Mohican 100K Race Recap (the boy’s will have to recap the 100 Mile for you…they’re just crazy!)

So some people have been bugging me for a race recap of Mohican...I normally don’t like to talk about myself but I do realize others like to read it, so here goes:

Coming off a rest week (I’m usually really, really flat off of them) I wasn’t expecting too much at the Mohican 100K race….just ride and have some fun, get in some good endurance training time…so when I had a guy tell me about 45 miles into the race that I was the first female I was pretty stoked (although still wary because you never know if they’ve missed someone, etc when you get sideline reports like that!). My legs were a bit flat off the start so I just eased into the race…it starts out with a killer road climb which my normal race start etiquette would have had me hammering, but knowing it was going to be a long, hot day I just went my pace and didn’t worry about staying with the leaders.

In the first section of single-track I got hooked up with a girl, Lauren Mika from Team CF/Pro Bikes out of Pittsburgh, that learned how to ride on these very trails and since it was just one long line of people all trying to get somewhere fast, but not working out so well she and I had a chance to talk and meet each other! She was totally cool, riding well and I just sat on her wheel and had her pull me around the single-track, from watching her ride I was very confident she wouldn’t lead me astray and she was picking good lines which was nice! We got into some climbing section and open double-track which is my strong suit so I ended up getting a gap on her, but got into some traffic later on and she caught back on for a while until we hit some more uphill single track climbs. So for a while it was just me catching guys, passing and generally keeping a good endurance pace through the miles (feeling sorry for the 100 mile girls that I was passing already when we started 15mins behind them…ouch, that’s going to be a really, really long day in the saddle!).

When I hit a huge, steep, hike-a-bike horse trail uphill that everyone was walking around mile 25 (or so, I wasn't keeping track at that point) I ended up catching and passing the girl with the 500 plate, which gave me hope that I might be doing okay in the race since she’s won the race for the past 4 years…Amanda Virostko (Shamrock/Biowheels). Just after passing Amanda I came upon my friend Molly Wolf from Team Wheel Werks (we had hoped to ride together from the start, but she was doing the 100mi race)…she was having cramping issues so it wasn’t going so well for her at that point, but she was a huge cheer squad for me as I went by! I was so proud of her, she rebounded well and ended up 5th overall in the Women’s 100 mile race…great job girl! She told me she thought I was in 2nd so at that point I was very happy and excited to be in a podium position.

Around mile 30-35 I ended up catching a great single-speeder (crazy!!), Michael Gorman (Orrville Cycling Club) that was a long-time rider of these trails….he warned me about every tight switch-back uphill, every slippery drop-off coming up, you name it…he warned me; so I stuck on his wheel forever! We had great chats, he was setting a great pace (although he’d gap me on the downhill’s and I’d gap him on the super-steep uphill’s and flats) and I knew following him I’d not miss any course markings and he’d keep me upright on my bike with all the warnings. He was a great partner to ride with. I ended up losing him at Aid 3 and then I was pretty much in no man’s land…although I did catch Joe Orlando with about 8-10 miles to go (for a while he was the rabbit I was chasing cause I could see him just up the road but couldn’t close the gap) and finally on a good power climb uphill (not the 20+% one’s that were killing me…I was wishing I had a 26T front chain ring…those 5-10 min 20% climbs just kept coming!) I finally closed it down and we rode together nearly the rest of the way home until we got to about 4 miles to go and my legs did the 100% full-on cramp…inner thighs and claves on both legs at the same time…ouch! I slammed more GU and downed more water just praying they would get me to the finish since is was SOOOOO close. The loosened up enough that I could soft pedal another 3 miles and then they locked up tight again and I had to get off and walk a little bit…slammed more water and squeezed every little ounce I had in the GU flask and was able to get back onto the bike and could ride out of the saddle which was enough to get me to the finish in 6:17:27. I crossed and they told me I was had taken first!!!! It was super exciting!

Now the best part...the podium shot including the Champagne (yeah!) and the check (and it was pretty nice!). I feel so pro with the Champagne though…the girls are still dripping….it’s fun passing the bottle around!
The boys are teasing me now…”2 endurance wins in a row (WEMS 6 hour solo last weekend)..maybe the Endurance races should become you’re A races and WORS should be C’s”. Not sure I’m ready to take that leap yet….6-7 hours is still a long time to be on a bike racing in my opinion, but fun to do once in a while!

I’d like to thank all the great riders that made the course so much fun for me….Lauren (who I know would have been 2nd or 3rd overall the way she was riding had she not taken a wrong turn…sucks!), Michael and Joe and also the very cool group of Ohio girls that I met….Amanda Sporat(get that arm better and we need to do a race together) and Heidi Shilling (the Ohio series race leader who rides for Combo Race team/Whole Foods/Roll)…they were very nice and welcoming!!! And of course I need to thank my current coach Jeb Stewart of Endrofit and my teammate Lisa Krayer to trained me last year for my great endurance base that lead me to this point, and my training partner and teammate Sarah Agena-Wright that helped keep us both on track of actually doing our prescribed training plans! And last but certainly not least, my husband for being so supportive and dialing in my amazingly fast Specialized Era (man those bikes are crazy fast and fly through the single-track…so incredibly stable!)just right in all these races to make me so fast! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!