Tour of the Valley

The Tour of the Valley is now complete. I had a great time spending some quality racing time with my buds Isaiah, M@ Records, Josh Halvax and Chester (Andys). Great test of fitness and good tuneup for crit champs coming up next Sunday.

I left Athens Thursday evening after work. We met up at a hotel in Kent, which was about 30 minutes from the first stage. The first stage was a 5.6 mile time trial in the morning. We rolled out in the morning and arrived at Mastropietro Winery around 7:30. We all got registered and signed in for the stage. I started at 9:11 so I had plenty of time to get ready.

The TT was fairly flat. I figured I could hold 300w for the course which I estimated would take no more than 15 minutes. However that did not go to plan. I simply could not put out the power and only managed to put out 255w. Poo since I did not even put out my threshold and I was pegged at 180bpm. My time was 13 minutes and something and was good enough for 3rd or 4th to last.

Stage 2:

Stage 2 was a nice crit in Canfield. Pretty straight forward crit with a 180 right before the start finish. You basically had to be 2nd or 3rd wheel coming out of the 180 in order to win. My crit was 60 minutes and the first 30, I had no legs. I was in the danger zone of tail gunning and people were opening gaps as they were coming off. I had to close those gaps and was then gassed and couldn't move up. Half way through I got a second wind and was able to move up near the middle and later finished mid pack.

Stage 3:

An epic road race consisting of 33 miles of nasty rollers and two big hills. I think this course should be next year's state road race. Andys rated this course second hardest next to the Lake Hope course. Anyway, I tried to stay active and sat up front in the begining of the race. I ended up taking some turns up front which wasn't my plan and hurt me later on. On the first big climb a rider two up dropped his chain. This in turn caused the rider in front of me to crash. I pretty much came to a complete stop. I went from the front and then out the back. I had to dig real deep to catch back on. A few miles later we hit the next big climb. Not as steep as the first one but a lot longer at 3K. I was near the front so I figured I'll just keep my own tempo and drift back. Pretty soon many passed me and when I looked back, there was only a handful of people behind me. At the top a few of us formed a group and tried to chase back on. The main group was in sight across the rollers but soon disappeared. I was completely gassed at this point and got dropped out of my chase group. I decided to call it a day and save it for sunday. Another group caught up to me and we worked together to just get back to the finish.

Stage 4:

A nice flat crit, love these. My goal of the day was to stay up front and finish out strong. The course was in downtown Youngstown. The course was really nice but the pavement was horrible. Many pot holes around man hole covers and many places had ripples in the pavement. The course really beat you up. For the first 3/4 of the race, I did my job and stayed up at the front of the race. It was a lot easier than tail gunning like a normally do. However later on, my left hop started to act up and it soon became painful to pedal hard. I started to drift back into the pack. 2 to go I made my move and regained most of the positions I had lost and then finally on the last lap I was able to finish in the top 20. Coming into the last turn, a guy that was in the break had crashed and many people had to slow down to avoid the guy laid out in the middle of the road. I definintely lost a few positions because of that.

Overall, I felt good and it was good to know I have the fitness to be competitive. An easy week of training and I should be ready to tear it up at State Crit champs on Sunday.

Miles: 532

YTD: 4799

Training update

Well after I got smashed at Hyde Park and Grandview, I just kept on riding.

Monday did about 2 hours tempo, sitting behind John on his TT bike. There is no draft behind him and makes for good training.

Tuesday we did out TT race/practice. Only a few showed up but was a good time. I had a piss poor time but should be expected with dead legs. After a few minutes of rest, I went out and did another 20 minutes flat out. 30 minutes, rest, 20 minutes.

Wednesday was worlds. Plan was to just sit in but we got going pretty quick and found myself in the rotation. I got dropped on a hill coming back in, but it was expected since I was maxed out 5 minutes prior to hitting the hill. I looked down and saw 180 bpm and the attack went. Legs had no response. After that, I regrouped with two others who got dropped and tried to work with them for a while. However one guy was completely cooked and the other wasn't completely useless but wasn't going fast enough to gain time. So I took off and did a 25 minute time trial to the end.

Thursday I took off but didn't really help much.

Friday Zach came over from Chi-town so we went out on a ride to his Grandparent's house. He rode up to his grandparent's farm and rode a little bit more, while John and I had to ride back into Athens. It was one of those rides where I felt horrible in the beginning, then an hour later I started to feel like the legs were going to come around, then the legs start to feel horrible again. Ended up with around 5 hours and 80 miles. I haven't done that kind of distance in a while, so it was good in the end. The Tour of the Valley Road race is 66, so it'll be good for that.

Saturday I rode with my brother. We did a 30 mile loop which we normally do for worlds. Lots of rollers, two moderate climbs and chip and seal all the way so you can never really feel good on it, a real hard man's course. But going slow its not too bad, just your typical Athens ride. But anyway, my reletively untrained brother was kicking my ass. I was struggling to ride, meaning my legs were super tired. My IF was around .6, but it certainly felt a lot harder than that. Later my brother told me it was too easy!

Sunday I did nothing. Felt good but I was also pretty bored.

Today I will probably take another day off to rest the legs. I am doing Tour of the Valley this weekend so I want to have good legs for that. 6 mile ITT, 60 min crit, 66 mile road race and a final 60 min crit. Those hour efforts will be great training for cross season. I'll ride tueday and wednesday, drive up Thursday and its racing Friday-Sunday!

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Hyde Park + Grandview

A big weekend of suck! I DNFed both days. A quick look at the data says that my normalized power was 25-30 watts above my Threshold! I couldn't hold that too long.

I guess I need to do some work.

I've got three more weeks of racing then I'm quitting and gearing up for cross season.

Miles: 391
YTD: 4267

State Road Race

Well the State Road race didn't go that well. The shortened course equaled more time up the hill with less time to recover. I lasted 4 laps.

Miles 290
YTD: 3876

Tour of Ohio

This past week, I was doing neutral support for all the boys competing in Tour of Ohio. The promoter, Tym, called me up early in the year to see if I wanted to do the support. I had originally planned on racing it myself, but the money offer was too good to pass up.

I really lucked out during the whole race. I had to do minimal wheel changes. Wheel changes are especially hard doing it yourself. Usually I would not be driving and sitting in the back seat and pop out to do a change. But this week, I had to pull off, grab a wheel, make sure the car was out of gear (I stalled it once), look back to make sure my door doesn't get ripped off, then finally change the wheel.

Lots of driving! With 4 road stages, I spent most of the days sitting behind the wheel. Transfers to stages were not too bad except for the last day up near Toledo. I spent approximately 25 hours driving and racked up 1040 miles in 6 days!

I did manage to get out and ride during the week. I was also able to do half days at work. It was a good pay day at week's end.

Hyde Park and Grandview is the weekend so doing some training early this week and resting up for the weekend!

Gambier Crit

I traveled up to Gambier today with John to do Tym's ABR State Crit.

A simple 4 turn crit, one side going down a hill, and the other side going up. I thought it was going to be pancake flat the hill wasn't as bad as it looked.

John went first in the Master's race and looked pretty comfortable the whole race. He pulled off a nice W!

I followed soon after. We had a piss-poor field of only 5 guys. Might as well make the most of it though. The other 4 guys were not so motivated to go hard so I hit a nice hard tempo going up the hill and often sprinting up at the top to the start finish. I guess our race was so boring, Don pulled out a $5 and put up a prime. The other guys were saying why should they get all fired up for 5 bux and we should all split it 5 ways.

Anyway I gunned it at the top of the hill to grab the prime (which I never collected since I paid reduced entry fee, a nice gesture) and kept on going. I wanted to see if I could distance myself and get away. No such luck so I sat back into our field of now 4.

I tried several time to push it hard and try to drop another person but it didn't happen. At least one of the guys looked like he was in the serious hurt zone but never came off.

At the end, I was getting a little paranoid that someone might jump me. I had shown all my cards to the others but none of them have. I expected someone to attack me in the closing laps but no one ever did. So coming around on the last lap, I decided to jump a little earlier than I did in the previous laps to hopefully catch them off guard. I also got stuck in the little ring and one guy came around me and held it to the end. I was the first to lose.

I know I shouldn't dwell on it too long, but I pretty much had that race in the bag. But a simple tactical mistake cost me the race. I should have stuck to my original plan of jumping up near the top of the hill, cutting inside on the turn and sweeping out and ride in for the win. But it just didn't work out that way.

But my power has gone up considerably since the last time I raced in Atlanta. So I'm really happy with that. I guess doing a 100 mile mountain bike does wonders to your power.

I should be ready for the USAC Ohio State Road race at Ceasar's creek next week. The following week I'm working Neutral Support for Tour of Ohio. It looks like I will be able to still ride during the week, before or after the stages so I'll definitely make the most of it and probably do lots of intervals. Two weeks later, its Hyde Park and Grandview.

Miles 223
YTD: 3586

Mohican 100

Photo Mark Farmer

Well I did it and completed my first 100 mile mountain bike race! Add to that, this was only my third ever mountain bike race. What possessed me to do such torture? Well earlier in the year, Hank found out he was doing Leadville 100. So I told him lets do Mohican 100 for training so I registered. Also with cyclocross as my primary goal for the year, I decided early on that I will branch out more in the begning of the year and do things I normally wouldn't do. In the end, Hank ended up not being able to do the Mohican so I was flying solo.

Having blown a whole bunch of money last weekend doing the Tour of Atlanta and having to do this by myself, I really didn't want to spend the money to get a hotel room. So I had two options, drive up in the morning leaving Athens at 3am, or driving up the night before and sleeping in the car. I chose the latter. I worked the whole day and went out to dinner. I had originally planned on grabbing some food and eating in the car but I figured if I left too early, it would still be light out and thus I wouldn't be able to sleep. Anyway my departure time quickly got later and later. After dinner I packed and showered and headed off to get gas and some food/drinks. While I was pumping gas, I realized that I forgot my gloves! That would have been a serious mistake considering my ring finger and pinky on my left hand are still numb. So I drove back home to pick up my gloves costing me around 20 minutes. I arrived in Loudonville around 12-12:30, found a place to park and rolled out the sleeping bag. I have just enough room with the back seats folded down and front seat folded forward to sleep in the car. It was a little toasty in went I went to sleep and I thought about cracking open the windows but I decided against it. Good call since I woke up freezing cold.

I was up around 5:15, way before my set alarm. Rather than try to fall asleep again for 30 minutes, I decided to head to Radar's Restaurant for breakfast. I chose the buffet but certainly did not eat my money's worth. I was still a little full from dinner. After breakfast I headed over to Mohican Adventures where the race headquarters was located. I picked up my number and drop bags. A tube, coke and some food in Bag #1 for Station #2, two cokes, a tube and more food for Station #3 (I came through that twice), and a coke for Station #5.

I had to make a last minute bathroom stop so I did not get suited up as quickly as I would have liked. I kitted up with plenty of Beljum Budder and quickly rode my way to the start line, about a mile away. I met up with a bunch of stragglers and we made it to the start with 3 minutes to spare, perfect timing!

The race started promptly at 7am and we rolled out of town. There was a $200 city limit prime so the Pro's hit it hard. The ride out was about 3 miles to the trail head. I took it easy on the road and many people passed me but I had 100 miles to do that day. We hit the trail and it instantly became congested and slow. we rolled through some single track then came to this huge unridable hill, one of many in the day. Maybe if you had no traffic in front of you could you have ridden up some of these hills but it was definintely climbing up a wall. It was even hard to walk up these hills. After the short section of trail and riding through some camp grounds, we ended back at Mohican Adventures then rode to another trail head onto the trails of the Mohican State Forest. On of my friends, Bruce was at the trail head heckling and yelled at me "Tinker Juerez is only 9 minutes ahead of you!" We rode about 20 miles of really nice single track.

2 hours in, I arrived at Aid Station #1. I foolishly did not eat anything prior so I scarfed down some gels and PB&J. Back onto the trails and then we hit some road ways and back onto trails, but this time on private lands.

Aid Station #2 was at someone's house. Not sure where since directions to the station was not listed. I drank my coke stashed in my drop bag and ate some food. We were still on trails on our way to Aid station #3. On the way there, I crashed. I got my front wheel stuck between two rocks and went over the bars. Luckily the guys behind me were not going super fast and were able to stop and not run me over. Banged up my shoulder but I was fine. I stood around for a few minutes to catch my breath and continued on. We got out of the trails and hit the roads. It was a mixure of paved and fire roads. We dipped back into some trails to Station #3.

I arrived at Aid Station #3 with a large group. I ate a few gels but did not eat enough as I found out later. I would be arriving back at Station #3 after I did the 100 miler's loop. The ride to Station #4 was very long. It seemed to take forever. About half was some private trails and the other half roads. There was this one long wooded gravel road that took forever. It was the same thing for miles. The scenery hardly changed. I was definitely hurting for food and was running low on energy. I felt good to about 100K, then pretty dead at 110K. I felt the bonk coming and I ate all the gels I had on me and some oatmeal cream pie.

I came into Aid #4 at around 8 hours, the winners had already finished the race at this point. I was definitely running on fumes at this point. I had tried to beat the bonk by eating as much as I can when I started to feel low but it was too late. I ate and loaded up with extra gels. I was told 8 miles back to Station #3 (A lie) So I motored on. My granny saw lots of use at this time. I even had to get off and walk a hill I normally would have been able to ride.

Back at #3, I did not feel much better. I ate more gels and loaded up, it was about 16 miles to the finish. Half way to the last Aid station, I was feeling a bit better. The worst of the race was over and just had to tough out some road. By this point, I was having trouble sitting in the saddle, pedaling made it worse. I found myself pedaling out of the saddle a lot, something not increadibly efficient with a full suspension mountain bike.

When I arrived at station #5, it was literally just down the road from the finish but I had to ride more trail to get there. I filled up with some water and went out to finish the race. I was back into the nice single track and then finally popped out of the trail by the Mohican Adventures. I thought I was finally done! But nope, there was a 2 mile section I still had to ride, including another one of those unrideable hills.

Then I finally finished 97th @ 11:38.24, 4:47.58 back from the winner Jeremiah Bishop. Total ride time on the computer read 10:40, estimated TSS of 800! Luckily I did not suffer any mechanicals or flat tires and just one crash. I did have some less than optimal shifting which I'll swap out the cable and housing. I noticed the poor shifting on my last ride but neglected to take care of it. Actually I lied, I did have one minor mechanical. In the last 3 miles, I shifted to my top cog and it over shifted into the spokes. Then the chain proceeded to somehow drop below the stupid anti-mess up your spokes drop pins shimano puts on their XT cassettes. Luckily I was able to force the chain out of their. Lucky for me since I had lost the tire lever/8mm spanner/spoke wrench needed to use the chain tool on the Park IB-3 multitool. It's wierd because I cannot get the bike to overshift in the stand and 99% of the time. But I guess with high torque and right amount of wheel flex, it pops off over the top.

That race was hard, but a whole new type of hard. It is not Crit hard, not road race hard, not cyclocross hard, century riding hard, nor is it mountain bike race hard. Unless you are a Pro, its more a race against yourself, seeing if you can make the distance. The efforts were not that hard (I was shooting for riding at 80%) but its just long.

I do feel I can shave off a few hours the next time I do a 100 mile race since I now know what it feels like. Definitely with better energy management and not doing a stage race a week before. I feel great satisfaction that I completed this race. No I won't drop riding the road and cyclocross for endurance mountain bike racing but its something I would like to continue doing in the future.

Miles:340
Miles YTD 3363

Tour of Atlanta Recap

Drive down:
I drove up to Columbus to hitch a ride with Andys, Mark (D'Balle), Bruce and Isaiah. We drove down in Andys' big van and trailer. The drive down was a pretty uneventful but easy drive. We stopped at a hotel on the way down in Northern Georgia since it was getting late. The next morning we completed the drive and checked into our home for a few days, a Residence Inn.

The great part about the hotel was we didn't have to drive at all to get to the stages, except for the last stage. Two queens, a pull out bed and a kitchen for 5 guys. It wasn't so expensive either.

Stage 1:
An out and back 2k TT. In my opinion, it was a pretty worthless stage. Unless you were doing the Pro-am, there was nothing at stake here. Only the Pro-am had an Omnium. I guess you were going for 3 deep day money. I borrowed Isaiah's Zipp 808's and man those things are fast. You literally cannot take your hands off the bars if it is windy because you will just get blown over. I did not take this too seriously and got 24th place.

Stage 2:
A two turn hotdog crit on the same course as the TT. Out was a slighly downhill section with a tailwind and back was obiviouly the opposite. Many tried to get away in this race but all the moves eventually came back. There was one move that almost could have stayed away if there was one or two more people in that break. In the end, a solo attack went off 2 or 3 laps to go and stayed away till the end. In the field sprint, I was sitting behind D'Balle and we pretty much went from the back to the front. Except someone decided to sit up with 50 m to go! D'Balle got sandwiched between two other guys and was bumping shoulders and it was amazing they didn't go down! 21st place.

Stage 3:
Stage 3 was a 1.5-2 mile circuit course. This was the least favorite of my course. From the start finish you made a right and went up a false flat, then a flat right turn, then you shot down this long downhill and made a right on a one lane turn off ramp with lots of painted lines. Then you gradually climbed back up the elevation you lost on the down hill. This course did not have much flow to it and I thought it was very tough. It also didn't help that I was still trying to find some legs. I mainly tail gunned it the whole way and managed mid-pack 26th.

Stage 4:
Same course but the finish line was moved 200m from the uphill to the false flat. Same direction as well. In the first quarter of the race, rain started to fall. This was not a course you wanted to race in the rain. New pavement and lots of painted lines made it very dangerous. When the rain started, I saw D'Balle pull the ripcord and went from the front all the way to the back. I stuck to it and pulled off 19th.

Stage 5:
Another circuit race but this one flowed a lot better. Down a slight down hill, left turn to some flat road, one little kicker, back down then into a left turn at speed. An uphill to the the last turn and 200m to the finish. I had great legs for this race and spent most of my time tucked in the pack. I found the good lines around the corners was pretty comfortable. It was also very easy to move up. The last few laps the paced picked up and I moved my way to the front to stay out of any trouble that may come from sitting in the back. Coming into the last turn I positioned myself well in the top 15-20. About 100m to the top of the hill things really took off as people were sprinting to be the first to the turn. I was able to slip past many people before the turn. After the turn it was a dash to the finish line but most people were already gassed from the climb. I did not gain or lose any spots after the turn and managed a top 10, 8th place!

Stage 6:
Same course but run in the opposite direction. Going this way, the course felt a lot like Stage 3/4's course. Didn't flow too well. There was a nasty weather storm coming our way according to the radar so the officials told us we could see 1 to go at any point in time. We got off to racing. Half way into the race, the sky looked so dark that it was for sure going to rain but it never did. A break went up the road and each lap the gap got larger and no one wanted to do anything about it. I made a last ditch effort to try to bridge across (a 30 sec gap). Aaron was on my wheel and he did not work with me since his teammate was up the road. In fact we probably could have made it across together. 16th place.

Stage 7:
A 20 mile road race loop up near Cumming, GA. With a 9am start time, we had to get up early, check out and roll out way up there. Luckily we packed the trailer the night before. 3's were to do 3 laps. It was very hot and humid to the point where you were soaking wet in 30 minutes. The course was very tough with the whole back side climbing the whole time. Then at the end there was a nasty steep climb. The first time around I came off the climb with a bunch of other guys but we were able to chase back onto the group. The second time around I didn't fair as well. I thought about chasing back on but it would have been a long chase. I decide to call it quits and went to mingle at the finish line. At the finish line, there were tons of people that had already quit, quite a number from the P/1/2 field so I didn't feel so back quitting. I was still scored as 41st. We all changed and headed back home to Columbus.

On our way home, we decided to go up 129, which was a huge mistake. This road went through the mountains. It was not a very fast drive pulling a trailer. But once out of the mountains the drive went quicker. We arrived in Columbus around midnight and I still had to make the drive back to Athens. I dropped off Isaiah at his house and headed home, arriving at around 2am.

The whole weekend was a very good time. It is nice every once in a while to get out of town and race with a whole different crew. It was also nice to forget about everything else and just eat sleep and race my bike. Also the weather was unreal. Not amazing unreal but a total crapshoot on what will happen. The radar will show a system coming our way but it wouldn't rain and vice versa. I had a really good time and some good results too.

Miles: 180 (about 1200 total in the van)
2009 miles: 3023