James Hanson | Ready For 24 Hours In The Saddle
Share
INSTAGRAM | @professor296
INSTAGRAM | @jatzricho
James Hanson is always at the races. Most of the time it’s at Supercross and motocross events, taking care of competitors through his role as the brand manager to the motocross division of Rockstar Energy. Other times he’s the athlete, thanks to his deep interest in long-distance running events over challenging mountain terrain. Hanson has put in thousands of hours and miles on the trails, literally, in an attempt to be one of the top competitors in his division and his next endeavor could be the most challenging yet, even if he won’t leave his house. Starting early Saturday morning, Hanson and Australian racer Jackson Richardson will spend 24 hours in the saddle of their Concept2 BikeErg machine, an endurance ride that they hope will inspire others to do a workout of their own over the weekend.
“I saw that Dean Wilson did his first century (100-mile ride) on his road bike, so I was sitting at the house and asked him, ‘Do you dare me to do one on the Concept2 BikeErg?’ I was just baiting him in because I knew that I was going to do it [Laughs],” Hanson explained of the ride’s origin. “So, two days later I did it and Jackson saw, so five days later he did it and everyone was all excited. We started joking about doing 200 miles and all that. I went for a run the other day and Jackson sent a link of a guy that did 24 hours on a stationary bike. I said, ‘Do you dare me to watch this?’ And he thought I said, ‘Do you dare me to do this?’ I knew if I watched it I would want to do it and by the time that we talked about it, we both decided to go for 24 hours.”
Hanson had an entire race calendar laid out for 2020, which included one very burly qualifying event set to happen in September, but the COVID-19 crisis has put all of those events on hold. “My number one race this year was a Last Man Standing event, where the winner gets a ticket to the world championships. That was my huge goal for this year, it’s in September. It’s a 4.2-mile loop that starts every hour and however long it takes you to run that loop determines how long you get before it’s time to start again, every hour on the hour. My goal there is to win it because going to the world championship would be amazing. But now the last race for the outdoor Nationals is on that date, so unless something happens, I’m out,” he shared. “The winner at that qualifying race last year went for 28 hours and 116 miles, but the world championships have the possibility of going over 300 miles.”
He’s made do in the meantime and even squeezed in a last-minute event after the Indianapolis Supercross was canceled. “The same trail that I ran a 100 Mile race on, when I fell and got hurt with an hour lead, was having a marathon on the same loop the weekend that Indianapolis was going to be, but registration had closed two weeks earlier. I called and they remembered me and let me in, so I rented a car, got a hotel, drove out there, and race in the morning. It was probably the last running race that was held in the US right now. I got on the overall podium, which was my first time at the marathon distance, even though I think it’s too short for me,” he noted. “I used to think half-marathons were painful because they were a sprint, but as I got stronger, the marathon became a sprint.”
Long-distance events of this type require an incredible amount of planning, from the build-up training runs to the shoes and clothing worn to the food he consumes. “With the fueling and the gear, there’s so much science involved in this and it intrigues me. And it’s not by the book, because some things don’t work for everyone. You have to test and sometimes you won’t be able to dial in what you’re going to be doing until you’re ready to run a long pace,” he said. A long bout with Epstein-Barr in 2019 and the necessary SX travel in 2020 put Hanson in a bit of a hole, and that’s required some changes to his outlook on training. “I had to dial the training way back and the only thing I count is a run streak, which is a minimum of a mile a day. For the first 10 weeks, I didn’t do much and I’m at 97 days for my run streak, but there are a lot of days when I was just doing mile runs with everything at a low pace. With all of our travel, in the first 10 weeks, I got sick five times, and through the other five weeks, I had that feeling of being sick and fighting it every day. That was more exhausting than being sick, fighting it and not letting it beat me.”
Here’s a look at the setup Hanson and Richardson will spend 24 hours in, with Hanson’s up top and Richardson’s below.
What will Hanson have to help him through the long ride? A cautious trip to the store earlier this week helped him stock up on the necessities, which include a mix of Hammer Nutrition supplements, simple sugars, and carbs. “Knowing I have this 24-hour ride coming up, I went to the grocery store Monday to get supplies and I was frightened. I didn’t want to get close to anyone, I would stand 10 feet away when I was waiting at the meat department because I don’t want anything to take this down,” he said. “I will have 24 water bottles with Hammer Heed and Endurolytes Extreme for hydration and electrolytes, and I want to drink one every hour. I’ll have some sparkling water in a cooler and some will have ginger in them because that helps your stomach, and some original Rockstar Energy drinks and Pepsi for sugar, because if you start to get low, you will feel it. I have Snickers bars, donuts, and potato chips for salt and fast carbs. Those are things that I don’t normally eat, but they’re things that can save you in something this long.
“I have Hammer bars and gels, plus anti-fatigue and electrolyte pills. Because it could get to the point where you can’t get through that bottle of water every hour, but you have to stay on top of the electrolytes. It’s crazy because you only have so much blood in your system and when it goes to the muscles and is pulled away from your organs, that’s when you start to feel the pain inside.”
Staying fueled for the full duration of the ride will be very important, as Hanson knows firsthand how it feels to bonk in the middle of a long run. “If you get behind, it’s really hard to come back. If your stomach goes bad and you’re not hungry, then you are forcing yourself to eat, which is difficult. One of the reasons I have all of that stuff is for options,” he noted. “You have to stay on top of the fuel, burning carbs and fat, because if you start to get into your glycogen, you’re in trouble. If you get a good boost all of a sudden, that means you’re burning your race fuel and you’re almost empty. I think that will be the most important thing. If you bonk in a shorter race, you don’t have time to recover. But this isn’t really about distance, it’s a time thing, so even if we have to go slow for a minute because we’re in bad shape, you have to stay into it, keep pedaling, and recover.”
Compared to running for hours on rocky trails, the stationary bike will be a breeze. Hanson and Richardson will clip their feet into the pedals, set the cadence they aim to keep for the full ride and occupy their time with movies, music, and conversations. “For this, there’s no focus necessary. With a trail run, everything is so technical that you have to focus constantly. Keeping that focus for that long is hard. A lot of times running is freeing for the mind, but in races on trails, it’s difficult to do that. You have to know when you can do it,” Hanson said. “With the bike, I’m clipped in so it’s easier to stay on and there’s zero focus on your feet at all, so your mind can wander, you can watch movies, and just relax. It’s miserable because we’re not outside, and I’m not an indoor guy. We are going to put the bikes on setting one, which is the lowest resistance because this is about making it the 24 hours. It’s not about how far we go and I don’t really care if he goes further than me. It’s just such a big undertaking and accomplishing it will be huge.
“I focus so hard on mental training, and this is so much a mental thing, that we will both come out of this stronger for anything moving forward,” he continued. “Half of it is doing it for ourselves and half of it is because we get so much from motivating others. We know how the world is right now, that some people are sitting around and bummed out, not doing anything or working out because they can’t go to the gym.”
Which is why we’re hyping Hanson and Richardson’s venture. The guys have created an event profile on Zwift, a digital app that turns your stationary bike into a sort of video game, and they hope others join in for part of the ride. “Maybe joining in means doing jumping jacks for a few minutes, or push-ups, or joining in on your bike or treadmill. It can be anything. There are no rules, no time limits. It could be ten minutes or a full 24 hours. Five other people have expressed interest in doing the full thing with us. If you do something that was in some way motivated by us, all we ask is that you post it on your story and tag us, because we will be on our phones the entire time, sharing updates. Anything people post, we will see it and it will push us.”
JAMES HANSON’S PLAYLIST
No Use For A Name
Diesel Boy
Good Riddance
Slightly Stoopid
Creedence Clearwater Revival
JACKSON RICHARDSON’S PLAYLIST
Breaking Benjamin
Sum 41
Motley Crue
Judas Priest
Dune Rats
You guys are legends!
It was an amazing experience!
It was an amazing experience!