I recently completed the HooDoo 300 and wanted to share a bit of my experience. I don’t usually do this or write about anything other than food, so feel free to skip along to dumpling content.
To give you a little background, I was never a cyclist and I was never that interested in biking. My siblings really liked it, and I got annoyed at getting a chaffed butt. Then they started doing these amazing cross country races and rides that were so epic that I started to change my tune. I love camping, and I love eating and it seemed like biking was giving an excuse to do both!
In June 2018 I bought my first bike. A steel road bike with mountain bike brakes, it’s definitely not built for speed but I love it. 9 days later I did my first century with my brother on weekend bike-packing trip to Ojai(170 miles for both days). It took us all day to do the 100 and I was out of commission for days after. It’s crazy thinking about that now, since now I can do a century in 7 hours and still have a day. Anyways, I also just really enjoyed biking in LA. It was an easier way to get around a painfully traffic-y city and nice to get some exercise built into my day. Max continued to do impressive rides and I tagged along when I could keep up.
Flash forward a year or so and I started to want to actually bike for exercise, so I started going to spin classes. I used to HATE spin class, it felt like a disco-tech but sweatier and zero cute guys. But then when I changed my perspective that I was going to spin to get stronger, and I did get stronger, all the sudden the disco-tech was charming and I was singing along.
Flash forward again, and its March 2020 and my brother and I just moved into our family’s house in Colorado for Shelter In Place. We knew we needed to set some goals to get through quarantine, and Max had his sight set on this race in Utah he wouldn’t shut up about called the HooDoo. I laughed at the notion of me doing that race, it seemed way out of my reach. But we had fitness goals and started on them right away. This was huge for my quarantine time, it gave me focus and a purpose. It could’ve been really easy to fall into bad habits and frankly gotten quite depressed in the mountains alone, but with Max and our rigorous structure we were able to flourish in a weird time.
After a couple months we decided we wanted to do a double century, the longest for me by about 75 miles. Max made up a loop and we finished well under our time goal and still felt pretty good.
The natural response when you finish a long ride is, well, what’s next? After enough time passed and the chaffing healed we plotted a border to border ride from the Wyoming border of Colorado to the New Mexico Border. We wanted something relatively epic but also not too much climbing. It was 330 miles and something like 12K vertical. We finished in a little over 23 hours, also well beyond our goal. That recovery was ROUGH. Took me days before I could function normally again. It was hard but it was fun to take it to the next level. A double century is hard, but a triple century is kinda psycho and I wanted to know if I could do it. It was a great feeling when we finished under time and at a pretty solid pace of 16MPH for the full 330.
Shortly after recovering from that ride, Max argued that I had to do the Hoodoo 300 since I’d just completed a ride even longer than that well under the time limit… So, I really had no excuse not to do it. He opened the sign up page, filled it out (with his credit card info), put the mouse on the confirm button, and held the keyboard up to me while I cooked dinner one night—all I had to do was hit the button. So I did.
I didn’t plan on doing this ride so I had a trip planned to California for the two weeks prior. I was able to get a couple rides in, but due to the smoke was not quite what I would have liked.
I was pretty nervous about the race, but I kept reminding myself that we had done a longer ride just a few weeks prior. There wasn’t much I could change in my preparedness in the last two weeks, so all I could do was show up and bike and have a little fun.
I met my brother and dad in Saint George Thursday before the race, we shopped and prepped our bikes on Friday ready to ship off early Saturday morning. I set my sights on beating the fasted women’s supported time of 23 hours, and my stretch goal was to beat the men’s unsupported time of 21:35. I was pretty stressed making sure I had all the right stuff packed in the bags. Max also told me I needed to plan out my route more, I hadn’t really plotted any stops assuming there would be lots of gas stations, I was wrong, so I’m very glad I planned. I did that sitting in the hotel room trying to figure out what food to pack at each station.
Max and I both packed a ton of real food. I try to always have my snack bag on my bike filled with nuts, gummies, jerky, pistachios, corn nuts, basically easy to snack on and either super salty or super sugary. I had a salami sandwich packed at each station, as well as an apple donuty thing. Lots of chips, pickles, skratch… I forget the details but trying to always have a balance of carbs and fats. The key for me was definitely lots and lots of salt. I probably consumed about 30 salt tablets over the course of the race.
One thing that I take a bit of odd pride in is that I don’t ride in your typical kit. Early on I didn’t really like bike shorts so I just rode in basketball shorts with some thin nike spandex under. For this ride, I tried some bike short liners, a little thinner than normal but a little extra cush, but still with my basketball shorts. I think it actually changed how I sat on my bike because my right neck/shoulder hurt much less than usual. However my hoo-hah was wrecked by the end. Sorry. TMI. I also don’t have my own bike jersey, I bike in a jersey of my brother’s that has cut off sleeves and is several sizes too big for me. For me I don’t really care about having cool or nice gear, it’s just about being out on the bike and crushing miles.
There were only 6 people doing unsupported in the whole race, and only two of us in the 300. We all started together at 5AM Saturday morning. The first 9 miles was all together, going slow and chatting a bunch, and then everyone was off. It was cool to watch the lights ahead of me slowly work their way up the hills and helped me make sure I was going in the right direction. The first section of road was pretty gnarly and I was glad we hit it so early in the morning because there was little to no shoulder and a massive rumble strip, and every time I went over it I was just waiting for one of my tires to go. But luckily, no flats the whole ride!
I had planned my segments based on the fastest supported woman’s time, but I was kind of baffled by the pace, because her first segment was super fast and the rest were pretty slow, but it seemed consistent across a lot of riders so I figured that there was something I just didn’t know so I set my goals to just be about 20 minutes faster than her on each segment. Needless to say I was like an hour and a half behind her time by the first time station. But the whole way to the first time station I was having a great time, my body felt OK not amazing but I was doing math in my head and felt like I could be on pace to finish in 21ish hours. I listened to music and then a book for a while but then decided to just ride with my thoughts which is weirdly quite nice.
It was really pretty and on a quiet road for a good amount. I wish I could tell you more about the road, but honestly I was pretty in my head for the ride and would’ve never made it home without my Wahoo. The best part was the cloud coverage, so it never got too hot. I was carrying 3 water bottles pretty much the entire time until the end when I had 4. I picked up a fourth in Cedar City because I knew that at the time I was going to ride through Enterprise nothing would be open so I would have no way to refill my bottles so would have to pack extra to get home.
I knew I had to stay hydrated but it did mean more stops. I stopped to swap out my water bottles at like mile 30, then stopped to fill up more water at like mile 50, and stopped again to pee and swap bottles at like mile 75 and then got to the time station. All the while popping hella salt pills which I think really saved me in the long run.
I had just missed Max and the couple that were there were so sweet and friendly. They laughed at how much food Max and I each had packed as I swapped out my snack bag snacks and refilled my pockets and bottles. Steve wasn’t too far behind me at that point so I took off. Steve was a great buddy in the race, he’s done this like 5 times before and was super friendly at the start of the race, but I wanted to try and stay in front of him because I knew if I fell behind it would be tough for me to catch back up.
I forget exactly what happened next but there was a climb going out of Glendale and then a long steady downhill. The traffic wasn’t great, but there was a decent shoulder so I felt pretty comfortable the whole time. My pace was decent and I felt like if I could get to Panguitch and the bottom of the big climb with 15mph pace I would be in good shape so I hoofed it down the long mostly downhill rolling stretch to Panguitch.
When I got there they had a hotel room, so I took a big ol’ poo and washed my face off. I hadn’t made much progress on my food so I only grabbed a few things and refilled my bottles and crushed some pickle juice. I probably spent about 20 minutes there. At this point I lost all concept of my original time goals, and was just focused on trying to keep my off the bike time as low as possible and try to finish around 22 hrs. I think I realized that my plan to pace off someone else was wrong, and I should’ve just stuck to my own speed goals knowing what I can do at certain inclines. I wasn’t discouraged that we were on different paces because I had blind confidence in the last 50 miles being a ‘descent’ but I was wrong.
As I was getting ready to leave some of the supported solo men started coming into the time station. The first guy Wes turned around and headed up the hill and I never saw him again. One guy BJ passed me as I was jabbering to myself trying to calculate how fast they were all going that they had caught me after starting 2 hours behind, and if they were going for the fastest times what pace did that put me on… anyways I don’t know if he heard me shouting about 7.5 hours or whatever I was thinking about. But then he stopped at his van to restock so I passed him. For a little while probably 3-4 different support cars kept leapfrogging me, but no one on bikes had caught up yet. BJ’s entire family was in their support car and every time they stopped they would cheer me on as I went by. Slowly the vans stopped coming by me except for BJs, and then he finally passed me probably like 3 miles into the climb? I’m not sure to be honest. But his family waited to cheer me on one more time before following him up the hill. THANKS FAM! It really made my day and was so fun to have that boost of energy.
The whole way up was slow but I tried to stay above 6mph and never get off my bike, which I think made a difference because sometimes if you go too slow or stop and lose momentum it just feels even worse. I stopped in Duck Village to fill up water, just ran into some hotel and used their bathroom sink. Then I put in my headphones and started belting ballads the rest of the way up. I really thought some of the men were going to catch me, but my sister was texting me how I was destroying everyone so I was stoked and motivated to keep going. My family was texting me a lot but I wasn’t really responding other than to like their messages. I didn’t want to spend any extra time off the bike and everyone knows no texting and biking! As I got to the top it started to rain lightly and I thought about stopping to put on my warmer layers but didn't want to waste a stop.
I took a picture at the summit to send to Deborah and my fam, I was really stoked I made it to the top and did it before the sun went down. I also was getting back on track for the time goal I had initially set, and as long as the descent was pretty smooth I was gonna get into Cedar City ahead of schedule.
The descent was COLD. After about 5 minutes my arms were shaking but I hadn’t wanted to stop so I just powered through. It was pretty fun since there weren’t many cars and relatively smooth. A few wet spots that made me slow down, but overall just a good feeling to be done with the bulk of the climbing.
I got to the time station in Cedar City which is a gas station and brought my bike inside. I was shivering pretty bad so grabbed some coffee and put on my layers. Atom—yes he spelled it Atom—was the guy behind the counter. He was SO chatty with me and everyone who walked in. He seemed to know everyone, as Max put it he was a bartender working at a gas station. I told him to keep an eye out for Max the next day and set off in the dark. Max reported later that when he walked in Atom immediately recognized him since I told him to look out for a very tall cyclist, and was just as helpful and chatty as he was with me.
By now the sun was down so I had all my reflective gear and lights going again. The next section was a bit of a haul since it was hard to see what was coming next and was just a longish steady uphill. But I was feeling good on my time so wasn’t too stressed. Then there was a nice short descent. I’m getting more comfortable with biking at night but definitely makes me more nervous when I pick up speed since I worry I won’t get out of the way in time if the car doesn’t see me somehow.
I had to remind myself to keep eating and drinking since I still had HOURS to go. I didn’t have much of an appetite so I was glad to have some energy gummies and nuts that were pretty easy to eat. At this point I had probably drank at least 12 liter bottles of water/perpetuem/skratch.
There was a long flattish section from New Castle to Enterprise that was pretty windy even though it was the middle of the night. I had a final swap out of my water so I had 2 more bottles left with about 55 miles to go. Then I hit the final climb. I blasted my tunes and just worked my way up the hill. I timed my most dramatic songs for the final moments of the climb. Then it was a deceiving ‘descent’. I got to the top and was only at like 16K feet instead of the 17k total for the race, and was like no. this has to be a mistake. But then it turned out for much of the way was for 1 foot up for every 3 feet down, so had a few short climbs, but luckily I had enough adrenaline and momentum from the descents that they weren’t too terrible. It made the last couple hours longer than I hoped but ultimately it was all downhill so I knew each short climb would be just that, short.
Also at some point I realized I was on pace to beat the men’s record, or at least I thought I was going to JUST beat it by a few minutes. I had only stoped for 1:28 and was shooting for 20 hr bike time. I completely forgot about the fact that it was 296 and not 300 miles so I was pushing to be at 15 mph so that I would beat their time by like 7 minutes, but then ultimately beat it by 25 because of those 4 fewer miles. I’m glad that I made that mistake because it pushed me to go faster.
There was a beautiful moment with the moon over some lake as I got close to time station 4. I definitely was way warmer than I expected to be at 1 in the morning, but didn’t want to stop. I called Deborah with 12 miles to go and told her I wanted to be done in less than 45 minutes! I sprinted the rest of the way back, even though it was hard to sit in my seat at moments because my lady parts were feeling pretty raw at this point. I had some coasting moments when I had the speed, but overall felt like it was as fast as I was gonna go at the end of 300 miles. Finally I hit the final traffic lights and could see the Best Western sign. Saw my pops on my left and sprinted across the finish line. After seeing everyone else roll in, clearly it was a little overly aggressive to sprint, but I was just so excited to be done!! Dad gave me some soup and I snuggled with Val while chatting with Jen.
After that my body definitely started to crash. I was immediately really sore and tired and had a lot of gunk in my throat. I had a really hard time sleeping and ended up only sleeping for a few hours. Val woke me up early and demanded to go outside so I took her to the dog park. I sat on the ground and didn’t really talk to anyone while she played. We went back to the hotel and I alternated between trying to nap and walking to the finish line to cheer on people as the finished their races.
The next day was the banquet and I couldn’t stop smiling (Ok fine I smiled the whole weekend on the bike, too). It was a great feeling to have not only finished, but to have set a record. And to have beat all of the supported women times. I allow myself to doubt myself too often and this was a time that I was reminded that is a mistake. When I did hit my goals and saw everyones’ positive reactions to it it was a really good feeling. I was happy that I didn’t get any sort of condescending comments about me being a girl, everyone was just plain stoked for me. My sister has dealt with a lot of sexist comments in her racing experience so I was ready, but I was really pleasantly surprised by the whole Hoodoo community in that regard. All in all, since I had already done 330 with my brother I knew I could do it, but I didn’t expect to have it go well and I’m really proud of myself for how well it turned out.
Finally, I’m super grateful to my brother. He constantly pushes me out of my comfort zone and always believes in me even if I don’t. He has been a patient champion of getting me into biking, even when I was crawling at 10 mph he stuck with me and pushed me up the hills. He reminds me to operate without any excuses, just go for it. This is something I want to help pay forward, I feel like biking is gated by equipment and money, but you can bike without being fully kitted out. I ride with cut off sleeves and in basketball shorts, and it took me like a year before I bought bike shoes. And you don’t need to be an amazing athlete to start, you just have to eat a lot and be willing to pedal for a long time. I want to help reduce those excuses and get people outside! I hope my story will inspire someone else to give it a try, and anyone who wants to ride just let me know. I’m lousy at planning routes but I’ll outsource to Max and we’ll have a great time :)
Most of all Max reminds me to be comfortable in my discomfort. So much of my life the last 3 years has been uncomfortable, and he constantly reminds me to lean into that, be positive, and keep pushing forward. THANKS MAX LOVE YOU LOADS!
