How I Survived Dirt Camp

I'm also in the intermediate group. I figure the leg-slaughtering start up Chapman Hill is a plus. I'm a good climber. I cleaned the Hill during the pre-ride. Chapman Hill isn't an obstacle, I repeat. It's an opportunity.

No, it's an obstacle.

A few hundred yards up, I'm swallowed by a slow-speed crash. The rider pile-up and super-steep pitch make it impossible to remount. My legs feel like concrete. My plan is kaput. And my one dependable strength -- aerobic fitness -- isn't available today. Among my oversights: a thorough warm-up. Distracted by the throng at the start line, I cut the recommended 30-minute warm-up to about 10 minutes. I never came close to attaining my maximum heart rate. Skip Hamilton had mapped out a warm-up that included short bouts at an all-out pace, all to avoid what I am now experiencing: race-pace shock.

At the top of Chapman Hill, my legs are wasted. As planned, I recover on the flat. Not as planned, everybody else flies by me. Fat ones. Old ones. Fat and old ones. Recovery doesn't appear to be in anybody else's game plan. Had I known that some racers who find themselves in my predicament flatten their tires so they can retire with dignity, I would have pulled out my Swiss Army knife.

About a half-hour in -- just when my performance seems terminally anemic -- my legs come back to life. In racing, it's not uncommon: lactate, a metabolic by-product of anaerobic work that knots up the big muscle groups, has flushed away. I start passing people at the end of the first nine-mile lap, then steadily overtake guys in my age group on the final leg.

"You can take another spot, 1519," screams a stranger on the homestretch, urging me past the guy ahead. "Get after it!" I don't catch him. Even so, I feel redemption is mine. I place 22nd out of 60 riders, about 12 minutes behind the leader. William Wright, all fired up, greets me at the finish line. "Great job on the second lap," he yells. "You converted?"

I don't have an immediate answer. But a few hours later, I think I do. I'm reminded of a new theory on training, dubbed No Man's Land. It goes like this: most of us think we know how to train hard -- just work hard enough to get tired. In fact, the optimum training cycle is super-intense work followed by a replenishing period of rest. Most of us are somewhere in between: No Man's Land.

So in theory and in practice, off-road racing makes perfect sense. Nothing in between about it.

Todd Balf is a contributing editor at "Outside" magazine. He lives in Beverly, MA.

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