Dukes Epic 8-Hour *Solo*

At the end of September was the Epic 8 Hour Relay mountain bike race which I raced last year with Chris and Katherine Ivey. It was really fun and since they couldn't do it this year, and I had yet to do a good annual hard man challenge, I decided to enter it solo. My goal was to complete nine or ten 10 km laps in the allotted time and finish inside the top half. This would be a good challenge as the categories are only age divided and not with regards to ability so there would be pro/elite guys racing in my category.

The run up to the race was a bit questionable since I experienced a bit of recurring knee pain the weekend prior. So my preparation in the preceding week was only a single one hour ride to rest my knee. This was not ideal but I decided it was worth entering and seeing what happened anyway.

The day before the race it was pouring rain but the forecast was for clearing on the Saturday and Hardwood hills handles water pretty well. I got there early in the morning and made my way to the solo pits which were right beside the race course. This was handy as I was totally self supported. Below is a picture of my pit spot and the second is of my cooler of drinks and bag of food right on the side of the course.



You can see the red matrix in the pit just the other side of the trees. This made for nice easy access during the race.



Once I was finished setting up I made my way over to the finish line area to get ready for the pre-race meeting. This is a shot of the final chicane leading into the dismount area where you tapped your chip to record laps.



This is a shot of the start line filling up. I wasn't in a hurry to line up and I started near the back on account of having lots of time (8 hours) ahead of me to make up for a slow paced start.



The race started out slow for me in cool weather. You can see my arm warmers in the picture below which I took off after the first lap. The conditions were wet and a bit sticky with slick roots and there were a lot of people falling all over the place while it was packed together in the first couple laps.



My initial laps where all in the 40 minute range including a couple minutes off the bike each lap to try to eat and drink what I could. The pace was nice and moderate and I made sure that I was not over extending on climbs. The course started drying and speeding up too which made it a bit more fun. Below are a couple pics showing the sun coming out and drying out the nice black single track.





I had completed 6 laps inside the first four hours and it occurred to me that there was the possibility if I pushed it I might be able to get another five in the second four hour chunk. This became my goal although it became much harder to ride into the fifth and sixth hour and a weird cramping adductor in my left leg became an issue. This last riding shot must be in one of the last couple laps. My leg was cramping pretty badly as I was riding past the photog and you can sort of see me pressing the saddle into my left inner thigh to try to release the cramp.



I ended up just making the final five laps that I wanted with six minutes to spare and was super happy as I don't think that I could have performed any better given my fitness and preparation. So I finished with eleven 10 km laps in eight hours which put me in 15th place out of 36 starters which also really pleased me. I am in awe of the guys that punched out 14 laps solo on the day to take the win. The top teams only did two more for a total of 16 so that is crazy to think that people could do 14 solo.

The sad note of the day was that one guy passed away on course. I went by while they were administering CPR and it did not look too promising. I'm glad I wasn't the first one on that scene and that the medics were already on site. It seems strange to think that you are just heading out for a fun day of racing and then never making it back home.

One thing that I found totally amazing was the support that everyone voiced to those of us riding solo. I have never experienced anything like the positive comments garnered from having one little extra race plate hanging under your seat. I took a picture of it below attached to my bike.



The whole thing was overall a great challenge and experience and I'm really glad I made the effort. I think that I may try to do more of those event type races rather than just the O-cups just to keep the racing experience fresh. At the very end of the day I even walked away with a draw prize pictured below.