Place: 1st overall with 516.5 miles
Date: 18-19 February, 2006
Field: 24 Hr Racers - 79 Including drafting and non-drafting categories (I raced Non-draft)
Conditions: 70's day, 50's at night.. Total Ele ~5000 ft.
Bike: Ti Bacchetta Aero -RENN Disc with ZIPP404 front.
Nutrition: Custom mix of maltodextrin/protein, Endurolytes, Pepsid, H20 = 28oz per hr., Calories ~300 per hr.
Average Heartrate for 24hrs = 142.
As with last year, Sebring is the first 'A' race on my calendar. Last year, however, I had end of the year foot surgery which took 2 weeks of January out of my training schedule. I felt really good coming into this race and had a hard target of beating the 500 mi performance of Chris MacDonald. There were going to be several more recumbents, most of them Bacchetta Aeros, and we had a solid pit crew keeping us going.
The 6:30AM starting field of 158 riders rode 3 laps of the racetrack before heading out on the 89 mi first loop of the event. It was a high energy start with recumbents leading the pack. I was near the front with the 12 hr group and working hard to maintain my non-draft status. Things got easier after the 45 mi turnaround and the group had spread out. Watching the lead group get smaller in the distance, they finally disappeared when I stopped to make a seat adjustment on the bike we had just set up the previous day. Coming back into Sebring I was looking forward to the citrus groves on the 11 mi loop which we would spend the rest of the day on. You now have a chance to see the other racers and find out how they are doing. I was feeling good, eating well, and hitting the 2 climbs with good momentum. A mid-afternoon bee sting on my left hamstring had me worried for a moment about swelling which could cause problems later in the race. Nothing happened except for several hours of minor irritation. My heartrate was way past where I wanted it, mostly in the 150's, and Tim was still ahead of me. Though it is still early, he would certainly take this event if he kept up his current pace! I tried not to dwell on that but to focus on bringing down the HR and on being efficient in the pit.
We moved over to the 3.7 mi racetrack at 6:30 PM and still had 30 min of daylight left. It was an opportunity to get reacquainted with the turns while there was still light. During the second time around, my back tire got soft just after the hairpin. I bounced the bike just to be sure and found the rim. I really did not want to sit out there fixing this so I continued on, testing how the bike reacted in corners while riding a flat back tire. 2 mi later, back in the pit, we hunted around for another wheel as I nursed a couple of sore feet and was rolling again after a few minutes. With lights on we rode into the night on a pitch-black track guided by our bike lights and by small, flashing LED's to mark the apex of every corner.
Getting into a rhythm was no problem since our laps were every 10-11 minutes. The pit was the only lighted area of the track. Each lap we'd have maybe 20 seconds of lights before heading back into darkness for the next 10 minutes. This must be how it feels to overwinter in Alaska. Night was progressing and I was beginning to pay for riding fast the first 12 hrs. Heartrate down, food intake down, the strongest motivation to keep moving was that I was still moving well. No major problems so far except for the flat. Not knowing my position relative to Tim kept me working hard. We had a bet going that, between us, the loser paid the winner a buck a mile for our mileage difference. That would later get donated to our '04 and '05 RAAM sponsor, the ALS March-of-Faces.
Things were starting to come alive toward the end when we could see that records were probably going to fall. Only, that's when I did too. Misreading a Left turn, I cut early and went off the track. It was evident where I could come back on and I had good speed to make it. Problem was a concrete edge that I caught flipped the bike hard and blew the front tire. About that time, Larry came up & stopped to ask if I was all right. He was on record pace for his class and he stopped to check on things! I was ok but the front wheel was not. Checking to be sure that was the only major issue, I rode the course backwards about 1/2 mi, staying out of the line the racers were taking. Riding a front flat was more excitement than I wanted at that point in the race but successfully getting back to the pit had to happen. Riding a front flat is the closest I've come to riding on ice. We got the new wheel on, checked the bike, and it was back to the track minus some skin and the bike computer which flew off in the crash.
Rich didn't have exact numbers but yelled out that the record was broken. It must have been the 486 mi from last year so I kept working until hr 23 when I could see that I had about 5.5 laps to go. since partial laps are not counted here I opted to slow up and use the last hr for recovery. I actually felt pretty good at the end, for a change. We had a festive finish to an epic event. Never has a 24 hr event had so many Bacchettas, or even recumbents, for that matter. We celebrated at the track-side awards ceremony before going off to breakfast next door at Chateau Elan.
Complete Splits:
1: 4:18:30 04:18:30 2: 32:41 04:51:11 3: 34:14 05:25:25 4: 32:51 05:58:16 5: 32:58 06:31:13 6: 32:34 07:03:47 7: 32:50 07:36:37 8: 32:28 08:09:04 9: 32:21 08:41:25 10: 32:18 09:13:42 11: 32:30 09:46:12 12: 33:41 10:19:52 13: 33:17 10:53:09 14: 32:31 11:25:39 15: 11:03 11:36:42 16: 9:52 11:46:33 17: 9:49 11:56:22 18: 13:07 12:09:28 19: 13:11 12:22:38 20: 12:04 12:34:42 21: 10:21 12:45:02 22: 10:00 12:55:02 23: 10:13 13:05:14 24: 10:13 13:15:26 25: 10:24 13:25:50 26: 10:22 13:36:11 27: 10:27 13:46:38 28: 14:56 14:01:34 29: 9:52 14:11:25 30: 10:09 14:21:33 31: 10:02 14:31:34 32: 10:05 14:41:38 33: 9:58 14:51:36 34: 10:01 15:01:37 35: 10:02 15:11:38 36: 10:07 15:21:44 37: 10:08 15:31:52 38: 10:01 15:41:52 39: 10:56 15:52:48 40: 9:57 16:02:44 41: 10:00 16:12:44 42: 10:08 16:22:51 43: 10:08 16:32:58 44: 10:09 16:43:06 45: 10:15 16:53:21 46: 10:15 17:03:35 47: 10:36 17:14:10 48: 11:59 17:26:09 49: 10:08 17:36:17 50: 10:14 17:46:30 51: 10:22 17:56:51 52: 10:16 18:07:07 53: 10:26 18:17:32 54: 10:20 18:27:51 55: 10:18 18:38:09 56: 10:20 18:48:29 57: 10:16 18:58:45 58: 10:09 19:08:53 59: 10:15 19:19:08 60: 10:16 19:29:24 61: 11:10 19:40:33 62: 10:21 19:50:54 63: 14:20 20:05:13 64: 10:22 20:15:35 65: 10:29 20:26:03 66: 10:27 20:36:30 67: 10:33 20:47:03 68: 10:24 20:57:27 69: 10:25 21:07:51 70: 10:26 21:18:17 71: 10:32 21:28:49 72: 10:30 21:39:19 73: 10:29 21:49:47 74: 11:03 22:00:50 75: 10:30 22:11:20 76: 10:39 22:21:58 77: 10:47 22:32:44 78: 10:39 22:43:23 79: 17:45 23:01:08 80: 10:41 23:11:48 81: 10:38 23:22:26 82: 11:09 23:33:34 83: 11:26 23:45:00 84: 11:43 23:56:42