Family Sunday

Saturday was Marcy and my 6th anniversary. To celebrate, we dumped the spud up with my parents and then went to...wait for it...wait for it... dinner and a movie! Wooooowwwwwwweeeeee!!!!!! You'd think that we were 60 or something with how excited we were to drive one mile (too drizzly to ride our bikes), have some dinner, take in a movie (Indiana Jones) and then go home and not have to worry about anyone or anything but ourselves. Heaven.

For Sunday, I planned on riding my road bike up to my parents where Marcy would meet me, we'd all go for a mountain bike ride and then head back to Damariscotta. Well, the weather gods gave me the high hard one and decided to give us drenching downpours instead so Marcy and I piled into the Element and headed up to retrieve B. By the time we got there, the rain had died down so after a bit of waiting we deemed it ok to ride so all of us (my mom, dad, brother Darren, Marcy, myself and Brynna) all got geared up for a ride.

An excited B before the start.

A VERY excited Chance.

This would be Brynna's first "mountain bike" ride ever so we weren't sure how it would go. The first part was mostly just an old abandoned dirt road and B was ok on the smooth parts but hated the bumps. I was a bit suprised but it turns out she was trying to fall asleep and the bumps would wake her up. As soon as we hit a smooth dirt road she was out like a light so instead of continuing on the ride (through more rough areas) Marcy, my brother and I circled back via road, chugged up a 12% climb (try doing that with 40-ish pounds hanging from your rear hub!) and waited for my mom and dad to get back with the pooch. We did a bit of quick re-fueling and we headed back out (minus B and my mom) for some more riding putting in close to another 1:30.

I've got to say, I'm pretty impressed with how my parents and brother's riding skills have progressed in the last couple of months. My brother isn't exactly gifted when it comes to coordination but somehow he's managed to turn himself into a respectable rider. At least now I'm not completely embarassed to be seen riding with him! :)

B on the skills course. Somebody might be getting a 2-wheeler for her B-day!

If you look closely you can see that B is wearing the medal that she won at last year's Grillz kids race. She will not ride her bike without it. Motivation I guess.

No ride

No riding for me yesterday. Instead, I nursed my ailing backside from Wednesday's roadage. The taint feels like Marcy was working me over with a cat-o-nine tails all night which is insane because it wasn't even Saturday and we all know that the cat is reserved for our anniversary (6 years tomorrow).

Speaking of Marcy, she's been doing a lot more riding recently, mostly in the form of commuting. Her total commute from our house is about 20 miles and she hasn't felt quite up to that yet but has been riding from home to my office where she can shower. I then meet her, give her the car and spud and she heads to work. It has all worked out quite nicely. First, we've gotten to the point that we only use two cars once or twice a week. Plus, on the days that she rides in, I get to ride home since she has the car after her morning commute. Win, win, win in my book. Of course, now that she's riding more she's getting a bit of upgrade-itis. She's been riding her Trek Fuel mostly because right now her road bike stretches her out too much and leaves her with a sore neck for the day. I've been trying to sort out the road bike fit but we still aren't quite there yet. Because she's been riding the Fuel so much recently we've started to realize how old the old girl is getting (the bike, not Marcy). We figure 8 years is a pretty good lifespan for a mountain bike. Sure, I've upgraded bits and pieces along the way but in essence, she's still 8 years old. With that in mind, we've begun to think (a bit) about what new ride she'd get. It makes sense to go with a super sweet Salsa but which one? The El Santo would work well for her and would be a reliable rig for years to come, plus she'd have back-up tires to call upon (no wheels though since I want her to have disc brakes) and will have her Nokian studded tires for winter use. BUT, we're definitely considering Salsa's new Big Mama. It's similar to the bike that she has now but oh-so-much sweeter and with a bit more travel. What to do, what to do? Who knew that lusting for bikes could be so fun even when they aren't for yourself.

More matches please

Yesterday's itinerary:

Park in Damariscotta. Ride 30-ish miles to Camden. Do group road ride of 30-40 miles. Ride back (more direct route of 20 miles).

All went as planned except for the group ride part. Instead of 30-40 miles we went closer to 50. I also put in some seriously hard efforts pulling at the front of the group. At about 50 miles I popped but soldiered on. At 9:15 pm when I finally got back to the car I had long since burned my last match and had logged 5:18 and 95 miles, averaging 18 mph. I was so unbelievably cooked that the thought of doing another 5 miles to round out the 100 was about as appealing as eating 5 day old roadkill that has been baking in the summer sun.

MMBA #2 Clifford Park

Historically, Clifford Park is a race that rides me hard and puts me away wet. It is so technical that it is a true test of man and machine. Of this year's 168 starters, a full 22% bailed before the end of the race, a pretty high percentage given that there is almost no climbing in the race, just unrelenting physical challenges in the form of shards of broken granite, giant boulders, g-outs etc. Personally, I've never dropped out of this race but I have ALWAYS wanted to.


To try and limit my level of suck in the race the fam and I headed down the day before for some zoo/fair time followed by me riding a couple of laps on the race course. During my pre-ride laps I found myself actually enjoying most of the trail, sure there were parts that made you want to ride off the nearest cliff (never far away) and end it all quickly but overall, I was feeling pretty good. I was coming off a rest week (and according to my training plan, the worst week in the 12 week block to race) so I had no idea how the legs would react to the punishment but at least I could expect to ride the sections well if not fast.


On race day, I did my pre-ride and realized that I hadn't considered on fairly large element for the race. It was warm and VERY freakin humid and I had stupidly not brought my endurolytes so my fueling plan was going to be key to having a good race.


The race is part of two race series, the Maine Mountain Bike Association series and the New England Championship Series so the pool of talent was considerable despite there being a NORBA race in the region on the same day.


At race time, the organizers announced that the elites would be going out first followed by expert senior 1 and single speed followed by my class, expert senior 2. I was bummed because I really wanted to duke it out with the 10 elites in the days field plus I really didn't want to have to work my way through the s1 and ss class going out two minutes before us.


At the start four of us got off the front but on the first tech climb, one of the guys who gunned it from the start slowed quickly, fell off his bike and forced us all to dismount. In the process, on guy (Dylan) got around and had open air while the rest of us got stuck behind someone who could obviously sprint but had no staying power or tech skills. I was stuck behind this dude for a couple more minutes (the first 2/3 of the course is very tight singletrack with little opportunity for passing) and when I finally did get by, Dylan was gone. Later in the lap, I caught a glimpse of Dylan as we crossed on seperate parts of the trail. I estimated he had roughly 1- 1 1/2 minute lead on me so I dug in and tried to close the gap by riding the tech sections as smoothly as possible, chugging Heed on the short smooth sections and hammering when I could.

At the end of the first lap I hadn't caught another glimpse of Dylan and because of the classes that started before us no-one knew who was in what position in which class so I just put my head down and settled into a comfortable pace that I felt I could maintain. This lap saw me catching a lot of the earlier starters but thankfully I seemed to catch most of them in the few open sections and not in the tight singletrack so lost time was minimized. 2/3's of the way through the lap I once again caught of a glimpse of Dylan. He was roughly 30 seconds up at this point so I knew I was on the right track.

lapping through after lap two. somehow marcy took this pic while holding a bottle out for me AND watching brynna.

As I lapped through to begin my third lap, Marcy told me that Adam (leader of the expert senior 1 race that headed out 2 minutes before us) was 30 seconds up. I knew that Adam was riding with Dylan (I had seen them together earlier in the lap) so I had a clear goal ahead. Catch the two of them before the end of the lap so that I could make a move on the final lap.



About a third of the way into the lap I caught up to Adam and Dylan who seemed to be chatting a bit and were unaware that I was behind them. On a challenging uphill, Dylan bobbled and I motored right on by the two of them in a washed out creek bed that was full of leaves. I had tried the line in my pre-rides and determined that it was unrideable but somehow the motivation of the lead kept me on my bike and I cruised on past. Initially Dylan didn't respond to me passing and I opened up a small gap. Before long though he kicked it and and quickly reeled me back in.



For the next lap I kept my pace with Dylan right behind and tried to figure out a plan. There was no question in my mind that he was the stronger rider but I seemed to have a slight advantage in the tech stuff so I decided to try to keep ahead of him and hope for a bobble on his part in the tech stuff to allow me to open a gap. That did happen several times but after each bobble he'd quickly catch back on because I didn't have the gas to really open it up. Near the end of the final lap when we entered the longest double track section Dylan attacked. I tried to grab his wheel but I had nothing left in the tank and had to watch him ride away and he ended up putting a whopping 30 seconds into me in the final two minutes of the race so I was relegated to 2nd place on the day.



One concellation was that near the end of the lap I caught up to Wheels (who was racing in the Elite class) so it was nice to finally finish ahead of him. It doesn't happen often so I'm going to relish it.



From what I heard after the race, Michael Patrick and Andrew Freye were really duking it out for the Elite win with Michael taking advantage of some lapped traffic to finally pull away for a narrow victory. Congrats to both!

Also, a major thank you has to go out to Marcy and Brynna. To Marcy for single handedly taking pictures, handing bottles, giving splits and watching Brynna. And to Brynna for somehow being at the race venue for 5+ hours and still managing to hold her shit together, as a matter of fact, she didn't want to leave and we had to bribe her with the beach!

Freye Guy at the start.

Wheels rolling through. Sorry it's so dark.

Scott and Bill after surviving the Sport race.

My morning so far.

Up at 4:25, quick change and go for a ½ hour jog with the pooch. Back to house, have a bowl of cereal, change into riding gear and head out the door by 5:30. Ride 20 miles to an outdoor charity breakfast that I’m helping at starting at 6:30. Change into clothes I had stuffed into Ergon pack. Set up tables, chairs and flip pancakes for 2 hours. Quick change and head to bike. See that I have a flat from the morning’s wet, gritty roads. Fix flat. Ride to work (almost all uphill) shower at office and plant my ass in my seat a few minutes after 9.

After work it’ll be a short-ish ride to do today’s prescribed intervals. Get home, shower and decided whether to drag family to an insulation seminar a mile from our house.

Quick Race Report

Big field.

Yet another quickie post today about yesterday's race.

Clifford Park is race #2 of the MMBA series.

SUPER technical course that usually hands me my ass.

This year I felt great and rode the tech stuff well despite coming off a rest week.

Got outsprinted for the expert win at the end but still very happy with 2nd place considering my other showings there.

Finally, for I think the first time ever, I beat Wheels! Take that suckah.

Another Quickie

Another quick one today. Big client meeting in a few hours. Worked late, came in early (6 am), gotta bust some stuff out kids.

Saturday, while planning my father's day ride I planned the route via map to get me to Marcy's father's place in 3-4 hours. I wanted to hit a bunch of hills so I chose any road that looked promising. One I was sure would represent was a road called "Mountain Road". Seemed like a no brainer. Until I got to the road at least. As I turned on, I saw the sign for "NO MOUNTAIN RD". I assumed the NO stood for North but it turns out it meant "NO" as in "NO FREAKIN MOUNTAIN TO RIDE HERE RD".

I guess that means the "Dale Earnhardt Ln" that I ride past on a regular basis isn't where Dale used to live?

Oh, and on my commute in today I rode on the 'road which can never be ridden' because last week they layed down a fresh coat of asphalt. It was sweet but don't tell Marcy!

Mark Your Calendars

For July 11-13 for the Maine Bike Rally in Fryeburg Maine for a weekend full of bike rides, expo, music, parades and other shenanigans. Sponsored by the Bicycle Coalition of Maine and chosen as the League of American Bicyclists 2008 rally.

Should be a good time. Question for me will be, go to this with wifey for a fun, relaxing weekend or hit up the weekends bike race, the Campus Krusher. It's a new venue that is supposed to be awesome so this will be a tough decision. Maybe we'll split the weekend. Two days at the rally and then the race on Sunday? Who knows at this point but it's pretty kick ass to have two cool events happening on one weekend in lil ole Maine.

Quickie

Not much time for a post today so I'll leave you with this image:

You KNOW you're in redneck country when you use a monsta truck tire for your mailbox. Lets just say that I was a bit nervous for the rest of my time on this road. I figured it was just a matter of time before some good ole boy got me in his sights and got to put another smushed rider stamp on his tailgate!

The Nooner

Do you ever find yourself with your "loved one" after a mid-day meeting and realize that no-one is expecting you back at the office for another hour or so? Just enough time to get all hot and sweaty.

That happened to me just the other day. I was leaving a job site shortly after noon, car on roof, when I realized that I'd be driving within a mile of a trail that I almost never ride on because it is too short to be a considered "real" ride. With only being able to ride for an hour at most (without double looping) it usually isn't on the itenerary. When you have less than an hour to ride, though, it is just the thing. Sure, I didn't have my heart rate monitor with me or any water but the whole point of a nooner is to get in and out as quickly as possible and numbers and minutes be damned. Right? So a hasty plan was hatched. Park, do the naked shimmy in the parking lot, bust out a quick lap, quick change again and get back to the office with no-one the wiser.

45 minutes later and I'm hot, sweaty and satisfied.

The plan

While on the phone last night with my brother who just recently took up mountain biking on a regular basis (2-3 times a week for about an hour):

R- I’ve got a plan for this weekend.
D- What’s that?
R- We’re going on a 4 hour ride.
Short pause
D- We need a new plan.

.

Phew, glad that's over!

Bloodletting number one in the books.
74 miles + 4:20 + lots of climbing = really sore legs today.

Not a whole lot to report from yesterday's ride other than it felt really good to do a group ride. Even if it was only a group of 2. Apparently, Mad Mike was having a trail day at the Snow Bowl so only one other soul showed up to enjoy the beautiful mid 70's day. Their loss. Jason and I ended up going out for a very good 2 hour ride hitting up almost all of the hills in the area. No real mountains but still plenty of rise for me to get my climbing legs on. At first I was afraid that having only one other rider there would mean a pretty casual, conversational pace but apparently after spending soooooo much time riding alone all it takes is one other person to bring out my competitive nature and before I knew it I was redlining on climbs (going beyond anaerobic and into ludicrous) and hammering on the flats.

By the time the "group" ride was finished I was VERY happy that I had decided to park where I'd get roughly 70 miles in instead of the possible 90. The legs still felt ok by the end but I could sense impending doom so I was more than happy to unclip with a bit of energy left in the tank. Being that it was my first longer ride of the season the shorter duration was probably for the best.

All for now.

Let the suffering begin

Last week I mentioned that two keys to the success in my racing this summer would be to hit the hills MUCH harder and to get in some more endurance. Well, today I'll be doing both by hitting up the Wednesday night road ride in Camden. The ride itself is tough and typically includes lots of hills by itself but I'll be adding in riding there from Waldoboro (about 20 miles out) so with the ride to and fro and the group ride itself, I should be looking at around 70-90 miles (depending a lot on how much I want to kill myself near the end of the ride). Originally I had thought of riding all the way from Damariscotta but that would guarantee me 90 miles which seems like it might be a tad much for my first long ride of the year (plus, Marcy thinks I'd be stupid to try that the first time out. women). Eventually I'll work my way up to that and maybe, if things work out, I might even be able to go from the office at some point. Of course, after hatching the plan we got an e-mail from our realtor wanting to show the house tomorrow which means I'll have to bust ass home this afternoon to clean before heading out so none of the longer plans would have worked out anyway.

Over the weekend, while the whole fam was on a family camping trip to the Camden Hills State Park I met up with Mad Mike for an early Sunday morning ride at the snow bowl. I rode for just under two hours and got some serious climbing in. If it's climbing you need, the Snow Bowl has it. If I can keep this up (probably not) I'll be all set for my future climby races. Another cool thing about the ride is that I was able to hit up the newly constructed pump track near the end of the ride. I felt like a monkey fu*king a football on my 29'er on a track meant for bmx bikes but it was fun all the same and I got to practice my berm riding.

So Close!

Today Marcy decided to take B in to school leaving me with a chance for a bike commute. The road bike has a threadbare rear tire that I haven't had a chance to fix so I decided to ride the mountain bike and do some commute reconnaissance from the new property so that when (if) we build the new house I'll be able to commute as much as possible by trail. Step one is to connect our property to the Schmid Preserve. Last week I came within 1/2 mile of connecting the two so this morning I was going to look a bit deeper and see where I could get.

(click on image to actually see it!)

Above is a Google map of the area. The property is in the upper right corner and the Schmid Preserve is in the lower left. The little, itty, bitty white line is the portion that after today I still need to work out. Only 500' left! I'm pretty geeked to be so close to connecting them plus they're actually pretty nice trails and will be much better with maybe two hours of work.

Keep the wheels rolling.

musings

It's been almost a week since the 6hr race at Pat's Peak and I've had plenty of time to go over in my head how things could have gone better. Initially (immediately after the race at least), I thought that I hadn't consumed enough calories during the race to do well but after a bit of research it looks like I was pretty close to what is suggested calorie-wise. Maybe I was a bit short but not enough for my monumental bonk. That leaves me with two not-so-suprising reasons that I suffered towards the end. Reason number one, I haven't had any long rides yet this year. If you haven't been getting in any long rides you can't expect to feel too great at the end of a 6 hr race. Reason number two, I haven't had the opportunity to ride hills much this year. Time has been tight and I don't have a lot of good hills around these parts. When I worked in Camden I got as much hill work as I could stand. Not so much in Damariscotta. How am I going to fix this? It should be pretty simple really, I just need to start hitting up the Wednesday night road ride in Camden. If I ride to the ride, do the ride and then ride back I'll be getting a 4-6 hr ride in and get some major climbing in at the same time. Time to get planning...

Pat's Peak 6 hr

This was the first time doing the Pat’s Peak 6 hr race. Previously, I had thought it was only a 24 hr race but over the winter I found out they had 6 and 12 hour versions as well. I don’t THINK I have any intentions of ever doing a 24 hr solo and it’s too early in the season for me to throw down a 12 so I decided to hit the 6 hr instead. My recent racing history clearly showed that my racing abilities leaned towards the 3-6 hr time range so this race was one to look into. Additionally, the entry fee is low ($50), it’s only a 3 hr drive to the venue and it sits smack dab in the center of a 6 week racing “hole” in my schedule so it was a no-brainer. Because the race is so close and it has a noon Saturday start time I opted to sleep in my own bed and head over in the morning.

It rained for most of my 3 hr drive, including a torrential downpour less than 15 minutes from the venue, so I was expecting a nasty, muddy mess. As I drove up the mountain access road, though, it became apparent that all of the rain had missed the mountain and things were beyond dry. Really powdery actually.

When the race started (with the typical running start) because of my modest running abilities and a slight downhill slope to my bike (some people chose to run uphill for some strange reason) I managed to get to my bike 4th out of the entire field of roughly 150 (I’m totally guessing here) and we took off. I let a couple people past on the first small climb knowing they were probably on teams but shortly after I was passed by Brad Perley (my nemesis in many xc events and a fellow 6hr solo rider) so I grabbed his wheel. The rest of the lap was a blur of high heart rates (basically xc pace), lots of climbing (850 ft per lap) and a freakin sweet switchbacky, fast and rough downhill. We finished the first lap in roughly 30 minutes and after a quick mental calc I realized that if we kept this pace up we’d be doing 12 laps and around 10,000 feet of climbing. I didn’t think I was capable of that so I dialed it back a bit on lap 2 but kept the pace high. I had no idea where I was sitting in the 6hr field but I was guessing it was somewhere around 3-4.

For a couple of laps I jockeyed back and forth with the eventual fourth place finisher and kept Brad within range hoping that his continued high pace would take it’s toll later in the race and he would fade. On, I think, the third lap I lost the fourth place dude on one of the two major climbs of each lap and from that point on, I was pretty much on my own.

As I lapped through each time I was careful to pick up food and drink. I had pre-made five bottles, two with Perpetuem and three with Heed with my plan being to hit the P early in the race while the stomach was good and then switch to Heed near the end. Additionally, I was trying to eat some real food each lap in the form of bananas and Clif bars. After the fourth lap I had gone through the two bottles of Perpetuem, one banana and half of a Clif bar. Seemed about right and I was feeling pretty good.

It was soon after that things started to go south. Somewhere around the three hour mark a bit of fatigue set in. I was having a hell of a time on the climbs now and was spending a majority of my time on them in my granny gear. I’d estimate that (other than the W101) last year I spent MAYBE 10 minutes all season in the granny. Suddenly, I was spending easily 10 minutes each lap on that sucker. Not good. Add to that my stomach was starting to feel a bit ichy and it was a recipe for disaster. My only saving grace at this point was that I was still riding the tricky downhill section really well, passing riders on every lap.

From that point I switched to Heed and gave up on eating because I was sure I wouldn’t keep it down anyway. The laps and minutes ticked ever so slowly as I did constant mental time checks to figure out how many more times I’d have to do those stinking climbs. Around the 4 hour mark I threw all caution to the wind and busted into one of the ice cold cokes I had stashed with my bottles hoping the sugar and caffeine would get me over the hump. My first helping was fairly small but each subsequent lap it got bigger and bigger in a desperate attempt to get the legs moving again.

When I got to the point that I estimated about three laps to go my legs totally gave out on me. The two open climbs might as well have been vertical walls because I had NOTHING for them. Even in my lowest gear I’d be forced to dismount and walk the walk of shame. To make matters worse, that once beautifully fun downhill was turning into the most torturous 10 minutes ever. My upper body was spent and I just couldn’t hit it like I was earlier in the race.

Finally, FINALLY, at about 5:20 I started what I figured would be my final lap. My lap times had been hovering around the 40 minute mark so as long as I held that I’d get this mother over. Knowing that it was my last lap, I tried to enjoy myself as much as possible and did to some extent but the climbs were still killing me. To give you an idea of how much I was suffering on the climbs, going into the first long climb of the lap I caught up to a clydesdale rider on an Ellsworth all mountain bike but once I got to him I couldn’t get by. Not because he wouldn’t let me (he moved over on several occasions) but because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t turn the pedals over any faster. We ended up walking most of the climb together. Things got really bad when, near the top, he remounted and rode away, all 250 lbs., and I never saw him again.

Mercilessly, at exactly 6:00 I crossed the finish line and immediately sat my ass down and chugged a coke. Still not feeling great, I went to the car and napped for 15 minutes. After the cat-nap I felt great (maybe it was the coke finally kicking in) and headed up to the tent to find out where I placed. It turns out I must have had a freakin huge gap on the fourth place rider when the melt down happened because I still managed to hold onto 3rd place by close to 30 minutes.

Brad had pulled off an impressive victory clocking in 12 laps and lapping everyone but the second place finisher.

today

This weekend's race report is in the works, I promise!

Meanwhile, yesterday I got out for a kickass mountain bike ride. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much from the ride. I'd be riding my local double track trails that I've ridden about a bazillion times, my legs were still tired from the race and there were scattered thunder storms rolling through. So I headed out hoping to get at least 1.5 hours and if things went well, maybe a bit more.

It turned out to be a great ride. The legs weren't top notch but they didn't seem sore, just a bit sluggish and most importantly, I discovered a bunch of new trails (still double track but narrower and twistier than my typical trails) that would allow me to add 40 minutes to my typical loop if I so chose. They would also allow me to cut out one of the worse sections of trail as well. Win win.

I was also finally able to use my Ergon pack for an actual trail ride instead of my typical commute rides with a bit of trail thrown in. The pack performed beautifully and I basically forgot it was there except when I fished my pb&j sandwich out for dinner and discovered that it still LOOKED like a pb&j and not a smashed squirrel left out in the hot sun for a week. Try that with a typical hydration pack. After grabbing the sandwich I decided (one of my best ideas ever) to eat the sandwich while going down a tricky and steep downhill. After a couple of white knuckle death grips the sandwich began to look like aforementioned roadkill. Oh well, still tasted fine.

Towards the end of the ride a thunder head started rolling my way so I booked it back and then, sure enough, it started raining five minutes after I was back. The ride gods smiled upon me for once!

knock knock

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Nobody. Suckah.

Pat's Peak 6 hr

I had hoped to do a full race report today but, quite frankly, I don't have the energy so a full report will follow shortly. For now, a brief lowdown

Start race at xc pace. Woopsie.
Course was awesomely fun but had lots of climbing and tricky descents. 850' of climbing for each 30-ish minute lap.
Suffered like a dog after hour 3.
Went into damage control and tried to defend a good gap to 4th place.
Roll across the finish line at exactly 6:00 pm. Good timing.
Find out that I did indeed get 3rd overall out of 33.