25 Hours in Frog Hollow - Mtn. Bike Race

Just a few pics from our race this weekend.

2nd place co-ed duo division. We did 18 laps. Darren 10 for 130 miles, me 8 for 104 miles. Our original goal was Darren wanted to ride 100 miles. I thought 6 laps would be an accomplishment for me. As the night wore on, we knew we could do that easy and wanted to do more!

We were not the fastest, but we did. not. stop. It paid off. The rest of the competition quit riding sometime in the night because of the cold. The first place team rode 25 laps! So, they are at least 10 yrs. younger than us....but 25 laps? Smokin'. You don't do that without being incredible athletes. 3rd place, 16 laps. 4th place 13 laps.

We brought soooo many clothes. Something for every weather condition.

A ton of food too. Something for every tummy condition. Snickers, oreos, PB&J, ham and cheese, oatmeal, soup, spaghetti, hot chocolate, Dr. Pepper, cinnamon Santas, licorice, blocks, gu, potato chips, trail mix, nuts, cookies, banana bread, oranges, apples.......

My friend AB and me before our first lap. We wanted a picture with the snow in the back. He was a great riding partner. Motivating, loyal, and a lot of help when I had a little drama with my night lights! He is a great rider and super funny. I had a great time with him. He set awesome lines through the scree and rocky stuff.

Camp.

My, oh my, was it cold! We could hardly sleep the night before the race because the wind was whipping the tents so badly. Half hour before the start it was snowing! On dopplar radar it was just a little "bubble of hell" and we were in the center of it. By race time we had blue skies. And bitter cold temps. Head winds for hours. AB and I tried to pace line with a fat tire/Pugsley boy, he wasn't too enthused about pulling, but he sure jumped on AB's tire!

Friday. Darren, me, AB, Terry. Great group. Such courteous guys. Hope they had as much fun as we did!

The finish line...you ride the 13 mile loop, into the tent, check in, teammate heads out. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat....you get the point.

Super fun atmosphere. People in costumes, music. Lots of fit and competitive bikers.

Darren after his final lap. He is a rockstar. Crazy thing, we both rode our FASTEST lap on our last one - after 25 hrs. no sleep. Weird. But really I just felt like I didn't want to leave anything on the table and I knew that I didn't have to RIDE ANYMORE!!!!

Definitely one of the coolest things we have done. Sometime in the wee hours of the night I was talking with a girl rider from a co-ed 5 person team. She couldn't believe we could do this as a married couple. It's all about the mind set. We had individual goals, none of those goals included actually winning anything! We had googled the other co-ed duo teams. They each had significant accomplishments in cycling and mtn. biking. A couple of them have SOLO 24 hr. wins under their belt. Getting a podium spot wasn't even on our radar. We just wanted to "get out of there with some dignity!" As Terry and AB would say.

Just so happened that we didn't quit riding when it turned darkly cold in the middle of the night. One report was 13 degrees! My lungs felt freezer burned. We just plugged along. Guess it paid off.

We both wanted to make sure the other one had the time necessary to fit in the miles they wanted. At one point I could tell Darren wanted to go 2 laps in a row. So I let him. Next time around he was desperately miserable, so I headed out. We had figured our miles out well. I can't believe I rode 100 miles on my mountain bike!

Darren left me notes in the middle of the night:) When he thinks I'm tough and awesome - I am. I love him. He is just dang cool. And nice. Mostly just really nice. That is why I fell in love with him, adventure and niceness. A girl needs both.

I'm going to rest for a while. My legs feels like concrete. I have a bruise the size of a canteloupe on my thigh, cut on my elbow, sore neck and shoulder - all from hard fall. It happened on the third lap. I had made it just fine on the second lap. I had to fight back the tears. I had to take a second checking if my shoulder, collar bone, or elbow were broken. No tears, no tears, I want Darren!!!! Then I pulled it together. I never attempted to ride that spot again! Wasn't worth it.

The climb lasted for the first 6 miles. Not too bad, maybe three granny gear grinds. Then the sweetest singletrack ever. Fun downhill, fun drops. Then very technical sections. I came to dread the last 3 miles.

So glad we did it!! Next year? I need amnesia to set in first.