ZenEndurance 714 - Night Mountain Bike Racing

You're listening to Zen and the Art of Endurance, your podcast for getting great at going long.

All right, all you endurance studs and studettes, welcome to another great episode.

of Zen and the Art of Endurance, the podcast where we go long and learn a lot about ourselves

along the way. What an episode we're going to have. I just finished this weekend a six-hour

mountain bike marathon race. We ended up doing about 46 miles. It's a looping course,

and it starts in the daylight at 90, no, it was 108 degrees on the bike computer.

And it's a looping course, and it starts in the daylight at 90, no, it was 108 degrees on the bike computer.

And it dropped down to 95 after the sun started going down.

And we did three hours in the daylight and then three hours into the night.

And it took me about 45 minutes per lap.

And they got longer every lap because you get tired.

And eventually on lap three, starting the fourth lap maybe,

I picked up lights and headed off into the darkness and proceeded to crash.

I'm the first dark lap.

And learned a lot about it.

I'm leaving the pool right now.

And I have injuries from the race, but they're minor.

And one of them is separated ribs.

When I crashed, I landed on my right side and I split my ribs.

And that's a really painful injury.

I've had it a bunch over the years, both sides.

And what happens is,

after you get moving and stuff,

the initial movement and impact or shock of anything that you're doing

is really painful.

I mean, doubling over in pain.

But then I think your body releases its own self-painkillers.

And maybe it's endorphins.

And then it kind of takes the edge off of things.

And then after a while, it's not that bad.

So swimming today.

The race was on Saturday night.

I've waited to swim until...

What is it?

Wednesday morning.

But arcing my right arm, because it's on my right side, up into the air.

And then breathing to the right really opens up the ribs.

And it pulls on them.

And then, oh, that hurt.

I was not expecting that.

I'd kind of forgotten about it a little bit until I got into the pool.

Monday.

Sunday didn't do anything.

Monday, went out for a bike ride in the evening.

And that was a little bit painful.

The first few bumps I hit off-road jarred the ribs a little bit.

And, boy, that hurt at first.

But then it smoothed out.

And it's good to ride and kind of let things open up.

Kind of get things moving again.

You don't go too long.

And then especially, like, if you wrecked or had a hard event,

you want to get back on that horse and don't let it get to you.

And also, if you want a lifetime of fitness,

then you don't want to be a one and done, you know, do it.

And then take forever to get back into exercising again

to the point of where you just, like, don't even want to do it at all.

And so it's important to get back on the things gently, very gently.

And most because mountain biking was legs and upper body, but a lot of legs.

Starting off with biking first is pretty easy.

Because it's convenient.

And then I biked also last night, Tuesday night.

And was a little bit more settled in and felt a little bit better.

And then decided to go for a swim this morning.

And then probably on Thursday, which is tomorrow morning, might go for my first run.

This morning was the first morning that I got up out of bed

and wasn't limping and retching with pain in my legs.

46 miles.

Of mountain bike racing, all mountain bike, all single track,

is rough on the body, man.

And race pace, you know.

So, let's see.

I got 18th place.

In my age group, the solo, they do, like, relay and solo.

Two-person relay, four-person relay.

One person, you know, solo.

Kai and I both did solo.

And I got in six laps.

And out of the solo racers, 45 people entered.

And 35 people showed up.

And I got 18th.

So, in one way, I got top half.

And in another way, I just got to ride around half.

But that ain't bad for somebody that's not really a great mountain biker.

And also on a big, heavy bike that's not really a cross-country racing bike.

And also using flat pedals so I can eject.

And jump off that bike when I start to crash.

Which is a really handy thing to do.

And also, I have not been on my mountain bike since January.

And it's a pretty cool skill to be able to hop from bike to bike, you know.

And be in decent form, I guess.

Let's see.

Kai hit his head.

And we both had a crash on our first lap.

And, oh, the race is at Bluff Creek Bike Ranch in Warda, Texas.

It's an operating cattle ranch.

It's awesome.

And Emily and Kylie went to support us.

And you're doing laps.

And Kai's first lap was like 35-something minutes.

Maybe 30 minutes.

And mine was 45.

Of course, I'm just off the back.

And just trying to progress and move up.

Which I did.

I actually moved from 80th place to...

What was it?

From 60th, and then 45th, and then 30th, and then 20th-something, and then 18th.

And got in my six laps.

And Kai was off the front right at the beginning.

And what they did is they said, okay, e-bikers go first.

They had an e-bike class.

And then relay racers go second.

And then, you know, two minutes apart.

This is at 5 o'clock.

And we're out in this field.

There's one shade tree.

Again, it was 108 degrees on my bike.

Computer.

And heat warning and effect.

All this stuff.

And I was warned that the trails were dusty and dry.

And there's little pockets of sand.

Kai went and pre-rode it a couple days before.

And said, be careful.

There's little pockets of sand kind of here and there.

And then...

What did we do?

Then our group goes.

And Kai's off the front.

And then I'm off the back.

And Emily shot a video.

It's so funny to see us at opposite ends.

Of the spectrum.

But I'm out there riding to have fun.

See how good I could do.

But also, I'm 51 years old.

I'm not there to win anything.

And also, I got to be careful with my health.

You know, not kill myself.

And so, you know, you go like 80%, 75%.

And that's what I love about endurance sports.

They're so long.

That you just go kind of medium.

And that's actually the best.

You're going to get your best performance.

And then you're not stressing your body.

Where you're going to need to go to the hospital.

So, at our age, you know.

I'm not going to blow a valve.

Because you're not going too hard.

Anyway, Kai had an accident.

I'm riding along.

And then I get this alert on my bike computer.

That Kai's had a crash.

Because we've got the bike computers.

Garmin 840s.

Where they'll alert family members.

And it says...

And then a second or two later, it said...

He said that he's okay.

Keep going.

And then a few minutes later, I had a crash.

But it was a real easy one.

It wasn't bad.

And this is full daylight.

And what it was, it was...

I was in a hairpin turn.

And I was trying to pass somebody.

And the hairpin turn had sand in it.

And it made me wipe out.

But not bad.

I came off the bike.

But just barely.

And also with flat pedals.

You know, I can just...

Like I said, I can eject.

And the reason I ride flat pedals on a mountain bike

is I've tried clipless.

I've done clipless for years off and on.

And I ride clipless on everything else.

And I can bunny hop on a BMX bike.

Or on any bike without clipless pedals.

So I don't need clipless pedals to perform.

And the...

I'm really tall.

And so being up really high,

if you start to fall over backwards or sideways down a slope,

the impact is massive.

And very painful.

So you want to be able to get out.

Get off that bike as fast as you can.

And maybe save yourself.

And I have problems unclipping on my right side.

My ankle doesn't twist correctly to get out on the right side.

So anyway, I'm not making excuses.

It's just...

I own it.

I ride flat pedals.

And I do pretty well on flat pedals.

And I'm proof that you can actually ride flat pedals and be fun.

It's fine.

It's actually fun going into turns.

You can put a foot down and drift.

And actually go faster than people.

With clipless in that situation.

But anyway, I have my little crash.

And then I'm like, oh, I wonder if...

This is where Kai crashed too.

This one little spot.

I knew it was probably that area.

Then I found out later that he hit a tree head on.

That...

I'd say it's a tree that's about six inches across in the trunk.

So it's nice and stout.

Not a giant tree, but nice and stout.

And at about...

Chest level, it splits into a V.

And one of the V's on the...

It's on the left side of the trail.

And the V of the right side of the tree arches into the trail.

And I guess Kai...

He said he guessed he had his head down.

It was racing.

And he just clocked the top of his head with that.

Just, you know, it was about a four inch thick.

He said it wasn't a branch.

It's a tree.

And...

Yeah, so there was that.

And Emily...

When he got to the aid station, Emily did a concussion check on him and decided,

Well, I guess we'll keep going.

Just don't wreck again.

And that was the beginning of the mountain bike race.

I'm at W to the ERK.

I'm actually a little bit late.

It took extra work to get to the pool and get all set up.

So I'm running late because getting all the gear together.

And stuff, you know, after you take time off and then your house and all your gears a mess because of all the getting your act together to go to the pool takes all this extra time.

So we'll be back with a little bit more information on how I trained for the race, how I felt afterwards, strategy fuel.

I got dehydrated on the second lap, which is a little bit unusual.

So I want to talk about that, how that happened.

And we'll talk about all that.

All right.

Be right back.

Bang.

All right.

I am back.

On my lunch break.

Just went and dropped off the gravel bike, which reminds me when you talk about the work I had done on the mountain bike.

On the gravel bike, the rear brakes kind of shot and it's both worn down and the lever probably needs adjusting and stuff.

And also the culprits.

Oh, I need to email him or message him back on Facebook.

The culprit elbow pads are going on the gravel bike and the old pads are the bolts are rusted.

I can't get them undone.

So before I ruined the tool, I figured I'd take it in and they can tap and reverse screw out the old bolts, which are pretty much shot.

Anyway, those have seen those have seen a lot of life.

I think I used those pads at Alcatraz, the Alcatraz triathlon, where I rode a road bike for better control because the bike rides really hilly.

And I wasn't familiar with the course at all and rode my titanium True North road bike with zip wheels and clip-ons.

Anyway, yeah, we're going to be a little bit all over the place with this as I think of things.

The few days before.

Before the race, I took my mountain bike in to get it double checked and we're waiting for, you know, for fundage, for money to clear and stuff like that and paychecks.

So I go and take this thing in.

But anyway, I took it in a little while before the race.

I took my mountain bike in a little while before the race to get the brakes were really mushy.

And the levers.

Coming almost all the way to the to the grips.

And the guy was like, we have a truck shop here in town, which is amazing.

And we're getting an R.E.I.

And our little college town, a college station, Texas.

How about that?

And the truck shop guy said, you rode on this.

You've been racing on this like this.

And I was like, yeah, but again, you know, it's just me.

I'm not that worried about it.

And they fix that.

And then I also had them check the chain.

I have a chain checker tool somewhere.

I don't know where it is, but I told them that my last race, the chain was skipping really badly.

And if you replace your chain and your cassette is really worn, you need to replace the cassette, too, or else the chain and the cassette don't really behave nice together.

You get like skipping and stuff.

And so I was just concerned.

I had to look at the cassette and everything's fine.

So anyway, the bike performed really well during the race, except I've already posted the YouTube videos from the race.

I've videoed the last lap.

It was in the dark.

It's awesome.

They accept there's creaking in the bottom bracket or so, you know, that can happen in the seat post, too, and there's not much I do about that without leaving it with them for a long time.

And I just didn't want to bother with that.

Right.

I didn't have time to bother with that right now.

So they worked on that.

And I put new sealant in the tires because the bike hasn't really been raced or ridden

since January.

So sealants probably shot.

So I had orange seal endurance.

And I put it on.

And I put that in through the valves and on the valves.

I recommend this for any tubeless tires is switch out your valves.

They're expensive.

They're 50 bucks.

I just bought some for Kaido, too, because he had a valve that was leaking that we had to use a CO2 cartridge to fill up on a ride.

These are valves that don't leak and they're Fillmore as in fill it up.

F I L L more.

And they're $50.

But the valve core design is where they've moved the the plunger inside.

The valve core down below the rim a little bit so that there's more space for it.

So then it allows for a much wider throttle body for you to pump in air in and out.

And then sealant is less likely to clog it.

And then also the cool thing is, is you can put sealant through the valves

without having to remove a valve core because there is no valve core.

People think you can't clean these, by the way, but you can.

There's a little Allen wrench head socket thing on the underside of the valve.

You take apart if you ever do feel the need to clean them, you can.

OK, that's a long story, but.

We get to the race.

And to preserve the battery on my shifting.

I took the battery off and I knew this is a problem.

You don't want to transport the bike for anywhere with without a valve, without a battery on it or a.

Battery cover or connection cover where the battery goes on the red thing, piece of plastic,

because then the connections get dirty and then it doesn't work as well.

And so we get there, but I figured it was going to be dried like the entirely there.

And also the reason you take your batteries off is because the jostling of the bike will can drain your batteries.

And although this is only an hour and a half drive, I just took it off, get there.

My battery won't work. The shifting will not work.

And I went into freak out mode because we've invested months.

Months of training for this thing and getting ready for it and then to have the bike shifting not work.

And then we turned Emily's car on.

I put I brought the charger with me and I put the battery on the charger for a little bit.

I have a spare battery and battery covers somewhere in the garage with all my other bike crap, of course.

And then in the meanwhile, and so eventually it started working and I was like, oh, my God, please.

And this happens on rare occasion and also on really rare occasion.

I have one of the original of the earlier the earliest electronic shifting for mountain bikes.

It's Eagle Axis or something like that. But it's really great stuff.

And a ten fifty two, I think, on the room. And while all this is going on, we're setting up the table and stuff.

And unfortunately, the the aid station alley has already been filled up.

When we got there around two o'clock, two thirty, two thirty and I may I make notes about every race so that I can use them again next year.

And that's one of the things right down is if we get there at two thirty, the race packet pickup, there's a race meeting or packet pickup ends at four.

Supposedly there's a race meeting at four thirty and the race starts at five.

And if we get there at two thirty, the race alley aid station is kind of filled up and there's no place to park right there.

The race is really cool. You ride to a barn.

And then.

As part of the race course.

It's so awesome.

And then the lead up to the barn is slightly uphill, which makes for a great aid station pickup.

But that was all kind of full.

So after you go through the barn and then take a left, we parked to the left.

Emily wanted to set up the aid station on the left where the car is kind of in the shade area.

And I go, no, it needs to be on the right so that we can grab things with our with our right hand as we go through.

Kai and I are both right handed and

That'll end up working out great.

So then Kai gets on his trainer, his warm up trainer.

You know, it's analog, it's rollers in the back and then you take the fork off your bike and mount it on the front, which I highly recommend as your trainer.

If you're going to warm up for a bike race, unless you do electronic one of some sort.

But anyway, they're easy.

They're portable, easy, kind of lightweight.

And then if you do full rollers, then you need to find flat ground.

That in an off-road race, there's not going to be any flat ground anywhere.

There's not a paved surface, I think, anywhere in this area except for the floor of the barn and the front porch of the ranch house.

Anyway, so Kai gets on that thing and with mountain bike tire on the back, dude, that thing is loud.

And it sounds like an angry hornet and he's badass, you know, so it's going like rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, like that.

And there's people kind of gathered around.

And just kind of watching, going, holy crap.

And that's always really intimidating stuff.

It's kind of neat.

And yeah, I think we got things lined up.

What I decided to do was a fuel bottle every two hours.

I wasn't exactly sure how long each lap was going to take me because it usually takes me 50, 55 minutes per lap.

But they were saying that they were not going to have part of the race course on the course.

maybe pull like half a mile off this thing uh because of well they didn't say why and so i

don't really trust that and so i was going well they either um are or aren't so i went ahead and

planned for the longer you know and so two laps was going to take me under just under two hours

and so like an hour and 50 minutes so i made two hour fuel bottles and i was planning on going six

hours so i made three of those and then i had three camelbacks all in a bucket and i posted

that on instagram where you can go check that out and i guess uh that was really about it i used a

like a big um utility bucket to put the camelbacks in it fits three and then i put camelbacks in

something that's protected like that and vertical but also with hard walls on it it's like a milk

crate we kind of do um that way to keep people from stepping on bladders

and uh that reminds me um my podcasts are full of tips on purpose so the psychological stuff you

know the zen and the approach to being calm and everything is is you know maybe let's say 50 of

the tips and then the other 50 is things that i've learned about how to race that i pass on to you

guys and uh you can greatly accelerate your progress in the sport by knowing these little

things i was telling a co-worker today he's craving salt i go yeah you need to add salt

to your workout water or uh he's craving salty foods and i said and you will continue to crave

salty foods and eat junk food to compensate until you have enough sodium in your workout water

and other foods that are healthy anyway so if you want to support the show go to patreon.com

slash zentry and you can sign up for a subscription and also if it doesn't allow

one-time donations i'm going to go check it out and i'll see you in the next video

check that here next um and then set up a paypal i used to have a paypal uh people can donate by

that one-time donations and yeah support that or if you want coaching let me know go to

your gmail and sign up by sending me an email at texafornia at gmail.com and again texafornia

at gmail.com and ask for coaching somewhere in the email subject line and i'll catch it and i

coach using training peaks the world's best

and the stuff that the olympians use so anyway

because my mountain bike has only one bottle cage on it that's where my fuel bottle is going to go

and i have a camel bag and i wanted to do every two hours i have a two liter camel back but you're

generally going to like two liters per hour hour or hour a liter and a half per hour you know i was

like man i don't know if that's really going to be enough and whenever i would start like a second

lap my camelbacks would be like oh my god i'm going to be like oh my god i'm going to be like oh my

half empty maybe i should grab a water bottle so i have older triathlon bottles water bottles that

are flat that go in a jersey really well without being all bulgy and they work great for jersey

bottles so i've filled those up as well with water well sodium water electrolyte water

and i'll get into my fuel and electrolyte here in a second and put those in the bucket and then

you know throw a camel back on

and threw a fuel bottle in my bottle cage and then lined up to the back of the race and they

sent off the e-bikers at five and um the relays at 502 and us at 504 pm and my bike computer said

108 degrees and also before the race uh there was two announcements well announcements and a

clarification

that i asked were so they said the third fastest the person

on their third lap who gets the fastest lap will get a hundred dollars and you know that's a racing

tactic to make the race interesting and the boring parts of the race people get bored let's see

let's make a interesting part in there and i thought that was kind of interesting and it turns

out kai won that but he didn't um there was a technicality where he didn't win it and maybe i'll

explain that now

the e-biker won so it was kai got he was third fastest on the third lap

but the person in the two people in front of him one was an e-biker and that shouldn't count and

then the other one was in a relay and i'm like that really shouldn't count and i emailed the

race director after the race and i said hey i saw that the two people in front of kai were

i was really nice were you know an e-biker and a

reviewer and i said hey i saw that the two people in front of kai were i was really nice

relay person shouldn't kai win the thing because i'm like you know trying to be supportive and

like help kai out if if he wants something makes him you know want to continue doing the sport and

stuff and then the race director had some reason that e-biker yeah uh but the relay person is they

the relay people do count for some kind of weird logic that they had because there's like a strategy

and a technique to it so whatever and i'm like i don't really agree with that but okay whatever

it's only 100 bucks i don't want to ruin relationships over it and then uh the other

thing that i clarified which was i was like what uh was i said is it how many laps you get in and

you got to finish before six hours which is what the race i did a few years ago was like

or if you come in before six hours are you still it's still okay to finish another lap

and then y'all figure out who got in the most laps in the shortest amount of time

you know if so if i was doing barely under a lap every hour and this is kind of what happened

is i finished six laps right before the cutoff and i decided not to go out for another lap i was

just done but i could have and then i would have gotten uh i would have done one more lap

and then laps count uh you know i would be ahead of people that only did six laps because i did

seven all right okay i gotta run i'll be right back and tell you more

about how the race went down okay i'm back i had to do something real quick

life oh uh my bike is it's wednesday and my bike is not going to be ready till saturday

our trek shop is closed on mondays and tuesdays

oh my god i don't know what i'm gonna do without my gravel bike

i love riding gravel for the countryside and just the expanded places to go but i do have

a mountain bike and a triathlon bike and i'm going to do a mountain bike and a triathlon bike

so life could be way way worse and both of them are mostly functioning i think

a guy that i swam with this morning asked me if uh the bike is damaged because i post on instagram

all my uh scrapes and bruises and my separated ribs from my crash and uh and uh i was like oh

yeah bikes actually uh fine um so let's talk about that for a second i ride a canyon neuron

we got it for kai for his junior year in high school and canyons are run big and we got him

an extra large it fit okay it was a little bit of the big side but he's going to grow into it

and then um he was placing just off the podium

and the canyon neuron it's a metal uh aluminum alloy uh canyon not a carbon one

and i talked uh my mom into splitting the cost because my mom is a sucker for putting her kids

and her grandkids on bikes uh it's a scandinavian german culture european culture bikes bikes are

everything bikes solve a lot of problems especially with boys let them burn off the

energy that's why she put us in the soccer though boys boys behave way better when they're

tired and she had two of them she had me and my brother she just wore us out and swim team too

on purpose i think uh so that she can get some rest anyway so um we got kai we upgraded kai to

a trek super caliber and then i upgraded from my hardtail orbea which was a crazy fast um

but a crazy fast cross-country bike but i wanted to do marathon i discovered marathon

mountain biking a few years

ago and we got into this bulldozer thing which was fast, traditional bike brought it up to the

new orbea top down and across the mountains the tracks uh teach with the oriented flow on the

And I'm like, dude, I need full suspension for my back and everything, for comfort, for going long distance.

And I used to have a full suspension Cannondale Super V.

Those of you that know what that is, that is badass.

I had a Super V SL Superlite with all XT on it back in the 90s.

And I know how good full suspension can be relative to hardtail.

And you don't have to pick a line anymore.

You can just ride over everything, especially with 29-inch wheels now.

And the thing is, is I inherited Kai's Canyon.

Oh, so I did the math and figured out that Kai would be on the podium or winning if he had a faster bike.

The bike was actually, if he's 30 seconds off the podium in 45 minutes to an hour, the bike is holding him back.

It was like maybe a minute off the podium.

Yeah.

The bike was holding him back about 30 seconds per lap based on the weight of the bike and the speed of the bike.

And so we upgraded him to a Trek Supercaliber with family investment.

And that's all carbon.

It's like a 9.7.

It's like next to the top.

And then he started winning everything because of the bike.

I hate it that in cycling you buy speed.

It's so unfortunate because it keeps people.

For being successful because of money.

So unlike running, you need very little money to be a good runner.

Swimming, you need to get the swim team practice and such.

But the bike, oh, God, it's such a pain.

It sucks so bad.

But then also bikes are so cool.

I love me some bike porn.

Just checking out the latest and the greatest.

Oh, it's so awesome.

Anyway, I crashed.

But I'm not that.

I'm not that worried about it because a metal bike will endure bike crashing a whole lot better than carbon.

And Kai's bike, I'm always a little bit like if he crashes, I'm like, you know, I hope the bike's okay.

Because carbon can break so much easier.

Except Trek has a really good deal on their wheels.

Like, I don't know if it's lifetime, but it's like many years of warranty on their carbon rims.

If you get Bontrager rims.

Or maybe, yeah, I think they're probably all Bontrager.

Then you get a crazy good warranty on those wheels.

So that's kind of cool.

Anyway, so we got the bikes covered.

And then I remembered a minute ago I wanted to talk about the lead up to the race as far as training.

I train basically halfway between half Ironman and full Ironman training.

Like all the time.

Day in, day out.

Week in, week out.

I do the.

I do the swimming and biking to be able to do a half Ironman or a full Ironman.

And I do the running to be able to do a half Ironman pretty much all the time.

And then I modify my training based on what's coming up that I want to do.

And the past few years, it's been everything that's been coming up is one of to join in with Kai on one of his crazy ass gravel races or mountain bike races to be there too.

Um, and then that way we can do something together because he doesn't do triathlon anymore.

He just does, uh, uh, cycling stuff.

But once I discovered marathon mountain biking, then I'm like, oh, this is four to six hours.

Typically as a marathon mountain bike race, that's like doing a half Ironman.

So I get to use all my fueling and endurance and hydration and all that other stuff and apply it to mountain biking and gravel racing is fun, fun, fun, fun.

And the people are laid back and it's like.

It's like trail running where just finishing is it's like, it's like doing an Ironman, you know, we're just finishing is like an accomplishment.

So for 99% of the field, yeah, your time is interesting, I guess.

But the fact that you did it at all, you get to go in the next week and tell people, I just did a six hour mountain bike race.

So I've been doing like the past few days.

People are like, what the fuck?

I'm like, yeah, dude, seriously.

And.

They're like, yeah, that's you just.

Oh, man, I was on cloud nine of bliss.

Whatever you get after doing the hormones and endorphins and whatever that you get after doing something really awesome.

You feel this like cloud nine kind of feeling.

I had that Monday and Tuesday for a good portion of both days where I was just like nothing bothered me.

I was just like, oh, man, I did something awesome.

That felt so good.

Anyway.

So the training besides that, as I got closer to the race, a little bit too late, actually, I did a couple of interval rides because mountain biking is like super power based, you know, like 800 to a thousand watts to get up and over stuff just over and over and over again.

And then coasting, hard coast, hard coast, hard coast, hard coast.

Right.

And so I did a couple of interval rides.

And.

But, yeah, I should have started a little bit sooner, but it doesn't matter.

I'm happy with my result.

In fact, I'm surprised at my results so that I got mid pack in a six hour mountain bike race, having not mountain biked for six months.

It's pretty great.

And being 51 years old and I'm up against, you know, 20 and 30 year olds and 40 year olds to get mid pack.

It's pretty great.

So the training was like that.

And then.

The week before the race.

I didn't run at all.

No.

I biked hard.

Let me try to remember what I did.

I swam three times Monday, Wednesday, Friday, just to keep me busy.

And then I biked hard on Monday.

The race was going to be on a Saturday.

So five days before I did an interval bike ride.

And I figured that would give me time.

And then I did not bike again.

That's that was it.

I did not bike again until race day.

So that's like four or five days of no biking to let my legs recover from the intervals, except I got on the mountain bike with the lights on it and rode around like a mile with headlights on twice to test out the headlights that we were using the light system and then was getting a little bit freaked out.

You know, are the lights going to show up in time?

Because I didn't know.

Because the handlebar mounted lights, which are your big bright lights that you showed up 10 days before the race off of Amazon and then the lights for our helmets, because you're on trails and the bikes pointed one way, but the trails turning more than the handlebars are turned.

So you need to light up the trail or maybe look off to the side because there's an animal or something freaking you out.

You want a light on your helmet as well.

And those showed up two days before the race.

I was like.

And then it turned out that those are weak.

Those are more for being seen by cars instead of really lighten up the trail.

The helmet ones that we had and the.

I added to mine a little light that a pinpoint light and that.

They kind of got the job done.

Kai's handlebar light.

Let's see.

It's double the size of mine.

I ordered one.

We only have so much money, you know, for this kind of stuff.

So I got I get him the good stuff and me just enough to get by.

Same thing with the bikes.

Right.

He gets carbon fiber bike.

I get the alloy bike.

I don't really mind.

I have a super bike.

I've already had a super bike and and still have it for triathlon.

I don't need a another super bike.

So although I would.

Somebody sends one on my doorstep.

I ain't sending it back.

You know, I'm not kicking a super bike out of the bed.

We're eating crackers, as they say.

So if you get a super bike laying around, I'll give you my address.

And also, I do product testing on this show.

So any kind of stuff, wheels, I'm always up for wheels.

And I do need to upgrade the wheels on my bike.

That makes the biggest difference is carbon wheels.

But the.

The lights showed up and did some riding around, making sure the lights worked and I mean,

my experience of riding lit on with in front of the bike is extremely limited.

So this was fun to ride around and kind of see how well it lit up stuff and see how it actually what you can and can't see when kind of we're doing our three day bikepacking trip.

We ended up in the dark twice and we were using little lights that are not made to light up the road, but we were using them.

OK, I had a half decent one.

And that was lighting up the road.

And then I would ride behind them and we rode for a couple hours, maybe a few hours total over two days like that.

And but that's on road, you know, with some gravel.

And so you get in the woods, stuff gets really dark, you know, and then we were testing that out.

And then I ran Tuesday, swam Wednesday, never ran again to really give my legs a break.

Because normally I would run Thursday on a regular week, but I didn't and continued working on my bike and like testing out lights and charging things and trying to get everything together.

And oh, my God, the amount of stuff I needed to charge.

I'll get to that in a second.

It was ridiculous.

And then the race is Blazing Saddles, by the way, if you want to look it up, it's on Facebook.

You want to see the race course and the race flyer and stuff.

And then the.

And you can find it by Googling six hour mountain bike race, Blazing Saddles, that'll give you that'll get you there.

And the next thing was Friday, I swam, didn't bike or run.

So basically by Saturday, I think one more day would have been optimal because when I was warming up, riding around, my legs were a little bit kind of hollow and sore.

Just a little.

Just a little bit still, but I was not worried about it.

And.

That was my taper.

Typically, what you do, let's say you're training for an Ironman, you do two weeks out or marathon or ultra marathon or two weeks out, you half your volume and a week out, you half it again.

That's a good rule of thumb.

I think Ironman, if you're like really new to Ironman, I would back it out three weeks, you know, cut it in half.

And then.

Half and then in half again, half of a half of a half, the frog jumping kind of story and you never get to the end of the log and what you do in your meantime is as you're going stir crazy.

That's a good sign.

Once you start going stir crazy and you can't stand it, that means you're ready to race and it's one of the signs you're ready to race and what you do in the meantime is that's when you get your gear together and get everything organized.

Yeah.

And keep yourself busy with that.

And if you know that, that you're going to be stir crazy, but you can keep yourself busy when you're going stir crazy with checking out the race course and I don't know, finding out all kinds of details and restaurants nearby and whatever you're doing, all that stuff.

If you wait on the logistics and the little details until you start tapering, then it'll keep you busy while you taper.

It's a really good strategy.

Okay, back to the race unless I think of something else.

We start racing and on the first lap, everything's going fine.

I think I talked about this a while ago.

I wrecked a little bit and then Kai hit a tree bench head on with his helmet and we were watching the YouTube video that I posted online, Zen Endurance or Brett Blankner on YouTube.

I broke it up into two parts because the video didn't record right.

I recorded sideways and then getting it fixed, I had to mess with stuff and eventually I ended up breaking up into two pieces and then it doesn't have all the metrics on it like my usual videos do, which really annoyed me because it filmed sideways and I couldn't get them on there without the metrics being sideways forever.

Anyway, it's a long story.

I tried everything and the at 19 minutes and 45 seconds or something.

It's a long story.

I tried everything and the at 19 minutes and 45 seconds or something like that into video one, no, video two, yeah, video two, part two, is a tree on the left side with a V in it about neck high, head high, chest high, and that's the right side of that V is where Kai clocked his head on the V.

And there's a black smudge on the tree and it's just pixelated from the video, but Kai's like, that smudge is probably there.

That's probably where I hit my head.

It's probably from me hitting my head.

I said, you and probably.

Other people over all these years.

That needs to be flagged.

They need to put a piece of flagging tape on that or somebody saw it down.

Anyway, the first lap was, oh, it's daylight.

It's a billion degrees.

And I had that one tiny little spill and then I get to the aid station, come through, and it was 47 minutes.

I was like, whoa, nice.

But then it starts getting, in the back of my mind, I'm like, ah, some logistics problems here with how much water and fuel and everything's set up for two hours and I'm definitely going to be faster than two hours.

But anyway, I kept the fuel bottle that I had because it was a little bit less than half full and then kept the camelback that I had on.

But I figured that these laps were only taking me 45 minutes, 48 minutes, and it felt like I had about half a camelback left.

I was like, yeah, I'll probably be all right.

I don't need any extra water.

Well, that was a mistake, and that set me up for a lot of pain the last half of the race.

I go out for my second lap, and I think that might have been my fastest.

No, I think my first lap was my fastest, even though I was behind a bunch of people.

Oh, and my lower back started hurting.

And that's from when you mountain bike and you're going too hard, you're in too big of a gear and you're surging up things.

Well, a lot of stress goes to your lower back.

And to alleviate that, stop doing that.

Gear down, get into an easier gear, and quit trying to wrench yourself up and over everything and just chill and ride a little bit easier.

And I realized that during my second lap and rode just smoother.

And easier and stuff.

And my second lap time was almost identical to my first lap time.

And also, two days before the race, Kai went and pre-rode the course.

And that's when he told me, you know, there's sandy spots and stuff, and be careful.

Then he ended up hitting his own head.

And then I did not ever pre-ride the course.

But I have ridden at this mountain bike course since the 90s.

And I know it really, really, really, really.

And my strategy was going to be to ride the first lap because I'll be off the back and trying to pace myself and forcibly trying to go slower.

I'm going to use the first lap as my pre-ride because every lap is the same course over and over and over again.

And in mountain biking, for those that don't know that, pre-riding the course makes you way faster.

The second time you do a mountain bike trail, you are so much faster than the first.

And because now you've kind of, you know, like how fast to go through stuff and the angles to take and the paths to take and stuff.

And so I was going to use the first lap as kind of my pre-ride anyway since I was going to be going slower on purpose so that I could do six hours of this thing by going slow right from the beginning.

And that actually ended up being a pretty good strategy.

All right, I'm back.

Had to do something real quick.

And let's see.

Also, well, we're talking about hydration.

But also before I forget, I had the Shox open-ear headphones, bone conduction headphones, and I got the waterproof ones now, the ones for swimming.

They do Bluetooth as well.

And I listened to music most of the way.

I listened to kind of like down-tempo desert, like Himalayan, Indian, Afghani, kind of tribal, kind of cool music that's...

Just awesome.

Has like a cool beat to it.

No words.

Just kind of beat-bopping along.

And then for maybe the first half.

And then the second half, switched it over to like 90s rap and 2000 rap, like Cypress Hill and Wu-Tang Clan and other stuff, Beastie Boys and other stuff I like to listen to that made the ride go by faster.

And open-ear headphones, you can hear pretty well.

Very well, actually.

And they didn't have a rule against that.

So that was pretty cool.

And anyway, I was halfway through my second lap and ran out of water.

And I was like, oh, okay.

But looking back now, I didn't realize it was 108 degrees until I was looking later after the race the next day, looking at things like time per lap and stuff, metrics on Strava and training peaks.

And then I saw the temperature was 108.

And so, you know, it was 102 probably whenever I ran out of water.

So I'm doing – and a lap's taking me 45 to 48 minutes.

And so we're talking almost half an hour.

So like 20-something minutes of no water in that heat.

That's one thing, right?

And that's where I misjudged something.

I was like, oh, I'll probably be fine.

The socks, I would rather – I should have brought water.

I should have grabbed one of those water bottles as I went.

But the –

The problem is, is I did not account for like, oh, my God, in this heat, this is not – this just is – you know, whatever.

I'll just deal with it.

This is bad.

Turned out.

So I get to the aid station on the second lap.

And I'm so thirsty that – oh, and without water, you can't really drink fuel either, you know.

And the water has my electrolytes in it.

And I do my fuel.

And one –

And electrolytes separate.

And it's – what I do is I'll electrolyte my water.

And then however much water I drink is the electrolytes that I need because it's diluted with the water.

Because you need more electrolytes.

The more water you drink, you need more – because you drink more water because you're sweating.

So – because you're sweating more.

And so therefore, you need more electrolytes.

Anyway, I get to the aid station.

I'm like, Emily, is anybody – do you have any – there's my water.

I'm going to grab my water, you know, for my next laps and stuff.

I'm going to grab a fresh CamelBak for laps two – laps three and four.

And these CamelBaks are two liters each.

And – but I don't want to use water yet.

Take spare water with me yet.

Emily, do you have any – do you have any water?

And she ran over to the car and out of the cooler grabbed a cold bottle of water, you know, like a 12 to 14-ounce kind of skinny water bottles that you buy.

And I pounded that thing so fast because I was so thirsty, you know, like five seconds, ten seconds, gone like that.

And that caught me up enough.

But the damage had kind of been done looking back.

And that water didn't have any electrolytes in it.

And so I take off again.

But my second lap was really nice besides the lacking of water as far as the flow and riding because now I've got a pre-lap in.

And I'm going to take off again.

It's still daylight, good daylight too.

And I'm just like, oh, this is nice.

And then on my third lap, that's when the sun started to kind of go down.

And that was the magic hour is the third and fourth lap, the middle of those, the second half of the one and the first half of the other, is when the sun was going down.

And the sunset was – oh, my God, dude.

It was pink and red.

It was red and just pastel colors.

And this ranch has a huge drop-off to go to the back half of the ranch.

And it's totally freaking scary.

If you've never ridden it before, it's terrifying.

It's in the video on YouTube.

And it's on the second part of the video, part two, the big drop.

And the – but anyway, when you're up high, you know, you can see the views and everything.

Oh, man.

With the sunset.

And I found a new love, which is riding at sunset, mountain biking at sunset at this ranch is – wow.

Oh, my gosh.

It is beautiful.

It is so wonderful.

It's a real treat.

And you won't experience that racing most of the time.

Usually races are done by the middle of the day or the end of the day.

And to race into the sunset and to keep going so that you get the full sunset, it was – oh, wow.

Wow.

That really made my heart.

I was like, this is something magical that I wasn't expecting and did not know about.

And the – and I guess like any race that you do that goes into the sunset, if it's a pretty sunset that goes into the night, you're going to get that.

So that's something if you ever do a race that goes in – starts in the daylight and goes into the night, that is the magic hour.

It's, oh, wow.

It's so cool.

So look for that if you want to do a race like that.

And then –

I noticed in the darker – the more treed parts of the trail that it was starting to get kind of hard to see a little bit.

It was just darker.

And I noticed somebody had a light on.

And so even though I didn't quite need it just yet, I went ahead and grabbed my lights probably at the end of lap three, I guess.

I grabbed my lights, put them on.

And –

Now, the end of lap three and going to lap four, my camelback is, I've learned, more than half empty.

And my fuel bottle is fine.

I got it in the second – my second two-hour fuel bottle.

I'll get into what I use for fuel in a minute.

But to go out and start my fourth lap, I threw one of those water bottles, the triathlon sodium electrolyted flat water bottles in my jersey pocket.

And I was right.

About halfway through that lap, I ran out of water.

And then I was able to use that water bottle to supplement my water to make it the rest of the way.

And I need to put that in my notes for the race.

A downside – basically what I really need to do is get a second water bottle mounted on my bike.

Because what is really difficult to do is to reach and grab.

Things out of your jersey pocket behind your back, the longer you're in a race, especially mountain biking, your arms get really tired.

And then they can start to cramp up.

And so reaching behind your back to grab stuff out of your jersey pocket is painful.

And that's why people do things like bento boxes and frame bags and gravel racing if you can so that you don't have to reach behind your back because your arm will cramp up.

If you can have things in front of you but streamlined, that's optimal.

And that's a tip for – that people don't know until they do long, long distance stuff.

It's one of those secrets that that's going to be a problem.

Then I did lap four and it was probably lap – wait, I did lap four, lap five?

Yeah, it's lap four.

Yeah, I went out with light.

Whatever.

It doesn't matter.

It was a lap where it got dark.

And this is where I wrecked.

And what's interesting is –

Another thing I learned is just like when it hasn't rained in a long time and then it rains, the roads are really slick.

But people drive too fast because they don't appreciate yet how slick the roads are.

When it first gets dark, people still go too fast on the bike.

They still ride a little bit like it's light, which is a little bit too fast because you can't tell.

You haven't learned to appreciate yet the fact that things look a little bit different with lights and your depth perception is off just a little bit.

And with mountain biking being pretty technical, that can lead you to crash.

And so then what I noticed along with my crash was a whole bunch of crashes right after it got dark.

And I think it's people going too fast down something that they typically ride.

And I think it's people going too fast down something that they typically ride all the time.

It's like my fourth time on this one feature.

And then I crashed on it.

And I'm like, why?

And it just didn't make sense.

But anyway, what happened was it's –

To me, it wasn't really a technical section.

There's stuff that was –

It's an interesting section and it's a rough section that I know on my hardtail used to give me trouble.

And on my full suspension, never really gave me trouble.

But it's downhill-ish.

And then, yeah, it's downhill.

And you've got some –

It's a little bit fast because it's downhill.

And then it turns to the left.

And it's got a –

Whatever you call it, a runoff little groove and a root.

And then let's say that's almost all the way down.

And then towards the bottom, right, one bike length further past that is a sandstone.

It's a sandy spot.

And, you know, the sandy spots are because it's so dry.

Sandy spots at this mountain bike park come and go because they only pop up when it's been really, really dry.

And so I wasn't really thinking about it that much that this was going to be a problem.

And then I misjudged something because I was using lights.

And my rear tire –

Wasn't properly aligned on, you know, to take the best path down this thing.

And so it got the bike kind of sideways maybe a little bit.

It's hard to judge.

You know, there's like –

There's accidents where people say time slows down and they see their whole life, you know.

This was the opposite of that.

I was riding and then I was on my face.

Hard.

I mean, there was like a millisecond.

I do remember it, but it was like, bam, like the whole freaking thing.

It just happened so fast.

The sandy spot, one part of the bike, let's say, went left.

The rear went left and then the front went right because of the sand or vice versa.

I don't remember.

You know, I'd have to get out there with a traffic investigator unit to see, you know, what actually happened.

But the thing is, is I –

The trail curved to the right.

I ended up falling –

The trail curved to the left.

I ended up falling to the right with the momentum of going straight with the bike and just ate it hard on my –

And I've been trying to think of like why I keep separating my ribs whenever I crash really bad or trip and fall really bad.

My ribs almost always take the worst of it.

And I think from surfing, I've learned to tuck and roll a lot and that's my instinct.

So coming off the bike.

Going airborne, you know, I tuck my head and roll and let my side and my shoulder a little bit take the hit.

You want to be careful.

You know, you don't want to break a collarbone.

But so then my upper arm goes into my rib cage often and maybe that works in surfing because water is soft.

But that – you're getting rolled along the bottom.

But on a mountain bike trail or a pavement or on roots and rocks, your arm is going to go into your ribs and then just –

Splits my ribs.

And also I landed on my side of my head sort of and just like slid and then I landed on my right knee and my right forearm under my right forearm from like my elbow to the bottom of my wrist is just –

My wrist, my whole forearm is gripped up really bad.

My right knee days later is still weeping like clear fluid.

And –

I got a –

Oh, towards the end, the second half of the race, I got a really bad headache like in a line across my forehead, which was really odd.

It was a different kind of headache.

And then I realized it's probably the front edge of my helmet digging into my forehead, the impact it took.

And then –

Anyway, I picked myself up.

Check out the bike real quick.

Bike was fine.

Oh, no, it was not fine.

Well, sort of.

Bike was fine.

And then my brand new headlight.

I had twisted on the Garmin mount and the Garmin bike computer had also twisted on its Garmin mount.

And there's something else I've noticed that's interesting is years – three, four years ago, my first time – I raced a six-hour race at this exact same place, but I did it with Kai doing a relay.

I did – he went first and I went and he went and I went and he went and I went.

And on the very last leg, I crashed and I had my Garmin mounted out in front of me.

And I'm a huge fan of having your Garmin.

Garmin mounted out as far in front of you as you can.

And then that way, you don't have to look down so far to see your numbers and then you crash, right?

So it's just like a car.

You want head up – the more the display can be head up or fighter jet, the safer it is because you can look at your numbers and see what's coming.

I've noticed in mountain biking, people – but I've never heard somebody recommend this.

I don't know if people are doing it just by –

They're doing it on purpose for the reason I'm about to say, but also just by culture.

Everybody does it.

Nobody knows why.

So the mountain bike – in mountain biking, I've noticed that bikes – the bike computers tend to be mounted to the stem, but like on top of the stem, not in front of the bike.

There's very – rarely is there – compared to like road and gravel and triathlon, is there –

A head mount where the mount – the bike computer is mounted ahead of the stem.

And a few years ago when I did this race and I crashed, it broke the mount.

Like the computer was okay, but it broke the freaking mount off the front of my bike when I crashed.

And I was like, oh, that's interesting.

So then this weekend's crash that just happened, the mounts were not in front of my bike.

They were –

On top of the – well, no.

Maybe the headlight was kind of out in front a little bit.

But the bike computer was on the handlebars.

They were on the tops of the bars, and both of them were twisted sideways.

Like if they were any further out, they would have broken.

And it did kind of break the Garmin mount.

The mount that I had on my bike was a – like one that you tighten down with a bolt.

And it knocked that one so silly.

Both of the Garmin and the light were twisted on the mount, so I had to twist them both to get them back in place.

And when I twisted the Garmin one to get it back in place, it –

the whole thing was floppy on the bars.

And then I realized I guess I'd have to go back and look.

But the rubbery gasket inside the mount of my Garmin mount had –

had flown off the bike and was now in the sand somewhere.

And so now the bike computer was just hanging loose on my handlebars.

And so this was really cool.

One of my things that I put in a bento box –

and people don't use bento boxes in mountain biking typically.

But I use them because in triathlon, I've learned the value of bento boxes.

And also in gravel biking, I've seen people talk about putting their –

tire patch, tire plug kits not in a saddlebag behind them and buried deep,

but like in a bento box so you can get to it super fast, right?

So you just do a zipper, bam, there it is, right?

Well, I also happened to put my tire – my bike tool, the Allen wrench set, you know,

in the bento box up front in case I needed it in an emergency and my tire plugs and my asthma inhaler.

And the –

and the –

this was a screw-down mount.

So I pulled out my Allen key set, started tightening.

I got off the side of the trail, which was really narrow in that spot.

And somebody – I was tightening that down.

And somebody goes, you okay?

And I go, yeah.

And then I'm like, it's a race now.

That's how you know it's a race is you're crashing.

And that took maybe another minute or two, I think, added to my time.

And then I get back on the bike and I start paddling and I'm okay.

And I'm scraped up pretty good.

But I'm fine and the bike seems to be fine.

And I –

hold on a sec.

The thing is I get to the aid station and Emily and Kylie shine a light on me and they're like, ooh.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm all right.

And then they tell me about Kai.

And his concussion.

And they said, you just missed Kai or something.

Maybe it was a lap after that.

I just missed Kai.

Oh, and Kai had lapped me halfway through the race.

And I'm like, oh, I have a chance – a little bit more than halfway through the race he lapped me.

And I was like, oh, because my goal was for Kai not to lap me twice.

At first it was so funny.

I was talking to a friend and I was like, my goal is for Kai not to lap me.

And then I thought about it and I go, that kid is going to freaking lap me, dude.

Yeah.

Let's change it.

My goal is for him not to lap me twice.

And he didn't.

But there's a – if I had done another lap, then he probably would have lapped me.

And I stopped right before 6 and then he stopped at 6.30, I think.

And he got in eight laps and I got in six laps.

So he would have lapped me right before I finished or halfway through my last lap.

If I had gone out for another lap.

Anyway, so now it's dark, really dark.

And, yeah, I head out for another lap and this is where I'm really hurting.

This is the lap where I start cramping all over and I'm like, man, you know, because for training – I did mention this earlier.

My long bike ride is four, four and a half hours long.

And that's my long rides.

Lots of one-hour rides and shorter rides.

Mixed in intervals and stuff like that.

So a six-hour – even though it's mountain biking, a six-hour race, I shouldn't be cramping this bad this early on.

And I'm like, I wonder what's going – you know, what's up with this?

It's kind of odd.

And the cramps were a little bit all over, which is a sign of electrolyte and dehydration if it's all over.

If it's just in your legs, that means you're going too hard.

If it's all over, then it's hydration because hydration affects your whole body.

And I was like, oh, yeah, I guess – man, I guess it's that half hour without water, you know, set me up.

And, dude, I mean, it was painful and it sucked.

And it really had me thinking like if I ever wanted to do this again because it was that bad.

And, you know, now, of course, I want to now that I kind of know also what the problem is.

And, you know, it's type two fun.

And the – yeah, that lap was – yeah.

It was rough.

And it was during that lap that I was like, okay, I'm going to finish this lap.

I'm trying to think of what time.

I'm going to finish this lap at four and a half hour – four hour – four fifteen.

Four hours and fifteen minutes, let's say.

And then if I go out for – no, four and a half.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm going to finish this lap.

I'm going to finish this lap at four and a half hours.

If I go out for another lap, then I'm going to come in – I'm going to finish that last lap.

Oh, and also I've crashed and it's really dark.

But now I've learned – I've learned to appreciate just ride slower.

So that lap was pretty slow.

And also I was cramping and stuff.

But, yeah, so I'm trying to do the math in my head like what's going to happen.

And so I decided on that fifth lap – and I kind of lost track of laps too, I think.

I showed on my bike computer the fields that I used.

I used time, heart rate.

I didn't have a power meter on my bike, on my mountain bike.

And then I showed lap time and last lap time so I could – because you forget as you're going through.

What was it?

Forty-eight minutes?

Was it forty-two minutes?

Was it fifty-three?

And for it to show for – so you can look at it any time how long your previous lap was is nice.

And then I had time of day because that's the cutoff is 11 p.m. no matter what.

And if you accidentally like turn off your bike computer or I don't know, whatever, it's always nice to have time of day on there.

And then I think that was all the fields I showed.

But if I was going to do the race again, I would show lap.

Because I don't know.

I kind of forgot.

I lost track of which lap I was on.

And if you're doing things multi-lap and you've got your fuel and your water set up per a certain number of laps, I guess that would be a good thing to show.

So I would probably change that.

And, yeah, I'm like, well, I'm going to go out and do one more lap.

And that lap, I'm going to take my time.

And this will probably be my last lap.

And I had set up my camera ready to go if I go and do another lap.

And, okay, my idea was I'm going to film a lap in the dark because people, plenty of people see mountain biking during daylight.

But mountain biking at night, that's different, you know.

So that would be cool to video.

And if I video that, I want it to be on my last lap where I'm riding casually and I know it's over and I'm just going to enjoy it.

And that will probably be the lap.

So that's what I decided to do.

And then also during that lap, what I did is while I'm recording it, I'm wearing it chest mounted.

I decided also to narrate the entire lap.

I decided to narrate the entire thing and talk.

And that would make the time go by better because I was going to be in some pain.

And I'm also going to be going slow.

So just talking out loud and narrating what I'm seeing would make the time fly by a little bit faster.

It's like I got a buddy riding with me.

But it's y'all, you know, that I'm talking to.

So it's pretty cool.

And it ended up working out pretty great.

I actually liked it.

Oh, and if I was any other lap, I would actually be trying to go fast, you know.

And then I wouldn't be able to narrate and tell you what.

So I saved it for the very last lap when I knew that I was, that was it, you know.

So I put on the chest mounted camera and took off and that'll be lap six, right?

But I noticed on lap five, I didn't notice, I experienced on lap five, the harder obstacles I was needing to walk because of cramping.

And also because of the dark.

And there's a thing, you know, the Galloway method where you mix in walking.

And you actually go faster if it's long distance for running ultra marathons and stuff.

I knew that if I mixed in some walking with my mountain, I was fine with it, with walking my bike up the harder obstacles.

And then I knew that I would actually be able to bike longer and go more laps and more distance and more time if I mixed in a little bit of walking.

So I had no problem ego wise with getting off my bike.

Plus I was wearing running shoes and flat pedals.

So if I started getting a really bad cramp, what I noticed on lap five is I was needing to walk a few things because of bad cramping.

Rarely, but on occasion.

And then the really like three or four like really technical obstacles, I just ended up just getting off my bike and walking them.

And stuff that was really steep.

And so I did that on lap six as well.

But with even more intention.

Of like, this is fine.

This is what I'm doing.

Because also I ain't wrecking again, dude.

That sucked.

And then I, yeah, so I filmed a whole video and it took me an hour and 15 minutes, hour and 18.

I don't know, something like that to do the final lap.

That's how tired I was and crampy.

I had energy, you know, like in my heart and soul.

I was fine.

But so calorie wise, I was fine.

It was just the dehydration style cramping.

And then also not wanting to wreck and having wrecked and the darkness makes things like slower.

So, yeah, I filmed this video and I was really excited when I was all done the next day, you know, working while I'm recovering from the race on Sunday, posting the video on YouTube.

And it was a lot of fun.

Man, like putting the video together.

I didn't have to do much.

You know, you just post it and write a description.

And that was it.

And so on there you have the video of me doing the last.

It's in two pieces.

The last lap.

And also so you can see what it's like trying to ride at night with lights.

And my lights about half as good as what you really want.

And so it's somebody commented.

It looks like the Blair Witch Project.

Yeah.

Of course, there's the second the second video.

I start to fall over backwards and crash a little bit.

That one's funny.

And then right after that, there's a Sasquatch wood carved statue in the woods.

And you see that briefly for a second.

That's pretty cool.

I talk about it.

You know, it's not just doesn't just show up and then disappear.

I should go back to the video and add that as chapters where that happens.

And then an alien.

That's an alien statue.

That's lit from underneath.

It looks pretty cool.

And then going coming across the finish line with all the aid station people and stuff

and the race still going on and then coming across the finish line and going through the

barn and the beginning of the video of the very first video, you know, I'm at the aid

station leaving and that's kind of cool to see Emily and Kylie and then come across the

finish line and then talking for just a second.

And then there's a I tacked on to the second video.

The bit while a while later where when Kai finished and he's laying on the ground and I go up and talk to him and he's just laying there exhausted and his girlfriend sitting next to him and we just talk for a minute and that's the end of the video.

So we decided to leave because kind of both banged up pretty good and it was very late.

You know, it's 1 a 1 a.m.

Ish.

No, it's like midnight.

It's midnight ish.

And we're pretty.

I'm pretty sure that neither one of us won any awards and then it turned out that Kai got the fastest third lap, but they weren't going to give it to him.

And then the other thing is I might have gotten I might have gotten podium for my age group, but they never broke up the the results by age group.

So and I can't click on people's names.

I got 18th place, right?

But nothing's done by age.

And then also, I mean, maybe I'll go back and look.

Y'all hold on.

Let me see.

And also, if I click on people's names above me that finished ahead of me, there's no there's no information about how old they are.

So I don't know.

I'd have to Google search every single 17 people and discover all these people and find out how old they are.

And somehow and then did I get, you know, for the 50 to 60 age group, did I get, you know, third place, second place, first place?

I don't know, which is unfortunate.

I think they should.

That should be in the results.

Let me go double check, see if they've updated it.

But I think that they haven't.

All right.

Had to skip off that.

And we're now finishing a six mile run the next morning.

It's Thursday morning.

And.

Time to run.

And boy, starting off.

Made the separated rib hurt.

Sharp pain.

But then it gets.

Your body releases.

Its own painkillers.

And softens things up a little bit.

When you walk things off.

And you feel better.

It's probably not better.

You're probably still injured.

But anyway.

So.

Super hot, humid.

Where I left off.

Well I ran this morning.

I biked Monday night, Tuesday night.

Very easy both times.

Gravel bike.

Yeah it's a mix around here.

50 50.

And then swam yesterday morning.

And that swim, whoo.

Pushed off the wall.

Came up and then arched my right arm.

And twisted my.

torso get that first breath of air on the right side and that right rib on the the separate rib

on the right side just went yeah i was like oh crap it could be an hour of this and it took a

little bit but then it got better and i got in 4 000 yards which was nice and now i'm at the house

we'll catch up with what happened like getting home and uh from the race here in a second i got

to go in and cool off and get to work and also get stuff out of my truck kai's gonna borrow my

truck people say trucks are bad for the environment because you use it as a personal vehicle instead

of a truck well you're also the community truck other people borrow it all the time

so there's that it is getting used like that as well so all right be right back

you

all right i'm back i'm in the zentra mobile studios and uh i'm on my way actually not into

work i got a doctor's appointment and i got about a half hour drive so we'll finish this up just

real quick on the truck you know the the point i was trying to make is that you never know the

full story about behind anything you know and yeah there are people that just drive a truck and then

don't ever use it but the upside of well let me give another example i had a co-worker in geography

stuff that

was doing analysis on streets and parks and how there's no parks in modern neighborhoods and

there's more street you know but whatever and i said well there's something you haven't considered

that cul-de-sacs you know streets that have dead ends act as kind of parks and every neighborhood

has dozens of them he's like what do you mean and i said if you if you can when you have kids live

on a street that's a cul-de-sac and live like halfway down to or towards the end don't live

at the very end because you get headlights in your house all the time

but the turnaround at the end of the street is the kids playground and parents come out

and sit in the in their lawn chairs just like a park and watch the kids play and the kids play

kickball when i was growing up at kickball we had bike bike jump ramps uh play tag all that stuff

and it's safe and then if a car comes down the street that's not supposed to be on that street

especially a suspicious looking car

there's parents out there that give them the stink eye you know and it's considered generally

safe and everybody's lawn of their house is up to it and the kids running in and out of people's

yards nobody cares you know they're running around trees and stuff and it acts as a park

there's parks everywhere in a weird way you know if you think about it but anyway yeah i drive a

truck but also you need uh you don't need but several trucks around

one truck in the family you know actually serves the entire family and one truck amongst a group of

friends acts as uh the friend's truck and so kai uh doesn't have a truck but then when he wants one

he uses mine and then mine gets used as a truck anyway that's what i'm talking about makes a lot

of sense let's move on you get what i'm talking about uh let's see while i was running is your

moment of zen

of many i was listening to dao de ching well on youtube there's tons of videos describing the

dao de ching and it's spelled t-a-o sometimes most time and it's it's the predecessor to zen

and some people say that zen is actually the reincarnation is of is the modern

rehabilitation and and

second coming of daoism and daoism is just you know things have a flow to them

and to use uh the natural flow of things instead of fighting things

and it's a lot of kind of like what the force in star wars is based on you know things aren't

really good or bad but you know when you're when you're paddling down a river let the current take

you and then

when the tide is out and you can't go anywhere that's when you rest

and uh when i was surfing there's a rip current you let the rip current pull you out

and then you paddle sideways along the shore just a few hundred feet and uh if that and then you can

ride the waves in and then you when you get to the beach you paddle go sideways and then ride

the rip current back out again you know what i mean instead of like fighting things you use the

natural flow of things and stuff so anyway i suggest you go to the beach and you go to the

you uh check it out there's lots of wu-wei and and uh it's out uh it's it's a rabbit hole

of really cool stuff that really makes a lot of sense of um kind of like uh is it ralph waldo

emerson uh the walden walden pond um you know just don't really try too hard to be things and

and things just happen and don't worry too much about it

this is like the original version of that it's a really cool philosophy

and the whole point of learning philosophy is uh you learn different ways to think and

i would say there's no correct way to think there's once you learn like 20 different philosophies

then uh and then hold them loosely then when you're presented with situations in life

you have a great tool set sometimes it's

sometimes you know the teachings of socrates sometimes the teachings of nietzsche or

who's a modern philosopher i don't know stephen hawking you know einstein

relativity the energy is actually matter and which is actually time

you know it's actually a philosophy when you think about it and it's all just like beliefs

on how the universe works and uh yeah so you you have all these and you're back

in your pocket and then as life unfolds you've got a nice tool set there's nothing better

everybody knows this there's nothing better when you have a job to do and you actually have a tool

like custom made for the job right like you're working on your bike and you have exactly the

right allen wrench and exactly like it fits perfectly and it's well made and you get to

use it and you're like ah or if you're sawing lumber or you're chopping wood you know and you

have like a beautiful axe and then it's it's wonderful you know that's how you do it and

that's how when you know different philosophies you can apply them uh well and it's just it's

wonderful it's absolutely wonderful and there's a call for i've read articles about this every

business and a lot of big businesses do needs a philosophy major right there next to the ceo

and the executive the uh the xo the cio the everybody they also need a philosophy major and

that's the person

that dictates you know where the company is going and why you know and my job act is both i act as a

manager and as the philosophy major of the system that i run and why i run it the way i do and i

have to fight for it a lot of times um i uh this is a really good example i got asked by my boss

the other day is why is the system behind and i was like who told you it was behind he's like

well this one person and i'm like well that's one person told you that but the

system i've been here 20 years the system's right exactly where it should be and it's

actually being held back by um you can only upgrade the system as far as the weakest link

right because the system all has to work so you upgrade as the weakest link and then you be

patient and then when the weakest link strengthens up then you can upgrade the entire system and

there is no as long as you're on top of things and the system is functioning and it uh in computer

terms at 99.9 percent uptime and then you can upgrade the entire system and then you can upgrade

and everybody has the tools that they need and also you provide uh you know the futuristic tools

to some people that really do need it you go out of your way to help them out then uh the system's

fine there it is not behind you know and like you don't rush things you just let things you can't

put uh summer after winter you know there has to be spring first you know and boy that really like

doesn't sit well with me i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know

they're like what the hell are you talking about in the business world but some people get it

it's just like it also is has a lot to do with how you talk about it you know

is uh you know you answer questions with questions like who told you it's behind

well this one somebody said oh that's one person that's a that's a tree with a problem the forest

seems to be fine so i don't know which yeah you know and then also um

if you've had a rough year like you're getting your employee review and and there's troubles

uh i teach people to say oh sometimes you have a good year sometimes you have a bad year

you know sometimes good luck sometimes bad luck

and the whole thing is just to be here i'm here and it's sometimes like it's good luck and

sometimes great luck because bad luck would be if you die that would be bad so that's a bad year

good year is things are just moving along and ups and downs a great year

is things are wonderful and then sometimes you have a uh just an okay year

anyway i just thought i'd pass that along as uh what i was listening to while i was running

and it's really good stuff to listen to on bike rides and runs it's actually how i got into zen

and the art of triathlon and zen and the art of endurance was listening to that kind of stuff

and then passing along people y'all seem to love it

uh me trying to explain it and how it applies to everyday life

and uh oh man wu-wei and taoism it's the art of doing nothing

which means it's not to sit there and do nothing but sometimes things don't need doing

that doing uh makes them worse you just let things evolve and and unfold and the modern

saying is i'm gonna i'm gonna let that cook that person it's always like really frustrating like a

karen that's all screaming and y'all about something you know but you don't have you

can choose to interact you're like i'm not gonna do that i'm gonna do that i'm gonna do that i'm

just gonna let that person cook and then eventually they run out of steam and then they're

like okay you done all right now let's get down to work anyway uh coming back from the race

uh well we packed up and um like i said i got like 18th i got ninth he did not lap me twice

he lapped me once and when he passed me oh it's such a magical moment you know

hey dad how's it going i don't think he said dad hey how's it going

and because it kind of i was like who is this and then uh i said uh hey oh hey i barely recognized

him because he looked so you know pro and racing and going by so fast with another group of people

just hauling ass and um and i'm there all like a tourist and oh i looked it up his he had one lap

that was slower than my fastest lap my fastest lap was 47 he had one lap that was 50 probably

for something and then uh all of his other laps were like 35 40 42 you know like crazy he had one

that was like a 46 or 47 so he might have matched my fastest lap for one lap too but and then he had

a 50 it was so comical like how much better that's one thing when i got into triathlon i thought i

was in good shape just like 20 years ago i thought i was pretty badass and i could not believe it was

i took it as inspirational you know it's that positive mindset

better people could be than me and i thought you know i was decent like you know and like

i didn't think i was world class or anything like that but like how much how much the gap

of somebody that just been doing it for a while and training some you know better and the and the

the difference in talent was so inspirational and i was like oh this is so cool that's a lifetime

sport of trying to get better and how do you do it you know how do you get better and how do you get

to be that good at this thing so uh anyway that's the right approach to take it's a growth mindset

anyway uh we drove home driving home sucked and it was uh because halfway between there and home

it's about an hour and a half drive is a town of caldwell which has it's a small town you know

that has like the high school football team the caldwell horn it's written on the water tower

that's the size got a mcdonald's and a waterbury and a caldwell and a caldwell and a caldwell and a

waterburger and and uh we went to mcdonald's first and it was closed it was like 1 a.m

nah it's like 12 12 it just closed it was like they closed at midnight so we went over to

waterburger and the line at waterburger was really slow i keep a record of these things so i know on

the way back um and then the line it was drive-thru only and waterburger is notoriously like super

slow and the line was so slow that in the drive-thru i got out and went to the bathroom at

the gas station next door and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die

back in the car and i was filthy in my bike outfit and then uh i just walked into the gas

station used the bathroom and walked out and uh bike kit and everything covered in dirt and mud

and stuff and sweat and you know just like whatever dude i'm doing my life and

my my uh theory and i've done it before when people like you need to buy something to come

in here i go i have bought something here

i live in the area i come through here all the time you know what i mean

uh to to use the bathroom that's what i'm saying and uh then we got home oh it was so painful to

write home just so tired and whatever but then we were home and kai hopped in the shower and i

jumped in the pool and i stood there in the pool which is nice because it's zero gravity and just

kind of uh let's see i need a map i'm trying to get to the doctor's appointment trying to find

the right road it's a good road right here and just kind of floated there for a little bit and

slowly stripped out of my clothes and then i got into the cleaned up and then went to bed

and then woke up the next morning and then that's when i realized like how sore i was you know

and that was rough um sunday worked on the video and gotta say i love making the video

videos and putting them on youtube i struggled with it still loved it and then what was the next

thing i um yeah it was sore and had trouble walking and i get to work on monday i have

trouble walking uh getting up and sitting down i have a desk job so i gotta sit up sit down

or get up sit down get up sit down and sitting for any length of time and then standing up is

the worst and then i'm waddling around and the

the oozing knee scrape is sticking to the inside of my jeans and uh that lasted for two days

and then on wednesday morning i got up and i was in the kitchen and then i realized i didn't

struggle getting up and get to the kitchen and like i always say when you forget that you're

injured that's when you're over your injuries and i wouldn't call that injuries really i mean

i had a big contusion bruise on my upper right thigh separated rib i'd call that an injury

everything else is just like soreness and i think that's it so uh let's go into this doctor's visit

i'm just doing a checkup and i'll be right back and we can uh catch up with

um what's coming next and well actually i'll kind of talk about that a little bit right now

kai's going to texas state uh in a week next week to um start school and he's on the cycling team

races all through the fall uh i don't have a race per se picked out yet um the big race i think it's

november though is the texas the austin rattler is what it's called and it's a three lap

mountain bike course that's really rugged and tough and it's a qualifier for leadville

and kai wants to qualify for leadville and they also do lottery spots we did it last year

and kai missed a leadville spot by just a a position or two uh place wise and then we hung

down and um the lottery spot uh never uh materialized for kai i did support i really

want to do the race and then possibly i could get a lottery spot and maybe i don't know if i could

transfer it to kai or not i don't know if they allow that probably not but i could um i could

qualify you know by by lottery uh for this race um it's at reveille peak ranch which is uh out in

the hill country and it's man it's rugged rough mountain biking

and that seemed to me i mean they gave out tons of lottery spots and very like say they gave out

it was like eight you know spots qualified for like how well you placed and then like

30 to 40 um lottery spots and i realized that's actually most how most people get into this thing

is they get in by lottery uh not by qualifying so um anyway there's that and then i'd like to

uh in the fall waiting for it to cool down full iron man i'm uh i go i train for full iron mans

except for the run uh the biking and swimming i do i could do a full iron man anytime my run i'd

have to pick up the running uh volume to double what i run right now you want to run about 45

miles per per week to run a iron man to do an iron man and i'm doing about half that but it's so hot

gradually overcoming a running injury and losing weight that i don't want to exacerbate that and i

enjoy running with river and it's so hot right now that i have to wait till the fall so we'll see

um i could crank out a half iron man no problem right now but uh i think that's where i'm at

uh that's it for a show uh stay tuned to youtube i'm posting videos oh i'm working with culprit

bikes i'm putting on arm pads the bike is at the bike shop putting on arm pads on the gravel bike

and i'm videoing

typically once a week maybe once every two weeks long bike rides uh for uh to put on youtube where

i go and act ridiculous and talk about stuff and that's a supplement or a partner i'd say it's an

equal to the podcast uh it's just video instead of this and um yeah go check that out that's

zen endurance or brett blankner on youtube and also on instagram uh zen triathlon on instagram

you can check me out

and that's it everybody stay safe out there work the uphills cruise the downhills keep the rubber

side down and go support the show at patreon.com slash zen tri all right check y'all later out

good night

oh

ah

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