CTR Prep

[Bob Loblaw]

I've seen a couple threads on this topic, but they are older and I wanted to get people's updated opinions.

About me

• I'm new to bikepacking but not backpacking or mountain biking
• My goal is to just finish the CTR. Doing it under 7 days would be a bonus
• I ride about 3-4 times per week, but only 1.5-2 hours at a time usually (coupled with crossfit & speedskating)

Prep

• I've made a full complement of bike bags and tarp tent and done my first overnight trip. I rode from Indian Creek to about halfway through Seg 2, camped, and returned the next day.
• I learned a lot about my gear and made enough mistakes to learn some good lessons.
• I plan to do some more shakedowns (an entire Day 1 ride from Waterton, night riding, rain testing, maybe a CES ride if I can squeeze one in)

Training Questions

• Is training to finish the CTR even an attainable goal with the remaining time?
• Do I need to follow the CTR-specific training plan? Or is simply riding a lot adequate?
• Are there any major things you wish you had known prior to your first CTR?

So, what else should a CTR rookie know and be doing 3 months before the race? Any advice would be welcome. I love hearing about other people's experiences!

[dream4est]

This is what I posted in 2012:



What is really important is the following:
1. No time limits. Each year many racers give themselves a strict time limit that is unrealistic. The trail is harder than they think. The moment comes when a person realizes that they cannot make their goal, and they quit. I have seen people that are way faster than me riding with me. That is very common as logistics become overwhelming under duress. The person has the ability to meet the goal, but reality means sleeping, breaks, being tired, not being able to eat, etc.
2. Adversity- how to overcome it without cheating or quitting. Things will not go your "way". What are you going to do when that happens? You may have to ride a tire with leaves in it-lash your frame bag with paracord-walk 80 miles-glue your shoe back together-etc.
3. Training is good but specific training is better. If one does not have a decade long endurance base, that is okay. By specific I mean HAB training. Overnight training. Weather training. Etc. I go out and hike a bike all the time in the fall and winter. I do overnighters in the cold or damp weather.
4. Mindset. What is your motivation? If it is 15 minutes of Warholian fame (like blog bragging, Facebook posting, etc.) your odds of quitting increase. This is a journey that has to be internalized. You must be one with the trail and block out human emotions that are ego driven.
5. Riding/racing alone. If you cannot handle being alone in the most remote stretch of Colorado, dont count on the company of other racers. Teaming up for anyone slower than true middle pack racers usually results in a DNF. The team slows you down almost all the time. I practice by camping alone near home often.
6. Injury. What happens when you have body issues? The will to continue the journey when dealing with pain is very important for all racers, not just fast ones. I had to deal with intense pain in 2012 in AZT and CTR. I ended up taking one aspirin in 25 days though I dealt with a heel/achilles injury in Arizona and a stress fracture in the lower leg in CTR. Do you have that drive to succeed? Even if it means your elapsed time sucks in comparison to others or your goal? Many folks quit because their final time would be not good enough or they cant break a record, etc.
7. Logistics. Dont fly in the day before. Have your gear ready prior to the morning of the race. Etc.
8. Practice with a fully loaded bike often. I am riding my bike fully loaded for the AZT 750 and it is 5.5 months from the start. Any gear movement or bike issues are being solved now-not on the trail day 1.
9. Eating. It is a skill to eat and keep up with caloric intake early in the race. Dont downplay this important aspect of the CTR. People quit all the time from this, even saying they got a bug or got sick from what they ate or whatever. It is calorie deficit not a bug. Your brain functions poorly without food not just your body.

So in conclusion if you can race with no time limit, handle adversity, ride alone, deal with pain, ride a loaded bike, HAB 50-100 miles out of 500 and eat food while moving then you have the ability to finish. If that sounds too hard then you understand why CTR is what it is. Is is a lot harder out there doing it than sitting here discussing it. Even people who finished the route underestimate it sitting at home/work talking about it. You "forget" how hard it really is. Time heals those wounds physical or mental. We forget how good it feels to finish or how painful/demoralizing the lows points were.



So after 2 years I reviewed what I said I believe 2,5 and 9 are the most important.

#2 relates to how internally tough one is. When the fight or flight reaction occurs do you fight? What I mean is do you find a way to continue on or do you quit? I just read a quote by Tom Savage, a quarterback drafted in the NFL round 4. When asked if he was disappointed about going below round 2, he replied "Adversity breaks some men, and makes some men break records!"

#5 is big for first timers. Resist the urge to team up either pre-planned or during the first few days. Trust me on this one. These "teams" quit like 80% of the time. Ride alone in your training and ride alone on the race. Its a race not a party or social scene. I equate the inablility to ride alone far from town as being "scared" of the wilderness. You have to embrace mans natural tendency to fear the unknown head-on.
Teaming up slows down both riders unless they are really good at it and it always slows down the faster rider. Non-racers always ask me how I ride alone at night or camp alone etc. I dont even really think about it I almost thrive off the fear.

#9 Anyone can eat normally. Eating the morning of the race and throughout day 1 is critical. It is a skill. Practice eating under duress. Like I said in 2012 racers dont get a stomach bug or sick from some burrito they have a calorie deficit they cant overcome. They "think" later its a bug but its an adverse reaction to forcing food down or the inability to. I ate food from the same cooler in 2013 in AZT750 at the Rincon Store near Tucson that supposedly got people sick. Some claimed that food was "bad". That is rubbish it was hot out people got behind in calories and tried to catch up at that store. If food was that bad at convenience stores and grocery stores like racers claim people would be getting sick who are not racers all the time. Its a mental game out there your mind will rationalize anything just to quit and then not have to deal with the adversity anymore. I have had food issues many times in the races and I dont think I ever got bad food. I have ate 3 day old fried chicken and other oddities.


So I have a new one to add:

10. Cheating. This occurs every race. I only bring it up because one ends up cheating themselves. Once one rationalizes cheating quitting aint far behind. Pre-planned sharing of gear, begging for water or food, caches, pizza deliveries, friends helping along the way, cutting the course, riding in a car. Go this route and a finish is about a 2% chance and likely you will be DQed like Nate Gallion in 2010.

[Bob Loblaw]

Wow! Awesome reply.

#2 - I ran into some of this during my overnight trip last weekend. I made some dumb, compounding mistakes that would have been very costly in a racing scenario.

#5 - From the comfort of my house, I don't anticipate the solitude being a factor for me. I feel like the CTR should be an individual endeavor anyway.

#9 - I have definitely run into this before and need to work on it. Sometimes I just convince myself I'll stop for a snack after the next hill...

#10 - Haha I will never understand why people would do that. As for the pizza deliveries, have people had pizza delivered to their camp/hotel room or something? What if it's Digiorno?

[dream4est]

Pizza was delivered to spring creek pass by a friend 2 years ago. in AZT300 a guy actually had dominoes deliver on route and then blogged about it afterwards. The first one is straight cheating, the second one is someone interpreting the rules and basically finding a loophole. Like Mike Curiak said about the Great Divide Race (precursor to Tour Divide) "if you find yourself looking for loopholes in the rules maybe you should wait a year until you are ready".

[Shirey]

• Is training to finish the CTR even an attainable goal with the remaining time?
• Do I need to follow the CTR-specific training plan? Or is simply riding a lot adequate?

After attempting to simply get my mind around the concept for a couple years, I committed to the CTR 2013 about a year out. Then I injured myself skiing in January and found myself 25 pounds over optimal weight on April 1 when I could really start to train again. I couldn't bear the thought of missing another year, so despite these same reservations I just said screw-it, I'm gonna line up and see what happens.

I just rode a lot and tried to get my weight down and my ass and body accustomed to long hours in the saddle, but I didn't do any focused intervals or power training or anything like that. I did 3 overnighters to dial in my gear, but that was about it.

I managed to drop about half that weight before the start, but I was still very unsure about what the outcome would be.

But I did finish in 7 days, 22 hours so it can obviously be done.

Its super tough, but that was more than offset by the tremendous adventure... good luck!

[Done]

I couldn't bear the thought of missing another year, so despite these same reservations I just said screw-it, I'm gonna line up and see what happens.
...
Its super tough, but that was more than offset by the tremendous adventure... good luck!

That pretty much sums it up!

[wbcmaelstrom]

I've seen a couple threads on this topic, but they are older and I wanted to get people's updated opinions.

About me

• I'm new to bikepacking but not backpacking or mountain biking
• My goal is to just finish the CTR. Doing it under 7 days would be a bonus
• I ride about 3-4 times per week, but only 1.5-2 hours at a time usually (coupled with crossfit & speedskating)

Prep

• I've made a full complement of bike bags and tarp tent and done my first overnight trip. I rode from Indian Creek to about halfway through Seg 2, camped, and returned the next day.
• I learned a lot about my gear and made enough mistakes to learn some good lessons.
• I plan to do some more shakedowns (an entire Day 1 ride from Waterton, night riding, rain testing, maybe a CES ride if I can squeeze one in)

Training Questions

• Is training to finish the CTR even an attainable goal with the remaining time?
• Do I need to follow the CTR-specific training plan? Or is simply riding a lot adequate?
• Are there any major things you wish you had known prior to your first CTR?

So, what else should a CTR rookie know and be doing 3 months before the race? Any advice would be welcome. I love hearing about other people's experiences!

I'm kind of in the same boat you are. I've wanted to do CTR for a few years now, but there's been some things keeping me from doing it.

I'm from Houston at 40 foot elevation. When did ride it was mostly flat, even in the Texas Hill country 400 feet is a 'big climb'. When I moved here last April, I was very very very discouraged climbing. I put it off last year and decided I need more time just to get used to the climbing. I think most of that was mental. Just thinking over and over "Wow, this climb is STILL going?!?!?!" I found that riding with people made that worse, as I was always the last one up. Since then I'm not also in better shape, but whenever I get to a climb (especially one I've never done before) I just think to myself that it's always going to go up, and I just have to deal with it. Not necessarily a negative thought, but just convincing myself this is the way it is in Colorado; that's reality and complaining about it wastes mental energy. Another thing I've learned is that the 'top' is never where you think it is.

I'm in much better shape this year, and I've pretty much figured out my setup on a few overnight trips and will be doing more in the future. But like again, I just seem to do better alone. When I'm alone, the only one I am 'racing' is myself. I decided that if I don't do CTR this year, and put it off again, I'll probably continue to do it. I'm doing it for myself. Mostly for the adventure of it all. Sure bragging rights will be cool, but no one really cares what I do in the first place, so once again I'm back to doing it for myself.

I've also had a change in my job which requires me to spend about 3 hours a day commuting vs. 30 minutes like I had originally planned. This eats up a lot of training time. But my goal is to finish. I don't care if I'm 'last place' or whatever on the leaderboard. (I'll be on a Pugsley which is not exactly going to help with speed). Last place is better than DNF next to your name. I'm going to shoot for 10 days. Although that time is a bit slower than even the slowest of finishers, that still gives me a more realistic goal.. especially for a CTR rookie, on a fat bike, from Texas. I know there's tons of people I used to ride with back in Texas who think I won't finish. I guess that motivates me, too. This also makes the brain less susceptible to duress if I set a faster finish date and start lagging. More likely to remain calm, less stressed. Thus, making better decisions. I know people who race make dumb mistakes and get hurt on 30 mile races that they'd never do riding casually.

I've never done CTR, so I can't speak from personal experience. But I've done quite a bit of back country backpacking trips, a few weekend bikepacking trips, and everything seems to be more about your mental game than your physical fitness. This is especially true if you become easily mentally stressed, how well you can handle crisis. The longer the trip, the more likely those things are going to appear.

I plan on just taking it minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day; until I'm done. I'm not going to spend time thinking about elevation gain/loss, miles, average mph, etc. I'm just going to set a moderate pace and keep at it. This is probably a different mindset than the 'real racers' out there, but I am not a real racer. I just ride, and I want the adventure of it. To me, it's not the Colorado Trail Race; it's the Colorado Trail Adventure. Apparently some of the real racers don't want people like me out on Grand Depart because I'd 'get in the way' or something. But they'll be way ahead of me, so they don't have anything to worry about.

Less about me more about the discussion. I'm still trying to figure out food. Trying to find the best food I can bring. Shooting for 50% carbs, 25% protein, and 25% fat in the diet, but that might not be the way to go and trying to boost the carb level. I've paid attention to a lot of the common 'camping food' and found that sometimes it just doesn't give much calories for the weight. What I have found, for me, after doing some research is eating something sweet does something good to the brain if you're under duress. So, I've tried snacking on Clif Energy Chews or having a Snickers or something during or at the end of big climbs. This has worked well for me the past few months.

I don't claim to be an expert, but this is what has worked for me although I have not attempted or completed the CT.