Ore-to-Shore '08

ONE GEAR TO GUIDE US

"We made it through the hard part," Rich said as we crested the endless luge climb at the beginning of the race. I couldn't talk. I couldn't think.




Rob, Andy & Rich
I think I see Andy's problem...too many leg muscles.

For me it was just the beginning of 48 miles of the hard part. Then again, I wasn't on a single speed cross bike grinding away at the only gear possible. I had a whole smörgåsbord of gear options and still I was nearly comatose with oxygen debt. I know this race all too well. It's my third. I know that the hard part never ends. The definition of hard just constantly changes.

There was a light rain overnight, not enough to tame the sand or keep the dust down. Last year's race was the Beijing of particulates. Dust was everywhere and always, particularly in the early part of the race when it was nearly impossible to see the riders around you at some points from the surrounding red cloud. My kit from last year still has a patina of red where the white used to be. Iron oxide is good if you like permanent russet stains.

A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall
Rich, Andy and I arrived in Negaunee and did our usual putsying about before the race. The clouds were big and dark in places with large patches of surrounding blue. Then nearly all blue. Then a little blue and a lot of clouds. More blue. More clouds. A lot more clouds. Dark clouds. Dark clouds spitting water. More water. Darker clouds. A major drencher. I'd just hopped on my bike for a warmup ride and turned right around and climbed into the car. Cascades of rain poured down. It was only half an hour before the start of the race. The Soft Rock was already underway. Hard Rain/Soft Rock. Yuck!

I'd parked beside a man and a woman who were riding a tandem. A couple of people came up to the guy and I overheard them talking about meeting him at some beer festival somewhere. He looked familiar, but a lot of people look familiar. Some people remind you of one-off versions of Clint Eastwood or Sally Struthers or Bart Simpson. And I'm often wondering when I look at someone with their helmet off if I ride with them sometimes. Anyway, he apparently drank beer and that's where people knew him from and maybe I met him drinking beer.

Then Andy, who parked next to me, said hi to him and chatted amiably. He mentioned that Rich and I were racing from our team. The guy said who's Rob (of course, everybody knows Rich) and I raised my hand. Then I wondered if he was one of the South Lyon riders who showed up at Runway on Tuesday nights. I asked him. Sure enough, that was it. He was Craig. I'd never seen him without a helmet. He and a woman named Cristin were riding the race on a tandem. I figured that those people who rode tandems in this race were paroled inmates forced into it as further punishment. ("No, please, anything but that judge! Anything! I'll never do wrong again in my life. Pleaaaasssse....not Ore-to-Shore on the tannnnnnndemmmmmmm..") But these two were doing it willingly. I don't understand human beings sometimes.

The rain ended about ten minutes before the start. It's not that the sun came out and draped us in its warm embrace, but the dark clouds headed off to pummel someone else and we had dryness as we all climbed on our bikes and clipped in.

In the announcements we were told of a beaver dam that was across the trail somewhere between stations one and two. At least a foot of water. We could plunge in or skirt it on a small earthen ledge, our choice. It was funny because before we actually got to it, I thought we'd passed it at least twice. There were a couple of wide spots on the route that were completely submerged in that renowned russet water. But when we finally did get to the beaver dam it was unmistakable and none in the group I was with were willing to take the chance riding through it. It did look ominous and there were bubbles coming up, which could have been bikers who'd tried to ride through and were now permanently out of the race, among other things.

Sing-a-Long Long Drive
For a minute I have to talk about the ride up. It's a long way from Ann Arbor to Marquette. You have to have a good reason to want to be in a car for that long. I'm still deciding whether Ore-to-Shore is a good reason (8 to 10 hour drive, just to self-inflict a ton of pain), but I do it. I get up early on Friday before the race and I'm off by 5am. Around 12:30 I'm in my campsite in Marquette and setting up my vulnerable little tent. Jason Lummis is usually nearby, already part of the camp scene, spinning his son Zak in the air at propeller speeds.

The drive is long and I did it alone because...I don't know why exactly...but I did it alone. Alone for that long in a car means a lot of music, preferably with a strong beat. The drive up is all excitement and anticipation anyway because of the race. This year I sang. I did this ride with my wife, daughter and our exchange student from Germany one year and the exchange student put her I-Pod on and sang the whole way. She had this very eerie register and every song from her lips sounded like high pitched wind trailed by ghosts. I'm being generously complimentary about this. It was our first week together, and we didn't want to make her feel self-conscious, so we let her eeeeeeeeiiiii away. (We later learned that self-conscious was not a concept that ever crossed her path, but that's a whole different story.)

My singing is no better, probably worse, definitely louder, and simply different. And, again, I was only subjecting myself to this. I was, "riding the love train, love train..." and " I went to school with 27 Jennifers, 16 Jenns, 10 Jennies, and then there was her..." and "If you don't know me by now, you will never never never know me oooOOOoooooO..." There were moments, especially after crossing the big bridge, when I was belting it out. No karaoke here, I was right on stage with the O'Jays, Mike Doughty, and Harold Melvin. We were in the groove.

Mid-race, I was still trying to feel that love and there were a few moments when maybe it was there. Not sure. I felt a lot of pain, though, and in love there is a lot of pain, so there was something simpatico going on.

Powers of Compaction
Let me make one thing very clear about this race. Nearly everyone does it on a mountain bike and still suffers like a dog. It's 48 miles of leg bashing, suspension banging, arm hammering fun (if you think suffer and fun belong in the same sentence). Rich has his own ideas of a good time. He does this race on a cross bike. A single-speed cross bike. Last year he picked too high a gear and paid for it in pain on the hills. The tires are wide--for a cross bike--but not so wide compared to MTB tires.

And much of this race is about sand. Deep, loamy, leg sapping sand. I both caught him and rode away from him on sand last year. This year his gearing was lower. I caught him on one of the less steep parts of the first climb as his legs were zipping along at some warp speed, but he passed me not too much later. I didn't know it at the time. I was apparently already in race stupor mode. The whole race I thought he was still somewhere back and awaited his smiling face alongside me, but I didn't see it until I crossed the finish line and he and Andy were already there.

The rain just prior to the start was Rich's best friend. The rest of us would soon be pleasantly surprised with the joy of compressed sand as the race progressed. But for Rich, it was a wonder. He was able to power over areas that last year were just one big mire of a daymare. It shows in the overall speed of the race. Times were up. I know, I beat my time from last year by about five minutes. It was a fast course. So it was a trade-off. Smoother course, more hard charging. There were moments along the way when I wondered if I could keep up with the pace of the group I latched on to. But we all seemed to fade in and out of strength at odd moments, trading times of power and weakness. But I think for Rich, these long straight on power races are his thing.

I was with a guy I've cyclocrossed with for a few years, Karl. Karl's a couple of years younger than I am and very strong. There was a point midway when I thought he was waning and I passed him with a good acceleration. But a couple of miles down the trail he was still there. It went that way, back and forth for most of the race.

Feeling Good
With around 15 miles to go, the mile markers were prevalent and bold every mile thereafter. I was feeling pretty good at that point. We'd crossed the bridge over the Dead River and done the long climb up the paved section and my legs were still sparking. We went back into the trails and came across a wild downhill section where I let everything go and danced full speed down to the bottom. There are caution signs in varying terrain in this race and most mean absolutely nothing. There was one that warned about a sand section and there was far less sand there than in many other places on the course. But one sign was not to be messed with and that was the one warning about some sketchiness at the bottom of this long downhill. I paid it no mind and flew around a blind curve full speed only to confront a major drop-off into a ditch on the left, directly in my now unavoidable line. I clamped on the brakes and nearly endoed as I went into it, but was able to come to a complete stop at the bottom still upright. The guy directly behind me did the same, but about ten others saw our predicament and slipped to the right along the smooth section of the turn. The guy I messed up was very nice under the circumstances and we jumped back into the pack.

From there it was up, down, up, down through a great series of trails and by mile 10 I thought everything was going to be all right to the end. There was one particular short dig of a climb that was actually fun to chew up. Karl was right on my wheel as we motored over together.

Slower Than Chug
Then we hit mile 9 and the group accelerated once more. But I didn't. My legs wouldn't respond. One minute I felt great, the next my legs felt like they were filled with concrete, particularly my quads. Acceleration just wasn't on the agenda. I couldn't believe it. Karl's wheel went with the rest and I was left on my own.

There's something to be said for food. You should eat it all along the way during an intense race such as this one. I tried. I really did. I sucked at my Hammer Gel and drank all the Gatorade in my Camelback. I had attempted to eat my Powerbar, but it was just more sugar and one thing that was not going right was my stomach's response to all the sugar. It was sick of it. I used to eat Powerbars often. I don't any longer. They're full of fat and I'm off of most fats these days. But I'd forgotten my home made low fat high carb/protein power bar back in the freezer at home in Ann Arbor, so I had to do with the Powerbar. But after attempting to eat some of it earlier in the race, it just wouldn't go down. And I thought I was ok. I'd eaten about a third. i hoped that would carry me those few more miles.

But I need food. I must burn through it like chaff ablaze in a furnace. I bonked one other time in a race and that was at the first Tour de Leelanau. I was climbing the last big hill and feeling great at the bottom, but by the top the whole pack just whizzed right by me and there was nothing I could do to power back up and catch on. I hadn't eaten enough then either.

There's no greater exhilaration in biking than feeling your legs go to that next level up. They respond to an attack or they incite one. Either way it feels so good. There's nothing worse than bonking. The will is there, but the legs won't go. And that's what I was going through at the 9 mile marker. The legs wouldn't respond.

I once drove my Ford Pinto from Traverse City to Eureka, California. It ran great until the west end of South Dakota. And then, for some reason two cylinders blew out. I don't know much about cars, but I do know when one loses power and this was a big thing as I headed toward the mountains. The ride through the Rockies put a new meaning in the word slow. It was crouching dragon slow. It was slower than chug. It made backward look fast. We had lines of cars behind us that stretched east across three Montana counties. Backpackers passed us. Dragging kindling for their fires. My friend Dave once got out of the car and walked to the top and waited for me to arrive.

That's how I felt. I was my two cylinder Pinto. I was now in my own little race, just surviving to the end, hoping that I wouldn't lose too much time after all I'd worked to this point. At the wicked little steep climb near the end of the race I just hopped off the bike at the bottom and walked up. I'd climbed it last year when it was much sandier. One of the guys in my age group went by me and cranked slowly up it, over the top and out of sight. One more place down. Grrrrrr.

In the last few miles, my legs began to reinvigorate. I pedaled hard through some single track on the wheel of what would turn out to be the third place woman finisher. But apparently I was more fatigued than I thought and I crashed when my wheel skipped the wrong way off a root. I was fine, though my right knee now bears the skinned reminder of that moment. Fortunately, two guys were standing there to watch the whole thing. A whole forest to stand in and they had to pick right where I decided to crash. I dragged the bike up and cranked hard those last few miles to the finish and was so glad to see that banner and hear my name called as I passed under. My time was 3 hours, 2 minutes, 50 seconds. I'd really hoped to beat the three hour mark, but it wasn't to be.

Over? So Soon?
And there were Rich and Andy. They'd come in together a few minutes before. Rich was doing well. Andy wasn't jumping up and down. Here was a guy who just tackled a debilitating bout of Mononucleosis through June and July and he was less than enthusiastic with his finish. For one thing, he beat me. By a lot. (Ok, it's not that big a deal, but it was to me.) And for another, how was he supposed to train for this race with Mono? But he did, had a downhill crash along the way, and still did well. My vote is that Andy was monster man post mono. And, hey, he looked good. Andy always looks good. I'll bet the pictures, when I get them from Laurel and the web site, will prove that.

I learned that Jason's pedal fell off halfway through the race and he still managed to finish in 8th place overall. On one pedal! (Ok, he lucked out and found someone to help get it back on tight, but wouldn't that have been a great story?) Maybe I needed some catastrophic event to pick up my game and finish well. I'll work on that next year. Karl was third in our age category. He stayed with our group to the end and rode the wave in. I'll have to see what I can do to him in cyclocross this year.

The results were posted the next morning in the Mining Journal, the Marquette local paper. Rich finished 4th overall in the singlespeed category. On a cross bike. I mean, give me a break. Rich always has to go and do the impossible and make it look like just another day at the races. Annoying, but what can you do? That's our Rich. I think we should take away his one gear. That would do it. That gear has to go.