First CX race of the season done!

Okay, so I'm currently on the first-you-must-rest training plan.  After my first year of doing only marathon mountain bike racing (but still riding the road bike on large, training rides in and around Denver) I'm now focusing on cyclo-cross racing.  Please note that your version of focus might be vastly different from mine. Yesterday, was a confluence of work (too much), my middle daughter throwing a tantrum (drives a parent completely bonkers-I can write a whole blog entry about my kids' tantrums and how I deal with it), and eating three donuts (there's nothing wrong with that really-yummizle!).  This was the impetus to race.  To take all this hostile, negative, angry, frustrated, insulin-shocking energy out and through my bicycle via my pedals, which in turn (no pun intended), will go straight to my disc wheels.  Begone evil spirits!  C'mon catharsis!  Two of my teammies showed up too.  My brother Kenny L. (not to be confused with Kenny G.), and Joe S.  Let me pre-empt my efforts (hecks yeah I'm rationalizing for my lack of fitness!) with: I haven't been riding the volume or intensity required to be competitive; but I have been practicing my 'cross skills (which are sorely lacking).

My staging was the antithesis of pole position.  My call-up reflected my lack of placings and racing 'cross (within this particular series that I'm not taking seriously because it is September) so my volume occupied dead last row, right in the middle after they called up everybody (get it now?).  Who was next to me? Kenny.  Joe was a couple of rows ahead of us.

When the ref blew the whistle we fired off like cannon balls and as luck would have it a bunch of Freds crash, and crash hard with mixing of components into other bicycles like metal pretzels.  I need to upgrade to get out of this foolishness!  Full-on lock the brakes and scanned like a lifeguard on a Sunday afternoon at the YMCA for an egress and to get back into racing! I was able to still roll and bunny-hopped a tangent of somebody's rear wheel who was on the ground.  Kenny was physically standing, taking bikes off of his steed so he can remount and enter the race.  I was rolling, near dead last place!

Drew, my girlfriend's brother, told me how the apices of all the curves are nothing but loose sand, dirt, if they're not rutted hard from our 100 year flooding event (you might have heard about our flood damage from your news agency) as they dried like rutted concrete.  90% of the time I was near hovering on these corners with my rear wheel wanting to come around and me kicking out of my pedals to counter-steer with the fluidity of a petite-mal seizure.  Being so far back, you get to be at the mercy of the people in front of you, and the tourist mentality starts.  You have to get aggressive to get into pass mode.  I did the strategy of late breaking and just squeezing myself between the apex and my competitor thus traveling the lesser of the two trajectories without being a complete dickhead about it.  What usually works is I can punch it on a short straightaway, kinda burning a match and rolling wide into the turn, with body appendages-knees and elbows-counter-steering for ballast sticking out, thus preventing any pass back because I'm hogging and volumizing my 135 lb frame in the lane (intimidating, I know).  Still getting passed on the barricades and the run-ups.  Gotta stop that.  On the last lap Drew and his economy and succinctness of phrase coupled with his deadpan delivery says within earshot as I pass him, "Go faster."  Simple yet pretty damn painful advice!

From dead last row, out of 70 some odd, to 41st is still lame, but not supremely lame.  Didn't crash but probably it was due to me being too conservative.  I feel somewhat confident now on my CX rig.  Major learning curve from last year, when on any given race I'd be turtling.  I'm done resting, I'm feeling one with my Airborne rig (the Delta), now I need volume and intensity (can I buy that on-line? or Lance's doctor). I'm raring to go!

My triplet of old friends visit me after the race:  Mr. Phlegm, his brother Mr. Time Trial Cough, and Mr. It-Tastes-Like-Blood-When-I-Inhale.  "Hey freaks!  Long time no see!"

Drew races the "A" category.  I saw their start and all I can say is "Ouch.  Not yet."

Friday's date night with Karen, Saturday's going to be high in the mid-seventies, looks like this is going to be a great weekend!

Sunday's race number two!  If I feel froggy I'ma race Saturday...

2 weeks and thank you

Oowee peoples!  Two weeks back in the swing of things as a science teacher.  Best job in the world but I'm having a wee bit of a spell of trouble keeping my energetics allocated to teach 5 classes.  Love the kids.  They make me laugh (kind of like my own), make me kinda want to figuratively kick 'em hard in the arse occasionally (kind of like my own), make me want to adopt 'em (kind of like my own), make me want to quit sometimes and find another profession (kind of like my own), resonate with them cosmically sometimes (kind of like my own), make me want to cry tears of joy and sadness (kind of like my own), you know, the typical teacher stuff.  What keeps me grounded and ready to teach and be a daddy another day?  The residuals of living?  Well based on the title of this blog...cycling; and truth be told, my chilluns and the opportunities of being with Karen. 

Yesterday I rode with my homefries, teammate, sweet, dear friend Kevin (a third of the homey trinity, Hez-Billy being the other third of this secular trinity).  I'm showing him the (dark) side of cycling-cyclocross!  It's not the dark side.  It's actually pretty darn cool.  Last night was his inaugural 'cross ride!  When we took off in his hood, we rode singletrack named the Backcountry.  He flew off the get go!  Kind of a natural I might say.

In our rather tempo ride, weaving and bobbing and floating through apices of tight to loose serpentine flowy singletrack, his seatpost connecting the post to the rails went ill.  Specifically the Thompson Elite bolt and cylindrical nut came undone and fell on the flora effusive singletrack.  Holee molee what are the chances of finding that on the trail....

...better than you think sucka!  We back tracked and lo and behold, I found the bolt.  We reversed again and going slower than Paris Hilton attempting Sudoku, Kevin found the nut.  Woa!  A minute later we asked a good Samaritan if he had a 4 hex wrench and sho 'nuff he did.  After torsionally appropriate righty-tighties on the Thompson, we were off on a tempo pace hovering in the Backcountry.

We traded pulls on a rather cool, scenic, Colorado evening breathing hard, feeling the ebb and flow of the cadence synched with the breathing and the crispiness of the evening air diffusing through our inefficient heat production as simple machines on the trail. 

We rode like this for an hour and a half before Mr. Helios departed us and Ms Luna paid us a visit.  What a great ride!  Just what my turbulent psyche needed after working out mentally the end of my break and transitioning to the teaching season while never losing sight of being a Dad.  It was awesome!  Grateful I am.  Much thanks to Airborne for providing me with Delilah my anthropomorphized CX rig allowing me to ride with friends like Kevin.  This was Wednesday, today I had back to school night and talked to a parent who wanted her daughter in my class because her son (whom I taught) had such a great experience with me as his teacher.  I am thankful there too and humbled.  Friday, I have a date with my baby cakes Karen.  Man!  I is a lucky foo' (that's right, I'm keeping it real!)!

My Nifty Summer Break

As my summer comes to a close there’s a bunch of nifty things that occurred…  

Nifty thing one.

woa there my wee daughter!

This past Spring Break, me and my kids; Karen-her brother and friend Jeremy; my other mutual friend and teammate-Kevin, and his kids all met in Moab.  My cycling goal:  get my kids hooked on mountain biking.  It worked!  So when Maura began to outgrow her bike, Karen’s sister Jill (because they’re awesome), donated a dual suspension mountain bike to my second daughter, Maura.  Maura first impression was:  I don’t know if I’m the right size for this because the bike is a little big.  In order to make her comfortable on the new bike I took her to the mountain bike park nearby and she rode several of the black diamond (rated like ski trails) paths/obstacles with no problem.  Afterwards, with a huge smile on her face, she felt comfortable with the new ride.  Therefore, when my kids live with me, we try to ride the mountain bike park and she’s always up for trying a newer challenge on the trail.
Nifty thing two.

2013 Dirt Team

I rode the Firecracker 50 for the fifth year (it might could be all in a row).  Last year I was 15 minutes off my target goal of doing a sub-5 hour ride.  My fitness was pretty good going into it and my trusted steed, Penelope (an Airborne 29er hardtail, the Guardian model with slight mods) was raring to go.  The only thing I’ve done was to add more Stan’s (latex) into my CrossMaxes and lubed the chain.  In the grand scheme of things, one can always race with solo support (i.e. yourself) but when there's two (am I alluding to the metaphor of life?), well it's like the placebo effect plus Christmas.  I call it the placekarenmas effect. 

 

Grabbed a bottle, climbing but I forgot to remove my empty water bottle!

After the first lap, I still felt pretty good and my bike was not making any noise at all-a sign of mechanical soundness which is what Airborne bicycles is all about.  After hearing Karen hollering, “Go Mike!” I was determined to kill the second lap.  At mile 49 or so, on a SCREAMING downhill, littered with all manner of rocks, where the safest line was scouting the discoloration of rocks with previous rider’s tires running on top of them and by accurately mimicking that path with my tires as precisely as possible while going 30+ mph, I bobbled my line and crashed at speed.  I cartwheeled like a Raggedy Andy doll and as I was cartwheeling, I said to myself keep rolling, don’t slide, keep the rolling inertia with your arms like you learned in karate (how to roll) and you’ll keep major body damage to a minimum-of course, this was all in slow motion in my brain.  During one of the rolls, my bottommost ribs got tagged with a nice sized angular rock as well as my elbow on the same side.  As I was laying in the prone position slightly moaning, remarking on how beautiful the blue skies where, I ran my hands over my collar bones to make sure nothing was sticking out and eye-balling my elbow that was slowly getting a hematoma with kinda deep scratches.   

 After several racers asked if I was okay-I suppose I was-I threw my right leg over my bike and winced as my sore ribs responded to my movement.  Nonetheless, it fired me up to finish strong.  I could breathe fairly deeply to continue putting watts on my pedals aerobically.  My front derailleur cable came off my top tube’s braze-on when I cranked my handlebars during my crash and I wasn’t able to use the big chain ring (I have a 2x10).  No worries, I finished exactly in 5 hours and 17 seconds.  18 seconds short of a sub-5 hour ride but I’ll take it!  Afterwards we baked in the sun, eating, getting some first aid at the medical station (me!), while we all talked and patted ourselves on the back and enjoyed each others’ companies.

Nifty thing three.

right elbow before trip

The next day, as my ribs where on the way to healing, Karen and I road-tripped to California-with bikes!-to meet my brother Neil, my sister in-law Dana, and my Mom.  People say one of the most telling signs of the potential of a healthy long term relationship is how well two people travel-especially in such close proximity.  The only painful thing for me, on our trip, was from all the laughing my sore ribs had to endure as we conversed while we flew down the highway or as we witnessed new things with two sets of eyes.  Some of the new things we witnessed on the way out:  Lake Mead complete with lethal noro-parasites at Roger’s Hot Springs, Las Vegas (we won loot and battled a wee bit of heat exhaustion walking on Tropicana), and walking around as we learned about the Valley of Fire State Park.   

In San Diego, we mountain biked with a colleague of mine at Los Peñasquitos Canyon Preserve where Karen kinda slayed, and afterwards we drove the scenic route to Stone Brewery-creators of Arrogant Bastard Ale-to wash down a tasty vegetarian lunch with a temperature correct fermented beverage in SoCal's picture postcard perfect summer afternoon.  Traffic in San Diego’s awful especially during the PM peak hours.  The best time to travel back to my brother’s was around 9pm, so we spent time in Balboa Park witnessing new things with two sets of eyes and appreciating how thrilling that can be.  When we arrived in the town  my brother lives, we had a sweet tooth aching to be satisfied so the choices were either Exxon or the Circle K.  We chose the Circle K because Karen quoted, ‘Strange things are a’foot in the Circle K.’  

Your eyes deceive you not!

at the Getty flanked by awesomeness!

  Prophetically, what transpired as we were perusing  our edible options of teeth enamel delamination was:  the clerk confronting two teenagers about allegedly stealing Ny-Quil while simultaneously fending off repeated, identical questions a homeless man was querying with complete naivety about the secret location of the microwave and upon finding it, is it possible to use said microwave oven to heat his stew?  That qualifies as strange yes?  Quickly, here’s a rundown of mentionable stuff we did:  eating decadently at Sprinkles Ice Cream in Beverly Hills, walking on the sand at Laguna Beach, watching pelicans fly by and inspecting tidal pools, geeking on Hollywood Boulevard, route finding in LA rush hour, witnessing the cultural spectacle known as the Getty Museum,

eating a cream puff at Beard Papa's, sharing a vegetarian hot dog with ghost pepper mustard at the Grove, searching for music at Amoeba's Music, and Ruby's Shake Shack.

Ruby's!

Needless to say, a magical time was spent in California.

My brother Lem!

Nifty thing four.

My Mom accompanied us to Phoenix where we met with my older brother and his family.  The next day we rode F.I.N.S.

After our ride, I suffered through a wee bit of heat exhaustion.  As we were figuring out what to do after our ride in my brother’s kitchen, I asked my sister in-law Jeannine three times if I could make breakfast.  Each attempt apparently new contextually with the previous try completely forgotten.  When Jeannine started laughing I thought, what’s her deal?, that’s when Karen told me of my thrice requests for the breaking of (our morning) fast.  Arizona, you’re scary hot like ghost peppers on a Fritzi Dog hotdog.

Who says an Airborne hardtail can't rip?

F.I.N.S. stands for Fantasy Island North Singletrack.  The original Fantasy Island started south of Phoenix, we're north.  Get it?  As the day went on, the sweat was pouring but there was no difference in water content between the humans and the atmosphere surrounding us- that means no evaporative cooling.  We were slowly shutting down without the winds.  It was still pretty darn fun.  My brother Lem-being the most gracious trail guide and host, Karen, and I were smiling and kinda pooped out too.  Great riding today and we didn't get shocked going underneath the low hanging powerlines (like I did the first time I rode there)!

look at that form!

My summer's not completely done yet, I do have some non-work time where I can still enjoy what remaining vestiges of summer's left! I am grateful that such an amazing trip occurred thanks to the largess of my family and for having my sweet (and cosmically resonating side-kick, my amazing girlfriend) Karen accompanying me.  Cyclocross nationals are in my backyard this year-Boulder!  It's the second week in January, so if I can be clever and disciplined and not get burned out I'd like to give it a shot.  That would be my next nifty tale to tell...

2013 Gunnison Growler

Smiling for reasons unknown

Memorial Day Weekend!  My teammate Kevin and I (two-thirds of the homey trinity) are going to check our physiological mettle in Gunnison, Colorado a town next to one of the most magical towns of all time-Crested Butte.  The race?  The Gunnison Growler!  Who in their right mind would want to do an incredibly challenging course, with 8,800 feet of climbing spread out over 68 miles (total)?  I guess that would be us.

A pre-night ritual.

Well, as a seasoned racer (ha!), there's a little bit of superstition and OCD that goes into supervising the race-worthiness of one's steed (physical maintenance) and to pack accordingly (I've forgotten to pack my helmet and shoes but not at the same time!).  You itemize the following and make sure it's cleaned and serviceable the night before.  Skinsuit or two piece?  Well the two piecer so's I can throw in some gel shots and other sundry nutritious items.  Speaking of which, I talked to Drew (Karen's brah) about helpful nutritious tidbits on what he was packing last year when he raced this event and what I came away with in that conversation was to get the Heed electrolyte tablets and to run two water bottles with said supplement in each bottle.   Which cold weather component gets to ride shotgun in my hooptie?  Well, since the course starts at 7,700 feet and it's cold in the mornings (35° F) I'll bring the knee warmers yet forgo the armwarmers for my UV arm protectors.  Also getting packed is the tank top base layer to give me a smidge of heat retaining qualities (as well as wicking).  It's going to be sunny so I'll bust out my roadie headgear and wear a visor underneath my road helmet.  Which type of socks to bring:  my super thin 3/4 length NG socks or the Woolie Boolies?  Packed my Woolie Boolies 3/4 length socks (a thoughtful gift from Karen) for much needed cushioning from standing and pedaling in unforgiving, carbon fiber soles on my Shimanos; but I'll also pack my compression socks for recovery purposes.  Full finger or 3/4 length gloves?  Full fingers definitely for much needed protection on a LONG course as opposed to a 27 mile XC course.  Should I bring the CamelBak?  Nope, there are adequately staffed and knowledgeable staff at strategically located Aid Stations (which may I add they were amazingly friendly and ultra-helpful).  My cycling gear's good but of course I forget to pack pants when the evenings get cold in Crested Butte.  Oh well.

The ride out.

As with all my friends we spend it talking, listening to music, and doing an inordinate amount of giggling.  We do racer check-in in downtown Gunnison and we're off to my awesomely generous and avuncular homeskillet David's (house).

The race.

My teammate Kevin

We crash at David's place in Almont, CO which is about 30 minutes away but with the road construction it takes longer.  David is an extremely friendly and generous soul, whom we thank for letting us crash at his house.  Thank you David.  So on race morning, we spent time unwisely and we're screaming out of his house on gravelly roads and I'm doing my impersonation of Satan's coachman.  Needless to say we make it with 5 minutes to spare and I can't find my Woolie Boolies and after an unbecoming OCD episode I don the black, compression socks only a middle school boy athlete or a septuagenarian would find aesthetically pleasing.  We line up and both barrels of the shotgun's fired and we're off on a rolling, 5-mile, neutral start to Hartman Rocks. The racers go out briskly and we're doing a road race start on mountain bikes.  Not to get outdone I tell Kevin let's move to front, so we take off and noodle our way to the front of the pack, where we're lined up about 10 racers back.  Another wave surges to the front and we're about at the last third.  I bide my time to safely go to the outside of the pack where I accelerate and put myself on the pole position and that's where I ride and eventually slide back to third position.  Kinda cool.  Representing Natural Grocer's and Airborne!

The holeshot.

Actually, it's the lack thereof.  Once the sheriff's vehicle pulled off it's hammer time!  Of course the first part of the race is a super steep, gnarly, gravelly fired road where if you stood your rear tire'd break traction.  I chose not to put myself in the red to keep my position and the racers who were more alpha than me diplayed their testosterone (as well as estrogen) as I slid further back into my cohorts of (lack of) fitness.

First lap (aka ouch!).  3h 29 minutes.

Ouch!

It's fast, it's technical, it's flowey, and I'm riding 98 percent of this sick singletrack.  I swear we're hitting these obstacles like we've all done this before and the risk of failure can be physical damage!  One's safety is completely out the window because to fall back is a major no-no, so keeping your position is what you err on and to advance, well that's tantamount to racing.  The strategy in mountain bike racing, especially if there are so many bi-pedal hominids pedaling their bicycles (after eating hominy) on the trail, is to be in the leading group.  If that's not possible, save energy by mentally drafting in packs, then leapfrog yourself to the next pack of riders ahead of you.  Energetically speaking, it's a wash, but the mental draft gives you the perceived illusion that you're being economical with your kilocalories coupled with the allusion of being a thoroughbred.  I make mental notes of landmarks to help with time management and energetics (i.e. the rest stops, the sustained climbs, the anaerobic climbs-all of them!- the killer, G'd out downhills..etc.).  First lap done in 3 and a half hours.  Yikes!  Looks like a sub-7h event's not in the cards today...

Second lap.  Stay focused! Twenty-one minutes slower than the first!

I knew my legs would hold out but it would not equal the first lap laying down of watts.  Pain settled in nicely in-between my shoulder blades, my left knee's getting wonky, my triceps, my medialises, and oddly, my thumbs with all the shifting I've been doing.  First time my hamstring and calves didn't have pain.  I've been drinking and eating but the topography of this course is nothing I've experienced (the Firecracker gots nothing on this one!) before so my calories are being used up at a nearly uncontrollable rate leaving me unfocused on the terrain.  Wasn't it a lap ago these technical features where a novel, easily doable technical, smile inducing challenge?  Yes I walked on the stuff I used to ride.  Yes I found every aberrant landscape feature (size independent) and when that topographical nuisance hit my pedal or whenever I exhibited a profound display of asynchronisity (lack of unweighting, a lost ability to stutter pedal through derailleur ripping rocks, or pre-shifting, I felt like a lobster shifting to flow over technical terrain for example) that transgression translated itself with the precision of a laser beam or shotgun blast (whichever was crueler, as opposed to a cruller which is delicious actually!) into that part of my body which atrophied and was in sharp pain.  Instantaneously.  It should be called the Gr-ou(ch)-ler...Not only that but I over cooked switchbacks and high curbed tight, downhill switchbacks.  The grand prize of unfocusedness was crashing on a sandy berm where my front tire washed.   Kit's fine, bike's fine although I had to squeeze the front wheel between my knees to tweak the stem and aim of the front tire. I had to skew and askewed stem.  By that point though, I was close to the race finish line but the ceremonial finish line was 5 miles away back in Gunnison.  I cross the finish line.  People are cheering and I'm thinking I just finished the hardest marathon mountain biking event bar none.  Endorphins, endocannabinoids, and endocrinologists are cheering and being released next to me and in me.  Never in my life have I witnessed so many endocrinologists racing.

Race notes.

Spectators were friendly and encouraging.  The Skull Pass volunteers were angels and complete class.  On my second lap, my chain was so dry it was making all manner of noises that once my brain was super sensitive to the topography and was talking to phantom spectators, that chain chirping was driving me absolutely nutty!  The Skull Pass volunteers lubed my chain (easy there, don't get fresh!).  What a well run event.  Kudos to the sponsors and organizers!  My hardtail, Penelope, was awesome. All over the course, there were people fixing flats but my Stans on my Mavic CrossMax's held (lest my tired got sliced, but thankfully it didn't).  

Felt that 30 psi was too squishy on my tubeless, so I pumped it up to 40 at one of the aid stations.  Ahh, felt better.  Felt like running on tubulars now.

Filled up my Growler but it was flat after a day of traveling back to Denver.  My new SUV got 24.9 mpg even with wind and two bikes up top.

 Looking forward to doing this again.