Weekend of racing accomplished

Warning! This post will may be TL;DR for some people so here is a really quick summary:

seized pedal
Train
lost bag, with all my bike gear
Good party, not enough sleep
Early drive to Sequim
Fast race with wide shoulders
some breaks, but field sprint at end
held on for 8th
lunch in Sequim
drive home
Land Before Time
Too early, DST kicked my ass
too early to race
rainy
less intense
Attacked on lap 4, got away 2nd attack, TT all the way to 400m and then got enveloped by field
Lunch with Scott and Andrew
train home

Now for the details. I had been planning this weekend for a while. There were two races on WSBA's calendar (classic spring races of Sequim and Mason Lake) and only 1 race in Oregon. Seemd like a great opportunity to head up to Tacoma to spend some quality time with my sister and Tacoma friends while getting in some racing. On Thursday I had one of those 'glad that happened now and not in the race' mechanicals. My left pedal suddely seized itself after a grueling easy ride around Southeast Portland.

On Friday, I got on an earlier train that got into Tacoma at about 3pm at which point I proceeded directly to Tacoma Bike to get my pedal fixed. Turns out I had ridden this pedal to death and that since I hadn't been regularly greasing the pedal I had screwed myself over. Oh and that new chain and brake pads I had put on back in January were already shot. So turns out I had to buy some new speedplay pedals. Ouch.

At this point, Tony asked me whether my cleats were good or not since I'd be getting new cleats with the pedals. I said "yeah I think so, say, where's my duffle bag that has my biking shoes? Oops, I left it on the train!" I began calling Amtrak, but their line was completely busy and their website even said it was probably a better idea to go to the train station. So I did that on the sweet Civia that Mike B graciously loaned me while my bike was being fixed. I got down to the train station and a lady there made some phone calls, was able to find it and have it sent back down to Tacoma on the next train. Nice.

At this point, my sister Tracy Tracey and my sister had gotten down to Tacoma Bike so we all eventually carpooled over to the train station to pick up my bike bag I had forgotten. The drive was quite exciting as Tracy Tracey had some interesting news to share. We got to the house at which point I still had to go on my bike ride for the day. I got all kitted up and headed out for 1.5 hours. I was making some good headway and was definitely getting farther on the usual route than I was when I began training this year.

I got back to the house and a party for the newest housemate was already going on. I changed into my Irish theme and began to eat. The party was fun as I saw a bunch of Tacoma peeps. Most notably for me was Dean who referred me to my coach. When he saw me he was like "wow, you have really leaned up." That made me feel good. For a party it was good, but I got to sleep at maybe 11:30pm which was not so good for my bike racing.

The next day we got up at 5:45am to head out to Sequim. It was a bit of drive through a lot of rain. And then we hit the rainshadow of Sequim. The line to register was quite long and the I was busy changing and putting together all my bike stuff that I was finally ready to go once the race started. There were some good attacks and all that, but nothing stuck. It came down to a field sprint and I was fighting hard to get and stay up there. Randy made an attack on the final lap, but didn't realize we still had 4 miles to go or so, so he got swallowed up. We rounded the final corner and I held on for 8th place. I was satisfied with the result.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

After this, Landon, Randy, my sister and I went out to a restaurant that Tracy Tracey recommended and we gorged ourselves with food. However, I still got hungry on the ride home. Once home, Karly and I just chilled, ate some stir-fry and watched Land Before Time and went to bed at 9. We got up at 6 which equated to only 8 hours of sleep due to daylight savings time. Zzzzzzz.

I got up, but really wanted to sleep more. My sister was hopeful about riding around Mason Lake instead of being bored standing around while I raced, so she brought her bike too. We got there super early at 7:45am. I thought the race was going to start at 9am, but no, it was at 9:30. It was also raining out there. I have been used to riding in the rain, but with fenders my nice rain jacket and not behind a bunch of dudes flying at 24mph. So it was slightly unpleasant. Also, the facemask I was wearing was starting to become a problem. As it was raining and then being splashed with a constant stream of water from whoever's wheel I was on, the facemask became so wet that at one point I slurped up a big splash of water from it. At that point I tried to keep it below my chin.

Photo courtesy of Karly Siroky

The race was much less intense than yesterdays and about half as many people in the field. Nobody was really attacking all that much which was kinda nice I guess. Eventually I felt like I had to get something started so I tried attacking the 4th lap. I made a move on a hill on the front stretch which didn't really stick. But then I made another daring move on some of the rollers on the backstretch and really got away from the field. I was really time trialing hard and at times didn't even see the peleton behind me. The facemask was now covering half of my left eyeball and I was feeling the meter on my gas tank decrease after each little hill. After a while I was starting to fade on some of the hills closer to the finish and finally the field caught me with 400 meters to go. I didn't have sprint speed or power in my legs so I had to give up and finish just off the back. I just did't have enough to stay away and I was disappointed in that. However, Randy did finish 2nd which was awesome.

Whatever. After this, sister and I headed back to Tacoma where she made some fantastic grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup. I had invited over Scott and Andrew who didn't know each other or even realize that they lived on the same street 5 blocks away from each other. This was quite fun. Then sister and I made our way to the train that I caught in my own personal style: just after I had finished my bicycle hauling contraption the train started to arrive. On the train I chatted with my coach and he applauded me on my effort at Mason Lake, and that made me feel a little better, but I want to WIN.

This next week I'm gonna hit it hard again and will do either Sequim again, or a crit down in Salem. On the horizon I'm really looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic, a 3 day stage race out in the Dalles April 1-3. There will be a road race, a time trial, a crit and then another road race. I'm really lookin forward to that.

DJStroky is back, watch out you lousy motorists!

So, here's an update.

Last weekend I was still feeling sick. Or was I? Whatever it was I felt a bit sinused up but really demotivated. I didn't feel like cranking the pedals around and didn't race over the weekend. Earlier in the week I went to see a doc who diagnosed me with a sinus infection and hustled me some antibiotics.

I took 'dem antibiotics and have been trying some other stuff too. Via a google search, I found this website www.earthclinic.com which says you should take Apple Cider Vinegar for every single ailment know to mankind. I tried it sporadically, but it tastes very bad. My coach is all about the garlic. He said I should work up to eating a bulb a day when I'm sick. I also tried this Emergen-C powder which has like 800% daily value Vitamin C and a bunch of Calcium and Vitamin D. Over the weekend I was doing ok in combating all this. Was drinking lots of water, taking the Emergen-C with a splash of ACV twice a day, eating maybe 1/2 bulb of garlic over the day and popping the pills.

It has finally seemed to work. Yesterday I had a good ride out to Sauvie Island and back and didn't cough up a storm. And today I did a bunch of hill intervals and felt like I did a bunch of hill intervals but not worse than that. However, I finally knew that I was back in it when my alleycatting blood shot through me. I was riding east on Burnside and have found that if I maintain a good pace, I can hit all green lights all the way from I-405 to the Burnside bridge. I was doing just so weaving in and out of traffic. I got down to Chinatown and there was some event with a bunch of people going on on the right.

Now in Portland, drivers almost always know how to deal with bicyclists - even at night. This means that if a bicyclist is on the right and a driver wants to turn right, the driver will wait - stopping in the road for the bicyclist to pass - it's pretty awesome. However, for whatever reason, this n00b normal anywhere except in Portland driver was clearly not paying attention to my presence to their right and was certainly not aware of my bold quest to hit all the green lights on Burnside. NO NO, that hoppin party with all the people on the right was far more important. So much so that they made a right turn in front of me slowly scouting out how awesome the hoppin party was and if there happened to be a parking spot exactly in front of the hoppin party. Well, my alleycatting blood shot up. I sprinted out in front of the car - while flipping them off (I'm not sure if I did it right since it was a balancing act) - and got back on the green wave and made it to the Burnside bridge with all greens! BOOSH!

At that point, I had one of those "I probably shouldn't have done that" moments. Anonymous driver, if you are reading this, I am sorry. But anyways, I realized that I'm back in the game and am looking forward to getting back on my training plan and race schedule.

This weekend I'm planning on going up to Tacoma to race with the Tacoma Bike team at Sequim and Mason Lake. Really looking forward to this.

A week of cancellations

Well, back in my post about all the races I wanted to do this year, I mentioned that there were 2 this weekend. And then midweek I said I was sick. Well, turns out that I was still pretty much sick through Friday. However, both bike races were canceled due to freezing cold ice patches and the other due to snow. So turns out that I didn't miss any races and I didn't have to ride in the snow or freezing cold.

I got back on the bike Saturday and Sunday. My coach told me to take it easy, but I felt demotivated while riding for the first time in 3 days! And I still have a little bit of a cough. I'm really hoping I'll be good enough to train this week since I've got some long and intense intervals scheduled.

Also, I want to give a shoutout and congrats to my teammate Randy Resch who upgraded himself to Cat 4 before the season even started in Washington by going to a Cycle U class. It's going to be a great showing of Tacoma Bike with him, Landon and I at Sequim and Mason Lake the 2nd weekend of March.

Mid week update

Thought I'd give a mid week update here and a summary of some interesting rides I've done. Right now, I'm sick with I don't know what and it is sucking the life out of me. I didn't go into work and played Open TTD most of today. Something hit me yesterday and I haven't been able to fight it off yet. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be all right.

With that I'll reminisce about some cool rides I've done lately. With many of my rides, they are often into areas and roads where I've never been before.

A Long Ride

Two Saturdays ago I had a long ride scheduled for me: 4.5 hours - the longest yet this season. Here is a link to the data from that ride so you can follow along. I decided to go exploring southwest of Beaverton and climb over Bald Mountain and then do an interval near Newberg/Yamhill. I started climbing up Holly Hill rd since on the map it looked more interesting and curvy than going straight up Bald Mountain road. The road was very low traffic which was nice, but then suddenly at maybe 2/3rds up the climb, I see a sign that says "Pavement Ends".

I think "aw crap, I'll just trudge through it, it's probably not that far to the top." It was gravel and slightly muddy gravel, but the bike was handling it very well considering I was riding my Kysrium Elites with Michelin 23c tires. It was maybe 3 miles of gravel, very steep at times until I finally got to Bald Mountain road which was paved.

After this, I bombed down to the Newberg area down some exciting twists and turns. At the bottom I chilled out a bit and started a 1 hr interval in z3 and was really flying towards the end where I had the wind on my back. At the end of this, I was going north on Dopp rd, but it too turned into gravel (at about mile 45). I had had enough gravel already this ride, so I turned around and headed back on a road I knew was paved.

After this I pretty much zoned out in a long journey back to civilization (aka the closest MAX station so I could take the train home). I ran out of food completely at 4hrs. I had 2 water bottles with HEED and 3 CLIF Bars. I stopped by a grocery store to pick up some Gatorade and then headed to the MAX station. Done and done.

Trail Ride in the Dark

Last week on Wednesday I decided to start my ride from the office. Here's the data. Today was an easy day for me, so I usually take this time to go explore some areas of Portland since I don't have to worry about keeping speed. Also, going on trails at night is also good since there isn't much traffic. This combination of riding slow and at night enables me to go on trails more often since I don't have to worry about nailing some kid at 20mph or being that creepy bicyclist who doesn't ring his bell or yell on your left when passing an attractive and vulnerable female just trying to go for a run while not being bothered by the world.

Anyways, I decided to go explore this trail or series of paths from Beaverton along this creek towards Tigard. I got lost or rather didn't know where the next turn was numerous times on this ride so I was checking my handy dandy phone to see where I was and where the trail began again - it wasn't obvious -- especially in the dark. The trail was actually quite long and fun when I got to it. It went through a bunch of wetlands. At one point the trail was flooded about a foot deep, but I decided to go through it since going around would've entailed crossing a delightful 5 lane arterial. I made my way all the way to Tigard and then to Lake Oswego where I picked up the Terwilliger Trail and then Blvd. All in all a pretty fun ride.

Mt Tabor

And finally, this past Sunday, I rode up Mount Tabor for the first time. Like a lot of things in Portland, it is just so cool how special places like this mountain are sort of randomly located in an otherwise flat city and so close together. Portland's terrain and how it was all built upon makes me all happy inside. I had to use someone else's picture for this since my camera had some problems.

7th in Cherry Pie Cat 4

This was a great race to start the season off with.  It was gorgeous sunny out in the Willamette Valley between Corvalis and Salem.  My race started at 12:50 so it wasn't freezing which was great.  The race was somewhere around 60 miles, so no attacks every stuck and I didn't ever attempt any myself.  The finish had two uphills.  I was able to squeeze through traffic a bit, but started too far back.  In the end it was 7th which I'll settle for for the first race.  Next weekend should be good as well with two races both with slight climbs to the finish.

Racing! My 2011 tentative schedule

Both the WSBA and OBRA schedules have been up for a while, so I've made a little schedule of what races I'd like to do. Here it goes:

February:

19: Cherry Pie
26: Sublime Sublimity
27: Banana Belt I

March:

6: Banana Belt II
12: Sequim I
13: Mason Lake II
19: Willamette Crit or Sequim II
26: Piece of Cake or IVRR

April:

1-3: Cherry Blossom Cycling Classic
9: Kings Valley Road Race
10: Vance Creek
15-17: Tour of Walla Walla
23-24: No OBRA or WSBA RRs or Crits :( Maybe I'll find some alleycat to do. There are 2 races this weekend in the Sacramento area.
30: Longbranch

May:

1: Olympic View
7: Ravensdale
14-15: Wenatchee Omnium
21-22: Mutual of Enumclaw or Take Weekend off
28-29: Umpqua Crit and RR

June:

3-5: Mt. Hood Cycling Classic
10-12: Capitol Stage Race
17-19: Elkhorn Stage Race
25: Franz Criterium
26: Fairview Circuit Race

July:

2: Swan Island Criterium
9-10: High Desert Omnium
16: Fremont Crit or Ironclad Crit
17: Brad Lewis Crit
22-24: Cascade Cycling Classic
30: Tacoma Twilight Criterium or Gresham Crit
31: Renton Crit or Vancouver Crit

August:

6: Longview Crit
7: Albany Crit
13: LWV: Gig Harbor
20: Tigard Crit
21: Ronde Ohop
27-28: Eugene Celebration

September:

18: Mt. Ashland Hillclimb - rather late in the season with no other races in between (in WA or OR). Not sure if I'll do this.

2,000 miles and counting

This past week it seems that I have surpassed 2,000 miles of logged bicycle rides since I formally began in September. That seemed like a statistic worth sharing. Now I really need to go to bed, this week is going to be intense.