Mohican 100 MTB race

I’ve always dreamed of doing a 100-mile MTB “race”–not to compete, but simply to finish the ride. Approaching 50, I felt like it’s now or never to check this off the bucket list. I hired a 6-time world champion endurance racer as my coach–not to replicate his success, but to see how professionals prepare for such an event. After fracturing a rib in a skiing accident in February, I got off to a slow start–but followed his training program for 12 weeks. This included structured workouts every week, along with tips for nutrition and rest. As I got several weeks into the program, a couple observations came to mind. First, riding five or six days a week strips the fun out of mountain biking. Second, when I was on longer training rides, I wondered why the hell I was doing this in the first place.

As I communicated to Yvonne in recent weeks, I trained as hard as I was willing to train for something like this. Physically, I was prepared to ride 100 miles. What terrified me (sounding a bit dramatic of course) was my mental toughness and my willingness/ability to fight through roadblocks when they present themselves. I find anything beyond 3-4 hours on my bike just isn’t fun –and my rebellious personality serves as a huge roadblock in terms of breaking through these mental barriers.

Well, I’m just back from the Mohican 100–and unfortunately I laid an egg. I can come up with dozens of excuses as to why I didn’t succeed, none of which really matter. The bottom line is I failed to deliver the goods. After training the last several months–I’m certainly disappointed and my ego is bruised…but “I think” I learned a lot about myself.

Just a quick summary for your reading pleasure. After going to bed at 8:30 p.m. on Friday night, I found myself lying awake for nearly 9 hours amped up about the race…and never fell asleep. Jumping out of bed at 5:00 a.m., I threw down some breakfast and organized my equipment for the race. The race started at 7:00 a.m. from downtown Loudonville, OH. Oddly enough there were 2 accidents (one of them serious) right out of the gate. The first couple of miles of the race were on hilly roads leading out of town, and the field of several hundred riders thinned out before we reached the singletrack of Mohican State Park. I rode the Mohican Loop (24 miles) a couple weeks ago when it was dry and fast and it was a handful then. During Saturday’s race, the singletrack was wet from thunderstorms the night before–making conditions somewhat slick, and creating a bit of havoc on the course. I laid my bike down twice before the first aid station at mile 20, and then flipped over my handlebars between aid stations 1 and 2. The first 25 miles of the race were all grueling singletrack (the Mohican Loop). While I thought the load might lighten up a bit thereafter, we ended up transitioning to several miles of horse trails that had the consistency of brownie batter…with mud coming up over the rims of our tires. Adding to this chaos were climbs of up to a mile long that appeared to be at a 60-70 degree pitch. Just walking up these hills and pushing the bike along was a big kick in the nuts, zapping me of energy. It took almost 5 hours to reach Aid Station 2 (35 miles), and knowing I had another 65 miles to ride and cutoff times to make at each aid station, I decided I was hanging it up for the day. I wasn’t injured, my equipment was in good working order, and physically I felt fine. I was just “tired” of being on my bike after 5 hours, and even more tired of eating cliff bars, gel shots, and stinger waffles every 30 minutes.

At Aid Station 2, I laid down under a nicely shaded tree–and closed my eyes for a bit. Eventually I hitched a ride to the finish line with a half dozen other folks, where they had a Great Lakes Brewery keg truck and BBQ underway. After about 30 minutes of drinking brew and hanging around the campground, the first 100-mile racer (Gerry Pflug on a singlespeed nonetheless) came blazing across the finish line in just over 7 hours and 12 minutes or thereabouts. The 2nd place finisher came in two minutes later. It’s unbelievable that only two minutes seperated 1st and 2nd place over 100 miles. These professional racers are tremendous athletes and in a class of their own. Regardless of course conditions, mechanical malfunctions, or missing a turn–these individuals get after it, and stay after it in a big way.

I’d love to say I have a 100-miler in me and that I’ll be back again next year. Perhaps the end result would be different if I trained on tougher terrain, focused more on nutrition, and eliminated nasty habits. Unfortunately, I’m not buying that theory. What the Mohican 100 validated to me is that I’m nothing more than a recreational MTB rider, and I’m at peace with that. I’m passionate about mountain biking, but not to the point that I want to spend 12 or 13 hours grinding it out in the saddle. Even with perfect weather and perfect trail conditions–one needs to have enough passion and desire to fight through mental roadblocks, and unfortunately–it’s simply not part of my DNA as it relates to pedaling 100 miles on a MTB.