My plan was to put the race on my 2015 schedule to build up for Gravel Worlds this year. I started racing in February with the 42 mile Road Apple Roubaix gravel race, the 100K ACR was next on the list followed by 100 Mile HellKaat Hundie, the 200K at Funk Bottoms and topping off with the 155 miles for Gravel Worlds.
Photo: Paul Hamad
My training for the race was going well and felt I was going to have a good race. The day before I did an easy 2 hours on cross bike with a few hard efforts and legs felt good. By Saturday afternoon all that had changed. I had come down with the flu big time. I was laying on the couch shivering covered in blankets with a fever. That itself is not good the day before a race then the upset stomach kicked in and I starting vomiting and could not eat or dink anything. Sunday morning after sleeping on the couch for 12 hours I had a wicked headache when I woke up. Somehow even though I did
not eat Saturday night I still had diarrhea Sunday morning along with the chills and body
aches.
I was able to dink some Hammer Nutrition HEED and keep it down. After eating a little bit of food Sunday morning and drinking the HEED I felt about the same. Being the glutton for punishment that I am fellow 765 Racing teammate Paul Hamad drove down to the race.
For the 100K there was an aid station at mile 28 where you could drop off stuff for second lap. I made up 4 bottles (2 for each lap) of my favorite mix of Hammer Nutrition Perpetuem and HEED. Since it was 3 miles from the start to the aid station it seemed like a good warm up to spin my legs and see how I felt. I had no energy and should have just dropped from race then. When all the racers were lining up at the start I contemplated switching to the 50K but my biggest pre-race decision was to vomit or shit my pants. Luckily neither happened but somehow I did manage to get one lap done. I stopped at the aid station grabbed my bottles of Perpetuem and HEED that I left earlier and decided to bail on second lap.
Photo: ACR
