Little River Challenge 12 Hour Race

The Fogbees had a great showing at the Little River 12 Hour Challenge this past Saturday and here is a little post of how the race went...

The race had 19 participants from all over the country including some of the best long distance racers in the United States. The 12 hour race had 8 people racing in it including Paul Carpenter from Illinois(one of the top ultramarathon racers in the US as we soon found out). The race started at 8:05 AM and the experienced riders took off at a 20 mph pace leaving Tom Jennifer and I all by ourselves. About 15 miles in we picked up another rider(Tom Casson from Illinios...an experienced ultracyclist) who stayed with me for the rest of the ride.

We passed the 33 mile checkpoint at a good 15 mph pace and everything was going well until mile 36 when I was drafting off Tom alongside a cornfield when a yellow lab dog ran out after Tom. I hit the dog squarely and crashed my bike damaging the front wheel. We limped back to the 60 mile checkpoint where I borrowed a wheel from the man we were riding with and off we went.

At the 90 mile checkpoint Tom Casson and I split off from Tom and Jennifer and raced on. When we got to the 120 mile checkpoint, we were lapped by the leader, Paul Carpenter(who was now 60 miles ahead of us). At this point we switched from the 60 mile loop to the 8.5 mile loop(which was significantly flatter and faster). Tom and Jennifer continued to ride strongly and got to the 120 mile checkpoint just behind us and also started riding the 8.5 mile loop.

The sun set around 6:15 and while it was never warm during the daylight, the temperature was getting really awful once it got dark. At this point, other racers were starting to drop out due to exhaustion and cold, but Tom and Jennifer continued on and I raced together with Tom Casson. Jennifer ended up being the solo female winner with a total of 137 miles completed and Tom matched her mileage total and I ended up in 4th place in the 12 hour race with a total of 154 miles.

As a reference point though to show how good the people above us were, the winner of the 12 hour race, Paul Carpenter, rode 231 miles in the 12 hours managing an unbelieveable 19.25 mph pace, the 2nd place finisher, Tom Gee from Paris Tn rode 222.5 miles, and the 3rd place finisher, Dave Buyens of Florida rode 197 miles. The winner of the 24 hour race, George Hiscox of Jackson Tn road an incredible 367 miles over 24 hours.

Tom Jennifer and I are all in agreement that next year we will once again do this event and try to better our times. While it is difficult to stay on the bike for 12 straight hours, I am amazed at how quickly it went and also how quickly I have recovered from the ride. It would be fantastic if we could convince a few more Fogbee riders to join us for this ride next season.