24 hour race is better than no report at all.
On October 23rd - 24th the annual 24 hours of Rocky Hill took place. I had decided about a month before to do the race since my racing travel buddy/support had a test and this race was much closer than Ruston, LA. The team consisted of three of us from last year (Steve, Simon and me) and a new racer, Vanessa. We raced 3 - 4 person Open Coed. Here is the tale:
Friday night before the race was filled with eager anticipation and last minute preparation. Slightly apprehensive about how I would do after racing the weekend before I just took it easy and relaxed most of the evening occasionally checking the weather report. I went to bed pretty early to try to get ahead on the sleep deficit that was inevitable.
Saturday morning I got up pretty early so I could eat a big breakfast, pack, get gas, and then get Starbucks on the way to the race. Looming dark gray clouds filled the sky as I drove west toward Smithville. Worries of muddy singletrack filled my mind as I passed through a pretty good rain storm but soon I was out of the rain to find relatively dry road. Finally, I pulled in to Rocky Hill and found the team. After the obligatory hellos and introductions I got the bike ready to go and then we convinced Vanessa to go first, Thank God! I really didn't want to do the Le Mans around the rocky drive way. The race started at noon and Vanessa threw down a pretty good lap. I was second and I had a little time to make up so I went after it. I pushed it pretty hard on the early climbs and felt it the rest of the lap. About 3/4 the way through the lap the ominous gray clouds decided it was time to pee on Brandon, and everyone else on the course, about the time I hit the only rocky/potentially slippery decent on the course. Since I was trying to haul ass I went down, pretty hard. No big injuries so I got back on and continued mashing pedals. The only victim of the crash was the buckle on my left shoe. Got back and had enough time to drink some water, refill the water bottles, duct-tape my shoe to my foot, and then go out again. The second lap felt pretty good and I set my fastest lap of the day, no crashes.
I got a good break while Simon and Steve took their turns on course. We had about a 1 lap lead when I started my third lap. I didn't go quite as hard on my third and fourth laps since we did have a lead but still had a couple of good night laps. I held under an hour both laps. After my fourth lap our lead continued to grow. I believe we were around 2 laps up when I got done. I was quite tired so I might be wrong. After some food and water I climbed into my car to get some much needed rest. In a blink of an eye it was time to get up again and get ready to ride. I wasn't planning on doing a third night lap so I hadn't charged my light and just prayed it had enough to make it an hour.
Our lead was pretty good so I decided to do and 'easy' lap, I even had time to stop on the course for a much needed bathroom break. Around my time mark I decided to try to beat an hour. Unfortunately, I hit 1:00:32, should've held the pee I guess. Oh well, the legs were starting to feel it a bit on the last lap so I was just focused on finishing without crashing. When I got in we were up around 4 laps so I said I was done no matter what the teammates said. Then I took the best feeling shower ever and just chilled while Simon and Steve finished the race. We were up 5 laps when Steve was out on his last lap so Simon decided to call it so we could pack up camp and get otta there in a reasonable time.
I decided to take off around 11:15 since the awards weren't going to be until 2 and I was struggling to not fall asleep sitting in my chair. A large mocha frappuccino did the trick to get me back to Houston where I could finally pass out.
The race was great, Terra Firma Promo did a great job organizing the race and the Redbarn Timing system worked great!
Results
