Part of my original intention in beginning Oak Ass as an official race was to push people out of their comfort zone and try something new. Evan stepped up big time and I really enjoyed reading his account of the race as well as watching his progress leading up to the race this year. Enjoy!
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Oak Ass 50. Evan Koch
Just
to set expectations, this won't read like most of the posts I've seen
about peoples' Oak Ass experiences, this is more about how I prepared
for the event. For some people, doing Oak Ass might not have been a big
change, but it was definitely outside my comfort zone and I wanted to
share what I did so that other people might be encouraged to give it
try. Before I decided to do Oak Ass, the longest
distance I had ridden on my mountain bike was 18 miles and the only
event I had participated in was the Bump n Grind Cat 3 race. I had seen
the name Oak Ass a few times, and when I found out that it was a 50 mile
race, I pretty much dismissed the possibility
of ever competing. Over the years I've done a bit of mountain biking,
but only since March 2014 have I stuck to it with anything close to
consistency. I jokingly mentioned Oak Ass to a friend in October who
said we should give it a try, theorizing that even
we could do 50 miles in 12 hours. Turns out he was right, but it wasn't
without preparation.
Expectations
Luckily
I live and work close to Oak Mountain, so it was easy for me to keep
trying the course. I hadn't been on the other side of Terrace
Dr in years, so it took some time for me to get familiar with the
course. I worked my way up to doing the full course - one weekend I did
South Trailhead, Seven Bridges, red road, and J&H back to Peavine Rd
and stopped. The next week I did that plus the rest
of a loop - going up the road, coming down Blood Rock and then
Johnson's Mountain. Each time I added more, I was getting a sense for
how long the real event would take me. The weekend after that, I did one
lap, and got through J&H on the second lap before
throwing in the towel - I just didn't have the energy. Which leads me
to the next topic…
Nutrition
Turns
out I was a bit naïve in the ways of endurance events. I thought I
could just throw a few power bars into my water pack and that'd
be good enough, and that water was all I'd need to drink. When I spoke
with my sister and brother-in-law and later John Karrasch, they said I'd
need to take in a lot more calories than that for long rides and
mentioned things like Gu, Nuun, and Skratch Labs.
This lead me to the Feed Zone Portables cookbook, which does a good job
educating the reader about how the body works during endurance events
how to properly maintain your energy levels. So two nights before Oak
Ass, I was in the kitchen with my wife making
the blueberry and chocolate chip coconut rice cakes in preparation (I
had planned to test out the rice cakes prior to that, but I had two
sinus infections in October/November that limited my ability to do much
training).
Gear
Most
of my riding had been in summer, late spring, or early fall, so I never
had to put much thought into what I wore, but Oak Ass was November
22 and we'd already had one period of extreme cold, so I figured shorts
and a t-shirt wasn't going to cut it (for me, anyway - I saw people in
their kits with arm sleeves on). I ended up with a base layer, softshell
jacket, riding pants, and a thermal skull
cap under my helmet. I tested this out a few weeks before when the
temperature was 38 at the start of my ride and it worked very well, and
the temperature at the start of Oak Ass was in the 40s, so I wore the
same gear. The jacket would allow me to take off
the sleeves if I got too warm and the forecast said it'd reach the mid
60's by mid-afternoon, so I expected to do that or leave the jacket in
my car when I made a pit stop after the first lap.
Oak Ass
Other
people's recollections talk of trying to keep up with people, who they
passed, flat tires, etc. - my experience was a bit different.
I intentionally started in the back because I knew I wasn't going for
the gold; my plan was to stay at the back and not get in anyone's way.
Based on my training, I expected the first lap would take me about 3:30
and the second lap would take me more (I didn’t
know exactly how much since I had only gotten partway through my second
lap before), but I was hoping to be done in 8 hours. I tried to eat a
rice cake periodically, which turned out to be a little bit harder than I
imagined - not because of the taste, but
when I unwrapped the tin foil, it was still fairly mushy, so I ended up
stopping each time I ate (every 45-60 minutes). First lap was fairly
uneventful but I was tracking pretty well to my estimates - first lap
took me 3:36.
As I stopped by my car to restock
and ditch the jacket, I heard the announcer over the PA say that he
expected the race leaders to finish their second lap in the next three
minutes if they kept up their pace from the first lap. Second lap went
about like the first- I saw a friendly face from
BUMP along the camp road, got passed by a few bikers, and then I ran
into some girls on J&H who had lost the yellow trail. While I'm
fairly familiar with the mountain bike trails, I've never been on the
hiking trails, so I gave them my map of the park and
cautioned them to watch out for other racers. More friendly faces
(Corbin Camp at Blood Rock and John Karrasch at Peavine Rd/Johnson's
intersection) helped keep me going and I finished the second lap with a
total time of 8:22.
Next Year
I've proven that I can do it, so next year's about improving my time. I plan to actually read the
Feed
Zone Portables book and not just skip to the recipes section, and also
figure out what my caloric intake should be while doing endurance
events. I also intend to get better at climbing so I don't have to walk
up parts of Peavine Rd up to the fire pits trails, because I had plenty
of people stop and ask me if I was okay. Knowing the course in advance
and having an idea of how it'd take allowed
me to be comfortable doing the event - I have no idea how those riders
who had never been to Oak Mountain before did it.
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