Rebecca wins a national team title
Report by Reba:
24 Hour National Championships
August 14, 2008
Just six days after my 24 Hour Solo World Championship win in Canada, I found myself lined up in Wisconsin for 24 Hour US National Championships. This time, I was racing on a four person women’s team with three of my good friends and training buddies from Ketchum, Idaho. Due to the close scheduling of Worlds and Nationals with less than a week between them, I knew that racing solo in both races was impossible. I decided to rally my friends to resurrect our 24 Hours of Moab women’s team to go for the Stars and Stripes jersey. Our team, Ketchum If You Can / Specialized consisted of Muffy Ritz, Karoline Droege , Claudia Hattrup and me. Muffy is a legendary Nordic ski racer and super endurance road cyclist. Karoline is an ex-alpine ski racer and newly found endurance athlete. Claudia is an ex-cross country mountain bike pro. They are all local hard women and great people to travel and race with.
Greg and I, both fresh off our Worlds wins, traveled straight from Canmore to Wisconsin and met up with the girls in our rented motor home. Greg agreed to crew and wrench for us and had the pleasure of spending 4 days crammed into a motor home with the team. The trip was a blast and it was really pleasant for me to race on a team again and not ride the whole course by myself. I was able to chat with other racing friends, watch the solo races unfold and enjoy the experience immensely. I was pretty unsure about how much speed I would be able to muster with such a short recovery time from a hard 24 hr solo race. Luckily, I have raced the Wisconsin course before and was familiar with the terrain. It’s a wooded, tight, single track course, with only about 700 ft of climbing in a 14 mile lap. I loved being able to pre-ride the course with the team and discuss tactics, places on the course to hit it hard, and just share the experience with my training partners.
The defending National champs were a group of strong Wisconsin women. These were their home trails and they were very motivated to defend their title. We had our eyes on them and another experienced team from Colorado. The first lap included a le mans running start and we all decided that Claudia was the most aggressive and has the sharpest elbows in the group, so she would take the first lap. The rest of the rotation was randomly chosen and we would all rotate on an even schedule unless someone had a problem or needed more rest. Since this was a relay event and our lap time would be between 1:05 and 1:15, each rider would race a lap then have over three hours to rest and refuel before heading out again. The pacing and strategy for a team race is way different than when I race solo. This time each lap was an all out sprint where seconds counted. After a full rotation of four riders, we still only had a three minute lead over the Wisconsin women. After 8 laps and over 8 hrs of all out racing, we had still only built up four and a half minute lead. Each hand off was very tense waiting for your turn to ride and wondering which team would come through the chute first.
We really started to build a more significant lead during the night laps. The Wisconsin team had pulled one of their slower riders and their fastest rider was turning double laps for part of the race. We stuck to our regular rotation with one exception. Claudia was not as used to riding at night and I absolutely love riding in the tunnel of my Light and Motion bike lights. I ended up trading one of her night laps and giving her a longer break. What that meant was that she would end up with the final lap of the race resting on her shoulders. At one point during the night, we’d built our lead up to 18:30 and were feeling strong and consistent. The Wisconsin team fought hard and at 6 am with only 4 hours to go, they whittled our lead back down to only 10 minutes. Each of us knew that every lap had to be 100% with very little room for crashing, mechanicals or any lapse in concentration. With one lap to go and the Wisconsin team still charging hard, we had a 17- minute lead. Claudia bolted out for our last lap and we all knew as long as she stayed consistent, we’d have the win. Greg, Muffy, Karoline and I rode out to part of the course that was about 15 minutes from the finish. We wanted to wait there and cheer Claudia and check the split times. Based on our lap times, she should have arrived there in about 50 minutes. By 62 minutes, we were starting to worry about her and freak out a bit. I kept asking riders if they’d seen her. I was considering riding backwards on the trail to go look for her. Finally someone came by and said she had flatted and torn her sidewall, but was back riding again. We kept peering into the woods for her uniform and finally she came blasting through the trail with a vengeance. She was still ahead of the Wisconsin rider by about 10 minutes. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief and sprinted to the finish line to welcome her. The tire held for the last part of the race and we held onto the win by only 15 minutes. In doing the math for our laps and the course, it works out to only a 40 second lead per lap over the course of 24 hours. There was so little room for error and it was a super intense race, but the hard fight made the victory even sweeter! I was really impressed with our consistent lap times, our teamwork and the fact that everyone got along well in the close living quarters. The team is already scheming again about another race and another jersey. For me, the National Championship title was sweet icing on the cake only a week after such a big win at Worlds.
Next up, I am riding our local 100 mile road tour on a tandem bike with Claudia. Neither of us has ever ridden on a tandem, so it could be a bit comical. We’re planning on wearing our new Stars and Stripes national championship jerseys.
Thanks for tuning in.
