Chris Irving 2nd at the 24 Hours of Clear Springs

After trying (with no luck) to get a team together for the 24 Hours of Clear Springs, I made the decision to try my first solo 24 hour race. This had all the potential of going very wrong, since I broke my ankle 4 ½ months ago, I haven’t ridden more than three hours at a time and putting on the Midsouth Endurance Series ate up the time I could have been riding. I just wanted to support the nearest 24-hour race to the Memphis area and thought I would see how many laps I could do and not necessarily “race” it.

There were 19 solos entered and only 7 teams entered, (they were missing those three SCC teams from last year). there was a lot of talk about getting “Chicked” by Namrita O’dea from Atlanta and every one getting trounced by Zack Broussard from South Carolina (originally from Baton Rouge if you can’t tell by his name), then there is Charley Rome to worry about, he has won the race the past few years. The teams went 15 seconds ahead of us then we were told “Go”, I followed Broussard down the first hill and the race was one. We caught and passed up to fourth place in the teams before long. I thought staying behind the fourth place team would be a prudent move, it ends up that Both Broussard and I passed him about halfway through the first lap. Broussard started riding then and left me in his dust, his first lap was 53 minutes and mine was 55.

My plan was to ride straight through till dark, then stop, refuel, put lights on and see if I was still alive. During the third lap my toes on my right foot felt like they were on fire (due to some complications from my ankle surgery) and I was ready to stop and see if there was anything I could do to alleviate the pain. For some reason on one of the many downhills (did I mention there is 960 feet of climbing per lap) if I angled my knee out at a 45 degree angle, while taking some the pressure off my foot and the pain would go away, that worked for me.

By 6:30 pm, I had gotten six laps in and was 15 minutes out of first and 30 minutes ahead of second. The problem was that this is a 24-hour race and it really did not matter where you are at 6 hours as I kept reminding myself. The race has three checkpoints “manned” by Redbull drinking, Pyromaniac Boy Scouts, I would have fun with them by telling CP2 that CP3 was kicked back eating ribs, who knows what trouble I started. Once it got dark, my laps slowed to consistent 1:15 range. I had to come in after every lap and take a short break, making my laps closer to 1.5 hours. The night droned on, and on, and on. Charley Rome and I were swapping 2nd place during the wee hours of the night, when he decided he had had enough and took an extended break. First was now out of reach and two laps ahead as he just changed water bottles and kept riding every lap.

By dawn, I had 14 laps (140 miles) down and took an hour break myself as my 46-year-old knees were protesting quite loudly about the thrashing I was putting them through. At 7 am I went out on my first day lap in 8 laps and it was wonderful to see the trail again instead of seeing that spot of light right in front of you for the past 12 hours. When I finished my 15th lap, I checked the results and Broussard had stopped at 17 laps and Rome was still two behind me. I could do two more laps and still be in second and third place could only get 15 laps in, so I decided to quit and eat an actual meal at about 8:30 am. I ended up with a shade more than 150 miles and 14,700 feet of climbing, no wonder my knees were hurting! The new Titus RacerX 29er never missed a lick except for the two times it fell when I was on top of it.

If you ever get a chance to do this race I would highly recommend it, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a race with any friendlier folks. It was nice having all the solo racers camped out at the start finish area.

Results Here