Summer Series Race Report: North Meck

Got up to the course in Huntersville on Wednesday, got all set up and did a lap around the course:  it was FAST, I’ve raced the course before and it has always been fast, but it was especially fast this time because it had rained just enough to make the trail tacky and give you a lot of grip (but not muddy or slick).  I had left the tire set-up from the weekend on which was great for the conditions.  Got a warm-up lap in and then warmed-up a little more before the race started.

Lined up for the start of the race:  had a terrible start, a combination being in one gear too hard, missing clipping in, and having a very large pick-up truck kind of sticking out into my line.  So unfortunately I went into the woods in about 8^th place.   The trail is mostly singletrack so I knew I wouldn’t able to pass anyone until I got to the big climb about 5 minutes into the lap, as a result I just sat where I was and tried to relax and be smooth.  When I got to the hill I hit it as hard as I could and passed some of the guys in front of me, but some of the guys had pulled out in front of me (or so I thought).  I kept pushing really hard (I knew I could go really hard since the race would only be about 1:15 long).

About 4 minutes into the second lap we started catching up to slower riders from other classes.  This began the next 45 minutes of almost constant:  rider coming, rider up, on your left (or right), as we passed riders from other classes.  Sometimes they were still in a line since they were near the beginning of their race, which made it difficult since the trail was singletrack and passing was challenging.  At one point I came up behind a train of five riders and after calling out my pass tried to pass them, but realized after I had started that I didn’t have the room to make the pass:  so I slowed up hit a root wrong and went down.

At this point I still thought I was in about 5^th place but I wasn’t sure, I later learned (after the race) that I was in second place, about 15 seconds behind the leader.  I was coming up to a rider during my last lap and called out “rider up”  as soon as I did, I realized it was Luke Sagur who was in my race and by calling that out I was coming up to him.  As soon as I did this he started pushing harder and widened the gap between us.  Shortly after that with about 5 minutes to go I overcooked a turn and went down:  in doing so Chris Wieczorek was able to slide by me.  As I came up to the finish Rick Pyle was on my wheel, fortunately I was able to take the inside line on the turns coming into the finish and hold him off.  So it turned out that I was 3^rd (by about 30 seconds) without even knowing it, which I was super excited about given that I had a terrible start and went down twice.

After the race I was able to do a short run about 2 miles which was real long, but I felt good to be able to run after pushing so hard on the bike, this bodes really well for my Xterra’s races.  Felt much better about my fitness than I did following Stumpjump, that being said I think I can up the intensity of my training some.

Next up:  Huntersville Triathlon Sunday and Summer Series race at Renaissance Park Wednesday

Results then click on results, then click on North Meck Park

Stumpjump Mountain Bike Race Report

We’ll get right into the race, felt good warming up. Had a good start, 4^th going into the woods which I was really happy about since I knew from pre-riding the course that it was going to be very hard to pass.  The first 5 of us stayed in the order almost all of the 1^st lap (out of 3), there might have been a pass or two if someone struggled over an obstacle, but beyond that we just rode in a line for the first lap.  My bike handling was really good; in fact I would pull up closer to the guys in front of me when going through a technical area, where they would pull away slightly on the climbs.  This was the first time this had EVER happened to me, where my bike handling was better than my fitness when compared to the guys I was riding against.  Going into the second lap I wanted to see if I could take advantage of my handling skills (what would typically be a foreign concept to me; it’s always been how can I take most advantage of my fitness), after going through the start finish area and just prior to the first technical area I took the lead, unfortunately I eased up too soon before the descent and two guys passed me back.  After that I pretty I just stayed in place and tried to ride as smooth as possible.  Again the leading 5 stayed together pretty much in a straight line.  I don’t know if it was at the end of the second lap or the beginning of the third lap, but I couldn’t go fast on the sections where I could pedal (I just didn’t have the power to push hard any more).  I had been going pretty hard up until then, but I thought it was a pace I could maintain or keep close to, unfortunately I didn’t slow a little. . .I slowed a LOT, (ended up losing about 5 minutes in the course of a 35 minute lap to the rest of the leaders).

After a little time to reflect on the race there were some good things and some not so good things to come out of the race:

The good:

-My Specialized Epic Expert Carbon EVO R 29 (I know isn’t the name a little long), was AWESOME:  pedaled great and handled the bumps and roots great.

-My tire choice given the weather and conditions couldn’t have been better: swapped from a Fast Trak/Renegade set-up to a GroundControl/Fast Trak front/rear combination and it hooked up great in the slick wet conditions that we had.

-My bike handling was as good or maybe even a touch better than the rest of the leaders, something that has NEVER happened before.  It’s really great to see the work I’ve put into improving my bike handling pay off.

-I was able to stay right with the leaders’ pace for two laps, and even when I did blow up I was able to finish in 6^th place.

The bad:

-My fitness: it isn’t where it needs to be.  I just need to be more fit to compete against the top guys in the category, and certainly if I want to get my pro license this fitness just won’t cut it.

-It really hurts my chances of getting a pro license this year, this was a race that a really good result would have helped tremendously in applying for my pro license.

What’s coming up?:

-Going to race at North Meck in the Charlotte Summer Series race on Wednesday, Huntersville Triathlon on Sunday.

-Going to push the intensity of my training up some (I’ll still try to be smart about it), trying to make sure I get a long ride and at least one interval session in per week, in addition to the weekly Summer Series races I’ll be doing.

-Focus on getting really prepared for qualifying race(s) for Xterra World

-See where I am in the Summer Series races and evaluate whether getting a pro mountain bike license this year is a reasonable goal.

Results
Pictures of me
Pictures of Bobby Bryson which include Bobby, Chris Audet, and myself lined up at the start line.

Stumpjump race preview

Second big mountain bike race of the year.  Last mountain bike race was at the beginning of March.  This race will be much shorter (1:40-2:00) than the Sumter race (my time 3:11), which should suite me a little better, I tend to do better in shorter races rather than longer races.  I've also ridden my mountain bike a lot more recently than I had leading up to the Sumter race.  So my hopes are pretty high going into the race:  I hope to be in the mix for winning the Cat 1 30-39 race, which it's hard to know for sure since I've only done one race, which was a while ago, and much longer than this race.

The first Charlotte Summer Series race was cancelled, due to rain, which was probably turned out to be a good thing for my preparation for this weekend's race so I wouldn't have done a really hard race 3-4 days before Sunday.  Last Friday I was able to pre-ride the course, which makes me feel much better going into the race, I know what to expect and learned a few things:
-the start is going to be huge:  almost all of the course is narrow singletrack
-drinking from a water bottle is going to be difficult:  very few straight flat sections
-it's going to be fast (assuming it's not too muddy):  many of the top finishers average over 14mph, which is FAST for a mountain bike race, and I could see why
-with it being so fast, if you're not careful and go out hard you could blow up the second half of the race because you are able to pedal so much
-there's a lot of pretty flat very smooth flowing trail, and then quite a bit of ungulating trails that has some roots, but these sections feel almost separate from each other because they're quite different
-I was also able to see where I should push the pace and where I'll be able to recover some

Belated Tim Tebow trade post

I thought that there were three teams in particular that were really dumb when it came to the trade of Tim Tebow:  the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Miami Dolphins, and the New York Jets.  We’ll get to the Jets later, but first the two NFL teams from Florida.  Tim Tebow is a god (lower case g) in Florida and would sell out all the home games of either team even if they were 2-14 every year, he would also allow you to charge for tickets and make either franchise nationally relevant (in Jacksonville’s case for the first time ever, in Miami case the first time since Marino) .  This isn’t as big a deal in Miami, but Jacksonville has a hard time selling out their stadium, and there has been talk about eventually moving to Los Angeles.  I understand if your goal is to win the Super Bowl and you don’t think Tim Tebow is a Super Bowl quarterback, that you wouldn’t want him as your quarterback, but only 1 out of 32 teams wins the Super Bowl every year and neither team is winning the Super Bowl this year or frankly probably in the next 5 years.  In addition to your goal of winning a Super Bowl, isn’t your goal as a team to make money, Tim Tebow might not win you a Super Bowl, but he’ll definitely make you some money.  If you’re not going to be great, at least be interesting and entertaining, which Tim Tebow certainly is.  It makes me wonder in the case of Jacksonville if the new owner even wants to stay in Jacksonville or would prefer to move the team to Los Angeles.

Now onto the New York Jets, here’s a team that has a mediocre (and many would say emotionally fragile quarterback).  So how is adding another mediocre (at best) quarterback who everyone will want to see play, going to help you win?  Isn’t this just a recipe for trouble: one bad series and the whole stadium is going to be chanting for Tebow.   If Sanchez was a great quarterback that had the fans and team behind him it might be different, but Sanchez isn’t great, he’s just ok (mind you  I’d be ok with be a just ok NFL quarterback , which would make me at worst the 20^th best quarterback in the world).

Maybe I’ll be proved wrong and the Jaguars, Dolphins and Jets will all make the playoffs, and one will win the Super Bowl, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

Review: Newton Gravity running shoes

Newton running shoes are relatively new to the running shoe market; they started about 6 years ago.  They used a very different philosophy than what had become the norm.  Instead of a lot of cushion in the rear of the shoe, the forefoot is built up and the heel is reduced: to encourage you to have a mid/forefoot landing, which it at least in theory should help you run faster.

When I first saw an advertisement for the Newton shoes it made a lot of sense.  I was also dealing with some pretty sever plantar fasciitis (sever enough that I got x-rays to make sure I didn’t have a stress fracture).   I’m not sure who suggested that landing on my forefoot while running might help with that.  That combination of factors led me to order my first pair.  There were two different styles of Newton trainers available at the time (the Gravity and Motion).  After giving them a call and talking to them I determined that the Gravity model (their neutral shoe) was the best suited for me since I wear orthotics.  The Motion model is their stability model, for those that have issues with pronation (and don’t wear orthotics to correct for that).

The first couple runs in my new Newton where weird.  I had always been a heal strike runner when running distance, so trying to run on my forefoot was odd and definitely worked some different muscles.  I also got a definite reminder of when I was landing on my heel because of the limited padding.  I started out with short runs, both because of the plantar fasciitis and it’s what Newton highly recommend starting out with shorter runs when switching to their shoes.  But after my initial period of adjustment the were great:  I felt and was faster than in traditional shoes, also my plantar fasciitis gradually went away and hasn’t been an issue in the 5 years since I started running in the Newton Running shoes. 

With my extremely positive experience with Newton I wouldn’t even think of trying a different brand of shoes.  I was worried that they wouldn’t last very long because of their limited cushioning, the first pair didn’t last very long, because of me still landing on my heal some times, but since I got used to the shoes and running more on my forefoot they’ve lasted as long as traditional shoes I’ve used in the past.

Busy upcoming race schedule

Race season is here and it's time to see where I am. I quite a few races coming up in the next couple weeks:

 -The Charlotte Summer Mountain Bike Series races will start April 18^th and will continue most Wednesdays through August, I’m not going to taper or rest going into them, but will use them as really hard training days.  I am also planning on running 20-30 minutes following each race (we’ll see how if I can do this or not), to try and get ready for the Xterra races and it will also give me an idea how hard I can push during the mountain bike portion of the Xterra races and still have a good run.

 -April 22^nd I will be racing Stumpjump, one of the more important mountain bike races for me this year.  It’s a AMBC (American Mountain Bike Challenge) race and if I have a good result I can definitely use that in my request for a pro license at the end of the year.

 -After another Summer Series MTB race the following Wednesday I have a decision what race to do on April 29th.  I can either do the Huntersville Triathlon, which I might have a chance to race for the win, depending on who signs up for the race (right now there’s not too many big names signed up for it).  I could also do the Southern Classic MTB race in Columbia, which counts toward the South Carolina State Mountain Bike Championships, which depending on how Stumpjump goes I may be in the running for; I guess I’ll see how Stumpjump goes and then evaluate from there.

On a different note I’ve lost a couple pounds since my post about being fat, by doing the small things that seem to make a big difference in my weight (drinking water, not eating to late, and avoiding dessert).  So I’m just about the weight I think I should be, I just need to keep doing the right things with my eating to maintain that.

New Specialized Shiv at BikeSource

Here’s a picture of the new Specialized Shiv (in this case the Comp version) at the shop, we got one in recently and it looks pretty sweet.  We have the Comp, Expert and Pro in stock.  Nothing particularly surprising from the description/reviews, but it’s really cool to see in person.

Paris-Roubaix Race and I’m “fat”

Tom Boonen won Paris-Roubaix in incredibly dominant fashion, going off the front with 30+ miles to go and consistently pulling away from the rest of the field that was working together to pull him back.  At one time team Sky had 5 team members together in the group behind Boonen and couldn’t even put a dent in his lead, in fact Boonen’s lead continue to grow.  Unfortunately because of his dominance the race wasn’t nearly as exciting as it usually is.  Also unfortunately, the live telecast didn’t show any of the interesting part of the race with Boonen and one of his teammates going off the front and then Boonen dropping him in short order.  Even on the replay segments they didn’t show the move of the day which was too bad.  But it’s hard to under estimate how truly dominant he rode.

When I say I’m “fat” I hope everyone realizes that I don’t think I’m fat, I just weigh a little more (3-4 pounds) than would be ideal for racing.  I was doing a really good job with eating the proper stuff at the correct time.  But after going to Cancun I’ve been having too much dessert, eating too late at night, not drinking enough water, etc. and as a result have put on 3-4 pounds depending on the day.  This doesn’t sound like a ton, but it takes quite a bit of fitness to make up for that extra weight.  I need to make a change with this I’m not going to try to lose weight necessarily but I’m going to re-focus on avoiding dessert, not eating late, and making sure to drink enough water.

Paris-Roubaix Preview

The biggest single day cycling race is tomorrow: Paris-Roubaix. Isn’t it a little odd that it’s a bigger race that the World Championships? For those who have never heard about the race it’s a brutal (over 30 miles of riding on cobble stones spread throughout the race) and long single day race (over 150 miles). It’s also one of the very few races that teams make dramatic changes in equiptment for (to deal with the cobbles): smoother riding frames, double wrapping bars, wider tires, and less pressure in those tires to name. As a result it’s always interesting to see what the pro’s will be riding. Tom Boonen is clearly the race favorite after winning the Tour of Flanders (probably the 2nd biggest single day race of the year) last weekend. Boonen will be riding a new Specialized Roubaix, likely to be called the S-work Roubaix SL4.


Specialized has definitely made some changes from the previous SL3 version, it’ll certainly be interesting to see how the changes perform. I was really excited to see that Boonen had his fit re-done this year by Scott Holz and made some fairly substantial changes as a result (which given Boonen’s results clearly have worked pretty well this year). Scott Holz is an awesome guy, really down to earth and nice, and was the instructor for the two Specialized BG Fit courses that I’ve take (the basic course and the master’s course). I’m sure that if I’m able to go see him again for some training that he’ll have some interesting stories, it’s always very interesting to hear what the pro’s and managers are like and how they react to the fit process. It is also SUPER cool to know that I’ve learned from one of the best and that the BG Fit process we use at BikeSource is the same process that some of the best pro’s in the world are using to getting fit to their bikes.


See a lot more pictures and comments of Paris-Roubaix bikes.

Race Photos and Additional Race thoughts

Here's a link to some race photos of me.  I still need to work on swinging my arms forward and backward while running instead of side to side.  You  can also see in the photo where I'm coming out of the water that I picked up a towel to dry myself off while running to the transtion area (I was very proud of this maneuver).

While I had a race I was incredibly happy with my race the results of Malia Ellington are extremely humbing.  Malia is a 15 year old girl whose splits were 3:25/37:10/17:30 with a total time of 59:18, which was second overall for the women.  This means that she was faster than me on the swim AND run, her transition times totalled to be almost 20 seconds faster than me.  Did I mention she was a 15 year old girl?  And by the way she would have finished 25th in the men's race (out of 229).  .  . WOW!!!

Visit to Performance Therapy

Went to see Zach at Performance Therapy, to get some ART (active relief therapy) for my legs and back.  I’ve been seeing Mike or Zach at Performance for about four years, and have been extremely happy with the results.  Over that time frame I haven’t had an injury that has kept me from doing a workout (with the exception of briefly dealing with some IT band issues following sitting cross legged at my Indian wedding for way too long, which was clearly self inflicted).   I think that track record of avoiding injuries (especially given the amount of training that I do) has been pretty incredible.  They have both been able to notice small imbalances and muscle tightness (usually before I’m aware of them) and address them before they become an issue that causes a problem.  I always feel better after going to see them, and today was no different.  I go to see one of the guys about every three weeks and can’t recommend them highly enough if you have any injury, discomfort, or tightness.

Cool Breeze Triathlon Race Report

Receiving my 1st place age group blanket

I won’t preface this with much, I’ll just jump right in to Saturday afternoon when I was getting everything together for the race.  I was getting my triathlon shoes out and found that the front part of my cleat had broken off (must have snapped off at the end of the duathlon earlier this year).  Unfortunately I didn’t have an extra set of cleats around the house, something I should probably remedy, so I had to take one of the cleats off my road shoes.  Unfortunately I had a hard time finding a Sharpie to mark the cleat placement on the road shoes, so this whole process ended up taking about 45 minutes.  Other than that getting ready went smoothly.

Didn’t sleep well, combination of still being on Cancun time and being excited/nervous for the race.  Eventually fell asleep around 1 AM, not ideal, but I’ve never felt the sleep the night before a race was critically, two nights before is a completely different story though.  Got up at 5 AM so I’d have three hours for breakfast to digest a little before the start of the race.  After my race day breakfast (bagel, sliced ham, and a banana) got my race clothes on, mixed my Infinit, and put everything in the car.  At this point I asked myself “What did I forget for this race?” it’s rare that I don’t forget something, usually it’s not very important, but there’s usually something.  I went through what I would need for the race and thought I had everything.

I ended up about 30 minutes later than I had planned (no shock to those that know me), but I had given myself extra time along for the other steps along the way so I knew I still had plenty of time During the drive to the race I found that I didn’t have a charger for my Garmin navigation, and of course it was very low on battery.  Fortunately I’ve been to this race location about 10 times and getting there is really easy and didn’t have any problems getting there.  While feeling around my car I did make a discovery:  the charger for my Garmin running watch, which I had been missing for a couple weeks.  I was pretty excited about this because it meant that I didn’t have to buy a new charger (yeah, I know it’ the little things in life).

Got to the race about an hour and thirty minutes before start.  Got another participant to help me pump up my disc wheel (which is a REALLY big challenge yourself).  Got my packet and the women who I was picking it up from said that they had to change my swim time because it had come up at like 4 minutes instead of 77 seconds (so much for lying about my time), but she said she looked at my past races and put in an appropriate time, which I was very thankful for.  When I started setting up my transition area and found what I had forgotten for this race:  my towel to wipe my feet off in the transition area (not a big deal).  Had time to warm-up a little on the bike and run (something I don’t always end up with enough time to do).

Swim felt good, I didn’t try to go really fast, but tried to be relaxed and smooth and use it almost like a warm up for the rest of the race.  The swim time they put in for me was good because I didn’t have to pass anyone, and no one passed me.  Got out of the pool feeling better than I have coming out of any swim, much thanks to Mark Privette for his help on my swim:  so even if I wasn’t any faster I was certainly fresher starting the bike than I usually am.  Had a quick, smooth transition, got on the bike, and started riding.  Felt very comfortable on the bike and powerful (unlike the duathlon earlier this year).  My average watts were around 215-220 through the first half, by the end it was almost 230 (without feeling like I was working any harder), which isn’t were I want to be, but was way better than the duathlon, and averaged about 23.5 mph (again, not where I’d like to be but pretty good).

Dismounted from the bike and was rushing to take off my helmet, ended up dropping it on the ground, had to back track and pick it up. . .oops.  Hung up the bike, grabbed all my run stuff, put on my Newton Running shoes and headed out of the transition area.  Went out fast but felt pretty good, wasn’t sure if I’d be able to maintain that pace, but there’s only one way to find out.  Felt like I was running fast but didn’t feel like I had any extra if I tried to pick it up (I guess I need to do a little more speed work. . .something to look forward to).  Near the turn around my small bottle of Infinit mix fell out of my pocket, and so I had to go back 5-10 yards to pick it up.  Shortly after that, right before the turn around a volunteer was handing out bracelets to ensure that people ran to the turn around.  Trying to grab it I ended up slipping on the wet grass and ended on my butt on the grass.  Even with these mistakes I was feeling good and had a really positive outlook.  Run continued uneventfully to the finish, no one passed me on the bike or run:  a really good sign for how I did overall.

One really nice thing that Set-Up-Events has added is to have live results scrolling on a large flatscreen TV, so that almost as soon as you finish you can see your time and were you’ve placed.  This is really cool that you don’t have to wait for them to print out the results (and is much easier to see than when they are posted on paper).  Finished in a time of 55:16, 5^th overall, and 1^st in my age group, all of which I was incredibly happy with.  After taking a couple minutes to walk around went back to the transition area and grabbed my Infiinit recovery drink and put on my Swiftwick compression sock.  Overall I couldn’t have been much happier with a race except for the small issues I had in the transition area and during the run.  Having such a good race will be huge for my motivation coming up:  for me there’s nothing quite like a good race to keep up/improve the training that I’m doing. 

Full Results