Land Run 100 - 2019 Dry and Dusty edition

The Land Run 100 has a reputation for being a tough race. This is mainly due to the mud that forms on certain sections of the course with even a hint of rain. 

LR 100 Finisher Stats
Red - Registered
Yellow - Started
Blue - Finished

2017 LR100 course 

In 2017 there was a lot of attrition due to a wet course and cold temperatures. Last year the course was mostly dry and the finishing numbers reflect this.

In my previous blog post I mentioned how I changed tyres in case the course was going to be muddy. In the end, instead of the predicted 2" of rain we only received around 1", this was followed by some strong drying winds, think 30mph or above all day. All this meant that the course was about as good as it was ever going to be.

My good friend Oscar flew down from Anchorage, AK to race/ride this event so I was super stoked that he ended up riding in such great conditions.

Pre race day

Oscar arrived on Friday afternoon and after collecting him from the airport we built his bike and headed up to Stillwater OK for packet pickup and the riders meeting. Then we drove back home so that we could finish preparing for the race and have dinner.
Oscar and I managed to get out for a short shakedown ride, there was even a little gravel.

Shorts in March = awesome!

Race Day

Saturday morning seemed to come far to quickly but a little after 06:00 we were loaded up and rolling towards Stillwater, OK.

Loaded up and ready to roll

We dropped off our drop bags, finished getting ready and headed up to the start line. 

30F is pretty chilly

All lined up and ready to go

At 08:00 the cannon was fired and we were off, well kind up due to being 10+ rows back the start was a little slow, but soon we were heading out for some Oklahoma gravel. First was a little road out of town and around 2miles in we hit the first gravel. At this point we played dodge the waterbottle, there must have been 20 bottles lying on the ground, it was crazy and we were close to the front of the field, if I had to guess I would say I was in the top 200 at this point. 

For the first hour the temperatures were definitely chilly at around 33F. It was also pretty dusty with such a big group riding together on dry gravel. 

After around 1 hour I was warm enough to swap out from the thicker gloves and put on some regular full finger gloves. 

Gravel road not dirt

Say cheese :)

The next couple of hours passed for me riding in groups and steadily trying to catch the wheels of the people who were riding faster than me. At around mile 42 I had to stop for a call of nature (longest pee stop ever at around 2 min) and lost contact with the group I was riding with. I was feeling good though and didn't stress about it. I got riding again and caught onto a group of three people, we worked together, picking up others on the way including Oscar who I hadn't seen since the start of the race. We were flying into the 1/2 way point (post race analysis - chip time of 3:02:26 and in 170th place overall out of 1078)

I refilled my bottles at the Skratch lab aid station and then found my drop bag, changed a few things around took off base layer, dropped thick gloves, buff etc and was back on the road in around 5 min.

About to get my drop bag, my bottles are already full at this point.
Photo Credit - 241 photography

Oscar and I at the 1/2 way point
Photo credit 241 photography

Rolling out of Perkins I was feeling strong, Oscar was not feeling as strong, I decided I would crack on as I was feeling good, rather than riding with him. 

Rolling out of Perkins

The second half of the course seemed to have a lot more rollers on the road and definitely more red dirt rather than gravel. There was even a section of road that had no bridge so forced us to get off our bikes to cross a stream. 

There was a second stream crossing and a few sketchy descents thrown into the mix further along the course. All in all the back half of the course had a lot of interesting features, especially with tired legs.

Red dirt and rollers up and down all the time.

After the Vittoria Oasis (unofficial aid station, which I didn't stop at) I was happily riding along in my own little world after the people I had been riding with stopped. I was trying to catch up to the people in front of me when a couple of people caught up to me and one of them passed me pretty easily. The rider who didn't pass me I had been riding with earlier was called AJ from Colorado the other rider was the man, the myth the legend, Jay Petervery! 

AJ chasing after JP

JP, dropped AJ and I pretty quickly but we managed to reel him back in slowly and have a chat with him, we even rolled into the Salsa Chaise Lounge together.

Me on the Chaise

A quick photo stop then it was back to chasing JP. I did manage to catch up with him and for a while I was able to maintain riding with him but soon afterwards he dropped me. Clint, I now know how you feel to be dropped by JP, although my feet were warm :-P 

Dropped by JP

I'm all alone :) 

I eventually caught up to another rider Michelle, she was a strong rider now residing in Portland, OR who has ridden the DK200 last year and is riding it again this year. We powered through the remaining 15miles of seemingly endless rollers and straight roads trying to catch back up to JP. And before we knew it we were back on pavement and hoping the traffic lights would turn green as we rolled through each intersection to the finish. JP finished a little over 37 seconds ahead of us.

Crossing the finish line
- Photo Credit 241 Photography

I stopped the clock at 6:15:05 taking 126th place overall and 39th/259 in my age group, that was way above where I was expecting to finish. Maybe top 100 next time?????

Post race results

My back half of the course was strong.

Post Race

I had an absolute blast riding this race and finished stronger than I have ever finished in a race. I was tired but didn't cramp at all. I think part of this may be down to the new drink mix I am using from First Endurance, It could also be all the training I have been doing too I guess. 

Once again a huge thanks must go out to my family for putting up with me whilst I train for all these long events. 

I'm also thankful that Oscar took the time to fly down from Anchorage, AK to join me on this adventure. Even though we didn't actually ride so much of the LR100 together, we at least experienced the same conditions. He rolled in at 6:44:09 and also had a blast, or so he tells me :)

Full results

All smiles at the finish

 The Strava

Landrun 100 race preparation

On the 3rd November 2018 at 08:02am Amanda logged in and scored me a Landrun 100 entry. The race sold out in about 7 min I believe. Since then I have focused my training towards this event. 

Not that I believe I can podium but more to make my ride as enjoyable as possible and so I suffer for as little time as possible on the bike whilst riding it. I have been riding lots of gravel and getting back into regularly doing the P90X yoga routine and adjusting my nutrition. All of which I hope has helped with my endurance. 

Over the last few days the weather guesses have been warning everyone that we are going to get a lot of rain. 

Damon telling us the rain totals by Thursday
- Guess Monday Eve at 21:40

Why is rain such an issue?

Its all to do with the wonderful red dirt which looks great for photographs especially in the golden hour but can make riding a bike impossible. 

oh that pretty red dirt

smooth sailing until it isn't

And then you can't ride anymore

red dirt sticks really well to tyres

Yey hike your bike

To be perfectly honest I don't think we will get that much rain, especially since I have just gone ahead and swapped my tyres over to narrower ones which give more mud clearance. 

What tyres and why swap?

I have swapped over from my 40C Maxxis Ramblers to my 33C Clement PDX's 

Old Orange Sealant from the PDX tyres

Lots more mud clearance

from a 40C to 33C = lots more room

The trusty PDX's

I switched tyres since a couple of team mates have put up some advice that said switch your tyres, you won't regret it! 

And yes I know I swapped before the rain hit, but that is so if I encounter any problems with the set up, I have time to do something about it. 

The PDX's roll pretty well so even if it's not muddy I will not be at a huge disadvantage. Also if there are any grassy sections these tyres are the best, they have so much traction whilst maintaining minimum drag.  

Thinking back to my training, perhaps I should have been doing running training.

So that is me, I have done all I wanted to do before this race. All that is left for me to do is pick up my buddy Oscar who is flying down from Alaska to do this race, from the airport on Friday and enjoy the ride. 

Take care everyone. 

TDD - Sooner Stampede - 10th March 2018

Hello race fans, I will do my race first then I will move onto the important one.

Nick's race

I got to race my first Cat 1 race.... holy crap those guys are fast!!!!

The race was held at Lake Thunderbird state park on the Clearbay trails. This was the first race of the season for the Tour De Dirt race series due to one race being postponed. The course was a fun one with dry with super grippy dirt.

Unlike in Alaska where I would be racing with the whole expert category, here we are split into age groups. For me that means Cat 1 - 17-39, AKA the really fast guys.

All lined up ready to go, I'm at the far end of the photo
- PC - Gregg Grosshans

We set off at the whistle and immediately I was at the back of the group of 9 riders.

Not getting the holeshot, I'm at the back :)
- PC - Gregg Grosshans

I did manage to pass one guy on the first section of single track but I pretty much rode the whole race solo aside from being passed by some (actually all) of the racers in the Cat 1 - 40-49 category, I will add they all passed me like I was going backwards :-/

On course, PC - Jennifer Black

After crossing the line - PC Amanda

Am I disappointed, heck no! I had a great race. I raced hard and didn't blow up which is super unusual for me. My rear hub was making some strange noises so it is off the Bike Lab OKC today for a little TLC. 

Race results

There I am in 7th Place 

Link to full results

The Strava 

Fiona's 1st MTB race!!!

Fiona took part in her first MTB race. She raced in the TDD Kids Kup 8-9 age group and finished in 2nd place. She had a blast riding and was all smiles for the whole event. 

Warming up - note they then waited 20min on the start line

Finally off

ripping the singletrack

She was pretty stoked about this!

To top it all off she also achieved an MVP award for the kids cup. To say she is stoked was an understatement!

MVP Award :)

I am super happy that she now seems to have the MTB bug, looking forward to lots more riding with her now! 

And finally

I couldn't do all of this without the incredible support of my amazing wife. She does so much for me it really would be impossible to list everything. I truly couldn't do this without her. 

A weekend playing on bikes and a Daddy daughter dance

Lake Thunderbird Sooner Stampede course

On Saturday I spent a couple of hours riding at Lake Thunderbird with some of my teammates. This is where the 419 Endurance race was held a couple of weeks ago. This time we rode the trails that are going to be used for the Tour De Dirt race there, the Sooner Stampede on the 3rd March 2019.

The course is a fun one but definitely has some pucker up moments for me. It is going to be a two lap race and both laps are a little different.
The gold loop uses the natural features of the area well but also adds wooden features to enhance them.

First wooden enhancement -
Picture stolen from web

That wooded section is steeper than this picture makes it look.
This bridge is going to be part of the second lap, at the top of the bridge it feels pretty frightening.

Image stolen from the web!

It's steeper than it looks when you are up at the top.
- Image stolen from the web

I had a lot of fun riding but I didn't have the legs and lungs and kept getting dropped which was frustrating. It almost made me question my decision to get myself upgraded to a USA Cycling  Cat1 MTB racing licence, however I did race Open/Expert in Alaska and this should be the equivalent to Cat1, hopefully.

Daddy Daughter Dance

It seems that in Oklahoma and possibly the rest of the world (who knows) there is a tradition for a Daddy Daughter dance. This one was a fund raiser for the Jr/Sr Prom. It was a semi formal event and gave Fi and I a chance to dress up and have some more time together. 

Finally slowed her down for a photograph. 

The dance was fun, I was ditched immediately upon arrival when Fiona saw some of her friends however, soon she returned and proceeded to "dance", although not really with me. Think Luna Lovegood, which is awesome! 

Curto Dirto

This was a fundraiser for Curt Dikes who has cancer, It was run out of District Bicycles in Stillwater where he used to work. Curt is clearly a popular chap as hundreds of people came out to ride for him.  Also many industries both locally and nationally donated for many, many raffle prizes (which I failed to win any of).

The ride took us on a 50 mile tour of the local area.  Some of the roads have been used for previous land run events so I thought it would be a great idea to ride an event on roads I am likely to see similar versions of when I ride the Land Run in a few weeks time.

The guys and gals on my team are pretty well known in the area and damn fast riders. This meant that we got a front row start for the event. 

All lined up on the start

We rolled out with a police escort until we hit the gravel then the pace slowly increased as we rode along. Most of the team decided to try and roll with each other and after the first couple of hills we regrouped then stuck together until the end. 

Before the regroup

Rolling together.

Rolling together

The beer and margarita stops along the way definitely helped with this. 

Under the bridge

Given the rest of the team were rolling singlespeed bikes, I found a gear ratio that worked with them 36:15 in my case and rolled happily to the finish.

36:15 making a SS out of a geared bike

Almost at the finish

It was a great day out on the bike with friends. Over $68,000 was raised to help Curt with his medical expenses, I just hope that its enough. 

Strava files