Cohutta 100 and getting "it"

- - - Guest Post - - -

From the Grubby Mountain Biker - Sean Crichton

Congrats man!!! Great Race!!!














This past weekend I think I finally found what you guys get with your Ironman & ultra endurance races. I had thought that last year with me doing that Augusta 70.3 – I would get ‘IT’…. I thought I would have some sort of ‘enlightenment’ and the feeling and the need for pushing longer and harder would come…. But I have to admit – it just didn’t happen. After that race, which although I thoroughly enjoyed, I just couldn’t see the appeal of a full Ironman. I just didn’t get ‘IT’.…. I thought to myself “WHY do those guys do Ironman and WHY do I not even WANT to contemplate it?”… I figured, “Well, I’m no triathlete, I’m just a grubby mountain biker”… so in February, I did 12hrs of Santos – but again – no revelation, no shining light, no neon sign with ‘the message’… just a great, long fun day of riding and a cool story to tell people that I rode my bike for 11.5 hours straight….but that was it – nothing else. I kind of chalked it up to ‘Well, maybe that’s what it’s all about’ – just having fun. I was okay with that for a while, but then ‘racer’ in me just wasn’t satisfied with that….so I figured I’d hit this Cohutta race and just have a long, fun ride on some trails that I’ve never ridden, but then ‘IT’ finally happened…. I can’t explain exactly when 'IT' happened or exactly what caused 'IT'. Could’ve been the lightning storm, torrential rains, and 30mph cross winds that came on at mile 40....Perhaps ‘IT’ happened when I saw my timer read 3hrs40min at mile 46 and figured I’d be halfway done (50miles) within 4 hours…..but then it took a solid hour to actually reach that 50mile point (yes, I was avg’ng 4mph at that point…while in zone 5!!)….. or maybe ‘IT’ happened when a guy on a single speed passed me up a climb when I was standing up in my Granny-Granny gear – putting down one of my hardest efforts of my entire life on a bike….. or perhaps ‘IT’ happened when I realized at mile 85 that my brake pads were completely worn out and my brake levers were flopping completely to my handlebars with NO affect on my speed.……. I guess now looking back – ‘IT’ was all of those and more …. And now I finally get it. That 8hrs and 31 minutes of suffering and eating mud and freezing downhills and never-ending climbs and cramping shifting fingers was probably the BEST 8hrs and 31minutes I’ve ever experienced on a bike. It was a killer time and I’d definitely recommend it to try sometime. You’d love it.