Records Broken all around at the 2008 Wilderness 101

While Jeff Shalk was off the front putting 11 minutes into Jeremiah Bishop's record breaking 6:52 of last year, and Chris Eatough and Hansom Harlan were trailing 5 or so minute behind, I was sitting somewhere back in 100th place riding my own, much slower race.

I went into the 101 with the lessons I learned at Marysville stuck firmly in my mind; heed your lactate threshold, and don't go above it. This was the cardinal law that was dictating my riding this year. My goal: ride smooth and consistant and rip some singletrack. There were a few course changes this year, most notable, Aid 1 was 3mi closer and had a sweet smooth singletrack downhill afterwards instead of the climb up to the top of the ridge behind Penn Roosevelt SP. Way cool.

Photo Credit

I cleaned all but the middle bridge on 3 bridges Trail. Including the rock garden. I was stoked. Took a shortened break at Aid 2 and scoffed down a half a PB&J and some apple slices. That was almost a mistake because from then on I was craving apple slices. I rode the long climbs of the course, and basically the rest of the day with a guy named Philip. We rode basically the rest of the race together, on and off. He ended up finishing a few minutes ahead of me actually. After seeing my parents at Aid #3, I rolled onto the fun part of the course, the singletrack stuff. Up lower sassafrass, down upper sassafrass, which is still really really steep, but my new brakes kept me well in control and I passed a few people. Down through the cool twisty singletrack. Way fun. I was actually coherent enough at this point to enjoy the singletrack. According to my mom, who was also at aid 3 last year, I had no idea what was going on by that point in the race. I actually stopped in the singletack which is right after the final aid station of the Stoopid 50. Not this year though; this year I rolled through without hesitation. After a quick climb back up I tackled Beautiful Trail, but did not clean the whole thing. Sad. It's a super fun trail though. I rallied down the loose rocky bench cut to the road and rolled into aid 4 a lot sooner than I expected. It was cool. Climbed up Stilhouse hollow, and started to make my was to the finish. Then came my least favorite part of the race: Sand Mountain Trail and the subsequent endless miles of false flat. Ugh. I made it through, and got to Deer Mountain Rd (maybe???) without the massive headache that I had last year. That trail was fun, but my freehub was acting up and making a weird humming noise when I coasted at a very high speed. It was fine, I just pedaled the entire time. And the last technical singletrack, was even better than I remember it. Rocky goodness...

I stopped at the last aid station to refuel form my final 12mi time trial to the finish. My other goal was to go as fast as possible and catch a lot of people on Fisherman's Trail. I caught a bunch of people and made it over the Old Mingle in a timely maner. After the almost unridable (Chris Eatough cleans it every year) singletrack by the river, I began hammering hard down the remainder of Fisherman's Trail. I think I made pretty good time, and almost caught Ben Yoder (the other Bean's racer there). The best part of the day was that I rolled across the finish line in 9:59:22, just under 10 hours. And I made it home before my parents got back from the aid station.

So yeah... that's my story. Finished in 104th overall, 67th in class, in a time of 9:59:22. I am very happy with that, since last year I finished in 11:04. This is good. Since then I have been chillin. I have a weekend off before the God's Country Marathon, which I am looking forward too.