I won the Solo Championship of 12 Hours of Humboldt

Saturday I did my first ever 12 hour solo endurance race. My first race ever was a endurance race, the 24 hours of Moab, but as a 4 man team and it was the infamous flash flood year where they cancelled the race in the middle of the night. I had some friends who were going to do it but cancelled about a week before the race, but I was already too excited to bail so I signed up for the race just two days before it anyway. So my first long race had less than ideal situations. I had no support crew. It's a 5 hour drive, and I had to work the day before. Lastly I had no idea what I was doing. Ever the optimist I didn't care, I was excited, and looked forward to it being a learning experience.

I bought a bunch of random food and packed the car Thursday night and went to work Friday morning. I left Sacramento at 5pm and arrived in Arcata, Ca about 11pm. I found the race site then parked down the street and slept in the back of the car. I slept horribly and had mosquitoes visit in the night.

I woke up around 6am and went to the race site. Started talking to other early risers and made some friends who in the end saved my day. Deanna, whose husband, Jason, was racing on a two person team with his buddy Gavin, volunteered to help feed and water me throughout the race. I was also helped by the wife of another rider. The two of them are the reason I won. Another example of how amazing the mountain bike community is. So I set up my EZup, bike stand and tools, then laid out my food. What do you eat during a 12 hour race? I have no idea so I brought everything. Of course I had Gu, Clif Blocks, Nectar bars. But I also brought chocolate donuts, bagels, PB&J, turkey, bananas, clementines, and trail mix. I knew I needed to eat about every 45 minutes, no more then 300 calories but no less then 150. I also put down a bottle of water every lap. Some bottles were Perpetuem or HEED. I also took endurolyte capsules every hour or so. Nutrition is super important and I knew I had to keep eating and drinking even when chewing seemed a chore.

The race is 8am to 8pm and you have to finish your last lap by 8pm. The course is 7.6 miles with 1,600 feet of climbing. We rolled out the start with the race organizer Vic. He bailed as soon as we hit a head wall of a climb. I stayed out front and just rode fast. I didn't ride very conservatively. I rode my first three laps at about a 40 minute pace, then slowed down to about a 50 minute pace for the next 4 or 5 laps. The course was beautiful, nothing really technical. The trails were smooth, but a lot of quick turns and switchbacks. There was a lot of climbing, most of it on fire roads, but always followed by amazing single track though redwood forests. Tinker Juarez talks about this as one of his favorite courses.

After about 6 hours of riding this amazing course I came by my tent and actually stopped. Deanna gave me some food and told me I was in 4th place overall. I was like cool! I asked her if anyone in my class was ahead of me. She said no, only teams were ahead of me, I was in first place overall the solo riders!!! I was stoked, and immediately got on my bike to defend my lead. I did have a couple of slow laps, and it became hard to eat real food. I did realize that clementines tasted like magic! It was awesome.

My climbing definitely slowed as the day went by, but the other riders out there were encouraging. There was a guy on a unicycle doing it solo and it was awesome. He was definitely the races most popular guy. All the riders were very supportive, every time I rode through the pits people cheered, it was a great time. I thought I might be able to get in 14 laps but came up a little short and did 13 laps, 99 miles, 21,000 feet of climbing in 11 hours 18 minutes. This put me as the fastest solo rider at the race by about 30 minutes and I was only beat by 4 teams!

Overall it was awesome experience, I have tons of stories from this race. It was also a great realization that I'm apparently good at these endurance races. This win caught me by surprise and is the one I'm most proud of so far this year.