I have actually been racing

This whole having lots of teammates thing is a big adjustment for me let me tell ya.  I have gone from receiving maybe two emails a week related to my team racing to perhaps an average of 5 per day.  I've gone from having no teammates racing with me at most races to racing with 9 or more other teammates at some races.

It's a little different.  People are a little different and I don't think I'm really known to have lots of charisma and bonding, yet I do have a lot of passion for racing and sometimes, perhaps often times find myself not having the same approach to training and racing as other people do.  However, I really hope to continue and experience a year on a big team to really have a good feel for what that is like.  And also to develop my social skills so that perhaps I become slightly more charismatic and able to get along with more people than not.  

For whatever reason, competition brings out a whole different side of me which is quite different from my otherwise quiet demeanor in most situations.  And I think that dichotomy throws off - perhaps puts off - some or perhaps a lot of people.  I've been writing on this blog for 4 years now, but I've been holding my tongue or rather not publishing a few critiquing blog posts and flustered emails.  I know I've been inspired by one of my favorite bike racing bloggers, PruDog who I would say is not one to hold back on his blog posts.  There's something about communicating on the internet that just leads to writing things you may never say in person to someone (or maybe I don't know him well enough).

So without further ado, race reports:

The Dirty #1

Oddly enough, I was feeling really good for this race.  Last year I was getting dropped in my first few races.  When all was said and done, I was not the most happiest joyful person in the world to learn that with 33% of the field being our team, our team's best result was 8th.  The next day I sent a very detailed email explaining what went wrong and what could be improved.  Some didn't like it, some did, most didn't, I really don't know, but I now am encouraged to not send emails like that.

Sequim/Mason Lake #1

Sequim's rain shadow just couldn't hold it for those last 2 laps.  HSP kicked everyone's butt.  They had also had at least 10 teammates, but got 1st, 2nd, 5th and 8th.  Slightly better results, but with all due respect former pro's and very motivated racers.  I didn't do well in the field sprint because I still don't have the field sprinting technique down.

Mason Lake was all right and I found myself sitting in more often than usual.  I'm still deciding whether that is a good or bad thing.  I'm leaning towards bad, I think PruDog would agree.  It came to a field sprint again and again I didn't do well.

Oh, an important thing to note - while Brant and I were up in Washington getting our asses handed to us by HSP, the rest of our Oregon contingent pulled out the W in the 123 race at the Dirty #2.  Guess they showed me who knew something about bike racing, or were they proving something after receiving that very detailed email?  One thing is for sure, Dean attacked a lot.

Sequim/Mason Lake #2

My girlfriend Laurel came up with me which was awfully nice of her.  I felt like I had a little bit of a governor on my upper end fitness, but I hung in there.  My crash avoidance skills were pretty good as 2 crashes happened right in front of me.  The first crash was on the 3rd lap and I was able to avoid that and catch on easily.  The 2nd crash was at 400 to go and somehow I ended up standing upright without a scratch on the new bike in the middle of maybe a dozen other riders on the ground.  I had to step over at least 3 people to get out of that.

Over at Mason Lake, I was prepared for the worst as the radar looked like about 3/4 of an inch of rain was about to dump on us as we started (it didn't).  I wore my rain jacket as my jersey which Bedford astutely noted for it's excellent parachute-like quality with my race numbers.  The amount of pros at the race had me sort of starstruck (I get giddy inside when Morgan Schmitt remembers my name).

My move of the race was at the end of lap 1 when I figured I might as well get this party started by doing a break and waiting for the inevitable pro bridging up to me.  Sure enough Steve Fisher came along with a HSP rider in tow, but then we were caught just before the first hill after corner 1.  I got dropped, but I caught back on.  I got dropped numerous other times that following lap and then I got dropped for good on lap 3.  I made it my goal to complete 5 laps without getting lapped by the Cat 3 breakaway group.

I'm still running through all the factors that caused this embarrassing situation.  I think it had less to do with the parachute-like outfit and my top candidates are not getting my new bike fit after it being built, not having my carbon wheels, having a spoke about to fall out of the front wheel I did have, too many blueberries for dinner the previous evening, and a sleep debt of approximately 1,000 hours over these past 4 years of racing.  But I'm just writing it off as a bad day like I had last year at Heiser Farms where I got lapped.  At Mason Lake I didn't get lapped by about 7 minutes when Rathe came by and did a victory salute consisting of making his race number as visible as possible from under his rain jacket.

done, publish, try to sleep, bye.

Finally some rest

Finally some rest!  Sheesh, that was 4 weekends of racing in a row.  Time for a recap.

Mutual of Enumclaw

Logistics

Rented a zipcar and headed up Friday night.  Was hosted by the Barta's!  I knew Rian back from my Tacoma Bike days and he graciously let me crash in his guest bedroom in Puyallup.  His wife cooked up some delicious rice and chicken for dinner and the kids behaved very well.  Thanks again Barta family!

I also got to see the other lone Guinness Cycling Team rider that ever does stage races in the Northwest: Todd Gallaher.  We had lunch at the best Thai restaurant in Enumclaw.  He gave some inspiring words of wisdom as always.  Here is a gem of his regarding the Canadians:

Time Trial

Well, I still haven't mastered the time trial, but keep improving.  My coach wanted me to break 13, but I ended up at 13:30 which was good enough for 25th/82.  It was also a bit faster than last year's time of 14:32.  Next year I guess I'll hit 12:30.

Crit

That had to have been the fastest crit I have ever done.  Right away I was nearly slipping down and sprinting out of every single corner just to keep up.  Especially after all the crashes.

Ultimately, I got pulled with about 18 minutes left.  That kinda sucked, but man it was a fast frickin race.  And I've got numbers to back up my claim!  That there is an average speed of 29.5 mph for an 8 corner crit.  Ridiculous.

After the race, I found out why I was nearly slipping out of each turn.  Time for some new tires - first time I've had to replace tubies due to wear.

Road Race

Strategy: hold on for as long as possible.  And I did so by making sure I was very close to the front before each climb.  The last three times up the climb I got dropped, but since I was sinking through the field it wasn't so bad and I managed to catch up each time.  On the 2nd to last lap I actually attempted a breakaway/bridge attempt on the road right before the climb.  As I was off the front I was kind of telling myself: "you're going to regret this".  And I sure did as they caught me right at the base of the climb.  That was about it really for me in this race.  The Canadians really showed us who was boss.

A big thanks to Amara at Wheels in Focus for all of the pictures!

PIR

As you may have noticed in all the Enumclaw pics, it didn't rain at any of the stages.  Therefore, when it was the first legitimate downpour of the year at PIR I thought I had better put in my crappy weather racing time.  There might have been 20 total 1/2/3 riders there.  My strategy was attack until there were so few people left that I'd have a good chance of getting top 5 if not a solo win.  Unfortunately it came down to 7 or so of us on the final lap.  Beardsley won as always, followed by Bedford and I shoulda gotten 3rd, but wasn't smart enough of a sprinter so I tied my all-time best result at PIR of 4th.  Yay?

Ski to Sea

Friday I took the Bolt Bus up to Seattle.  First time in a while taking a bus and it sure has its plusses of being able to take my TT bike (no disassembly required), 2 more wheels and my big red suitcase nonstop to Seattle all for about $25.  It doesn't beat the nice legroom and ability to walk around on Amtrak Cascades, but that isn't really worth $59 to me.

I have done Ski to Sea perhaps 3 times before, but I always used to do the XC Ski leg on a team organized by my frat bro's high school friend David Couvrette.  I stayed up at David Couvrette's place on Friday night and did an awesome TT ride from Kenmore to Golden Gardens to my sister's place and then outrunning a rain cloud down Lake City Way in the bus lane back to Kenmore.  Was great to be back in Seattle.

But we all headed north the next day.  Typically the Couvrettes put together a mix of very competitive athletes and some people of the kind who just came back from a 10 month trip to Asia and Africa with very little exercise and haven't skied in like years, but are going to do the XC Ski leg.  This year I was one of the big time hitters on the team and I was going to pre-ride the whole 42 mile course while our XC skier taught himself how to skate ski that day (chuckle chuckle chuckle).

The pre-ride was rainy, but I felt good about the course if not slightly sketched out by taking all those downhill corners at 40 mph without pedaling in the rain.  The weather forecast was somewhat optimistic for less rain the next day...  not!!

I had a brain malfunction and decided that I should not try to find some place dry to hangout since I had to leave my stuff for our runner to pickup at a certain spot.  I warmed up in my wool dress coat and fleece jacket and skinsuit.  By the time I was done warming up I was completely wet before the race even started.  Our runner came in and then I began passing every single rider on the road ahead of me.  It was so frickin cold at elevation, but it became somewhat tolerable as I descended.  I was really hoping to find someone to pace off of, but I was passing everyone very fast, I even passed a few pacelines.  I got right around the time I wanted of 1:30, but compared to all the other racer names I have heard of I was kind of at the bottom of that list.  Oh well, I'll take it.

PIR

A break got away from the big group and I was in it, but I didn't body check some Wooly Mammoth rider when he took Kyle Medlin's wheel from me, so I totally botched the sprint and ended up 10th overall.

Capitol Stage Race

Logistics

I was not feeling in the best mood going into this weekend.  I was mentally tired - both from a frustrating work project and racing again.  And then the night before I was going to glue the tire, but I didn't have the right valve extender.  Then the previous Zipcar user didn't return the Zipcar so I had to go get another one somewhere else.  And I had to do my bike workouts too which I didn't do very well I think.  I finally headed out at 9pm.

Luckily I had arranged to stay at my great aunt's place in Olympia which had an excellent guest bedroom.

TT 5k Sprint

I got in a pretty good warmup and felt good about my ride.  Comparing to 2011 when I last did the race I improved from 8:00 to 7:15.  Yeah, pretty good.  My Mom and Dad came over to watch me race, so of course, my Dad took tons of pictures:


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Crit

The crit was pretty close to a disaster for me.  Something was very wrong with my rear wheel.  It felt like it was rubbing on the brakes, but it totally wasn't.  I think something is wrong with the bearings.  I got pulled only 25 minutes in.

Road Race

In the morning, I knew I wasn't feeling very mentally well, so I tried to do something about it.  Fortunately for me, one of my most favorite TV shows SpongeBob SquarePants was playing on a channel that was doing "SpongeBob's best wins" showing all winning-themed SpongeBob shows.  That helped me put this whole bike racing thing in perspective and sent me off in a good mood to the race.

I had to be very careful to discipline myself to not do any stupid stuff since the 90 mile race doesn't really start until mile 65 when there are 3 decent sized hills that the peleton goes crazy on.  The rest is flat - basically.  A big break that I guess didn't have any HB guys in it got away at mile 9.  Then HB sat on the front keeping the pace good all the way until mile 65 just as expected. 

I hung on on the first two hillclimbs then attempted a few breakaways, but then I'm not quite sure what his tactics were, but Steve Fisher was always going on solo rampages so no solid break formed.  On the last hillclimb Max 'Missle' O'Neal went KOM hunting and got a good gap.  Colin Gibson made a good effort to bridge up and then I did as well with about 3 miles to go but then the field was led back up by HPC. 

For whatever reason I was doing ok with maneuvering thru the cluster of the field sprint and managed to get 13th out of 27ish in the field sprint which I think is fairly decent for me.

Rest Week!

Yep, a whole week off the bike!  I'm currently mulling over whether to do Mt Hood especially now that it has been announced that it's the last one ever... but $175 entry fee, I dunno.