| Mohican 100 6/5/2010 | What a fun and totally brutal race! Upon arriving to the Loudonville area around 6pm there was evident signs of a rain storm that came and went. We thought no big deal it will be just a little muddy. The night went on and we turned in around 10pm with a flash of lightening and thunder a few minutes later followed by a torrential down pour. ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up at 5:15 with still hard rain coming down. We watched as caravans of people were leaving with bikes on the cars to go home. My group gave it the benefit of the doubt when the rain finally stopped at 6:30am. What came next was unbelievable.
What was the plan? To be finished within 8 hours and be back in Cleveland by 5pm to be at a wedding by 6:30pm Saturday night. So we had MUD, MUD and a whole lot more MUD! I have never flatted using tubeless but that streak ended. At mile 8.5 in a small rock garden my bead was popped. I cleaned the rim and shot it with CO2 with no results so I pulled the stem and put a tube in. Then at 13 I flatted AGAIN! On a day as muddy as this one, no one was giving up extra tubes and mine were 20 miles away. So as I was hoofing it through the mud and muck I could feel the hot spots building on my arches of my feet. Finally after almost a mile of walking a rider spared me a tube…YES…thanks buddy! I put it in and got on my way. Then at mile 18 my lower back went into spasms and put me almost in tears as my feet where killing me and it hurt to stand. I got them to go away and made my way into aid station 1 at mile 20. For about 5 minutes I contemplated continuing as my feet were destroyed and back killing me. I manned up and said I have 14 more in me of riding and hiking a bike to get to the next aid station. Then the decision of the day came at mile 27. Ride out 1 mile to the parking lot of the Mohican loop or 7 more to aid station 2 at mile 34 all while looking at a VERY steep hill. So steep that I believe it would be nearly impossible when it was dry. So I finally made it to the second Aid station in about 6.5 hours with immense amount of pain in the back but mostly my feet hurt so bad I was literally in tears. My nutrition was money and the hydration as well. I was still a pee’n about every 13 miles so life was good. However, with pain and the wedding I had to drop out of the race and rode 6 miles on the road to the finishing area. When I got back I took my socks off and found mud and my feet containing blisters just bigger than a quarter on both arches which looked like gang green had set in. When the blisters popped the fluid was replaced by mud…yes…MUD! I had to tear the skin off and clean then wounds to avoid infection. I also found out that while the torrential rains fell throughout the day a tornado touched down 10 miles from us on the course…HOLY CRAP! All in all I was happy with the race but wished I would have had no physical issues. My shifting was money…Thanks XTR components…and chain suck happened on the real steep hills due to the mud in the drive line but you really can’t help that. That’s racing and I WILL be back next year! Statistics…. http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/national-ultra-endurance-nue-series-2-mohican-100-ne/results 100 miler race 267 Racers signed up 20 – DNS 108 – DNF 139 – Finished 100K race 299 Racers signed up 28 – DNS 123 – DNF | Matthew Tuskan |
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