Registration for the 2013 "Crusher in the Tushars" ride opened at 7 PM MST today. I signed up at 7:02. Honestly - it's going to fill up tonight. This is the ultimate suffer-fest. No, really - I'm not kidding. It's 70 miles of sheer pain. You climb 5,000 feet in about 25 miles, lose it all down the other side, and then climb it back again in about 8 miles. Not. Kidding. It's sheer pain. Last year, I ate wrong, I was geared poorly, and I trained wrong.
This year will be different.
Honestly, it is NOT peaceful.
Here's my review from last year:
I've been waiting for a plane for hours now... Here's a really
rough draft of a trip report (really rough - it'll be changed a lot).
But for those of you interested in knowing more, here ya go...
It
was probably mile 52 or 53, and we'd been grinding along side by side
for a while. I looked over at the guy next to me and asked, "What do you
think it means that the song that's stuck in my mind is 'Bringing on
the Heartache?" (thinking of you here, Martha Van Tassel). Life,
mirrored in an earbug.... welcome to the Crusher in the Tushars, one of
the toughest races in the US, and the toughest thing I have done since
summitting Mount Rainier. 69 miles, 50/50 split between pavement and
dirt. 5000 vertical feet up, 5000 feet down, and 5000 feet back up. I
kept laughing at the hype--I mean, really... the site touts the race's
difficulty to the point where one simply assumes it's just hype.
Shakespeare's quote comes to mind: "Methinks he doth protest too much".
No race could be this difficult, right? Um... wrong. You won't know how
wrong, until you are deep into the second ascent. That's the thing about
the Crusher. It lures you in and then, when you're at your weakest,
mercilessly crunches you while it laughs at you. And I am not
exaggerating.
The race starts months earlier--or
should--with prep. For a few months, I was serious about it. Then, in
May, everything fell apart for me. My calendar filled and I dropped
farther and farther behind on training. And that was my first mistake. I
planned on riding the Bountiful Skyline Drive repeatedly, until I could
ride it twice without stopping. As life snuck up behind me, I started
skipping major training rides. Important rides. And yet, while I was
defocused from tri training, I was also not focused on Crusher training.
This is a deadly combination! Also, as a 43-year old returning athlete, I was training too hard. Way too hard. Next year I'm going to focus on endurance rides, with regular power training, but not trying to climb the Skyline every week. Spreading that training out over an entire week means I just might live to ride another day.
The first big question
about the race is which bike to ride. Half of the race is on paved
surfaces where a mountain bike quite literally drags you down. Small
wheels. Knobby tires. Spongy suspension. If it sounds like a complete
waste of energy, you're right. The 'back stretch' of the ride is a good
10-15 mile ride along route 89 from Junction, UT to Circleville, UT. I
was on a bike with 700c tires, and was passing riders left and right who
were humming along on their fat tire MTB's. The desire to ride a big
tire bike is fully justified. With the head wind, there was a dual
gain--not only did I roll better, but I got into my drops and the miles
flew by almost as fast as the mountain bikes.
But (and
with the Crusher, there is always a but), the 5-6 mile descent following
the first climb will have anyone with a rigid frame wishing they'd
chosen otherwise. The hill is steep, with several switchbacks, and
severely washboarded the entire way. Not your typical mild
bumping--these washboards are easily 4" and maybe as much as 6" deep. At
10 MPH they are bone-jarring. At 25? One man referred to it as 'water
boarding.' Water bottles littered this stretch of the course. I even saw
a broken cage, with the bottle still in it. For a guy who has been
cycling since the 80's, the stiff frame and caliper brakes were just a
throwback to a simpler era--I'm used to it, I took it in stride. For
people who cut their teeth on full-suspension and disc brakes, I am sure
this section was pure misery. The race promoters promised there would be
one point for everyone, regardless of what bike they ride, that they
wished they had ridden another bike. For the cyclocross riders, this was
that point. For this old geezer... I'm pleased with how my cross bike
performed, and wouldn't change it--even in the washboard section. Bottom
line: unless you are really experienced with endurance riding on a
fixed frame bike, you are likely to be miserable on this 5-mile stretch
if you ride anything but a mountain bike. For your first Crusher, take
the hit and ride your fat tire bike, or spend a lot of time riding your
cross bike in the hills. Ultimately I am happy I rode my cross bike. My
problems were configuration (wrong rear cassette) and insufficient
training.
Climbing and crying are very similar words. In
the Crusher, I'm not sure there's any difference. My biggest mechanical
mistake: not listening to my buddy, Sanjay Balu (owner of MVS Cycles, a
leading retailer of sport bicycles in south India). He urged me to put a
10-speed mountain cassette on my cross bike, and I ignored him. I had
done the math, I'd calculated the gear inches. I replaced my 36 front
chainring with a 34, and thought that'd suffice. Big mistake. I simply
ground too low, too hard, too long. I was really envying the mountain
bikers with their 28 front/33 rear configurations as we climbed back up
out of Circleville! It was painful. More painful, more difficult than
anything I've ever done - except maybe Rainier. As I climbed up the
hills this weekend, I was reminded of my Rainier climb a lot. Travis and
I would climb 100 yards or so, stop, and I would simply sink to my
knees in the snow. I have never 'hit the wall' like I did on Rainier.
Until the Crusher. With an injured low back, it was twice as miserable. I
finally had to stop, just to walk and stretch my back. As time passed
and I climbed higher, the road got steeper (14% to 16% grade). I
couldn't pedal it. When I got off my bike, I had to stop and lean on it -
I was dizzy, and afraid I'd fall over. At one point, I seriously found
myself cursing the #($*@# who routed that ride. How could he not
recognize that no human could climb this? If he'd popped up on the road,
I honestly would have had to walk away in order to not punch him. I
have never felt that much animosity toward another human being, in my
entire life.
A couple of positive notes… As I finally
crested that hill I came up on Yet Another Aid Station (YAAS). My
digestive system was shot before I started (I'd spent the entire week prior to the race on the road eating restaurant food). I wasn't absorbing nutrition
and I couldn't really drink anything. There were volunteers offering me
bananas (no), watermelon (no), EFS (HECK NO!!)… I kept riding. Then I
saw a guy holding out a shiny red can of Coke. I stopped, smiled a HUGE
grin, pointed, and said "I want THAT!" I drank half the can in one gulp!
Nothing has ever tasted so good in my life. Maybe it was the sugar,
maybe the sodium… I have no idea, but after all the other crap I'd eaten
all day, that was seriously the bee's knees. It kept me moving for the
next 10 miles.
Once I got up that terrible hill, I was
happy again to be riding my cross bike. Honestly, a mountain bike just
can't keep up (as soon as the grade dips below about 5%). It was pretty
much smooth rolling from there - a few hills here and there, a lot of
sorrow, but smooth rolling. I started riding with a guy from Boulder
named Jeff. He out-climbed me on every slope (his cross was set up with a
mountain cassette--getting the picture here?). I passed him on the
downhill (no idea why--that happens a lot with the wheels I was using)
and we rode together on the levels. We were together until the last two
miles--I passed him going down, he passed me going up. It was great to
see him at the finish line.
Months ago I had planned on
swapping to Kool-Stop Salmon pads. I used to ride them on my mountain
bike, back when I was riding a caliper-brake bike. They're designed to
be a bit softer - they wear quicker, but they prevent damaging the rim.
They're perfect for wet, muddy environments. I swapped them onto my
cross bike Friday and I am SO happy for it! Those washboard sections
were murderous, and honestly… Had I been running my stock pads, I'm not
sure I wouldn't have ended up in the mud at least once. Those stock pads
just don't have the braking power, let alone the ability to shed mud
and water.
When I crossed the finish line, I was around
250 of 350 riders. When I left the finish line at around 2:45, there were still about 80
riders on the course. At 3, they swept the course and closed the race.
Greater than 9 hours, you got a DNF. I originally dreamed of a 5:30 race,
figured on a 6:30, but factored an 8:30 worst-case scenario. Was I ever
accurate...
One thing I've learned: I may not be fast
(yet), but I can take a lot of suffering an misery. I can just keep
going and going... This fascination with pain and suffering is actually
part of a personal interest in the stories of survivors. They all share a
couple of common traits: they are incredibly disciplined (they refuse
to entertain thoughts of failure), they are incredibly focused, and they
just never give up. I participate in events like the Crusher in part to
prove to myself that I still have that survival instinct. Every time
life throws something at me, I check myself to make sure I still have it
- I don't ever want to curl up in a ball and give up. While I may have
suffered untold misery, while I missed my goal and my planned completion
times, and while I failed in several ways preparing for the race, I
proved to myself again that, at least until I went to bed Saturday
night, I've still got that survivor mentality. May I never give it up!
LESSONS LEARNED
* Don't travel the week prior to an event. Travel blackout for at least 7 days.
* Get more rest the week before
* MTB cassette
* Spare battery for HRM (my HRM died before the race even started)
* Get digestion worked out
* EFS, GU, Hammer... pick one, use it all season.
* EFS tastes like donkey piss. Develop a taste for it, or use something else. Whatever you do,
don't take a big swig and then spit it out all over some other rider's leg. It's impolite.
* More incredibly long training (should be up to 100 easy miles)
* Two water bottles, no more
* Bring bad weather gear (shoe covers, sleeves)
* One tube is enough. Bring patch kits
* Get low back resolved (muscular)
* Fruit, ESP watermelon, is delicious
