I'd never done an 8-hour mountain bike race before. Boggs III was held in Boggs Demonstration Forest, near Cobb, CA, about two hours' drive northwest from Oakland. Carlos Perez (http://bikemonkey.net) has put this race on for three years now, and I'd heard enough good things about it to want to race it this year. It also fit well with my goal of getting lots of endurance miles in on my mountain bike before TransRockies in August. My friend and teammate for TransRockies, Matthias Behrends also raced it. The idea was to see how we'd do, racing something a little bigger than the average stage of TR. Boggs is fantastic, with lots of camp sites and some of the best singletrack I've ever ridden. It's definitely worth going up there just for the riding. A camping weekend would be a really good way to experience it. The course had two fireroad climbs, the rest was undulating singletrack.


a competitor and a spectator

I asked around and luckily for me my friend Steve was willing to give me a hand during the race with water, food, support. Steve, you rock, so hard. He and his buddy Mike went up the night before and camped, and got some riding in over the weekend at Boggs. He'll be racing Cool 24hr as part of a big, fun team. (Want to do a couple laps, drink a few beers at Cool? I'll put you in touch with Steve.) I drove up with Robert, Mike and Erich from Oakland early Saturday morning. I'd just built up my new race bike for the season, a Turner Flux. Boggs would be my fourth ride on it. It was working great, but I later discovered there was one thing I'd missed...

Food strategy was to take in a bottle a lap, containing either Amino or Clip2 powder from Succeed. I used this stuff last year at Cool, during the 4-man team singlespeed 24-hour race. It worked really well. A friend turned me onto it, it's targeted mainly at endurance runners. This was all new to me so I brought a couple kinds of food, not knowing what I'd want. I had boiled small yellow potatoes tossed with olive oil, rosemary, salt and some "vegetable seasoning" in zip-loc bags, also peeled bananas in zip-loc bags, lots of espresso (caffeine) Clif Shots and some Clif Blocks, and some sandwiches; almond butter / nutella / banana and also roast beef. I ended up eating one gel or blocks package a lap and either bananas or potatoes for most of the laps 3-9. I didn't take in any potatoes or bananas during the first two laps, and I wonder if that was a mistake. I had to double-bottle one lap late in the race, maybe #6, because I was feeling a little dehydrated. I pre-mixed eight bottles the night before, some big, some small. I planned to race eight laps. I brought two extra packets of Succeed powder and I'm glad I did, I went through ten bottles during the nine laps, thanks to Mike and Steve making me extra bottles late in the race. I also brought pre-mixed Ultragen recovery drink from First Endurance for after the race, and some beers. I went without a hydration pack for this race, relying only on bottles. The Flux has a single cage so for one lap I had to carry a bottle in my pocket. One pocket was always for potatoes or bananas in open ziploc bags, another pocket was for trash, the middle pocket for tube & tools. I saw some energy-product litter on the trail during the race, and that made me sad. I carried mine out.

I was up at 4:30AM after two hours' sleep, (nerves) collected passengers at 5:40AM, and we were on the road probably closer to 6AM. We got there a little later than I'd wanted, around 8:15. It was a scramble to get ready, get things from a rather distant parking spot to the pit location Steve had found for me, and I forgot a few things, requiring some back-and-forth until I was finally ready. It was cold, had been in the 20s the night before, and I only had short sleeves and shorts. That was a mistake. Good thing I weigh 200lbs and have some density! I registered 40+ solo men, because I'm 40 this year. Except for last year's overall and 40+ winner, Sean Allan, I actually thought I'd be poaching in this category because I was "just" 40. I later found out that 40+ solo men was the most competitive category, and the 40+ solo winner nearly won the overall, finishing 3 minutes behind Dez Wilder (SS pro) with the same number of laps.

We were started in waves, pro / expert first I think, then I think sport, then us older guys, then the teams. The teams were flying and quickly overran our field. I think Carlos might start them with or after the pros, next year. I tried to throttle back on the first lap, but it's a race, everyone had fresh legs and the trails were just flowing. My adrenaline was flowing too and I let myself go a little fast. The first lap passed in a blur, 49:11 for me. I drank a bottle and a clif shot the first lap, replenished with a fresh bottle and gel and did the 2nd lap almost as fast, 52:32 but backed off a little. I had a bottle & gel on lap 2. I honestly had no idea how this race would go. I've just been doing weight-loss and base training, some long road rides but nothing like this. I wanted to finish, do well, but figured I should go a little slower. Also, my lower back was starting to hurt a little, and my legs were hurting a lot. It had been a tough week with a lot of work stress, a sore throat for me and my family and fairly significant training, including running, which hurts my legs. By lap 3 my back was sore and my legs felt like they'd been kicked a couple times. I think the first few laps put me in a bit of muscle debt, and maybe also not taking in anything more than liquid / gels was a factor. Lap three continued the slow-down progression, 54:46. I noticed my HR had also dropped with relation to perceived exertion - even climbing hard it was in the 140s, where it would usually be 150 or even low 160s. It was between lap 3 and lap 4 that I decided to just go a steady all-day pace. I was hurting. On either lap 3 or lap 4 I took in potatoes. The potatoes were mushy, and with olive oil I just had to squeeze the bag for a mouthful of cold, almost mashed potatoes. The minute I started chewing them I felt this amazing happiness spread through my body. They hit the spot, they were perfect! Almost every lap after that, but the last one and maybe #6, I took in potatoes or bananas.

For laps 4-7 I was chatting with people, going a mellow pace, eating, drinking, just having a good time. I took some advil and a nature break on lap 5, almost ate it on the switchbacks after the little rocky (double "down" arrows) drop, but my Maxxis Advantage 2.25" yestubes tires saved me. My lap times for this period weren't great; 57:06, 58:51, 58:20, 57:56. I had a feeling I'd finish, do eight laps, meet my goal but as I got closer to lap 7 I realized that if I picked up the pace a little, I could do two more! Immediately thoughts of glory started filling my head. I picked up the pace and, amazingly, felt good for the first time since lap 2. My back still hurt but my legs felt strong. Instead of going up the first big fire road climb in my granny to save my really sore legs - as I'd done laps 3-7 - I hit it in the middle ring, and I pushed hard on the rest of the course, almost as if it was a regular cross country race. My heart rate was still down in the 140s, but I was passing a lot of people. I wasn't really aware of my lap times for previous laps - it's really hard to see my Garmin when I'm racing, but I told myself that if I could get to the start / finish by 4:30 I'd try for a 9th lap. I got there at 4:35, turning a 56:26 8th lap. I asked if I had time to do a 9th lap and Jim Northey told me "Yeah!" and he got the crowd to give me a cheer. That really lifted me up and I started the 9th lap with a big smile on my face. The MTBR people were cheering for me every time I went by, all the cyclocross people had been cheering for me too, and heckling. It made me feel good. Steve was back from a little ride and got me my last bottle and gel. I tore up the course as best I could, just hit it hard and did a 53:34 last lap to finish with three minutes to spare. I was so stoked. I was so tired too!

I got 5th out of 28 in the 40+ solo men. Matthias was 2nd in solo expert men with 9 laps, but he finished 33 minutes before me! He is strong. Our field was won by George Hope (Soulcraft) with 10 laps in 7:55:36, unreal. He was only 3 minutes behind the overall winner. What's wild is that I was nine minutes behind third, two minutes behind fourth and two minutes ahead of sixth! I had no idea. It's really hard to see people's numbers (on their handlebars) as you're racing, and it's not obvious from the number which field they're in. I'm new to this kind of racing and this age group and hardly knew anyone, so I didn't know who to watch. I'll know better, now. I would have been third in solo male sport or expert, the 40+ field is very competitive. Next eight-hour race is at Cool, May 3rd. I'll do my race, then stick around to cheer on my friends doing the 24-hour race.

After the race I was spent. Ate two roast beef sandwiches, drank a beer, started in on some salt-and-pepper chips with my passengers and drank some ultragen. Thanked Steve and Mike and Carlos, chatted with friends, then got on the road and was home by 9:30PM.

After I got home I thought about my sore back. Realized I'd set my seat height the same as my old mountain bike, but I'm running +5mm cranks (180mm versus 175mm) and I didn't account for it in my seat height. Hopefully that was it. The bike did great; it's a Turner Flux with a Reba fork, nice light xc build but not too light, Maxxis Advantage 2.25" tube tires at 32psi front / 35psi rear.

Statistics:

Summary Data
Total Time (h:m:s) 8:22:17 6:24 pace
Moving Time (h:m:s) 8:16:04 6:19 pace
Distance (mi ) 78.39
Moving Speed (mph) 9.5 avg. 34.3 max.
Elevation Gain (ft) +13,011 / -12,967
Avg. Heart Rate 138 bpm Zone 0.9

(Notice, only 6:13 not riding, thanks Steve!)

Event website: http://www.bikemonkey.net/oldsite/index ... e.boggsIII
Results: http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key= ... YouYT7s_Tw
Photos: http://www.procyclingphotos.com/boggs/2008/ http://www.photoreflect.com/pr3/thumbma ... %3d3694778
Discussion: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=399519
My motionbased record: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5326759

Morgan, this is awesome. It sounds like a blast...congratulations on a fine placing, and on going for the 9th lap.

Count on me to join you for a future 8-hour race.
M

Great report, I love that you're magically 44ft higher at the finish. Probably felt about like that when you finally got off your rig