Hampshire 100
It’s important to go into a race like the Hampshire 100 with
some sort of a goal.
But it is also important to be comfortable with letting go
of that goal when things don’t go as planned.
This year, I’d done everything right leading up to the
race. I even trained a little bit and
then took some time to recover. I’d
figured I would be able to shave some time off from last year’s 9:48 and
hopefully finish around 9 hours and 15 minutes…
…but then the race started and the course was different and
the ground was soft and it took me a really long time to complete the first 63
miles. Goals and expectations? Forget about them. Just finish the damn race.
It all started off with the usual hammering down the road,
but instead of the infamous railroad tracks section, we were sent around the
block, back past the park and onto singletrack much earlier than what is
customary for the H100. From there, everything is a gigantic blur in my mind.
The first lap was spent in the company of a variety of
people I’d either never met before or perhaps only met once. We chatted about
other 100s, the terrain, the mud, and how hard the course was.
The second lap was lonely. I didn’t see a single person for
miles and miles and miles (except for the aid station volunteers who I believe
are some of the most spectacular people on the planet). When I did finally start to encounter some
other people, they were 100k participants in the final miles of their own
battle. I felt spectacularly douchey
hammering past them as fast as I could possibly go (which probably wasn’t
actually all that fast).
Like all the 100s I’ve done, I felt myself begin to tear up
with joy in the last mile of the race. At that point, I still had no idea what
place I’d gotten, and really only cared that I was done. This version of the
Hampshire 100 was officially harder than the Patapsco 100 (despite the fact
that there was less climbing).
With 5 women preregistered for the 100M (there was also a
100k race happening at the same time), it was a smaller field than the previous
year, and I was only able to see one of my fellow competitors on the starting line
– Anne Pike. In fact, we played some
back and forth during the first 30 minutes of the race, but I didn’t see her
again until she crossed the finish line less than 4 minutes behind me. As it turned out, she’d had some mechanical
trouble that stalled her trailside for several minutes.
The next, and only other female finisher for the 100 miles,
Lenka Branichova came through about an hour later. Unfortunately, the other two
women were unable to finish. It was a brutal day for everyone, and I am pretty
sure we were all just happy to have it over with.
There were some
interesting moments during the day. On one of the fast descents during the
first lap, I lost a contact lens, but it decided to land on the inside of my
glasses so I was able to carefully remove it, replace it, and carry on with the
race.
Then, as I was slowly slogging up some singletrack towards
one of the road crossings on the final lap, I heard a familiar giggling. It was
Alby (the only 100 mile person I think I saw on the final lap). Apparently,
he’d done an extra twelve miles of climbing after missing a turn. Too bad there
are no bonus points for extra hills (now that I think about it, I wonder what
his GPS said for elevation…). He blew past me, putting about 15 minutes on me
before the finish.
Another cool part of the day was coming through the first
lap to see my dad cheering me on. I’d
left him directions to the venue and told him it would be cool if he could make
it. It gave me a nice boost to know that he’d still be there when I crossed the
finish line. He certainly had to wait a long time to see me again, and I’m sure
it was pretty boring waiting around. But having him there was awesome. It’s the first MTB race he’s ever been to,
and it was one of my longest.
If you’ve read my recap of this year’s Patapsco 100, you
know that I had a really tough time eating during that race because my stomach
felt off the whole day. With that in mind, I was really concerned about fueling
for this race (I even dreamt about forgetting my bottles and missing the start
as I went in search of them – one of several dreams I had about missing the
start of the race in the week leading up to it).
I did some research based off of lots of things I’d heard on
podcasts about endurance racing, and I ended up using a concoction that Ben
Greenfield (Ironman racer and fitness expert) uses during long events – a combo
of Superstarch, amino acids, MCT oil, Nuun and water. I drank that along with
water from my camelback all day long, and I didn’t eat a damn thing. I never got hungry, and I felt just fine the
whole day.
Admittedly, I never felt very powerful out there, but I’d
felt pretty flat all week long anyhow. It felt good to go the day at a pretty
steady level of energy without the spikes and crashes that come along with
sugar and caffeine. However, there were moments when I thought maybe I’d like
to have a ding dong and a coke (maybe that means my concoction wasn’t working
as well as I like to think it was).
Yes. I know you aren’t
supposed to try anything new during a big race.
But the old routine just wasn’t working for me anymore, and I tested
this concoction twice in the two days leading up to the race (so there).
As of right now, I do not feel the need to go back and race
the Hampshire 100 again. This particular
course may have done me in (or maybe it was just my own lofty expectations and
the sound of them shattering like glass in the first 10 miles of the race that
did it). I really don’t like races that take longer than 10 hours (except
Patapsco, which is loaded with fast flowy singletrack that doesn’t suck souls);
I really prefer races lasting around 6 hours…
…and that is why the next race I plan to attend is the MTB6
in VT. I hear the course is fun, and I’m
looking forward to it – just as soon as I decide I like riding bikes
again.
I have to say, it was an honor to win the Hampshire 100 this
year, and I am finally a proud owner of the infamous winner’s wind chimes. Thanks to all who worked so hard to make this
challenging race an event to remember.
PS…
…I neglected to write a blog post about the Carrabasset Back
Country Challenge (apparently aka CBCC).
To recap quickly, that race was really cool. Not only did it include some of the gnarliest
terrain I’ve seen in an endurance event, but it also featured some of the
sweetest professionally engineered trails in the northeast – think Kingdom
Trails with rocks. The Carrabassett
Valley (Sugarloaf Mountain area) of Maine is quickly becoming a mountain bike
destination that you’ll want to consider adding to your “must visit” list. That
said, the race was extremely challenging.
I managed to pull off the win with a respectable time and a
strong finish. When the promoters asked
the post-race crowd if they’d be interested in a 100-mile version of the race,
not a single person raised a hand.