12 hours of Dauset 17 Sep

This was the longest cycling only race I've done yet--I've done a 30 hr adventure race. I've raced the solo 6 hr dauset race three times before, so when Van Mixon asked me to race with him in the 12 hr as a two man team, I thought it would be fun to try something different. My concerns were how the go intense efforts followed by sitting around repeated over 12 hrs would affect me, and how well I would race at night. There was a big home town turnout with another two person team, a couple four person teams, and a couple of solo twelve hour racers. The weather was pretty much perfect for the 10 am start and all day/night. Our strategy was for me to lead off with two laps and then alternate two laps each for as long as we could. We felt that our fitness was good enough to go really hard for the ~1.5 hrs two laps would take and then have a good recovery, rather than getting only a little rest alternating every lap. This seemed to work well as we quickly built a lead, and were about 30 minutes up after ten laps at which point we went to alternating laps. It was pretty cool to go as hard as I could every time, knowing that if I did burn out after a lap that Van would be ready to go. I didn't eat quite enough though, because I didn't take into account the hours spent not on the bike. Luckily, the promoters (Gone Riding's Terri and David Berger) had a big pot of spaghetti cooking for the racers and I overcame my calorie deficit as Van was riding--just in time to avoid a serious bonk. My only crash of the day occurred when trailing local Mark Paugh as he jinked around a small tree and I didn't have time to avoid it--that's what I get for following so close! I ended up with 1 1/2 night laps, and it wasn't so bad. One way I could tell when I was coming up on another racer by the sparkles of dust in my helmet light beam. The light forces you to focus entirely on the trail, though the experience of having multiple laps already helped me avoid any more crashes. When it was over we'd done 15 laps total, one lap more than Macon-ites Tim Hargett and Mike Brown in second place. Burgers and beer and a campout followed the award ceremony for many of us.