Where are you from and how did you come to being such a great endurance mountain biker? I grew up a bit of a tomboy in the suburbs of Chicago and got my first taste of sports through the track and cross country running team in high school. Joining that team changed the trajectory of my life and I’ve been an athlete in multiple sports ever since. Even in those days, I did better at the longer events and gravitated towards the more adventurous nature of cross country versus track. Since then, I’ve had a long, successful journey of different sports including rock climbing, adventure racing, paddling and finally mountain biking. I didn’t start mountain bike racing until age 38 and frankly I was lousy at it. But I was really good at going long. I got involved in 24 hour solo MTB racing and that launched a whole cycling career that was really unexpected. Nearly 10 years later, I’m kind of surprised to call myself a professional cyclist, but that’s how it has turned out. The whole story is outlined in my new book Rusch To Glory. It’s not just a book about me, but a book about some great adventures and just might motivate you to get off the couch and find your own adventure! Many people know who you are from your days at Leadville, and your long history of endurance racing. I know you are still new to it but what sparked your ultra/bikepacking interest? Bikepacking is actually the perfect melding of the skills I acquired from 10 years of multi-day international adventure racing with the cycling skills and fitness from nearly 10 years of elite mountain bike racing. I started to hear about these events in the past few years and would see riders coming through Leadville each year on the CTR. I’ve been intrigued and my Kokopelli record ride a couple of years ago was the first step to checking out self-supported cycling. I have a feeling there’s more in my future. My career as an athlete has lasted over 20 years because I’ve made a point of following what types of events inspire me. If something is calling to me, there’s a reason for it and I have to listen. The past two years you did the Fat Pursuit, a much larger leap into bikepacking, what motivated this? I wanted to know if I could do it and there was only one way to find out. I’ve known Jay P a long time and his event was close to home. My husband Greg had been getting into fat biking and so we just started collecting the gear and one thing led to another. Jay was super encouraging (almost too encouraging), so I had to try it out and couldn’t really say no to him. You just took on the Smoke ‘n’ Fire, a 2nd year event that actually goes through your hometown. How was your preparation going into the race? Did you pre-ride any sections? Ha! Preparation? What’s that? My preparation was to host the biggest event of my year, Rebecca’s Private Idaho, in my hometown with nearly 500 riders just 3 days before the start of Smoke n’ Fire. That included tons of work, stress, minimal sleep, multi-tasking and then riding 100 miles with friends. I went into S n’ F totally exhausted, feeling very unprepared with gear or route prep and just kind of winging it. I hadn’t really looked at the map and hadn’t ridden more than around the block on my new Niner bike with the gear set up. There was some great competition this year. What was your goal going into the race? My only goals were to finish, to explore some beautiful parts of Idaho, to be efficient and to have some alone time on my bike. I honestly had no expectation about a finish time or place. I just wanted to go on the longest bike ride I’ve ever done in my home state and see how I liked it. After the first section from Boise to Ketchem, you found yourself in 1st, how were you feeling at that point? I admit, I was kind of surprised because I honestly wasn’t racing. Don’t get me wrong, it was hard work and I was enjoying the effort, but I wasn’t really trying to knock anyone off the leader board. I have tons of endurance experience but this was for sure the longest ride I had tackled. Being in first that early in the event didn’t really mean anything to me. I know enough from my racing that whatever is happening in the beginning of the event is not always representative of what will be happening at the end of the race. I was happy to be in the mix, but also knew that there was still too much ahead of us to get excited.
#SNF400 2015 – Rebecca Rusch called in with her finish call! http://t.co/s01joiLDxO
— MTBCast (@MTBCast) September 12, 2015
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