Joshua Tree Double Century

Race Report: Joshua Tree Double Century

Joshua Tree, CA

The race that almost didn’t even begin for me. Thankfully for endurance athletes we have a temporary window where our events are still taking place because they are under 250 people that participate, they are inherently isolating and in general many athletes don’t mind having minimal contact as possible with large groups of people. For some reason I really struggled sleeping the night before this race and might have fallen asleep for an hour or two before my alarm went off at 1:30am. I debated whether to make the two in a half hour drive to the race start, but like many decisions lately I take one step at a time and as long as things keep moving, I continue to progress. I left the house at 2:05am and went to go get gas not realizing that there is a window of time in the middle of the night where the stations are out of commission. The first station I stopped at was dark and the gas computers were shut off. The second station I put my credit card in and then went to go grab the gas nozzle and it was locked at the pump so that people couldn’t use it. The third station the computer terminals are shut off, so I had to go see the attendant. There were a couple of cars that pulled into the station and I felt pretty nervous considering their demeanor and the time of day but just went about my talk as quickly as I could. I gave the attendant $40 for pump #5. He gave me $5 change and I assumed he must have just misheard me and put $35 on it. I pumped my gas and it clicked off at $30. With the situation I decided it was best that I just went on my way. I didn’t want to head back to the clerk and figure out if it was an error on his part or if it was his way of making a few extra bucks here and there. I was finally on my way with an ETA of just before 4:45 when the first wave of cyclists get onto the course in Joshua Tree. About an hour later I noticed my directions quickly starting to add time to the estimated arrival. Within a few minutes I could see why. There had been a pretty severe accident on Hwy 60 and the traffic was completely at a standstill. After about 20 minutes of waiting I messaged fellow cyclist Jen Orr and let her know that it didn’t look like I was going to make this one and had made my decision to call it a day and that for some reason this race wasn’t meant to be.

About 5 minutes after that decision the emergency responders opened up the right couple of lanes and we began to move again. As I passed the accident, I could see the middle concrete pillars completely knocked out of place and a couple of them shattered by the force of the impact. Definitely a major collision and just hopeful the people involved were able to walk away from it. I decided to keep going forward and with a new ETA of 5:15am I still had time to make it to the later waves of the race start. On my drive in I could see the first few waves of cyclists on their way into Joshua tree for the days ride. Once I arrived in Joshua Tree, I ran into Anne the race director and Jen Orr as she was just beginning her ride. It took me about 20 minutes to get everything situated and at 5:45am I was on my way.

The first 15 miles I took nice and slow to get my bearings after the mornings events. Then once we pass through a small town we take a left and head up some rolling hills to the ranger station and the entrance to the park. The first 50 miles of the route has almost half of the total climbing for the day. In my opinion that is definitely the way to do it, because we are still fresh, and you complete the climbs in the cool crisp early morning weather. We had a six-mile loop that went up to a viewpoint and I finally had a chance to see many of the other cyclists as they raced down the hill that I was climbing. After re-stocking I had my chance to race down the hill and then onto the rolling hills of Joshua Tree National Park and the stunning scenery of shrubs, mountains in the distance, and large rock formations that are perfect for climbers and adventurers.

We had some incredible gradual downhills and then rolling flats with tailwind as we rolled into the lunchbreak area at 95 miles into the course. It was great to have groups of other cyclist at the break area and I headed out right at 8 hours into the ride with a group of the Adobo Velo cycling group. The next 10-mile section was right along the freeway which was a little unnerving but thankful for the very large shoulder. I ended up taking off with another cyclist and we sprinted this section. I passed him on a downhill and he tucked in to drafting position “before our days of complete social distancing” and raced the section all the way until the off ramp. After exiting he said he was going to stop for his wife and the rest of the group to catch up and told he had just broken his PR on Strava for that section and was super excited. I stopped to get a quick snack and realized my cleat had lost one of its bolts. My new friend from the Adobo Velo group asked me what the problem was and then responded, I have a couple extra screws and handed them over so I could fix my shoes. I am continuing to be in wonder of provision on events and how as they say on the Camino, the journey will provide for you.

There was a last major aid station at about the 110-mile mark, and I restocked on everything, had some soup, a coke and was quickly on my way through the last long gradual slog of a climb back to the start. A few notable features of the race was a max speed of 44.5 miles per hour, elevation gain of almost 9,500 feet, and an average temperature of 61 degrees with a low of 45 and high of 84. Once I reached the top of the last climb I spent the last few hours of the ride calling up family and friends on the headset and enjoying the sunset over the beautiful dessert landscape. The last hour or so was in the dark but with my light fully charged I didn’t have any issues and the roads were in great shape. I rolled into the hotel just after 8:00pm after 14 hours 34 minutes unofficially and a moving time of 13 hour 26 minutes. Looks like I take a little over an hour of off the bike time. These are social / training rides and not races so I just take note of the time off the bike rather than try to reduce it.

I enjoyed a quick gathering “from a distance” with the group of cyclists and then headed back to my car for the drive home. I think all of us realized this would likely be our last group ride in the forseeable future and it was an honor to spend the time with so many wonderful cyclists as we headed our own ways to weather out a different upcoming storm.

For the ride home I drank an energy drink I had as a backup emergency wake up and of course ordered a large chocolate oreo shake as a reward for the drive home. Thank you for all that were on the course and for Annie the race organizer.