Mohican 100 report

Quick summary of the race with the highlights I remember:

Start minus 10 min:
Major intimidation - all the racers look so skinny and way faster than myself. I realize the competition will be high, many of them going after the 100 mile series.

Start:
Of into some heavy duty muddy trails. The rain the day and night before the race made it slick and deep. Bike messed up right away (it still had blood, sweat and tears from the Kokopelli on it at racestart, but that was coverd with dark Mohican soil within seconds.)

Mile 15:
Time to find out if a bike can swim. So I decide to crash along the singletrail of this bigger river, fly over the handlebar into the water (up to my chest), and the bike follows. It does swim. Positiv side-effect: The drivetrain is free of mud, Negativ: Soaked chamois for the next 85 miles.

Mile 22:
Where do we go? Someone removed all the trail markers, and we are completely lost and have no clue know where to go. After about 15 minutes there were 10 of us collected at the point of confusion, riding up and down the street wondering where to go, until one of the promotors shows up and tells us the way. Still in the race-mood? - Not really.

Mile 42:
High speed downhill crash into the high grass just before the aid-station. The crash into the water didn't hurt, this one did.

Mile 50:
While riding along, Garth jumps out of the bushes and yells at me that I'm currently in 4th place. WHAT? Race-mood is back.

Mile 55:
I catch 3rd place. We pace each other down a long stretch of railtrail, and everytime I do pulls I think: "Wow, 3rd place". When he pulls and I'm behind him "4th place, still pretty good". After a couple of miles I realize that Jeff (sorry, I was under the impression you were Tom) doesn't look so good, so I increase the pace a little and I'm by myself. 3rd place - sweet. I already start thinking about the header for the blog.

5 minutes later:
Rain. Where does it come from? And why does it hurt so bad? Because it's hail.

Mile 61:
Aidstation, still raining. I'm a little disappointed to hear I'm only at mile 61, I thought I was beyond 70 for sure. For some reason I don't remember too much of the following miles.

Catching 100 k racers:
Good sign, the last 19 miles of the race are shared by the 100 k and 100 mile racers. Since I see those guys now means only 19 miles left. On the last long gravel climb, some 100 mile racers rides by me. There goes 3rd place.

Mile 86:
The legend, Skip Brown, passes me. Later I hear his chain broke 8 times, that's why he wasn't out front. Since he passed me I drop down to 5th place. I'm not even spending a second thinking about chasing him.

Mile 89:
Almost done. About 1000 feet of singletrail climbing left. I feel great and look forward to some singletrail, and as I expected, most of it had dried out and it was pretty nice riding up the hill.

Mile 95:
2 miles of singletrail left, then there will be another 2 miles of pavement up to the lodge. Hei, what's that? It's Skip Brown fixing his chain. I ride by him and start time trailing. Maybe there is a chance to get 4th place back. I give it all I have and hope I can create a good gap.

Mile 98:
The singletrail is over, short section on a hiking path along a river to the bottom of the dam. It's a steep hike up the dam, I'm halfway up and see Skip at the bottom. Now he is running - I'm moving as fast as I can.

Mile 98.1:
I'm on the pavement and put all that's left onto my peadls. Lot's of long climbs up to the lodge. I can see him behind me, and he is getting closer. Since my strategy for the whole race was to keep an easy pace, I feel good and fast. But I don't know exactly where the finish line will be.

Mile 99.7:
He passes me. Noooo! As he is next to me he taps on my shoulder "Nice work". At least I couldn't see the finish line when he passed me. Otherwise it would have hurt even more.

Mile 100:
Done. 5th in my class out of 57. I'm happy.

Race Stats:

--> 9420 feet of climbing
--> my time was somewhere around 9:50.
--> the course was pretty tough, lots of different terrain, the mud made it tricky
--> saw a lot of guys from previous races, always a good time
--> I had a lot of fun doing this race, from the start to the finish (usually I start hating myself at around mile 80 for doing that stupid racing stuff, but not this time. I enjoyed every single mile.)