Crave To Race: January 2012

After all of us completed 24 hours of Moab we sat at camp and made the decision that we would race the 25 Hours of Frog Hollow in Hurricane UT. The reason why it's called "25 Hours" of Frog Hollow and not "24 hours" is that the race takes place over daylight savings giving us an extra hour of racing.

I decided to race in the duo/pro category with a friend from Provo (Jake Rogers) which was interesting due to the fact that we raced throughout the season against each other, and now we would race on the same team. Chris and Danny also entered into the duo category as well. We left on a Friday night and as we hit Beaver we hit a blizzard and could barely see 10 feet in front of us. As we filled up with gas in Cedar City we flipped a coin to either stay in a hotel room in Hurricane or head to the race start and set up base camp. Unfortunately the odds were against us and we ended up driving to Virgin and arrived at the race around 10 p.m.

As we arrived we had a short window of no rain to set our tents up and went to bed, as 1:00 a.m. hit the rain pummeled down on my tent and I kept having flash backs from 24 Hours of Moab, and 12 Hours of Sundance with rain. I kept tossing and turning hoping that we didn't drive this far and as morning hit they announce that the race has been cancelled.

Fortunately as we woke up the rain stopped and the weather started to clear making the race conditions perfect. Jake and I flipped a coin of who would go first, and just my luck it was me. I geared up and walked towards the start line to set my bike up and walked back about a 100 yards because the race started with a classic "Le Mans" start.

During my first lap I was riding with the top 10 riders and as we hit the Gem Trail I ended up passing a few riders and finished in the top 5. I peddled hard as I arrived to the finish and quickly handed the baton off to Jake for his first lap. Jake and I kept a fast pace throughout the day and by the time 5:00 p.m. hit we were in 2nd place. As night hit the weather dropped fast and I knew we were in for a long night, not only because of the weather but we had an extra hour of racing as well. Jake and I kept a consist pace till 4:00 a.m. hit.

As 4:00 a.m. hit the weather dropped to the high 20's which made it extremely hard to head out on another lap. By this time Jake and I surpassed 100 miles each and were starting to feel the pain. We quickly strategized that the best option was to take a 2 hour break and wait till the temperature changed. The sun was about to rise and I headed out on another lap, and by the time I hit mile 2 I felt warm again. As I arrived to the finish line Jake headed out on his last lap as I headed back to camp to regain energy by the fire.

The weather turned out perfect, minus the fact that it was a little cold, but all in all it was great! Jake and I originally finished in 3rd place in the duo/pro category but later found out they made a mistake on another team which bumped us into 4th place. We finished 4th, and rode 130 miles each throughout the race. Danny and Chris ended up in 8th place. This race was my last mountain bike race of the year, and probably the best one!