La Ruta de los Conquistadores 2007

Friday, November 30, 2007

La Ruta de los Conquistadores 2007
Some time last March, I became non-refundably committed to participate in La Ruta de los Conquistadores or simply, "La Ruta," widely heralded as "The Most Grueling Mountain Bike Race on the Planet." What followed after the registration was a sequence of planning, scouring the internet for clues about what I could expect, hundreds of moments of self-doubt, and yes...some training, but maybe not as much as I should have.... Should have used that Computrainer that I bought from Matt and Jay at Incline Training more..

My goals were realistically to (1) finish as an official finisher, (2) not get hurt, and (3) take some good pictures. Well....mission accomplished, but with some difficulty.....Incidentally, for the short version, you may wish to view my Shutterfly slideshow.

I'm sharing my experience because I'm a little older and heavier than the ideal for such an event. I'm 52 and weigh 190 pounds. I'm certainly not a bike racer, although I have entered some events over the years. I'll share some statistics, not because they are impressive (they clearly are NOT), but just to give some perspective to other veteran endomorphs, who are considering this event. My best time up Mt. Washington was 1:33 last year. I did the Boston-Montreal-Boston 1200K riding solo in 2005 in 78 hours. Considering that I slept only 6 hours, that time was pretty slow. This past August I limped into the fairgrounds after spending 12 hours and 40 minutes riding the 100+ mile D2R2 out of Deerfield. After that ride, my 26 year-old son/riding companion urged me to seriously abandon my plans to do La Ruta. At the time, I knew he had a point. Then again, his advice was probably the catalyst that pushed me over the hump to commit to La Ruta in defiance. In late September, I did the Vermont 50 in 6:35 and felt OK at the end, which was a confidence-builder. I continued to ride whenever my work as an orthopedic surgeon didn't get in the way. Three weeks before the event, I was on a solo night ride and managed to break a rib --very smooth.

I must have spent 100 hours on the computer trying to gather information. I read all the blogs that I could find. I used Google Earth to try to scout the terrain. I cross-referenced finishing times of some previous riders with events that we had in common. All bad news. It just didn't seem like I would be able to make the cutoff times. In 2006, only six or seven riders over 50 had been listed as official finishers. I scrutinized pictures of the event to see what types of bikes and tires were being used. In short, I was clinically obsessed, for sure.

One fortuitous development for me was hooking up with Joe Semple, whose name I had gotten from one of my local riding buddies. Joe had ridden the event twice before and was a wealth of information. He told me to rig up a strap from my handlebars to my seat post to help with the hike-a-bike segments. He told me over and over that it was "do-able" and that it was "90% mental." Those words were to dominate my thoughts on many occasions during the ride. Joe had lots of other good advice, and I could not have ridden the race without his input.

Support from my family and from all my local riding buddies was instrumental in keeping me training and focused. During the race, I thought about them all a lot, and I know that those thoughts pushed me many time when my body wanted to quit.

Mercifully, the day to leave for Costa Rica finally arrived. I had been watching the counter on the official website for months. It had listed days, hours, and minutes to go before the start. Once the counter had gotten to single digits for days left, the adrenalin rush was on! Two good friends had also signed on, and we traveled together. Andy Caputo, my partner and 10 years my junior, had trained hard, lost a lot of weight, and was riding to raise funds for the Avon Cancer Center in honor of his wife, Allyson, now nearly two years out from being cured of ovarian cancer. Dave Cormier, also about 10 years younger and with many years of bike racing under his belt, had just finished two years of chemotherapy for leukemia in June and was riding very strong, as well. We had had a lot of fun comparing notes and doing training rides in the preceding months. I was not in their league and had to make up excuses to avoid riding with them in the weeks before the event.

But there we were on Sunday, November 11th: bike boxes packed, tools and nutritional supplements comprising half of our baggage weight, raring to go. We got to Jaco Beach a day before registration. Looking around at the other riders, I just wanted to crawl into a hole. They were mostly young, lean, and very fit in appearance. What had I been thinking? I decided to masquerade as Andy and Dave's uncle. We talked to some riders who had ridden the event before and hung on their every word. Andy had a connection with Troy Laffey, the Cannondale mechanic, and we would all need to use that advantage in the days to come...little did we know.... Registration was quite organized. Bags, numbers, jerseys, etc. were distributed efficiently. Mechanics were on hand to assist with last-minute repairs and also to sell any spare parts or riding gear that was needed. After registration, riders retreated to their rooms to perform final bike checks before turning the bikes over to the storage tent. Seeing how the bikes were packed into the tent was not comforting. Visions of derailleurs and rotors being bent were difficult to suppress as we tried to fall asleep on the eve of the start.


We were up at 3 a.m., had an early breakfast, and caught the shuttle to the start at the Jaco Best Western. Claiming the bikes and watching them being extracted from the mass storage area was an adventure, but all went well. Loud music and fireworks preceded the 5:10 a.m. start. The gun went off, and the event was on. I had to keep reminding myself of the advice I had gotten from Erick, one of the La Ruta organizers: "don't go out fast."
I wish I could provide lots of specific details about the four days of riding. Truthfully, it's a blur. Day 1 was supposed to be the monster: 15,000 feet of climbing, lots of mud, and a high DNF rate the year before. We did learn that the finish of Day 1 had been made easier than it had been in 2006 by eliminating a lot of mud at the end.

Day 1 Profile

Well, it was a monster, and it was muddy. I had resigned myself to the climbing -- basically riding the Vermont 50 twice in one day. What I had not expected was all of the downhill walking because of the steep and muddy terrain. Lots of that, and very taxing on the quads. Around 1 p.m. I wanted to quit. My son had been right. This was nuts. My legs were shot. I was having trouble eating. It was very hot. I was pulling over to the side of the road and splashing whatever water I could find on my head and back. I didn't care if it was drainage from a cow pasture or a sewer. It was cold, and it was refreshing. As we began yet more climbing, it got a little cooler and windier, and it began to drizzle. Instant relief! I had made all the cutoffs at the checkpoints, so I hung on and managed to cross the finish at around 12 hours -- 30 minutes before the cutoff. There wasn't much food or water left at the finish, and the shuttle took nearly an hour to reach our hotel in San Jose. So much for ideal recovery nutritional tactics. Oh well.....At the hotel, I showered, ate at the restaurant across the street, and mixed Perpetuem until about 10 p.m.

Day 2 Profile

Day 2 was a first for La Ruta. Previously, riders had shuttled from the finish of Day 1 to another point to begin the second stage. On this 15th anniversary of the event, Day 2 was added to connect the dots. Only 11,000 more feet of climbing. My legs were too tired to cramp, but so were everyone else's. The camaraderie that existed along various points of this event was, frankly, intoxicating and one reason why, in a moment of extreme weakness, I would ever consider doing this again. Misery loves company, and we had a lot of fun commenting on the absurdity of this adventure in our pack at the rear. I don't remember much except that it was a long day.

There was lots of mud at the end, but it was kind of fun. I got to the finish at around 9.5 hours and again had no trouble finding my bag, as most of the bags had already been claimed by the faster riders. More food and water this time at the finish before the shuttle back to the same hotel. More attempts to recover at the hotel, mixing of Perpetuem, etc.

Day 3 was well-publicized: a long climb to the top of the Irazu volcano and then a long descent. Well, it was a very long climb up. I stripped down to a sleeveless shirt after about 15 minutes. the paved road to the top was very steep, or so it seemed with spaghetti legs.

Day 3 Profile

Racers who walked traveled just as fast as riders who rode in Granny-one. We all switched back and forth between riding and walking just to rest various muscles. I got to the top around noon. It was cold and wet at the top, and the arm warmers and windbreaker went back on. I had been riding with knickers, which saved my knees from refrigeration during the long descent. I had become accustomed to the level of exertion and had begun to start eating tuna sandwiches at the rest stops as opposed to the Perpetuem which had kept me going the previous 2 days. I am very cautious on descents. Too many orthopedic trauma conferences in my past, not to mention my own personal injuries which include a broken wrist, multiple broken ribs, two separated shoulders, a broken nose, and broken fingers. I was OK with cutoff times and elected to walk much of the steep, muddy downhills. It took me about 4 hours to get down 30km's of descent off the volcano. More skilled/confident downhillers probably did it in an hour. I didn't mind taking my time. The scenery was incredible. Moss coating fence posts, 5-foot diameter Tabacon leaves, lush pastures, a variety of cattle on the picturesque hillsides, etc. With about 10 km's to go, my rear shifter broke. I was able to get to the finish in time around 9.5 hrs and was relieved to find Troy Laffey from Cannondale, who assured me that my bike would be fine the following morning. He had fixed Dave's shock on Day 1 and Andy's derailleur on Day 2, so I knew that he would come through, and he absolutely did!

I got to the Turialtico Lodge after the 3rd stage and found Dave and Andy. Allyson, Andy's wife, had flown down to join us, and it was great to see her. Andy and Allyson roomed with me that night and were on their best behavior. Although I had been taking Ciprofloxacin prophylactically, I started having diarrhea that night, which was a worry. I was able to keep food down, so I figured I'd be OK. Others weren't so lucky and DNF'd because of intestinal issues.

Day 4 Profile

Day 4 was fun. Still about 6,000 feet of climbing, but anything under 10,000 feet had begun to seem reasonable. There were some good downhills after the initial climbing. It was pretty much a downpour most of the day, but that was welcome cooling as far as I was concerned. The railroad riding towards the end was a little worrisome, as I had no real reserve time for mechanical issues, such as pinch flats. I was riding tubeless with extra Stan's in each tire, and I did luck out by not having any flats.

There was an absolutely terrifying experience of crossing a long trestle bridge over a raging, rain-swollen river. The bridge was easily over 100 yards long. Crossing it involved stepping on wet and sometimes rotten railroad ties, which were spaced far enough apart that one could easily fall between them into the river 30 feet below. Such a mishap would have been fatal. I had heard about this bridge and was glad that I had switched to my rubberized shoes that day. There were waist-high puddles towards the end along the beach. My cable housing got so clogged with mud that I lost quite a range of gears, but it was no problem making it to the end in time at about 9.5 hours.
Andy, Dave, and Allyson were welcome sights at the end, and they were a big help with helping me to get organized for the return trip. On the ride back to San Jose from the beach, a mudslide extended our return ride from 3 hours to 7 hours, but we didn't care. We had all just finished a wonderful experience!

Reflecting on the experience, I would have to say that it was pretty neat. I've mountain biked out West, climbed Kilimanjaro, ridden a road bike across the U.S., etc., but this is right up there at the top.
This is not a ride to talk someone into. That being said, if it's a ride that is calling to you, you have to do it. Joe was right. It really is 90% mental. I was too old, heavy, and out of shape to stand a chance, but it just worked out. Of the 477 starters, I was able to finish ahead of 110 of them. It wasn't easy, but I knew it would be a challenge. It was very worthwhile. The local people were fantastic. Lots of young children waving and slapping hands. Motorists honking and giving the "thumbs up." Dozens and dozens of heartwarming and encouraging interactions with the Costa Ricans.

It worries me a little bit that I would even consider doing it again...

If anyone would like to learn more about my time down there, particularly from the standpoint of a heavy veteran, I'd be happy to share whatever I can. You can e-mail me at TWD55@aol.com