Sequim
I have at times struggled logistically getting to races, but I nailed it for this race. I did all bike maintenance stuff the night before and packed everything before going to bed. And even before this, I had made breakfast for the weekend before leaving Portland. Then I got up and was driving by the time I had wanted to start driving. I got to the race 1 hour and 25 minutes early! I set up the bike and kitted up and even tried some relaxation and visualization exercise before the race with time to spare.
Then we started racing. I had had a plan to just watch things basically the first few laps and then try something lap 3. This strategy was going all fine and well until I tried a break on lap 3 and realized that I did not have enough sustained power output available. I was able to get clear fine, but staying away was a big problem. I got caught quickly. I also had a bit of a problem during the race in that my race food was clif bars which were way too clumpy to be effectively eaten and digested at the pace we were going.
On the final lap I found myself at the back of the pack after fumbling around trying to eat my 3rd clif bar. Not good. I was trying to move up a little bit and was really going to get up there after that final riser. Unfortunately, some people decided to crash themselves in front of me which I could not avoid getting caught up in based on my current position. I was able to slow down enough to slow-motion crash-speed, hit a few bodies with the front wheel, began a brief launch up in the air and then landed on who knows who with my neck. I got up, had to take off my helmet because it was now covering my face and then proceeded to assesses the damage. All body parts still intact and not even scraped up, nice. Spin the rear carbon wheel.. it's true! Spin the front carbon wheel, it's also true!!! YESS!!!! Best crash ever!
Although I didn't get a chance to contest the sprint I was relieved that there wasn't any pressure at this point so I happily pedaled my way in z2 and even did my own sprint from 200m. Then it was another logistical whirlwind - chugging chocolate almond milk, getting packed, driving to Oak Table, chugging some more chocolate almond milk, eating an entire apple pancake at Oak Table in about 15 minutes, speeding my way all the way to Winslow with 10 minutes to spare before the 2:55 ferry! This view never gets old:
Ate dinner with my good friend Randy over at Wild Ginger, drove back to Tacoma, watched "No Stings Attached" with my sister and her quirky housemate and getting to bed later than I should at about 11:15.
Mason Lake
If you were told that there was this 60 mile bike race around this lake called Mason Lake where you get about 3 seconds of a nice view of it per lap, where 98% of the time it is cold, rainy, hailing, there are about 6 total spectators cheering you on, no prizes for anybody, no beer at the end, no food, it costs $30, and the sprint is notorious for being a crashfest, what kind of moron would want to do that? Well bike racers, that's who! This classic event is where the Cat 5s come to prove that they are the next Lance Armstrong - shitty conditions be damned - and the rest of us to get our racing on. And this year the race did not disappoint.
It started out cold and somewhat windy. Only about 50 people from all afternoon fields showed up, so we all got jumbled into one large group, cat 12s, 3s, masters and a few women too. It started out with attack after attack until finally 7 people got away for good on the 2nd lap of 5. I was feeling cooked and tried at one point to bridge up to the 7 and ended up getting about 30 meters closer before I became so tired that I drifted to the back. At this point, I was just trying to get my workout on. I missed a chase break on lap 4 and by then there was snow on the ground. When the final sprint for 15th place came around, I was done, stuck behind a wheel that was drifting back hard and ended up thank-God-we're-done pedaling through the finish.
Above is a picture summarizing Mason Lake. There is some snow on the windshield wipers, yet it is sunny at the moment. Got my spare wheels, got out of my cold and wet clothes, sped my way back to Tacoma, got 2 hot-n-ready pizzas, ate 2 slices, showered, ate another slice, got driven to the train station, barely finished assembling my bike for the train as it rolled up, and then ate 7 more slices of pizza on the train.
Post-weekend thoughts
I am tired. So tired. I did not have the resources available to get into the breaks this weekend. However, I view this weekend as quite positive, perhaps also due to the fact that I'm beginning to read this book Karly gave me for Christmas:
And after reading this book, I'm already putting some of the strategies to use. An interesting passage was that it said that ultra-competitive people expect success so much that they'll rate there successful achievements with lower rates of satisfaction than otherwise happy people rate some of their failures. So you could say I've had some good opportunities to reframe things this week for the good. And honestly a lot of good did happen. I was quite happy to have raced finally.
Racing is different in so many ways from just riding around. To put things in perspective, I have spent more time in HR Z4 this week than the prevous 4 weeks combined and more time in z5 these past two days than my entire training season-to-date. Ok, so in Lehman terms this week my heart was beating at a rate between 160 beats per minute and 174 beats per minute (Z4) for 3 hours and 6 minutes - 2:10 in just these past two races. Even though I didn't get a shot at winning, I realized that just by racing I was pushing myself harder than I ever had on all these solo rides. This was a huge eye-opener to me in that competition seems to drive people to achieve better results than just people working without such conflict. Just look at the HR Zone profile from Mason Lake (z1 - z5 left to right), I just can't get this kind of a workout by myself:
Ok, rest week coming up, need to sleep.
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