Southern Cross Race Report

Feb 11 - Feb 17
S:  9,550 yds - 2hr 13min

B:  89.96 mi - 6hr 18min

R:  35.19 mi - 4hr 42min

Total:  13hr 12min

Feb 16
Southern Cross!

Feb 18 - Feb 24
S:  17,500 yds - 4hr 8min

B:  141.42 mi - 9hr 2min

R:  38.38 mi - 4hr 58min

Total:  18hr 8min

What a solid 2 weeks!  About half a year ago, some guys at work planted the idea of Southern Cross in my head.  After looking it up it sounded perfect: a long-ish but not too long (3-4 hours) off-road yet non-technical race (mostly dirt/gravel forest service roads) with tons of vertical elevation gain (almost 7,000 ft) and mostly made up of 2 long climbs, all taking place just north of Dahlonega, GA in the mountains!  After recently purchasing a mountain bike, I figured it would be a good excuse to ride it more and try a new type of racing.

North Georgia mountains

The race was advertised as being a pretty tough course, but I was pretty confident in my fitness and abilities so that was no big deal.  My biggest pre-race attention was probably the weather and tire choice.  Mid-February can bring just about anything, especially in the mountains.  Once the race was 10 days out, the extended forecast was already showing that it was going to be pretty cold, with a slight chance of snow.  But hey, that would just add to the adventure!  Clothing for a race like this really is kind of tricky.  The first climb of the day would be around 10 miles long.  Even with temperatures in the upper 20’s to low 30’s, a climb like that can still make you overheat and sweat a lot.  The complicating factor is that you will be much colder on the long descent after the climb, and if you wore too much clothing and started to sweat a lot things could get bad.  After seeking the advice of a handful of awesome local guys (Tubbs, Toone, and the guys at Bob's Bikes), I eventually decided on a setup of good wool socks, shoe covers, leg warmers, short bibs, a short sleeve jersey with a Gore windstopper jacket, Gore wind/waterproof gloves, and a good skull cap.  Equipment wise, Jason Barksdale at BBC helped me decide on some narrower 1.75in Vee Rubber tires to run on my mountain bike.  We had been talking about this race for months, and it was good to hear his advice and experience as a bike mechanic and as a participant the last 2 years.

cranking up a climb

On Friday afternoon I departed Birmingham and of course hit Atlanta right at rush hour (awesome).  By 7pm I had made it to pick up my packet and was chowing down on some chicken alfredo and a nice local restaurant in downtown Dahlonega.  Against my better judgement I opted for a massive brownie with ice cream for dessert which probably added a couple pounds to my race weight...perfect for 7,000 feet of vertical climbing.  After dinner I wandered around the mountains for awhile before arriving at the Hiker Hostel.  Basically, this place is pretty much one of the coolest things ever.  $17 for a bunk (2 bunk beds in a room) and a home-cooked breakfast...it doesn't get much better than that!  It was mostly cyclists there, so it was pretty cool to chat with all them and hear their stories.  On race morning we woke up for a coffee at 6:45am and then breakfast was served at 7:30...it was delicious!

awesome pre-race breakfast!

So, now for the race.  Seeing as how this was my first off-road race, my main goal was to not kill myself on some sketchy mountain descent.  But really, I had no idea how I would stack up with the competition so the plan was to just go as hard as possible and see what happened.  The quick summary is that I ended up 24th out of 86 in the men's open category and 45th out of 220 overall.  It was a good, hard, brutal effort but I felt good throughout and completely emptied the tank.

"how it happened"

 
The race started out with a ~1 mile cyclocross course.  Seeing as how I've never done a cross race I was slightly nervous.  I also got stuck about 15 rows back from the start line because I was riding around trying to stay warm (it was probably upper 20's and even colder with wind chill) and didn't get there soon enough.  Local Birmingham rider and the overall winner that day Brian Toone summed up the conditions pretty good in his race report:

It was cold at the start with temps hovering around freezing and expected to stay there all day. By the top of the first climb, there was fresh snow (just light dusting) on the dirt road with some ice and slush in some of the ditches alongside the road. One glimpse towards the top of Springer Mountain, and you could see all the trees dusted with snow and shining bright white. At about that same time, it started to snow again — just some light flakes but enough to make it epic.

As the race started, it was pretty bunched up and we were going pretty slow with nowhere to go.  Things were pretty uneventful (this is a good thing) and I thoroughly enjoyed the first super steep run-up before hopping on the paved road to get over to the mountains.  After a couple miles on the paved road we hit the dirt road and the climb started to manifest itself.  I tried to hit a solid tempo, knowing that I needed to catch as many riders as I could and also knowing that I could recover some on the descent.  I picked off a ton of riders and finally found some guys going about the same speed as me.  As the climb crested, the epic-ness and pure awesomeness of this race became ever so apparent.  After a brief flat-ish portion we started the descent, and I gradually gained confidence and pushed faster and faster into the curves.  Near the bottom of the descent I could see a group of a couple riders that had just turned on the paved road.  Knowing that the paved section lasted for a couple miles, I drilled it for a minute or so to bridge up so that I could sit in a pack full of cross bikes.

Nutrition wise, I felt extremely good the whole race.  I opted to eat a jack-ton of calories, especially early on; this is the recipe that I've found works best for me on my long, hard training days.  Here's what I went with and I felt like it turned out pretty much perfect:

• (2) bonk breaker bars - 500 calories
• (3) Gu Roctane - 300 calories
•  (1.5) flasks of EFS liquid shot - 600 calories
• (3) scoops EFS mix in a 26 oz bottle - 300 calories
• 20 oz bottle of water
• Total - 1,700 calories

With approximately half of the race now complete the road turned to dirt again and we were off on the second climb.  I dropped the guy I was with and was completely alone, and as I looked to the right I could see that we were following this cool little stream/creek with the occasional rapids and small waterfall.  Epic.  Despite being alone, I managed to stay focused and eventually reeled in a few riders near the top of the climb.  After a brief descent there was one more final kick-up before the final descent.  I could see a group of 5 riders not too far up the road...I positively had to catch this group before the end of the descent because the last 6 miles were on paved road and I would desperately need a group to sit in with.  This gave me some confidence to completely drill it up the remainder of the climb.  By the top, I could see the ~5 riders with a 15-20 second gap.  I hammered the descent as hard and safe as possible and finally caught a group of 3 riders about 75% of the way down.  As we finished the descent I sat in for a couple minutes to recover.  As soon as I started to feel better I could see a group of 6-7 riders up the road so I attacked hard on the next climb and got rid of the 3 riders, pushing as hard as I could for a minute or so until I caught the next group on the road.  After recovering for a a couple minutes, we turned onto a narrow road to get back into the winery.  We approached the next climb and a guy from the front of the group attacked and I followed.  After pegging it for a few minutes we had established a pretty sizable gap before he dropped me.  From there on I was solo to the finish, which was only another few miles.  After pulling into the winery, all that was left was an absurd super-steep run-up and one final cylcocross course.

the final run-up

After walking my bike up (notice how I said walking, as "running" was practically impossible due to the steepness) I remounted and continued on the course.  After 2 creek crossings, one of which I ran over/through and was ankle deep, there was a couple more bends and short/steep pitches before finally hopping back on the paved road for the last couple hundred yards to the finish.  And then it was over!  My final time was 3hrs 48min 41sec, and I was completely gassed. After eating some food and packing the bike up, it started to get absurdly cold/windy so I made the brutal post-race trek back to Birmingham, thus ending my 24 hour road trip to the mountains.  I will be back next year for sure!