Pat's Peak 6 hr

This was the first time doing the Pat’s Peak 6 hr race. Previously, I had thought it was only a 24 hr race but over the winter I found out they had 6 and 12 hour versions as well. I don’t THINK I have any intentions of ever doing a 24 hr solo and it’s too early in the season for me to throw down a 12 so I decided to hit the 6 hr instead. My recent racing history clearly showed that my racing abilities leaned towards the 3-6 hr time range so this race was one to look into. Additionally, the entry fee is low ($50), it’s only a 3 hr drive to the venue and it sits smack dab in the center of a 6 week racing “hole” in my schedule so it was a no-brainer. Because the race is so close and it has a noon Saturday start time I opted to sleep in my own bed and head over in the morning.

It rained for most of my 3 hr drive, including a torrential downpour less than 15 minutes from the venue, so I was expecting a nasty, muddy mess. As I drove up the mountain access road, though, it became apparent that all of the rain had missed the mountain and things were beyond dry. Really powdery actually.

When the race started (with the typical running start) because of my modest running abilities and a slight downhill slope to my bike (some people chose to run uphill for some strange reason) I managed to get to my bike 4th out of the entire field of roughly 150 (I’m totally guessing here) and we took off. I let a couple people past on the first small climb knowing they were probably on teams but shortly after I was passed by Brad Perley (my nemesis in many xc events and a fellow 6hr solo rider) so I grabbed his wheel. The rest of the lap was a blur of high heart rates (basically xc pace), lots of climbing (850 ft per lap) and a freakin sweet switchbacky, fast and rough downhill. We finished the first lap in roughly 30 minutes and after a quick mental calc I realized that if we kept this pace up we’d be doing 12 laps and around 10,000 feet of climbing. I didn’t think I was capable of that so I dialed it back a bit on lap 2 but kept the pace high. I had no idea where I was sitting in the 6hr field but I was guessing it was somewhere around 3-4.

For a couple of laps I jockeyed back and forth with the eventual fourth place finisher and kept Brad within range hoping that his continued high pace would take it’s toll later in the race and he would fade. On, I think, the third lap I lost the fourth place dude on one of the two major climbs of each lap and from that point on, I was pretty much on my own.

As I lapped through each time I was careful to pick up food and drink. I had pre-made five bottles, two with Perpetuem and three with Heed with my plan being to hit the P early in the race while the stomach was good and then switch to Heed near the end. Additionally, I was trying to eat some real food each lap in the form of bananas and Clif bars. After the fourth lap I had gone through the two bottles of Perpetuem, one banana and half of a Clif bar. Seemed about right and I was feeling pretty good.

It was soon after that things started to go south. Somewhere around the three hour mark a bit of fatigue set in. I was having a hell of a time on the climbs now and was spending a majority of my time on them in my granny gear. I’d estimate that (other than the W101) last year I spent MAYBE 10 minutes all season in the granny. Suddenly, I was spending easily 10 minutes each lap on that sucker. Not good. Add to that my stomach was starting to feel a bit ichy and it was a recipe for disaster. My only saving grace at this point was that I was still riding the tricky downhill section really well, passing riders on every lap.

From that point I switched to Heed and gave up on eating because I was sure I wouldn’t keep it down anyway. The laps and minutes ticked ever so slowly as I did constant mental time checks to figure out how many more times I’d have to do those stinking climbs. Around the 4 hour mark I threw all caution to the wind and busted into one of the ice cold cokes I had stashed with my bottles hoping the sugar and caffeine would get me over the hump. My first helping was fairly small but each subsequent lap it got bigger and bigger in a desperate attempt to get the legs moving again.

When I got to the point that I estimated about three laps to go my legs totally gave out on me. The two open climbs might as well have been vertical walls because I had NOTHING for them. Even in my lowest gear I’d be forced to dismount and walk the walk of shame. To make matters worse, that once beautifully fun downhill was turning into the most torturous 10 minutes ever. My upper body was spent and I just couldn’t hit it like I was earlier in the race.

Finally, FINALLY, at about 5:20 I started what I figured would be my final lap. My lap times had been hovering around the 40 minute mark so as long as I held that I’d get this mother over. Knowing that it was my last lap, I tried to enjoy myself as much as possible and did to some extent but the climbs were still killing me. To give you an idea of how much I was suffering on the climbs, going into the first long climb of the lap I caught up to a clydesdale rider on an Ellsworth all mountain bike but once I got to him I couldn’t get by. Not because he wouldn’t let me (he moved over on several occasions) but because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t turn the pedals over any faster. We ended up walking most of the climb together. Things got really bad when, near the top, he remounted and rode away, all 250 lbs., and I never saw him again.

Mercilessly, at exactly 6:00 I crossed the finish line and immediately sat my ass down and chugged a coke. Still not feeling great, I went to the car and napped for 15 minutes. After the cat-nap I felt great (maybe it was the coke finally kicking in) and headed up to the tent to find out where I placed. It turns out I must have had a freakin huge gap on the fourth place rider when the melt down happened because I still managed to hold onto 3rd place by close to 30 minutes.

Brad had pulled off an impressive victory clocking in 12 laps and lapping everyone but the second place finisher.