Long live long rides

So the 12 Hours of Dauset is now nearly upon us. This will be my first 12-hour event as a duo. I've done them on 3-person teams several times before, but never a 2-person. I was getting a little panicky last week, you know, the usual "what am I getting myself into" thoughts. But now I've calmed down. All it took was one long ride.

First off, "long" is always relative. I don't get to do a lot of long rides. Most of the events I train for are short (again, it's all relative). My norm is the mtb cross country race, 12-18 miles depending on the course, fast as I can. Then there's the triathlons, all sprint distance, and usually over in 1:45 to 2:15. So if I'm on the bike for more than 2 hours, it's a long ride.

Saturday I headed up to Dauset where I met Mark D. for a road ride around the Jackson area. There's a tri coming up at High Falls State Park, and last weekend was pretty much the only opportunity I had to ride the bike course. So we got in a nice 20-mile ride: 1:10. As soon as we finished we chugged some water and met a big group of locals at Dauset Trails for a trail ride. We rode one lap of the 12-Hour race course, and boy was it fun! It combined several elements of the trail that I love, some in surprising new ways! The Huff-N-Puff Extender. Fun. Turkey Trot (in race direction). Fun. Bootlegger. Fun. Climbing Pine Mountain? eeehhh, fun the first time, but I bet not-so-fun after about hour 8.

The best though? Sandy Creek backwards! I've been a long-time lover of riding Sandy Creek the "normal" way. It's faaaast with nice swoops and little drops. When I saw the course profile last week, I was thinking of Sandy Creek and how it's mostly downhill, translation, mostly uphill race way. I was moderately trepidatious. Not after riding it! It was like a totally new trail. I had a blast. As it turns out, it's fun backward and forward!

After lap one we hung out in the parking lot, munching on peanut butter sandwiches and waiting for nightfall. It was just getting dusk so we sat around for a good 30 minutes before strapping on the lights and heading out for a night lap. Sometimes I don't like riding at night. I guess it depends on the trail and the company. Two girls alone out at the Pig Trail kinda creeps me out. Dauset wasn't like that though -- of course it helped that there were about 10 of us. So the night lap went great. Nothing much weird out there to trip you up in the dark. It was so nice and cool by that time, it felt wonderful. I think the night laps at the event are what I'm looking forward to the most.

So that brought the trail tally to a little more than 20 miles in a little more than 2 hours of ride time. Add that to the road ride, and I had a nice, long ride Saturday. Enough to work out the "can I really ride ALL DAY??" jitters.

Sunday I took it easy and am planning one hard ride this week before I start tapering off for the race. I'm extremely anal-retentive and obsessive about making sure I have everything I need, washed, packed, complete with a list -- so I imagine I'll spend a good amount of time Thursday and Friday fretting over my packing. But at least I won't forget anything, and no matter how Charles and I finish at the race, at least I'll get in a long ride.

Now all we need is a fun and creative team name. I was telling my boyfriend that I wanted my team name to be "Team Jan's Not A Doper." Wouldn't that be nice to hear over and over? But Jake (who's racing solo) threatened that if I did, he'd race as "Team Yes He Is." lol.

Any suggestions?