Mar/080
Working the 24-Hour Shift
Mountain Bike Style
By Rebecca Rusch
Photo by Charlotte Sport Photos.
My 24 hour mountain bike racing career started in 2006. A long-term adventure racing team sponsor bowed out and I was left with the task of redefining myself as an athlete or getting a real job. Fortunately, my sponsors Red Bull and Specialized were supportive in my quest to avoid a nine-to-five existence. For lack of a better idea, I decided to take my endurance experience into mountain bike racing. I knew I could race for days on end from my adventure racing career, but had no idea if I was fast enough or good enough on a bike. I had never actually entered an official mountain bike race or ridden against any women. I won the first 24 hour race I participated in that year in Spokane, WA. It was my test run and I beat everyone in the race, including the men. I took it as a sign. Nine to five would have to wait.
The 24 Hour Solo Nationals in Wisconsin was my second 24 hour race. I went in as a complete unknown and with a lot of trepidation. This was a huge step. The reigning female champion from the previous year was there with a gigantic motorhome parked right on the course and a host of professional-looking assistants and more bikes than I could count. There were other pros in big trucks with their names painted on them and lots of logos. In contrast, I had brought my mom, my uncle, and a bike-mechanic friend from home. The intimidation factor was huge. What was I thinking? How could I possibly make a proud showing against all these pro badasses? I cried during my practice ride and figured I’d made a huge mistake in coming to nationals this soon. The course felt very technical. My self-doubt multiplied.
We staked out camp, bagged the idea of sleeping outside, got a hotel and clicked on the Weather Channel. There were severe thunderstorm warnings for the weekend. The radar showed a big red blob right over Wausau, Wisconsin. We knew we’d get rained on, it was just a question of when and how much.
The next thing I remember was the starting gun. For the first couple of laps, I was ecstatic to realize that I was not very far off the lead rider. I figured it would take a while, but I’d try to reel her in over the next 24 hours. When you have all day, you might as well use it, right?
My confidence increasing, I was shocked to see the back of her uniform on a small climb during the third lap. I felt a surge, passed her while trying to act as if I wasn’t working hard, and promptly fell off my bike right in front of her. A wave of embarrassment and another surge of adrenalin got me back up. I rode away frantically and never looked back. From that point on, I rode like a hunted animal.
I crashed hard shortly after dusk. Trying not to scrub speed through a tight section of trees, my handlebar nicked one and the bike started to wobble. Like a slab of meat I collided with a large oak to the left of the trail and was thrown to the ground. I didn’t have time to brake, so the smackdown was hard and fast. Trying to get back up, I knew my shoulder was in trouble. But desperate to stay in the lead, I raced off into the night.
About 4 am, the wind started howling, the air turned cool, and it was clear that we were about to get absolutely hammered with rain. Sure enough, the downpour came fast and furious. With visibility drastically reduced, the pace slowed immediately. I squinted and focused on staying upright, trying to ride by feel. Soon after, race officials waved me down and forced me to stop at an aid station about half way around my lap. About 30 riders were there and officials were handing out trash bags for us to wear. As we all crammed under one tent, lightning cracked and boomed around us at regular intervals. Curled up in a fetal position inside my trash bag and shivering, I tried to relax my cramping, seizing legs. I huddled with total strangers and wondered how much of my lead I was losing. I kept scanning the tent for another female rider to arrive. My biggest fear was that they’d restart the race from here and I’d have a head-to-head battle for the last six hours. I could barely stand, let alone race a bike.
We were held there for about 45 minutes before a chaotic re-start was attempted from various stop points around the course. I finished my lap wearing the trash bag, turning the pedals like molasses.
At 9 am, with just one hour to go in the scheduled race time, I pulled up to my transition area, ready to swap bikes and head out on my final lap. The balls of my feet were numb, my wrists felt like they’d been jackhammered, and my eyes were crusty with mud. However, I was machine-like in my determination. As far as I was concerned, I still had one hour to ride and one more lap to complete to seal the deal.
Approaching the pits, my crew was lounging around and my second bike was not ready to ride. I was a bit delirious and confused. Turns out the officials had stopped the race again due to the rainstorm and had given everyone an official finishing time from the first stop. It meant I’d ridden an extra two hours that I did not get credit for. But I didn’t care. It also meant I was officially the new National Champion!
I didn’t have long to enjoy my victory when the pain set in. I could not lift my arm. My legs were beginning to swell and I felt my body and mind shutting down. I needed help changing my clothes and had to be directed where to go and what to do. I was too tired to take a shower at the venue and fell asleep in a chair before the awards ceremony.
The nap must have done me well because I bolted awake when they announced my name. I went up and was presented a new stars-and-stripes jersey. I needed help putting it on over my injured shoulder, but it was like a healing salve once it was on. As I stood on the top step of the podium at my first National Championship, all the pain, the doubts, and the fatigue melted away as I raised my good arm high above my head.
Yes, nine to five would have to wait.
Rebecca Rusch has been a professional ultra endurance athlete for over 10 years. She has raced at the elite international level in adventure racing, outrigger canoeing and most recently mountain bikingShe has finished 1st or 2nd in every 24 hour mountain bike race she has entered. In two short years as a 24 hour racer, she has earned the titles of 2006 National Champion, 2007 USA Cycling Ultra Endurance Series Champion and 2007 24 hour solo World Champion. When she’s not racing, Rebecca is a part time firefighter/EMT and cross country ski coach in Ketchum, Idaho.
Jan/040
Are you ready for an adventure race?
by Rebecca Rusch, Team Captain
This is a question that should always enter your mind in any sport (actually in everyday life). Being prepared
for whatever is thrown at you and being able to deal with it takes a lot of patience and training. With adventure
racing, you are not only relying on yourself, but also on your teammates being prepared for a race. So, how
do you do this as a team? Well, our team has been both over prepared and under prepared for races in the past.
Obviously, the earlier races in my career are ones I felt less ready for than races we’ve done recently. There is A LOT to be said for just having experience. Just getting out there and getting your feet wet teaches the proper skills and mindset. That’s the beauty of adventure racing: it’s unpredictable! It’s often not the most physically prepared or the fittest teams that win. Instead, it is the
teams who race smart and are able to adapt to whatever the race course and their teammates throw at them who dominate. Maintaining flexibility and patience is the key. The only way to develop those qualities is to get out and race or do long training trips with your teammates and friends.
Adventure races are also such a HUGE undertaking that someone
entering one might think, “Am I ready? Did I train enough? Did I forget something?” I remember one race in particular, my very first Eco Challenge and only my second race ever. It was probably the most unprepared and frightened I have felt in my whole life. A 24-hour race seemed like an eternity to me. My background was cross country running in high school and college where the two and three mile races seemed long. Most of my fear was due to lack of experience and knowledge. I really had no idea what I was getting in to. I had done one 24 hour race that happened to be an Eco Challenge qualifier. I was like a deer caught in the headlights the whole way. We won the race, nonetheless, and were invited to Australia.
In preparation for that Eco Challenge in Australia, I tried to approach my training in a methodical
way. Looking back, my preparation was anything but methodical. My approach consisted of simply trying to run, bike,
and paddle as much and as hard as I could. I was also working at the time. Realistically, I was training
a couple hours a day at most. There were probably four different weekend days when our team would do a bike
for perhaps two hours, then paddle for two hours. This was the extent of my preparation. The rest of the time I spent worrying about how slow and unprepared I was.
So, we went to Australia and sprinted out of the starting gate like a bunch of stallions. I had that deer in the headlights look on my face again and was just trying to hang on with the pace the guys, who had more experience than I did, were setting. I kept my mouth shut and stumbled along. It was a furious 36 hours. We arrived at a few of the check points in first place
and were rolling along among the top five. I knew we didn’t belong there. To make a long story short, two guys on the team pooped out just a day and a half into the race. One of my teammates was suffering hallucinations, vomiting and was worn ragged. The other one had worn severe holes in his feet.
We had been going so fast that he felt uncomfortable asking us to stop so he could take care of his blisters. The other two of us, feeling fresh still, had to drop
out with the rest of our team. Four days later, watching the winners cross the finish line was bitter
sweet. I knew that our team had not been prepared or realistic about the pace we could keep. Not finishing
that race was the most valuable lesson I could have learned. I vowed then to come back to one
day finish an expedition race. That was seven years (and thousands of race miles) ago.
Team Montrail is made up of badasses Rebecca Rusch, Patrick Harper, John Jacoby, Novak Thompson, and Justin Wadsworth. Together, their resume includes Olympic Skiing, whitewater raft guiding, guiding rock climbing, teaching adventure racing, carpentry, business banking and parenting. Which just goes to show that adventure racers truly are human like the rest of us. After winning the Raid Gauloises in Kyrgyzstan this past June, though, they appeared to be super heroes. After all, only 12 teams out of 36 were even able to finish the course of the race that many consider to be the toughest in the world.
They are currently sponsored by Revo, Red Bull, Sugoi, Suunto, Petzl, Leki, CamelBak, NRS, Gregory and Aloksak, Emergen-C and Giro, among others.
To find out more about Team Montrail and learn a few of their winning secrets, visit their web page at www.teammontrail.com
