Psycho48 2025 Race report 3 (final)
After the obstacles of first night, we got into cool second day of the race. Was at start around time when the 24-hour racers took off. I did reduce my gear a bit. No thick gloves and no need for second thermos jersey. Decided to stick with two lap procedure before stopping for food and refills. With temperature warming up a bit I was able to improve my pace as well. Did some calculations again and raised bar a bit from minimum 600 to 650 mile overall. Nothing impressive happened. Tough situation on day two is that the 100-mile, 12-hour and 24-hour racers joined the route. Tough because you see their speed and it’s an odd feeling since you know they have fresh legs to get on the track. At some point during Saturday, I noticed my speed suffered for the one lap completely. Felt like wind direction kept changing and caused ongoing headwind only. That one lap was very annoying, and I had a bit of a mental fight to stay focused. It’s part of ultra distance rides and races that we never foresee what is hitting us and how. Once getting closer to evening I did keep myself focused a bit with some calculations ad options how to get the race completed. At one stop I know I made a mistake getting into a bit of a chatting session and admittedly wasted easy 30-45 minutes. OK … not a waste at all … but taken off my riding time. So, my calculations did start showing that I should be able to get 19 laps in … a lap was little bit over 35 miles. So, I expected a 675-mile finish was doable if I keep fighting and stay on 2 laps stop strategy. I start eating a banana and refill Hammer Perpetuem on main bottle. So that worked out quite well and I kept my pace up ok. Funny thing … I noticed by keeping my stops very short (wish I could have done that the first night) and may have about 40 minutes left once completing the lap 19. Therefore, I kept pushing for that. And indeed, I crossed start finish line with about 40 minutes left before 48 hours. Funny about that was that I did not plan to stop and decided to increase speed and push as hard as possible. I passed two other racers from 48- and 24-hour race group. Crazy I was about 10 miles after start finish line and one of the 24-hour racers went by, but I was able to almost keep up with his pace. My goal adjusted instantly to see if I can get at least to 690 miles. And crazy as is … in the last 40 minutes I was able to pull off 15 miles. That gave me at least a bit satisfaction even my overall miles have been much lower than my original goal (before all the mishaps). I was pumped out and had to take a bit of a break. One of the volunteers ask if I need a ride back to start/finish …. Foolish me I said thanks but no thanks. I went on route back for 15 miles. Foolish because I was pumped out and yep … it took me a bit time, so I used the last 15 miles as a cooldown ride with a few intervals pushes in between. Overall, I figured under the circumstances I was an acceptable distance. I checked my data later … my riding time was only 42.5 hours. That means if I have had some support or be better organized, I could easy have added another 70 miles. And it does show that an ultra-distance race even we have done it before s always different and has new even unexpected challenges. Back at the start/finish line I learned that I somehow finished 3rd overall across all age groups. That’s perfectly ok for not having any support during the race. Plus … I had my fun situations in the race and enjoyed riding.
