Slowly but surely I've been heading towards an absolute meltdown. The strain of training, working and the rest of life has gradually been building and I'm pretty much running on fumes right now. I'm not one that would ever completely meltdown, I'll always keep trying, but sometimes I get to a point where I'm just not on my game in nearly every part of my life and that is where I'm at right now.
The highlight of this breakdown came today where I missed getting to PIR by 10 minutes. While not substantial this is THE SECOND TIME in a row I have managed to do this. I left work on time, but then procrastinated by sending out a message on an online dating site, lubing my chain by putting my bike in the bathtub and as usual forgetting where I put my phone right when I wanted to go. What started as getting home at 5:20 ended up being a hustling out of the apartment complex at 6:16 to try to get to the race at 6:35. That did not happen by a long-shot.
I think the majority of this disorganization comes down to not having a solid routine that gets stuff done. One of the bigger problems that result from this is my disgusting apartment. I literally haven't cleaned my room since I moved in in December.
That is what my room looks like. It is so gross, there are some flies flying around, I count 3 pizza boxes sitting around, and there are dishes that haven't been cleaned in weeks - maybe even months. It is so embarrassing, I will lose crap in my miniature 340 square foot studio. The latest is a $150 bib pant I think I have lost. I really don't know how I manage this, except I do - stuff doesn't have a set place in my apartment or daily routine in a larger sense.
This whole disorganization is bleeding everywhere in my life and I hate it. At work, it's not unusual but I've been assigned yet another task I am severely under-qualified for and I just haven't been able to crack out a decent solution in over 3 weeks. It's really getting on my nerves. In my training program I went through two weeks without stretching or doing core and I was beginning to feel it during Wenatchee. And to top it all off, I haven't been handling my unavoidable biological attraction to women well by spending way more time than I should to the point of it becoming an unhealthy addiction.
It's time to turn this around.
And to begin, I am moving. Oh man I am REALLY REALLY happy to be moving. I am so excited to have more than 340 square feet to work with. I'm also going to be moving in with another dude at the Portland Plaza.
This will be my first true downtown living experience and I'm so stoked. The first time I walked in I felt like I was back home at my Tacoma Condo. The place is on the MAX yellow line, across the street from a 24 hour fitness (so that will be nice for the winter) and has got the luxury bling all for a price less than what I'm paying right now in rent.
So this is my perfect chance to start anew and be clean and organized from the beginning. I'm set on having a solid routine where I get stuff done. This weekend can't come soon enough, maybe I'll start moving stuff tomorrow.
So, this week was the Wenatchee Omnium. Last year I did this race it was typical Wenatchee weather (absolutely gorgeous and warm). But this year it was only normal weather on Friday and then a Western-Washington-style storm blew in from the southeast of all places and inundated the valley with rain close to monsoon levels.
I'm thinking that the Wenatchee Omnium is going to be a yearly event for me in large part because my parents live over here and love to spoil me when I come over for a while. My dad also loves to take lots and lots of pictures and videos, so this blog post will have a bunch of photos that he took. This year, I got Randy from Tacoma Bike and Andrew from Old Town to come stay over at our family's house. Karly even made it over too!
Getting There
But first a bit about my Friday travels. I was packing up in the morning only to realize I had left my racing license at my office. I realized this at 7am when I had to catch an 8:30am train. I had actually forgot my license at last year's Wenatchee and had to buy day licenses for cat 5. But now I'm a Cat 3 so I needed it. I headed out of my apartment at 7:27 to try to catch a 7:30 Max to my office. I made it on that Max with 3 seconds to spare. I biked to the office got my license and caught the 7:46 train back downtown. At this point I decided the only way I'd make the 8:30 Amtrak would be if I put my big duffel bag on my aero bars and biked to the train station. I did so hitting the green wave down Everett with one hand on the handlebars, the other hand holding the bag and clamping it all together with my chin. Got to the station at 8:10 and found a nice train friend to chat with.
Next up Randy and I drove over to Wenatchee from Tacoma. We got there and went for a ride around the loop trail to the crit course. On the way I managed to get 2 flats and remembered that that was why I hadn't gotten more into cycling when I was younger - along with competitive cycling not being that popular in general. Randy and I rode the crit course and Randy was in disbelief about how technical it was. Due to impending rain expected tomorrow Randy was confident in his decision to bail on riding in the crit.
Time Trial
There was a bit of confusion on when my actual start time was going to be, so I ended up arriving at the sign-in 3 minutes after my start time. After enough arguing with the organizer and officials, they gave me a new start time that happened to be 30 seconds after Ian Mensher (an utter beast of a rider). Ian didn't have a 30 second guy, he didn't have a minute man and he still passed at least 5 riders. At mile 1 he was 15 seconds ahead of me, mile 1.5 he was 40 seconds ahead and then I only saw him again after the turnaround.
I was really eying this TT with great importance since it was the first TT I would do that I had also done last year and thus compare my times. Well, I ended up 48 seconds slower than last year and was VERY disappointed until I saw that even Ian Mensher was about a minute slower than his time last year. The Cat 3 winner was 90 seconds slower than last year. So maybe I did do better given the circumstances.
Crit
Randy and I were hanging out for a while watching the other fields race. I also got to meet smack-talker-extraordinaire Michael Pruitt (aka PruDog). It was pretty chill watching the other racers and also watching Randy do his thing trying to hand a beer off to the KR Masters:
By the time my crit started it was raining and slippery. I made it a point to be near the front in order to avoid the inevitable crashes the first few laps. After a while 2 guys broke away and I was holding on to the chase group of about 8 people.
The rest of the crit consisted mostly of trying to hang onto the pack. I could hear Randy at corner 3 yelling "Sit in Evan" everytime, and with the way my chest felt I was content with doing so. When the final sprint came and I didn't have one and took 8th.
Road Race
Next up was the road race and I was getting hopeful that the rain would let up since it appeared like it would do so according to the weather radar. WRONG! It got worse while the radar showed no rain at all.
My pre-race strategy was to try to commit suicide and gap the field so much before the hills that I'd make it up by the time they did. This worked well until 1/5th of the way up the climb at which point I was caught and by the time I summited I was close to last. At this point I could see other people riding back down the hill just giving up. So I decided that maybe if I stuck it out I could sneak into the omnium points.
So I stuck it out. On the climb of lap 2 I got passed by the masters field, on lap 3 I got passed by the ladies field and barely held off Trish until the 4th lap when the 1/2s passed me. Talk about demoralizing! Adding to the excitement was that the corner at the bottom of the hill got so flooded that we all had to ride thru 2 inches of water.
On the final straightaway I called out another 3 for drafting off a 1/2 and then decisevely put him in his place in our dueling sprint for 20th or something. Unfortunately, 15 other masochists in the 3s stuck it out, so no omnium points for me in the road race.
Here is an open smack-talking message to all you climber twigs:
Haha, very nice job in the hillclimb you little rats! Good thing that is the only true hillclimber's race in the northwest for the whole season. I will crush all of you so hard in the crits that you will go crying home to your wife or mommy, request a downgrade and wonder why you even started racing in the first place!
And to show that I mean business I am taking this whole next week off the bike to recover my strength just in time to go kick some butt down at the Umpqua crit at the end of May.
After I wrote last week's post, I realized that I left out a funny story from the Eugene Roubaix. There was a side competition for the best euro-mullet. At least a month back I had gotten a haircut and it was admittedly quite bad and seemed really long in the back. But whatever, I just rolled with it. Fast forward to Eugene Roubaix and I'm chatting with the volunteer coordinator who asks me, "so have you entered the mullet competiton?" And I say "wow, this really looks like a mullet?" And then another lady racer chimes in "that's like asking a fat lady if she is pregnant!" Whatever tho, if there is a competition that I feel like I have a shot in, I'll enter it and thus I present my euro-mullet pose (I did not win the competition):
This week I had been feeling pretty good except for a nagging sore throat. I speculate it has something to do with my uncleanliness. I don't clean my water bottles enough or my apartment enough. In fact this week I told my landlord that I was moving out partly due to the fact that I wanted a fresh start at trying to be somewhat clean.
Friday I took the train up to Tacomaland, had a nice bike ride down Yakima to PLU and then slept in Karly's bed. No Karly was not in her bed, she was down in Ashland with Tacoma Bike's spring training camp.
Saturday I headed out to Ravensdale. I might as well had been racing for bullseye cycling team after last week's performance. Any and every break I tried was chased to good effect. So it came down to a field sprint. I was strategizing on when to sprint and decided to go just after the final crest. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't on anybody's wheel when I started going at the crest and the crest was about 400 meters from the finish line. I ended up 11th after giving a killer leadout for 1st and 2nd place. I was mad at myself for making these two mistakes, but knew I had to try to put a positive spin on it and just take the experience with me to the next race. So on the post-race call with my coach, I told him "I am the best leadout man ever!"
After this I showered and went down to Tacoma Bike where Tony fitted me with my aero bars. I got to see a lot of characters down there including Micah who I got to say "DRILL BABY! DRILL! Everyday all the time everywhere!" He was quite happy to be back up in the northwest.
Originally I had thought that I may just go back home, but then Scott wanted to hangout and Tony wanted to ride next morning. I decided to stay. I went over to Scott's and heard his Ravensdale story that went something like this (sorry Scott for stealing your thunder): "me and a new Tacoma Bike rider were in the 5s race and I was totally dicking around at the back of the pack. The new guy asked: what should we try to do? I told him: see that guy right there? He's going to win the race, just sit back here for a while. Then on the final lap, I saw a hole on the left and told him to go now! And he went and ended up getting 2nd while I got 5th". And then Scott had a good laugh after telling his story. We then hungout with Jenn's sister and talked about a bunch of Tacoma locals' lives were going.
I headed back to Karlys, slept and then woke up to ride with Tony. We did a great loop of Gig Harbor including the LWV course where I got 4th last year. It was fun to relive that race. I hopped on the train heading back to pdx and made it back in time to catch my first church service since March. The service was Mother's day themed of course and then a plea for more volunteers because apparently their membership has a problem of making too many babies. Volunteering to take care of a bunch of kids with a set time limit sounds fun to me, but I can't reliably do that. But I was able to catch up on my tithing, so at least I can help out in some way!
Next week is Wenatchee. Who wants to give me a ride there and back? I can offer lodging at my parents in exchange!
Oh man, this weekend was fun. But first, a recap on what has happened since I didn't have a weekly post last week.
Last Week:
It was supposed to be a rest week for me, but I'm not the best at resting and relaxing. I worked late on some nights and then over the weekend I went bike camping with a friend. While I took it quite easy on the bike camping trip I still put in a decent amount of miles for being a rest week. And on top of all that I didn't sleep enough. I kinda like the idea that I need to work on relaxing a bit. I think I could really get into that, maybe not go as far as putting cucumbers in my eyes and taking mud baths or something, but at least getting a consistent 9 hours of sleep.
This week:
PIR
I was supposed to get back into it this week firing it up. I did my first PIR (Portland International Raceways) of the year in the 1/2/3s. It is challenging for sure and will be really good for me. There were a lot of attacks and I figured out quite quickly that unlike the 4s and even 3s sometimes there is no way I can chase every one of these attacks. At the finish I found myself quite far back not able to do anything. Moreover I learned that at this level people have fitness, but the good ones also have brains.
Eugene Roubaix
Saturday was Eugene Roubaix - a road race with a 1.5 mile stretch of gravel. I got a ride down there with with Cliff and Bob. There were a lot of attacks in our race - more than usual for my field and I suspected it had something to do with the collegiate kids in the mix now. I was holding up quite well, but then got a flat tire on the 3rd lap. The wheel change was ok, but I couldn't catch up after that. I was at this point sort of trying to use this as a time trialing opportunity trying to get up to 180 bpm without racing which is hard for me to do.
By the time I got to the final straightaway, the field was just gone. I came up along a Cat 2 rider who also had flatted out. Just before we hit the gravel I offered "want to sprint for the finish?" He said, "sure, let's take parellel lines" [so we don't get in trouble for riding with another field or for whatever reason]. He hadn't been pushing himself as hard so he obviously had more in him, but I was getting up to 180bpm. After the gravel ended it was 200m to the finish and he was just checking to make sure I didn't sprint. When I gave it a final effort he completely took off. However, he then stopped to talk to some friends at the 2 meter line and I pipped him at the finish! BOOSH!
After this, Cliff found a ride home with some other people, Bob raced in the Cat 5s and I volunteered as a corner marshal in the afternoon. Basically, all I do is wave a stop sign and point in the direction where the riders should turn maybe about 20 times and then chill out and get to race for free, which saved me $30. I drove Cliff's car out to the corner of Crow and Petzold and went for the chill factor by blasting music out of the doors of Cliff's car. This was going all nice and well, but I thought, hmm maybe this isn't good for the car's battery. Maybe I should check if the car will still start. I turn the key and the car doesn't start. I accept the fact that I'm a moron and decide to radio in for help after the last field passes. I do so, but the car then starts right after this! Yes!
Vance Creek
Vance Creek is apparently the Washington State Road Race Championship of the year. Or as my local bike racing hero Jamie Stangeland would've said a while ago The Undisputed Championship of Nothing. I scored a ride out there with another Guinness teammate Joe (one of several Joe's on the Guinness team). It was a long race of about 77 miles with some hills, but not pure hillclimber hills. Since I was tired from my rest week, tired from Eugene Roubaix and slapped in the face for being dumb at PIR, I tried to race smarter and conserve energy. I tried only a few break attempts in the race and managed to save some energy on the hillclimbs. A break of 3 and then 2 riders was off the front by the final lap. I could see a lot of the teammates of these riders bunching up at the front of the pack, so decided it was time to get away while I could. There was another guy that was bridging up and I was joined by a strong Hammer kid guy as well. With 4k and the hills to go I was on the front and Hammer kid yells "let's drop these guys." I turn back and say "you ready?" and then attack off the front. Me and Hammer kid have left the other 3 off the back and take pulls until the final hill. This kid is probably 40 pounds lighter than me, so my goal at this point is to not explode and get swallowed up by the pack like the Friday at Walla Walla. The final hill wasn't too steep so I kept it in the big ring and mashed it up. I could see the pack coming up but from a safe distance - that is until Hoover started attacking. So I dug deep and gave it one last push for 2nd place. Fist pump!
And with that I've just finished eating my celebratory Pizza and Total Domination IPA (yeah that's right Osama). And I may even get to bed before 11pm. Signing off.
