5 Mile Times Seven

I first raced the 5 Mile Pass race in 2000. I got fourth place in the sport class. Bart Gillespie got 2nd in the pros, right ahead of Jarom Zenger. Since then I think I've done it every year, with the course coming in close to 35 miles.

One year I had a memorable DNF -- I picked up a 4 inch nail in my tire. I layed my spare tube on the ground, pulled out my punctured tube, and threw it down next to the spare. Next thing I knew, I was looking at two tubes and didn't know which was the bad one. This was especially bad because I had only one CO2 cartridge. What could I do? I guessed...wrong. Walked home mad. I still remember the feeling as the guys went riding by for their second lap. I should have been in it with them. Still, with fitness like that, it is only a matter of time...

Not only have I done this course many times, but it is one of my favorite courses. I like fast, rocky downhills and this has several. It has one good steady climb and then a hike-a-bike (which I don't really enjoy, but it does add variety), and a bunch of big 100 foot rollers.

This Year
With all this in mind, it was with considerable disappointment that I woke in the middle of the night with the flu early Thursday morning. I hoped it would pass quickly, but I didn't eat or drink much of anything Thursday and very little yesterday until Kim made a good pizza dinner last night (no cheese, which I can't eat). I was pretty iffy on whether I'd race, but figured I'd get ready and then see.

Five mile is bumpy and rocky, and with the illness I figured I'd rather ride the FS Spider over HT Niner, so bought some new brakes from Revolution. I stans'd a light weight rear-tire for it, put on new Grip Shifters, and installed the front brake, but half-way through the rear brake I discovered the package was missing the hardware for mounting the rotor and the brake hose. I called Bp and Keating at 10 PM, and arranged to get the hardware to the race in the morning.

In addition to the bike issues, the weather has been cold and rainy. The forcast looked really bad, and Five Mile can be a tire-jamming, clumping clay disaster when wet. So on that count too, I figured I'd show up, assess the situation, and decide whether to race, but I wasn't looking forward to a 30+ mile slog-a-bike.

When I woke this morning my stomach felt so/so. Scott decided to come and watch, so we got the stuff packed, including both my bikes, and made it to the race on schedule. It was cold at about 50F with a humid wind, but I registered, Keating had the HW, and there was no mud...excellent. But I forgot the rotor! I attached the hose and pulled the rotor off my Niner. I was still going to have time for a short warm up, and then discovered the aluminum Stans rotor on the Niner is a little bigger than the Avid for the Spider, and the wheel wouldn't fit. Now it was panic time.

While Scott switched my number plate to the Niner, filled my CamelBak, and affixed my name tag to the CamelBak, I swapped the rotor back to the Niner and got dressed. After a bathroom stop (stomach still not normal), I lined up with no warm up at all.

I was glad to talk with Reed was at the starting line, and he seemed in good spirits. They changed the starting order this year, so us 30-39ers started 1 minute after the pros, and the 19-29ers started 1 minute after us.

As we started, there was a minute or two of sorting, and it pretty quickly came to an orange guy from Jackson off the front by 20 seconds or so, then Brad Pilling, Chad Harris, and I following. Brad, Chad, and I rode together most of the first lap, but I was dangling off the back of the group until we got to the hike-a-bike. The lack of a warm up was uncomfortable in the legs, and my stomach was complaining. Still, I was staying close and figured if I could hold the first lap my legs would warm and I'd probably have a good chance. I lost track of the orange guy for a while.

In the first half of the second lap Bp dropped off. Where did he go? Turned out he'd forgotten his CamelBak and only had one bottle, so he was off to the car for his pack. It was lucky he was parked near the course, but it cost him time. Meanwhile I was chasing Orange guy, and when when I finally caught him near the hike-a-bike, he had a red tag (not our white ones), so I figured he wasn't in our class and I was confused. We went back and forth for a while, passing several pros. As I was passing one pro on the downhill, his tire exploded and he went swerving off the trail. He was trying to get out of the way, but I almost hit him. After getting past him the downhill went well, and the Orange guy was still there, so I finally asked him what class he was in. After establishing our mutual 30-39 expert status, I lifted the pace a bit and he couldn't quite follow. I dropped him in the rollers on the front side finishing out the second lap.

For the third lap, I just tried to keep the pressure on. I figured if my stomach hadn't killed my race yet, the discomfort probably wasn't important and wasn't going to slow me down much, and my legs felt tired but steady. I passed a few more pros and tried not to ride too crazy on the downhills after watching the explosion on lap two.

At the bottom of one of the big front-side rollers on lap three there was a guying rolling around on the ground groaning and clutching his chest. I slowed. "Are you OK?" I asked. "NO!" he replied. We had just passed a quad-based official at the top of that roller, so I yelled, "Hey! HEY!" A pro in blue behind me looked back after the second call and saw the official coming, so we kept going. I was glad the guy was there and heard us so we didn't have to stop.

From there is was really just a cruise in to the finish, and, for me, a surprise win. My lap times turned out to be very consistant. My second lap was actually a few seconds faster than lap one, and lap 3 was about 25 or 30 seconds slower than the first two.

Chad Harris came in about 3 minutes later, outsprinting Orange guy for second, and Bp came in shortly after in 4th. He didn't really have a great day. He's had little problems at every race so far this year. His fitness is good, but the races haven't quite come together for some reason, so I think he was a bit disappointed.

BTW, Bart Gillespie (easily) won the pros. Some things never change. Jarom Zenger also showed up to race our class, but I don't know where/if he finished.

Not at all disappointed was Reed, who finished first in the 19-29 expert class! Awesome. Fun to take the 19-29 expert and the 30-39 expert on the same day and exciting to see Reed have a good race.