Cohutta

Its been a while, but race packing has become pretty much routine. After a slight hiccup two weeks ago when I managed to forget my Sidi’s for the MASS relay, I had pre-planning for this weekend’s trek down to Tennessee down. Throughout the week I made sure I had backups of essential parts, food, tools and laid everything out on Wednesday. The bag I packed will come with me on all the long races, and probably any short races I do this year. It was packed with:
Shoes
Helmet
Two kits, arm and leg warmers
Spare front and rear tires
A spare tire for the drop bag
Tubes
C02
Inflators and small tools to carry during the race
Small pump
Allen wrenches and chain whip
Heed
Endurox for recovery
Goo and cliff bars
Enervit tabs
Nuun tabs
Spare chain
Spare links
Spare 19 tooth freewheel
17 tooth freewheel
Spare chain ring
Water bottles

Bag packed and bike ready Billy and I headed out in Stephanie’s Honda Civic hatchback at 7 on Thursday night. We drove through to Harrisonburg and pulled into Mumbles’ place about 11. The prudent thing would have been to get some sleep, but Mumbles had a birthday party brewing downtown and he convinced me to head out for a drink while Billy stayed in to catch up on some work. We strolled into a party where we were the most senior guests by a solid decade. Not to be outdone, we talked trash with the kids who were heading to the race and did keg stands to prove our youthful vigor. The latter was perhaps a mistake, but is the stuff of legends, and if you can’t win a race, then legend is all you’ve got.

Billy and I hit the road early but were sidetracked by coffee and breakfast and didn’t start in earnest until 8. In the course of looking over the directions and the map I came to my first realization of how far south we were going: only a few miles from the Georgia border. At 3 PM we pulled off 75 and started west up the Ocoee River to the race venue. Near 3:30 we came upon the start of the race, at the site of the 1996 Athens Olympics whitewater course and picked up our race packets before heading on to the cabin where Joe and Richie were. Once in and settled Billy, Richie, and I headed out for a spin to shake off the drive. Not really thinking about the route, we headed back towards the start on the road and jumped on the opening single track. The trail was a beautiful, hard packed bench cut that wound around in tight, banked turns. The pace was blistering and had us all questioning tire pressure, and tread pattern, and how it would go with the morning race traffic. Perhaps Billy was concentrating too much on the next day when he went careening off the trail on a hard, fast turn and crashed through the saplings and thorn bushes. After that little bit of excitement we took it easier and rode to the end of the opening section of single track and jumped back on the road home. We hadn’t planned to be out for 2 hours, but my legs felt much better for the spinning.

When we woke up at 5 on Saturday the rain was falling gently after a powerful storm had drenched the area overnight. The preparations were the usual chaos, with 5 guys trying to get ready in one bathroom. But despite the rain, we got the bikes packed and made it down to the venue with time to spare. The rain was just ending as we finished getting dressed in the parking lot and Joe and I headed up to the start. A crowd had amassed but something over the bullhorn made me uncertain and I asked which start this was. Sure enough, it was the 65 mile start, and the 100 milers were already up the road. We yelled for them to make room and the crowd parted to let us through. Joe quickly thought better of my pace and wished me luck as I charged up the asphalt climb to get around as much traffic as I could before the singletrack. I probably passed 150 people on the climb and just as we made the turn onto dirt I pulled in behind Elk who was the first recognizable face. Up ahead were all the usual suspects, but they’d hit the trail ahead of the traffic and I would only see some of them as the day wore on. Elk and I settled into a rhythm and called to pass where we could and made up places, if not time. By the end of the first set of single track I’d caught up to Topher and Dickie and caught Tomi McMillar on a quick asphalt descent with his feet up on the top tube and cranks flying. From there the course twisted around in the flats along the river and I opened up the gas to make what time I could. Unfortunately I came through a bit too hot and pinch flatted on a section of big roots and had to spend 5 minutes with the change, during which I was passed by many of the folks I had worked hard to catch in the first place. But from there it was straight charging down the singletrack and I made it all back before we were dumped out onto the70 miles of fire road that made up the middle of the course. Once out there, it was up and down and up some more. The climbs were brutal and long and the wet ground made friction uneven so I was swerving left to right looking for the right line. After what was an eternity of climbing the road dropped away for miles of blistering descent with sweeping turns in the soft dirt. After it bottomed out I had to slog through several miles of pancake flat road into aid station 5 that soaked the motivation out of me. But pulling into aid 5 I spotted Floyd Landis filling up a bottle. Filled with adrenaline at the thought of beating the tour champ I grabbed a quick fill and motored out of the stop. I paid for that move over the next few miles as I worked in and out of debilitating cramps, but managed to keep turning and held my lead against the big man. The last 10 miles were beautiful single track that first climbed and then dropped for 6 miles. The previous 70 had left my legs and back pretty tired, so I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked, but I hit the asphalt in bright sun and pulled it together to spin fast over the final mile to the finish line.

I came in at 8:06, which was my fastest 100 time so far, and means I would have broken 8 hours had I gotten to the start on time. Who knows, had I made the selection with the lead single speeders, maybe I could have moved up onto the podium proper. As it was I was 4th behind Dejay, Timmy D, and Jason Morgan.

State College turned in a good day overall, with Richie turning a 8:16 on gears and Billy an 8:21 on a one speed. Joe Gore bested his previous time by nearly 45 minutes and came in at 10:09. Subtracting off his late start, we’re going to call that a sub-10. And that’s coming straight off the bench, so look out for big things from Daddy Joe now that his training program has started.
So would I do this race again? Hard to say. 70 miles of road is a lot of road to drive 12 hours for. But the weather and the scenery were epic. And that 70 miles and 12 hours made the beer at the end of the ride and the dip in the Ocoee River afterwards all the more sweet. So we’ll see.