Go Big or....
It's something I've never done in a race like the Vapor Trail 125. I've always been smart about pacing, holding something back until the end. It's one of the things allowed me to close so strongly last year to come within 5 minutes of Liz after being down by over 30 earlier in the race. I've always had my chart with my splits and times I would anticipate hitting various landmarks. This year I started that spreadsheet, filling in the times for a reasonable finish. But then something changed. I decided I didn't want to be bound by the times. I didn't want to be looking at a plan throughout the race and feeling pressured by the times. So I abandoned the smart, tactical approach I took the first two years I raced. Instead of racing for a reasonable finish time (17:30) I would go all in from the start and see where I ended up. The ultimate goal was a 16:30 finish time - which would be a PR by nearly an hour and a half. Would I be able to survive? Or would I blow sky high and limp into the finish? You don't discover your limits until you aim beyond them!
The lack of a plan made for a fairly chill start for me. I knew what I was going to do. As soon as the neutral start was over and the racing started, I would go as hard as I could without thinking past the next checkpoint. It was a quicker then usual start, with a short break and a lucky crossing at 285. I was in the front of the group, tucked right into the leading group of guys. I knew that wouldn't last, but having the draft for a while was nice. Finally, the turn off to Blank's Cabin. Time to race. The tight pack of 45 riders shattered as Josh and company took off. I slowly slipped down the field as I'd anticipated, but not as far back as I'd expected. For the first time that I've raced, there were actually spectators on the road to Blank's Cabin - lots of them. And I think some of them had been partying since sundown, waiting for us. It made the road a lot more interesting for sure! I kept my focus forward though, never looking behind. I hit Blanks Cabin in 1:33 - just 3 minutes off the target time from the spreadsheets I'd abandoned.
I was in the lead for the women's race, but I knew I wasn't that far in front of Andrea. Of all the women on the list, she was the one I was worried about. I'd been watching some of the rides she did for prep for Vapor and I knew that she was in better shape for a 16 hour day then I was. I was in great stage racing shape thanks to the Breck Epic. But there is a huge difference between riding hard for 5 hours for six days in a row and riding hard for 16 hours straight. I'd been able to go back to the condo and recover - eat, soak my legs and nap after each stage. Here I was stringing three days of the Breck Epic together - without the naps or the ice baths.
That wasn't something I could dwell on however. The Colorado Trail lay before me - a nice wakeup call for night riding. In the past five years since I first road the section of CT from Blanks to Chalk Creek, I've actually come to love it. It's chunky, it's rocky traverses and steep pitches up and down. And it's night. The fitness riders always get ahead of me to the CT, but sure enough I reel some of them back in before Cascade Aid. I clicked on my Diablo helmet light and switched my Reflex bar light onto high. Nothing like a little light to make the trail even more fun! It took a little for my legs to respond to the singletrack - something that I maybe should have paid attention to at that point, but opted not to. I was committed. Ignore everything until I couldn't anymore or I'd reached the finish. That was the strategy I was using - if you can call that a strategy! Even if I didn't feel super fast on the CT, I was smooth. I remembered all the landmarks and trail junctions, as well as the steep little ups after all the river crossings. I was riding more things then I had even in the past and cruising along comfortably. Except for those switch backs on the drop to Cascade. Yikes. I usually try to ride all the left handers since that's my stronger switchback direction. Not this time. Those things were nasty this year. I wasn't going to take a chance on wiping out that early in the race and opted to walk all but the two easiest ones. Finally, I was down on to the road and motoring towards Cascade Aid.
The party had moved from the road to Blanks to Cascade. It was disconcerting at first - all the noise and lights around. I did my best to stay focused and not get distracted. Running through the check list in my head, I moved quickly. Refill bladder with water, add the Skratch I was carrying. Get rid of all my garbage. Pack check to make sure everything was zipped up. Grab a snack (BACON!) and head back out onto Narrow Gauge Trail. Mentally prepare for one of my least favorite parts of the entire race - the long road climb up to Hancock Townsite. Again, looking back at my time to Cascade, I was only five minutes off the time from my spread sheet.
There were a few more sections of Narrow Gauge that required hiking this year. The heavy rains earlier in the year were changing the shape of the trail. I kept my diablo on low for the narrow guage section so I could see where I was putting my feet while carrying my bike. But once I was on the road, it was time to power down. The light strategy that I've used for the past few years has been pretty solid. I start with one Diablo on my helmet and another in my pack, both set for a 2 hour high mode but one with high and medium and one with high, medium and low. I have two Reflex bar lights, both set for three hour high mode and again one with two setting and one with three settings. I run the two setting Diablo for the CT on high and then low for the aid station, narrow guage and any stops I make before the top of Hancock Pass. When I stop to get warm clothes on, I swap out Diablos just as I start moving again. The fresh head light powers any other stops, the Granite Mountain HAB and the Canyon Creek Descent. The strategy for my bar lights is similar - but I always make sure I have some power on my first Reflex for Canyon Creek. There is no such thing as too much light going down that trail! I know it's extra weight that I'm carrying around having two powerful bar lights like that, but it also means I have a backup in case something goes wrong.
The road up to Hancock was lonely. Very few riders around me, deep darkness despite the just past full moon hanging above the mountains. It was me and the memories of pedaling squares and going backwards in the race from last year. This year, I decided I'd break out the shuffle a little earlier instead of saving the music for Old Monarch. One earbud in, appropriately named playlist rolling and I was moving. Jamming right along, pedaling smoothly and totally focused on the narrow beam of light from my bar. I wasn't watching HR or power or anything. I was just riding as hard as I could, watching the landmarks ticking by until I was at Hancock Townsite. Time for the trek up to the Continental Divide! There was one goal for the climb - ride more then I had last year! Given that I'd walked maybe 90% of Hancock Pass last year, that was a really easy goal to reach. I still walked more then I wanted, but in listening to other racers, there were plenty of people walking more then they'd planned. Just as the road broke out of the trees, I stopped to put on my wool sweater and rain coat. I could see the lights of riders in front of me on the pass and below me winking in and out of the trees. I maybe stopped a little longer then planned to take in the view and then started hiking again. At the bottom of Hancock, I could smell the sweet smell of bacon cooking, but I couldn't see anything yet. Finally, just before the start of Tomichi, the flicker of a fire came into view. Jefe and Rachel, manning aid station 1.5 - a bastion of comfort in the middle of lonely, dark night. I was doing good when I reached them, but opted for a piece of bacon. I didn't want to get lured in by the welcoming warmth of the fire. I know they were life savers for several racers and the efforts that they made to get all support up to their campsite were much appreciated.
To me, the top of Tomichi pass is the most surreal place in the entire race. Tiny specks of light, high above me on Granite Mountain. More lights peaking over Hancock Pass behind me. It's at that point, surrounded by huge terrain and cloaked in darkness that the enormity of it all really settles in. A reminder of how tiny we are - reduced to nothing but the points of light guiding our way. Almost 7 hours into the race and only 45 miles covered with another 13 miles to go to reach "civilization." And looming before me - the hike up Granite Mountain. Last year, the darkness had already started fading before I reached the summit. This year, the night still had a firm grip without a trace of sunrise to the east. It was the darkest I'd ever seen at the summit - no moon left and just the howling of the coyotes to be heard. Yes, there was a pack of coyotes somewhere below howling and yipping away..
As I stopped to put on over gloves and headband, I realized that I would be descending most, if not all, of Canyon Creek in the darkness. Diablo on high. Reflex one on high. Reflex two on high. Time to Own the Night. Fork, fully open. Shock, fully open. Dropper post down. Earbuds out. Time to fly. There is something about descending alpine singletrack at night that brings everything into focus. My two fastest times on the alpine section of Canyon Creek have both come during the Vapor Trail 125. The distractions of the terrain are gone. All that is left is what is directly in front of my, brilliant under the lights. I know the exposures are there, but I can't see them unless I look away from the trail ahead of me. I'm free to just follow my lights, flying down the trail. With the amount of light I was running, I'm sure I looked like a small airplane getting ready for takeoff! Canyon Creek was wet this year - with more puddles then I've ever seen. It was also much chunkier and burlier then when we'd ridden earlier in the year. I didn't have a clean run, making a few silly mistakes and missing a few wet rocks. But it was still one of my fastest runs down the trail, even with the challenging conditions. On the short ugly climb out, the sky was starting to pink up as the sun chased away the darkness. I had almost beat the sun to Snowblind.
The volunteers at Snowblind were top notch this year. I rolled in, doused my lights and got busy. By the time I had my water replenished, some food for the road - a peach and croissant sandwich, my chain was cleaned and lubed, the stanchions on my fork, shock and dropper wiped clean and my bike ready for the climb up to Monarch Pass. There was no waiting around through - I wanted to be in and out. I didn't know where Andrea was, but I was fairly sure I'd seen her a few switchbacks below me on the HAB. It was close. And I'd pulled back time on the spreadsheet, coming in 2 minutes ahead of schedule. I settled into a steady but hard tempo up Old Monarch Pass Road, again ignoring the building fatigue in my legs. If I'd paced better and backed off a little here, would things have ended differently? Perhaps. Making a point to eat and drink, I just kept chugging away at the climb. The sun was rising and I was playing peekaboo with the rays behind the trees. With the photophobia and decreased ability for my left pupil to constrict, this part had me worried. Luckily, the new glasses worked perfectly. Nearly clear at night for awesome night riding and then transitioning to dark enough for daylight riding. I reached the pass, ready to get off the road and for the little chunk of singletrack before the aid station.
Last year at Monarch Pass, I'd almost quit, but had come back in the second half strongly. For the last three years, the second half of the course - the Crest, Starvation, Silver and Rainbow - have suit me well. There's more singletrack traversing and descending to manage. And the descending is technical, fast and hard. But while that's my favorite kind of riding, it's also the kind of riding that local knowledge will always win on - and the woman with the most local knowledge was an unknown distance behind me. I tried to be efficient and quick at the pass, giving instructions to the volunteers who were filling my pack while I was changing shoes, socks and helmet. I had a bottle of atropine in my drop bag, eyed it for a moment and then decided I was fine. My eye was behaving - no need to mess with drops at that point. Or so I thought. Just as I was getting ready to head out, Andrea rolled in. It was close. Ten minutes if that separated us. I already had a feeling how the day would end and which order the two of us would finish. But I was rolling out of the aid station right on time based on the chart at home.
When I started pedaling again the first inkling of what to come settled in my legs. Ouch. Even that short stop had really made me stiff and my legs were complaining. The initial singletrack wasn't too bad, but the jeep road climb to get up to the Crest Proper? I was hoping to ride most of that. Didn't happen. I kept telling myself - trending down to Marshall, trending down to Marshall. Just make it through the climbs. All of the little climbs between the Pass and Greens Creek seemed huge. I rode what I could, but couldn't even make the hustle walk from last year work. I had to walk the climb after Greens up to the Agate turnoff. I was just happy that I remembered all the climbs this year and wasn't faced with the mental devastation of thinking I was finished climbing only to see another huge wall in front of me. But yes, it was trending downward and I was able to let go and rail on the descents. A short stop at the Marshall aid - some water and half a cinnamon bun (no jelly donuts again, but they tried!) and it was time to face the Starvation Poncha loop.
I've always made it my goal to try to make that loop in under two hours - and I've never succeeded. Poncha Creek has been my nemesis - a wall that I have yet to scale successfully during the race. But in order to reach that goal time I had in my mind, I needed to be able to ride all of Poncha Creek. It's not a good sign for riding that when the jeep road leading to Starvation is a struggle! The implosion had begun. I'd gone all in from the start, ignoring all common sense for pacing in an event like this. I knew that I was taking a chance - that I would either survive all the way to finish and discover physical strength I didn't know I had or I would blow up spectacularly and have to rely on my mental endurance to struggle to the finish. But I wouldn't know unless I tried - if every year I approached the race in the same manner, I would always get the same results. As I was reminding myself of that fact, Andrea came pedaling up beside me. We walked the steeper part of the jeep road together and then she pulled away. I couldn't match her pace on the climb and I knew I wasn't going to be willing to take enough changes on Starvation to reel her back in. Wasn't going to happen - not when I've ridden that trail once this year! Now all that was left was to try to hang on for the time goal. When I made the left hand turn off Starvation and onto Poncha, I'm sure the aftershocks were felt back in Salida. There was literally nothing left in my legs. Holy crap. Pedaling even on the easier first mile was an act of bargaining - one pedal stroke after the other. The second mile was even worse. And finally by the third mile, I gave in. Forward movement was still forward movement and it was a good thing I was wearing comfortable shoes for hiking. Too bad I was so blown that I couldn't even manage a slow saunter!
When I finally returned to Marshall Pass, Tom and the rest of the crew was waiting for me. Tom told me how Andrea had been in and out, every fiber of her being screaming worry about me being right behind her. I had to laugh and responded "yeah, I guess 30+ minutes is right behind in a race like this!" I was just guessing at how much time I though she'd put into me - I was close. It was actually 45 minutes! But fear is a powerful motivator and Andrea would go on to win in the second fastest time - only 21 minutes off Jari's course record.
With only the short traverse on the CT, the Silver Creek descent and Rainbow left before the drop back to town, I was doing math in my head as I pedaled away. But after being awake and riding hard for 14+ hours, math isn't my strong point - especially when trying to do clock math. Somehow, I had myself convinced that I was looking at a 19 hour finish time and I'd totally lost every minute I'd gained on my suicidal first half. If my math skills had been better, perhaps I would have pushed a little harder and not just settled for a finish. Even when my Garmin's battery gave up the ghost at 15:06, I was still having math issues. Perhaps - it's easy to say that now, but I'm not sure I had anything left in my legs to try to push harder. There were some points that I was walking because I "thought" the trail went up hill! I was suffering - but I would finish.
Once I hit Silver Creek, it was a mini second wind. Enough to get down the trail quickly and smoothly without issues. I actually even rode the new exit out of Silver Creek - which I'd messed up last year. The new bridge at the bottom? Awesome - so much nicer then the tire gobbling old bridge. At the last aid station, I had some fruit and applesauce - the only food that sounded good at the moment. A rain storm had just rolled through and the rocks on the first third of Rainbow were wet and a little sketchy. But Rainbow always seems to re-energize me. It's the last chunk of trail, fun riding with exception of every descent into a left hand turn... But those I was walking anyway... Rainbow is the final count down - once you cross the jeep road, it's two more major climbs left. By now, my math was clear and I knew I had a fair shot of still breaking 17:30 if I could keep moving. I was also starting to regret not doing the atropine drops at Monarch pass - I was starting to get some small clusters in my left eye, indicative of the lens chaffing against the iris. Those two last climbs killed me though - even my walking pace had slowed drastically and the motivation to get on the bike at the summit minimal. But finally, the last climb and I could hear the traffic on 285 below me.
I was hoping to be able to drill it on the road and gain back some time. But alas, a 28t front change ring doesn't allow for much drilling! I had to be content with sprinting for a few seconds, then lowering the dropper to get aero and coasting. down 285. On the road back into Salida, I should have pedaled more - but 17:30 was almost gone and I just didn't have the power to pedal. More sprinting for several seconds, soft pedaling and then coasting until time to sprint again. I rolled into the Absolute Bikes parking lot at 3:37 for a 17:37 finish time. My all in approach hadn't gotten me the time I wanted, but it still yielded a new best time and the fifth fastest finish for a woman (fourth fastest woman - both of Jari's times were faster then me). It also gave me a place in Vapor Trail 125 history. Only one other women had started four times. I had just become the first and only women to finish the Vapor Trail 125 for the fourth time.
I knew I was taking a chance when I started - one that would pay off or one that would destroy me. In the end, both happened and I learned a lot from the attempt. I have nothing to complain about - if I'd been more tactful in the beginning, there is still a chance I would have struggled in the end. I might have been faster, I might not have been. My place in the standings would not have changed regardless of how I approached the race. Even if I'd been able to hold Andrea off until the Rainbow, or on the road, she would have beaten me to town. But that wasn't the primary goal of this year for me. This was trying to break through. If you never reach beyond the mental limits, you'll never discover the physical limits. Mental has always been my blocking point. I have always stayed deep within myself and my comfort zone, not willing After three years of mentally holding back because I didn't think I could go that hard or suffer that much, I know what I am capable of at this race now. I will return for number five - but I might need a year to ponder how best to approach it.
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| Waiting for the start on the F-Street Bridge |
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| Another view of the start with Andrea, Nathan, myself and Nick on the line Photo Jeff Kerkove, Ergon Bikes |
I was in the lead for the women's race, but I knew I wasn't that far in front of Andrea. Of all the women on the list, she was the one I was worried about. I'd been watching some of the rides she did for prep for Vapor and I knew that she was in better shape for a 16 hour day then I was. I was in great stage racing shape thanks to the Breck Epic. But there is a huge difference between riding hard for 5 hours for six days in a row and riding hard for 16 hours straight. I'd been able to go back to the condo and recover - eat, soak my legs and nap after each stage. Here I was stringing three days of the Breck Epic together - without the naps or the ice baths.
That wasn't something I could dwell on however. The Colorado Trail lay before me - a nice wakeup call for night riding. In the past five years since I first road the section of CT from Blanks to Chalk Creek, I've actually come to love it. It's chunky, it's rocky traverses and steep pitches up and down. And it's night. The fitness riders always get ahead of me to the CT, but sure enough I reel some of them back in before Cascade Aid. I clicked on my Diablo helmet light and switched my Reflex bar light onto high. Nothing like a little light to make the trail even more fun! It took a little for my legs to respond to the singletrack - something that I maybe should have paid attention to at that point, but opted not to. I was committed. Ignore everything until I couldn't anymore or I'd reached the finish. That was the strategy I was using - if you can call that a strategy! Even if I didn't feel super fast on the CT, I was smooth. I remembered all the landmarks and trail junctions, as well as the steep little ups after all the river crossings. I was riding more things then I had even in the past and cruising along comfortably. Except for those switch backs on the drop to Cascade. Yikes. I usually try to ride all the left handers since that's my stronger switchback direction. Not this time. Those things were nasty this year. I wasn't going to take a chance on wiping out that early in the race and opted to walk all but the two easiest ones. Finally, I was down on to the road and motoring towards Cascade Aid.
The party had moved from the road to Blanks to Cascade. It was disconcerting at first - all the noise and lights around. I did my best to stay focused and not get distracted. Running through the check list in my head, I moved quickly. Refill bladder with water, add the Skratch I was carrying. Get rid of all my garbage. Pack check to make sure everything was zipped up. Grab a snack (BACON!) and head back out onto Narrow Gauge Trail. Mentally prepare for one of my least favorite parts of the entire race - the long road climb up to Hancock Townsite. Again, looking back at my time to Cascade, I was only five minutes off the time from my spread sheet.
There were a few more sections of Narrow Gauge that required hiking this year. The heavy rains earlier in the year were changing the shape of the trail. I kept my diablo on low for the narrow guage section so I could see where I was putting my feet while carrying my bike. But once I was on the road, it was time to power down. The light strategy that I've used for the past few years has been pretty solid. I start with one Diablo on my helmet and another in my pack, both set for a 2 hour high mode but one with high and medium and one with high, medium and low. I have two Reflex bar lights, both set for three hour high mode and again one with two setting and one with three settings. I run the two setting Diablo for the CT on high and then low for the aid station, narrow guage and any stops I make before the top of Hancock Pass. When I stop to get warm clothes on, I swap out Diablos just as I start moving again. The fresh head light powers any other stops, the Granite Mountain HAB and the Canyon Creek Descent. The strategy for my bar lights is similar - but I always make sure I have some power on my first Reflex for Canyon Creek. There is no such thing as too much light going down that trail! I know it's extra weight that I'm carrying around having two powerful bar lights like that, but it also means I have a backup in case something goes wrong.
The road up to Hancock was lonely. Very few riders around me, deep darkness despite the just past full moon hanging above the mountains. It was me and the memories of pedaling squares and going backwards in the race from last year. This year, I decided I'd break out the shuffle a little earlier instead of saving the music for Old Monarch. One earbud in, appropriately named playlist rolling and I was moving. Jamming right along, pedaling smoothly and totally focused on the narrow beam of light from my bar. I wasn't watching HR or power or anything. I was just riding as hard as I could, watching the landmarks ticking by until I was at Hancock Townsite. Time for the trek up to the Continental Divide! There was one goal for the climb - ride more then I had last year! Given that I'd walked maybe 90% of Hancock Pass last year, that was a really easy goal to reach. I still walked more then I wanted, but in listening to other racers, there were plenty of people walking more then they'd planned. Just as the road broke out of the trees, I stopped to put on my wool sweater and rain coat. I could see the lights of riders in front of me on the pass and below me winking in and out of the trees. I maybe stopped a little longer then planned to take in the view and then started hiking again. At the bottom of Hancock, I could smell the sweet smell of bacon cooking, but I couldn't see anything yet. Finally, just before the start of Tomichi, the flicker of a fire came into view. Jefe and Rachel, manning aid station 1.5 - a bastion of comfort in the middle of lonely, dark night. I was doing good when I reached them, but opted for a piece of bacon. I didn't want to get lured in by the welcoming warmth of the fire. I know they were life savers for several racers and the efforts that they made to get all support up to their campsite were much appreciated.
To me, the top of Tomichi pass is the most surreal place in the entire race. Tiny specks of light, high above me on Granite Mountain. More lights peaking over Hancock Pass behind me. It's at that point, surrounded by huge terrain and cloaked in darkness that the enormity of it all really settles in. A reminder of how tiny we are - reduced to nothing but the points of light guiding our way. Almost 7 hours into the race and only 45 miles covered with another 13 miles to go to reach "civilization." And looming before me - the hike up Granite Mountain. Last year, the darkness had already started fading before I reached the summit. This year, the night still had a firm grip without a trace of sunrise to the east. It was the darkest I'd ever seen at the summit - no moon left and just the howling of the coyotes to be heard. Yes, there was a pack of coyotes somewhere below howling and yipping away..
As I stopped to put on over gloves and headband, I realized that I would be descending most, if not all, of Canyon Creek in the darkness. Diablo on high. Reflex one on high. Reflex two on high. Time to Own the Night. Fork, fully open. Shock, fully open. Dropper post down. Earbuds out. Time to fly. There is something about descending alpine singletrack at night that brings everything into focus. My two fastest times on the alpine section of Canyon Creek have both come during the Vapor Trail 125. The distractions of the terrain are gone. All that is left is what is directly in front of my, brilliant under the lights. I know the exposures are there, but I can't see them unless I look away from the trail ahead of me. I'm free to just follow my lights, flying down the trail. With the amount of light I was running, I'm sure I looked like a small airplane getting ready for takeoff! Canyon Creek was wet this year - with more puddles then I've ever seen. It was also much chunkier and burlier then when we'd ridden earlier in the year. I didn't have a clean run, making a few silly mistakes and missing a few wet rocks. But it was still one of my fastest runs down the trail, even with the challenging conditions. On the short ugly climb out, the sky was starting to pink up as the sun chased away the darkness. I had almost beat the sun to Snowblind.
The volunteers at Snowblind were top notch this year. I rolled in, doused my lights and got busy. By the time I had my water replenished, some food for the road - a peach and croissant sandwich, my chain was cleaned and lubed, the stanchions on my fork, shock and dropper wiped clean and my bike ready for the climb up to Monarch Pass. There was no waiting around through - I wanted to be in and out. I didn't know where Andrea was, but I was fairly sure I'd seen her a few switchbacks below me on the HAB. It was close. And I'd pulled back time on the spreadsheet, coming in 2 minutes ahead of schedule. I settled into a steady but hard tempo up Old Monarch Pass Road, again ignoring the building fatigue in my legs. If I'd paced better and backed off a little here, would things have ended differently? Perhaps. Making a point to eat and drink, I just kept chugging away at the climb. The sun was rising and I was playing peekaboo with the rays behind the trees. With the photophobia and decreased ability for my left pupil to constrict, this part had me worried. Luckily, the new glasses worked perfectly. Nearly clear at night for awesome night riding and then transitioning to dark enough for daylight riding. I reached the pass, ready to get off the road and for the little chunk of singletrack before the aid station.
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| Nick on the Monarch Crest in the early morning hours Photo Jeff Kerkove, Ergon Bikes |
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| Before the implosion really started - on the Crest Photo Jeff Kerkove, Ergon Bikes |
I've always made it my goal to try to make that loop in under two hours - and I've never succeeded. Poncha Creek has been my nemesis - a wall that I have yet to scale successfully during the race. But in order to reach that goal time I had in my mind, I needed to be able to ride all of Poncha Creek. It's not a good sign for riding that when the jeep road leading to Starvation is a struggle! The implosion had begun. I'd gone all in from the start, ignoring all common sense for pacing in an event like this. I knew that I was taking a chance - that I would either survive all the way to finish and discover physical strength I didn't know I had or I would blow up spectacularly and have to rely on my mental endurance to struggle to the finish. But I wouldn't know unless I tried - if every year I approached the race in the same manner, I would always get the same results. As I was reminding myself of that fact, Andrea came pedaling up beside me. We walked the steeper part of the jeep road together and then she pulled away. I couldn't match her pace on the climb and I knew I wasn't going to be willing to take enough changes on Starvation to reel her back in. Wasn't going to happen - not when I've ridden that trail once this year! Now all that was left was to try to hang on for the time goal. When I made the left hand turn off Starvation and onto Poncha, I'm sure the aftershocks were felt back in Salida. There was literally nothing left in my legs. Holy crap. Pedaling even on the easier first mile was an act of bargaining - one pedal stroke after the other. The second mile was even worse. And finally by the third mile, I gave in. Forward movement was still forward movement and it was a good thing I was wearing comfortable shoes for hiking. Too bad I was so blown that I couldn't even manage a slow saunter!
When I finally returned to Marshall Pass, Tom and the rest of the crew was waiting for me. Tom told me how Andrea had been in and out, every fiber of her being screaming worry about me being right behind her. I had to laugh and responded "yeah, I guess 30+ minutes is right behind in a race like this!" I was just guessing at how much time I though she'd put into me - I was close. It was actually 45 minutes! But fear is a powerful motivator and Andrea would go on to win in the second fastest time - only 21 minutes off Jari's course record.
With only the short traverse on the CT, the Silver Creek descent and Rainbow left before the drop back to town, I was doing math in my head as I pedaled away. But after being awake and riding hard for 14+ hours, math isn't my strong point - especially when trying to do clock math. Somehow, I had myself convinced that I was looking at a 19 hour finish time and I'd totally lost every minute I'd gained on my suicidal first half. If my math skills had been better, perhaps I would have pushed a little harder and not just settled for a finish. Even when my Garmin's battery gave up the ghost at 15:06, I was still having math issues. Perhaps - it's easy to say that now, but I'm not sure I had anything left in my legs to try to push harder. There were some points that I was walking because I "thought" the trail went up hill! I was suffering - but I would finish.
Once I hit Silver Creek, it was a mini second wind. Enough to get down the trail quickly and smoothly without issues. I actually even rode the new exit out of Silver Creek - which I'd messed up last year. The new bridge at the bottom? Awesome - so much nicer then the tire gobbling old bridge. At the last aid station, I had some fruit and applesauce - the only food that sounded good at the moment. A rain storm had just rolled through and the rocks on the first third of Rainbow were wet and a little sketchy. But Rainbow always seems to re-energize me. It's the last chunk of trail, fun riding with exception of every descent into a left hand turn... But those I was walking anyway... Rainbow is the final count down - once you cross the jeep road, it's two more major climbs left. By now, my math was clear and I knew I had a fair shot of still breaking 17:30 if I could keep moving. I was also starting to regret not doing the atropine drops at Monarch pass - I was starting to get some small clusters in my left eye, indicative of the lens chaffing against the iris. Those two last climbs killed me though - even my walking pace had slowed drastically and the motivation to get on the bike at the summit minimal. But finally, the last climb and I could hear the traffic on 285 below me.
I was hoping to be able to drill it on the road and gain back some time. But alas, a 28t front change ring doesn't allow for much drilling! I had to be content with sprinting for a few seconds, then lowering the dropper to get aero and coasting. down 285. On the road back into Salida, I should have pedaled more - but 17:30 was almost gone and I just didn't have the power to pedal. More sprinting for several seconds, soft pedaling and then coasting until time to sprint again. I rolled into the Absolute Bikes parking lot at 3:37 for a 17:37 finish time. My all in approach hadn't gotten me the time I wanted, but it still yielded a new best time and the fifth fastest finish for a woman (fourth fastest woman - both of Jari's times were faster then me). It also gave me a place in Vapor Trail 125 history. Only one other women had started four times. I had just become the first and only women to finish the Vapor Trail 125 for the fourth time.
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| Nick finished in 7th overall, riding a 15:29 Photo Jeff Kerkove, Ergon Bikes |
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| The famous Vapor Trail 125 hat, my second place beer from Carver Brewing, the finishers pint glass and my prophetic number plate! Four finishes, three second places... |
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| That's a fine looking hat collection! 2014 at the top, 2015 on the right, 2016 on the left and 2017 on the bottom. |
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