Racing racing racing...

Oh man, I'm now in my third week of traveling up to Washington for various bike races.  The results are mixed.  I'm writing this section of this blog just after Stage 1 of the Capital Stage race.

Mutual of Enumclaw 

Well, I thought I'd do a little better than I did.  I drove up Saturday morning after getting very little amounts of sleep.  My time trial wasn't very good.  I got 42nd.  Meh.  I went to a dinner with my Seattle teammate Bart and had the works (scramble, hashbrowns and toast), but then was still hungry so I had some blueberry pancakes too.  Then I took a nap.

In the crit I hung on and finished with the pack at 29th place.  I then went back to the house of the gracious Rian and April Barta where I proceeded to sleep for 11 hours.  I didn't wear my compression tights which was a mistake cause my legs didn't feel good the next day.  I got dropped on the climb on lap 1, 2, 4 and 5.  Lap 3 I hung with the field.  I caught back on on laps 1, 2 and 4, but was on my own after lap 5.  The weather was bad but not miserable.  My shoe was falling apart with the sole tearing off from the rest of the shoe.  I still finished in 30th place out of 62 in that race and ended up 31st overall.

Why such low results after the previous weekends?  Canadians.  That's why.

Ski to Sea

Brent really twisted my arm into doing this by sending me a total of 2 emails trying to recruit me.  I was a bit wishy washy about it, but decided to go for it.  I took the Bolt Bus up and had a leisurely time in Kenmore/Seattle.  I went on an easy ride where I got stung by a bee for the first time ever on a bike ride.  I met up with GP and watched the Champions League Final which was a great game.

I was getting as prepped as possible for the race the night before and didn't socialize as much as the others.  Got some decent sleep and was off the next morning.  We didn't have the strongest legs prior to me, so I began as the 313th rider to start the road race course.  It took me wayyy too long to fasten my timing chip to my wrist.  Gotta remain stopped for that next time.  It was rainy.  My newly purchased TT helmet with a visor was fantastic for the conditions.  I was oblivious to the rain up on top except for the occasional loud drop.



That helped me maintain a very aero position throughout.  I passed so many people and only 1 person was able to hang on to my draft.  My goal was to get top 10 and under 90 minutes which I accomplished with a 5th place 1:28:50 time.  By the time I finished, our team was 99th so I must have passed 214 other racers.  I showed all those other guys what was up, but I somehow don't think they really cared.






Capital Stage Race

I woke up at 8:15am on Saturday at my Great Aunt's house in Olympia and went upstairs. MJ asked me when my race was and I was like "10:13am... oh crap, I better get going." I had Ian Mensher ahead of me for my 30 second guy and I didn't see him when I finished, so yeah. After all this I went to a fancy cute breakfast place and ordered my now usual two plates. There's something deceiving about these large plates small portions places as I suspect that somehow they pack the same amount of calories into the food. Anyways, I really need to take a nap now.

Righto, off to the crit and I managed to win a $50 prime!  Probably spent too much effort chasing down breaks and I ended up in the second finishing group and lost 9 seconds.  Still tho, way better than last year.  Some other things about the crit worth noting:  Trevor Spahr is hardcore for finishing the race with the field after racing 53 minutes after crashing hard just 7 minutes in.  David Richter gave us Oregon riders the burn of the century in his post-race winner interview as follows:

Erik (promoter):  "So David, there were a lot of people rooting for Stephen Bradford and someone bet me a dollar that he'd win."
David Richter:  "haha, yeah well I was going to wear my Oregon State Criterium Championship Jersey... but no yeah, this is a great race..."

Post by Catherine Leigh Cooper Photography.

In the road race I attempted to mix things up and not just wait for mile 65 and those three hills.  I got myself into a breakaway at mile 60 and tried fairly hard to stay away.  Unfortunately, it was just a two person breakaway and the KR army made sure we weren't out of their sight.  We got caught going up the final hill and it turned out to be just like last year.  Small gaps opened up.  Colin Gibson closed one up by doing a super-aero tuck.  Then a bunch of others closed the gap so it was about 30 of us for the finish.  Colby laid down an impressive move at about 700m to go and gapped everyone except Dan Harm and Ian Baldwin.  I was 15th on the day and 19th GC.  Maybe one of these days I'll get a podium in a Washington state p12 race.

Post by Catherine Leigh Cooper Photography.

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.

Racing Anonymous

Sorry to all my loyal followers for not having a blog post in a while.  I'm not angry at you, it's just that I've been racing and racing and racing some more.

A real brief recap:

Did Mutual of Enumclaw, the Canadians kicked my butt again and I liked it.
Did PIR in the pouring rain and tied my best ever finish place of 4th.  Ugh.
Did Ski to Sea in probably just as bad conditions.
Did PIR and made the break but got a crappy finish from that break.  Stupid PIR.

I will attempt to have a more exciting recap of each race weekend shortly.  I'm doing Capitol Stage Race this weekend and then I've got my mid-season week off the bike which I am really looking forward to!