Recency bias. Short-term memory loss. Long term-memory fiction. Ignorance? Lunacy? Or is it the need to prove something in a never-ending pursuit of a fleeting feeling? Why do we pursue things that at once scare and enrich us? What compels the crazy to seem logical and the insane to become the only way?
Let me simplify the rhetoric. Endurance athletes are broken and it the same action which breaks our bodies that builds, and heals, our spirit. The strain is the life source. The answer must only be yes.
For me.
The first time happened in August 2019.
Then again in 2022.
Then 2024.
And again next year. 2025.
I am head over heels in love with the LeadEpic.
The Leadville 100 happens on the second Saturday in August. 104 miles and nearly 11,000’ of elevation gain all above 10,000’ above sea level. Understanding the Leadville 100 requires doing the race. Reading the stats, watching the documentaries, being at the event as a spectator, or trying to compare similar efforts by transposing them onto the LT100 course all fail to provide a true understanding of the event. Counter to popular refrain, the Leadville 100 is a mountain bike race. The Leadville 100 is hard. It is hard for those that set new course records and it is brutally hard for those just trying to make the cutoffs and receive that familial embrace from Ken or Marilee. If you’ve never done the event don’t discount the event. Squash your judgements and test your grittiness. Only then will you understand. Oh, and you’re welcome. Participants are more fun than peanuts. Please leave the gallery. Exit left.
The Breck Epic begins on the second Sunday in August. A day after the Leadville 100. 6 days of some of the most amazing singletrack mountain biking in the world. Big days that challenge riders with high elevations, long climbs, even longer descents, and courses that test fitness, skill, and endurance from start to finish lines. There aren’t any soft tosses at the Breck Epic. The energy differs from most MTB Stage Races I’ve participated and after 4 rounds in this MTB boxing match I’m learning why the punches land differently. Uniqueness follows function. The function of the Breck Epic is less logistical and more emotional, nay, experiential. All 6 days start and finish in the same location: Breckenridge, Colorado. Athletes need not worry about transferring locations, packing bags, picking new food options, or working the circus schedule necessary in a traveling stage race. Based in one location, residing in one hotel/rental, and settling into a routine shores up a lot of time. Time. The most coveted asset in multi-day racing. With luxury of time on our side we racers can slide into casual social interactions with fellow MTBers. We can happily attend the racer meetings each night. And, most importantly, as racers we can chill the hell out. So you’ve got a concentrated group of like minded MTB racers who are relaxing, not flexing, and then you’ve got a three-ring circus lion tamer in Mike Mac waxing poetic about his event and why it’s making every racer from the fastest pro to the slowest bro (or h…. her) a better human. A richer human. A complete soul.
The LeadEpic begins on the first Saturday in August and runs through the following Friday. The LeadEpic mashes two events with wildly different energy but eerily similar communal results into a mega event that has captured my heart. The juxtaposition of an event centered on competition, times, rank and file, and tactics with an event loosely based on the need to go do amazing MTB rides, at your best ability, and be a better person for it feeds my Jekyll and Hyde. The steely eyed focus as I wait for the gun to blast at 6:15AM on a cold morning in the heart of Leadville rests as comfortably on my face as the warmed smile making jokes and sharing stoke in the self-corralled start line mid-morning in Breckenridge. The LeadEpic. A spectrum of MTB in a week. Oh, and yes, it is really hard. …but not impossible.
How to Train for a MTB Gauntlet
Ride. Quite a lot. Ride when tired. Ride when sore. Ride when tired, sore, unmotivated, disheartened, stressed, and worried.
Then, while riding, take stock of the current situation. Ask questions:
Are my legs too tired to pedal?
Is my heart rate out of control?
Can I breathe?
Am I…at least okay?
While performing this basic system check, and realizing that you are in fact not dying, then ride until the tired, sore, unmotivated, disheartened, stressed, and worried rider softens their attitude. Until the rider acknowledges that their bike is working flawlessly, that the weather has cooperated, that while out for a bike ride their lives, personally and professional, have not erupted in flames. Then, just as the weight begins to lift, the rider remembers why they are on the bike. Elated. Free. Light. This weightless unshackled trail hero launches off the nearest rise, soaring, godlike?, and smacks into a square edged rock and flats.
Be sure you can change a flat. Nobody likes stopping to help the helpless. If you’re going to race 7 days in Colorado terrain be self-sufficient.
And that’s it. There’s the training program. If this sounds doable, hell if you already do this, then you’re closer than you may think.
How to Eat for a MTB Gauntlet
Purposefully.
For nearly 15 years I ate with a single nutritional focus: to look like Ryan Reynolds on the cover of Men’s Health. Yep, pre-Deadpool and post-VanWilder. Why him? Well, Brad Pitt in Troy seemed a branch too far. However when I got into endurance riding and racing the high-protein, low-carb, shredded abs approach didn’t work. Carbs are fuel and there’s an obvious reason that jet-fuel has a higher octane rating. Bring on the rice, bread, noodles, and sugary drinks. Give me the octane!
Within reason. I still don’t do donuts. I haven’t had fast food since August 2005. Don’t confuse carb-loading with being a kitchen clown. Be purposeful.
The DtD Athletes I coach have 2 approaches for daily nutrition.
Fuel for Life. This is how we eat when our scheduled workouts are not outside of our normal parameters. For example: rides less than 2 hours, rides in Zone 2, off-bike workouts, or activities that do not stretch our comfort zone too hard or too long.
Fuel for Performance. This is how we eat when we want to unleash the beast. The monster’s gotta eat! Our next effort will push our boundaries and test our limits be it with time, intensity, or both and we need to be able to respond. Boosting our carb load and thus our energy reserves allows us to have breakthroughs.
During a stage race, or the mega event above, my meal plan and menu choices look nothing like a standard week. The first time I took on the challenge disgusted that inner Reynolds-wannabe. Trying to force an entire box of pasta down my throat seemed daunting and it hasn’t gotten much easier. Earlier this season I raced the Arenal Epic in Costa Rica with my Nosara MTB friends in the parejas division with Yadir. Two nights before the event I started my glycogen loading and made an entire box of pasta, 2/3 pound of ground chicken, and a jar of sauce on the small stove in my jungle apartment. Once combined the simmering pot bubbled atop the stove menacingly. Judging me. Laughing at me. You stand no chance bike boy. You can’t handle me. Mwahhh-ahhh-ahhh. Little did the gurgling goulash know, I’m an endurance athlete and simply cannot quit. Cannot know when enough’s enough. It took 3 platefuls and nearly 45 minutes but I lapped up the last of the sauce and remained last man standing. 2 days later I finished the Arenal Epic with more than an hour above threshold power to pull Yadir and I to the finish line.
Eating for a MTB gauntlet must be as purposeful as setting tire pressure, lubing a chain, or topping off sealant. Accepting that if we are begging for something beyond ourselves to be possible we must stretch everything we once knew to be truth.
You’ve got to eat a lot of good stuff.
How to Schedule Life around a MTB Gauntlet
Before enlightenment I preferred thinking about my life like a Trivial Pursuit game piece. A little colored wedge for this and for that. All neatly aligned and orchestrated to produce, when complete, a rainbow circle of completeness.
After enlightenment I learned that I had it figured out years ago, as a toddler. Life after enlightenment looks like the finger painting of a crazed tiny me who had too many Fun Dips. Mishmashing colors and forms. Drawing crayons along my great uncle’s Porsche.
Attempting to balance the needs of career, family, and self while pursuing the LeadEpic? A fool’s errand. The best strategy for scheduling life around the MTB gauntlet is to schedule time off from your life so you can fully live in the adventure. Set an auto-reply. Send out a broadcast. Let those who love, rely, or call on you know how important the coming week is for you and ask for the space. Much like the magic of the Breck Epic comes when there are margins for merriment, the chance for you to be fantastic comes when you are free from non-MTB responsibilities. It’s 7 days. The whole world quarantined for several weeks and there are still batteries in the machine.
This is turning into a How To Guide and it’s meant to be a love letter. Let’s get back on track.
I started riding my mountain bike again in 2009. I’d had one in high school, abandoned it for the thrills of being a college student at Iowa, and then revisited the idea after living in Colorado for a few years. I didn’t set out to race bikes. This recreational activity grew into a hobby that hobby into a passion and now into a full obsession. I’ve not forgotten how I got here. I’m a racer who loves to mountain bike. I’m a mountain biker who loves to compete. I’m able to draw an equal amount of joy from a heart-pounding, leg-destroying training ride as I can from a high-fiving, picture-taking, squishy-bike sending romp with friends. The LeadEpic appeals to my spectrum. On the first Saturday in August I can dive into the microscopic level of my MTB racing and search for an edge. I can identify where I need to be by the second. I can set goals, track progress, and execute a strategy with 100% accuracy. The very next day I can take the same bike and the same cycling costume to a wildly different race course. I can ignore the clock and focus on effort. I can ignore the microscope and get lost in the vastness of the painting I’m racing in. Damn I love you LeadEpic.
Both of them? Seriously?
Yes.
I’ve also done them as individual events. I’ve done them well as individual events. I like them better together. Peanut butter and Jelly. Insert: voodoo mind trick.
How to VooDoo Mind Trick the MTB Gauntlet
Forever ago I learned the acronym for making good goals. S.M.A.R.T. Look it up for the definition this isn’t a lesson lectern, it’s a poet’s mic, but the A. is important. Attainable. When building a training program, or an event season (NOTE: use of term event and not race), good goals should be attainable. The key event of the season, that silly term A-Event, provides a goal line that can properly prepared for. If you want to do great on a specific Saturday then you’ll have a 7-10 day plan ahead of time that ensures you’re ready to give it your best. Using this archaic system clarifies that the LeadEpic is a fool’s errand and here is where the voodoo begins.
Take a fool’s errand. Add an equal dose of guts, confidence, and sticktoitiveness. Then, add a ton of effort (see above) and a bunch of glycogen (see above) and ample free time (see above) and then… relax. You’ve already taken on more than the systems can handle. You’re distracted by the red dress. In military parlance you’re FUBAR’d. Ah…. unrecognizable. So beautiful. With the entire system thrown on its head and expectations impossible to find in the tornado of start lines, corral times, course profiles, and power zones those who take on the MTB gauntlet can throw their hands to the sky. They can give up. They can simplify the madness into a single commitment: just get on the bike. The voodoo magic diseases the rider. Unbeknownst to the host, that essence seeps from fingertip to toes. Chemically changed. Spiritually enlightened. The rider turned racer turned adventurer commits to the bike. For 7 days. My love of the LeadEpic comes as a result from this metamorphosis. The MTB gauntlet is nothing like a gauntlet at all. It’s a portal.
Step into the light…
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