Wholistic Fitness

While you and i are sleeping, Timari is racing: Here she is cranking through the 24 Hours of Adrenalin at Laguna Seca

“Hi all!
Last weekend I raced in the 24 Hours of Adrenalin at Laguna Seca. My mom (my faithful pit person) and I drove over the hill to Monterey on Friday afternoon. Since Jim Wannamaker and his son were staying at a local hotel, I got to sleep inside the Kenda trailer versus the not so comfortable tent I had brought with me, it was definitely a warmer option.
I awoke to a very foggy morning, which meant that we were in for a foggy ride later that night during the race. I got ready to race, and was off to the start line. I came into the race feeling really strong, especially since I was finally able to come off of the blood clot medication I had been on for the past 6 months. I had some really good training rides going into the race, and was really excited to see where I was at with my fitness.

10am rolled around, and we were off. Things went great for the first 9 hours of the race, with the few challenges of bike mis-shifts that I had going on. My climbing was feeling really strong (thanks to climbing my local climb up to Lake Tahoe—the Kingsbury Grade once a week). However, I did start to feel like a relapse of the swollen lymph nodes I had experienced earlier in the week (in my visit to the doctor, he asked “Just how many hours of this 24 hour race are you responsible for?” He was slightly in shock at the answer he received!).

As the race progressed, things started to get challenging. I stayed in and rested for a bit to see how I felt. After a bit of rest, and some adjustments to the bike, I decided to give it a go again. I embarked out on my first night lap, only to have 3 workable gears on my bike (I felt somewhat like I was singlespeeding, to an extent at least…). Upon finishing the lap, I asked my friend Terri’s husband to take a look at my rear derailleur to see if he could get it working right, thankfully he did, and I headed back out. The next lap brought in the fog, which allowed for only a 5-10 foot visibility in certain areas of the course (it made things a bit sketchy to say the least!).

Upon sunrise, the fog began to lift and burn off. The positive aspect of starting at 10am, was that by this time, the race was almost over! A very refreshing feeling considering that upon sunrise, there is still normally 6 hours to go. I finished up my 10th lap (about 130 miles at this point) at around 10:15am. I was honestly glad that the race was finally over (which any of us solo riders usually are at this point).

I had a lot of challenges leading up to the race, and during the race that I don’t normally have (in addition to the swollen lymph nodes, my husband and I were in the process of moving all week, and all these years, I have been really fortunate to not have mechanicals during the race), but I still had fun nonetheless, and as always, each race proves to be a new learning experience (yes, even after doing these types of races for the last 5 years, there is always still more to learn!). Each race always proves to increase ones mental toughness, or in some cases “renew” your mental toughness.

I finished in 4th place, which actually makes me that much more “on fire” to participate in my next race in hopes of improving upon that performance. Sure, I love finishing up in a better position, but sometimes we all need that little (or big) “kick in the pants” to get us all fired up again.

Thanks for reading! As always, thanks to all the sponsors/people who make it possible: Kenda, Titus, X-fusion, DT Swiss, FSA, Magura, Zeal Optics, Bell Helmets, Hammer Nutrition, Wholistic Fitness, Veltec Sports, Tab Energy Drink, and to Stuart and the crew at Twenty4Sports for putting on such a great event!
– Timari Pruis”