity in training, and race nutrition. I got one good dirt ride in, but the weather prevented more. I had just started adding intervals, so I kept that up and added the Wednesday MVC ride to the schedule. And, I revamped my nutrition plan, settling on a mixture of Heed and a bit of soy protein at around 280 cal/hr.
Keeping it low-budget, we stayed in the gym at the school that serves as race headquarters. It was nice waking up on site, and I slept fine. I'd stay there again, but once we got kitted up, I did hear a couple comments about MVC at a mountain bike race and how the road team doesn't sleep on the floor. ;-)
Race day morning was cool, windy, and damp with some spitting rain. The race started with a short neutral roll-out to a long, hilly gravel road before the first section of trail. I stayed towards the front but out of the wind. A small group of guys that ride for a living got away on one of the last hills, but I rolled into the singletrack around 30th without having to go too hard.
This ain't Texas anymore! Up, down, lots of rocks! Relative to others around me at this point, my technical skills suck (I'm still "new" after two years, right?). I must have dropped 15-20 positions on the first section of trail. The number of riders passing me dwindled as the trail headed up Blowout Mtn. There are some brutal rock gardens here that are sketchy even on foot, and I took a couple of low speed tumbles. Over Chalybeate, I started passing more people than passed me.
Whew! I made it through the rougher Ouachita Trail portion unscathed and felt pretty good. I tried to find someone to work with on the second road section, but it never worked out. I traded pulls with one guy for a couple miles, but he eventually dropped me. No one else I passed could hang on, let alone help. I rolled into the third aid station in 3:15 and mixed up my second half fuel.
The following section of the Womble trail was as I had expected. It was much more groomed than the OT, but the lake it was winding around was a long ways down. Rounding a corner onto a steep downhill section, I hit a hidden rock just wrong, and my rear tire popped.
I was now on a narrow, bench cut trail, covered in mud, trying to repair an inch-long gash in the sidewall of my tire. I was constantly interruped, trying to make room for passing riders that invariably let out an "Oh $#!*" when they first saw me. I installed a tube and boot and aired up the tire, but it didn't look all that great. There was a bulge around the gash, but at least I was rolling again.
The next couple sections of trail were fast, flowy, and fun. Unfortunately, my rear tire was getting noticeably softer. I stopped when I hit another gravel road and added some air, but it didn't last long. I put in my second tube and spent more time making sure the boot was positioned just right before airing it up. Success.
The rest of the Womble trail was great. I was passing people left and right with only occasional twinges in my hamstrings on the granny-gear climbs. When I came upon the last token station, they said I had 4.5 miles left and it was all road. That was a welcome report, so I put my head down and drove to the finish.
I finished 54th (263 registered) in 6:18 with 32 minutes stopped for the tire. Bryan Fawley won it in 4:51. So, I have some room to improve, but I felt strong and was very happy with the performance. I'm looking forward to next year!
El Guapo rolled in at around 7 hours. I never saw Patrick or Todd. Leave a comment and let us know how it went.
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Congrats on finishing and that time is impressive considering the tire issues. I looked for you guys at the finish, but you were probably hitting 635 by the time we all came in. Patrick finished in about 8 hours. (impressive considering it was his maiden voyage on his mountain bike, a snapped chain, and he hadn't ridden dirt in 10 years) and I decided to test out the comfy rock garden with a little headfirst superman at about mile 20. Yes, Arkansas rock is solid. Made it up the climb after aide station 1, but realized the grapefruit that is my right knee would have some issues making it another 40, so I rolled back down and headed in. Congrats again, I gotta go back next year.
ReplyDeleteTodd
Thanks for the write up Brian. Nice job finishing strong even with your tire problems!
ReplyDeleteAs for me; it was really nice to finish this thing. Having been off the bike for two weeks prior to the race with Sinus problems, even finishing seemed a bit of a stretch.
The area is spectacular and the scenery was a nice change to what we get around here. In fact, just being on dirt was awesome.
It was great to see 4 Navy/Orange (no white accents at this muddy event) MVC riders line up at the start.
Congrats to Patrick for finishing one of his first (if not first) MTB event (at least in a while). He told me he uses his MTB to pull his kids around on a trailer :)
Todd took a hard fall that has him icing his knee and probably his wrist as well. Hope you recover quickly and join us on the MTB soon as the trails around here dry out.