endurance racing

I’m out on my first lap, second in the team rotation...  The treacherous rock outcrops and escarpments I feared so much from last year were behind me and didn’t seem as bad as I remembered (at least, with fresh legs and plenty of sleep; that would change). Now I am in the heart of the sweetly twisting singletrack—buff, beautiful and at times reminiscent of a slalom run. Carving sinuous s-turns betwixt trees in the dappled afternoon light is an unexpectedly beautiful experience amidst the brutality of a 24-hour event. If you weren’t there, you were missing out.

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So it's the night before the big race. I would say I've been waiting for this for a while, but it's really only been a week or so. I just wanted to thank my friends and parents for making it down to Charlotte for the event. With a 4:45 alarm set for tomorrow, I don't know if I'll be in a particularly gushy mood in the morning. Especially considering that that rude awakening will be followed by a two hour drive, two hours of registration/hydration/urination madness, and then 6 hours of racing. Yeah, I should bust out the thank you's now, I'm getting groggy just thinking about tomorrow.

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So my history with the Cowbell Challenge is unfortunately quite short. I’ve been looking at getting into various kinds of endurance racing for the past two years or so, but the “if I only had time”s have gotten the best of me. My girlfriend as I finally signed on for a sprint adventure race in Macon, GA called the GEICO Ocmulgee Adventure Race (GOAR). We registered early and have been training four to five times a week trail running, biking, and a little paddling as well. But the race isn’t until July and I was itching to compete. So I scoured the internet looking for a race that fit in the one or two weekends I was free and found Cowbell about a week and a half ago.

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Hello Everyone,

My name is Daniel Grillo. I feel like I've been starting a lot of corrrespondences like that recently seeing as I'm a 21 year old college student. But then again, a blog reader is a bit different than a potential employer, professor, or financial aid officer, all of whom need that down and dirty introduction with no dead air between "hello" and "my name is." The reality, though, is that I'm just as nervous with my Yourmtb.com endeavors as I would be with the afore mentioned pillars of a twenty-something's existence. This is, you see, my first blog...it also happens to be about my first endurance race...which also happens to be my first bike race. I know, I know, who accepted this guy as a blogger, right? Hopefully my rookie status will only elicit more comments/feedback rather than scare it away. Anyway, I'll be back shortly with some thoughts on how I got involved, training, etc. Looking forward to Saturday...

What in the hell should I be doing before my 24-hour mountain bike race in Moab, Utah?

Preparing for a 24-hour race is a lot like a blind date. You aren't sure what you're getting into until you're in the action. You can kind of prepare for a bad date (or 24-hour race) by getting as much information from your friends. You might ask them about this person's attitude, looks and hair color, but until you have to react, see and interact with your date, you don't know squat!

Thankfully, there's Ride424.com. If you're into ultra-endurance racing, then research is your best friend and Ride424.com is just that -- a bunch of research. I consider the endurance racing website to be something like Match.com. On Match.com, you can learn a lot about the person you're going to date. Even Dr. Phil has something to say about love and romance.

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