12 Hour preview

Last weekend was the June edition of the 12 Hours of Temecula. A race report is on the way, but here's some background.

The 12 Hour format asks a simple question: How many laps of a short (~1 hr) course can you complete in 12 hours? The competition is broken into solo (aka hardcore or insane) riders and teams of 2, 3, 4, or 5 riders. Mike and I compete in the 2 person open category as Team Sherpa Dog. We usually trade off every other lap, ie, one of us rides a single lap and then the other person goes out. During our off time, Diana cleans up the bike, gets us fed, and makes sure we're back at the transition zone on time for the next exchange.

The 2 person category is both interesting and horrible.

The interesting part is that, while you and your teammate are linked by riding the same course with the same goal, you hardly see each other all day: when you're in the pit, they're on the course. So, you don't get to swap stories about that one brutal climb or those sketchy, blown out turns. Adjustments to the prerace strategy have to be relayed through the pit crew. Of course, you could lengthen the transition time by having a discussion, but minutes count!

The horrible part is that you need to push on each lap, but you have to turn laps all day. In a regular endurance event, I am good at settling into a sub-threshold pace and holding it all day. The 12 hr is like a supersized set of intervals... you go above threshold pace because you'll have a chance to recover, but each lap hurts a little more than the last. One key is to avoid red lining - brief efforts at high power. Unfortunately, the courses at Vail Lake tend to work against you, with numerous short steep sections where a hard effort will preserve your momentum over the top and save a lot of time. Furthermore, you don't always know how many laps you'll have to do. Any lap finished by 9pm (twelve hours after the 9am start) counts, but if you come in after 9pm, the last 'lap' is a wasted effort. Depending on how the lap times are running, you might be able to squeeze in one more lap... if you push hard on the lap before. At that point in the day, it's tough to push hard for the privilege of enduring another lap of suffering. But, if you hold back, trying to save something for a hoped-for lap, you might be too slow and not have the chance. Ah, strategy.

I usually ride the first lap, which goes like most races: you try to get a good spot in pack before hitting singletrack and losing opportunities to pass. Later in the day, riders are spread throughout the course. On some laps you see few other people, or pass easily on fireroads. On other laps you seem to constantly come up on slower riders at the start of a singletrack section. It all works out, though. Almost all racers at Vail are courteous about asking for a pass and yielding to a   faster rider. Everyone has respect for the solo riders, many of whom are doing the 'solo shuffle' late in the day, just trying to grind out another lap.

Preliminary results are posted throughout the day, so you can see how fast other teams are riding, how many laps they've got, and if they're holding steady or fading. Some teams settle in and run very consistently, others slow over the course of the day. Things can shake up late in the day: someone runs a long lap due to a mechanical, a crash, or because they bonk.

Just before 9pm, a crowd gathers at the start/finish to see the last few riders come in. The organizers, SoCal Endurance, always have some good swag at the awards. It's humbling to hear about the solo riders who did as many laps (or more) than we did as a team. After the awards and packing up, the drive home gets us in around midnight, making for a 19 hour day overall. When's the next one?