It has been several years since I’ve raced the Mohican 100 in Ohio, mostly because it’s so far and there’s more racing closer to home for me. The Mohican is one of the largest 100 mile races in the country with 600 racers entered and with stiff competition, it presents a very challenging race.
The course is comprised of one giant loop with lots of twisting, fun single track, jeep road, dirt roads, and some very primitive trails. The weather was calling for rain on race day but when we woke up that morning, it was clear as a bell. The start of the race is in downtown Loudonville and basically 600 racers sprint down Main Street into a steep quarter mile road climb, it definitely hurts but this breaks up the pack before the first single track section.
I was sitting in the top 10 entering the trail and we mostly stayed together for the first 30 miles of racing, this section of the race is great riding, almost all single track, it was super fun being in a train of fast riders as we snaked our way through the Ohio jungle.
As we exited this section our group of ten began to splinter with a lead group of five and the rest of us were slowly falling of the pace. I rode a while by myself before teaming up with a guy named Ron from Michigan. We worked together back and forth for a couple of hours, both of us were suffering cramps from the heat and humidity.
My least favorite section is a 10 mile rail trail that’s a false flat and I was out of water to make things worse, Ron dropped me here and I was starting to go backwards. I finally made it to the mile 76 aid and got some water and I was still feeling bad but, you just need to push through in these situations. Nearing the end at mile 90 I started to feel better and rallied for the finish to put an end to the suffering.
In the end I held on to 8th place, it felt like I had great fitness coming into this race but things don’t always work the way you want them to so you just have to role with the punches.
