Steel City Endurance Racing

If you’re planning on racing JR’s Hilly Billy Roubaix next year, you may want to read this firsthand account of the race by Stacie “Bulldog” Truszkowski to help you get ready for the epic EV “road” race. Props to all SCE racers who started the race, and mad props to Stacie, Rachel, Aaron Bennett and Aaron Shelmire, who finished that bad boy.

From Stacie’s Race Report:

So I guess I have some race updating to do.  Most of my racing has been either done at the oval, and the few road races I’ve done have been in West Virginia.  We travel to WV because it’s pretty close and our buddy JR puts on some great races.  This year JR decided to create this CRAZY “road” race.  He said it would be on state and county roads, which is really hard to believe after spending 7 hours and 43 minutes in the saddle!

To prepare for this race, Kate, Aaron and I (after again borrowing Patty’s’ cross bike) took to the trails at Frick Park.  My first time on the bike felt good and I thought this may not be so bad, just need to adjust the seat post.  The day riding was good, after my first fall 30 minutes in, but we kept going and went back 2 more times just to make sure the bike was okay shifting-wise.

On the actual race day I really had no idea what to expect.  Kate was thinking 6-7 hours but after seeing JR post that he did in it 13 hours I was a bit nervous!  We were off and I just kept telling myself as always ride my own race and this is a marathon and not a sprint.  I felt really good on the hills but the gravel sucked.  First wooded area had some rather large “pot” holes that a small child could’ve swam in.  Floodsie put his foot down in one of them and it went half way up his shin.  Shoot, what did this day have in store for me?!  All I wanted to do was finish.  The heat and humidity was crazy so we carried 3 water bottles and refilled at all the water stations.  However the heat combined  with the hills left Kate and Dustin leaving us around mile 20 something.  So on we went.  Flood and I had the same game plan…to finish.  So on we went.  Not feeling too bad on the bike, braking on the downhills was starting to hurt my forearms and shoulders, and I wasn’t making it up all the hills due to the huge gravel on the “roads.”  Walking was the only option, but when we got to the top and the sweeper came up behind us on his fixed gear still on the bike we knew he’d done this before.  So on we went.  Rest stop #2 is at 38 miles and Floodsie was not feeling it.  He had done the TT the night before and was not fully recovered.  He decided to not continue on.

So my only hope was to continue and maybe meet Rachel who had been ahead of us from the woods around mile 5.  So again I went at my own pace still feeling really good.  I got some food and water at the aid station and felt pretty confident that I would finish this race.  Some hills got me here and there but all in all I was doing this.  Not sure exactly where but I saw two guys ahead of me, but I rode with them for a bit until I saw Rachel up ahead.  She’d been having calf cramps and was doing what she needed to do to finish this.  I continued up the hill and was happy to find a nice flat on the road and a downhill.  Time to let myself breath a bit.  Rachel caught up to me just as we are about to get back in the woods, again she was thinking what I was thinking, “Just finish this.”  We were more then half way and know we could do it.  We hit the last aid station which was really needed.  They made the mistake of telling us we are about 11 miles (honestly I can’t remember the exact number they told us, but we wish they would’ve doubled it!) so we were really excited!  We knew we could do this!  We were on the road just a bit then it was back in the woods and we were getting tired.  We did refuel but it had been a long day at this point!  The last miles of the race proved to be very challenging but we finished strong on the road.

At the end of this race I thought to myself, “How could JR do this to his friends?!”  But the more I thought about it (the day after), I couldn’t wait to do it again next year!  I beat your time JR!  Thanks for challenging me as always!

All photos courtesy of Ben Stephens.