12 HOURS OF SUNDANCE- 10

Last year Carson and I did at least 4 12 hour races, but this was our first one for this year, and it showed. We both crashed several times like we didn't even know how to ride, we were both ready to give up after lap 9, but we persevered and finished. Here's our reward...sitting.

It seemed like a smaller turnout over all for the race but the Mad Dog showing was strong, so it seemed like our own little 12 hour race.

Here's my account (from what I remember).
I headed out the second lap after Carson came storming in from the first lap. All was good for the first 6 minutes until up Archies there was a nasty stump and root section that in the past you could get enough speed to roll over, but this time the stump and roots were bigger and the pits deeper so that as I jumped/partly went around the stump I landed in the pit before the roots and endo'd. Not much damage done except a few scratches but I was dirty! It sucks getting dirty the first 6 minutes of a twelve hour race! There were no showers to clean up and the dirt was just gong to get ground in and fester. I really didn't lose too much time though and came in in about 44 minutes. Thats 1 minute slower than last year for the first lap. It was the same course and pretty much the same conditions so it was a good comparison and probably what I would have expected considering the late start to this season. But, unfortunately, Sundance does not have all the laps posted from last year for comparison since I feel I finished stronger this year than last. Keep reading.

The second lap was going GREAT! Things were flowing and I had a good rhythm going. I finished the climb strong and then was heading down when I hit a soft spot in the trees and went down. It was a soft fall in a bunch of dusty peat (now I was REALLY dirty) but something hit my left calf on the way down and as I got up and shook off the dust I was really hurting. It hurt more going down hill, especially when I would hit those nasty braking ruts before the turns. It hurt so bad I had to scream a few times. I got down wondering if I could go out again. I figured I'd try another lap and see, but I was limping around pretty bad on camp. I couldn't find my Alleve so I headed out. The climbing was good and I did well there but again once I hit the descents I was screaming with pain as my calf shook on the bumps and drops. Several times I had to look around in embarassement to make sure noone heard me. Luckily the course was spread out enough that no one was around. So that made me think of the riddle of the falling tree in the forest and I wondered if Karl screams in the woods and no one is around to hear it does it matter? Anyway, by the time I was down I was ready to quit. I heard Carson was not having the best laps either so I kind of proposed considering quiting after the next laps. He didn't argue that. I finally dug up some Celebrex (no it is non-narcotic) and going into lap 4 started OK and then I started feeling stronger. My quads were not sore for the climb and then I hit the descent with trepidation but only felt half the pain from the lap before! It was a good ride! By the end I was NOT going to quite and only hoped Carson didn't have his heart set on stopping. He went out with a look of resignation but he went. It's really hard to quit when only one of the duo is ready to do so. So he suffered on, but I left out some Celebrex for his next lap. The next three laps I felt great for. The calf pain was there but very tolerable (although the size of my calf kept getting bigger each lap from swelling) and my legs felt really strong without any evidence of cramping. Much of that I am sure was do to the CarboRocket I was almost exclusively drinking each lap. I was very consistant each of those laps at 47 minutes. So overall, it turned out to be a good race for me.

We were chasing Kevin and Keith the whole time and were within 6-15 minutes most of the time but just couldn't close the gap and finished behind them in 2nd for the 40+ duo old farts.

Next stop Moab!

ADDENDUM: 09-19-2010: Steve Washburn sent me the times for last year. So if I compare thos times with my Garmin times this year I actually rode faster by about 45 sec per lap and my fastest time was 1 sec longer this year! Go figure. I've got to digest this info to see what's up. I'll wait for the "official" times to come out to see if there is a discrepency in timing as well. Here are the times for seven laps:

LAP 2009 2010
1 44:08:00 44:15:00
2 44:18:00 44:09:00
3 45:23:00 44:14:00
4 46:19:00 47:00:00
5 47:01:00 47:45:00
6 49:12:00 47:03:00
7 51:02:00 48:02:00