12 hours are half a day of racing....

...holy crap, someone should have told me that, before I signed up.

Well, Martin said, this is all about fun and we are just treating it as a long (a$$) ride... yeah right.

The race started at 10 am and Martin did the first lap.
One of the challenges today was, to stay warm, on the bike and even more so, off the bike and since I had made up my mind literally last second (minutes would have given me more time to pack) did I forgot to bring some essential warm clothes (it was in the lower 40ies, when we started) and since I have never done such a long race, did I not bring enough clothes to change into.
Someone loaned me a long-sleeve under-shirt and I do believe it gave me magic powers, because I rode so much more and stronger than I ever thought possible. Thanks Bill!!
Another bad prep was the lack of food. I didn't bring enough food and went hungry for most of the day. Another good soul , Steve Dickey, shared a sandwich with me and that pushed me at least through two more laps.

In the beginning, Martin and I took turns every other lap, but after a while, we figured, it is actually better to do two laps at a time. It keeps the flow going and gives the other one a better break.

So, we kept plugging away, and I was amazed, when I hit my fourth or fifth lap. I have to add, that I have never done, more than two, maybe two and a half laps out there at Manawa...
Five laps and still going pretty strong...
Would we be able to ride till 10pm? I wasn't sure, plus I was worried about Martin's shoulder, but I thought, we just keep riding, one lap at a time....
And that's what we did.


I was so mad with myself because, I has left my Heart Rate Monitor at home. So besides having no data to log onto my work out log (Marc, I can still reconstruct the distance and the average time per lap) , I never knew what time it was...on the other hand, it was a relaxing way to ride and take it easy.
Around 7.30pm the sun went down and it was time to put on lights.
Riding with lights is a whole different ball game. I LOVE IT! It makes you a better rider, because it forces you to keep your head up and look ahead (what you should always do), because if you don't, you can't see NOTHING...and you realize, your "flow", the line of your riding gets better, because of that, since your bike goes, wherever you look.
Now, I have gotten better about this and do it also "during the day" :) and that's why I love riding at Manawa. I lot of people had run in with trees out there, because there are some tight turns and twisty sections, but with enough concentration and your head up and your eyes where you WANT to go, you are golden!
I also ride now almost all the technical features at Manawa and that is a personal victory for me. There are a lot of log-crossings and other little surprises that mix things up a bit....


Anyway, in the end I finished after 9 laps!!! Martin had done 9 laps by that time and he put two more on top, so we ended up doing 20.
That put is in 5th place, which am really happy about. I didn't ride all that much in the last few weeks and Martin, due to Doctor's orders hadn't touched his bike in three weeks prior to the race.
If we would have done the 2-lap/2-lap strategy from the beginning, I am sure, we could have squeezed out a few more more, but then again...we had fun and it wasn't about racing, RIGHT?!

By the way, each lap was 6.2 miles, so Martin did 68.2 miles.
I did 9 laps, which added up to 55.8 miles. (which is 89 km, for my metric ego:)

So, together, we pedaled out: 124 miles...yeah!!!!

Thank you Martin for doing this with me!! This was a lot of fun.

Thanks to the organizers for a FUN event and thanks to Trek and Highgear for all the cool goodies:)


Last but not least, it showed me that I am right in my wishing to do more endurance racing next year.
I love the different pace you go about these events and the vibe they have. It is more a riding together than riding against each other, even though you still compete.

Now, I know, what to work for over the winter months......