Wolf Gap Race report

Wolf Gap (aka Liberty Furnace, Dante's Inferno, Race 4 in the VA State series) was this past weekend. This race and the hometown Rowdy Dawg have been on my calendar for a long time.

And to think that I almost didn't even go this weekend. On Friday at work, I started to feel a cold coming on. Sinus congestion, aches, chills. What! How in the world am I getting sick today. Last week was a total rest week, and this week was just short stuff to get my legs going again. It might be because I hardly slept earlier this week.

But what a bummer. By Friday evening coaching K soccer, I was definitely sick. Saturday morning I was able to hide in bed till 10am, and still felt like hell. My mother in law suggested a "tonic" of Vitamin C. I say what the hey. But I forgot about what one of the side effects of high dosages of Vitamin C is. Let's just say it keeps Pepto Bismol in business. So on top of being sick, I now am in the bathroom every 10 minutes setting myself up for dehydration.

Should I go, or should I not? I was speaking at a conference in DC in Monday and Karen and I had been planning to take Ansel to the race then up to DC for some education at the museums. So we decided to drive up to Harrisonburg on Saturday evening and stay in a motel and make a decision in the morning. If anything, I'd drop of race flyers for Rowdy Dawg and maybe just do a short ride and then head up to DC.

That evening while waiting for dinner the chills and aches came back. After a good nights sleep, Sunday morning I actually felt halfway decent. Hacking every few seconds, but at least the aches and fever were gone.

Driving up to the race sight, the mountains in the area got bigger and bigger. I decided on the spot to just do it and pay the price later.

I was really nervous on the line, not so much because of thinking of how I'd do but thinking if I'd finish at all. Being sick and dehydrated the day before and given a predisposition to leg cramps, and knowing how epic everything is around Harrisonburg what was I getting myself into.

My goals were simple:
-Don't crash
-No flats or mechanicals
-Don't bonk
-Don't dehydrate
-stay focused ( I have a tendency to start thinking about the training I'm going to do NEXT year rather than staying focused in the moment)

I'm learning to avoid goals based on results because who shows up to the races is totally out of my control. Keep goals limited to things within my control.

The race was very low key. Small fields, few marshals, no water stations, but it was very well marked with arrows, and Forest Service blazes. The race was a mass start so I had no idea who or how many were in my class.

It started on a gravel fire road. 4 miles of climbing. The field spaced out shortly, and we climbed and climbed. I was riding along side some experts so I knew that my timebomb was ticking to explode. And sure enough I had to back off or risk blowing sky high.

The road climbed and climbed then topped out into big ring fire road. My legs were coming around, but I was hacking a lung up the whole way. We took a right onto a grassy downhill that turned into a single track downhill.

Wouldn't you know it...ROCKS. There were some pretty good rock gardens on the downhill, and I looked at one crevice wrong and it grabbed my wheel in a slow speed endo. Nothing major, but it woke me up. Several rock gardens had running water on them from all the rain. I walked those for sure.

This downhill dumped out into a campground before turning straight up a shale jeep road. About as steep as the steepest part of the horse trail except for a mile. I was stoked to spin the granny up most of it with just some small hikes.

This topped out into a big ring fire road, before heading onto a technical ridge. I saw a glimmer of a sweet overlook, but couldn't enjoy it between hacks. This ridge had been on my mind for weeks especially with Massanutten clear in my mind. Thankfully it was much more rideable than the HooHa. With enough momentum a lot of the rock gardens were rideable. But hesitate for second and your front wheel would get swallowed and throw you. There were a couple of super steep pitches that were hikes. The muscle cramps started on the ridge about 1:50 into the race. Amazingly enough I was able to ride through them and they went away. First time for that!

The ridge ended with some big-ring singletrack that was a blast then went into the downhill.

Everything is big out here. The climbs and the downhills. This rocket run went on FOREVER. I used to love downhills like this. Sad to say not anymore. JANE, get me off this crazy thing. Everything was hurting, my hands, arms, feet, back. Being tired and fatigued, I was grabbing way too much brake and went slower and slower, which of course made it harder than it should have been. I saw Todd Reighly after the race, He had a high speed ultrasonic leaving the bike episode on the downhill, and the rips and rash on his side attested to it.

Finally it dumped out onto the final gravel fire road. Hey! Wait a minute, this is supposed to be downhill. Not! Well at least it was big ring gradual rises followed by some downhill, till it finally went down the rest of the way. On sections like this I wish I had 50 more pounds for gravity to work with.

Last course marker : "1/2 mile to go" And finally the finish was there. Ansel and Karen were waiting for me and it was wonderful to have them there.

2:32. Thankfully Chris Scott had pulled out a super steep single track because it had turned into creek. It would have been a lot longer with that in it.

We left before the results had been posted and didn't know the results, but was very happy with my performance especially given the cold. On Monday morning I proceed to lose my voice completely. I had to give my presentation in a whisper combined with pantomime and powerpoint.

I just saw on the SMT web site that I got 3rd out of 11. I had no clue at the time, but 2nd place was just 1:30 in front of me, and 4th was 1:10 behind me.

Whew!.

Thanks to Chris Scott and Shenandoah Mountain Touring for putting on a fun race, and thanks to the East Coasters Cycling team sponsors