Brad Wilhelm

Another disappointing finish in 2009. I was however glad I was able to finish the race, we spent the rest of the day enjoying the sites and the great weather.

Arriving home I quickly cracked my kneecap during a training ride. I am hoping I will be able to race this weekend at Vultures Knob. Beyond that I will have some news to announce very soon!

Getting a spot in front was important. With over 400 racers all starting at once there would not be much room for passing, even on a two lane road. On top of that there was a few hundred dollars up for grabs at the top of the first climb, less than a mile from the start line. I had scoped out the county line where the imaginary money line was and felt I actually may have a chance .

Race director Ryan Odell sent us off promtly at 7 am and apparently the sherriff and news truck were caught off gaurd. s we swarmed the truck which was supposed to remain in front of us, the cop car managed to react fast enough to stay ahead of us and took off up the road to black traffic. Starting the climb at the front of the group I was feeling ok and could see the county (money) line only about 40 seconds or so ahead. My addrenaline was flowing and as I looked around I did not detect any other obvious moves for the preem so I stood up on my pedals and made a distinct acceleration. 10 seconds later I look behind me and I see I am all alone! Now the pressure was really on as I though I had better get this with such a sizeable lead...I moved closer to the white line so I could see them coming on my left and maintained a high pace, saving just a bit for the end. Just as we approached the line I caught some shadows of racers coming up on my left and in a panic poured every ounce I had into the sprint! 

Unfortunetly I lost the sprint to last year's 100 mile winner Jeff Schalk by about half a wheel's length. That sucked. Not only that I lost the sprint but that I lost it to someone with a reputation for being kind of a jerk. Last year at this race he forcibly took water from another racer despite her protests, saying he needed it because he was winning...he was 8 miles from the finish.

I quickly put the loss behind me and just tried to focus on recovering from my effort and maintaining a decent place in the pack. We would be into singletrack soon and passing takes precious energy there.

Down a dirt road and into the woods my first thought was 'wow these hills seem steeper than last year!" Temperatures were in the low 50's, it was foggy and the sun was just starting to rise, actually good conditions for the first few climbs, which are really steep.

25 minutes into the race I finally enter the Mohican State Forest Trail. I am very familiar with this trail as I train here often. The trail surface was hard and fast but a quick rain the night before left most sections a bit slick. I was making up some positions and got a gap of 3 minutes to the leaders 1 hour into the race.Then I flatted my front tire, aired it up but it quickly went flat gain os I was forced to stop and install an innertube after removing a couple thorns. The tube continued to hold for the entire race but I lost a couple minutes and several positions in the process. Over the course of the next hour I managed to regain all but one of those positions before we hit the first road sections.

Through the scenic countryside and the ultra muddy horse trails I joined up with some really strong single speed riders just as we hit the miles of rolling dirt road hills. The mostly sucked my wheel on the dowhills and flats but I did take advantage a couple of times to draft and get some food and water down. We passed an old farmer mowing grass on a large tractor, he had fastened a big plastic tupperware container to his rig so his dog could ride along, we all laughed and that was definately a first for me. I now noticed that my 8th and 9th cogs were almost useless. My new wipperman chain included a quick link that skipped over those two gears, see <preperation>. I supposed I should have taken care of that problem before the race.

As I passed through aid station 3 I still had enough food and water to finish the race so I just rode through, the cool temps definately helped me conserve this year. I was feeling slow overall and assumed I was around 12th place. Tricia was waiting for me at the aid station and told me I was in 4th! This was about 4 hours into the race now and I had been feeling the hurt for a good hour, wondering if I was going to get a second wind. The news that I was in the top 5 and I knew I only had one more really hard climb ahead of me made the rest of the race much easier. I even started to feel a little better over the last miles of singletrack.

The new finish line was a sick joke as I rode out of the woods in sight of the finish, only to be sent back into a series of brutal short climbs and hike a bike sections over the last couple miles. Rolling across the finish line after 5 hours and 10 minutes I was feeling pretty torn up but happy to have beat my time from last year and to finish 4th even though it was short of my goal. This turned out to be a very valuable race for me as it is now obvious what has been missing from my training recently. These long races are very painful but so enlightening as I turn myself inside out and see what I am made of............

All the photos were courtesy of the beautiful photo girl, Tricia Ringholz