Place: 2nd, Overall with 486.3 Mi
Field: 24 Hr Racers - 50 Including drafting and non-drafting categories (I raced Non-draft)
Conditions: 70's day, 50 at night moderate winds mid-day to 10PM. Total Ele ~5000 ft.
Bike: Ti Bacchetta Aero - Hed Disc with Hed 90 front.
Nutrition: 1 bottle Hammergel (1300mg caffeine), Perpetum, Endurolytes, salt, Pepsid, Na =350mg per hr, H20 = 28oz per hr., Calories ~300 per hr.
Average Heartrate for 24hrs = 145.
Sebring is an early season endurance race which consists of an 89 mi long loop to start the event, 11 mi loop to repeat until nightfall and a 3.7 mi night loop on the Sebring Intl Raceway. Good, gently rolling roads take you through Orange groves and out to lake Arbuckle and back. Some NW winds gave us non-drafting RAAM qualifiers a bit more work than the pack riders. My support van was not at the start so I was really happy to see it go by at mi 60 and ready to load an iced bottle of Perpetum. I was running on Hammergel up til then and knew I had to mix things up to make 24 hrs on either of those products. After starting near the back (Caboose Kern) I worked my way up to the lead 12 hr group by mi 50. I was feeling good and really enjoying the change in scenery. No Redwoods here! With average speeds of 20mph and just outside my target heart rate, we dropped into the 11 mi loop around 11AM.
Endurance heart rate last summer was determined to be around 140 with LT at 168. This was my second event where I was trying for a daytime HR of over 145 and nighttime of over 130. Alarm was generously set at 130 and 150 and during the day it was topping 150 regularly.
Things were stirred up in the 11 mi loop as I was passing 12 and 24 hr racers. Splits during this portion of the race were consistant 33 min times. I seemed to be regularly passing almost everyone on the course. I had assumed that the one person who had passed me a couple of times was going for the 12 hr record. Turns out Chris MacDonald was a Danish pro rider who was going for 24 and would be my nemesis during the night loops.
We were rerouted to the track at sundown. Dropping into the pit for lights, I went out and worked on getting comfortable on the corners of this 3.7 mi loop. All turns were flat. There was one RH 180, several 120's, 90's a bit of 1% grade(into the wind!). Turns were simple enough to navigate at 20-25mph until we lost all daylight and had to rely on our own light sources. Lighting from industrial areas near the raceway gave me some difficulty in a few turns as eye fatigue causes foggy vision for me and coming into corners, I cannot see where to initiate the turn. That, coupled with lighting difficulties made the night loops way more difficult than I had planned. I hit the doldrums around 11PM and had trouble keeping my heartrate above the 130 alarm. With a loose stomach, I knew it was a calorie issue more than anything else and I was drinking water to see if I could work past it. Salt and endurolytes every hr and a second 800mg of advil kept things in order and knees happy. Q-var and Saravent kept my lungs from closing like they did during last year's 508. What really worked, though, was Rich (crew leader) telling me that I was in second place to Chris and that it was close. For the last 6hrs I worked like a dog. HR was no longer a problem, I lapped the guy twice, crashed at 4AM as I miss-guessed a turn, and more than anything wanted to close that gap. The short story is that I was 23 seconds shy of getting the 490mi loop recorded and a couple of more laps away from tying Chris' phenomenal 500mi performance! Sun coming up, race over, I could barely stand. Still blasted at the 7AM awards ceremony I caught up with Chris and found out he was going all out to try to keep me from passing him on the track. All-time course record up to that point was 431.8 with a recumbent record of 372.8 mi. This AV performance not only beat the old all-time course record, but put over 100 mi on the old recumbent record and set new 12 and 24 hr UMCA stock-class (unfaired) recumbent records and international 24hr stock-class recumbent record.
The funny part - one more variable to add to a variables-filled event - flew out Thursday afternoon and Friday AM jumped on a bike I had never been on before, made some adjustments, gave it a 1 mi test ride before driving out to the start. I was testing a bike that our RAAM sponsor, Bacchetta Bicycles, was offering us for the cross-country race this June. The bike passed with flying colors! I have to admit, though, this was the 3rd time I've jumped on an unfamiliar bike just before a long event, but this was certainly the shortest shakedown ride!
Complete Splits:
1: 4:25:14 04:25:14 2: 32:19 04:57:33 3: 33:40 05:31:13 4: 33:30 06:04:42 5: 34:09 06:38:50 6: 33:48 07:12:37 7: 32:38 07:45:15 8: 33:18 08:18:33 9: 34:01 08:52:33 10: 33:32 09:26:04 11: 33:36 09:59:40 12: 32:52 10:32:32 13: 33:58 11:06:30 14: 34:42 11:41:11 15: 13:51 11:55:02 16: 9:53 12:04:54 17: 13:08 12:18:02 18: 9:59 12:28:00 19: 10:59 12:38:58 20: 11:22 12:50:20 21: 10:07 13:00:26 22: 11:47 13:12:13 23: 10:27 13:22:40 24: 10:32 13:33:11 25: 10:12 13:43:23 26: 10:26 13:53:48 27: 10:29 14:04:17 28: 10:30 14:14:47 29: 10:37 14:25:23 30: 12:29 14:37:51 31: 11:30 14:49:21 32: 10:23 14:59:43 33: 10:15 15:09:57 34: 10:38 15:20:35 35: 10:32 15:31:06 36: 10:43 15:41:48 37: 10:49 15:52:37 38: 10:43 16:03:20 39: 10:39 16:13:59 40: 12:03 16:26:01 41: 10:43 16:36:44 42: 13:13 16:49:56 43: 11:11 17:01:06 44: 10:57 17:12:03 45: 12:15 17:24:17 46: 13:05 17:37:22 47: 11:52 17:49:13 48: 10:38 17:59:51 49: 12:13 18:12:03 50: 19:47 18:31:50 51: 10:16 18:42:05 52: 10:45 18:52:50 53: 12:02 19:04:52 54: 10:28 19:15:19 55: 10:29 19:25:48 56: 11:50 19:37:37 57: 13:58 19:51:35 58: 11:06 20:02:40 59: 11:29 20:14:09 60: 10:30 20:24:38 61: 10:33 20:35:11 62: 10:56 20:46:06 63: 11:27 20:57:33 64: 13:36 21:11:09 65: 11:02 21:22:10 66: 11:11 21:33:21 67: 11:18 21:44:38 68: 12:12 21:56:49 69: 11:25 22:08:14 70: 11:46 22:20:00 71: 12:59 22:32:58 72: 11:14 22:44:12 73: 10:39 22:54:51 74: 10:57 23:05:48 75: 11:02 23:16:49 76: 11:05 23:27:54 77: 11:13 23:39:07 78: 10:53 23:49:59