2018 Arizona Trail Race 750 - Day 9

For the first time in over a week I didn’t wake to a beeping watch. I just woke naturally (admittedly it was still early-ish) checked the race flow on Trackleaders and leisurely ate some breakfast. I did feel a need to get going but I told myself to remain calm as I couldn’t go anywhere until I had visited REI.

Heading outside on my bike the day looked nice but as soon as I left the wind shelter of the motel I discovered it was bitterly cold. It made me pedal hard for the few blocks that I needed to cover to the REI store. The forecast top of 5 Celcius and 50mph winds seemed accurate!

Once there I took my bike inside and had a look at shoes. They didn’t have anything I liked the look of so I checked out helmets. I liked the look of a new Giro Hex so grabbed one while I waited for an attendant. It took about 20 minutes before anyone was free as it was a very busy store.

8 days usage on the AZT!!

When I showed the guy my shoes and asked if he had some more Pearl Izumi X Alp IIs, he said no. Then he remembered they had a piar that had been returned by a customer who didn’t like them. They were the X Alp Elevate, not the X Alp IIs and one size larger. I decided to try them and luckily they were perfect! They looked so new and shiny compared to my old ones. Better still they felt so soft and plush underfoot. Something I would no doubt appreciate on the Canyon crossing!
I had him fit some new cleats and bin my old shoes (but not before I removed my orthotic insoles) along with the new insoles. I should have kept the new insoles but more on that in a later post.

My trusty old helmet that saw me through thousands of miles of training and the Tour Divide Race was also consigned to the skip bin with the old shoes.
I pedalled out about $280USD (about $800AU Pesos! ;) lighter. I was glad I wasn’t buying warm clothing as well to head out on the trail today as I may have needed to sell a kidney!

New kicks, same old legs. Non ventilated too- perfect! Not the legs. They have clearly been ventilated...

Nearing my motel I bumped into Beth about to head into Starbucks. She had been to REI as well to buy more layers and was about to press on toward The Canyon. She didn’t look very enthusiastic and I didn’t envy her. As much as I felt a bit soft at sitting today out, I knew it was the right decision for me. I wished her well and knew I wouldn’t see her again. She is a very strong bikepacker.

Back in the motel I proceeded to carry out some bike maintenance,

Checking brake pads. They were actually ok!


some body maintenance

Blister on right ball of foot from Highline and the Mogollon Rim. Black nails from the dye I used to dye my grey Ground effect socks to black. Scratches courtesy of Southern Arizona desert!

and some resting. (sorry,no pics - think of the children!!)

I headed out to the Fry’s again for another shop, then headed to the Agave Mexican Restaurant at the motel next door. I bought a burrito meal for dinner and also one to go for tomorrow.

Retiring to my room I discovered this was by far the best burrito of the whole AZTR for me! I almost went back to get another but it was too cold to venture out now and I eyed the one I had bought for tomorrow longingly......

Checking Trackleaders before I went to bed I could see that Beth and Dean had made it about half way to Tusyan, so about 80km for the day. I intended to do the whole 160km in one hit and was reassured that my decision to stay in a warm motel for a second night was a sound one. I had a soft, warm bed versus their (very) cold hard ground.
160 AZTR kilometres is always going to be tough but I would be strong after my lay day.

Bring it on!!

Cheers

Agave Mexican magicians on Route 66. The AZT runs through the lights at the intersection from right to left.

The Tracker Is Live - Shit Is Getting Real !

The Arizona Trail Race tracker has gone live! That means we are only 2 weeks out from the start!!

Shit Shit. Shit.

I still have so much to do, with only 4 days at home before I leave.

Shit.

I feel like I have so much left to organise or get ready, yet I am sort of “going with the flow”. I am honestly not sure if this is because I am not fully invested in this race or if it is because I have done a bit of bikepacking now and will just deal with whatever the race throws at me?

Unfortunately I won’t find out until I am knee deep in the race. I am hoping like hell I don’t say to myself  “fuck, I wish I had prepared better”. More along the lines of “gee, that was unexpected but you can make do, old chap” is how I hope it goes........

Either way, I have been busy busting my chops training despite the tracker going live AND the final edit of the race route being published. Even though it is some two weeks and 12 000km away, today I was channeling my AZ che’ as I gave myself a second-last-week-coach-Linda style thrashing today.

The burn in my legs may or may not be being portayed by the “stunned mullet” look I have on my dial. One must practice the “stunned mullet”look as part of the training as the alternative would just not be acceptable for the everyday punter that one encounters during a bikepacking race. 

Anyway, the next two days, Thursday and Friday are basically all I have left to nail down almost everything else that I need to do.........

Shit!

And cheers.........

Treading A Fine Line

After last weekends ride I was back to work in a big way on Monday with a 14 hour door to door day. I decided to call this a "rest" day as I wasn't doing any training.

Tuesday was a gym session then work until about 3am.

Balls in a rack....what a great metaphor for my week!!

Wednesday I was stuck in a hotel so instead of sit on an exercise bike for an hour and a half I thought "I need more time on my feet" so I ran on the treadmill (it was raining outside) for an hour. While I don't think I had run all year, with my fitness the aerobic effort was easy enough but I did wonder about the effects it might have on my body/joints. An early sleep for the allnighter that I was about to pull at work confirmed my lack of running form as I was quite stiff when I woke up. All good though, right?

Getting home from work at 6am Thursday, I took the kids to the bus at 7:30 then got about 3 hours sleep. I wandered around in my usual post red-eye daze for most of the day, then loaded 30kg of weight plates into my backpack for a 5km hike on Cornubia singletrack. Now, let me tell you, 30kg + the pack is frickin' heavy!! That 5km was a struggle and I was mighty glad to get that pack off my back. It also left me greatly concerned about the Grand Canyon hike, as many racers seem to have loads approaching 30kg. To lump that weight 35km with 1300m descent and then 1500m climb would be the end of me. I don't think I could do it after having just ridden 1200km.....

Friday was to be another gym session followed by a 1 hour, hard Zone 5 effort on the bike..............or it was supposed to be. I warmed up for my gym session then pulled up lame. My right calf was a tight as a bow string and I couldn't do much at all. We called it on the gym session after some core work with my head trainer, Jim, telling me I looked tired and to take a rest.

Laying it all out like I have above makes it bleedingly obvious that I was on the feathery edge of overtraining. Friday morning however, I was just thinking "what is wrong with me" as for the last two and a half months I have felt great, slowly feeling stronger and stronger. I wasn't even considering overtraining!

 Overtraining is something that takes months to come back from if you do go over that edge. I took the rest of Friday off and truncated my Saturday and Sunday rides to be shorter and much less intense.

 I slept a lot and am slowly feeling better now as of  Monday morning. 

Note to self - there is no running in the AZTR so - DON'T GO RUNNING, DICKHEAD!!

While in repair mode I finally forced myself to get my bike portage system sorted out. I have been loathing this part of the preparation for some reason. Perhaps it makes the Grand Canyon hike more real? Perhaps, my lack of backpacking experience? I'm not sure. Anyway, I sat there for about 30 minutes thinking about the best way to load my bike. I attached the Mountainsmith Strappettes to the seat tube and linked them around the head tube with some other strap that I had. Hoisting it up on my back I found that I needed to adjust the position of the strapettes on the seat tube to get a better balance but on Take 2 it was basically sorted!

That seat bag will be relocated to below the wheel

I was very pleasantly surprised that the load wasn't uncomfortable at all and most importantly, it wasn't too heavy. In fact, fully loaded, ready to race (without food or water) the bike comes in at 19.4kg (42.7 lb). I am super stoked with that!! Obviously water and food will up the weight considerably but on the plus side I don't need to carry much water through the canyon as I can top up as I go. 

Selfie via the GoPro app. Yes, I look tired.

Another pleasant surprise was that the bike wasn't too hard to get on and off of my back (slight disclaimer - I wasn't completely rooted from 10 days straight on a bike!) though. Maybe hiking with 30+kg on my back was paying off?

I also got my bike to the point where I am happy with it's setup. 

At the urging of my friend Owen, a tyre construction guru, industrial chemist and general man-of-mystery, I have switched out the Maxxis Ikon on the rear to a heavier duty Maxxis Rekon. This is solely to help avoid punctures, particularly sidewall cuts as the Ikon is quite a lightweight construction tyre. Owen also walked me through the use of his patented (seriously!) puncture repair system. I will have a kit with me during the race which I hope not to need but am totally confident that if I do, it will be the duck's nuts in puncture repair.

Yes, the yellow grips will be yellow for about 2 hours.

I do have an upgrade to do to the drivetrain, with a box of SRAM GX Eagle to throw at the bike today or tomorrow. This will also become the pre race rebuild. With me as chief mechanic, lets hope I don't screw anything up!(too much)

With less than two weeks until I fly out it is getting to the pointy end of my preparation. I am feeling a bit underdone on many fronts right now but hopefully I can rectify most of these issues in the next 10 days. Some have to wait until I get to the US, as I will be ordering my bivy to be delivered to my hotel in Pheonix, along with a few other small bits and pieces. 

This all adds to the anxiety though.......Deep breaths, deep breaths.........but at least I'm not overtrained!!

Cheers.

Ramping It Up

What seems mere days ago is now a very distant Week 6! Here we are, going into Week 9 of the training program. While I am starting to feel the benefits of the program (especially the off-bike strength training) I am starting to feel a little stressed that my gear isn’t sorted. I am still working my way through tyre selection and this can’t be hurried. It is simply time on the trail that is needed there. My hike a bike (HAB) training is going okay but I still haven’t even tried slinging my bike onto my back yet. I have been filling a 35 litre pack with as many bottles of water as I can, which yields me about an 18-19kg load. It hurts after just 5km so I am slightly concerned about a 25kg bike strapped to a makeshift backpack for 35km ......

Last week....er....I mean the week before, Week 7, I managed to get away for a longer, fully loaded overnight trip. The forecast wasn’t looking good with a high chance of showers predicted. Oh well, 90% of success is just showing up as they say, so I pedalled out from home for that old favourite, D’Aguilar National Park. Actually, I was hoping to get through the forest and out onto the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail but my near-lunch time departure put paid to that plan. No, I would just ride as far as I could and camp where I dropped.

The route was one that I had taken many times in my prep for the Tour Divide and it was quickly evident that the Cannondale certainly doesn’t roll anywhere near as nicely as the Muru. I quickly squashed that mental hurdle by reminding myself that the TD bike was built to roll distances of up to 300km a day whereas the AZTR will see me lucky to punch out half that distance per day. Horses for courses.........but the buzzing from the new Rekon and Ikon tyres on the ashphalt kept singing “draggy, dragg, draaagggg” to my mind. Don’t panic though, that tread will come into it’s own on the AZ dirt!

As I finally hit the Gap Creek Reserve dirt the tyres inspired confidence, as I expected they would. I just need to find some rocky trails to thrash them over to test their resilience.

I took the climb up South Boundary Rd a little gingerly as I wanted to save my legs for tomorrow’s ride. No good ripping my legs off on day one, right? As I climbed higher up the hill it began to look much more certainly like rain. Checking the BOM Weather Radar site there wasn’t much showing and anyway, I was out here, with all the gear. There was nothing for it other than to just get on with it.

Once I reached the Boombana picnic area though it was getting prematurely dark and decidedly moist. I was wet, but warm so I pedalled on through Mt Nebo. Neither of the two food outlets were open by this time so I though I would push on to Fernvale, about 2.5 hours away, on the rail trail. Dave Wicks happened to text me as I was sitting in a bus shelter, contemplating my options. When I told him about my plan I received a screen shot of the radar and a “good luck!”  Hmmmm, I might need it!

Entering Dundas Rd, which is the start of the drop off the range the rain started getting heavier. The cloud also descended so that I was riding through a fog with maybe 50m visibility. Great!

I came to an intersection where I knew I had to go left...or was it right? Hmmm, it has been a few years since I have been up here. Shining my light around I spied a new addition to the water tanks on Dundas rd - a bush camp!!

Now a bush camp isn’t much more than a 3 sided shelter with a bench seat but on a dark, rainy night it was a frickin’ Hilton hotel!

While I would have to forgo dinner that night, a dry camp site was much more preferable to a very wet, dark slide off of the range down the appropriately named “Whoa Boy” fire road with it’s 50 odd water bars and 30% grade. Fernvale was a loong way away with no certainty that I would make it before the pub stopped serving food. Yep, squashed Full O Fruit it would be! I quickly set up my hammock and crawled into bed for what would be a 12 hour rest. Heavy rain on a tin roof makes for great sleeping weather!


Next morning, once I eventually dragged my backside out of bed, I quickly packed up. While it wasn't raining at the camp site, the weather radar indicated that there were many heavy showers around, with some of the heaviest heading for the rail trail and my "Plan B" option of riding south to Ipswich.

“Plan C”was hatched. I rode back up Dundas Rd to Mt Nebo rd, then turned off down the Goat Track. It had not been raining up until this point but of course as soon as I started down the Goat track (the wrong way), the heavens opened. I hid under a tree for 10-15 minutes hoping it was just a passing (very heavy) shower but once I was finally soaked I thought “well, I may as well be moving forward as standing here”.

The rate of rainfall was biblical and I could barely see where I was going. Not good on a one-way-downhill dirt road. Imagine my surprise when a woman on a mtb ground up the hill through the tumult! We exchanged a “g’day” and that was it. I took comfort from the fact thst I wasn’t the only lunatic in this neck of the woods........

Once onto the main road the rain eased and had stopped altogether by the time I arrived in Samford. Lucky for me, one of the first places I saw was Spoke cafe’. “They will be understanding” I hopefully told myself. I parked my bike up and wandered in, dripping water all the way. Quickly ordering lest the pool developing underneath me drown a passing child I exited stage right for an outside table. Dripping away I downed a huge hot breakfast and small bucket of coffee. Ahhhh, bliss.....

Where to from here? The answer to that question was home, via the Kedron Brook bikeway, the Gateway Bridge and the regular Gateway Loop that I do with the kids. That would keep me from wrecking my drivetrain in mud but still give me a bit of a workout.

Little did I know......

First up was getting over the small range between Samford and Ferny Hills. Not a big hill but one with no shoulder for much of the way and an unusually high number of incompetent, ignorant drivers. Part way up I remembered there was an old rail grade that had been turned into a bike path, the Lanita Rail Trail. Checking my phone I saw that it was not far from my current precarious position. A few turns up and down some fire breaks and I was dumped out onto this exquisitely sealed bike trail!

Turning right I happily pedalled along for a few kilometres. Until I came to a sign that said “Samford ahead”. WTF?? I had kept the big hill on my left all the time, hadn’t I? Sure enough, looking at my Garmin I was heading West! That is not right!!

With a heavy overcast there was no telling where the sun was and my gut told me I was going the right way but my gut was WRONG! I must admit to being a bit befuddled for 5 minutes afterwards. It is mind-bending to have your picture of reality be sooooo far wrong and in my own backyard so-to-speak.

Grrr. Dickhead!

Anyway, righting my wrong I was soon seeking my way through the ‘burbs to the Kedron Brook bikeway. This bikeway is an excellent East-West corridor for cyclists. All the while Wicks was helpfully texting me screenshots of rain heading my way. What can I say? He is a helpful guy......

True to radar form, I pushed into a headwind with driving rain for the next hour and a half to two hours. It felt like I was crawling but I kept telling myself “this is all good training”.

That was until I was so soaked that I began to feel a little chafing........... you know........chafing. My mind IMMEDIATELY shot to Mick Eyb’s day one account of his Indian Pacific Wheel Race write up where he got soaked then his knicks almost rubbed the end off of his old fella.........causing him days of excruciating pain and embarassment.

Shit no!!! 

Mayday, Mayday, Mayday!!!

 I had thoughts of calling my wife to come and get me but the thought of her telling ALL of her office buddies (and no doubt, she would!) that “I have to rescue him because his todger is getting rubbed away” was too much to bear! Even worse than........er worse than........having your todger rubbed away.....!

 So, still about 50km and probably 4 hours from home I adjusted my “position” a lot, stood and pedalled some and just generally dealt with it. I have never been so happy to have a little dick because believe me dear reader, I am sure that is what saved me from a week of unbelievable pain and suffering.......... :0 J

 Grabbing some hot chips and water at the base of the Gateway Bridge climb refreshed me a bit while I set a booby trap, dripping slippery water all over their outdoor eating area.

Things weren’t improving much but I was getting closer to home. 30ish kilometres to go but at least it was mostly protected bike path. But how wrong I was, again.

The pishing rain had swollen Tingalpa Creek to overflowing and as the Tingalpa Creek Bikeway that I was using followed said creek I soon came to an impassable sea of water which hid my route home. Backtracking around this blockage saw me add considerable kilometres to my ride, most of which was on wet, congested, Friday afternoon roads. No fun was had here at all.

 Eventually I reached the safety of Daisy Hill forest. I should have been in a canoe though, not on a bike as the amount of water exiting the forest was frightening!

I knew there were some deep erosion holes in the track in places but it was impossible to see anything with the sometimes almost 2 feet deep water flow!

 I somehow managed to avoid disaster and exited that forest, rolling down the final hill to home.

Boy, was I glad to be home! It had been 8 hours of soaking wet riding. I hadn’t set any speed records despite the decent effort I had put in, which was a little demoralising. I just have to accept this bike is a slow roller but it will come into it’s own on the sandy, dry trails of southern Arizona. Bring on the sunshine!

I still need to get this backpack thing sorted and also sort some minor shoe issues. The backpack thing is really the elephant in the room at the moment and I am thinking perhaps I just mail a pack, hiking poles and walking shoes to the Canyon Post Office and make it easy on myself......

 Cheers and thanks for reading.

Plodding Away

That is what I have been doing these last few weeks. Just plodding away, trying to follow my 10 Day Bikepacking Race plan from coach Linda. It worked well for the Tour Divide in 2015 and if I follow it as closely as I can (with a few modifications for carrying a bike!) I should be in a good place come April 5th.

I have sort of settled on taking my Cannondale Beast of the East for the race. I really don't want to buy another bike and I guess this will do the job. Especially now that I have carbon wheels on it and soon to come 2.8 width tyres (down from the 3.0 currently on it) I feel it will be a better rolling option. Still not as quick as a standard 29" 2.2/2.4 wide equipped mtb but close enough........

Another leg on the front and a dynamo hub in between and I'm set!

Now , where was I? Ah, yes, training.

To this end I have ventured back to an old favourite of many endurance riders, Brisbane Forest Park (or D'Aguilar Forest as it is known these days). 

It never looks as steep in a photo, especially a pano.

My first foray was on one of the hottest days we have had this year! It got up to 38C (100F) which is very hot for Brisbane. We normally only see low 30s, which with the humidity of the sub-tropics is plenty enough thank-you-very-much! As a result of the heat (and going too hard the day before) I struggled my way around the 50km loop I set for myself. I chose some of the steepest trails in there so that I could practice pushing my bike. Well, normally I can ride all of these climbs but that day I was definitely pushing on almost all of them while the Cicadas almost sent me mad/deaf with their high pitched screeching. I include a small snippet of their "song" for your hearing pleasure......turn your speakers up LOUD for the full experience as these things are easily over 100 decibels in the bush when they are in their tens of thousands!

After another week at work where I squeezed my training around life I decided to head out again for Round 2 of my BFP loop. I was really pleased to see that I felt waaay stronger and could have ridden all of the stupidly steep climbs. I had to force myself to get off the bike and push because that IS part of the training after all!

I was also rocking my new Camelbak Octane hydration pack. It is a lumbar model with the bladder being down low, across your hips. I hate wearing a backpack these days as it makes it very difficult to regulate your body temperature but I must say, the Octane sits there nicely and the relatively small "pack" section of the backpack allows plenty of air to get at your back, keeping you much cooler than traditional hydration packs with the bladder mid back. I chose this smaller version so that I won't/can't load it up with too much crap during the race. It will also form part of my bike portage system for the Grand Canyon crossing when it is combined with my Mountainsmith Strapetts. I just need to figure out how to actually do that......

Octane win.

On other fronts I have renewed the insoles in my mtb shoes as I found for the TD in 2015 that I needed a small "dome" attached to the insole to help spread my metatarsals and stop nerve pinching that feels like a hot foot after a while. They worked perfectly in 2015 so I thought I had better get onto that again so as to eliminate one possible cause of body failure.

I also jagged a trip to New Zealand during the week, where we have all of our heavy maintenance conducted. 

Empty 737.

I didn't get locked up on arrival so I guess there were no outstanding speeding fines from our 2014 motorcycle trip......

While the ferry was a bit of fun, the training ride on the gym bike wasn't! It was a hot day for Christchurch (in the mid 30sC) and there was no air conditioning in the closet-sized hotel gym. Suffice to say, after 2 hours of hard efforts I was fairly swimming! On the plus side, I did feel good after a shower (don't worry, no photos...)

Sweat box gym.

So, here we are, 8 weeks out from the race and I just have to get a standard suspension fork for my bike so that I can run my dyno hub. I then have to have that dyno hub laced into my new front wheel, then I have to load the whole shebang up and take it on a few overnight rides to shake down my gear. Oh, and learn how to set it up on a backpack so I can carry it 35km(22mi) across the Grand Canyon......plus I need to get started on my route notes.....

Shit, I need to get CRACKING.........

Cheers.