1. Bring a Hammock. Over the course of the 7 days, there is plenty of downtime. Most of the camp locations have lots of trees. Often it was a competition to find the best shady flat spot for a nap. It didn't take me long to regret the fact that I didn't bring a hammock. My red racer bag was nowhere near fully packed. I had room...
The packing guide encourages you to bring a "luxury item", can't believe I didn't think of this...
2. Bring the noise! Within 10 minutes of stepping aboard the ferry to Cumberland, a group of 4 mexican guys busted out a boombox hooked to their iPhone. A mix of classic metal and old school hip hop totally set the mood. It transformed the pre-race jitter vibe into "can you believe we get to do nothing but slay trail for the next week?" There is no shortage of access to plug-ins to charge whatever you bring throughout the week. Do it.
3. Thicker air mattress. If you are a pro camper, then you probably don't need this advice. I had probably only slept in a tent less than 10 times in my life, and none in the past 5 years. The BCBR sets you up with a skimpy little blue yoga mat pad. On top of that, I brought a ultralight backpackers Thermarest and an inflatable pillow. Still not enough. Neck was VERY sore! Hips felt like they were digging into the ground all night. Next time I'd go big or go home.
4. Meal plan B. You have to pick a meal plan. A - Early, B - Middle, C - Late. We picked C because we didn't want to go to bed hungry. (some nights the A plan eats as early as 5:30pm…) In the end, we think the B plan would be best. With the C plan, you were often still eating breakfast at 7:30am, with race start at 8:30am. Not so fun going for the hole shot with the last mouthful of breakfast still settling in… The food was very good. As a fish eating but mostly vegetarian individual, I found excellent options.
5. iPad. As mentioned, there is a lot of good downtime in the schedule. They set up the Bear's Den tent at each location with free wifi and charging station. With so much good content coming out from BCBR, it would have been nice to kick back on the beanbag chairs with an iPad and watch the race recap videos. Check stage results, etc… Phones are great, but iPads are better.
Bear's Den on the beach at Powell River. (Photo: Mike Sarnecki)
6. Tent location. The first thing you need to do when you arrive at each new venue is check out the tent area. You get to pick your home for the night. Ideally you want: A) Level B) Shady C) Soft Grass. Nothing messes up a good nights sleep like a sloped tent site, or rock hard ground.
Beautiful, but watch out for sloped tent sites in Powell River.
7. Dropper post (for two trails). In a previous post, I talked a lot about bike setup. I was really happy with my Santa Cruz Tallboy. It took me through all 7 stages with ZERO mechanicals. As I reflect back, I feel that my bike was set up perfectly for the race. It put me in a great attack position on almost every trail. It took the abuse. I was in the zone. Two notable exceptions: On stage 5 (North Shore) there is a trail called Severed Dick. On stage 6 (Squamish) there is another trail called Powerhouse Plunge. Both of these trails had a few short ~50' sections of trail that put me out of my attack zone, and the seatpost high up jammed into my belly button caused me to pogo offline a few times. I slowed down quite a bit and did come off the bike once or twice. Strava confirms that I rode these sections faster on my Santa Cruz Heckler with a dropper post last year.
If I did it all again, I'd ride the same bike, but I'd have this stashed in my bag for Stage 5/6. Adds ~1lb to the bike, but probably worth it for the most technical trails.
8. Plyometrics and Weights. It is great to pound out the hours on the trainer and maximize your power-to-weight ratio. (Functional Threshold Watts/kg) My ~3.9ish Watts/kg was more than enough to hang in the upper half of the pack and make the climbs tolerable. But, this isn't the whole story. My neck and arms got very sore. If I had it over again, I'd be balancing out my training routine with more plyo and weights. (ie. Clap pushups, box jumps, squats/lunges, and the good old hockey grip strength thingy.) On day 3 (Earls Cove to Sechelt) I think that my strength prevented me from attacking the ~8km descent down VFR right to the finish line. I didn't feel in control, my neck and arms hurt, and I backed off. I'd say weights/strength were 5% of my training program leading up to this race, if I could do it all again I'd amp it up to 10%.
9. Recovery Routine. When you cross the finish line, you are thinking three things: 1) Shade. 2) Sit. 3) Calories. Maybe not as dramatic as these guys… But, you get the idea.
The finish line in Olympic XC Ski skate event. Sometimes you just gotta lay down.
On most days, the finish area is really well set up. You can get some food and drink right away within minutes of crossing the line, and find a place to cool down. There is one issue though… Not much protein around. Lots of chips and pretzels and fruit. But, it is a long time until dinner, and your body needs some protein. The first few days I filled up on the finish line stuff, but watermelon isn't gonna help you recover over the long haul. As much as a cringe at the ingredients list, I started slugging back the available Muscle Milk protein supplement after crossing the line. Whatever you normally do back home, think about bringing some stuff along to stash in your racer bag. Then it is right there for you when you need it… Then, do this for an hour or so:
Legs up, jersey flappin'. Resist the temptation to hang around the finish area too long, standing in the sun.
10. Queues. I have to say, getting queued up behind a bunch of riders on trail was WAY LESS of an issue than I was afraid of. But, it does happen. So, try to plan for it. It is very predictable. Day 7 at Whistler was particularly bad. Everybody seemed to really struggle climbing Yummy Numby, which was only a few km's from the race start. My advice is to talk to people who have done the stages before and anticipate where the big backups will come. You may chose to redline yourself just to get a few places earlier into the queue'd section, knowing that once it backs up, you'll get to recover. In hindsight, I would have gone max heart rate off the line on Day 7, it would surely pay off in placing at the finish line.
I'm hopeful that these tips help any other people who are thinking about taking on #theultimatesingletrack experience.
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