"I can't ever hide; the trouble's on the inside"

From hours 6-10 of the Park City Perfect 10, the above lyrics from a song by an old band named "The Origin" kept going through my head. I think that this line summed up my race pretty good. I had no idea who I was even racing against (other than Brad), so even though it was easy hiding from the other racers, there was no hiding from the ongoing internal battle of whether to do that extra lap or to pull the plug and call it a day.

I jogged the le mans start and hopped on the bike. I was in a long line of riders, and the pace was pretty mellow. When the trail opened up a bit, I made some passes, and settled into what I thought was a good pace for me. It turns out that considering I had another 10 hours to ride, I went out too fast for the first 6-7 laps, and I ended up paying for it for the rest of the day. Probably a common first-time-endurance-racer mistake. I got slower and slower each subsequent lap until I could probably have been walking during those last few laps and gone faster than I did riding them. It was almost embarrassing how slow I was going by the end. After 10.5 hours, I'd put in 13 laps and finished in 9th place of about 30 starters in the solo category. According the Perfect 10 website which claims 7 miles and 900 feet of climbing per lap, I rode 91 miles and climbed 12700 feet. Admittedly, my bike computer shows that the posted distance per lap was inflated a bit. I think I'll go with their stats though.

During a large part of the race, I swore I'd never do anything like this again. I had every twist, steep climb, and even rock memorized, and by the end, I dreaded each one of them, despite the fact that I was raving about the course for the first few hours. However, quickly after finishing I found wondering if I could have done better if I would have gone out easier and finished stronger. Who knows, maybe it would have all come out the same in the end with fewer laps at the beginning and more at the end. I guess there's only one way to find out for sure. Next time I do an endurance event, for the first 3 hours, I'm just going to repeat to myself "this is not an ICUP race, this is not an ICUP race" in an effort to slow myself down. In the end, it was great practice for the AMC coming next month.

I'm posting my lap info more for my benefit, because I won't write them down anywhere else. The lap times are a bit off because sometimes I'd often be a mile into the next lap before remembering to push the lap button, and I wasn't consistent about when I'd push it during my pit stops.

Lap Time Ave HR Max HR
1 39 ?? ?? (I forgot to wear my HRM during laps 1 and 2. I'm sure it would have shown what I already know - that I was pushing too hard)
2 43 ?? ?? (Pit stop between laps 2 and 3 to grab HRM)
3 40:26 155 172 (Why was I pushing my heartrate to 172???)
4 43:59 155 166 (Pit stop between laps 4 and 5)
5 46:02 156 169
6 46:31 154 165
7 45:17 150 160 (Extra long pit stop between laps 7 and 8)
8 1:03:36 146 157
9 53:10 145 158
10 50:57 144 156 (Pit stop between laps 10 and 11)
11 52:12 141 153
12 50:58 140 150 (toughest lap)
13 49:34 144 155 (I actually had a boost of energy halfway into lap 13)

*Average Heart rate over last 11 laps: 148

Food consumed:
*1.8 gallons of Carborocket
*4-5 PB&J sandwiches (as gross as this may sound, a bite of a sandwich soaked in Carborocket goes down pretty easy)
*1 Cliff Bar (too tough to swallow during a race)
*5 Gu's
*4 bags of Cliff Blocks
*4 bananas