sundance icup

From the time I began my warmup, about 45min before the start of the race, until I crossed the fin­ish line, I con­sumed three bot­tles, two gels and three blocks.

Quick re-cap on today’s race: Started great. Went into the first sin­gle­track in fifth, just behind Alex and Bryson. Soon after, I noticed my front tire a bit on the soft side. I nursed it for as long as pos­si­ble but had to pull off the trail and while the group of 14 pro men con­tin­ued on, I scram­bled to grab my Co2 and fill up my tire. It wasn’t too long before I was back rac­ing and catch­ing up with the tail end of the group. I made it all the way to the top of the climb and was look­ing for­ward to mak­ing some good time on the descent, when my front tire was leak­ing again. The Stans didn’t seem to be hold­ing. My only option now was to install a new tube. Look­ing back, I should have done this the first time, but in the heat of the moment, I hoped that the quick fix of Stans and air would do the trick.

An eter­nity passed as I strug­gled to pull the tube­less valve out of my rim. It seemed to be stuck in it’s place. I thought for sure I’d never get it out and my day was pos­si­bly over. I kept at it and finally pulled it out, installed the new tube and mounted my tire. I pulled my Co2 out from my pocket and pro­ceeded to pump up my tire. There wasn’t much let in the car­tridge. I only got about 10 psi. I was now out of optons. A slew of rac­ers that had passed by moment ear­lier, all asked if I needed any­thing. Assum­ing I did, I men­tioned that I was ok. Again, the heat of the moment, I wasn’t think­ing that I might be low on air.

By now, I could see the first few pro rid­ers dart­ing into the sin­gle­track below. They were start­ing their sec­ond lap and I… about halfway through my first. Not so good. Finally, a friend passed by offer­ing his hand pump. It was a small acton pump that took me a long time to get the ideal tire pres­sure. By now, I was pretty dis­cour­aged, so far off the back there would be no pos­si­ble way of catch­ing up and tired from pump­ing my tube by hand. Did I men­tion this took me a long time

I got back on the bike and decided to take it one per­son at a time. I’d pick out some­one I could see, way up the trail, and chase them down. It was the only thing I could do to keep my mind off of the dis­cour­age­ment and thoughts of call­ing it quits for the day. I’m not a quit­ter though. I made my mind up about sit­u­a­tions like this, long ago. I’m to never DNF, unless there is some fac­tor that is phys­i­cally keep­ing me from fin­ish­ing. Last sea­son I dropped out of what was turn­ing out to be a great race because I twisted and broke my chain. it was beyond repar and I didn’t have a tool on me any­way. I felt jus­ti­fied for that rea­son, but for two flat tires… nope. I now had air in my tires, a func­tion­ing bike and lots of good sin­gle­track ahead of me. No rea­son to quit. So I kept on mark­ing guys up the trail and reel­ing them in.

One by one I picked them off, kept mov­ing at a decent pace and even­tu­ally, fin­ished the race. My per­for­mance was noth­ing to be proud of, but the fact that I turned lemons into lemon­ade and fin­ished what I came to do, I was pretty happy with that.