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Dave Nerrow's Furnace Creek 508 Report, Part 2
By Dave Nerrow
10/14/2008 |
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Dave Nerrow is an accomplished marathoner, triathlete, ultra runner and ultra cyclist. He's also the owner of the top multisport store in the Boston area, Fast Splits. His latest endeavor was racing the Furnace Creek 508 - a grueling ride through Death Valley. Here's Part 2 of his report.Check out Part 1 here. Check out a gallery of images here.
Down the other side for a 17-mile descent into Death Valley at 6pm was spectacular. As I descended below sea level, the heat picked up immediately and amazingly, thick lightning storms, black clouds, and a double rainbow at the other end of the Valley was our next destination. (See image #1 at top)
Death Valley was a reasonable fast ride, but my body was unhappy. Difficult leg cramps forced a couple of stops and massages between my gasps and teeth grinding grunts. It sucked, quite frankly. But then the rain started…and a small sand devil storm…and then the headwinds again. Sparing more details, it quite simply was very difficult. By now it was night, I was riding with full lights and we could occasionally see the blinking taillights of other crew vehicles and riders up the road. While they looked like only hundreds of meters ahead, it would take hours to catch them. Hours.
By TS 3 at Mile 253 in 12h 56min (Furnace Creek), I slid to 12th. Ugh. I stopped again, had some awesome hot soup, massaged the legs and was off. The next 50 miles were quite good and I was rolling the Guru very well. But now my mind started to be uncooperative. I was drifting asleep and wandering around the road a bit. I was having mild hallucinations of seeing people gardening on the side of the road, white ghost spots floating above the desert floor, and scorpions under my tires. Yes, I did roll over about 6 scorpions with my tire, but post race conversation revealed that not one other racer or crew saw a single such creature. But I’m telling you, I crushed ‘em like ants. They were there, really. I began negotiating with BD for a 5 minute nap in the crew van. The response was a NoDoz pill and a Starbucks Frappucino. But still, I couldn’t revive. My renegotiation was met with the same prescription 20 mins later, but with the painfully truthful commentary of “we’ll let you nap, and you will finish this event, but your race will be over.” Gulp. So I pounded the NoDoz and pushed on.
TS 4 at Mile 327 was 60 miles longer than I’ve ever ridden in one sitting. But I had moved into 10th, thanks both to perseverance, and a rising DNF rate. Death Valley was now behind me, along with the long climb in and the doubly painful long climb out. Much of the next 60 miles I frankly don’t recall, although I was feeling decent and the scraggly lights of Baker, CA and its iconic “World’s Largest Thermometer” standing brightly lit 100 feet tall was our next TS.
TS 5 at Mile 387 was a brightly lit gas station, where a 20-25 minute stop was my longest of the race. The 9th place rider and I were in the TS together, but truly unaware of each other’s presence and he rolled out before I could even notice. I laid on the ground next to the pumps, propped myself on an elbow to have more soup, and by now was generally awake, despite being on the bike for 21h 34min. It was 4:30 am. We exited the time station and made a 1 mile wrong turn which cost a seemingly innocuous 4-5 minutes. Then began a 25 mile climb at 2-3%. This may seem like a gentle grade, but my 11.6 mph average speed to the next time station might give you a better sense of the grade and the fatigue. I was back on the BMC now and spent the next two hours with little crew interaction (at night the crew van follows directly behind the rider). For 2+ hours I pedaled the same rythym which I counted in my head over and over: 200 sitting pedal strokes, 50 standing strokes…rinse, repeat. I was still generally happy, but the fatigue was really setting in.
TS 6 at Mile 418 in 24h 35min had me waiting a few minutes for a long freight train to cross the middle of the Mojave. The oddest part of the train moment was that Brian had to pull alongside in the van and tell me to watch out for a train. The normal senses were not at 100%, lets just say. And I had closed 12 minutes on the rider in front of me and was now in 9th place. It was finally daylight again, but with this came a 10+ mile plodding climb. The crew urged me to chase the rider up the road, whom I could occasionally see as the pencil-straight road dipped and rose occasionally. But the hallucinations returned a bit again, and I swore that rider was standing on the roadside waving his arms at me. I rode up to him, but he wasn’t there. I even looked behind the tumbleweed-style plants and sand drifts for him…but he wasn’t there. I know this sounds bizarre, but the Lunatic Fringe demands that you deal with such suspended reality. (See image #2 at top)
TS 7 at Mile 456 in 26h 32 min left me into 5th place. I remember catching only two riders during the pre-dawn hours, but the fatigue plays games and obviously I had passed a third as well, all with the “200 sitting, 50 standing” metronome. And finally, toward the end of a 20 mile descent, I caught that f-in hallucinatory rider whom the crew were urging me to chase. I was really really tired, though. The desert heat was returning, and I had to stop and peel off the arm warmers, vest, leg warmers and full gloves that I had worn most of the night.
The press to the finish was on, but the last 53 miles included a 5 mile climb, heat, and this unfortunate matter of actually having to race some dude who was in my vicinity and, while wavering all over the road, wasn’t quite dead yet. Ugh. But the winds were favorable and the Guru was super fast on the flats. I put 12 minutes into the guy now chasing me and pushed hard to the finish. But then the wheels started to come off. With 15 miles to go and 495 miles behind me I could not muster more than 10 mph on the flat straight rode to civilization. We tried everything, cold water, caffeine, sugar, massage, bike changes…anything to get the mojo back. And then the impossible became real…at mile 507 the 12 minute gap I had worked so hard to earn evaporated…poof. I chased as best I could, but the response was useless. I had been passed for 5th place and slipped to 6th. I remember even apologizing to the crew miles earlier for being a pussy and letting this happen. For some reason, I could just sense that the pass was coming. They all laughed, of course.
So that was it…I rolled over 509.6 miles in 6th place in 30h 22min. That’s a damn long time in the saddle. Even though I had not removed my helmet in 31 hours, all I could care about was sitting down. Salted-up, spent, and groggy, it was tough to even sit still. (see image #3 at top)
Final Thoughts
Nutrition: I existed almost exclusively on about 12 bottles of liquid Perpetuem plus 8 bottles of HEED. That Perpetuem stuff is money! Gels every 30 mins for the first 8-10 hours helped, but they were replaced by a half-Coke half-water mix when the gel paste was too much to take. I ate maybe 12 Payday candy bars, a few fistfuls of potato chips, 2 small bags of Skittles, half of a watermelon, 1 Starbucks Frappucino, 2 cups of soup, perhaps 50 Endurolytes, 20 ibuprofen, 3 NoDoz, 1 PBJ sandwich, 2 bananas, and 20 grapes. All in, it felt like a lot of food at the time, but Jesse’s “all pain / unhappy diet” would rank this among the worst race fueling performances of the modern era. Oh well.
Equipment: I used my 53c BMC road frame with a Zipp 808 Powertap and Reynolds carbon clincher front for roughly 170 miles. I rode an oversized 55c Guru Chrono with Zipp Sub 9 Powertap Disc and same Reynolds carbon clincher front for the remaining 340 miles. The BMC had a Selle SMP saddle (that funky full split version) and the Guru had a Fizik. Very good to mix up the saddles, I think. All components were SRAM Red with 12/26 gearing in rear. BMC had compact 50/34 front chainrings. Believe me, the extra gearing was a blessing.
Clothing: I never changed my shorts. Sounds gross, and it is. Assos bib shorts under a short sleeve Psycho skinsuit, with Assos white arm coolers, gloves, shoes (never took them off either) with wind covers. Lots of A+D Ointment for saddle “issues”. I know its expensive, but that Assos stuff is game-changing product. Makes all the other kit materials out there look like Kmart make-at-home clothing.
What hurts? Absolutely every single body part. I fell off the bike once when cramped, so a nice raspberry and hip bruise began at mile 225. My saddle “region” hurts so much that I cannot really walk normally. No bleeding, but man oh man. That initial ‘shower burn’ 20 mins post race as we all know it, hurt so much that I leapt out of the tub and started puking. The rest of the body feels like I’ve been punched for hours. One finger remains numb (even now) for some unexplained reason. Oh well.
Speed and times? My average of 16.8 mph put me 100 minutes ahead of my optimistic finish goal, so I am quite happy. The 2x winner rolled at 18.5 mph, beating me by 2h 54min. My first 100 miles were in 4:48, the second hundred in 4:32, for 200 miles in 9:15. I went through 112 miles in 5:18, FYI. Watts? I watched watts for about 30 minutes and then ignored completely. I will look at the data, but with all the bike switching etc., it will be impossible to ascertain. I would be surprised if the average was 170. Sounds weak, but consider that this was 30+ hours of saddle time, 160,000 pedal strokes, 35,000 feet of climbing, etc. It took 8+ hours for my average HR to drop below 150, at which point I probably settled in the 135 range before the very late hours when 120 was a struggle.
Thank you, Spence, for predicting hallucinations. Excerpted from the long report: Around Mile 275 I was drifting asleep and wandering around the road a bit. I was having mild hallucinations of seeing people gardening on the side of the road, white ghost spots floating above the desert floor, and scorpions under my tires. Yes, I did roll over about 6 scorpions with my front tire, but post race conversation revealed that not one other racer or crew saw a single such creature. But I’m telling you, I crushed ‘em like ants. They were there, really. And during the second morning around 10am I swore that a rider was standing on the roadside waving his arms at me. I rode up to him, but he wasn’t there. I even looked behind the tumbleweed-style plants and sand drifts for him…but he wasn’t there. I know this sounds bizarre, but the Lunatic Fringe demands that you deal with such suspended reality. And FYI, Travelocity’s Traveling Gnome is a real person, not a hallucination! (see image #4 at top)
Well, for anyone who has endured an ultra event on feet, saddle, ocean, mountain climb or otherwise, you know that the experience cannot be adequately relayed via email. Thank you to everyone for your email and phone support. It is truly great to have such support and helps make this all worthwhile.
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