The Epic, Continued...

 A Novice Mountain Biker's Take on Surviving the Trans-Sylvania Epic, Part 2.

Stage 5:  R.B. Winter State Park [Soreness, Snakes, and Wrong Turns]

By Day Five of racing, much soreness had moved into the quad department after the downhill scrambling on Enduro Day.  Scrambling downhill kills your legs more than riding, and I had controlled my fall downhill using my feet instead of the bike.  Weenie-level descending skills can hurt in more ways than one.

Matt and Anthony shuttled me to and from the remote start in R.B. Winter State Park so we wouldn't have to wait for the shuttle. Sweet.

We drove through a green valley dotted with Amish farms; women hanging laundry, men working the fields behind horse teams.  This sparked a discussion about degrees of Amishness and different levels of Amish technology denial/acceptance.  I tried not to think about the heat predictions for the day or how much my quads hurt but my denial ended abruptly when we got to R.B. Winter State Park and I realized my Camelbak, fully assembled and filled with ice water, still hung on my bunk bed back at Lower Eagle.  Greaaaat.  Anthony offered me a spare to borrow and I took it to the park bathroom.  It was uh, green inside. Uh, no.  No bueno.  Think fast.  I had planned to use the Camelbak only to the day's main checkpoint, with a Perpetuem fuel bottle, then leave it in my drop bag and switch to bottles for the second half of the race with the option to get more water at the water stop later in the race.  I had the Perpetuem bottle and a big bottle of Nuun I had brought to sip, which I topped off with more water and another Nuun tablet.  That would have to do.  I had a small amount of extra food.  And  my timing chip secured in the leg of my shorts.  Just in case sudden enduro machismo took over (doubtful).

Not only did I feel tired and sore and dumb for having left my Camelbak, but when we rolled out I saw fellow racers Jordan and Karen working hard up the first road climb on our way to the singletrack and I had a feeling they were out to get me.  Possible heat-induced paranoid delusion.  But up the hill we all went (oh seriously legs, COME ON, work for me, guys, remember?).  Into the narrow singletrack with shoulder-high shrub walls on both sides and the trail ahead trended uphill, smaller rocks studding it like chocolate chips in a cookie.  Except these chips didn't melt in the heat.  I felt immediate need to get ahead and away.  Why?  I just did.  I forgot how much my legs hurt or maybe the increased blood flow brought enough endorphins because they started working again.  Or maybe working the rocks distracted from the soreness.  I scraped into the bushes to get around Karen and Jordan and went after the next few jerseys up the trail.  Matilda the Trek skipped over the rocks and boy, those 29-inch wheels really work.  We gradually entered shade in a forest and the rocks got bigger.

I couldn't shake that feeling of "they're after me!" but it meant I had some gas in the tank. Once you hit empty you stop caring who is in front or who is behind.  Moving on into the second singletrack section, the rock gardens began.  I remember Mike, one of the Stan's crew, standing in one of these telling me to ride it.  I hit it with a lot of momentum but it looked a mile long and a mile wide and I saw no path or line.  I tried anyway and got a little into it, then lost the momentum.  I heard Sue Haywood cleaned the whole thing.  Maybe someday Bob and I can go back to session it a bit.  I remember a second rock garden about as large and I only got maybe a third of the way through that one.  Eventually the rock gardens got uh, a bit smaller and you alternated between good flowy singletrack and intermittent rock cluster problems.  I finally built some momentum and really enjoyed myself, dropping some folks and picking up a few followers who latched on after I passed them.

At one point early on in the race, I remember pausing to make a decision about an odd course marking that pointed onto a fire road then redirected quickly onto a different track diverging from the fire road.  I concluded the markings intended to make you avoid a hole and some debris.  Chris and Libbey tried to tell me I was going the wrong way...then decided I was right and they followed me.

In the day's enduro segment, a descent as scary steep as upper Wildcat from Stage 4 but less rocky, I got a little brave and rode some steepness, intermittently walking when my brain short-circuited then getting back on and riding when I thought about wasting time and how the women behind would catch right up if I leisurely sauntered down everything instead of riding.  I saw other people ride down whooping and hollering.  I rode more.  I rode out the end of it and felt pretty good.

How bad was the big scary old descent?  Well it was like this but about 20 times longer...

And it was ALL saddle-to-the-stomach steep.  Like this.

Climbing up to the main checkpoint of the day I rode along with Derek Bissett and Zach Adams, intrepid enduro contenders riding the course at a more conversational pace.  Conversational for them.  I kept working along but chatted a little when I had breath.   The heat scorched but at that moment we had some semi-shade on the gravel road climb.
Derek:  "Did you know you might be in second place right now for the women?"
Me:  "Um...hahaha.  Nah."
Derek:  "No, seriously.  Most of the pro women took a wrong turn."
Me:     "Well, I can't go any faster" (trying to go a little faster).

We talked of other Transylvanian things...then suddenly:

Derek:  "WOOAAH SNAKE!" (while abruptly veering toward Zach and I).  A four-foot black snake cheerfully cocked its head up at Derek and flicked its tongue inches from his rear wheel. Zach and I found this hilarious.

Kaarin and Lawrence had climbed up behind us and not quite a minute later we heard Lawrence..."SNAKE!" "SNAKE!" and Kaarin shrieking, "LAWRENCE DON'T F$#KING RUN ME OFF THE ROAD!"  Still funny.

The snake enjoyed much notoriety that day.  Perhaps as much as Eagle Lodge's resident rattlesnake that came out to meet us on day one. 

Meanwhile I reached the 13-mile checkpoint and as always the volunteers ran to fetch my drop bag STAT.  They didn't waste a second.  Happy to get my new bottles, I rolled out again wondering about this whole pro-women wrong turn rumor.  Rich O'Neil said, "Go get 'em!" as I left the checkpoint.

Singletrack singletrack singletrack and hot hot hot sun.
Long climb up a grassy narrow track toward the sky a few miles later and I slowly but determinedly tried to keep pace with Kaarin and Lawrence, better climbers, up the trail.  Seven miles to go, read the GPS.  Give or take a bit, knowing the TSE promoters' creative interpretations of distance.  I looked over my shoulder for some reason, and here came Amanda Carey and Sue Haywood charging from behind, looking like serious business.  Oh my.  Derek wasn't pulling my leg.  So where were the other pros?   I moved over to let these two by.
Sue dropped  a few words of encouragement in passing.  I looked back again.
Nobody else coming yet.

Kaarin, Lawrence and I trailed Sue and Amanda out onto a road hitting a fast descent on loose gravel (loose gravel was default for road descents all week) and we all tried to keep them in sight as long as we could.  The road turned up and they flew uphill, where I lost sight of them, but could still see Kaarin and Lawrence.  Climb climb climb.

Into the next singletrack section, and more forest and rocks.  I enjoyed myself, but thought that any second the other pro women would pass me.  This felt dirty.  But it sure made a hot day interesting.  The next singletrack trail proved to be the last and I climbed hard as I could.  Still no women behind me though I kept thinking:  any second now.
Out of the woods and onto the road going downhill.  I rode in maniac mode all the way down to the finish line, where I got a bit loopy and vague while talking to Kaarin and Lawrence.  Being kind souls they got me some cold water and electrolyte tabs.  Thanks you two!
After that I joined everyone wading in the ice-cold lake at the park until I couldn't feel my legs.  Total numbness, ahhh, the best sensation I'd had from my legs in days.  I didn't want to get out of the lake even though I couldn't stand to go in over my waist.  Kaarin on the other hand said, "I'm from Nova Scotia.  This isn't cold."  And she jumped right in and paddled around.
I had sneaked my dirty, no-good cheating carcass into fifth place.  Andrea Wilson and Sonya Looney had NOT made the same wrong turn as the others and came in first and second, not finding out till after they'd finished;  Amanda rolled in third, Sue fourth, me fifth, with Vicki and Sara finishing RIGHT behind me. 

Finally finishing Stage 5!  Dracula watches from the road.

Kaarin and Lawrence laughed off the Snake Encounter after the stage.  Although the Bridge Incident of Stage 6 would further test their resiliency.

Matt and Anthony remained frustrated in not regaining their third-place GC spot from earlier in the week.  Unfortunately Anthony had taken the same wrong turn as the pro women and he and Matt lost more time on Stage 5.  In addition, Anthony's back continued to hurt for the rest of the race.

That night Mike and Ray (the promoters) reviewed the next day's course with us as always.  40 miles, 5500 feet of climbing, temperatures forecast for the 90s and sunny.  Neutral rollout from camp at 9:30am.  Kaarin raised her hand to ask if the stage would actually start at 9:30 OR 9:10 as it was listed in the printed race guide.  The decision was made:  stick to the time printed in the race guide.  Many people booed Kaarin and she quickly seized the DOUCHE bag and put it on her head.  
Back story on the DOUCHE bag: one of the singlespeeders decided that if you missed your podium at awards (like Dave Yacobelli did just one night), someone would stand on your step of the podium in the DOUCHE bag, a paper bag you put over your head that said...yeah, you get the idea. Now, Dave Yacobelli is NOT a douche, and made sure not to miss his podiums after that, since he spent days holding onto 3rd place in GC after WINNING the stage on Day 4.  I apologize for not mentioning that in my Stage 4 writeup.  It's almost as hard writing up a report on a race like TSE as it is racing for seven days straight, and if Dave missed one night's GC podium, it had to be due to sheer tiredness.  

As it turns out I don't think anybody thought Kaarin was a DOUCHE either, because on a day forecast to be that hot, early starts are good.  

But...5500 MORE feet of climbing?  In 90-plus temperatures?

I thought I'd dug myself into too deep a hole and would come out dead for the last two days.  If any of you have read Mike Festa's blog on "How to Be Awesome at the Transylvania Epic" I can tell you right now that I was NOT awesome there.  I wasn't even moderately cool.  I wish I could have stayed up later to enjoy Upper Eagle's night life and drank more and hung out more with that awesome Pisgah crew that totally had it going on, but heck I was too damn tired at night.  Maybe next year I will have better endurance.  Although next year maybe I can't come.  I will have put the money toward getting a mountain bike of my own that can take this race on, maybe for 2015.  Poor LiLynn probably lay awake late every night wondering if her beloved Matilda would come back to her in one piece.

I know just how hard a choice I made to race Transylvania instead of buying a new bike, but I'm not sorry.  I know now that the bike I did want (the Cannondale F-29er), being a hardtail, would not have gotten me through a mountain bike stage race as tough and rocky as this one.  And when come back I think the Cannondale Scalpel 29er would be my weapon of choice, with Reba my 26 full-suspension as the backup and possible enduro bike.

But I digress.  I fell asleep that night almost immediately.  I know.  Not awesome.

  Stage 6: Rothrock Tussey Mountain [RockRock Fun in the Sun]

The "Queen Stage" promised the most amazing views and superiorly awesome singletrack of the week.
The heat began building during breakfast for another scorching day of racing..
Early in the race, after the pack broke up in the first few miles one of the other women, I'm not clear on name, really seemed to want to beat me uphill.  Even though I'd gotten up feeling MUCH less stiff and sore than the day before, I still needed to get some blood flowing.  It took another mile or so of climbing to find my legs and get some breathing room from my antagonist.  Maybe if I opened some room up right away she'd leave me alone for a while.  I wouldn't go any harder than I needed to with such a long hot day ahead, and knew that to ride through the most technical sections as fast as I could I needed to keep the pace and momentum consistent.  The climb continued onto grassy doubletrack for a long time and I picked up and dropped a few small groups of people. 
LOTS of climbing today.   Nearing the very top of Tussey Ridge, I rode through a long section of rocks piled on each side of the trail and more rocks scattered in the middle.  A groundhog stood in the middle of the trail and saw me coming.  He slowly ran up the hill, stopping about every ten feet to look back and check my progress, almost like he wanted me to follow him somewhere.  Like the scene with Mr. Beaver in the Chronicles of Narnia.  We proceeded together up the trail for maybe a half mile together, before he finally left the trail.  Which is good, because nobody saw me talking to the woodchuck.

Tussey Ridge:  Gorgeous, yet hot enough to fry an egg on the rocks.

More rocks.  I ended up riding along again for a long, long time mid-stage without even a woodchuck to keep me company.  This usually happened to me mid-stage every day but gave me motivation to find someone to ride with.  After plenty of quality time sheltered in forest shade during the stage, Tussey Ridge's views didn't disappoint.  The more open sky welcomed a few more flying insects than I liked (especially the stinging type) and while I passed one rider shortly before topping the ridge riding alone in this remote area kept me moving fast as I could.  I LOVED the trail on Tussey.  Very narrow between the tall grass with plenty of rocks hidden in the grass to make life interesting if you strayed from the path.
The day's two enduro segments came nearly back-to-back descending Tussey Mountain and for a while I thought I'd been transported back to Sidewinder Trail in Raystown Lake, with the looping switchbacks.  SO MUCH fun!  We also got to ride the Three Bridges again coming from the opposite direction on a very rocky section of trail.  I rode a stone bridge heading downhill toward the Three Bridges that would have looked awfully big and scary to me a week ago.  I think my brain had a lot to process every day after each stage but in the moment it's so much easier not to think or worry.

Descending Tussey Ridge in the endless fern forests.

Later in the stage the heat started to wear on me a bit, especially with the gravel road climbs in the last few miles, and the miles got long.  I rode behind Devon Balet heading toward the finish and on the last sections of gravel road and trail.  He had a huge backpack on full of camera equipment and still it seemed like he could ride away from me easily.  Devon took my current profile photo during Stage 5 and posted that one plus many others on pinkbike.com.  Nearing the finish the Garmin had ticked away almost 4 hours and FINALLY after a short unfamiliar stretch of grown-in track I recognized the trail leading down to the finish (the same finish location as Stage 3).    Massive relief.  I wanted to sit in the shade with all the other recent finishers and hang out but feared if I sat down I'd stiffen up too much to get up.  So I mixed and drank some Recoverite from the table of Hammer-provided goodies, chased it with cold, COLD water, and rode straight back to camp with John Williams.  If you believed in showering and freshening up before nap time (which I did), best to get back to the lodge early.  I had plenty of time to shower and lie around for a bit before dinner, but I decided to lie in the pool for half an hour before showering and then I went back to Buck late that afternoon and had him work on my dead quads and take some of the painful kinks out of my neck.  I told him he needed to fix me so I would survive one more day.

I held onto seventh on the stage, having opened up a decent amount of time on whoever had been chasing me earlier (maybe Beverly Richardson).  If I could stay seventh through the end, I'd be SO happy with that.  Remember, I came into this race worrying about time cuts!

Kaarin and Lawrence had a really funny story to tell about The Bridge Incident.  Here's Abe's photo sequence.   Perhaps you can piece together what happened...

One of the most wonderful aspects of Transylvania is that you don't just race and go home.  You spend the day with the other racers on and off the trail.  You all share the day's epic trail stories of what happened over a beer before dinner, and then again during dinner.  That time you went over the bars.  The SNAKE!  That time we fell off the bridge.  That time you almost ate it REALLY badly but kept it up.  That poor guy who overcooked a loose gravel downhill, fell down into the woods, unsuccessfully yelled for help for about an hour then crawled out of the woods on his hands and knees with a broken foot (this actually happened and he couldn't finish the race).  You make fun of that one guy at the lodge who's ALWAYS working on his bike and it's NOT broken.  If I was riding a Cannondale Scalpel I'd give that sweet thing some love every day too.  You ask if anybody has seen the Eagle Lodge rattlesnake lately.  Yes it did come back and was seen several times by Eagle residents.

And then at dinner, after results and podiums, you watched Abe Landes' double show:  first a slideshow with the day's photos set to music, and then video highlights from the day.  People laughed, hooted, cheered and clapped.  Great way to end dinner before you headed back to the lodge with your buddies and talked some more while getting your bike ready, laying out your gear for the next day and planning your checkpoint/drop bag strategy.  Maybe you had a beer, or a small shot of rum or bourbon, in the case of Allen and I.

Sue Haywood gives a textbook cornering illustration

Stage 7:  Bald Eagle Little Poe [The End, Already?]

Mike and Ray warned us the night before that although many people opted to party on the trails on the last day, we shouldn't "screw around too much out there" because it wouldn't be considerate to the volunteers.  SO while they encouraged a BIT of screwing around, beer-chugging, and whatever other shenanigans might happen, they said they WOULD be enforcing time cuts.  Jordan Salman had also asked me if I planned to race or "just ride."  I wasn't sure.  I felt pretty tired but still wanted to see just how fast I could finish the whole thing, and what my time would be for the entire week.  But I didn't realize how I really felt until the next day.  Besides, I came to challenge myself and "screwing around on the trails" wouldn't be a challenge.  I know what Mike Festa would say.  Definitely NOT awesome.  Lame.  But you wouldn't you know, a couple of those other girls wanted to race anyway so things got interesting around the end of Stage 7.

Of course first we had a whole day of racing to get through.  But not TOO long a day.

After leaving camp and getting into the first singletrack of the day, I just had a blast playing on the rocks.  I heard Kaarin pipe up behind me letting me know she and Lawrence were behind and she might want to get by but wasn't sure yet..."You're good for now."  I was having THE TIME of my life on the rocks that day and just going at them, motivated, unafraid, making a plan and sticking to it, and trying my best to FLOAT over them.  Kaarin laughed out loud behind me as I lunged at and over another group of rocks.  "YOU'RE no roadie!" she said.  I had confessed to Kaarin very early in the week that I probably had no business doing this race.  I said to her after stage 5, "At what point do I get to stop thinking about myself as a roadie posing on a mountain bike?"  She said, "HA! About three days ago."   Once we got to a real climb though, I pulled to the side and let Kaarin and Lawrence by then tried to hold close to their pace uphill with my tired legs.

Making my way down a short gravel descent.

Climbing up to the day's main checkpoint I got to spend a little time riding with Matt after passing Anthony early on in one of the rock gardens, whose back pained him enough that he had to walk some of the biggest rocks.  Matt and Anthony had been penalized an hour the day before for not staying within one minute of each other during the stage, since they were competing in the men's duo category.  So Matt rode easy with me until just before the checkpoint, where he hung back a bit to wait for Anthony.  Then I continued on back into the woods by myself.

There were numerous Dracula sightings in the woods today and he gave out beer handups.  Yes, Dracula.  It's Transylvania.  Of course Dracula's there.

My Lower Eagle buddy Matt getting a cold fresh PBR from Dracula.

In the last few miles of the race leading back to camp, Karen Brooks caught up to me.  Okay maybe I had slowed a little, maybe I felt tired after 7 days of racing (DUH) but then it was ON.  I let her pass me, she got caught up in a tricky little uphill rock bit and had to unclip, blocking me riding it, so I jumped off, passed her running, cyclocross remount and then I took off at cyclocross pace.  NO Karen I like you a lot and I think DirtRAG is an AWESOME magazine but I am still racing and you have to catch me again now and maybe you will but I'm not going to make it too easy for you.

You know it really didn't matter, but maybe I like this cat-and-mouse game stuff.  So I rode hard hard and recognized that we only had four or five miles back to camp.  The course had a "balloon on a string" look on the map, and we were onto the string and heading for home base.  For camp.  For the end of the race.  The END.  Better to finish with a BANG.  Matt caught up to me just before a short very steep climb that had been a descent for the time trial stage.  He said gleefully,"Just so you know there are two women about 45 seconds back and they're chasing you."  I said thanks, ran up the hill, remounted and tore off again as fast as I could, gasping.  I may have heard him chuckling as I took off.

And back to racing in maniac mode, I took corners and rocks and everything as fast as I dared, convinced Karen would be on me in a heartbeat if I bobbled, just like I jumped her when she dabbed in the rocks.  Ducking and weaving I finally came out of the "newly cut" singletrack and saw the lake, the camp, the finish line.  One more last loop over the footbridge (and I heard the Stan's NoTubes women and Sonya cheering for me).  Around the lake, down the concrete stairs by the campfire circle (remember how the concrete stairs surprised me on day 1?  And scared me?  No more).  Back over the creek and down to the finish.  

And that was the race.  I'd finished the whole seven days.   In seventh.

Karen and Jordan--yes Jordan was the other woman--finished a few minutes later.   AH you foxy ladies thought you'd get me on Day 7.  Karen and I laughed at each other.  Matt rolled in laughing at me.  "Did you like that?  Yeah?  I just had to tell you that because I KNEW you'd take off!"  

Sue demonstrates important technical skill for Stage 8.  The crutch belongs to (I THINK) Jon Stang, the unfortunate racer who fell down a ravine and broke his foot (in yellow shirt on left).

There was an early dinner that night.  There was much drinking of beer, and laughing, and after final awards we all filed in to receive our finishers' prizes (a custom multi tool).  Damn.  I wanted a hatchet.  Oh well.  There was some sadness realizing it was over.  But the great news?  Everybody pretty much stayed over that night to party.  We had one more magic night with our new mountain bike friends.

We were all invited to Stage 8.  Stage 8 involved many things including the Stans' NoTubes pro women in costumes, beer, brooms, bicycles, the lake, beer, Sue Haywood in a Batman costume, fireworks, traffic cones...beer.  I posted a Facebook video.  You really just had to be there, though.

This is the end of the race reporting, but I still may have a bit more to say about Transylvania.  Stay tuned.

Thank you again, Abe Landes, for your gorgeous photos.

Back to reality: some thoughts on going back to normal life, post-TSE.