Congratulations to Caleb Cline who set 10 new WUCA records during his 24-hour attempt on Apr-29-30, 2022
Caleb Cline 2022-04-29-Finish Flag
Here is Caleb’s Ride Report
World Record Race Report
Life Prior- Roller coaster of everything. The great juggling act. I almost canceled this event, but cycling was the only thing keeping me going in a positive direction and kept getting blessed with support and sponsors even when my life was seemingly falling apart.
Day of Prep- I always feel like I’m the single point of failure here or this could always just be done better. Better delegation of tasks and prep on my part would allow me to maybe do less here and get everyone in the crew engaged and taking direction from the crew chief. Dinner was awesome and great to get everyone together again!
PreEvent- obviously a bit of added complexity that could be deemed as unnecessary, but it seemed to get most local folks engaged and the way I’m doing this it needs to be more organically supported and educated I think than other upright folks. Most people don’t even know what to call my trike so that is just a learning curve. I thought it went well and thanks for helping me stay on task there. Obviously at larger events media etc is done well prior like a day or two to weeks before. Much less stress on me day of, but for the purpose of this event it seemed to work well.
First 85 Miles- RPE felt like 4.5-5.5 and I was flying. Didn’t feel like adrenal take over or even caffeine. I would have set a 45 minute 100 Mile PR if everything stayed in tact at 4:45. I was really proud of this first part in terms of speed, watts, effort, nutrition (maybe needed some more water), but otherwise every seemed to be meshing well and functioning properly.
Malfunctions- flat tires, to wheel falling off, then misaligned tie rods and just burning tires. This really messed with my head, my emotions, and sucked a lot of my energy; I went from riding a high of everything just jamming and feeling great to a grinding halt. Not an excuse but I didn’t understand why I was putting in so much effort and going so slow on the Bachetta and then burning tires every lap. I was second guessing the entire event at this point and started spiraling out of control.
Fix to 9pm- once we realigned and then got on the VTX again this gave me a second wind that I could at least finish this in a respectable fashion and obviously the 500-miler goal was gone, but I thought 400 was still achievable for sure.
Break- felt great to wash my face and change kit. Shelly retaped and adjusted me. I find my legs don’t respond to much in performance recovery besides the rapid reboot boots, so I think we need to find a happy medium of using those more often just because I don’t get the normal blood flow or body position changes for activation as an upright rider so once those muscle groups are overworked they need a fresh supply of blood. (Really noticed this after the shower and nap in the early am)
945pm until Homeless Nap- you took everything I had in the tank. Literally. I’ve been tired/falling asleep on the trike many times, but never literally done it. Well done coach. You squeezed it all out. Even caffeine didn’t get me going. I have never just slept on the ground like that, especially the sidewalk. I could hear all the talking around me, but I couldn’t move. A weird out of body experience twitching and dreaming saying I need to ride my bike, I gotta ride my bike, but I wasn’t moving.
4 to Sunrise- the nap kept me going for a bit (I’d say anytime I stop like that in the future, may as well just pump the legs) I was happy to see the sun, but it didn’t give me the energy I was expecting and it got to the point where I couldn’t even make it across the intersection at boulder highway because I could barley turn over the pedals. That’s the time when the call was made to shower, nap and pump.
Shower/Nap/Pump- I’ll never complain about a shower/nap/pump break. Perfect way to reenergize and reset. I felt about 75% recovered after this and came back out strong. Fast enough to do an extra lap than planned and I was tempted to push it to two, but timing was just off.
Finish- pleased with the result and the journey it took to get there. I still want to cross 500 miles, but maybe I should start with 400 first since I haven’t even accomplished that yet.
Nutrition- Infinit products are my ticket for success, but there is a bored factor that happens, so I think getting more flavor options may be a good idea for longer events. I got to the point where I didn’t want to drink the bottles because it just tastes so blah after a while. Maybe even more solid food options for longer races.
Overall, this entire race was very symbolic of my life I would say. Going hard and fast and my wheel blows and then falls off (exiting the Army), then overworking in misalignment and going nowhere fast (mental health problems), finally fixing wheel alignment (God reenters the picture), then back on the race trike (my current path of following, letting go and going with the flow), through that struggles and exhaustion come, but with the right support crew and people in my corner finishing is not only possible but going to happen as long as I don’t quit and give up.
