Back on the starting line - The Cohutta 100

May 08, 2019

Back on the starting line - The Cohutta 100

The last time I raced a mountain bike was at the Wassau 12hr in July of 2018. I have ridden across an entire state in one date, some fun gran fondo events and a gravel race, but I had not raced a mountain bike in nearly 9 months; that was before heading down to the Cohutta 100. Needless to say, I was itching to get back on the start line and see how another winter of training helped me on the race course.

Lessons learned.

Last year was the first time I raced the Cohutta 100 and I learned a few very important things, so let’s start with those and the changes I made for this year.

1. Driving 10 ½ hours the day before the race is a bad idea. When I finally arrived at the Ocoee Whitewater Center for check-in my legs were tight, my body was tired and my mind was drained. I set up camp and did a little pre-ride, but there were just not enough hours in the day to really get that drive out of my system. This year I was a bit smarter and I broke the trip into two days. Leaving Thursday after work with a stop at a hotel just south of Cincinnati for the night. The drive Friday was only about 5 hours and left plenty of time for a longer pre-ride, a nice campfire and time to make my own dinner.

My bike all cozied up at the foot of my hotel room bed

2. My drop bag situation, while functional, was not efficient. I spent too much time stopped at aid stations refueling. Last year I put Ziplock bags of my chosen fuel in my drop bag and when I got to an aid station I would have to empty any remaining mix out of my bottle, attempt to dump the new mix into the bottle (without spilling most of it) then have water added. It may not seem like much, but the time adds up quickly. My second bottle was for Fizz, and for this bottle I would have to dig out another fizz tab and have the bottle filled with water. This year I put my mix in an otherwise empty bottle and a fizz tab in the other so when I got to the aid station it was simply a matter of adding water to the bottles and dropping my current bottles back into my drop bag. This was much quicker and easier, but I am still looking for a slightly better way.

Drop bags are packed and ready

3. The bike. Last year I rode a hardtail. While I would say this is the second most hardtail friendly NUE race I’ve done (Lumberjack being the first) the day really did just take a toll on my body. The single track is not ridiculously harsh, but there were enough roots and rock gardens to wear me down to the point of affecting my cycling performance. Not to mention the “gravel” roads were never anything like smooth; there were lots of washouts, tons of 1”+ gravel and ruts, so the entire 70-mile Death March portion rattled my teeth nearly out of my head. This year I finally bought a full suspension bike (Specialized Epic) and man what a difference it made by the end of the race; I would not say I was still fresh at the end, but I definitely did not feel like I had been beaten with a bag of hammers all day.

On to the race, or at least getting ready for it.

Spring in Michigan this year has been exceptionally wet and cold which meant two weeks before the race I had a new bike I had not yet ridden on a trail. This sounded like a really bad thing to me, so I took a day off work and drove about 4 hours to ride at Mohican State park. This is the site of the Mohican 100 I will be racing later in this year; it has a lot of climbing and the 25.5 mile loop provides enough varied terrain that I was sure I would have every aspect of riding covered. I rode the loop three times, covering 76.5 miles in a little over 7 hours and made a few very small adjustments to my bike. In all I felt very good with how I climbed and rode.

https://www.strava.com/activities/2297796397

The Tuesday before the race I had another chance to get out on a trail after work at Brighton Rec Area. The Torn Shirt trail is one of my favorite trails in lower Michigan; it has a couple punchy climbs and some pretty good technical sections. The Murray Lake loop is fun too, albeit much easier to ride with a bit more flow and less tech. I did a first lap of each and everything went well. I turned it down for my second lap to make sure I did not burn my legs up four days before the race and with about a mile to go before calling it a night I found out just how much wider my bars are on the new bike than the old bike. On a tight, rather fast left hand turn I smashed the knuckles of my pinky and ring fingers right into a tree. I did not go down, but it hurt. I finished my ride and when I get back to my car I could see a little blood coming through my glove. No big deal, skin grows back. Then I took my glove off. My knuckles were huge; swollen and bruised to a slightly frightening extent. My fingers still worked so I loaded up my bike and drove home.

No, they are not usually that big

https://www.strava.com/activities/2314222872/

The next morning (Wednesday) my knuckles were a bit less swollen, but the entire back of my hand was now bruised and a bit swollen. The good news is I could still hold my handlebars without too much of an issue. No point in letting something like a hurt hand get in the way of a fun race, but why should I let a 100-mile mountain bike race be enough of a challenge on its own.

That is not the normal color of my hand

Now really, on to the race

The drive to Ducktown, TN was uneventful and breaking it up into two days was a great idea. This year I did have company for the trip as Brett Miller was racing as well. After getting our campsite all set up we went out for a nice easy 14 mile pre-ride then spent some time hanging out at our fire, making dinner and lazily sitting around talking bikes with Matt Acker.

A beautiful pre-ride stop

My alarm went off at about 5:00am Saturday morning so I would have plenty of time for the 7:00am start. Which I did. I lined up right near at the front to keep myself in a good position through the first three mile paved road climb after which the race hit single track for the first time.

Ready to race, even with a little dirt from the pre-ride

The first ten miles of single track is pretty fun and flowing with no huge climbs or descents, but enough elevation change to make sure my legs were warmed up, because as soon as the race crossed the footbridge back at the Ocoee the climbing started for the day (kind of). I rode with a group of 4 or 5 guys until the first short gravel stint at about mile 20. We climbed for the next three miles and the group spread out as everyone settled in to their own pace. As I rolled in to the first aid station at mile 23 for a quicker than last year nutrition refill, I saw the two guys ahead of me rolling out and that was basically the last time I saw any 100 mile racers for any amount of time (other than being passed once during one of my four nature breaks, yes four).

After the aid station there was another 7 miles of single track to navigate before staring the infamous “Death March Loop”. This gravel loop was exactly the same as last year, except the roads were a bit drier, which sounds like it should be a good thing, but it was not exactly. The parts of the road that were a bit smoother had a lot of very loose, fine gravel/sand type of mixture, that while going straight on was fine trying to turn, while going in excess of 30 mph, down hill with a huge drop-off to one side was a little more challenging. I lost count of how many times my front wheel would lose grip and just start to slide out; requiring a dab of rear brakes and a weight adjustment to get it to bite again. Often this would take three-four attempts in one turn before finally making it around; ultimately scrubbing way more speed than I wanted to.

Post race dirty legs

The sections of road that had larger gravel, and by larger, I mean about 1” stone that was sort of spread out over the road, was also very loose. On many of the climbs strewn with this rock I could feel the rocks move under the pressure of my rear wheel. They never moved to the point that I was worried about losing traction, but they did move enough that I could feel it and tell it was not the most efficient surface to climb on. At least everyone else had to ride the same conditions.

The next aid station was about 54 miles in and I grabbed my two new bottles, had a swig of coke, and was back underway with the longest of the climbs behind me. After about ten more miles of moderately painful climbing with some short fun descents I reached the part of the course I remembered most from last year, 14 miles of basically downhill fun. There are a few small climbs in there just to make sure you do not get to rest too much, but basically it is blast downhill as fast as you are willing to go. The new full squish really aided in this section more than I thought it would and as I was able to carry an average speed of almost 0.7 mph faster than last year with a max speed of 38.5 vs 34.2

I do think it is interesting how similar the graphs are for this section from both years

2019

2018

I stopped for the last time at aid station 3, with about 13 miles to go; 9 of which were gravel road. This did unfortunately include one last substantial climb, but at least for this one I had lots of company from the 65 miles racers. With less than 4 miles to go I hit that last section of single track, the almost entirely down hill “Chestnut Mountain Loop”. At this point I was drawing very near to eight hours for the day and I really started to push because I wanted to stay under 8 hours. I did catch two 65-mile racers in the single track but they both let me by extremely quickly.

I turned on to the paved bike path that connects the Thunder Rock Campground and the Ocoee Whitewater center at about 7:58:00 and I had just over a mile to go. I knew I would not hit the 8 hour mark but I pushed on as hard as my legs would let me, crossing the finish line in 8 hours, 1 minute and 29 seconds in 9^th place.

The top 15

While I tried to compare as much of the race this year to last year as I could, there were too many changes to be able to compare times. Last year there was only about 20 miles of single track at the start of the race with another 9 miles at the end compared to about 30 this year at the start of this year’s race with another 2.5 at the end. Also, the 2019 course was a bit over 3 miles longer with about 2,000 ft more climbing than the 2018 course (or more depending on who’s Garmin you look at). I did however have a faster average speed for the day and placed one position better than last year and it took me less than 3 minutes longer, I will call that a success.

After the race I hung out and waited for Brett to finish since during the race I could feel him actively hating me and my pre-race advice; I may have told him all the climbs were manageable and the course was a lot of fun. I guess my idea of fun and manageable is not the same as everyone else’s, who knew? He came through the finish in 9:40:52 in 25^th place, with a new appreciation for the “mountain” part of mountain biking. With the exception of getting cut off by someone just cruising around on their bike right at the finish line he had a great race and I may even be able to convince him to come back again next year.

Another 100 miler in the books

Fueling for 100 miles and 13,000 feet of climbing.

My fuel plan for the day was the same basic plan I use for most of my 100 miles races (except Marji Gesick because that takes so much longer). I had two bottles at each of the drop bag/Aid station locations, one with either Perpetuem or a Sustained Energy/HEED combination and a bottle of Fizz. I also took BCAA+, Anti-Fatigue Caps and Energy Surge at each of the three stops. Because of the distance between aid station 1 and 2 I started the day with three bottles simply because I could not get three to fit in the drop bag for stop #2. I also carried a flask of Hammer Gel in case I needed a few extra calories, but I did not end up using any of it. I may have also snagged a small cup or two of coke at an aid station, but everyone has their own stuper-food (stupid-super food that is), and coke is my go-to. In all I took in right around 1,400-1,500 calories during the day which put me right in that 175-185 calories per hour zone I function best at.

Relive 'Morning Ride'

Up next.

My next race is the Mohican 100 on June 1st. It is another NUE (www.nuemtb.com) event and arguably the 2^nd hardest one I will race in this year. The good news is I should be pretty well recovered, rested and ready for another hard day of racing by then. Last year I was not so smart and did the 212 mile Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder between Cohutta and Mohican, which left me a bit short in the legs department; another lesson learned I guess.

Thank you time.

As always, a big thank you to:

Hammer Nutrition (www.hammernutrition.com) for keeping me well stocked with fuels and supplements; it does not matter how strong my legs are if I do not have the fuel to keep them turning and Hammer fuels are just what I need.