as the stomach turns

was wondering when it would happen: 24 hours of 9 mile, any one of the manitoba races, test of metal, buffalo pound.... every once in a while my gut decides to, well, kick me in the gut and make a day of racing less than pleasant; yesterday was one of those days.

the day started well and it was good turn out. temps were cool at the beginning of the race, but warmed up quickly. the course was a nice layout for an 8 hour event, a nice mix of challenging up hills (not too crazy), rolling flats, speedy downhills and one or two technical sections. for the single speeder there were three hike-a-bikes for the first couple of laps (or more if you have the leg stamina) which morphed into additional hike-a-bikes as the day wore on. the first few laps went really well, but this turned quickly. in these events your first two laps are fine, however i find laps 3 and 4 are usually quite difficult. laps 3 and 4 are not so much a huge physical challenge, more of a mental challenge because you realize that you are going to be doing this for the next 6 hours and it is going to be a phyical and mental grind. the reason it is such a mental grind is that you know what to expect on every lap and there are sections you qucikly begin to despise because they are phyisically tough and you know that your are going to do those sections over and over again. once you except the challenge you can get on with your ride, settling into your rythym - that is if your stomach decides to behave. upset stomaches and bowels are a challenge present in every endurance event, and yesterday i lost the challenge mid way through lap 6. what did it cost me? 1 velo artisan bread singlespeed cyclocross cycling cap (something needs to sacrificed when one does not carry TP (if you are riding at birch and you come across a vab ssc hat it would be best to leave it be). that was it, my day was done, having suffered these bouts before there was no need to try and continue on which was too bad because i had 6 laps in 4.5 hours, although the last lap was about 15 minutes slower than it should have been. c'est la vie.