Marathon Nationals Race Report

Friday, I laid around and watched the Tour, checked out of my hotel as late as possible, and got moving up to Ketchum. Once I was there, I had a snack, waited for a little afternoon raincloud to pass, then went out to get a feel for how the race course would start. After a short prologue loop at the ski hill base, it took to a bike path for a mile or so before turning off right and beginning the looooong climb up Mt. Baldy. Apparently, the are a is shared with the local goat hearders, because there was a temporary fence and a heard of goats over the part of the course that linked the bike path and the beginning of the forest road climb:

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Once I’d found a way around the goats, I climbed a half mile or so before getting to a gate/fence with a bunch of snowmoving/ski lift equipment behind it. It looked like the road kept going, but it wasn’t clear as to how legal it was to climb the gate. So, I turned and went back to the city and rode the pump track.

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I was feeling good. As I’d predicted, since I had spent the last two nights at 3700ft, I wasn’t feeling the effects of altitude.

Saturday morning, I went through my usual pre-race routine of coffee, breakfast, and sitting around staring off into space waiting for said coffee to take effect. It obviously wasn’t strong enough, because I ended up packing up and leaving the room on my bike without sticking my gel flask in my pocket. Fortunately, the race start area was about a 5 minute ride from my hotel, and I always arrive early enough to allow time for situations exactly like that. So, I just warmed up by spinning nice & fast to the hotel & back, getting back to the start area with plenty of time to spare.

When online registration closed, there had been 5 riders on the start list. However, registration was open Friday afternoon as well, and we’d had a late addition… Rebecca Rusch.

Oof.

My training has gone really well lately. And, while the entrants (other than RR) included women who’d beaten me in the past (Carey Lowery and another girl from Pierre’s Hole 50 last year), I was confident in my ability to hang with them this time. So, when we started, everyone was off onto the first mini-loop. I was able to hang right up with the front couple of ladies, which, at first, made me feel great. We circled around and were on the bike path in no time.

Rebecca and I were dropping everyone, and she seemed to be spinning more than me. Hmmm.

We got to the start of the climb, and she kept the hammer down. My inner dialogues yelled at each other…
OMG, RACE REBECCA!
NO. STOP THAT. DO NOT CHASE REBECCA RUSCH. BAD! NO!

The more reasonable side won out, and I watched her ride off like the world champion she is. As I got past the gate I’d stopped at before (now open), the road continued to pitch up. I stood on my gear and ground out what was probably a cadence of about 60rpms. Other singlespeeders were catching up, and everyone seemed to be pretty cozy with their gear and NOT standing up at 60rpms (except maybe one woman, who seemed to be chasing Rebecca). Carey said something to me about rolling a 32×22.

I was on 32×20.

The next hour of climbing was painful. I kept up the slow grind, all the while, passing rider after rider that had started ahead of us. Some realized that they were bringing up the rear of their field and moved immediately. Others didn’t want to let anyone by, but would eventually slow for a second and move over barely enough to squeeze by on the skinny ribbon of bench trail. Carey eventually asked to pass me… I let her go, and she spun off like nobody’s business.

How much did it hurt to have the wrong gear? Well, I sat down 4 times in the hour+ of climbing. Yeah. I counted.

At the top, I filled my bottle (I was carrying a Camelbak full of Roctane and had a bottle of plain water for drinking along with my Roctane gels & Chomps) and headed down the mountain. I descended with slight caution. Being in 4th place, I didn’t want to screw anything up by wrecking or flatting. On the way down, the two other women in my category passed me like I was sitting still. So, wrapping up lap 1, I was DFL.

As I started lap 2, I came upon the woman who was 5th. She was getting a CO2 from another rider (against the USA cycling rules) and filling her flat rear tire. As I passed, she hopped back on her bike, said something about it going low on the descent, and rode off. I have no idea if she was even carrying flat repair equipment, but I’ve learned the hard way to carry extra.

Great. I’m DFL and my competition is cheating a little.

The second time up the climb was (as expected) more painful than the first. My left foot and toes started to experience excruciating amounts of nerve pain- enough so that, about 3/4 of the way up, I had to get off of my bike and beat my left calf with my fist to make it go away enough to finish the climb. Then, as I hit one of two “kicker” climbs on the way down, the muscles behind BOTH shoulders fully cramped up. The race couldn’t be over soon enough.

Ok, so a pre-ride would have been helpful- I could have at least put my 21t cog on the back and had a slightly better time on the climb. However, I am reasonably certain that, if I’d spent the day running around at close to 6,000ft on Thursday, I would have traded the better gearing off for not feeling as good because of the elevation. The “last minute elevation” part of my race was actually a huge success. I felt great in that respect, which made it all the more frustrating that my choice of gears put me into so much difficulty. I don’t know what gear everyone else was on (except for Carey), but I’m guessing by the way they fell off so far on the bike path that they were all more spinny than myself.

So, that was a first. I’ve never finished last before. I pedaled slowly back to the hotel to clean up and recover. Later, I decided to ease the pain with some delicious Mexican food, a margarita, and downing half a pint of locally-made caramel ice cream while watching the day’s stage of the Tour.

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Bonus photo:

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Marathon Natz Road Trip Part 1

As I travel more and more, I realize why Dicky says goodbye to his blog during his trips to wherever it is Dicky goes. Even though I have at least a couple of times a day when I could probably write something, the motivation factor is pretty low. However, this morning, I’m trying to kill as much time as possible in Twin Falls (at 3700 ft of elevation) before going up to the Ketchum/Sun Valley area (5800ft).  So, I figured I might as well start to fill in on what it is I’ve been doing since Monday.

Monday was relatively boring. I drove the 10.5 hours to Hays, KS to get the first chunk of movement out of the way. Trip fueled by Three 6 Mafia Radio on Pandora…

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Tuesday, I got up and continued west to Fort Collins, where I met up with my coach for the last few years, Andy Clark. We actually hadn’t interacted in person since I’d first met him at the Winter Park Super D on my first trip to Colorado back in 2010.

We went out for a great ride that included a stop by 1 of 2  pump tracks in Ft. Collins.

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Fort Collins is someplace I’d love to spend more time. The city has embraced not only bike racing, but also bicycles as a mode of transportation for everyone- there are bike paths and bike lanes everywhere as well as (well-used) bike racks (and occasionally scooter parking places) in front of every business. Also, not only is Andy super-dad to his kid, he’s got a really adorable dog, too.

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Wednesday morning, I headed out towards Twin Falls, ID. I was on track to get there around 4:30 in the afternoon, but realized about 45 minutes from town that I’d left my cycling shoes in Andy’s garage. Needless to say, I didn’t get to Twin Falls until after 6. Between this trip and the one to Victor last year, I’ve realized that in mid-summer, Idaho is really hot, dry, and usually on fire.

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(the fields are all well-irrigated, though)

Once I arrived in Twin Falls, I took a couple of quick photos of the canyon before checking in to the hotel and going out for a ride.

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I’d noticed from the tourist-info overlook that there was what looked like a trailhead and singletrack that went from the road halfway into the canyon down to the river level (you can actually see it in the bridge photo above). I could see the trail from the trailhead then at the bottom of the canyon, but couldn’t see what was in the middle. I realized about 3 gnarly, near-vertical rock sections and one steep, narrow staircase into a hike-a-bike that, while there was not a “no bikes” sign at the trailhead, it was not a bike trail.

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(the stairs were actually the easiest part)

After hefting my bike back out of the trail, I cruised down the road to the park at the bottom of the canyon.

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As beautiful as it is, the entire area smells like sewage because of a water treatment plant that’s down there. It’s like a bathroom with sage-scented air freshener.

Thursday, I’d had all intentions of driving up to Sun Valley and pre-riding the Nationals course loop. However, one thing I’d failed to consider when I’d made my plan was that, by that time, I’d be absolutely exhausted of driving. So, instead, I went to a local breakfast place called Norm’s. I got crazy looks from the farmer clientele that filled most of the seats, but, as I realized back in Fort Collins, when I don’t get weird looks and I “fit” in with the normal crowd, I feel really awkward.

I stalked Strava and found some local trails called Auger Falls. Unfortunately, when I got down into the canyon (and past the water treatment plant), I found this:

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I climbed back out and crossed the bridge to see what was over there. I found some powdery moto trails and some very nice scenery

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After my ride, I had lunch and lounged around the hotel before picking up dinner and riding over to Cold Stone for desert before watching the city fireworks display from the hotel parking lot.

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So far, so good. Check out time isn’t until noon, so I’m gonna get a late breakfast as soon as this Tour stage is over. Without spoiling it, I’d say this is, tactically speaking, my favorite stage so far.

2013 Road Trip #3

In a week or so (haven’t totally settled on a day), I’ll be heading out West for Marathon Nationals. A few years ago, I raced my first Singlespeed race at Marathon Nationals in Breckenridge, CO. I had a good time and ended up 3rd.

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This year, with a lot more training in my legs (and likely a bigger field), I’m hoping to improve upon that. Since the course is at altitude (not super-crazy Breck altitude), I’m changing up my acclimatization strategy. I’ve come to realize that the first day I’m at altitude, I feel like a rockstar- as in, “damn, the air here isn’t totally humid, so I feel awesome and can pedal really hard.” As is expected with normal human physiology, that feeling fades after about 24-36 hours. So, for the race at Sun Valley, I’m planning on avoiding altitude until the Friday evening prior to the race. In order to do so, I’ll pre-ride a little on Thursday, but spend most of the time leading up to the race in south Idaho (3-4K ft of elevation). It’s going to involve a lot of driving , but I’m hoping it will pay off with killer race-day legs.

Afterward, I’m gonna jet back home, recover, and, along the way, contemplate as to whether or not I want to pack up and make the haul to Cross Country Nationals in Pennsylvania less than a couple of weeks later. It’s really going to depend on my results and the degree of either contentment or angst that they produce. Considering the degree of heat, humidity, and poor air quality we get around Memphis that time of summer, it’d be a nice break to go train someplace where there’s just lots of heat and humidity. Otherwise, I’ll be mixing it up on the trainer like I did last year (not so bad, really… there are much worse things than a quick morning indoor interval workout).

For now, I’m enjoying the relatively nice weather. Yesterday, I went out on what was probably, at 112 miles, my longest ride to date. Initially, I wasn’t sure how long of a route I’d need for my prescribed 6 hours, so I started off with a 100 mile course that I’d previously completed in 5 hours, 15 minutes then tacked on an extra loop at the end. I felt strong the entire time, but I’m incredibly glad that 6 hour road rides aren’t a regular thing, because I was prettymuch ready to by sitting on a couch and not a bike by about hour 5.
Side note- sure, I’ve done my share of MTB rides way over 6 hours in the course of NUE races. This goes back to my previous post about training on the road, though. During a 6 hour ride, I had 27 minutes of coasting (you can look this metric up in training peaks or any other software that allows you to see how much of your ride was at a cadence of “0”). You can’t get that amount of pedaling if you’re only riding trails.

Today I’m laying low, going to a yoga class, and sticking around the house to work on some bikes. My repaired I9 wheel is coming back today, so I’m going to set my singlespeed up in race mode and get in some non-shifting miles before Natz.

Stanky Creek Race Report

After a multitude of pre-rides the week leading up to Sunday, I lined up with a pretty good idea of my strategy for the race. The course begins on a part of the trail that’s very twisty with a lot of off-camber, rooty turns. It gradually gets a little bit more open as you go, but, as I posted last time, it’s generally twisty and rooty with intermittent “open up and hammer” spots punctuated by more “tight/twisty, don’t-hit-a-tree” spots.

So, when the race started, I jumped off the line to get the holeshot, then settled in to a pace just a hair under my usual “go to plaid” cross-country pace. That allowed me to conserve some energy, stay off the brakes, ride a little smoother through the first part of trail, and increase my lead on the other women by 2-3 seconds at a time with each little twisty spot. At the top of the “drop” (a short/steep, rooty downhill) on the blue trail, I estimate I had about a 10 second gap. I rode the drop at the exact speed at which I wanted to make the sweeping right-hand turn at the bottom, then dropped the hammer for a minute, and was loooong gone.

With the exception of passing some of the Cat 1/2 50+ men that started a minute ahead of us, the remaining 2 hours and 10 minutes worth of racing would be done solo. My goal then shifted to staying focused and maintaining a hard pace (something I often have trouble with when I end up by myself). I did a pretty good job, though I did “drift off” a couple of times on the 2nd lap and had to remind myself to keep on the gas. I ended up running a time of 2:23:50, which is a little over 6 minutes faster than my course time last year.

I’m super stoked to pick up the State Championship XC jersey this year.

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Also, it’s worth mentioning that I’m very happy with the XX1 group on the Jet (not to mention the Jet itself… freaking awesome bike for that sort of terrain). It has taken some getting used to- I still find myself sometimes shifting too many gears at once, simply because I’m used to the closer spacing on the 2×10 rear shifting. However, its function has been flawless so far. I was going to clean it up and post some photos, but I’ll gonna wait until I get my matching rear wheel back from I9 (should arrive a little later this week).

Following the race, I took the long way to the grocery store on the scooter, then headed to my parents’ house with Ryan to cook Father’s Day dinner. Since steakhouses are stupid expensive and full of other people taking their dads out to Father’s Day dinner, I brought the steakhouse to the kitchen… or something like that.

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(Dry aged, grass-fed New York strip with gremolata, green beans, and roasted garlic mashed potatoes)

State Championship Weekend

This weekend, the Tennessee State Championship Cross country race visits the Stanky Creek trails in Memphis. The State Championship XC jersey is on my short list (along with the Criterium and Track Championships) of jerseys I need to collect. So, I’m hoping to kick some butt this weekend. My recovery is still a little weird right now, so time will tell if I can hold off any of the horsepower that comes over from the rest of Tennessee. One thing working in my favor is the course- Stank is a choppy, twisty trail that was built back in the heyday of 26 inch bikes with little to no suspension. They couldn’t roll as fast over the vast array of roots, which meant that the alternating pattern of  “on the gas & carving through trees/all over the brakes in order to make a 90 degree turn” wasn’t as big of a deal at the time.

In other words, I’m glad I’ve got a home-field advantage.

The Jet9 is rebuilt and ready to go- now with XX1 and non-squeaky derailleur housing (I was using gorgeous/creaky Nokon before). The rooty-ness of Stank makes the course very friendly to a full-suspension bike, and is actually the only trail in town where I prefer my Jet over the Air9 RDO hardtail. The only thing missing from the bike is my rear Industry 9 Trail 24 wheel, which I dented the bejeezus out of during stage 7 at TSE. In its place, I’ll be on a Hope/Crest wheel that also required a rebuild following the TSE Enduro stage. Some day I’ll learn to put some pressure in my tires and ride with a little more finesse instead of pretending that I’m piloting a monster truck.

My legs aside, one thing I’m really stoked on seeing this year leading up to the Stanky Creek XC race is the multitude of local riders who are catting up. Matt decided to make the jump from 2 to 1 after being on the fence for a hot minute (deciding factor- I reminded him that he had the skills and fitness to finish 12th overall at Syllamo and probably beat a large number of cat 1 racers in the process). Others on that train include Fullface Kenny and Carter Chappell. I’ve also seen a good amount of banter about who is racing Cat 2 this year instead of 3. It’s always fun to see people challenging themselves.

My take? Look ahead at your goals. If you know that, at some point, you definitely want to race in a certain category, then, when your fitness/skill/training make your current category the slightest bit questionable, then you should get moving to the next rung of the ladder. Intimidation and fear of failure is normal. Don’t let it get to you, though.

If you’re regional and reading this, I’d also like to bring up that this year’s race will be an equal payout race between women’s and men’s categories. Tell all your friends- especially the ones in Arkansas whose weekend XC race inside the state lines includes a women’s cat 1 race that is only billed at 2 laps while the cat 1 men race 3 laps.

Recovery Week

The thing about a recovery week is that there’s not always a lot to blog about. Unlike Dicky, I made audio race reports while I was out at TSE, so I didn’t have to remember the fine details of each stage so that I might blog about them once I was home. I did have a few nice recovery rides which allowed me to get cool photos like this:

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I’ve also been gathering the necessary parts needed to re-assemble the Jet9 with some nice upgrades. I know I’ve said in the past that I wouldn’t get XX1 until the cassette options improved, but I realized at TSE that if I’m only going to ride it on the trail (vs. doing some road & trail training like I do on the Air9 RDO), the current offering should suit my needs. So, all I lack now is the XX1 driver for my wheelsets. Re-assembly starts today…

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Over the weekend, I made an impromptu trip to the Syllamo Trails for a last bit of relaxation before getting back into my normal training schedule. I wasn’t sure how the trails would be since they tend to get grown over this time of year, so I stuck to the orange and blue since they tend to be the shadiest parts of the system. Matt came along. He went Strava-poaching on the road while I was in the woods. It just so happened that I caught up to him on my way back to the cabin:

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Before that, I realized something really cool while I was on the blue trail-
A couple of years ago, a group of people (I have no idea who- all I know is that it was some sort of large, organized effort) went through one of the most notoriously technical and hike-a-bikey sections of the blue trail (the couple of miles on the “other” side of highway 5, for those of you familiar with the area), and made a bunch of smooth, easier re-routes to large sections of the trail, as well as removing all rocks and obstacles from the path. The trail resembled a nerf football in the coming winter (not that didn’t remain a very difficult ride- there’s a b*tch of a steep climb out there, and lots of super steep stuff that’s barely rideable even to someone who is very good at riding super loose/steep stuff).
Despite someone’s best laid plans to make the trail more accessible to more people, through the process of wind, weather, and mischievous Indian ghosts, the Proterozoic mountain is growing out from under the dirt, and the trail is once again becoming a rocky limestone beast. The trail still seems to be growing and changing all over, which makes it a slightly different challenge every time I make the trip out.

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After riding and dinner, I decided on a spontaneous fishing trip down to the boat ramp on the White River. I didn’t catch anything, but the water felt nice.

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Sunday, in lieu of riding, we went out to explore the southern end of the Sylamore Creek hiking trail. It’s closed to bikes, and, in the words of one of the older MTB guys here in town when someone was talking about poaching it… “Good luck with that”

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Yes, Poolboy Matt was wearing short jorts, which he rolled up to “daisy duke” length at some point while fording the creek to get to the trail.

On the trip back, we discussed the gaping holes in my riding abilities. Namely, my inability to get a bike off the ground without the aid of clipless pedals. Matt decided I should learn on his BMX bike. So, last night, I donned the shin guards and launched off of a sweet ramp into the yard. It was pretty bad… but you gotta start somewhere.

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My week of TSE reflection has drawn to a close. I promise I’ll stop talking about it, though, I have come away with one realization. I learned somewhere around stage 5 that my body was reacting to the repeated efforts with deep-seated exhaustion. However, if you were following Twitter during stage 6, you would have seen this progression:

Amanda Carey, Sue Haywood, and Andrea Wilson are wheel-to-wheel!

Women’s leader Carey is sitting on second place overall and current Bear Creek SRAM Enduro jersey wearer Wilson.

After a detour in yesterday’s stage by the entire NoTubes team Wilson is pushing the pace to try to solidify her position.

Carey and Haywood have opened a gap on Wilson

Sarah Kaufman next through. Taking time back from Wilson too.

I essentially went out kinda hard, knowing that there was about a 5% chance of success, and was eventually caught off guard by the sudden tech of the initial singletrack, resulting in my wrecking and going backwards through the field, followed closely by my body calling it quits for the week- 1.5 hours in to nearly 4 hours of riding with one more defensively hard stage looming the next day. I knew, in the first hour of “pushing the pace” that I was being a little reckless with my energy. I didn’t care. I didn’t like dying off half an hour later, but the awesome feeling of the first hour made the entire week worthwhile. The “not dying” part will come with more fitness and experience. I keep getting this movie scene in my head when I think about it…

I mean, I don’t really have any ominous messages to send, other than, “I’m not afraid to see what will happen if I burn my legs up climbing this hill.”

 

The week in iPhone Photos

I figured if you’re bored with race reports, you can see what all was happening back at camp (and home).

You’ll hear from a lot of people that go to TSE that “summer camp” atmosphere makes this one of the most fun races you can go to because almost everyone stays on site. I definitely agree- I stayed at Rimmey Lodge.

 

Lodgemates (L to R) Sue, Brian, Jesse, and Micheal

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My own little corner, which eventually spread to the bunk next to me

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Brian Matter and I both wore the green Enduro jerseys for Stage 3

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As the week went on, I made new friends, like Sonya (we obviously were having a lot more fun than everyone else on that climb)

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and Sam (who did not, contrary to the report on Twitter, eat the puppy)

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The major mishap of the week was the Jet 9 breaking on Enduro Day

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Brian Matter also had food poisoning the night before the last stage, but managed to keep his 3rd place spot anyway

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Then, there was stage 8.

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And a long drive home the next day, followed by a garage-sized explosion of bike parts in various states of repair/disrepair

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I’m now in the throes of recovery. Yesterday, despite a good breakfast, I think I bonked during yoga class. Today, I went for an easy ride, which was much more successful (albeit slow). I’ve stripped the Jet9 down so that it’s ready to go back to Niner as soon as the warranty frame arrives. The goal is to have it up & working again (with upgrades!) before the State Championship XC race on the 16th.

I’m also buying a scooter as soon as a few parts sell. Awwwwww yeahhh