Maine news, sports, weather from Waterville Morning Sentinel

A grueling 24 hours

Bill Jason competes in all-day cycling events

By Bill Stewart bstewart@centralmaine.com
Staff Writer

It's sometime in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, and Bill Jason begins to feel it.

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UP AND OVER: Bill Jason of Fairfield rides his mountain bike over a bridge in the woods in Waterville recently. Jason competes in 24-hour mountain bike races.

Staff photo by David Leaming

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ROUGH TERRAIN: Bill Jason rides one of his mountain bikes on a steep trail in Waterville while practicing for an endurance race on Mt. Washington.

Staff photo by David Leaming

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Bill Jason, 41, of Fairfield, competes in a few 24-hour mountain bike races a year. Next weekend he will ride in the 24 Hours of Great Glen, at the base of Mt. Washington.
Here is a breakdown, in Jason’s words, of what happens before, during and after a marathon ride ...
Pre-Race: “Months of training and preparation have come down to this moment. Racers stay off their feet and focus on the effort that is about to begin. Carefully chosen support crews provide last minute advice and motivation.”
Noon-4 p.m.: “Races are typically noon to noon to provide plenty of day and night riding in ever-changing conditions. Solo racers typically use the first few hours to warm up into the long effort and become familiar with the course, which is typically an 8- to 10-mile loop.”
4 p.m.-8 p.m.: “The course has become very familiar to the racers at this point. A comfortable pace has been established by each racer during this period. Nutrition and hydration adjusts to the requirements of the racer and the weather conditions. These adjustments will be made throughout the race and are critical to the success of the solo racer.”
8-midnight: “Darkness begins and completely changes the appearance of the course. Racers typically wear helmet-mounted lighting systems with rechargeable batteries that must be changed as the night wears on. Rocks, roots and ground undulations that were once visible throughout the day can’t be seen anymore; thus the racer must rely on memory and a strong leap of faith. Adjustments to the cooler night temperature and lack of light are constantly altered.”
Midnight-4 a.m.: “After midnight can be the toughest part of the race. The body and mind are both fatigued. Racing throughout the night with a helmet light creates a feeling of bizarre tunnel vision. Racers typically guard against crashes, and many races have been lost or abandoned at his point. It has been said that a solo racer comes face to face with his soul at this point of the race and that there is no place to hide.”
4 a.m.-8 a.m.: “The pain and suffering of the long dark night begins to ebb in anticipation of the early morning light, which can re-energize the body and soul. Daylight brings the surprise feeling of riding over conditions throughout the night that a racer would clearly not attempt during the day. Racers celebrate surviving the night but realize there is a long way to go to finish the effort.”
8 a.m.-noon: “The final push to the end reveals what is left in the tank of the racer. Support crews muster any motivational advice they can come up with. The long endurance race becomes a shorter all-out effort to reach the finish.”
Post-race: “Completing a 24-hour solo mountain bike ride at any level is a feeling like no other. Racers and support crews all celebrate and congratulate each other on their efforts while sharing stories about what just happened the previous 24 hours.”
— Bill Stewart

First, it creeps in his legs, then into his weary head.

"Maybe it's the other way around," Jason says with a laugh.

Regardless, the 41-year-old mountain biker from Fairfield is tiring, and the sun has yet to rise over Mt. Washington, site of this physically and mentally demanding 24-hour mountain bike race at Great Glen.

"In endurance racing anything can go," Jason says. "Your body can go. Your bike can go. Your mind can go. You have to be prepared because whether it rains, or it's hot, or it's cold you are still racing. That is what I like about the 24-hour race. You are facing adversity. You are challenging your body for 24 hours. It's all about what can your body handle over a 24-hour period.

"Somewhere around 1 or 2 in the morning your body goes into a mode where it shuts itself down to force you to stop. That is one of hardest things about these 24-hour races. What do you do when your body is telling you that you can't do it? How do you fight that? How do you fight the ability to keep pedaling a bike in these extreme conditions when your body wants to shut down, when your body is under extreme stress. It's pretty extreme."

How else can you describe a noon-to-noon mountain bike race that takes riders on an 8- to 10-mile loop over and over again? How else can you describe what it's like to pedal a bike over roots and rocks and anything else in an off-road trail for 24 hours with little to no rest?

"Crazy," Jason acknowledges, again with a laugh. "Pretty much everybody around me thinks I'm absolutely nuts. They wish I could do something ... less extreme. For myself, I needed a challenge to motivate myself. I wanted to do something I could only do once or twice a year, and you can't do these 24-hour races every weekend. It takes me two weeks to get my sleep back and feel fully recovered from one of these."

From couch to bike

It was Father's Day 2007 and Jason's family -- wife Kathy, 5-year-old Lindsey and 10-year-old Alex -- surprised Bill with a mountain bike.

Jason, a 1987 Winslow High School graduate who played hockey at Colby, acknowledged he was out of shape at the time and needed a boost.

"Three years ago I was kind of out of shape and I really started packing on the weight," he says. "I got up to 215, which is 75 pounds heavier than what I am right now. My doctor said, 'Geez, you have to do something because your blood levels are out of control.' I tried every diet under the sun and then my family bought me a mountain bike.

"Well, I let that sit in the garage for a few months, but once I hopped on, it was like the light switch went off."

Adds Kathy: "It was a good stress reliever for him."

Jason fell in love with mountain biking. He started out riding one-mile loops in his neighborhood. It wasn't long before he set a goal of racing in a 24-hour marathon. The endurance rides, he said, enabled him to train and compete without sacrificing time spent with the family.

"It was definitely a lifestyle change that got me into it," Jason says. "I was kind of laughed at by some of my friends and family that thought it would take years to build up to this stuff. I firmly believe that when people are faced with challenges that's how they overcome adversity. They find a way to get by. Plus, you can only do a few of these a year because it takes awhile to prepare and recover."

On the road

Jason is one of two mountain bikers in the Central Maine Cycling Club, the lone endurance rider. He competes in a few 24-hour mountain bike races a year, including the 24 Hours of Great Glen in Pinkham Notch, N.H.

"Bill started riding a couple of years ago as a motivational lifestyle change," says Tony Giguere, a road rider in the Central Maine Cycling Club. "For some odd reason he picked solo 24-hour mountain bike races, which is about as crazy as you can get. These are popular for teams to do. But doing it solo makes it all the more interesting or insane, one or the other. But he seems to like it, which is half the battle."

They certainly aren't easy.

To succeed in a 24-hour marathon, riders typically bring a pit team that operates much like those at big-time auto races.

Jason's team is comprised of brothers Brad and Jeff Jason, as well as Dave Richard, director of the club.

"He's really something," says Brad Jason, 44, of Winslow. "I have a lot of sense of pride with him doing this stuff. It's unbelievable."

Adds Jason: "My first year doing this my pit times were 5 or 10 minutes long. Last year I'd come in off a lap and just straddle the bike. They'll change my water bottle out, and my other brother will give me my nutrition. I'll grab half a sandwich and I'm gone. At this point in my career I want to minimize my stops."

Jason estimated that he rides 22 of the 24 hours during these races.

"The pros are going 24 out of 24," he says. "But we have a whole schedule down. At 6 at night, I know I have to have my lights on. So they'll change my lights and cycle out the batteries every three hours. It's like switching out tires on a NASCAR race."

The bike, which Mathieu's Cycling and Fitness of Oakland put together, weighs a mere 17 pounds. It features tubeless tires that are filled with a solution that helps prevent puncturing.

"They had it right down to the ounce," Jason said. "They even took out the steel bolts and replaced them with aluminum ones. It's an exact science. In 24-hour racing it's a total team effort. Nutrition is also key. We have it right down to the ounce, as in how many ounces of fluid I can take in for an hour. When your body is under stress, it can only metabolize so many calories an hour. The toughest part of an endurance race is that you can't replenish what you are burning."

Kathy, 38, says the all-day, all-night races are nerve-racking.

"We go see him at the finish," she says. "The kids are little and I don't want them to see him suffering. He really pushes himself to the limits. It is dangerous, but he knows his limits. But, yes, I do get nervous."

Road ahead

Last year, Jason finished fourth overall in the men's solo 40- to 49-year-old division at Great Glen. He completed 18 laps -- each 8.25 miles -- in 24 hours. In 2008, his first year of competitive racing, Jason finished ninth in the 30- to 39-year-old solo division.

The number of laps riders complete determines the order of finish.

Jason hopes to finish on the podium -- top three -- at this year's race, which is Saturday.

He rides at least four days a week, usually in the early morning hours before he shuffles off to work as a salesperson for Lunesta, which, ironically, is used to treat people who have trouble sleeping.

He trains 12 months out of the year. During the winter, he takes his snowbike out on the snowmobile trails, deep into the woods of Maine in frozen temperatures.

"It's wild," says Jason, whose late father, Brad Sr., played professional baseball in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization in the late 1950s. "The tires on the training bike are 4-inches wide on 4-inch wide rims. So I can pretty much run it on any conditions if a snowmobiler has run on it twice. You can hear a snowmobiler coming from a quarter mile away so I can get off the trail.

"But, yeah, they absolutely think I'm nuts. Most of them will stop and say, 'What are you doing out here?' It makes for great conversation when it's below zero and I'm out 15 miles on a bike in the woods."

Adds Brad Jason: "I see him out there on snowmobile trails and I say, 'Are you nuts?' It's unbelievable. He's out there and he's loving it. The one thing you don't want to tell my brother is something he can't do."

Jason says he hopes to someday turn professional for U.S. Cycling, which requires riders to finish on a podium in at least two of these races.

For now, though, he's just enjoying the grueling rides.

"Everybody's goal is to be a professional," he says. "As a working person, I would need multiple sponsors. It would take a lot of time and commitment to get to that level, but it's the aspiration I have. Before, I didn't have any challenges. Now I have these big personal challenges. If I don't challenge myself I'll fall away. It'll just get boring. Besides, this is wild."

Adds Kathy: "He's actually very sane. He just does some crazy things."

Bill Stewart -- 623-3811, ext. 515

bstewart@centralmaine.com