NAMRITA K. O'DEA

The race is over and I am pleasantly tired. This race report is going to be long so I'll do it in stages. This was my 3rd time doing this race. The first time was 5 years ago and I was still a beginner mountain biker. Yes, for some reason I decided I wanted to do the hardest races out there as a beginner. Needless to say, the first year my teammate Stephen and I DNF'd after getting 3 checkpoints in 10 hours. We both bonked, we both crashed, and the riding was..just..brutal.

I used to be somewhat of a runner before I ever got into cycling. Now, I hardly ever run--only in the off-season to do something different when it's cold outside. The furthest I've ever run was in a 20-hour adventure race. I think we did somewhere between 30-40 miles on foot..and then I promptly quit running after that because my body was so broken.

But now, my massage therapists Amy and Shannon have me set on this new obsession: Qualifying for the Boston Marathon. After hearing their detailed description of the race I can't help wanting to do it. The problems/issues with this are:

4:30 am wake-up call..who doesn't love it? Monte was already up making the coffee. I was laying in bed listening to the rain hit the roof. It seems like every Cohutta race I have been to has started out 1) dark, 2) chilly, and 3) wet. The pre-race morning hours just flew by..I think the dogs thought we were crazy standing outside with them in a church playground at 5:30 am in the dark and in the rain. The 100 miler was to go off at 7am and the 65 miler at 7:15am. While I really enjoyed having an extra 15 minutes to get ready that wasn't why I picked the 65 mile race.

I had my list of "Don't ever do again" from Ouachita Challenge that I consulted on Thursday prior to the race. Primarily, I made sure to get all this in order:

Nutrition done right

I have realized that even if your fitness is not exactly where you want it, you can still make up for a lot of that with 1) Proper nutrition and 2) Efficiency on the bike. I will get to that a little later in my report.

Yes!!! I did it. I took care of all my little and big mistakes from the Ouachita Challenge and everything turned out just as I had hoped. Starting out, I knew I would be racing some really fast women and I said I would just be happy with 3rd place. Then, when we lined up (all the fast women lined up at the front, does anyone have a photo?) I decided it would be tough to get in the top 5 and I would be happy with 5th, haha. I was lined up next to Danielle Musto, Lisa Randall, Ursula Sandefeur, and there were also some unknown fast ladies from Wisconsin.

For once, we actually packed and prepped in advance. Who am I??? PowerBar Endurance, PowerGels, and Gelblasts are packed. I lost my HR monitor but I did find an old Timex Ironman watch that seems to tell the correct time..so that will have to do. Eddie bought me a gel flask and Danielle is letting me borrow one of her cool 5oz Hydrapak Softflasks. The forecast looks like it could make for an epic race..70% chance of severe thunderstorms! Welcome to mountain bike racing in the Southeast..where a mudfest is almost a guarantee in the spring.

I flew into the Monterey airport yesterday afternoon, right before Eddie's race. He picked me up, we returned to the race/expo venue, and he proceeded to frantically get dressed and prepared for his 40 mile race. In the meantime, I wandered around and said "hi" to some of our sponsors--Crank Brothers, Magura, DT Swiss, Continental Tires...in the middle of that a somewhat familiar face came up to me and said, "Hi.

The rest of the team is already out there..I leave in the morning. I'm bummed I'm not racing but that's OK since Cohutta is just one week away!! Yikes..I have to go through my "Do Not Do Again" list from Ouachita Challenge sometime next week. I'm packing a lot of trips into the next few weeks which, unfortunately, are also the busiest weeks of the semester..final projects and final exams. Well, you only live once. I can sleep sometime in May.

Whoever "They" are, I hope they are right about the third time being a charm. If you look over to the right ---> you may notice a new addition to the 2010 schedule. This is not a new race for me, but in 2008 (report here) and 2009 (report here) I swore I would never go back again. But, here we are..in 2010 and I have a chance to go back for another chance.

After intentionally dehydrating myself for 24 hours (we are piloting a dehydration study in the lab), I wasn't really expecting much out of my workout today. But, as soon as 3pm hit and I could have fluids again, I downed as much nuun as I could plus a tall dark roast from Starbucks. I didn't have time to do my intervals outside, so I did them on my Kinetic Rock n Roll trainer. Well....let me just say, I had the highest average and max power I had ever seen in this workout today. Maybe it was the caffeine? But, my weight is also down, and so is body fat.