Nov
5
Taking it to the Top – Pocatello Man wins Nationals
His bike tires crunched through frozen dirt clods and ice-covered mud puddles.
Mitch White kept a steady pace throughout the gradual ascent up Valve House
Draw. He checked his watch – 160 heart beats per minute on average. Not bad.
To White, the heart is a mountain biker’s motor, and understanding and regulating
heart rate is the secret to success in the sport. During races, the 46-year-old
shoots for a 175-beat average. As he cranked higher up the trail, past ghostly,
barren aspens and into a fir forest, the light dusting of snow covering the
landscape turned into a thin blanket. He peddled up a short, steep hill over
rock-hard ruts – 185 beats.
At the trail’s highest point, he stopped and gazed upon a snowy Scout Mountain
in the distance. White knew that morning on Oct. 24, before launching into a
single-track that got softer and muddier as he dropped in elevation, would be
the last mountain bike ride of a season he won’t soon forget. On Sept. 23, the
Pocatello man tested his abilities against the best in the nation and shocked
himself by emerging on top. But the real significance of the stunning victory
at nationals in Central California is in how far he’s come in a personal quest
to transform himself from fat to fit.
White gave up biking after childhood. He spent his 20s drinking heavily and
chewing tobacco and added pounds to his body. His weight climaxed at about 240
pounds. “I wasn’t very healthy at all. I decided I needed to give that
stuff up,” White said. It wasn’t easy, but he overcame his vices, and at
age 37, he took up what’s become a more healthy addiction, road biking. During
the winter, he skis and rides an indoor stationary bike to stay in shape. Over
time, he began to trim down. Two years after he resumed biking and stopped drinking,
the 5-foot 11-inch man was down to 200 pounds.
He and his girlfriend saw an advertisement for a practice criterium race set
for the parking lot at Holt Arena, and they figured, “What the heck.”
“We thought it might give a focus to the training,” said White, an
operations manager for Bechtel at the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental
Laboratory who once biked to work. Participants in criterium races, scheduled
on Tuesdays about twice a month during the summer, ride laps through a fast
course with lots of corners in the parking lot. The initial race was grueling,
but somehow fun. White was hooked and is now a regular in the criterium races,
organized by Idaho Cycling Enthusiasts and sponsored by Idaho State University.
It wasn’t long after that first race before White was taking the sport seriously.
He now arranges his schedule so he has time to enter at least two road biking
races per month, mostly in Boise and Salt Lake City. He also has an Internet-based
fitness trainer who helps him plan his daily exercise routine. Seven years after
getting back on his bike, White is a slender 175 pounds. As much as he loved
road racing, White never gave much consideration to mountain biking, which he
thought was a silly sport.
He was 40 when he bought a mountain bike as a gift for his son. Out of curiosity
before his son’s birthday, he took the bike to Valve House for a test ride.
It was kind of fun. He got his own mountain bike and started racing it, too,
although he didn’t take mountain biking as seriously as road biking. “For
me, I just did the mountain bike racing for fun. I’ve never invested as much
emotion in that as I have in the road racing,” White said. A strange thing
happened. He discovered he was better at mountain biking. But he continued training
for both road and mountain bike races on his road bike.
“The advantage of training on a road bike for even the mountain bike races
is you can train harder, longer,” White said. “You don’t have to worry
about the terrain. The descents aren’t breaking up your hard work. It’s less
pounding on your body. A lot of the mountain bikers are staying on the road
to get the physical fitness part.” In addition to the road races, White
raced his mountain bike four times this season.
He didn’t do well in the Idaho State Championships on Soldier Mountain, near
Fairfield. Nonetheless, he was among the top 15 to place in his age group in
Idaho and qualified for the mountain biking nationals at Mammoth Mountain, an
expansive ski area in Central California.
He’d never competed at the national level and fully expected to come in dead
last. His goal was to give it everything during the cross country race at nationals,
but he entered an event called the mini marathon, a 22-mile mountain course,
as a warm up. The course started at 8,900 feet and gained 2,000 feet in elevation
on a sandy path. White suspects it was scenic. He was too focussed to soak in
his surroundings.
About 100 mountain bikers, including eight in his age group, lined up for a
mass start. White had no way of knowing who is competition was. In the back
pocket of his jersey, White had a water bottle to help him stay hydrated. He
also packed Goo, a tube filled with paste containing sugars and electrolytes
to give him an energy boost.
When the gun sounded, White started at a pretty fast pace but held back. He
considered the race to be a warm up, and more importantly, he didn’t want to
commit the crucial error – breaching his lactate threshold. Racers often get
excited and start too fast. If your heart rate is too high too soon, lactic
acid can build up in your legs, and during a race, you don’t have a chance to
slow down and let it clear out. “You don’t want to get to that point. You
feel like you can’t go on,” White said.
He checked his watch, which receives a radio signal from a strap over his chest
to relay heart beat. He was riding in the 160s. “I try to pick somebody
whose obviously faster than me and try to keep them in my sight,” White
said. “I was surprised at how well it was going. It was a really fast race.
The first mile, I averaged 15 mph.”
The course headed up a steep hill. Perhaps at this point, living in Pocatello
paid off for White. He believes he was better acclimated to the high altitude
than his competition. Regardless of the reason, he started passing people. When
the trail reached a plateau above the tree line, he put his head down and gave
it everything, attempting to leave more people in his wake – 180 beats.
As always, a few riders passed him on the downhill. He started to burn out
during the last seven miles, but he got his second wind after grabbing a drink
at a water station. When he checked the leader board after finishing in just
over 1:45, he couldn’t believe his eyes. The man who entered just to finish
had won. “You could have knocked me over with a feather because I did not
expect to be competitive at all,” White said.
Ironically, he struggled in the cross country race the next day, which he considered
to be his best event. Before the race, his front gear shifter broke, making
it impossible for him to change from his second chain ring. He was forced to
work on his bike when he should have been warming up for the race, and he had
to walk up a steep hill because he couldn’t get into first gear. Despite the
mechanical problems, he finished the 16-mile cross country race, which climbed
3,000 feet, in a respectable time, 1:35.
“The positive side of the story is if I’d have raced the way I could have
raced, I would have placed really well there too,” White said. Now that
he knows what he’s capable of accomplishing on two wheels, White plans to be
a fixture at nationals. “What meant something to me was going down there
and finding I was actually competitive at that level.” White said.
John O’Connell
government and edits the Great Outdoors section for the Journal. He can be reached
by calling 239-3128 or by e-mail at joconnell@journalnet.com
