I am so excited, I can hardly think. Why? Because a week from today, I’ll be heading off to Leadville, to race my tenth consecutive Leadville 100.

Think of your very favorite annual tradition, but not the way you think of it now. Think of the way you felt about it when you were a kid.

That’s how I feel about the Leadville 100 race. It’s not just a race, it’s a tradition, full of mystery and drama. No, it’s more than that: it’s an important annual ritual.

Ritual of the Food
“What should I eat? What should I drink?” Over on the Leadville discussion boards, this is one of the most frequent recurring questions. The answer is simple: eat what you’ve been eating. Drink what you’ve been drinking. This answer is true for every endurance race, but every year I see people break the rule and try something new and improved for the race.

Almost invariably, these people regret their choice.

I used to have such a complex array of foods and drinks that I needed to print up a list for my crew: what to have available at each aid station. Spiz (yes, Spiz), sandwiches, gels, multiple kinds of energy drinks, you name it.

This year, my list is much shorter: at each aid station, I will have my mom (part of my Leadville tradition is to alternate having my mom and dad crew for me; this year it’s mom’s turn) refill my Camelbak with lukewarm water, while I slug down a container of Chicken and Stars soup. I will then replenish my supply of Clif Shot Bloks and go.

Water. Soup. Shot Bloks. That’s all I need. Why? I can’t chew solid food while I’m endurance racing at 10,000-12,600 feet; my mouth needs to stay open for breathing.

Oh, and I’ll probably have a Clif bar or two and some gels handy, because I am a rebel.

Ritual of the Clothes
I love standing around in the pre-dawn as we wait for the starting gun (a shotgun) to go off. This gives me a chance to inspect what everyone’s riding and what everyone’s wearing. You see people dressed like they’re about to do the Iditabike: tights, earwarmers, heavy jackets over long-sleeved jerseys. And you see people who look like they’re on the bike leg of a triathlon: sleeveless jersey, short shorts. You may even see someone in a skinsuit (that aero advantage really matters, you know).

As for me, I wear the shorts and short-sleeved jersey I’ve been wearing while training the whole year, and some armwarmers I’ll get rid of at mile 40. Dance with the girl what brung ya.

Ritual of the Bike
What kind of bike should you ride for a 100 mile race? The same bike you’ve been riding the whole year, that’s what. But what about tires? Same thing.

And yet, each year I see someone who’s outfitted their bike with aero bars. Each year I see someone who’s using the race as the maiden voyage of a brand new bike.

And to tell the truth, I’m making some modifications to my own bike this year. But that deserves an entry of its own. I will call this entry “Weapon of Choice.”

Ritual of the Plan
Are you going out hard, or easy? Are you paying attention to splits, or just seeing how your legs feel? I’ve tried it practically every way. I honestly don’t know the right answer. I think everyone gets the time they deserve.

As for myself, I already have nine “Finisher” buckles, so I’m not worried about whether I can complete the race. This year—in spite of some serious doubt as to whether I have it in me—I’m going to do what I can to finish this race in under nine hours.

Things I Haven’t Talked About Lately
Some of you may remember I said I would give away my Bianchi Pista if I didn’t lose 20 pounds and get to 155 by Leadville. I think most of you suspected that since I wasn’t talking about my weight, I wasn’t losing any.

Today, I weigh 157. If I were you, I wouldn’t count on getting a Pista from me.

More than that, though, at 157 pounds, I am climbing well again. In fact—and I hope I am not jinxing myself—I sometimes feel like I am faster than I have ever been before. Today, for example, I did my 20 mile commute (which includes a four-mile, 1500-foot climb) in 1:05. Including stoplights. And yesterday, when riding my favorite climbing trail, Tibble Fork, I found myself in second, third, and fourth gear, where I’ve never been in anything but granny before.

Maybe this means I’m fast this year. Maybe it means I have a shot at finishing under nine hours.

Maybe it means I’m deluding myself.

On August 12, I guess I’ll find out.

I want to be perfectly clear: everything about this whole post is hypothetical. It is not based on any real person, and besides, that person wouldn’t want me to betray his or her trust by blogging about his or her dilemma in a public forum. If in fact that hypothetical person is not me.

If that person existed, I mean. Which he or she does not. Because this is a hypothetical situation.

Are we clear on that?

 

The (Hypothetical) Situation: Perspective 1

Suppose, for a moment, that you—though of course this is not about you, nor about anyone real, for this is a hypothetical situation—had signed up for a bike race. It’s a really difficult bike race, and as a realist, this hypothetical version of you knew that there’s a very good chance that you may not even start it, much less finish it.

So when you hypothetically signed up for it, you didn’t tell anybody, not even hypothetical people.

Now suppose that the race is getting close. Maybe it’s a few weeks away, maybe it’s a couple months away. You realize that you’re borderline: you might be able to finish it if you have a good day. Or you might completely implode and have to be carried off the course on a stretcher if you have a bad day.

What do you do?

• Option 1: Do the Race. You could take a chance and do the race. For one thing, it would surprise everyone you know that you’re doing the race, since you’ve done a very good job of concealing the fact that you’ve signed up for it. The surprise alone is worth quite a bit. Even if you don’t finish the race, you’ll have some stories to tell.
• Option 2: Don’t Do the Race. You didn’t tell anyone you signed up for this race for a very good reason: you didn’t want to embarrass yourself by bailing out. And now you can bail out, avoid suffering, and avoid the possibility of DNF-ing a race.
• Option 3: Do Part of the Race. What if you went to the race and just did as much as you could do before you blew up? Of course, there’s the risk of getting caught up in the excitement and becoming unwilling to pull the plug even though it’s prudent.

Quite a conundrum. Now let’s look at it from another perspective.

 

The (Hypothetical) Situation: Perspective 2

Suppose you are no longer the hypothetical guy who has hypothetically signed up for a hypothetical race (actually, the race is for sure not hypothetical, but we won’t specify which race it is, just to be extra-vague). Now you are a hypothetical friend/acquaintance/spouse/sibling/whatever, who, for unstated (and quite possibly hypothetical) reasons, this potential racer has hypothetically confided to.

What do you do?

• Option 1: Tell Her or Him Not to Race. Obviously, this person is conflicted about doing the race, and this race is not a trivial effort. If s/he’s not really into it, s/he probably shouldn’t do it. (You know, this “s/he” construction is fully lame. Did you know that Finnish doesn’t have gendered pronouns? All pronouns are gender-neutral, and nouns and stuff don’t get genderified, either. On the downside, the language does have 23 nominal declensions and genitive postpositions and other parts of speech that English speakers have never even considered.)
• Option 2: Tell Her or Him to Race. How do you know whether you’re capable of completing the race if you don’t try? At least if you try and don’t finish, you’ll know where you stand. Or, more likely, you’ll know where you lay.
• Option 3: List All the Options and Completely Avoid Offering Any Actual Practical Advice. Hm. This option appeals to me. Or at least it would if this situation weren’t hypothetical. Which it is.

Your advice? Your hypothetical advice, I mean.

A couple weeks ago, I had a “clever” (by which I mean, “not clever”) idea: what if I tried riding the toughest stage in the upcoming Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah?

You know, just for fun?

So I called Travis, the marketing guy for the Tour of Utah (he’s the one who’s helped arrange the bike giveaway contest you should make sure you enter). “Sure, that sounds like fun,” Travis said. “Mind if I email a few other people who might be interested and see if they might want to join you?”

And that’s how, at 6:00am last Saturday, I found myself in a parking lot in Deer Valley with a few friends—Dug, BotchedExperiment, and Rick Sunderlage (not his real name)—and a half dozen other guys, all of us wondering what we were getting ourselves into.

 

This Isn’t So Hard…Hey, Where’d Everyone Go?

I had only a foggy notion of how the route worked, so was very pleased when Scott, one of the Tour of Utah guys—was there to act as our tour guide.

Scott, I noticed, was riding a brand-new Cervelo Soloist Team. Yup, exactly like the bike we’re giving away. It was the first time I’ve seen that bike up close, and it is beautiful. Whoever wins that is going to be digging it.

Anyway, in keeping with the intention to ride the course just like the pros will be, we did a parade lap around Deer Valley (yes, we really did), and then headed down toward Sundance.

It was all either downhill or flat.

It was easy.

And then everyone ditched me.

While at a quick pee stop, Kenny called, asking when we’d be getting to the base of the Alpine Loop climb; he was planning on joining us. While I talked, everyone else finished their business and left.

By the time I got off the phone, meanwhile, I still had business to take care of. And by the time I finished that, nobody was visible any longer. So I made my own way, following the signs and figuring things out as best as I could.

Eventually, as I came down Heber’s main street, I saw the group, waiting for me at an intersection. The fact that they were facing a different way than I was is a testament to my absolute and complete lack of navigation skills.

You know why race courses are usually marked way more than you need them to be? Because of people like me, that’s why. Sorry.

 

Wherein I Suffer and Nearly Get Spat Out the Back

As we got closer to the first big climb of the day—the Alpine Loop, which is about eight miles long, with 3000 feet of climbing—some of the fast guys in team kit started upping the pace. I started hurting.

Then a 16-year-old kid put the hammer down and it was all I could do to hang on. And we hadn’t even started climbing.

I knew I was in big trouble.

Somehow, though, I managed to hang on. After the ride, though, I asked Dug: “Can you believe the pace we were riding from Deer Creek to the base of the Alpine Loop climb? I thought I was going to die!”

“I didn’t have a problem with it,” said Dug, nonchalantly.

Hmph.

 

Wherein I Suffer Some More, But With Better Results

As soon as we turned right, starting the climb to the summit of the Alpine Loop, it became very clear who was doing this ride to prove something, and who was there just to get it done.

A guy in a yellow jersey shot off the front at warp speed, clearly hoping to demoralize us. It worked on me.

Then the guys in team kit and the 16-year-old organized and gave chase. Within moments, I couldn’t see them anymore.

Dug dropped off the back; he just wanted to listen to his Black Eyed Peas (?!) in peace (Dug sometimes forgets he’s 40). So Rick Sunderlage (not his real name) and I rode together, testing each other, trying to see whether the other guy could hang.

We both could hang.

I pushed first, shifting up one gear while holding my cadence. I gapped Rick.

Then Rick attacked, but with much more gusto than I did. He stood up and spun wildly, passing and putting thirty feet between us.

I did not react. I just kept spinning in second gear, even though I really wanted to go granny.

Before long I was back with Rick. I held his wheel for ten seconds, then rode by.

He grabbed my wheel until he was ready for another surge, and then he shot ahead again.

It went on like this for a while.

After the second or third exchange like this, though, I noticed something about Rick’s attacks: he hadn’t learned a simple—but vital—climbing trick: if you’re going to stand up, shift up two gears. Why? You can’t turn as high or smooth a cadence when you’re standing; all you’ve got now is the additional force gravity loans you. So use that force by pushing a bigger gear.

As a result, anytime Rick was ahead of me, I’d just watch for when he stood; I’d automatically close 10-15 feet of gap.

At the last hard climb of the Loop (about 3 miles from the summit), I stood up at a hairpin, upshifted twice, and pedaled by Rick, chanting, “I am Ullrich!” over and over.

“What? You’re all Rick?” he responded, confused.

But I was building too big a gap to explain.

 

Do Not Wear Yellow

With Rick dispatched, I started looking for another carrot. And there he was: the guy wearing the yellow jersey. Now, here’s a question: why would anyone ever wear a yellow jersey? It makes you a target. Even if you’re just trundling along on a mellow recreational ride, you can bet that anyone who passes you is thinking, “I just passed a guy wearing a yellow jersey.”

Catching the guy in the yellow was not easy. But I did. And as I passed him, I said out loud my chant: “I Am Ullrich!”

“Good to meet you Al,” he said.

Is something wrong with my diction?

 

Home Sweet Home

The nice thing about being one of the first guys to the top (how do you like the way I worked that in there?) is it gives you plenty of time to eat, refill your bottles and so forth, so that you really are rested by the time the group is back together.

I ate lots of Clif Shot Bloks. They’re like strawberry jam. Yum.

I had figured we were pretty much on our own support-wise, but the Tour of Utah guys proved otherwise. Waiting for us at the top of the Alpine Loop was food, water and Gatorade-a-plenty.

The Tour of Utah guys are cool.

While here, Kenny and Chucky rode up, joining us for the rest of the ride. Oh, good: more people to make me feel slow.

Next up, the descent down the American Fork side of the Alpine Loop, and then the climb up Suncrest.

Descending, I’m afraid, was not fun for me. Ever since that downtube incident, I have been incredibly timid on road descents. So I dropped toward the back of the pack. And then I dropped behind the back of the pack.

Oh well.

Climbing up Suncrest, though, was great: since I do this climb most weekdays as part of my commute to work, I knew exactly where the climbing’s difficult, and where it eases off. Home court advantage, big time. Before too long, Kenny, Scott and I were ahead of the group, riding a good fast cadence.

And I had to wonder: why wasn’t I tired? Why wasn’t I bonking? Is it actually possible I’ve ridden myself into shape?

That would be nice.

 

Last Big Effort

A quick (or in my case, not very quick) descent down the North side of Suncrest, then a few miles along Wasatch Boulevard brought us to the base of the Snowbird climb, the only one I hadn’t ever done before.

People say that it’s approximately the same length and profile as L’Alpe d’Huez.

I don’t think they say this to be encouraging.

As Scott’s wife handed out fresh water bottles to anyone who wanted one, Rick (not his real name) and Dug caught up, and announced they would not be finishing the ride. They had their reasons, all of which I’m sure sounded very convincing. To themselves.

At this point, I no longer had any idea where BotchedExperiment was.

I started the climb with Kenny and Chucky, but I am just not in their league. They gapped me before long and I rode on my own.

This is when I planned to spend a little time in my own little private hell.

But I didn’t. I felt good. I was bumping up my maximum effort, but I wasn’t redlining, and I wasn’t cracking. I wasn’t passing anybody, but I also wasn’t being passed.

Six miles later, I reached Snowbird.

And that’s when I realized I hadn’t really checked to find out where we were all going to regroup.

 

Marco! Polo!

Figuring that the Tour of Utah guys were not the type who would let the stage end at the lowest entrance to the resort, I rode past the first entrance. And the second and third. I pulled into the fourth entrance, because if I didn’t do that, I would have been on my way to Alta.

Luckily, Kenny called. He gave me some directions on how to find him.

I rode down and around, trying to find anyone who looked really tired and had a bike.

I called Kenny back, and got some more instructions.

Eventually, I found him and Chucky, sitting on a patio and finishing a meal they had bought. From the looks of them, they had been there for some time.  

I got a big Diet Pepsi (Diet Coke is Dug’s hangup; I’m fine with any diet cola at all), and we headed down.

Half a mile down the road, we saw BotchedExperiment, working his way up.

I signaled for him to turn around. He shook his head “no.”

So I turned around and we finished the climb to Snowbird.

 

BotchedExperiment is Tenacious

It’s his story to tell (and I hope he does), but BotchedExperiment apparently doesn’t have the “give up” gene in him. He had bonked completely and utterly—unable to even turn the cranks—part way up the Snowbird climb. He was sitting in the dirt when the Tour of Utah sag wagon got him some food and water. Before too long, he felt well enough to ride again, and finished what is widely regarded as the toughest sustained climb in the area.

Props to Botched.

 

Final Thoughts

I felt better than I had any right to feel for the entirety of the ride. I had one of those rare, perfect days where you have more strength and stamina than you really believe possible. That said, I was still completely cooked by the time I got to the top of Snowbird, even though I had taken several breaks.

I have no idea how pros do the whole thing under race conditions, and frankly don’t want to find out.