Test of Mettle...I mean Metal

So this story starts with me sitting in front of my computer hitting the refresh key over and over at 1 minute to the opening of the Test of Metal lottery. I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones, and then wham I am....I fill out the form and submit and it says I've made it and will receive an email confirmation. I don't. Then I try again and the website is down. Then within a few minutes the website says that there is a problem and the lottery is closed. Oh man...that's a bummer. I check the next day and they are going to re-open the lottery the next day. Trying again. The last 400 spots sell out in 10 minutes and I'm one of the lucky ones. I get my hotel booked. Setup a vacation day. Pray for good weather! Now months go by and it's time to roll. I've been to Squamish once before but it was like 8 years ago and ALL the trails scared me back then. Now I'm doing a 42 mile mountain bike race with 5000 ft of climbing, in the heart of the North Shore. I talk to friends and find some who've done the race and give me the lowdown on the course. Now I'm more scared than ever. I keep hearing about the need to go really fast at the start on the road until it enters the singletrack. I hear about the long 9 mile climb which is immediately followed by The Powerhouse Plunge which is suppose to be a very long and technical descent that non-Canadians fear. I do also. then it's suppose to just get better, you head into the steep climb of Crumpit Woods...AKA Cramp-it woods.
Now to add my personal experience.
Molly and I drive to Squamish on Friday and the rain showers hit off and on. The weather is mild and will be nice if it stays like this. We go to registration and I'm one of the first to get my packet so it goes quickly. We head into town and walk through the T.O.M. party and hit a local place for dinner. It's slow but the food is great. We retire back to the hotel and I get everything in order for the race. I'm nervous and sleep as such. I get up at 7am and leave the hotel by 7:30 and drive to the race course to place my bike. At the Test of Metal it's first come first serve behind the pro's. Signs mark your estimated time you think you'll finish for lining it up. But there is no one there. The start area isn't setup. I'm embarrassed at my eagerness and we head off to breakfast. We roll back in around 8:30 and there are some people there but the start isn't set up yet. I find out that you can't place your bike till 9:30 anyway. Guess I could have slept a little longer. I get to hang out with some Washingtonians and Canuks. Then I see people setting bikes and cruise up to the 3-3 1/2 hour mark to place my bike. I want to hammer hard at the beginning of the race and get into the singletrack early. Over the next hour hundreds and hundreds of bike line up. All wheels up to make room. At a few minutes to 11 there are a little over 1000 racers standing and ready to roll. We hear a speech, some native dance and the Canadian Anthem and instantly we are off. The pace cranks up on the road to 25 mph and then we come around a corner and climb and climb and climb. Pace is still fast and I'm maxed out but I'm not being passed. We finally reach the dirt after 4 1/2 miles of this blast. The entry is tight with a fence on the left, a post in the middle and a tree on the right. Basically enough for two riders at a time to come in. But some idiot tried to be number 3 on my left. A gentle extension of my elbow put him into the fence at 15 miles per hour and the thud was quite loud. I felt bad for a second but realized that if he had pushed in I would have hit the metal post at 15 mph. OK, I feel righteous now and I'm going full on. Now to cut this short nothing too crazy happens for the next 20 miles. I am still pegged and hoping that I'll have enough gas to complete the race. At mile 20 we come into the "feed zone" for the first time. WOW! Hundreds of people lining the course, cheering, handing out food and drinks. A stage with a band. It's crazy and I am lucky to spot Molly holding a bottle and food. I do the exchange a cruise through the zone and hear at the end "your 1 1/2 hours in....great job!". We now hit 9 mile climb. Oh, I was hoping it was a mistake and it would be 9 kilometer climb. No luck. This things just goes and goes. I'm in my last gear and dying. Not getting passed much and holding my own but this hurts. My eyes are burning from all the sweat pouring down my face. The climb goes from fire road to singletrack and hurts even more as it's steep and a bit rocky. Once we hit the top we immediately hit a big ring descent for a few miles and then hit the very scary Powerhouse Plunge. I roll in and ride a big of it and I'm feeling scared yet thrilled to be surviving and then it happens. I hit a descent and a big rock deflects me and I'm off. Sliding across the rocks and my bike on top of me. I jump up to make sure I'm not blocking anyone and twang both hamstrings cramp. I try to run a bit and it's killing me. I jump on and start pedaling and no pain or cramping. MUST RIDE ALL I CAN. But then I come upon a group of cheering people and drop down another section and crash again. Cramps return. I run and ignore the pain and then jump back on. I figure out that where ever people are standing around and cheering I should jump off my bike and run. Those are the crazy sections. Every time I get off it hurts bad. But I finally exit the plunge and head into the feed zone again. It's a slight climb into it and now my inner thighs cramp and cramp bad. I can't pedal. But this happens just as I come up on Molly. I grab a pocket full of Endurolytes and Lava Salts and suck them down with a half bottle of ZipFizz. Molly pushes me up the feed zone and I eat some Sharkies. Within 5 minutes the cramps are gone and that's a good thing as we now go into some seriously steep singletrack. I pass a lot of people here. I realize it's Crumpit woods...AKA Cramp IT woods...I'm now feeling great with all the caffeine from the ZipFizz. We finally drop out of this section and we are on the gravel road that heads to the start finish line. A guy jumps around me and I chase. We are going hard and the guy that was holding my wheel explodes and pops off. I can't catch this guy. Glad he's in his 20's so I can use my age as the excuse. I finally come into the finish line. We line up in the order of finish and they take our number tag. I walk into the exit zone and drop my bike. I don't dare sit down. I walk around and quickly find Molly and grab some food and drink. We walk around and I run into Justin who kicked my butt. We wait and watch others come in that we know. I continue to walk around and eat and drink. It's almost 90 minutes before I can sit without fear of cramping. I actually feel pretty good. Results only show the top 15 people in each category and that's not me. We head back to the hotel, clean up and join the crew at the Shady Tree Tavern. Food and a beer go down easy. We talk about the day and realize that it didn't rain on us. Our bikes are mostly clean. Virtually no puddles. Temp was the upper 50's to low 60's. NICE! So for the first 15 minutes of finishing I'd decided I didn't ever want to do this again. My mind changed after another 15 minutes. I'm coming back. I'm going to ride more of the plunge. I need the challenge to make me learn to ride that more technical stuff. So now for the technical stuff; I took 3:27 to finish the race. The winner did it in 2:30. I was 237th out of 1009 starters. I am happy with the results. Can I do better....yeah....but only 10 minutes at the most and that's if I can ride the Powerhouse plunge. I was as fast as I've ever been on the rest of the race. They really did a great job on this event. Well organized and supported. Damn Canadians are nice people! They can also ride some sick lines. I'm not worthy but I'm going to try to be. See you next time!