Scott's 24 hours of adrenaline race report

Surviving 24 Hours On a Mountain Bike by Scott Thomson with commentary from Cindy Chetley-Thomson

July 2001 – May 2011
In preparing for and completing IMC in 2010, I put into question an accomplishment I completed 10 years ago - the 24 Hours of Adrenalin mountain bike race solo. The concept of the race is to complete as many laps of the course as you can in 24 hours. The course is18.5km with 1620 ft elevation climb and 1620 ft downhill over a mix of easy, technical and difficult terrain. The racers can do this in teams or solo. The ranking is done by highest number of laps, if there’s a tie then time is used. One important rule is if you cross the finish line before 23 hours you must do another lap and complete it finished 25 hours.

I thought I was done with the race and didn’t need to come back to it, but doing IMC made me consider redoing this race because of some core items I learned from the process of truly preparing and executing a race. Prior to IMC I would classify myself as a solid weekend warrior athlete - get off the couch, do what I could, and recover through the week. When I last did the 24H race solo I thought Ironman was just for crazies, who would want to do that? It was just so big. So instead I’d go ride a mountain bike for 24 hours – yeah, they were crazy. Once Cindy started doing Ironman with a coach, I was older and wiser so I figured I too would try a coach instead of the couch to do IMC. I figured I’d survive better, which I did, but in the process I felt like I had unfinished business with the 24H race because I had not been properly prepared.

The key elements I learned from Ironman training (and my wonderful coaches/team mates) were: training, pacing, nutrition, medical, and recovery. Consider my training plan a decade ago: a handful of 2-3 hour MTB rides a few weekends before the race and one 120k cold turkey night road ride from 8 PM – 1:30 AM. Crazy? A bit as my bike lights didn’t last the entire ride, had no cell phone, and enough food for 2 hours not 5 ½ hours. Pacing? What was that? I went out hard and tried to keep moving by bouncing off trees and avoid doing endos. Fuel? Well let’s just say I learned I had no idea back then. I ate the wrong things at the wrong times. OMG! What was I thinking with the exercise on all you can eat PB&J sandwiches. Medically, I didn’t having a frigg’n clue what I was doing to myself by ‘training only on weekends’. I likely made the race harder than if I had just done it cold turkey. I now see myself as lucky to have survived last time, though I did end up with an injury that I didn’t take care of until I started IM training. Recovery at that time was a close descendant of a drinking game known as ‘hair of the dog’, it went like this: it hurts, oh better go do some more. Then post biking going for beer, nachos and wings. What do you think, is that good recovery food? Uh, NO. So 10 years later I thought I was a bit more enlightened. I signed up to re-do the 24 Hour solo race then realized mid-winter I was having difficulty finding the motivation to train so I did Ironman St. George to help me train for it, talk about ass-backwards.

June 2011 – July 22 2011
June was a fast transition from road to mountain bike training to de-rust my technical skills. Really I was working to challenge the TTL coaches with now only 2 months to race date. The hard part of MTB training is the different culture involved, post ride beer and nachos was hard to avoid, and getting dirty is part of the adventure here adding to bike maintenance time and budget. My training consisted of swimming twice a week, running once a week and biking 4 days a week. The biking was a mix between long road rides, moderately long MTB rides and shorter harder hills or technical riding. Five days before the race I got sick and did nothing, kind of a forced taper. The fever broke the day before the race and I could start eating again, yeah. OK, now let’s see how much better I could do than last time ;-).

The night before race start, I went to setup my transition area on ‘pit row’ in the wind and rain only to discover someone else setup in my spot, so I had to take his. My pit had a table for food, a few lawn chairs, and a tent so I could lie down or change as the race went on. It also contained a bike stand, lots of spare clothing, tools, a second bike and acted as shelter for my crew; I had three great pit members Cindy, Chris and Kelvin. One small screw up was the camping tent I brought took up all the space under the 10 x 10 tent borrowed from Carla (thank-you Carla), so I used duct tape and ingenuity to make it take ¼ its initial size and still work. Other solo tents had side panels on their tents in case of rain. We had rain but no side protection so Cindy had to run to town to buy a tarp (I considered using more duct tape instead of the tarp, but didn’t have enough). I also had our travel trailer so staying dry sleeping in a real bed with heat, a bathroom, and a kitchen the night before the race was a significant step up from 10 years prior when we slept in a tent (what was I thinking?). It also made for a comfortable place for my support crew to hang out and sleep in while I was riding.

CINDY: Our pit tent looked like something from a shantytown. We were definitely outclassed next to the sponsored riders with their fancy-shmancy tents, coffee urns, itemized clothing hangers and reclining lawn chairs. Not to be out done, I grabbed a few hangers from the trailer and hung some of Scott’s clothes from the tent. Surveying our buffet of salty junk food and sugar-laden treats, and comparing it to those around us I realized we had nothing of any nutritional value. I made a note to get some fruit and yogurt from the trailer. The tents across from us were mostly crewed by women, none of whom looked like they had any athletic background, a guy who looked like he would be more comfortable sitting in front of a computer, and set of elderly parents. We might not have the schwankiest tent but we had technical acumen, and an in-depth understanding of an endurance athletes needs that can only be achieved by personal experience. We were going to be the kick-butt pit crew.

June 23 2011 – 12:00 noon
Lap 1 (12:00-2:00 pm) Before I knew it, it was noon and race start. It began with a 1 km run to spread the ~300 hundred riders out before hitting the trails. I did a slow jog, and was likely the 4th last rider out on the trail. This was part of my plan as I was happier going slower the first lap to avoid getting injured by someone else (a very common issue for the first lap). The first lap had rain and was extremely muddy. I had to stop a few times to scoop mud out of my gears and wheel clearance areas. The mud was like peanut butter, about 3 jars worth, stuck to my tires, frame and body. I had to scoop out 4 hand-fulls 3 times. It was getting so packed in it was like riding with the brakes on and 3 gears too hard, not fun. I held an excruciatingly slow pace and found when I hit the first stretch of single track it paid off as the line of riders was just as slow and wheel to wheel as far as you could see, about 40 riders were actually behind me at this point, don’t know how I passed them. Then about 1/3 of the way around everyone disappeared and I was riding alone, a bit of a blessing, but also spooky. I figured it was a combination of my middle of the pack climbing ability (holding me with the starting group) and gravitational downhill advantage (lots of weight and comfort with speed) placing me in a gap between the riders. First lap (time 1:57, average speed 8.4km/h) including my pit-row break to allow my bike to have a quick lube and cleaning, not bad holding the pace I wanted.

CINDY: Riders were coming into the pit area with mud-caked bikes. Okay, people let’s see how you handle muddy bikes. Lady across from us pulled out a scrub brush and got to work, elderly couple jumped the fence with their rider’s bike and hit the bike wash. Riders of fancy dressed trio of ladies and computer guy switched bikes, so they used the bike wash. Watching this unfold while waiting for Scott I realize technical acumen we may have, but something to clean Scott’s bike with we do not. Kelvin borrowed the scrub brush from the lady across from us while I scavenged up water. Scott didn’t want to switch bikes so we cleaned what we could, which wasn’t much. So we now had the ugliest tent, the dirtiest bike, the least nutritional food, and our rider was almost last. It was becoming apparent we were going to have to step up our game. I recorded the calorie intake for the lap: Scott – 250, me – 670. Clearly sitting across a table laden with junk food for 2 hours isn’t a good idea. 22 hours to go.

Lap 2 (2:00 – 4:00 pm): I still had lots of space around me on the trail, still a bit spooky being all alone when riding with 300 other bikers, makes you question a wrong turn. The rain and mud were getting lighter. My pace was good and I found it easy to take in the fluids and fuel for aid station 1 and 2 without stopping, but station 3 was too short a leg that went straight into technical single track so I skipped taking anything here for a few laps. I replaced my wet weather gloves with regular bike gloves and dropped the vest I had in my pocket this time.

CINDY: How did those women get those bikes so clean so fast!? I managed to wrangle up a few face cloths and a sponge from the trailer. I filled every spare water bottle figuring Scott’s already drinking from a dirty water bottle it won’t kill him to keep it for another lap. I need to get his bike clean. Those women may be able to keep bikes clean but just wait until they have to handle a mechanical. Then we’ll see who cracks. Computer guy’s rider comes in grumbling that he feels like he’s on lap 7. Kelvin and I exchange a look and snicker. He’s not going to last long.

Lap 3 (4:00-6:00 pm): I think it was about this point that I had finished sweating out the remainder of being sick before the race. My fuel intake was good and pace was right in the range I wanted. I could go faster but knew I’d pay for it if I did. My legs felt really good, power when I needed it, no burning or pain. The other teams had spread out enough now that they passed me on most up hills. It was seldom a problem for them as there was either enough room to squeeze by or I would step off the trail for a moment to let them past. This was part of my plan as I did not want to get hurt by someone only doing 1-2 laps and taking stupid chances to save themselves 10 seconds on a 1 hour lap. I had an 86,400 second race and 10s was not worth risking finishing. I did find I only got passed on the downhill’s by the top riders maybe 5 times through the whole race, this is where my biking is strongest, going downhill fast and technical (ok gravitational advantage), always the reward for slogging up then flying down.

CINDY: Watched an unappetizing display as a pit crew starts pouring rice pudding into Ziploc bags, even more unappetizing was watching their rider guzzle it down through a hole in the corner of the bag. I BBQ some burgers for supper at the trailer. Kelvin starts cleaning Scott’s spare bike. I know Scott’s trying to pace himself but he’s now 2 laps behind the faster guys and still hasn’t passed the old guy across with us who has no muscle tone. I want to tell him to pick it up but bite my tongue instead.

Lap 4 (6:00-8:00 pm): I almost ran over a dead squirrel in the middle of the trail on the corner of a drop, spooked me as I was going 40 km/h and it was getting dusk. Fear not as soon as I hit the uphill my speed dropped like a rock (3-7 km/h, yeah I was slower than a snail, actually think one passed me on lap 5, but it was getting dark so hard to tell).

CINDY: Designer ladies’ rider hands them his bike all agitated and barking orders then hops on his spare bike and rides away. Ha, ha – a mechanical. I watch how they’re going to handle this. One of the ladies wheels the bike our way. “Do you know where the bike mechanic is?” I point toward the lodge. She thanks me then strolls away returning 20 minutes later with the bike fixed. Grrr.

Lap 5 (8:00 – 10:20 pm): Changed bikes and helmets so the crew could mount my lights I had asked the guys to have my backup lights mounted on my spare (non-suspension) bike and helmet. I kind-of forgot to tell them which my spare (secondary) lights were. They did their part and would have been a slick transition if I had not needed the extra rest and sat down in my pit to take off the compression socks, about where I was expecting, they helped but the squeeze they provide lost its comfort and started bugging me.

CINDY: Scott wants us to mount the lights on his bikes and helmet. He mumbles something about primary and secondary lights. We look at the lights. None of us can see a difference between them. We shrug and mount them where ever. I change into my PJs for the night thankful for the cover of darkness as I realize, much to my embarrassment, that with my Ironman jacket, cap, Ironmom shirt, and Ironman flannel pants I’m a walking billboard. I really need some non-athletic brand clothes.

Lap 6 (10:20 pm – 12:43 am): Glad to remount the nice bike with the better lights. The temperature was going down so I put on a vest and arm warmers for this lap, the warmers just didn’t stay up very well (considered using duct tape to fix them but didn’t want to stop). Everything but the butt felt great to this point, butt was only a bit sore, legs were happy to keep spinning and technically everything felt good. My butt was really happy to switch back to the full suspension bike. Most notable on this lap was me and another rider got passed too close by a ‘rookie’ rider that pushed us both off the trial (this is just as annoying as drafting in a race). Unfortunately this caused a hard stop because I didn’t have enough room to clear a tree, ouch and inner swear, same thing for the other rider on the other side of the trail. The rookie seemed to snake past without stopping or falling by narrow dumb luck. Then 20 seconds later I saw the same rookie righting his bike from an endo; obviously he is riding faster than his abilities (isn’t fate cool). I let my emotions ride for 5 minutes here, as he did not wait for a traffic gap to start but cut me off causing me to almost endo with the brake slam. It was on a fast fun part of the trail that is a gentle downhill so I could ride it fast, I’ve been over this part many times already and knew every turn and line so I chased him, hard. I gave him little to no space and pushed him down this part way faster than he wanted as he pissed me off. He kept shoulder checking and was clearly surprised that a solo rider was so close and fast, clearly he had no interest in getting out of the way of a faster rider, if he only knew that come the next hill I couldn’t hold him for the life of me, hey live the moment. Retrospect, this was the wrong way to handle it but I gave myself a 5-minute emotional indulgence to defend my technical riding ability.

CINDY: As soon as Scott is out of sight I leave the other support crews bundled in blankets trying to catch an hour of sleep in their lawn chairs for my castle of luxury with its heat and soft queen bed. I have at least 2 hours. Scott can take as long as he wants. Returning to the pit I grab some free popcorn.

Lap 7 (12:43 - 4:10 am): Start my lap but would have been done if this were IMC, so only 11 hours more to go. Feeling surprisingly good, must have been not having to do a run ;-). It was getting colder so before starting this one changed my shorts, shirt and vest, it did help to remove the hours of soaked in sweat. Crazy part of this lap was I almost hit a deer at 30 km/h on a fast downhill corner on this lap out in the meadow (risk of night riding, heart still works as the encounter definitely gave me an adrenaline spike). So far with the proper training, fuelling and pacing I was feeling better than a decade ago. I finished lap 7, tying the # of laps and 8 hours ahead of what I did 10 years ago. In retrospect this is where my HR also started to change, indicating I was running out of the non-fat fuels, I didn’t notice until data investigation.

Riding alone in the woods in the middle of the night is a strange sensation as all you can see is either the bit of trail you are lighting up or the odd rider off in the distance looking like a firefly. This part of the race is typically the make or break point as riding in the dark tends to take away some of the sensory feedback, leaving you alone with your thoughts. Hills become a bit easier as all you can see is the 10 feet directly in front of you, helping the mental focus to what is controllable and eliminating the rest of the stuff past it. Unfortunately not being able to clearly see what gear you are in is a bit tougher as I often wanted an easier gear and it just wasn’t there. Night riding is an experience that I suggest anyone try, its closest comparison to triathlon is to swimming in a dark murky lake with no visibility, just faster.

CINDY: Return to pit area to see paramedics at designer ladies tent. Their rider gets hauled away in a stretcher. I almost feel sorry for the riderless crew but not quite, they get to go home. Scott just moved up a spot. I notice computer guy’s rider is sitting in a lawn chair still wearing his sunglasses mummified in a blanket. He can sit there as long as he likes, Scott’s tied him laps. No muscle tone guy is hibernating in his tent and has been since midnight. He can stay there, Scott’s passed him up – finally. Scott decides to take a 30-minute break and lays down in the tent. We sit out in the cold. I light a small portable fire can for heat but it’s useless. Practically have to stick my hand in the flame to get any warmth. Chris gives me hot shots to hold. Exactly 30 minutes later I wake up Scott. He says he needs another 15 mins. Grrr. 45 minutes! If he would have just said that at the beginning we could have went back to the trailer. Watch the minutes pass and push him out 15 minutes later as fast as possible so I can return to the trailer.

Lap 8 (4:10 – 8:47 am): Feeling better than before so I gave myself permission to lay down for 20 minutes before beginning lap 8, which turned into 45 and didn’t help me any. Stopping was a bad thing as the aches and pains came out. I lost my power to climb hills, but still had good speed and leg turn over everywhere else. Coldest ride of the day. Struggled through the lap but my mind and body were no longer in it. I had to walk stuff that I should have been riding, I just felt like my motor was miss firing. I started getting clumsy, slipping on parts that I shouldn’t, bounced off a few trees with glancing blows (hurts much more now than 10 years back). Got to see the sun rise as I went through the far meadow, but the typical high it gives was not there. I needed more rest. Got back to the pit-row around 6:30 a.m. and went to the trailer for some real sleep. I gave instructions to be woken up at 8 a.m. to give me the potential for 2 more laps, closed my eyes for what seemed just a second then recall Cindy trying to pull me out of my coma. Actual finish time for lap 8 was at 8:47 a.m., giving me up to 4 hours 13 minutes left to ride. Still felt better than I did for IMSG but I’d be done by the time I started this lap, starting to figure out who the real crazy ones are.

Lesson: no matter how much rest I got at this point it would not be enough to benefit my speed or ability. It only gave the fatigue a way to sink in. Some riders stopped, as it got dark and slept until morning, they also rode each lap faster. I don’t know if the long break helped them or not but I didn’t see many do more than one lap after restarting. My gut tells me they were hurting for this last lap, I know I was.

CINDY: With Scott away all our thoughts immediately turned to crawling into a warm bed for sleep. We get to the trailer. It’s locked. I left my keys inside, so did Kelvin and Chris. Oh this can’t be happening at 4 friggin, freezing AM in the morning! God, I hate this race! I decide to search the cargo space for a spare key even though I know there won’t be one because Scott gave them all to us, but it was something for me to do to keep from FREAKING OUT! I needed sleep and warmth. I was not going back to that cold, dark, pit-tent. The cargo door wasn’t locked. When I open it I realize I can access the space from under the bed, our hydraulic bed. I crawl into the cargo space and I’m able to lift the bed. There’s just enough room for me to shimmy into the storage space under it. I’m in. Oh, I’m happy. Happy. Happy. Happy. I want to cry. I open the trailer door and we all fall into warm beds. Do I feel bad sleeping in my cozy bed while Scott’s riding sleep deprived in the cold dark? Absolutely not. Scott returns at 6:00 AM and announces he’s going to sleep in the trailer until 8 am. I don’t like this idea. He’s only done 8 laps. His goal is double digits. I don’t want to be back here in another few years because he still has “unfinished business” with this race. Doing a mental calculation he’d still have time for 3 laps so I let him stop.

Lap 9 (8:47 – 11:10 am): Dropped all extra clothing, err I mean, back to shorts and shirt. I was feeling better than lap 8 but the legs started to hurt on the uphills. I had nothing left in the reserve tanks. I could keep moving but could no longer speed up. I got back to the pit and it was a few minutes past 23 hours race time. I knew I could not do a sub 2-hour lap, no matter how hard Cindy tried kicking me in the butt to help me to try one more lap, the butt numbness and fatigue overrode her foot motivation methods. Avoiding a DNF was more important as I was happy with the improvement I had made over a decade ago. So I waited a few minutes at the pit and chatted with the crew before trundling in across the line. Total time 23:06, 18th place solo, had I gone straight in after getting back I would have had 17th place, oops, this is where 3 minutes makes a difference (if you actually care, which at that point I didn’t). If I were in contention for second or third it would have been different, but this is where as a racer my mind was not all there and reliance on the pit-crew to tell me what was going on and what to do kicked in.

CINDY: Whoa! Return to pit area and see 3 tents have been packed up. No muscle tone guy has emerged rested and ready to continue riding. Computer guy’s rider is still mummified in his chair – dude, go home already. Rice pudding guy heads out for lap 15. Freak.

Scott says he only has enough in him for one more lap, but he has enough time for 2. As the morning continues the tents around us start rapidly disappearing. I’m worried that when Scott returns the sight of so many riders quitting will make him want to stop. I’m adamant that we’re not packing anything until Scott’s done his lap. At the time creeps towards 11:00 am, the time you can officially end the race, I’m hoping Scott’s not stopped around the corner waiting so he doesn’t have to do another lap. He has to do another lap. I refuse to come back to this race. After 11 a.m. I reluctantly give the go ahead to Chris and Kelvin to start tearing down the pit. Scott doesn’t have enough time to finish the last lap. Crap!

Scott rides in. I make a last ditch attempt to get him back out for lap 10. He says he’s good. He’s happy with how he’s done. I remind him he was happy 10 years ago and here we are. Nope, he says, he’s done. So am I.

Rice pudding guy returns to his pit without finishing his last lap. Wonder if he’s knows he just DNFed?

Similar to finishing Ironman, your mind and body have worked so hard to get you across the line that you either drop to the ground or act like a drunken sailor. For me keeping moving was key to avoid falling asleep. The sleep came quickly after we hit the road. My support crew did an awesome job keeping me going and while they did get a few 90 minute sleep breaks I know their day is often just as hard as racing if not harder, Thank-you very much Cindy, Kelvin and Chris. I could not have done this without you.

Statistics and Finale
I trained on infinit and had it as a big part of my fuelling plan, yeah didn’t happen. I took in one 1 bottle and just couldn’t drink it. Instead I took in ½ of the 30 GU’s they gave me, 1 bag of chomps, 8 bottles of Gatorade and as much chips, cheezies, cheese and crackers, cola, cookies and anything else I could get in during my pit-stops. In all I burned through 8000 calories over the 9 laps and took in between 150-250 per lap (half of plan), so ~5500 cal had to come from my plentiful fat stores. I now have 2 GU flavors that make me gag, not bad for that much intake. My total elevation gain over the 24 hours was 14,500 feet or 4 times the bike portion of IMC. Converted specifically for Kelvin, that is from sea level to only ½ way up Mt. Everest and back in the 23:06.

Mentally doing this race takes a bit more mental strength to keep going as it is more lap driven than time driven, you can do as little as 2 laps and still finish (if you know the DNF rules) so saying you completed the race solo does not express what you actually did. Where as Ironman is more distance and time driven, finish 226 km in 17 hours or DNF. I now see I like the Ironman measurement better as finishing is the same distance for everyone, slight variations in difficulty per location, but that’s OK. Physically Ironman is a harder race, but I think that might come from the changing activities (trying to run after biking), but endurance wise these are very similar. Trying to avoid sleeping is not a huge issue for Ironman but is a big one for the 24H where I had to keep my mind on how my coordination was doing to avoid falling off the bike.

I am really happy with how this race went and don’t need to do it again [Cindy: Thank God!]. I found I managed each of these categories better this time, even with being 10 years older & sick the week prior to the race. I might do the 24H again as it carries many of the similar feeling to an Ironman and it is a really fun race (provided I can find a pit member to replace Cindy, as something tells me she doesn’t want to do it again). I want to do a very special thanks to my great support crew & coaches for getting me ready, keeping me fed, my bikes in clean working order (yes cleaner than I usually have them) and for thinking for me when needed it. I couldn’t have done the race without your help so a big THANKS to all.