Bonebender 6 hour solo race report

The 2nd installment of Bonebender 3/6 hour race was Sunday April 18th. If you'll remember last year's installment was the worst mudfest I've been party to. It wasn't pretty with heavy rains the morning of the race causing all types of casualties to rider, machinery, and trail. This year we had much better luck and what one could definitely call perfect conditions. Temps were cool at the start in the lower 50's and warmed to a sunny upper 60's by afternoon. The trails had a slight watering down on Friday, but were tacky and fast, to almost dusty in some portions. New for this year was an extended rock garden section that included an off camber sideways ledge drop of 12-18". Not that it really mattered what was new this year as I hadn't had the pleasure of riding more than 2 miles before breaking last year so it was basically all new.

Race rig ready

The Pit

We had a large contingent of Rassy's racers headed down for the show. Maria, Squirrel, Jason and I met up at 5 to head out and arrived about perfectly to get our pit set up, check in, warm up, and have a few minutes to contemplate the pain we were about to embark on. Other than gravel centuries this would be my first foray into enduro style off roading. The 24 hour race at Boone was a little bit of an intro, but being part of a 4 man team, I only raced 45 minutes at a shot and roughly 6 hours total over the 24. The little voice in my head was definitely worried about pacing myself. However, pacing and mass starts with 250ish people are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

Mass(ive) Start:

As with last year, we lined our bikes up along a paved bike trail and grouped up for a 1/4 mile or so dash ala "LeMans style". I found a nice spot for my bike with a good refence point to be able to pick it out in the sea of other rides and then positioned myself 1 row back from the front for the running start. It was mass hysteria as the starter sent us on our way, but I managed to fist fight my way through and hit the bike in relatively good shape. I was probably in the top 30 riders by the time we hit singletrack with my heart all ready beating at the top of zone 4. I was early enough to avoid the ensuing snarl of riders stopping and starting through dropping into the singletrack, but yet far enough back that I didn't have to crush my heart rate into zone 5 just to maintain pace. All in all, I don't think my start could've gotten much better until I can get more endurance built up this year.

I was constantly checking my heart rate as the lap progressed and growing increasingly nervous as it was sitting in the middle to upper end of my zone 4 which is definitely more suited to short races and not endurance pace. I needed to really drop it by almost 15 beats per minute to get into a comfortable zone. That never happened on lap 1 and I knew it wasn't going to gain me anything come later in the race. I rode very well through lap 1 and was mostly able to maintain position by passing and getting passed. Remember the rock ledge? Well, I was leading a group of 3 or 4 riders up to the ledge area having no idea where on course it was. We came around a bend to see a down warning arrow about 20' up the trail and a group of volunteers nervously watching the riders and waiting for the carnage. I made sure to not disappoint them. I tried riding the ledge and washed my front tire out sideways spinning the bars and spitting me straight forward onto the rocks below. I was still clipped in with my right foot and took a few extra seconds getting that mess straightened out all the while blocking the trail completely. A fw more seconds and I think the guys behind me may have decided to leave me for dead and just use my carcass as a nice step down. Luckily I was able to hop back up, grab the bike and go. I'd lost my chain off the crank in the crash and that took me a few seconds to get spun back on as well all while still blocking the guys behind me. The rest of the rock section was mostly uneventful with the exception of a rock/root combo that messed me up the first couple times until I realized the best line was to ride straight over it in lieu of trying to go around it- score for the 29er!

Rolling trail:

I was starting to get crossed eyed as we hit the pavement section directly after the rocks, but luckily we were rewarded with some swoop and flow at that point of the trail and I could clear my head a bit. After all of that excitement, we were left with only a few more technical obstacles such as a set of 4 rock step ups of roughly 4-6" each and spaced just far enough apart to not get more than a half pedal stroke between them, a rocky climb with a large logover at the top in a slow section, and what I believe they call "the pulpit" which is a shoulder height rocky outcropping with a hard to pick line and exposure on the right. The rest of the trail had the usual off road obstacles with roots, more rocky rough sections, and a few logovers, but also contained some sweet flowing bermed turns with high speeds and usually some major penalties in the form of looming trees if you failed to maintain control. My GPS was reading the laps off at roughly 11.2 miles with 750ish feet of climb.

As I neared the end of lap 1 my right foot started feeling odd as I turned the cranks. It took about a nanosecond for me to realize my cleat had come loose and I might be in danger of losing it all together as sloppy as the connection was. I eased my way the last mile or so into the checkpoint area.

As I went to dismount, the extent of my problem became fully clear. I couldn't unclip on the right! Not one to flaunt the no riding in the check in area, I stopped long enough to pull my foot out of the shoe and leave it clipped to the bike. Now that I look back, it's the same foot that stayed clipped in and didn't want to unclip during my crash over the ledge. I am begining to think the two issues are definitely related. In any case, I ran through the checkpoint and remounted the bike like a tri rider with my foot sitting on top of the shoe and rode back to our pit. I was a bit frustrated at this point, but kept myself relatively collected and got a new screw dug out from my repair parts as the one was nearly stripped. I tightened the cleat down and tested it out for being in the correct position. All was good so I grabbed a new bottle, a bite of my breakfast cookie and maybe a few cashews before heading back out. I was probably stopped in the neighborhood of 5 minutes but it sure felt like a lifetime as I saw a ton of riders streaming past. I finished the lap at 62:13 with a 175 heart rate average.

Lap 2 brought on my real pacing plan. I backed down to what felt like a much more manageable pace, but the heart rate monitor kept saying otherwise. Slowly but surely, I made myself slow down even more, but I could tell the early pace had all ready done some damage and I was merely 1.5 hours into 6. At the start of the race, I calculated that the winners would most likely get 7 laps in and I might be borderline on getting 6 or 7. As my pace slowed, the calculations fired back up. Now I was shooting for 6 laps and wondering if I could reach that goal. Soon enough I found myself again leading a train of 4 guys as we hit the rock section. The start to this section had 2 trees tight together with the singletrack running right through them. You hit them with a bit of speed and a turn at the same time. I managed to hip check the tree on the right pretty hard, yet was going fast enough that I was a good 10 feet past by the time I yelled out from the pain. As I learned in Colorada last year I seem to do pretty well with the rock garden sections and slowly strung out the group behind me. With only 1 or 2 guys back, I offered up to let them go if they were planning to ride the ledge. I calculated losing 10 or so seconds was a much better outcome than possibly eating it again. They took me up on the offer only to find a traffic jamb where we were all walking it again. This lap finished up pretty uneventful with 67:06 on the clock and a heart rate of 168.

I pitted again to grab some more food and another bottle at the start of lap 3. My legs, back, and upper body were starting to really give me fits at this point. I snagged some ibuprofen and loaded up with 2 bottles in lieu of just 1 for this round. As I started back on the lap, I hit that point of questioning why I was doing this to myself. Why didn't I just sign up for the 3 hour race? Why was I even pretending that I could be a contender in the open class? Lots of questions and the only answers lay ahead on miles of rough terrain. Lap 3 was the worst for me. I felt every bump, root, and rock in the trail and my body began that process of shutting down. I don't remember much of the lap beyond hurting. I could only turn in a 72:44 at a 159 heart rate.

As I got back to the pit after my 3rd lap, I began contemplating the drop. I wasn't sure if I had any more laps left in me. I sat down in a chair, popped a Coke and grabbed a Snickers bar to contemplate my situation for a few minutes. I probably took a solid 10+ minute break at this point before deciding I had no good reason to not give it at least one more round and see how things went even if I rode really slowly. That's pretty much exactly what I did, I started hydrating more and let my heart rate stay as low as it wanted. Surprisingly, I didn't drop much time over lap 3. I think part of that may have been due to teammate Jason catching me towards the end of my lap and he looked strong. I'd seen him a few spots earlier in the lap and he had reeled me in. It looked like he was determined to get a gap going as well with the way he came cruising past. I was actually content to let him go, but I managed to put forth enough effort to hang onto his wheel until we hit the checkpoint. I finished out with a 74:46 and a 148 heart rate.

Jason and I talked about doing a brief pit and then heading back out for lap 5 together. I wasn't quite ready to go and was still setting and enjoying my other half a coke and more snickers bar when he tore out of the pit. Squirrel and I both noted how strong he looked today and I figured that was the last I'd see of him. I finished up my stop and headed out a few minutes back. Surprisingly, my legs were showing some signs of life. Though my back and body still hurt, I felt good enough to start cranking over the pedals a little better. I figured that this would be my last lap so why not put out whatever I could and see how I faired even if I blew up.

The cramps were really edging their way into my focus by this point with the first twinges having starting clear back on lap 3. As I cranked up the pace, they were ever present in the fringes of my effort. I focused on bombing the downhills about as fast as I had all day and then cranking the uphills with as much momentum as I could. All in all, I felt really well about how I was rolling. I finally got passed by several of the leaders on this lap and every once in a while I caught a glimpse of Cam methodically hunting me down to lap me as well. Just past the rock garden I saw a rabbit. It was Jason back within my sites. I knew he'd be trying to stay away as soon as he caught site of me and I think that helped both of us to notch up the effort one more level. It became clear that I was definitely rolling the downhills faster than him and as we came around to an extended climb, he shifted down to start spinning it out while I was standing and methodically cranking away.

Cam had caught us by this point as we pointed him by. I followed suit and decided it was now or never to see if I could create a cushion over Jason. I upped the effort a little higher and soon enough lost track of him. Knowing he was lurking close back, I kept trying to keep my pace up without overcooking a turn or messing up in any of 1000 other possible ways. Just as I ws thinking to myself I might have it in the bag as long as I didn't have any major mistakes, my left foot came unclipped and I bobbled a few pedals strokes as I straightened my line and got clipped back in. That was a bit too close for comfort and I backed it down just a shade through the remaining couple of miles of singletrack. As I hit the final section of paved trail back to the checkpoint it was time to have a bit of fun.

I put everything I had left into cranking over the pavement. Seeing as our pit tent was at the end of a straightaway with a 90 degree turn to the left, I threw the bike into a couple of longer sideways skid with the second one laying it out almost 90 degrees as I shot around the corner.

Skiiiiid:

I cranked it back up to the checkpoint for the last time finishing out my last lap in a pretty respectable 67:33 which was almost back to my 2nd lap pace. I clocked in and just missed going out for a 6th lap by a shade over 6 minutes. At that point in time, I'm not certain whether or not I'd have done another lap if I'd had the choice. Its a funny thing how fleeting the rememberance of the actual pain and suffering the body feels during race conditions is. I think its a 50/50 prospect looking back now. I do know that after 5 laps I was done and then some.

I was done...

Photos borrowed from here, here, and here.

IMBCS #1 Sylvan Island Stampede most of a race report

Back to mountain bike racing for the season. A bit less than 24 hours after my inauspicious debut as a hopeful expert class racer and my body is still reeling a bit from the pounding it took. The Quad Cities trail crew put together a pretty first class race with a huge turnout and festival like atmosphere. I'm beginning to figure out why they call the race the "stampede" as I feel like I've been run over by a herd of pissed off cattle after racing there. First off thanks to Rasmussen bike shop and Ergon for sponsoring the mountain bike team this year. Also, a huge thanks to teammate Brad Kramer for playing bottle boy and doing hand-ups for several of us.

7 laps was the magic number for the expert class racers equaling roughly 28 miles of rough, tight, and twisty singletrack with a few short sections of flat limestone path connecting sections of race course. Judging from my pre-ride of the course, I was guesstimating roughly a 2.5 hour finish time for me and 2 hours for the leaders meaning I would most likely be getting lapped. While this wasn't necessarily what I wanted for a race experience, I came to appreciate the fact that everyone finishing on the same lap, meant that most likely I'd only be riding 6 laps. The course over there is no joke for race pace laps. I think it would be insanely fun just to go ride and play on, but the layout and roughness of the tread combined to destroy my upper body and core in a few short laps. The twistiness of the course left me feeling like I'd been riding in a blender and barely able to remember which lap I was even on.

Looking sharp early on

I'm still confused on exactly what lap I was on when I pulled the plug (note: I was halfway done with lap 6). Since I started racing 2 years ago, I haven't had a DNF. I was pretty proud of that accomplishment as I felt like I'd dragged myself through some pretty dark spots while racing. That all ended yesterday and while I'm a bit disappointed, I'm not overly concerned with it as I think I gave up for the right reason. I wasn't having fun anymore. I love to compete and that's why I like to race. Even if I'm hurting and feeling bad, I typically know that I've got someone behind or in front of me that I am still racing against and they're probably in similar shape. When I gave up yesterday, I couldn't say whether or not I still had anyone behind me. I know that I had very little chance of catching anyone in front of me and soldiering to the end would have done nothing but prove I'm too stubborn to realize when I should pack it in.

Splash down:

I "think" I was in the midst of lap 5, but it could have been lap 4 as I'm a bit fuzzy on when I got passed by the leaders. I do know that I crashed twice and it was the second fall that cemented my decision to drop. My gear worked pretty much flawlessly considering the amount of trail hazards we all were riding on with the sharp rocks, steel, concrete, and brick scrap. I felt pretty good on the opening 2 laps and was riding around mid pack for those laps. I definitely went out too hard though and quickly ended up in survival mode versus race mode. I think the lead group of single speeders that started 2 minutes back didn't start to pass me until early in lap 4. My technical skills for handling were definitely doing well for the most part. I didn't have any real problems hanging with the wheels in mid pack and could have probably pulled away with an opportunity to pass, however once we hit the open stretches, my mind refused to put in the effort required to make something as I was all ready at redline and knew there wouldn't be any areas to recover and I didn't want to mess up anyone else's day with poor judgement on my part.

Looking beat down:

In hindsight, my undoing was mostly lack of experience. I turned myself inside out on the first 2 laps trying to maintain or build on my mid-pack position. This worked for me in sport class where most racing lasted 1.5 hours or less and I could finish out the race. But here, I averaged bottom of zone 5 for over 40 minutes before realizing I was destroying any hopes of finishing and started backing down my efforts. Too little too late ended up being the outcome as my laps went 20:47, 20:32, 21:26, 23:19, and 24:48. I wasn't the first one out by any means, but it still stings a bit knowing I had the ability to finish the race in me, but gave up on it. I'm hoping to carry that fire into Bonebender this weekend and with some smart pacing, vastly improve my finishing position.

Final carnage:

Photo credits: Angy Snoop

Kent Park race report

I wasn't going to race this weekend, I really wasn't. As of the Monday before the race, I hadn't sent in a registration form. Only the previous weekend had I even noted that things might align where I could go racing without a whole lot of jumping through various size hoops just to go to a race that wasn't really on my radar to begin with. I tend to identify myself first as a mountain bike racer and quite a bit further down the line I may mention I've done a few road races. If you count sanctioned races, I think this weekend puts me up to 4 total. Sure I train on the road, do some fun races like Race like a girl and some other training type races, but only a small handful of them have been pay my fees, present a license, and line up to see who's got the legs today. After my first foray into actual road racing at Big Creek last year, I really wasn't too hot about mixing it up with a huge class of guys again. But, something about working your butt off all winter bugged me enough to see where my fitness was starting the season.

Kent Park has a pretty good reputation of being a tough, but fun opener to the road race season every year. A number of friends have raced it and told me how good a time they've had. It seemed like a good idea so I sent in my registration and check and waited to find my name on the confirmed guest list. Yup, having done very few road races, I'm still a humble Cat 5 racer in that regards. Lou, Pete, and I met up at the buttcrack of dawn (4:45) to head to the race together along with some stops at Starbucks and nature breaks along the way. We rolled in just after the gates opened at 7:30 and grabbed our registration numbers. I still wasn't sure what my final kit would be for the day considering the temp was hovering at a balmy 38 degrees with a nice breeze at 15-20 from the north.

After rolling out our gear I followed Pete on a warm up/recon lap. Lou had said the course was all about momentum and it was a pretty spot on description. A few of the short ups could nearly be coasted up if you built your speed on the way down. However, there were plenty of climbs that needed leg work to get up as well. The laps were a shade under 4 miles with 250ish feet of climbing per lap. My legs felt pretty good and opened right up on a single warm up lap. I headed back to the car to finalize my gear and pin on a number. I had a bit of a hodge podge on with leg warmers, wool socks, bibs, winter base, short sleeve jersey, and a wind vest to top it off. Some long finger Deflect gloves from Specialized, a Rassy cycling cap, and my Oakley half jackets capped off the ensemble.

All geared up and feeling great:

The Cat 5 guys were lined up near the back of the starters with only the women and jr's behind us. In all, it looked like we had 17 starters in the class. A few guys looked like they might be packing some firepower from Twisted Spokes and Velosport Racing. My teammate Mike Reagan was keeping me company and we were hoping to hit it hard early and maybe work ourselves into the group of 4's or higher in front if we could get a break going. That was pretty much the extent of our pre-race strategizing other than some words of wisdom from Lou about covering any possible breaks and attacks.

We rolled off in roughly 1 minute intervals based on our categories. We swept across the dam and hit the finish hill climb for the first time. My legs were pretty cold at this point so I just kept things low key and made sure I wasn't headed towards the back. We had one guy roll off ever so slightly in the first lap, but he'd yo-yo back and forth a bit so I wasn't really worried as he never got more than about 20 yards on us. We kept a pretty chill pace through the first lap with some slightly harder efforts on the hills, but nothing concerning. We rolled down across the dam at the end of lap 1 and I hit my top speed for the day at just over 40 mph chasing the two lead bikes. As we climbed the hill to the finish line again, I kept the pressure steady, but not too hard and rolled up the hill leading the group. A few friends were standing near the top and cheering so I heard my name called out and felt great about it.

Leading the charge:

My legs were warmed up and it was time to see what would happen. We had a slight tailwind section right after the finish line as a lead in to a tight left hand turn. I kept the pace up over the hill climb and into this section. By the time we'd hit the top of the climb following the downhill, I had a 20 yard gap on the group and we'd pretty much selected our way down to a group of 6-8 of us still in the game. I didn't give much thought to rolling off the front figuring that many guys would pretty easily reel me in so I soft pedaled and waited for them to latch back on. I'd take my pull and drop to 2nd or 3rd wheel to draft through parts of the headwind section. This went on pretty much through all of the laps. Every once in a while, we'd swallow up some higher cat racers and they'd roll into our rotation. For the most part though only about 3 of us were doing the work up front. I'm not sure if that was an indicator of the strength of the group or that the 3 of us doing pulls were dumber than the rest sitting on.

The fast downhills would crank things up only to have us all stayed pretty well grouped up on the hills. For my part, I never really felt gassed on the hills and was content to let the other guys set the pace and I'd just match it. As the laps wore on, I still felt pretty fresh and really hadn't worked too hard in any area. I'd usually tail the top rider or two coming across the dam and then work my way to the front and open a small gap as we came through the finish area. By the time we hit the last lap, I hadn't been out of my zone 4 heart rate.

With lap 5 coming to a close, we hit the finish hill for the next to the last time. I put in just a little more effort even though I was all ready in the front on the way up. I stayed on the gas through the tailwind and hammered the subsequent downhill sweeper and climb. At the top of the climb I looked back anticipating my usual 20ish yard gap to be rewarded with the site of having broken away with what appeared to be well more than 100 yards. A quick calculation led me to believe that I was probably the strongest rider and just hadn't been working very hard yet while the other guys were running pretty close to flat out. I turned back and put the pressure on the pedals. I wasn't going to sit up and wait this time.

Not the final lap, but building a gap:

I ran through the headwind section ducking behind riders where I could and mostly kept my pace in check. I was running hard, but not all out by any means. I passed one DMOS rider than jumped on my wheel and kept pace on a headwind section. I asked him for a pull in return and he was kind enough to give me a brief respite. I kept looking back thinking the chase group might get together and pull me back in, but it would seem the gap kept increasing. I broke away from the DMOS rider on one of the hills and didn't look back. I asked a few other riders for pulls only to realize later that if I was all ready catching and passing them, there wasn't going to be much they could do for me. I never really laid it all out, but kept my pace steady and hard. As I hit the final downhill across the dam, I was pretty sure I wasn't going to have any problems winning my class. Just to be sure I hit the last hill pretty hard through to the finish.

Final hill climb:

As I crossed the line, I still wasn't sure I'd won, but I sure couldn't think of anyone that was out in front of us. I stayed pretty low key about it, but once the final results were up, I was pretty ecstatic. A win in the cat 5's without really breaking a sweat was pretty sweet.

Number 1 with teammate Brad Bach taking the Cat 4 win as well:

Overall, I'm a bit unsure what to think about finishing how I did. I was pretty nervous with some of the downhills with sweeping turns on a rough surface, but the rest of the course seemed to play pretty well for me. I never gassed it on any of the hills, kept my heart rate down, and still soloed off the front on the last lap. I know my fitness is pretty good with the training I put in over the winter and a strong building season last year. I'm just not sure if it means that I need to move up right away or if being an early season race, there weren't too many guys in the same area of their training that I'm at. I'm leaning more towards I'm probably in the wrong category for the time being and need to move up. I'm thinking maybe one more/bigger race to see how I fair and then most likely, it'll be time for me to head on up to the 4's.

I definitely want to thank all of my team mates that trained over the winter with me and kept me motivated to keep pushing, Rasmussen bike shop for keeping me in great and functional gear, and Oakley Rob for some sweet shades to keep the dust and dirt that were whipping around out of my eyes.

Photo credits to Angy Snoop.

Weekend tune up

With spring in the air, the snow melting off quickly, and the first TNWC firing up this week, some hard efforts were in store for the weekend. My original plan was to get a 2-3 hour ride outside on both days. The lovely weather people screwed that call up though and I awoke to overcast, threatening skies, wet streets, and winds out of the NW at 17 mph. Yup, I wasn't headed out for a morning ride. Luckily teammate Steve D has been gracious enough over the winter to open his garage up as our training studio on the weekends. Most of the usual suspects gathered at 7:30 for a spin session. We ran the gammut from building interval on top of interval all the way to 5 minutes of puke threshold (zone 5), before backing off to a mix of Z2/Z3 intervals for the remaining hour. With some proper motivation I managed to up my highest indoor heart rate by another beat or two up to 194 during the last little bit of our Z5 joyride. 2 hours and 20 minutes banked and I was cooked.

Sunday had people itching to get outside. I wanted to get a long steady ride in and spent some time Saturday evening trying to get things ironed out. We finally decided on 11 AM leaving Grounds for Celebration and rolling the proposed reroute for the TNWC. I stayed committed to my ride to the ride plan and rolled from home around 10:15. A solid group of 10-15 riders from Rassy's, PRC, and a few others showed up to enjoy what would turn out to be a gorgeous ride in the sunshine. The new routing left a bit to be desired as we rolled through too many stoplights and residential sections before we hit roads where we could really open it up. The group stayed pretty tight until we made the turn north on east 29th. Then the hammers did what they do best and opened up the engines. 6 of us rolled slowly off the front and began a well oiled rotating paceline into the wind out of the NNW at 13+.

We rolled into the residential section and then found ourselves stuck at a gravel crossroads.

Looking north:

Looking east (with Pete flooding the ditch):

One person doubled back to the other group as gravel wasn't in his cards for the day while the rest of us pondered which direction to go. Squirrel pointed out that 1 mile east was a north/south pavement so we opted for that route. The gravel was in perfect condition for road bikes and we didn't have any troubles zipping through that section. Once back on the pavement, the wind reared its head again as we found our form back in the paceline. When we finally hit the west turn to Sheldahl, the crosswind showed us how much we'd been pushing against. We upped the pace now that we weren't fighting the headwind anymore and worked back towards the connection with the original TNWC route.

As soon as we hit familiar stomping grounds, it was game on. Lou, Squirrel, and I had been rotating while the others got their legs back under them for a bit. Lou announced it was time for fun with longer pulls. I made it through 1 rotation before firmly affixing myself to his wheel for the next few miles. We opted out of the north turn to Slater feeling that the extra routing had all ready taken plenty of extra time. From their, Lou laid it out and left us off the back until we regrouped on the south turn. Now it was time for the real fun. We got a small paceline rolling with easy pulls as the tailwind pushed us nearly effortlessly along in the mid to upper 20's. We hit Polk City and stopped for a quick water refill before rolling the last section.

At this point, Pete suggested we roll nice and easy all the way back. We kept that up on the hill out of town, but once again the pace got CRANKED by Lou as we hit the mile long bridge. He kept turning up the wick until I was in the bottom of zone 5 while still in the draft and doing everything I could to not lose it off the back. We shelled one of the guys at this point, but got him back on as we hit the stop sign on Beaver. The only real jerk in a motor vehicle gave us some exhaust action as he buzzed us on the right in a big diesel. Rolling south again, we kept the pace a little more friendly with Lou doing most of the long pulls as we were all pretty fried. I took the last pull as we hit Camp Dodge and the final sprint. I was cooked at this point and watched the guys walk away from me.

One final regroup as we rolled down Merle Hay and we banked 50 solid miles for the day on that loop. Squirrel and I opted for some liquid refreshment at AK's and were joined by the second group that had rolled backwards down through Ankeny.

Liquid refresher:

I got my legs slightly back under control and made the most of the tailwind headed back south to home. In all a really productive ride of just under 4 hours that left me with some very tired legs when topped off with Saturday's suffering. I can definitely tell I'm pretty far ahead of last year at this time. I'm not sure if I'm ahead of my high point of last season yet or not, but I feel like I'm at least pretty close which should mean I'm in for some good things as my fitness builds through the summer.

Intensity

It's always a good feeling to get that first real ass kicking of the season out of the way. Judging by the upcoming weather forecast, Sunday looked to be the only day I could get out to ride this weekend. 10 AM wasn't exactly the optimal start time for me, but other responsibilities had to be maintained to 10 it was. I'm hoping to get a bit more of riding to the ride incorporated into my training plans this year so it seemed like an optimal time to exercise that option as well. I rolled out from home just after 9 and headed towards the meet up at the shop. Squirrel, Steve, and Brad were joining up for some good times riding outside.

It seems that this winter has kept a number of people inside this year. Judging by the number of posts I saw on facebook about yesterday being their first outside ride of the year, there were a number of people taking full advantage of some warmer temps. On the ride over to the shop, I noted my legs weren't feeling too keen after enjoying a few drinks with friends the night before and not rolling into bed until 1 in the morning. My initial plan was to roll easy out to the Walnut woods/Maffit area and then do some tempo and hill work staying in Z3 and Z4. I think Squirrel was out to blow me up though. He was rolling skinny tires and gears which is never a good thing whether he's been training or not.

As soon as we hit 63rd, all bets were off. We scooted down to the long grade up to Walnut Woods drive and then pushed the pace the entire length of the hill. I sat just back from his wheel and let him set the pace which luckily didn't pop me fully into the red. Luckily I'd ridden over so I was decently warm or I'd have probably been in a similar boat to Steve since it takes me a good bit to get warmed through as well. By the top of the climb, Steve had been gapped, but Brad was sticking on strong. We rolled through the loop and slowed a bit climbing over the bypass in hopes Steve might catch back on, but it ended up just turning into a slight breather before we'd hammer the next section.

The head wind out of the west kept the fires stoked as we burned some matches heading to Maffit. The big hill climb popped me into the 190 range for my heart rate and I knew I'd be pretty well cooked from there on out. We kept the group together and traded some pulls out to the little housing development west of Maffit. From there, the hill work continued with Squirrel showing us his prowess on the hills and Brad and I had our tongues hanging out and sliding backwards. A quick loop to the back of the development with one more hill climb thrown in for good measure and we headed back towards Walnut Woods.

With the wind at our backs, I upped the anty for my turn at the front. I put pretty much everything I had out there climbing back up to the south turn towards Walnut Woods. Squirrel just sat back there yelling encouragment at me... For my part, I couldn't do more than grunt since I was maxed out. We cleaned the hill still sitting around 20 mph with the nice tailwind and rolled back down over the bypass. I let up for a second or two and Squirrel said adios! Brad latched on and took a short pull trying to get me back over the gap and I tried on my own as well, but just couldn't bridge up. I got a little closer at the base of the soccer hill climb, but even hitting it hard, I couldn't get closer than about 100 yards. I was totally shot at this point, but knew I needed to get more time in.

I opted to head back for one more of the 7 mile loops while Squirrel called it good. I was thanful for that as he'd put me in the hurt locker pretty much the entire ride. Brad decided to ride the second loop with me and we made a pact to keep it out of Z4 for the duration. We did a pretty good job of that, even crawling up the big climb headed west in the single digits. We traded some pulls back to the soccer hill where I gave into temptation and went all out one more time. Brad managed to hold himself in check so off the front I went. After the loop was done, I rolled back up to him before we parted ways.

I had a few hills left to work me over on the way home, but luckily most had a nice tailwind to push me along. The gradual grade from 63rd up Army Post always seems magical to me. It almost never fails that no matter how tired I am, I can easily push up that hill and often gain speed near the top. A scant 20 minutes or so later and I was back home. I'd managed to bag 2.5 hour, 42.5 miles at 17.4avg, and kept the heart running strong at 160bpm for the duration which is the top of my Z3. This early on in the season I feel pretty good about that kind of speed/duration especially on a cross bike with some knobby 32C tires.

I have a feeling I'm stilling going to get spanked pretty hard on the Tuesday night rides, but my hope is that I can at least hang on for the full loops on a regular basis this year. I made it exactly twice with the lead pack last year at the end of the season. One could also argue that the times I made it seemed to be slower nights. All I know is that it's good to be getting more riding outside than in finally.

What's missing?

Funny, it's the very beginning of the beginning of the season and I'm all ready making excuses. Actually, I prefer to think of them not so much as excuses, but more creative reasoning. I know it's going to be inevitable that I'll get my butt handed to me in many, many races this year. Its to be expected if not somewhat earned as your stripes from moving to the next level of competition. I'm down with that, but in the mean time, I know what I need to make that jump to the next level and I know for the most part, those expectations will probably be left unfulfilled.

Healthy Eating:
Of all the pieces that are missing from the puzzle, the one I have the power left to control easily is my diet. I love crappy food. I love wholesome food as well. I guess I just love food in general. In a sport where your finishing placement is generally predisposed based on how much power you can generate per pound of body mass, light weight is the key. We'll spend hundreds and thousands of dollars shaving grams off our race machines, yet we leave our bodies as a bastion of junk food. My wife has accused me of being a bit obsessive about my weight, but honestly, looking at a broad swath of typical Americans, I think obsession about keeping your weight in check is a virtue millions of people could stand to have. In any case, I just try to keep a good running tally of how the calories I put in are going to be burned off and keep whittling slowly away until I hit what I consider to be a good target race weight. Which in my case also happens to be almost smack dab in the middle of a healthy BMI as well.

My problem is that too large of a portion of my calories come from the un-basic food groups- beer, sweets, and fast-food. Luckily, I ride enough to burn off these calories on a pretty regular basis so they don't tend to stick around as giant fat deposits. However, they certainly don't lend themselves to creating a leaner, meaner version of myself. I really should try harder to adopt healthier eating habits rather than relying too much on my ability to burn the calories off through exercise.

Training time
Almost anyone that doesn't get paid to participate in their choice of sport will tell you that training time is a precious commodity. We have friends, families, careers, and a myriad of other time constraints outside of our athletic endeavors. Short of alienating my family completely or sacrificing the very rest I need to keep going at this level, making additional training time will be very tough. I figure roughly 10 hours per week of combined training/racing time is about where I'm at a stasis point of keeping things nicely balanced. I have a suspicion most other people I'm competing with are on similar schedules. It's those individuals with more natural talents to get better results in the same amount of time and/or those that can dedicate substantially more amounts of time (20+ hours per week) that will rise to the top of our fields.

The one area I can and hopefully will use to increase my training time is commuting by bike. I love to ride to work, but I still find too many excuses to not ride in. It takes too much time, I'll be hot and sweaty, I need to go somewhere other than home during/after work, and the list goes on. I'm sure most of you will find these excuses pretty commonplace. In reality though, they're mostly hinderances and not really stopping points. There are relatively easy work arounds for most if not all of these situations for me, but laziness sets in and it's easy to exercise my right foot on the throttle than to gear up for 35 minutes of riding to and from work.

Diversity in training
Its been preached from on high until they're blue in the face that cyclists need some type of diversity in their training. I don't disagree, but for the last year, pretty much all I've done is ride my bike. I think there is a benefit in skill building that will offset training diversity to a degree. That's especially true in mountain biking where your skill at negotiating obstacles and the trail in general will garner you as many seconds as be able to out power another rider will. However, there's also a diminishing return as your skill level increases. Your power and speed have to increase as well for you to have a need to continue raising your skill level.

I have a hard time considering exercise done off my bike as "training" time. I know it's a good thing for me to engage in activities like yoga, core strengthening, and other weight bearing exercise. I just have a hard time justifying taking them up when I feel like I should be on my bike instead. If extra hours were miraculously available to me, I think it would be easier to add them in and round out my complete training schedule in that manner. I may have to do some work on changing my mindset on that issue this year and trading some of my current bike time towards other forms of exercise.

Well, not quite all in a nutshell, but those are the 3 key areas I see mising in my cycling this year. Hopefully reading it helps you identify some of your missing areas as well and motivates you to find creative ways to fill in the blanks.

Cirrem- what went very right and really wrong

Sitting here post 24 hours after the first race of the season, I'm contemplating a number of things. 62.5 miles of hilly, sloppy gravel is one helluva way to start off the race season for sure. Cirrem didn't disappoint in the least with the suffering. We may not have had the epic conditions of 34 degrees, rain, sleet, snow, and wind of last year, but the remnants of a historically snowy winter left it's own indelible mark on the course for the year.

I tried to get a bit of cheating bastard advantage on Friday by driving out on the gravel south of Cumming. I was second guessing my initial plan of riding the cross bike. Indeed, I found extended sections of slick hardpacked snow interspersed with wet gravel that would be frozen come Saturday morning. So, last minute, I changed my plan and moved to the Superfly as my weapon of choice. I knew I'd be giving up some overall top end and rolling resistance, but I felt being a bit more comfortable on the slick sections would be a good trade. After all, I was out to have a good hard ride, and didn't really expect to be near the top finishers, so why not reduce my risk of crashing out and get on a bike I knew would be a solid choice no matter the final conditions. All told we had some 70+ starters enjoying a balmy 15 degrees and a solid 10+ mph wind from the NW.

The start:

After riding last year, I knew the course would bring on plenty of pain in the form of hills. The wind almost always has to factor in this time of the year as well and is predominantly out of the northwest making many sections seem that much longer and harder. I was quickly dropped out of the pack last year. I didn't even make the first hill with the group of leaders and had dropped to nearly the back of the pack within a few miles of the start. My riding and training has progressed through leaps and bounds since 365 days ago. That being said, I felt great at the start. My legs were sharp, my mind was good, I was excited to see what I had in the tank. I had no real delusions of grandeur, but I thought maybe a top 10 finish would be a great finish for me considering the growth in the number of participants over last year which was sure to include to serious racers coming from far away exotic locales like Missouri, Kansas, and Minnesota.

I managed to hang on long enough to get warmed through quickly as the pack was fairly well flying along. I think we were hanging out with about 25 riders through the first few miles. I got slightly shuffled on one of the first bigger hills, but the leaders made a miscue going past a turn and I was the first to make the correct turn, thereby finding myself right off the front for a few seconds.  We powered the climb up and over I-35 with a few guys looking to make a move off the front. I hung back for a few seconds of indecision and bridged up with a few other guys. The road race tactics were definitely playing big time in here. Somewhere about 15 miles in, one of the lead guys powered through a long false flat and fairly well blew the remaining group into a small pack of contenders. I was hanging by a shirt tail at this point and got a little boost from Wild Bill Fanter that got me right back into the group.

Riding in the lead pack early on:

After the push from Bill, I knew I was going to be out the back sooner rather than later. I felt good making it down to the selection of roughly the top 10-15 guys and was ok with staying at that point. I'd been hydrating with my usual Accelerade, but the first nutrition I got was in the form of 3 mostly frozen FRS chews roughly 45 minutes in. They went down relatively well and I didn't think much of it. But they were something I hadn't eaten during training or racing before and while there's got to be a time to try something new, training is probably a better time. That's enough foreshadowing, now on to the race. Around 20 miles in, I was displaced from contender to pretender. I got gapped off the back and just couldn't quite find the legs to catch back on. I kept the group in site for close to another 5 or so miles. The gap stayed pretty steady, but I could tell it was slowly increasing. I could also see another couple riders that were tossed off in the middle ground. I had high hopes of slowly reeling them in over the rest of the course and maybe picking off a few more casualties along the way.

About 90 minutes into the race, things went to hell in a handbasket to put it mildly for me. I'd taken in another gel, was still working on my first 24 oz of Accelerade and suddenly the combination of an early high pace and untested nutritional choices came around to bite me in the ass completely and thoroughly. I looked back at my readout from the Garmin at my heart rate to see what it would tell me. There's a pretty clear line where I went from averaging 170's (low zone 4) to averaging 140's (top of zone 2). My stomach was doing flips and I my legs turned nearly instantly from feeling good and solid to crampy and no power. I knew I was bonking and tried my best to back off quickly in hopes that I'd recover.

I'd love to say that happened, but alas it wasn't meant to be. I soldiered to the checkpoint feeling like hell. A 30 second stop to refill one bottle and I was back on my way. However, I spent the remaining nearly 3 hours struggling to gain every mile. I watched rider after rider trickle by in ones, twos, and threes. I was resigned to finishing whenever I could and in whatever place I could. I knew it was game over at this point. I kept hoping that my stomach would stop turning and I'd be able to get more food in. I munched on a cliff bar that was akin to eating clay and got about half of it down before my stomach said "no mas". I kept hydrating with plain water. Something had to give. Unfortunately, that thing ended up being my strength. Any effort that raised my heart rate more than a few beats brought along a wave of nausea that quickly reminded me I'd be stopping to hurl if I didn't back off. Thankfully, I didn't leave any piles on the side of the road, but I tested my resolve to the limit finding my way to the finish.

I rolled back to the tap just shy of 5 hours. The goal time in my head was 4.5 hours knowing I'd rolled the course that fast last spring during a training ride in some nasty headwinds. I think I had that in me had I not sidelined myself with strength sucking issues. I'm still not sure if my early efforts of staying with the lead pack hurt my overall effort or not. I've been working a lot on my strength this year without much endurance riding so I think it showed in being able to hang in for as long as I did. Beyond that, I think if I'd started out slower (and not had other issues), I may have been able to finish a bit stronger. I typically figure myself as more of a diesel engine finding that I work better metering out an even effort over the long haul versus sprint, recover, and repeat. All in all, I feel pretty good about my fitness level at this time of the year. I was a bit disappointed that I seemingly took myself out of finishing where I'd have liked, but better now than later on in the race season.

I do have to give a big shout out to Kent and Jed for putting this thing on. Sponsors like Rassy's and Oakley Rob also have a huge part in making these races possible. Thanks to Rob (and a bit of luck) my suffering was more than justly rewarded with a sweet pair of Livestrong Flak Jackets in the schwag giveaway. I also have to give one more shout out to team sponsor Ergon grips. With the bonk I had going on, I was putting way more pressure on my hands and arms supporting my whole upper body than reasonably prudent. Even with all that, I wasn't feeling it at all today in my arms and shoulders.

After the pain:

The aftermath:

Photos borrowed from Julie Goodman and David Carpenter

Looking forward by looking back

To say motivation to write has been "lacking" lately would be a bit of a misnomer. To be quote honest, there's been a number of times I thought about writing this post and wasted away the time doing nothing consequential. I just haven't felt like putting forth the effort. However, as the current vogue is to avoid the abject horror of writing about mind numbing hours spent on the trainer and instead write about happier times, I'm not one to buck the trend. So, without further adieu, I'll bring you my highlights from 2009 and what I would like to do in 2010.

Obviously 2009 was a special year in various ways for me both personally and on the bike. The birth of our daughter was the crowning achievement for the year overall. She's been such a sweet addition to our family and I feel like we're pretty well complete now. I'm excited to see her as she grows and forms her own personality. There were a number of other great things in my personal life, but as I've switched to mostly talking about biking and racing here, I'll leave those locked away.

This was indeed my breakout year. As my buddy Keith put it, I seemed to come out of nowhere. And, by all means, I pretty much agree with him. This was my first year doing any serious racing and putting forth a real effort to train as well. Somewhere about mid season everything just clicked for me and I was literally off to the races. I had support of a great shop, a very understanding wife, excellent friends and teammates to chase, and a healthy dose of willingness to suffer that came together and pushed me further than I ever expected. Winning the overall IMBCS series was a huge accomplishment and one I didn't even entertain when I looked at racing for this year. Finishing strong in a number of races from Ahquabi to Manawa during the series was almost beyond my comprehension. Additionally, being a part of the winning team at 24 hours of 7 oaks, just fulfilled about every dream I could think of last year. It was surreal to say the least.

I do think a big part of my late summer surge was partly due to the trip out to Breckenridge to ride. Riding out in Colorado put the Iowa terrain into a much different perspective for me. I quickly rode above and beyond my comfort zone starting on the very first ride out there and continued unabaited for the rest of the week. It was truly an amazing trip and one I hope to repeat with some great friends in years to come. Alternately, I really hit the dirt with gusto this summer riding hours and hours as often as I could escape. It all started adding up and fueled an even bigger desire to ride hard and race harder.

Looking forward to 2010, I can't help but think it will pale in comparison if I look strictly at how I finish in races. I'm planning to jump up to Cat 1 on the mountain bike. It puts me going head to head with the best our state has to offer. I don't really see how I'm in that league, but at the same time, it's a great motivator to keep working and training hard. I feel like I've been doing well thus far this winter, but I'm not really kidding myself either and just hope to be able to finish all my races and not be competing for DFL.

Something else I'm excited about this year is the team. I was approached about stepping into the role of team manager late last fall and was pretty excited about the prospect. There's a great group of guys that race under the Rasmussen flag and whatever I can do to help make this team better is something I am looking forward to. We've got some great kits for the upcoming year that will be debuting sometime in the next month or two. I can't wait to see what the guys can do this year. Unless money comes pouring from the sky, I'll be racing on pretty much the same equipment this year as last. I do plan on rocking some new team green grips from Ergon to replace my race worn ones. And I'll probably be rocking some new products from Specialized on my head and feet as well.

I look forward to seeing everyone out on the trail this year and enjoying some post race/ride beers as well!

Holiday Angst

I should be working right now. In fact, I should be cranking away on an estimate that is due Monday, but I have yet to really start because I'm a master at procrastination. Add in that I can start to feel a bit of angst creeping in amongst my bones and it's a perfect recipe for crapping away a bit more time this afternoon before hopefully, maybe working on what I should be doing.

A few years back, I came to the conclusion that exchanging a bunch of trinkets with everyone and their dog that you deem important in your life is a bunch of commercialized BS. Shortly thereafter, I convinced my wife of the same thing and we notified friends and family that we would no longer be exchanging our money for theirs through the intermediaries known as stores, malls, and online shopping. In short, we won't get you anything and please don't get us anything. We'd much rather enjoy your company over the holiday season than have you spend your hard earned money trying to find something you think we can't live without and vice versa.

My angst derives a lot of it's power from that decision. While I always have been a bit on edge about the holidays since I've been old enough to be aware of the trap we've laid out for ourselves when it comes to picking out gifts for other people, I've felt a bit more pressure in sticking to my guns with the new system in place. Mind you, this hasn't completely worked as we still give gifts to our kids and a few select friends kids that exchange with us becuase imposing our wills upon a child at Christmas time, just steps over one of those boundaries I'm not ready to cross. We also still receive a few gifts from our parental units, which I think is probably something that will never stop and truth be told, we do appreciate it as their gifts tend to be very utilitarian- gas cards, grocery cards, and the like. However, for the greatest part, it has worked out well and we don't receive a ton of gifts of varying value that add to the clutter of our daily trudge through life and for that, we're pretty thankful.

I think my issues really kick in when I feel the want to get small trinkets for a select few people. In my mind, I used to think I had a pretty good knack for picking out gifts for people. That part of my brain still kicks in when I run across things I think would make particularly well suited gifts. Add in that I do enjoy giving things to people, but we also seem to be running a family budget defecit this year (in hopes my bonus comes through), and you've got a great recipe for mixed emotions when it comes to the season.

Anyone else fighting the angst of the season out there?

Du'in it to it

CITA put on the Dirty Duathlon this weekend. This was my final race on the schedule for the year. Sure, I know Jingle Cross is coming up in another 2 weeks, but I'm not planning on going unless it's to heckle for a day and I doubt that's even going to happen. With the somewhat anti-climatic ending to the IMBCS races due to the concellation of Sugarbottom, an indulgent October, and a rescheduling of the Du, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I toed the start line.

My original running partner in the form of Adam (the fit guy from Rassy's) was out due to a strained achilles a week or two before the original event date. That left me scrambling last minute to find a suitable replacement since I surely don't run. Through luck of the draw I hooked up with a guy name Jamie who happens to be a smokin' fast runner. We traded some emails back and forth and a couple calls. The plan was to hit it as hard as we both could and hopefully hold off the advances from other teams. Considering Cam and Kristy smoked the field the last few years running, it was going to be a pretty tall order for anyone to take them down. Jamie was a bit more confident than I, but stranger things have happened.

Yesterday definitely had a bit in the air with temps hovering right at 45 with a bit of windchill on top of that. I began to 2nd guess my choice of race kit in the form of bibs, long sleeve jersey, and an ultralight sleeveless base layer. I knew I'd probably do this, so I purposely avoided packing more bike clothing. I had done a couple recon laps the day before with a race pace lap at 19:45. I was hopeful to stick that time for 3 consecutive laps, but knowing the amount of climbing I'd be doing, it was a hope at best. I managed to find Jamie in the crowd of runners after a few harried minutes wondering if he was going to make it in time. He'd been out warming up and was ready to go, so all was good.

The starter lined the runners up and sent them on their merry way down the road to the pool before turning in to the singletrack. I nervously paced around hoping things would go as planned with Jamie coming in the top few runners as he was predicting. The first runner came hauling down the hill and it was Ryan who'd teamed up with Herb from the All 9 squad. Next up was Jamie about 30 seconds back. We tagged and I ran my back down to the pavement for a flying mount as I drilled it trying to catch Herb. I wasn't necessarily worried about Herb, but those lurking behind me definitely had me running scared. Just into the 2nd section of Hillside, Herb had dropped a chain and I rolled on by. I could see Neil coming up from behind and a few more bikes scattered behind him as I took the lead less than halfway into my 1st lap.

Pretty quickly I could see/feel someone coming up behind me. Thinking Neil had caught me, I was pretty surprised to see Jedi Jed flying past as I let him by. I picked up my pace for a minute or two trying to hold his wheel, but knew that pace would cook me so early in the race and most likely cause me a crash or two as well. I let him go and concentrated on riding as fast as I could without blowing up or blowing chunks. I was holding or eaking out a bit more gap on the riders behind me and at certain points I could see massive amounts of riders hitting sections of trail mere minutes back.

Rollercoaster creek crossing

As I hit the switchbacks going down Rollercoaster, it was great to hear people cheering for me and again as I headed up the gully climb into the meadow before dive bombing back to the finish. I poured it all out on the climb knowing that Cam and others would be eating me up on the climbing legs. As I hit the downhill to the finish, I stayed on the gas clipping through the start finish a shade under 19 minutes. I'd knocked off 45+ seconds over my race pace lap from the day before! Still sitting in 2nd as I headed off into my second lap, I wondered how long I could hang on at this pace. I still felt pretty good so I just tried to maintain my effort without going too far into the red.

With traffic pretty much a non-issue at this point, I was free to bomb through a good portion of Hillside. I was surpised though that I started catching people partway through my second lap. Most everyone I passed were great about moving to the side or even stopping all together as I worked up to them. I could start seeing Cam at this point and knew it wouldn't be too long before he was lapping at my heels. As we worked to the last section of fingers on Hillside he called for the pass and slid on by. Again, I upped my pace for a minute or two trying to hold his wheel, but knew the result was going to be the same as with Jed. I settled back down determined not to let myself slip any further back if I had any say in it. I could still see a few chasers, but it appeared I had close to a minute gap on anyone else at this point.

Another round through Rollercoaster with the crowds cheering on the racers and encouraging me to play catch up helped to keep my energy level high. I sprinted back down the hill, across the line, and headed out on my final lap with around 19:15 clocked off this time. I was still moving well, but I could tell the effort was catching up with me. Knowing I had less than 20 minutes to go, I poured everything back out one more time. I was climbing a shade slower and standing more on the short steeps, but I was still rolling well. I made it through Hillside still setting in 3rd and hit Rollercoaster for the final time.

I grunted my way through Rollercoaster making my way to the final climb. I'd been passing riders at regular intervals for a while, but now I'd caught a couple riders walking up the steep grade to the meadow. I called out that I was riding and they needed to move. Unfortunately, the gal was a bit confused on where to go and managed to go nowhere. I hit a root about the same time and spun my back tire drawing a few gasps from the crowd watching the sufferfest on the hill. I kept my momentum and climbing the side of the wash riding up and around the rider making that one of my highlights. Still holding a firm grasp on 3rd I raced to the transition area and tagged Jamie for his final run.

At this point, I figured we were pretty well set for 3rd place. I knew Jed was a long ways in front of me and figured Cam had gotten pretty close to or had chased him down. I spotted Jed in the crowd and he confirmed that he'd beat Cam in to the transition. Now it was time to wait. I don't think anyone saw Jed's runner come in, including Jed, but he pulled through in 1st place. Now we were waiting for Kristy to come in. I looked up the hill and couldn't beleive what I was seeing. Kristy was hauling the mail down the final hill and Jamie was somehow flying past her. With a scant few seconds separating them at the finish, we'd clinched the 2nd spot. I've definitely got to hand it to Jamie, he knew what he was capable of and put on a superb race.

Rassy's took the top 3 overall positions with the relay teams and in addition we took the top 3 men's open with Louis, Kent, and Nate taking those honors. Our very own Teri Sue showed the way in the women's open taking the win and hopefully stamping her come back to doing some more racing. Congrats to all my team mates! A huge thanks to CITA and the Capital Striders for putting on a great event with their volunteer work forces.

Thanks to Doug for the photo.

October and out

No, I'm not giving up on this lame ass blog. So quit your rejoicing and get back to reading! With the birth of our little one the last day of September, the last race of the year being cancelled out, some sickness hanging around, and enough other crap going on, it was time to fully imbibe in the off season lifestyle. Ride when I want, however slow I want, and imbibe as many carb laden goodies as I can.

I took full advantage of the entire month, though I did have one small setback and participated in a single cross race. I was quickly rewarded with a whopping 9th place in the cat 4's. Considering my expectations and goals, I was completely fine with that result and pretty much swore off any other races for the year with the exception of the Dirty Duathlon. I raced the du last year and had a blast teaming up with Heather from the PRC squad since I don't run.

Suffering at Altoona Cross:

Enjoying last year's Du:

Beyond that, Cranksgiving is looming on the horizon as one of my favorite annual events. Squirrel will also be hosting one of my other favorites in the Turkey Day ride. Last but not least, we had the annual Spooky Woods ride this weekend. While the weather put the kybosh on any off road fun and frivolity, a hearty dozen souls gathered together for a little black label action instead. The original plan was to creep our way out of Orlondo's whenever we felt like it, score some tunnel party action down the trail, and eventually roll into the Cumming Tap for beer laden good times. Squirrel, being the master planner he is, threw the plans out the window and had us a little bonfire set up at an undisclosed location just a scant jog away from the start. We partied with good friends, good beer, and good tunes for several hours. We thinned out some of the surrounding deadfall to feed our fire, and partied the evening away. We even turned in relatively early with most of us rolling off around 11pm. What we lost in quantity this year, we more than made up for in quality.

That pretty much finishes off my year. I'll probably try to piece together a recap of some of my personal highlights, but all in all, its been a great year on the bike and I'm really looking forward to starting fresh for next year.

The life circle starts again

If you'll look closely at the date of my last significant post, you might be surprised to find I've been conspicuoulsy absent from my duties of blogging for the past couple weeks. It definitely hasn't been for lack of exciting and momentous occasions.

After Manawa, I was pretty geared up for the final showdown at Sugarbottom with my buddy Keith. Considering my finish at Manawa had boosted me into a slim points lead for the IMBCS series, I knew he'd be gunning for me. Add in that Sugarbottom is a place he's familiar with, I've never ridden there, and we were both coming down with colds and we had all the ingredients for something epic. As the week rolled on, a more pressing matter came into focus. We welcomed the birth of our daughter, Emery Lynn, the last day of September. She came into the world just before 5 in the afternoon, born at home, weighing in at 9 lbs and 22 inches long. To say we were ecstatic would be just slightly erronious.

Emery


I can hear some of you now saying, "well, I guess that means his final race of the season is out." Well, you'd be wrong. You see, we've been expecting another bouncing baby to grace our family early in October. My lovely wife has been gracious enough to let me postpone and miss a number of things, but there was no way I'd be going racing if impending babydom was upon us. However, with Emery being born mid-week and both grandmas plus our friend Erica being available to help out, it was determined that I could still challenge for the points series. Now that is one awesome family!

However, the weather had other ideas for us. The rain blew out the original race date and things were postponed for a week. I was both happy and nervous about this set of events. Now I'd be able to spend more time with my newest family member and hopefully get closer to 100% health wise, but I'd also have to sweat another week of wondering how things were all going to fall out. After another week of cruel winterish weather, the race was cancelled all together. I'll get around to recapping my season another time, but for now, I'm excited to be a new father again. I have 2 wonderful, beautiful girls, an awesome wife, and a pretty kickass life right now. I've been blessed for sure this year.

Furnace Creek 508

Nope, I'm not doing it (yet...), but it's one of those things that is way out on my radar as something to possibly aspire to when I've finally lost all my marbles. However, that hasn't stopped my buddy George from signing up for his 4th time riding the event. He's hoping his crew can do some live blogging on his site during the race- Epictrain.blogspot.com If you want to check out the main race site, you can follow some updates on there as well. His racing totem is "Red-Eyed Vireo". Good luck out there George.

IMBCS #10 Lake Manawa race report

The race season is nearing its end. As I type this, we have one solitary race left to savor until the 2010 season fires back up. However, that's skipping ahead a week. This weekend left me headed over to the wilds of Council Bluffs to race at Lake Manawa for what is somewhat deemed as a border battle between the Iowegians and the Nebraskanites. I wanted/needed to do well in this race. Never having been to any Nebraska races or this venue, I had to base my anticipations on hearsay and a few old race reports. Seeing as how Cam tends to have some pretty epic battles over there and a few other friends have reported some really strong riders out that way, I knew I'd be in for a pretty hard fought day if I was going to finish well.

The course recon info I gathered ranged from very Denman's like, to sandy, to technical with very limited passing. All of this had me primed for not knowing what to expect and as such, I drove myself about half batty during the week trying to figure out how to race it. Nate and I car pooled over to the race leaving enough time to hang out a bit and still get a full recon lap in. We took off with Cam and Julie to get the lines figured out. Cam does what he does and motored away for the most part even during warm up as I tried to hang on as best I could and not start breaking out any real effort that I'd need later on. By the end of the first section he was pretty much gone and I just wound my way along on my own. On the back section of trail I had my worst run in of the day catching my left shoulder pretty hard on a narrow section between 2 large trees. At least this was the recon lap.

As time wound down, we worked our way to the line. Different from the Iowa races I've been in, they started each category in a wave based on open or age group so you were only racing guys in your class at the very start. I liked this aspect of it as it really pushed me to go hard right off the bat as I could see exactly how much work I had to do to finish where I wanted. 11 of us towed the line for the open class which I found odd considering the +35 and +45 age groups seemed to have much larger contingencies. The starter rang the siren and we were off to a sprint for the singletrack entrance a scant quarter of a mile down a paved park road. The start to the singletrack was cordoned off by 4x4 posts spaced 3-4' apart making for some interesting lines as everyone was flying through them. I was sitting 3rd wheel as we came up on the posts and the 2 guys in front sat up slightly so I followed suit. That wasn't the smartest move as I got pushed back 2 more spots to 5th wheel by a couple guys who stayed on the gas. Starting off the first lap I had 3 Nebraskans and an Iowa guy leading the charge in front of me.

Neal (the Iowa guy) was sitting directly in front of me and staying hard on the wheel immediately in front of him. They'd both hammer the open straights and pull me slightly until we'd hit more technical sections where I could latch right back on. This lasted for about a mile and we could see the first two guys opening a decent gap over us. The guy in front of Neal took a few bad lines slowing us down, but we were in a pretty bad area to pass. At the next logover Neal decided it was now or never and took a faster yet higher risk line straight over the log in lieu of just to the right which was only a couple inches tall versus 6-8" tall. I was hot on his heels going straight as well. Neal didn't stick the landing. Or more accurately stuck the landing a bit to well and burped the air out of his tire which was slightly cocked and went ass over appetite. I somehow managed to avoid him while making a quick check to make sure he wasn't dying on the trail as I tailed it up to 4th place.

I knew we'd be hitting a few more open sections where passing would be possible so I sat on the wheel of 3rd place until I could punch it again. I stuck the pass and as we hit more technical areas I opened a gap slowly. The first 2 riders were basically out of site at this point and we were only half way through lap 1 of 3. I kept the wick turned up and figured I would either catch someone or end up being caught if I tried to mellow out my pace any. As luck would have it (for me), near the end of lap 1 I could see another rider up in front of me. I pushed a bit harder, caught him in the twisties, and tailed him through the start/finish area. I sat in on his wheel for the first part of the open section on lap 2 drafting and catching my breath before cranking on it one more time and passing him just before we hit the maze of trees again.

The pass stuck and I was sitting in 2nd place halfway into the race. The 1st place rider was nowhere in site so I stuck to my plan of keeping the hammer down lest I be caught from behind. As I worked into the back section on lap 2 I passed an expert rider on a Superfly singlespeed that was slowly working his way down an open section. I never looked back, but when we hit the twisty section, I could tell I had someone closing in. He was gaining quickly on me so I tried upping my pace in the tight areas. That didn't go quite as planned as I now started pushing beyond my pay level of skill and nearly went down twice. I ushered him back by so as to hopefully grab his wheel and keep myself upright in the process. About a hundred yards later, he laid it down on a slick leaf covered corner and I went right back by. Ahh well, at least I tried to show some good camaraderie.

Lap 3 started with Mr. singlespeed right back on my butt and passing me into the open area. I hopped on his wheel for a draft as he pulled us along at over 20 mph. Sweet! As soon as we hit the tech sections he opened the gap and never looked back again. Thanks for the ride. I was riding well at this point and put together a quick game plan in my head. I pushed the open easy sections as hard as I could and I dialed back the tech areas just enough to make sure I wasn't going to bite it. I couldn't see anyone too close behind me so I thought I was pretty safely in 2nd at this point. I held my game plan together through to the finish and latched onto my placing permanently. As I looked back, a scant 20 seconds back came 3rd place so I definitely needed to keep that hard pace I'd been pushing.

Those Nebraska boys can definitely ride. A full clean race is what I attribute to hold onto my placing. I know the 3rd and 4th place riders each had at least one fall apiece where I only came close a few times. The first place rider had over a minute on me. All in all, I was pretty ecstatic as I went into the race hoping for a top 5 finish and came out much better.

As far as the course goes, the first 2 laps were a bit wet, but by the 3rd lap it had dried pretty nicely. I was running more cautious by then though so it really didn't give me much of a boost. Overall, I liked the course and it seemed to suit my skill set. I wasn't the fastest on the open hammer sections, but I had enough technical skill and strength to close it up on the tight, twisty areas. The overall feel was a lot like Denman's in that you could really use the flow if you knew the trail well enough, but the open sections would allow for some fast riding if you needed to hammer and go as well. I didn't find passing too difficult as long as you played your cards right. If you were gassed going into the open sections, it would be difficult to pass, but otherwise you could find a spot pretty easy as long as you weren't in the woods.

I know there were a few photographers on hand so I'll try to find some pictures to post.

A quarter buck of fun

I used to think the best thing in the world for a quarter of a buck was anything housed in those crappy plastic bubbles within the red metal and glass machines that you'd see at the entrance to every grocery and drug store growing up. Of course, now that I think about it, I'm not even sure when the last time I saw one of those was. Then again, even if you could find one, I'm sure the prizes are crappier than I remember and the cost has doubled or tripled as well. Ahh, the memories of childhood. For the mere price of a shiny quarter now, I enjoy something a bit more fulfilling. Quarter Rage has to be one of my favorite times on a bike or just in general. Like minded buddies doing some friendly smack talk, throwing down whatever they've got in their legs, and having a metric shitload of fun at the same time; what more could you ask for?! All for the low low price of 2 bits.

Last week was the first installment for the year. 5:30 being the start time, I showed up a shade before 5 and took and easy run through to get the legs warmed up. The trail was dry, fast, and loose. The singletrack was mostly clear with just a smattering of leaves and walnuts covering spots of the trail as autumn has started to press it's will upon the woods. Looking to better my time from last year of a 23:26, I knew wouldn't be too difficult. I had my sites set on something in the 20:xx range as a pretty decent goal. I started 2nd in line behind Jordan who was breaking in his new Raleigh 29'er from the shop in the best way possible.

I hosed the first section of trail dropping down from the levee as I tried keeping the bike under me rather than diving off into the chain link surrounding the pump station. The first few corners into the singletrack weren't treating me much better as I would hammer the pedals and slam on the brakes rather than flow through the corner. My heart was all ready jumping up in my throat and I knew I'd better find my form quickly. Sure enough, I backed off a tick and the form caught right back up as I hammered through the trail as quickly as possible. I caught Jordan just past the tractor tire and he let me fly past. With open trail in front of me, I just pushed on the pedals for all I was worth. Finally on the paved trail, I tried tucking in as tight as possible while cranking up the watts to the finish. My lungs and legs were burning as I crossed the line barely able to see straight.

My reward? Not only did I better my previous time, but I took down the course record and held on by 2 seconds to take 1st place overall for the night. I've got to say, even with all I've been lucky enough to accomplish on the bike this year, winning this little bragging rights race was one of the highlights for sure. I racked up a finish time of 19:22 according to Squirrel which knocked off the previous time by a scant 3 seconds.

Winning time:

The take:

She was briefly mine:

The second week commenced the online smack talking. Squirrel made up a pretty funny little ditty to encourage a few of the big boys to show up and strut their stuff. Basso answered the call and I pretty much knew things were going to be stepped up. Squirrel pre-rode the course and wasn't quite sure that the record would fall again tonight due to some trail moisture, leaf build-up, and extra walnut bombs throughout. I wasn't quite so optimistic, but I was still going to give it a run. I figured my plan from last week carried me pretty well through so I went for a repeat doing a warm up lap just prior to taking the line. I slowly worked up my speed and was feeling pretty confident as I headed into the last section of Denman's. I hit a hard left turn a little hot with a shade too much front brake and before I could even squeak a 4 letter word out, I was on the ground. The very combination Squirrel had been talking about had bit me square in the arse. Nothing hurt but my pride, I mounted back up, stuck a mental note in the bank and headed back for the start.

Lined up:

As Squirrel said go, I managed to repeat, if not worsen my screwups in the first section. Again, I nearly ran off the trail right at the start and didn't make anything better as I started into the first section of singletrack coming in too hot to the corners, nearly stopping, and then trying to hammer again. I knew tonight would be a push as I didn't feel quite as good as I had last week, but I intended to lay out whatever I had on the trail. I did get the flow going again, but it seemed more labored this week as my ragged breathing pounded in my ears and my heart surged to keep up with the effort I was begging from it. I took the short line through Little Italy this week which should have shaved a good 3-5 seconds from my time. I don't think I was quite as clean through a number of the turns this week, but my straightaway speed didn't seem to be suffering much. In all, I was still riding clean as I came up on Elaine as the first rider to get past. Just a brief second or two and I was by her. I rode the tractor tire again this week trying to get a better line for the follow up log. I caught up and passed a couple more riders along the way as well.

I was just getting a good eyeball on Jacob who was the minute man I was chasing as I entered the firepit section of Denman's. I had a couple bobbles up to this point, but was still keeping it sunny side up. I finally ran out of luck as I came around the big tree with the muddy spot on the inside of the right hand sweeper. I carried good speed into the turn and had a good weight balance, but the traction wasn't there. Both tires scrubbed out sideways trying to find any bit of dry ground available and I swung the bike nearly 180 degrees past the corner putting my inside knee down to the ground as I slid along for the ride. Still clipped in with my left foot, I righted my course pretty quickly and headed back down the trail.

A mere flesh wound:

I ran pretty cleanly through the rest of the trail and hit the pavement return section once again. I didn't have quite the legs under me as I did last week and couldn't spit out the speed I wanted to. Overall though I finished in 19:26 only 4 seconds off my time last week. I think I've got an 18:xx tucked away somewhere with the right trail conditions and a bit better run through on my end. However, Pete proved for all that the big dogs have the skill to show us how it's done running an 18:21!

Hurting at the finish:

Pete enjoying the spoils of victory:

Pics stolen from Courtney. See you out there next week!