As the name implies it is a 24 hour cycling marathon, made up of 3 loops that all start at Thornapple Middle School in Middleville, MI, about 20 miles southeast of Grand Rapids:
Loop 1 - 121.3 miles - you must average 12.5 mph or else you don't advance to Loop 2.
Loop 2 - 23.7 miles - theoretically you also must accumulatively average 12.5 mph or else you don't advance to Loop 3 for the rest of the race. For the strong riders, they will ride Loop 2 several times before it closes at 9 pm.
Loop 3 - 7.5 miles - There is no time pressure on this loop. You ride this as many times as you want up to 8 am on Sunday morning.
All three loops have checkpoints that you must ride to in order to get your mileage documented.
In 2010, Ron, Lige and I all completed Loop 1. I only made it 8 miles into Loop 2 before severe leg cramps made me park the bike and head back to the hotel in Grand Rapids. Lige was severely exhausted after Loop 1 and never made it to the 2nd loop. The temps were in the mid 90's all day, it was realy windy and of course a lot of rolling hills. Considering the conditions I was fairly pleased with my total miles. Ron rode thru the evening and early into the morning before retiring after riding 205.8 miles. To give you some additional perspective, the winner of this event in 2010 rode 494.8 miles !!!! After last year's event all 3 of us decided we were coming back and improve on our total mileage in 2011.
2011 Summary Totals from my Garmin:
Distance: 222.23 mi
Time: 20:19:03 h:m:s
Elevation Gain: 5,643 ft
Avg Speed: 10.9 mph
- Actually at 24 hours this works out to 9.26 mph.
Avg HR:125 bpm
Avg Bike Cadence:85 rpm
Calories:7,647 C
Official results:
221.2 total miles.
58th overall out of 91 recorded distances.
161st out of 289, including tandems and recumbent rider entries.
21st out of 36 in my age group-50-54.
The official results are posted on their website noted above.
The overall winner was John Schlitter, a recumbent rider from Florida with 487.6 miles. The first time in history a recumbent rider won it. This guy passed me so many times on the night loop. He was incredible. I only got to see his face a couple of times, but I'm guessing he was in his late 50's. He was like a machine!. Last year's champion, Chris Ragsdale(M30-34) from Seattle ended up 4th overall with a mere 427.6 miles. This guy is also a machine but during one of the later night loops I saw him drafting behind the winner and figured he was starting to tire out.
This is a very well organized and in some ways a "fun" event. The routes are on very low travelled roads for the most part with Loop 3 having County Sheriff's and large lights in each corner and busy intersections. Our son Kenny provided sag support service throughout the ride for the 3 of us. Thanks Kenny.
I would say this year's 24 Hour Challenge was my biggest accomplishment on a bike for the following reasons:
-222 miles broke my old single ride record of 170 miles (I think this was on my 1st RAIN ride where there was a detour after Greenfield a few years ago that added 5 miles to the ride).
-I've never ridden any significant distance in the dark before, let alone 82.5 miles.
Within our ride group, there was a lot of chat about cramping and nutrition at this event and other long distance events. As most of you know I have had a history of severe cramp attacks. It ruined last year's 24 Hour Challenge for me at mile 130. But this year, cramping was not a big problem.
I think the big difference for me was my pre-ride hydration plan - For 3 days prior to the ride, I drank no soda pop or alcoholic beverages and I drank more water than usual. During the ride, I used a 72 oz hydration pack with NUUN electrolyte tablets and ended up drinking 3 of those thru Loops 1 and 2. In addition I had two 22 oz Camelback Podium ICE bottles filled with ice water. I used those to cool off my head and neck and for when I got tired of drinking NUUN water. With out a doubt these new Podium ICE water bottles are the best ones on the market. On a hot day, if you fill the bottle full of ice and then water, you will still have ice in that bottle 3-4 hours later!!! If you are like me, I can't stand warm water on a long hot bike ride.
On the food front, I followed some of Dr. Mark's advice by munching on some protein filled beef jerky throughout the ride and taking an ice cold swig of chocolate milk as needed at the sag stops(see picture of the finished bottle just before my last night loop). I also ate copious amounts of fruit - apples and oranges in particular, but also some bananas throughout the ride. On the night loops it was all apples and oranges and just ice water. The other key diet item for me, especially at night were Cliff Shots. I would chomp off 2 sections of the Black Cherry w/ Caffeine shots after each loop. In between Loop 2 and starting the night loop, Kenny grilled up some tasty hamburgers and hotdogs for dinner. MMMMMMM!
For me, there are 2 key pieces of data that I use to monitor my performance and health while riding -
1. My heart rate. During the day, I make sure to not go over 150 unless climbing a long steep hill. And over the long haul, I want to stay at or below 140. During the night riding my heart rate never got over 125.
2. My cadence. With my bad knee, high RPM's is the only way I can survive riding these long distances. I try to ride at 90 RPM's at all times outside of the hills. If I start seeing myself dropping to 75-80 RPM's, I will shift down regardless how I'm feeling.
My only disappointment was that this old Boy Scout made a wrong turn (again aka 3S3M in 2010) and it caused Lige and I to go WAY OFF course, miss the 2nd checkpoint and to run out of water. I was really mad and disappointed at myself over that boneheaded move. I felt like I had let Lige and myself down, as well as Ron and Kenny. Lige and I ended up riding 56 miles from the 1st checkpoint before hooking up with Kenny. I had stopped at a farmhouse and asked a little old lady for some water which she gladly obliged. This kept Lige and I going until Kenny found us. When we finally hooked up, I had steam coming out of my ears and was on the verge of throwing in the towel, assuming we would be DQ'd and not able to continue. Fortunately, Lige and Kenny's calmer heads intervened. We rested some, ate some real food, filled up our empty water and NUUN containers and proceeded on to checkpoint 3 where we arrived ahead of Ron who had been ahead of us before I made the wrong turn. We had a little fun at the stop asking Ron what took him so long to get here. We told him that we had blown past him but he didn't hear us. After 10 or so minutes, the 3 of us couldn't hold back laughter anymore and proceeded to tell Ron our story. It was a much needed light-hearted moment. Sorry Ron.
We rode on to the end of Loop 1 arriving about 4:45. I talked to the race director about continuing, and the good news is that we were allowed to continue riding loops 2 and 3. Our Garmin's were used to document our actual miles for Loop 1 which totaled 116 miles. As a result we were only 5 miles off the total mileage for Loop 1 when we finished it. Loop 2 was fairly uneventful which was a good thing for me. I took a very long rest afterwards and didn't start my first night loop until 9:30.
It took about 5 laps of the night loop before I really started enjoying it. As Ron described it last year, it is very surreal seeing all those headlights and blinking red tail-lights going down the road. My energy picked up after my last nap which I woke up from at 3:15 am. I completed 5 of my 11 laps from 3:15-7:00. Go figure.
Some final observations:
-Sunrise was awesome! You get so used to the darkness and then suddenly riding north I looked to the east and saw a feint tint of orange on the horizon. By the time I made it to the last road into town going south, I started hearing the birds chirping. I've heard that many times before on campouts and the occasional early bike ride start but this time it kind of energized me for some reason.
-The next lap after seeing the sun starting to rise while riding on the last road, I started seeing what appeared to be several small birds flying away that were on the road. After about 10 of these birds took off in front of me, I looked closer and they appeared to be bats. Very cool.
-On my 11th and final lap, I brought my camera with me and took some pictures along the course. I've attached them here along with several others Kenny and I took during the day.
PS.
I found out that there was a crash near the start of Loop 1. It happened as the pack was heading east into the town of Middleville. I found a blog posting that described it: "The 29th edition of the national 24 hour challenge began at 8 am saturday in Middleville, Michigan. Over 300 riders including 12 recumbent riders and 1 handcycler, Bill Schwartz. John Schlitter and Kent Polk of team bacchetta led the peloton into the 1st loop of 121.3 miles. As they approached the center of Middlleville the police who were doing traffic control let a car into the intersection. John was ahead of Kent so they both braked, the peleton closed the gap without slowing, not sure what happened but Kent was hit,went down and was run over by at least two other riders. His carbon aero suffered a broken fork and he had scrapes and strains. Kent was out of the race which ment he could crew for John who went 487.4 miles, set a new recumbent record and for the 1st time in the history of the event a bent rider was 1st overall. John's win on a difficult course against many of the best distance riders in the midwest including several RAAM competitors was very impressive. Bill Schwartz, the handcyclist , was also most impressive in that he used his arms to go over 250 miles."
Here are some pictures from this year's event.
Left-Right - Ron, Lige and Tom
At the Start of the race. Approximately 300 riders started. 289 riders recorded official mileage. 208 recorded mileage in excess of 200 miles.
Above: Night riding. Loop 3 Checkpoint, Yours truly and The dedicated volunteers manning the night loop checkpoint. They kept things light-hearted, sometimes by telling jokes or just being goofy. It takes a lot for someone to volunteer and man a checkpoint like this from midnight to 8 am!!!!
MMMM Chocolate Milk! Sustanance
A rider on a double decker Bike?
Small Horse Farm we pedaled by early into the night loop route.
Middleville Water Tower.
Close Up of the souped up double decker bicycle. Someone told me that the person who rode this always rides it on his last lap.
Kenny, our dedicated ride support staff sound asleep in the tent around 6:00 am Sunday morning. Thanks Kenny for sharing this event with me on Fathers' Day. I had a great time. Love Dad
