Ultra Endurance Event Hacks

Event: Ol’ Tucson 10er :: Tucson, AZ :: 1.17.26 

The punk in me couldn’t see their logic.  Bolting between trees, shaking their props at one another, and imagining a world existing only in their minds seemed a far cry from a well-spent Saturday.  Amtgard.  Larpers.  Seriously?!  

The wizened pedal masher in me totally gets it.  Singularly focusing on a world of one’s own creation for the purpose of feeling alive and fulfilled.  The foam sword swingers could challenge my decision to ride a repetitive lap, for 10 hours mostly alone, dehydrated, and for a shiny token makes for a silly Saturday.  

For me, the endurance MTB racer, it was the sole reason for existing on January 17th 2026.  Me and about 632 other racers.  

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Quick Hit Race Recap:  

• 7:30AM to 5:30PM, most laps wins.  

• Final lap must be in before 5:30PM or it doesn’t count.

• Solo, Duo, 3-Person, & 4-Person Teams.

• 13.1 miles and 520’ elevation gain per lap.

• I won the Singlespeed Solo Division (32x18 gearing) and also finished before the Solo Open winner.

• Elapsed Time: 9:27:29  Moving Time: 9:24:43  Stationary Time (for pit stops): 2 min 46 seconds.

• Calories Consumed: 3,000 calories of CarboRocket Half Evil and 1 mini-Coke.

• Calories Burned: 7,500.

• Caffeine Consumed: 150mg at start, 200 mg at Hour 4, 200 mg at Hour 7.

• Post-Race Meal: the biggest, cheesiest, fat kid adobada burrito the taco truck had left and horchata flavored CarboRocket ReHab.  

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Now… to the marinated pork and beans of this article:

How to stay engaged for 10 straight hours.

Tip #1: Establish a nutrition strategy as the backbone for your race.

Mountain biking for 1 hour comes with 1,000’s of variables.  One small pebble hops into your drivetrain and you have a broken chain.  The wrong edge of a lame rock can gash a sidewall.  Your singing of “Born in the U.S.A.” can spook a bird from the bushes who can then fly directly into your spokes catapulting you airborne (yes, La Ruta one year, this stuff happens).  And that’s just the risk in a given hour!  10 hours and the multiplier is too great to handle and so in a world of so many unknowns it is critical to find something that can be the anchor to your event.  Nutrition Strategy.  Each athlete must determine what their recipe for a perfect hour of race fuel looks like and there can be quite a bit of variation in calories, types of sugar, amount of sodium, liquid or solid fuel, and more.  Once determined however a nutrition strategy is a simple mathematical equation.  For me I use 1 full serving of CarboRocket every hour mixed into 22-24 oz of water.  I also love the affect caffeine has on me and I aim for 150-200 mg every 3 hours.  

Here comes the easy math.  10 hours = 10 bottles and 3 servings of caffeine.  A little race-craft ingenuity and I ended up with the following Nutrition Strategy: 

Start Line: 150mg shot of caffeine and a 2L pack with 3 bottles worth of fuel (1,000 calories).

End of Lap 3: Drop Pack 1, pick up my loaded Pack 2, pick up another loaded bottle, and swig 200mg caffeine shot (preloaded into pack holster pocket).

End of Lap 7: Drop Pack 2 and empty bottle, pick up 1 Full Bottle.

End of Lap 8: Pick up 1 Full Bottle.

End of Lap 9: Pick up 1 Full Bottle.

This 10 hour race just became a 3 hour race, a 4 hour race, and 2 one-hour races.  The Nutrition Strategy helped make a full day become a bite-sized effort more similar to typical weekly training rides.  The strategy also gave me something to anchor back to when my energy, desire, mental-state, emotions all begin to wander away in the twisty desert singletrack.  Reliability and sensibility in a lap race chock full of chaos and pokey things.  

Tip #2:  Pick a single metric to monitor progress.

A bike event can be described in terms of time, distance, elevation gained, and in some cases laps ridden.  For an ultra endurance effort I find myself feeling much more successful when I pick just one to gauge progress and let the others be interesting tidbits to entertain my silly little brain.  

For the Ol’ Tucson 10er I stayed on brand with the race name and chose hours.  I committed, before clicking into my second pedal that morning, to ride for 10 hours.  Did I look at mileage or elevation gain or count laps at any point?  Sure!  Those became great things to entertain myself with as I cycled through my bike computer screens but they were just that, entertainment metrics.  Having committed to the full 10 hours as a first and only metric the devilish little thoughts of quitting after a specific lap count or convincing myself that “well, 104 miles is still a long way and that’s a helluva training day” never took hold.  One metric.  One determiner of success.  Keeping my focus simple and singular helped me overcome the mounting desire to stop.  

You wanted to stop?  Absolutely.  100%.  I’m not a robot.  I can, however, act like a robot.  For a period of time.  In this case… for 9 hours and 27 minutes.  

Tip #3:  Don’t be afraid to call a Lifeline.

Is the racecourse for the Ol’ Tucson 10er boring?  NO!  Neither is the race course for the Royal Gorge 12 Hour, 6 Hours of Frog Hollow, 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo, Wausau 24, 18 Hrs of Fruita, E-Rock Sunrise-to-Sunset, or BV’s 10 Hours Behind Bars.  Lap-based race events present courses that are manageable for all abilities and typically stick to beginner to intermediate terrain.  The spicy hold onto your lug nuts this is a ripper go get em excitement comes from the speed in which you can ride these less-than-demanding trails.  Anyone who complains a trail isn’t fun enough simply hasn’t ridden it fast enough.  If speed didn’t make it fun then nobody would ever ride a road bike.  However…

After several laps of anything the shine can fade.  Add to the dullness of the 8th lap one’s waning energy, sore butt, and desire to chew on something savory can really distract the focus.  Single metric or not, it can get flat out boring.  So don’t be afraid to have some entertainment on tap.  

Music?  Yes, of course.  Using the Shokz headsets I can listen to music and still have my ears wide open to communicate with other racers and hear anything happening to my equipment.  I’ve got a playlist labeled “A Long Day in the Saddle” with 24 hrs of random tunes.  And yet, event music can become a blur of notes and guitar solos.  Boring.  Fortunately I had a great carrot I was chasing down.  2:30pm.  Kickoff to the Broncos first playoff game.  Before the race began I had my Sirius/XM app cued up to play the home team broadcast and as the afternoon wore on that became a countdown to my next activity.  A perfect combo: racing MTBs in the warm desert and listening to my team kick some Buffalo Bills butt.  

I lasted 11 minutes.   Many of us have that grandpa or uncle who’d listen to the game on the radio while alternating between nodding in agreement with the play calling and snoring asleep in their chair.  Radio broadcasted game listening falls wildly short of a titillating in-stadium experience.  I damn near snoozed out on the short descent on mile 3.  So I called a Lifeline.  Seriously. I actually made a phone call and I’d love to highlight the health of my marriage to wonderful Abbe and say she got me through the drudgery of that 7th lap but I would be lying.  She didn’t answer… neither time… on each subsequent lap.  Good thing it wasn’t an emergency.  Hey, can I blame her?  She’s got more to do on a Saturday than wait for me to gasp away on a selfish phone.  But no bother, I have a phone call that always gets answered on my race days.  

Harley.  The kingpin behind Base Camp Cyclery Denver and the one responsible for my machines doing their job.  He’s not only aware of my race schedule but he knows that if I’m in a real pickle during an event that he’s my go-to-virtual-problem-solver.  He’s talked me through gutting a hub to get it operating while racing the Gigantes in Spain.  He’s helped me put life back into a brake system way out in Canyonlands.  He’s even FaceTimed me through a complex little predicament on the Baja Divide.  You want to have a successful ultra endurance career?  Get yourself a Harley.  Always answers.  Always points you toward a workable solution.  

I didn’t have a mechanical problem.  Just an entertainment shortage.  He provided a solid 17 minutes of chitchat while I ripped through another of many laps.  Thanks amigo. 

Did you just tell me to manage making a phone call while racing my bike during an event?  Hey, these tips aren’t for everyone.  If that sounds akin to juggling swords please skip this bit of advice.      

Tip #4:  Be honest about the grass color on the other side.

We chose to sign up for, attend, and start a long distance event.  We knew the likely amount of time we’d be out there and we trained in a way so we could make it hard.  And then wouldn’t you know it after the initial energy and excitement wore off we are still out there and we are tired, it hurts, and we’ve got a long way to go.  We are exactly where we said we wanted to be.  Hell, we paid to be here! 

And we want it to be over.  

For what?  

So we can go back to the van, take a shower, get clean clothes, have a bite, drink a cold drink, and… sit around?  I mean that’s what’s waiting for me when I’m done and I’ve got it easy.  For some racers they then have to put their Parent Jersey back on.  Others have to pull themselves together to put their Worker Jersey back on in the morning.  We can be sure that the sameness that is our daily life will be there ready to wrap us back in its sometimes smothering embrace.  A hug so tight that we look for events, like riding circles in the desert for 10 hours, to help us feel alive.  To be challenged to our limits.  To made to look at our true selves and ask what else can you do?  

Stopping when it gets tough sounds real attractive.  I’ve lost to that attractiveness in the past and finished earlier than my limit because the pull was too great.  The cold drink was nice.  The shower was cleansing.  I’ve enjoyed countless cold drinks and thousands of nice showers.  They’re all about the same however each moment in an ultra endurance event is a singular experience in time.  Following the GPX route of a racecourse isn’t the same as gutting out just one more lap.  Riding over a mountain pass is always exceptional.  When it’s the 4th pass of the day and it took every trick above to recruit the effort for that final climb it’s magical beyond description.  Submitting at that exact moment when the grass starts to look greener is a tough pill to swallow and a harder feeling to wash off.  No matter how cold the drink or nice the shower.  

You came here. Be here. There can be no other side.

How it Looked: (start line then Lap 2 through Final, in order)