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09-12-06, 12:57 AM
Ok, this is LONG, but here goes!
I decided to do LOTOJA after hearing about it from a friend a year or so ago. It sounded like a
fun event, albeit a bit on the extreme side at 206 miles of racing. I used to do a lot of centuries
like the Death Ride, Mt. Hamilton Challenge and so forth, but then took 2 years off because I
was busy with other stuff. Anyways I started training again last fall and then racing this season.
It was my goal to try a lot of different things, crits, TT's, RR's to get a sense of what I like and
don't like.
I was a bit nervous about the whole LOTOJA thing since I had mostly been training for TT's
and short (ie 2-3 hour) RR's. My longest ride this season was 70 miles. I had some good endurance blocks, but really hadn't done a lot of really long distances. So my goal here at LOTOJA was to "see what happens", and what I could do without specific training.
I arrived in SLC about a week beforehand to get used to the altitude. The first day my lungs were like WTH? where did all the air go?? My power according to the powertap was down by about 10% or so. This kind of went on for 2 days or so. Then after about 3 days I started to get the typical headache/nausea from altitude sickness. That lasted for a few days, then after about 5 I was doing better and by a week, I felt like maybe this whole thing was doable.
the weather turned out to be perfect for the event. It was (I think) in the high 50's, low-mid 60's for most of the race. The only "weather" we really saw all day was a 5-10 min. shower with a bit of hail in one of the canyons. They had a staggered start, with the CAT1/2 men going first and then so on every few minutes. they limited the start packs to about 50-60 people which seemed fairly manageable. Unfortunately, my powertap setup crapped out on me right after my warmup so I was only able to capture HR and cadence data. I'm not certain what speed we started off at, but it *felt* like the typical pace in the CAT4 women's RR's in spite of the fact that we would be racing for 206 miles! The pack stayed together fairly well for the first leg which was about 34 miles or so, going from Logan to Preston through farm country. Coming into Preston we had our first feedzone, with 9 different stations for people to meet up with their support crew. The moving handoffs seemed to go fairly well, but a lot of people opted to get off their bikes, grab food/switch clothing, etc. in 2-5 minutes. Judging from the number of people at the feedzones, it seemed as if a decent percentage of the people came with a crew.
I was expecting the trip out of Preston to be one long gradual climb from ~4500-7500' judging from what the course profile showed. However, it was much more rolling than the map made it out to be. You'd have lots of small climbs that would gradually roll upwards, then back down a bit, then up again. It was the kind of thing that could slow you down just enough that you would notice it, but not so bad that it would fry your legs. The real climbing came in the last 2-3 miles or so. I don't know the exact length because of th $%#$% powertap problems, but I think my guess is probably pretty close. The grade was in the 6-7% range. By this point the various groups were all over the road. People were supposed to be racing only with people in their start pack, but judging from what I saw, no one was really sticking to this. I saw some groups with CAT 5 men, citizen women, CAT4 women, master men and so on...I got the impression that the race organizers really only paid attention to this for people who were in contention for podium or top 10 placings - basically the people out in the front.
the climb was over fairly quickly and rewarded the riders with a spectacular descent. Coming out of strawberry canyon was amazing because the road was partially blocked to traffic so you didn't really have to worry about cars. in addition to that, the roads were basically wide and sweeping so you also didn't need to use your brakes. I don't think I touched mine at all on the descent. I'd kill to know how fast I was going because I had completely spun out. lol.
The next part of the course had two big climbs that were fairly abrupt, but not too long. They also seemed to be in the 2-3 mile range or so. They were preceeded by similar terrain as before, some flat, some rolling. It was the kind of course that kept you on your toes because it was constantly changing and never really let up. Very different from the Death Ride where you are also at altitude except you just go up and down all day at a steady pace.
The decent from Salt River seemed shorter and not as steep as the one in strawberry canyon. It too was followed by what seemed like a lot of variation in terrain: flat stuff, rollers, even some gradual uphills as well. There was a headwind through the last canyon that made things interesting. the last part of the course was on a slight uphill going from jackson to Teton village. Kind of annoying after already doing 200 miles, but it was over soon enough.
I rode the thing solo and finished in 13 hours 50 minutes which I was happy about considering that I hadn't trained for it. I managed to get in soon enough to get my official time recorded as well. :)
Looking back, it was an interesting experience because I had to go completely on feel because my electronics weren't working. I suppose that's not a bad thing, but it did require a lot of mental focus to listen to my body instead of looking at HR or power to see what was going on.
Speed demons like bayareawheeler could probably race this half dead and still win, but here are some things that I thought helped to save time:
(1) Having a support crew helps out tremendously. My dad did SAG duty and had musette bags ready at each stop with stuff in it that I requested when I rode by at the previous stop. This made it possible to get out of each feedzone in 2'. Moving handoffs would have shrunk that number even further. Some people came with several crew members. One guy had one person prepping and putting food in his jersey pockets while another massaged his legs before he got back on. Whatever floats your boat...according to my dad, some people were taking really long in the feedzones, like 20+ minutes. People who didn't have a support crew could use the neutral station, but they didn't always have a huge variety of things for the handoffs. however, the feedzones that were exclusively neutral were well-stocked. some people put drop bags at the neutral station if they didn't have a crew. In spite of this I don't recall seeing many people go to the neutral stations at feedzones were crews were allowed.
(2) Have your bike super-organized. If you prep well, you won't need to carry a whole lot. I had a tiny seat bag with a Co2 thingy and two small cartridges and two tire levers. i also put a small bento box just behind the stem. I put endurolytes in there along with extra contact lenses and a small sunscreen stick. My Gu glask was mounted horizontally on the top tube using velcro and two zip ties to make it easy to access.
(3) the sections of the course that have a lot of climbing will go faster than you think because they roll a lot before going up in any serious way. So you will probably find you need a lot less food than you think.
On the subject of food, I ended up using about 1 bottle per hour except for Preston to the top of strawberry when I used 3 bottles. I had one with accelerade in it and one with water. that seemed to work fairly well given that it wasn't too hot. To that I added 1-2 endurolutes per hour and 1 GU shot per hour or so. I also was nibbling constantly on some kinf of energy bar (clif, nectar) so that I'd consume another 250 cal/hour that way. Although I carred other things like fruit and trail mix I didn't eat any of it. However, I did pick up peanut butter and honey sandwiches from my musette bag at each feedzone.
In that respect I was somewhat surprised because in the past when I've done centuries or things like Death Ride, I've almost always eaten solid foods and been pretty happy. However, with the added pressure of racing and the longer distance I was much happier with liquid forms of energy and very mushy foods.
In retrospect I don't think I would have done anything differently. Although I did it solo (no teammate or pacelines) it was interesting to see what I could do under somewhat less than optimal conditions. I'm planning to sign up next year and try to work in advance to find people to do it with either as a relay or as a group that rides and pacelines the whole thing. There are enough flat sections and small rollers that you can save a ton of time by sharing the pulls amongst a larger group. Not all the packs stay together for that long due to the competitive nature of the event...but if you go in with friends it would probably go signifiantly faster.
to anyone planning to sign up for this, make your hotel reservations early! a lot of the hotels and motels in logan start booking for this about a year in advance. I ended up getting a room because of a cancelation that occured at the last minute. There are a few nearby towns that sell out as well. If you don't get anything in Logan or Cache valley, you might end up getting stuck with a 30-60 minute drive to places like brigham city or ogden. not fun.
Be prepared for all types of weather. Last year they had a bad snowstorm in one of the canyons and over 60% of the people dropped out because they weren't prepared. Then, according to a guy a talked to during the race, a few weeks ago (2 or so) it was in the 90's along the course! So take your warm weather gear, rain gear and winter gear because you never know what you are going to get.
Most of the entrants seemed to be from UT, ID, WY, and CO with only a few people from the west or east coast. At least that's the impression I got from looking at the start lists and results. These same people also seemed to be fairly organized and were in decent sized groups to start off with. Not that everyone needs a group in order to finish or place well, but the nature of the course does make it easier if you have a group to work with.
That's about it for now...I need to catch a few zzz's. If anyone has questions, they are welcomed to ask or PM me for more info
I decided to do LOTOJA after hearing about it from a friend a year or so ago. It sounded like a
fun event, albeit a bit on the extreme side at 206 miles of racing. I used to do a lot of centuries
like the Death Ride, Mt. Hamilton Challenge and so forth, but then took 2 years off because I
was busy with other stuff. Anyways I started training again last fall and then racing this season.
It was my goal to try a lot of different things, crits, TT's, RR's to get a sense of what I like and
don't like.
I was a bit nervous about the whole LOTOJA thing since I had mostly been training for TT's
and short (ie 2-3 hour) RR's. My longest ride this season was 70 miles. I had some good endurance blocks, but really hadn't done a lot of really long distances. So my goal here at LOTOJA was to "see what happens", and what I could do without specific training.
I arrived in SLC about a week beforehand to get used to the altitude. The first day my lungs were like WTH? where did all the air go?? My power according to the powertap was down by about 10% or so. This kind of went on for 2 days or so. Then after about 3 days I started to get the typical headache/nausea from altitude sickness. That lasted for a few days, then after about 5 I was doing better and by a week, I felt like maybe this whole thing was doable.
the weather turned out to be perfect for the event. It was (I think) in the high 50's, low-mid 60's for most of the race. The only "weather" we really saw all day was a 5-10 min. shower with a bit of hail in one of the canyons. They had a staggered start, with the CAT1/2 men going first and then so on every few minutes. they limited the start packs to about 50-60 people which seemed fairly manageable. Unfortunately, my powertap setup crapped out on me right after my warmup so I was only able to capture HR and cadence data. I'm not certain what speed we started off at, but it *felt* like the typical pace in the CAT4 women's RR's in spite of the fact that we would be racing for 206 miles! The pack stayed together fairly well for the first leg which was about 34 miles or so, going from Logan to Preston through farm country. Coming into Preston we had our first feedzone, with 9 different stations for people to meet up with their support crew. The moving handoffs seemed to go fairly well, but a lot of people opted to get off their bikes, grab food/switch clothing, etc. in 2-5 minutes. Judging from the number of people at the feedzones, it seemed as if a decent percentage of the people came with a crew.
I was expecting the trip out of Preston to be one long gradual climb from ~4500-7500' judging from what the course profile showed. However, it was much more rolling than the map made it out to be. You'd have lots of small climbs that would gradually roll upwards, then back down a bit, then up again. It was the kind of thing that could slow you down just enough that you would notice it, but not so bad that it would fry your legs. The real climbing came in the last 2-3 miles or so. I don't know the exact length because of th $%#$% powertap problems, but I think my guess is probably pretty close. The grade was in the 6-7% range. By this point the various groups were all over the road. People were supposed to be racing only with people in their start pack, but judging from what I saw, no one was really sticking to this. I saw some groups with CAT 5 men, citizen women, CAT4 women, master men and so on...I got the impression that the race organizers really only paid attention to this for people who were in contention for podium or top 10 placings - basically the people out in the front.
the climb was over fairly quickly and rewarded the riders with a spectacular descent. Coming out of strawberry canyon was amazing because the road was partially blocked to traffic so you didn't really have to worry about cars. in addition to that, the roads were basically wide and sweeping so you also didn't need to use your brakes. I don't think I touched mine at all on the descent. I'd kill to know how fast I was going because I had completely spun out. lol.
The next part of the course had two big climbs that were fairly abrupt, but not too long. They also seemed to be in the 2-3 mile range or so. They were preceeded by similar terrain as before, some flat, some rolling. It was the kind of course that kept you on your toes because it was constantly changing and never really let up. Very different from the Death Ride where you are also at altitude except you just go up and down all day at a steady pace.
The decent from Salt River seemed shorter and not as steep as the one in strawberry canyon. It too was followed by what seemed like a lot of variation in terrain: flat stuff, rollers, even some gradual uphills as well. There was a headwind through the last canyon that made things interesting. the last part of the course was on a slight uphill going from jackson to Teton village. Kind of annoying after already doing 200 miles, but it was over soon enough.
I rode the thing solo and finished in 13 hours 50 minutes which I was happy about considering that I hadn't trained for it. I managed to get in soon enough to get my official time recorded as well. :)
Looking back, it was an interesting experience because I had to go completely on feel because my electronics weren't working. I suppose that's not a bad thing, but it did require a lot of mental focus to listen to my body instead of looking at HR or power to see what was going on.
Speed demons like bayareawheeler could probably race this half dead and still win, but here are some things that I thought helped to save time:
(1) Having a support crew helps out tremendously. My dad did SAG duty and had musette bags ready at each stop with stuff in it that I requested when I rode by at the previous stop. This made it possible to get out of each feedzone in 2'. Moving handoffs would have shrunk that number even further. Some people came with several crew members. One guy had one person prepping and putting food in his jersey pockets while another massaged his legs before he got back on. Whatever floats your boat...according to my dad, some people were taking really long in the feedzones, like 20+ minutes. People who didn't have a support crew could use the neutral station, but they didn't always have a huge variety of things for the handoffs. however, the feedzones that were exclusively neutral were well-stocked. some people put drop bags at the neutral station if they didn't have a crew. In spite of this I don't recall seeing many people go to the neutral stations at feedzones were crews were allowed.
(2) Have your bike super-organized. If you prep well, you won't need to carry a whole lot. I had a tiny seat bag with a Co2 thingy and two small cartridges and two tire levers. i also put a small bento box just behind the stem. I put endurolytes in there along with extra contact lenses and a small sunscreen stick. My Gu glask was mounted horizontally on the top tube using velcro and two zip ties to make it easy to access.
(3) the sections of the course that have a lot of climbing will go faster than you think because they roll a lot before going up in any serious way. So you will probably find you need a lot less food than you think.
On the subject of food, I ended up using about 1 bottle per hour except for Preston to the top of strawberry when I used 3 bottles. I had one with accelerade in it and one with water. that seemed to work fairly well given that it wasn't too hot. To that I added 1-2 endurolutes per hour and 1 GU shot per hour or so. I also was nibbling constantly on some kinf of energy bar (clif, nectar) so that I'd consume another 250 cal/hour that way. Although I carred other things like fruit and trail mix I didn't eat any of it. However, I did pick up peanut butter and honey sandwiches from my musette bag at each feedzone.
In that respect I was somewhat surprised because in the past when I've done centuries or things like Death Ride, I've almost always eaten solid foods and been pretty happy. However, with the added pressure of racing and the longer distance I was much happier with liquid forms of energy and very mushy foods.
In retrospect I don't think I would have done anything differently. Although I did it solo (no teammate or pacelines) it was interesting to see what I could do under somewhat less than optimal conditions. I'm planning to sign up next year and try to work in advance to find people to do it with either as a relay or as a group that rides and pacelines the whole thing. There are enough flat sections and small rollers that you can save a ton of time by sharing the pulls amongst a larger group. Not all the packs stay together for that long due to the competitive nature of the event...but if you go in with friends it would probably go signifiantly faster.
to anyone planning to sign up for this, make your hotel reservations early! a lot of the hotels and motels in logan start booking for this about a year in advance. I ended up getting a room because of a cancelation that occured at the last minute. There are a few nearby towns that sell out as well. If you don't get anything in Logan or Cache valley, you might end up getting stuck with a 30-60 minute drive to places like brigham city or ogden. not fun.
Be prepared for all types of weather. Last year they had a bad snowstorm in one of the canyons and over 60% of the people dropped out because they weren't prepared. Then, according to a guy a talked to during the race, a few weeks ago (2 or so) it was in the 90's along the course! So take your warm weather gear, rain gear and winter gear because you never know what you are going to get.
Most of the entrants seemed to be from UT, ID, WY, and CO with only a few people from the west or east coast. At least that's the impression I got from looking at the start lists and results. These same people also seemed to be fairly organized and were in decent sized groups to start off with. Not that everyone needs a group in order to finish or place well, but the nature of the course does make it easier if you have a group to work with.
That's about it for now...I need to catch a few zzz's. If anyone has questions, they are welcomed to ask or PM me for more info