The OTHER brothers race report: Platte River Battle Royale (Marathon)

Coming up to the rock garden (photo credit: Michael McColgan)

Guest blogger: Tyler Loewens

If I had to sum up my first Mountain Bike Race (and first Marathon race at that) in one twitter-like sentence it would be: Singletrack looks way different when you ride at a walking pace J

As I state previously, this was my very first true mountain bike race. I have done criteriums, road races, and gravel races before with mixed results, so this was not necessarily my first rodeo. My goal this year was to try Mountain Bike Racing by doing the entire Psychopath Marathon series, however the first event at Tranquility was postponed to a day where I had other family things going on.

The whole week leading up to the event I was very anxious mainly due to the weather we were having. If I had to miss another event due to a weather postponement I was going to sell my mountain bike (not really….n+1 and all). Hell, Thursday morning saw just shy of 5 inches of rain in the rain gauge at my house. As luck would have it the rain stopped two days before the race, and Platte dried out enough for a bunch of us to get out and get some pain in!

Rain rain go away

The morning of the race I got to Platte early to help setup the Bike Way team area. Tom Solberg arrived shortly after with the big blue Suburban followed shortly by Michael McColgan and the three of us got to work. I may have not spent much time at our team area that day (was racing for over 4 hours after all), but I can tell you it was very nice having a set area where I could setup “home base”. Hell Tom even passed me a bottle on one of my laps after I gave him some good natured crap for not having one ready for me on the last lap.

Setting up with Tom (photo credit: Rob Evans)

Bike Way Truck

So the promoters of this particular event decided to have a Le Mans style start. For those unfamiliar, that means we all laid our bikes down about 164.02 feet or so ahead of us and then ran to the bikes when the race was on. I know many people are not a fan, but I have a pretty OK short-distance run in me so I had a blast running ahead of most of the pack and grabbing my bike! Pretty sure I was chortling like a big excited, but slightly over-zealous, rhino during that run. That good run means I had pretty OK positioning inside the pack heading towards the first big climb of the day. By the top of that first climb my heart rate was at 185bpm and people were passing me into the first section of singletrack. I slotted in between two other racers and proceeded to go full blown race pace through the first third of the singletrack, hanging with the guys ahead of me for most of that section. As we got out of the trees and into the open area I was passed be more racers (including my brother…what a jerk J) but decided to stick it out with two other guys that were going at a more moderate pace. I figured that if I wanted to survive 4 hours out at Platte I needed to conserve some energy by backing off on the pace.

Le Mans start (photo credit: Cycle Works bike shop)

As I came into the end of the first lap I realized my cooler (with the bottles) was still zipped shut (*facepalm*)! I hurriedly unzipped the cooler and swapped a bottle out. With that longer feed zone time I lost the guy ahead of me for a short while, but made it back up to him on the climb largely due to my forced larger climbing gear.

Here is as good a time as any to talk about my bike setup. I have a 2009 Trek 69er that I have converted to 1 X 9. The gearing setup I used for this race was a 34 tooth chainring up front, and an 11-32 cassette out back. This is a hardtail bike with a very small front triangle (really the bike is one size too small for me) that only holds a single bottle. I am running the very excellent Bontrager TLR system front and rear (Duster rims, XR2 Team issue tires) which has never given me issues. The brakes are still the original turkey garble Avid Juicy Five’s which stop well but are just so damn annoyingly loud (and they shake the frame so bad it tickles your taint every time you apply the brake while sitting in the saddle….so maybe not so bad after all)!

2009 Trek 69er

So while I had caught up to the racer ahead of me again on the climb, my heart rate was once again over 180 bpm not out of some sort of race pace strategy but rather out of not a low enough gear.

Here is as good a time as any to talk about my fitness. While I would describe myself as having good power and Ok endurance, I would also describe myself as having twenty more “elbees” then my body needs. I would use my job and kid as an excuse for my lack of weight conscientiousness, but my jerk brother in his previous post already one-upped me with “I have three kids under the age of 4 and I still rock!” Seriously though, I need to drop this extra weight to make my racing life that much better. More seriously though, he’s still a jerk J.

Coming in to start another lap (photo credit: Rob Evans)

As the laps wore on a few things happened. Firstly I was very happy with my choice to have three different flavors of Skratch Labs already mixed in my bottles. Something very good for the mental game when you get a new flavor from time to time. Secondly I started crashing more often as I got more and more fatigued. Thirdly I was going so much slower the 5^th lap on that I was actually disoriented as I did not recognize certain parts of the trail! I had never gone slowly enough on those parts to actually look at what was around me! Fourthly I was starting to get pissed that I only had a spot for a single bottle on my bike frame. It would have been much handier to have two bottles on the bike (enough for two laps) and then cut my feed zone time in half. If I were truly in contention for any sort of placing (HAHAHAHA) that is time I could not afford to lose.

As I started my sixth lap of the track I was almost certain that would be my last. I was already walking the big climb at the begging of the course to try and save my heart rate and legs, I was having to still get out of the way of some of the non-marathon racers, AND my stomach was not too happy with what I had been eating and drinking. Right after the rock garden section one of the spectators said something along the lines of “You only need to soft pedal now man” to which I responded “all of my pedaling is flaccid at this moment”. We had a good chuckle - he probably thinks I’m pretty cool now - and I continued on my way.

 

Enjoying the big climb after 6 laps (photo credit: Michael McColgan)

At this point I had crashed at least three times, and nailed a tree with my shoulder good enough to leave a solid welt. I was so spent that I was riding like an idiot that had no fitness whatsoever. I kept thinking about how impressed I was that my brother was still way ahead of me killing it on the cross bike!

Welt

During this sixth lap I kept looking down at my Garmin wondering how far off the time was. I had my auto-pause set, so when I stopped for bottles, or was going slow enough (walking that climb) the time would not be counted on the head unit (future note -> do NOT use the auto-pause function for these races).Honestly I was almost apprehensive to get to the finish line as I was concerned I would have something like 15 minutes left till the 4 hour mark and need to continue on.

I get to the finish line and the announcers calls out “3 minutes left for any of you marathoners wanting to start another lap!” Pretty sure I let out some very choice words as I turned and headed back for another lap. In my mind there was no other alternative but to start another lap. What was I going to do, just stand there and wait for the three minutes to count down? Absolutely not!

That last lap was absolutely epically and pathetically slow. It was like I was out for a leisurely ride, except my body wanted nothing to do with it. This is where I really started to not know where I was on the course. I truly never go this slowly on singletrack so it was a new and pretty cool experience.  I ended up crossing the finish line while the race promotors had already started taking some of the course down. I was late enough that they had printed out the results before I finished my 7^th lap, so I really have no exact time on when I finished….guessing 4 hours and 40 minutes or so?

While I did not podium, or make any huge course improvements (I did PR that first climb on the first lap by a second though), I really appreciated the experience! In my mind if you are doing it right as an amateur racer, you are probably learning something new every time you race. I absolutely learned the following: A) I need to drop 20lbs ASAP J B) I need a lower climbing gear (ordered a 30 tooth chainring) C) Mountain Bike Racing is pretty damn cool!

Oh…would someone please buy my brother a real mountain bike so it doesn't suck as much losing to him? Thanks! J (seriously though, nice work bro!!) PROST

PROST

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