BURN 24 – The Race Report

I'm not exactly sure when I first thought about participating in this type of race. I'm sure it was probably last year when Paula was getting ready for the 2008 version of the BURN 24. The original plan was to have an all female team and ride single speeds. Well, my foray into single speed biking has been difficult. I played around with it some over the winter, and as you know I did the MTX series in Bedford on it. Scraping that idea, we then couldn't find a 4^th and or 5^th Chicky to pull off the all female team; so we split into two co-ed teams. My team would be Warren, Dave and Laura. The other team from Roanoke Cycling was Paula, Chip, Skip and Adam.

After gathering at Chez Schimizzi, we headed south for the race. After what seemed like an eternal drive, we arrived at W. Kerr Scott Reservoir. Shortly after arriving, tent construction began. Once that was completed, chatting commenced. We covered many topics in a short period of time. Around 11p, we all decided it was time to attempt to sleep.

Morning came, and I woke up around 630a. I did sleep pretty good and was happy. I rode around a bit to take pictures here and there. The morning seemed to fly by and soon we were preparing our stuff for the race. Warren asked if I would mind doing the running lap that starts the race. I figured I could run a 1/ 4 mile without too much troubles, so why not. As we gathered at the designated spot, I was chatting with Chip and Cliff. We decided to just run together. There's no point in running hard because what's the point when there's 24 hours of racing to do. I managed to survive the lap and tagged off to Warren.

At this point, I was to be the third rider for our team as Dave hadn't arrived. Warren flew through his lap tagging off to Laura. Once she got back, it was my turn. Let's see someone warned me about the initial rock garden, but it still took me by surprise. Managed not to kill myself then over to the next obstacle which was a big pipe proceeded by a rock-covered slope with the same on the other side. I did alright getting over it. Surprise! Into the singletrack, where the real fun began. There seemed to be quite a bit of climbing and a lot of tree roots. I did ok on most of this stuff. A few of the berms threw me for a loop. The downhill sections were about as much fun as can be had. There were a few "rock gardens" on the course, but they weren't difficult. The last two downhills are a scream especially the one that drops you back out onto the gravel path. I actually felt like I was moving at a pretty good clip on this part. After the gravel path, you drop into the grass for a meandering path back to the transition area.

Lap 1 – I felt like my legs were full of concrete. I struggled on the climbs (GRRRRR). I had fun on the downhills and "technical" stuff. Lap 2 – Seemed a bit better. I need more endurance and speed. Still goofed in one of the berms. Both of these laps were in the daylight and dry conditions. I wouldn't get to ride again until 0330am. This kind of sucked because sleeping was difficult because of the humidity and noise. It poured down rain sometime during the night, so everything especially the roots got dangerously slick. I initially woke up around 0230 thinking I would need to go out soon, but Moe informed me that Dave was doing 3 laps and that I wouldn't be needed until 0330 or so. I headed off to my Jeep to sleep – didn't feel like crawling back into the stuffy tent.

Eventually I pulled on my armwarmers and knee warmers and waited for Dave at the transition area. It was dark and very hard to see who was coming in. I found him and shouted out to him, and at 0339am headed out for lap 3. In case you don't know, I don't see very well in the dark. I guess my terrible eyesight is to blame, but I've gone out and ridden in the dark recently in preparation for this exact occurrence. I thought I did ok, but honestly I was more than hesitant and my confidence faded with each slip of my tires off of the roots. I finally got off the bike and let air out of my tires in hopes that it would help them grip something, anything. I nearly fell off of my bike on some roots at one point. It was a rearward dismount and I almost landed on the back tire. I don't know how squirrelly it was, but it was enough to annoy me. I did walk a few times after this. I can't risk an injury. Despite my pleas for a bullet to the head, the course workers at the halfway point wouldn't oblige. Then, I was more than halfway done with my lap and was growing tired of my helmet slipping when I hear and felt a pop then suddenly my helmet was off. The rear restraining piece had come undone from the shell of the helmet. I was struggling to get it fixed because of course my light was on the other side of it. About the time, I got the light unfastened so that I could use it to see, one of my friends stopped to help me. THANKS SKIPPY! I continued on after this and once finished with the lap headed back to the pit area to ensure that it was fastened correctly and to restrain the cords again.

Lap 4 wasn't much better. I had a lot of fun though, but again the slippery roots and trails intimidated me. I was losing my confidence by the minute so it was a slow lap. At one point, I was off my bike and walking when a group of four passed me. I yelled out and asked if they were in the carpool lane. Then another time I said, "Hello, welcome to my trail, please come on through." I figured if the lap was going to suck, I was going to have fun with the other riders. While I was out on lap 4 the sun came up, so by the time I came out of the woods, the campers were stirring. I zoomed out of the woods and onto the path. This dude was standing there staring and I looked at him, "good morning, have you been here long???" He just stared dumbfounded and started laughing. A few tents down, I shouted out, "good morning, get up it's time to ride…" People just looked at me as if I had no head. What's wrong with having a bit of fun??

Overall, I had a great time at the Burn. I wish that I could have contributed more towards the lap count. I'm feeling pretty low about only contributing 4 laps when Warren and Dave did 9 and Laura did 7, but I did the best I could. I'd like to have ridden more in the dry and/or daylight, but it didn't work out that way. I guess while I was out and about during the wee morning hours the power riders (Dave and Warren) got some good sleep. They both rode strong laps to finish out the event for us. Warren fought off some back pain, and Dave finished super strong!!! I was totally impressed especially when he roared through the finish line and went out for the final lap. We ended up 4^th out of 13 teams in the 3-5 person Coed team division with 29 laps. We were one lap down to the 3^rd place team. The 3^rd and 4^th place (us) teams were teams of 4 while the 1^st and 2^nd teams were 4 males and 1 female. HMMMMMM.

After doing the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek and now the Burn 24, I'm beginning to really like this format of racing. It just seems more laid back. I can't wait to try again. Maybe I'll have to look at the calendar since the other races I want to do aren't working out with my schedule. Anyway, I'll try to post some pictures with this blog, but I'm trying to use MS Word to write the post and I'm not sure how the picture thing works. =)