Bump and Run 3

I volunteered this morning for Bump and Run race #3. This one was the longest of the series and went a little over 5 miles. Sarah finished in about an hour and a half. The top time was a little under an hour, but that guy crushed the whole field. Sarah did pretty well for someone who "doesn't like running."

I spent a lot of time waiting around at my station before and in the middle of the race. My diversions included a little running of my own (before the race started), juggling rocks and balancing on a log.

One of the things they gave away in our swag bags was a sample of a product called Power Blast. It's a powder you mix in with water and it makes an "energy drink". I tried it on my ride this afternoon, and I can't say I was too impressed. First, it was very sweet and almost felt like it added carbonation to the water; maybe I didn't use enough water, but I don't think so. I also felt like it made me edgy rather than giving me real energy. A look at the ingredients seems to explain this, there are only 4 calories (all labeled as "other carbohydrates") and the rest is vitamins, minerals and caffeine. Not necessarily bad, but it's not what I'm looking for in an energy drink.

I see Rasmussen is still in yellow. Hopefully Contador, Evans or somebody else can beat him before they get to Paris. The Tour doesn't need another controversial winner again this year.

Rasmussen

I normally don't put too much stock into these accusations of doping by former riders, etc, but this one about Michael Rasmussen sounds convincing to me. Pretty disappointing.

Fundamentals

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A nice quote I stumbled across recently. I'm usually pretty optimistic in the morning, especially if it's a nice summer day. I feel fortunate if that feeling doesn't get completely beaten out of me during the work day though. ;-)

The real point of this post is to talk about mountain biking fundamentals (really, the fundamentals apply to almost any type of cycling). I started by coming up with a list of what are probably "higher level" skills, these would include things like: climbing, cornering, riding over obstacles, etc. From this list, I boiled the skills down to three fundamentals:

1. Balance / Body Position

2. Pedaling

3. Braking

Of these three, Balance / Body Position is the most important. Basically every higher level skill is built off of good balance and correct body position.

So, I've been spending some time working on these fundamentals. I've dropped the saddle on my singlespeed and have been doing a bunch of different drills in my backyard. I haven't done too many sessions yet, and I haven't been out to the trail recently, so I can't say if this is really helping much, but it can't hurt and it's pretty fun. The most interesting thing I've found so far is that I actually can lift the rear wheel off the ground on a bike with flat pedals (leading eventually to a bunny hop). I'm just not very consistent with it yet.

Windy 100

Dad and I rode our first century yesterday. The big story before the ride looked to be the weather. The forecast called for wind (15-20mph) all day and thunderstorms in the afternoon. We got off to a pretty early start (although not quite as early as I wanted). It was pretty windy for most of the ride, but not as bad as I'd feared. The rain also generally stayed away.

We passed the scene of what appeared to be a car/bicycle accident very early in the ride. I looked for some news on that this morning, but I didn't find anything; hopefully everything was OK there. The ride was otherwise pretty uneventful. I was pretty achey in a number of spots by the time we were finished, but I'm feeling pretty good today.

Here are a couple of pictures. Me, waiting for Mom and Dad to arrive.

Dad, after the ride. He doesn't look too tired, does he?

REO Speedwagon

Any other bike geeks (or geeks in general) notice that Kona cyclocross rider Barry Wicks looks like the guy from REO Speedwagon?

Mr. Wicks...

REO Speedwagon dude...

The better question is, how did I know what the REO Speedwagon guy looked like? Here's your hint. The video is worth watching for it's 80's-ness... the comments are also pretty funny.

Weekend

This past weekend was kind of a blur. I was up and out the door for a run by 7am on Saturday; the run went OK, but my IT band flared up again at the end. I took a little break, then mowed the lawn, and then went on a bike ride. Saturday afternoon/evening, Sarah and I went to a wedding for one of her fellow skating coaches.

On Sunday, I was up and out early again. This time, I rode my bike first. I attempted a run again and my IT band flared up within 6 or 7 minutes, so I stopped. I'll rest and stretch and ice today and try again tomorrow. After my aborted run, I ate a quick lunch and then Sarah and I met up with some friends to canoe for a couple hours. We had a pretty good time; we saw some interesting locals (many were short a few teeth) at a "swimmin' hole" along the river. After that, we went to visit Sean and Stacie and their new baby. Stacie made me a birthday cake, which was a nice surprise. July 8 is definitely the earliest I've celebrated my birthday in a long time, maybe ever.

The IT band thing is pretty disappointing. It probably means I won't have the opportunity to be ready for the trail race, but I guess it was a long shot anyway. I'm going to keep trying to resolve it though and we'll see what happens.

Running

I've been taking it easy, sort of, since the Marathon race last weekend. I've sort of decided not to do the 6 hour race at the end of the month. I actually basically made this decision shortly after hour 3 of the Marathon race, I was thinking "How could I ride twice this long?"

So, I'm doing a little riding to stay ready for the century ride I'm doing with my dad next weekend, but I'm planning to keep my riding to a minimum until I get back from Alaska. This should be a nice break and I'll be fired up to ride again in August. I've still got a lot of racing left to do this year.

Even though I'm not riding much, I'm not just sitting around. I've been doing some running instead. I'd really like to get my legs prepared to run the last race in the "Bump 'n Run" trail running series that my wife is doing. This one is going to be 5 miles, and I'm not sure I'll be able to get ready in time. I'll give it a shot though. My left knee, which is the one that has given me trouble the past couple years, has felt great during and after my runs. Unfortunately, I'm having some IT band issues with my right knee after about 15 minutes of running. I've been diligent about stopping once it starts hurting, stretching it, icing it, etc so hopefully it will clear up pretty soon.

Quick Picture

FarmerJohn has some pictures up from the Stony Marathon race. Here's the one of me. It's kind of interesting to look at the other pictures of the guys around me, you'll see that most of them have their heads tilted up just a little more than me. As I recall, I just about bit it after hopping over this little log on the first lap (I'm pretty sure that's where the picture is), I didn't land very square... I may have also cased it a little bit, I don't remember.

The picture of Brien getting over the log is also good. Notice how low his chest is, and how he's got his rear tire in the air already. I'm sure his bike didn't touch that log.

Singletrack Efficiency

Final results from the Marathon race are up. I finished 8th out 11 in my class, but the last guy DNF'd. It was interesting to look at the times from this year's race compared to last year. In general, this year's race was noticeably faster than last year's; this is a little surprising since the course should have been a little longer and a little slower with the addition of the new section in the Roller Coaster. I don't exactly remember what the weather was like last year, it might have been pretty hot last year, and maybe that was the difference.

Even in a race like this, my biggest weakness is still speed in the singletrack. I came up with a new way to think about it this morning, whether it's useful or not. I realized that what I'm after is not so much speed but efficiency. The seeds of this idea were planted in the Bloomer race. The singletrack there is tight and tends to follow a rolling profile, so I was able to stay on a wheel by outclimbing the racer who'd just opened a gap on the descent and the corner. (It may be that I'm at less of a disadvantage in tight singletrack where everyone has to slow down than I am in more open singletrack where I'm considerably slower than the faster guys.) This is obviously an inefficient way to stay on a wheel. I'd be better off using less energy to stay there by maintaining my momentum down the hill and through the corner; or, better yet, using the same energy level, but, having maintained my momentum, make the pass on the climb (easier said than done at Bloomer, but the principle is right).

I had plenty of time to think about this at the Marathon race, as I'd lose a position in the singletrack and then gain it back out on the two-track. I got to thinking about how every time I hit my brakes in the singletrack, it amounted to a bigger gap that I had to close on the two-track. Over the course of a 40-mile race, all of those extra brake touches really add up.

The other thing that occured to me before the race on Saturday was that I think most of the guys I race against have been riding their mountain bikes a lot longer than me. I keep a log of my races, and when I put the Marathon race in, I looked back at my first race, a MTB time trial, also at Stony Creek (end of July 2005). In that race, I averaged 10.2mph over 13 miles. Saturday, I averaged 11.5 mph over the 40 miles (the trails used in both races were basically the same). That's a pretty big difference. So, sometimes I just need to remember that getting faster takes time. It takes time to build fitness, and it takes time to build confidence in bike handling skills.

Stony Marathon XC

Yesterday I raced the Stony Marathon XC; 4 laps of a 10-mile course. I decided to load up my Camelback rather than worry about somebody handing bottles to me... besides, I'm not used to drinking from bottles on the mountain bike. I also packed 4 gels with me.

I did a very short, easy warmup. I figured that the race was long enough that I didn't need to warmup much ahead of time. They started us in waves... with the Expert/Elites going first (they raced 6 laps!), followed by groups of Sport racers. My wave included Sport men from 19 to 40 I think. Nobody seemed to be pushing too hard from the start, and I stayed with my group until we hit the Pines. At that point, guys who were a little quicker in the singletrack started passing me. I held my own out on the two-track, but was getting consistently passed in the singletrack. By the end of the first lap, I was last in my group (which I thought meant I was last in my wave), so I was a little discouraged at that point.

I felt a little better near the beginning of the second lap. On a "two-way" section of the course, I saw some guys with number plates for my class still finishing their first lap. So, I wasn't last in my wave, just the last of the first sepatation. There was a long climbing section near the beginning of the lap (individually, the climbs aren't long, but there are a bunch of them strung together), and I passed about 5 guys at once on the last climb. So, that perked me up a bit, even though most of the guys got by me again later in the lap.

Before the race, I had expected the third lap to be the hardest. I was pretty fatigued at the beginning of the lap, but that had also happened at the beginning of the second lap. It was a combination of things, the laps ended with a long slightly uphill ride through the grass, which was an energy-sucker. The gels also weren't kicking in until a little later in the lap. As with the second lap, I felt better a little further into the lap. For most of the third lap, I was riding with guys who rode more like I did in the singletrack, and I was also picking off a few riders who were starting to fade. Some of the faster Expert/Elite riders also started lapping me on the third lap... those guys were pretty impressive. By the end of the third lap, I was really starting to drag. I took my gel at the end of the lap as usual and waited for it to kick in.

I started the fourth lap pretty fatigued, as seemed to be the trend. This time though, the boost I got from the gel was short-lived. By the time I finished the first climbing section, I could feel my energy level dropping and a bonk coming on. I ate my "safety" gel, and it seemed to help. On that climbing section, I made my last pass on a guy I'd been swapping spots with all day. I told him we'd probably see each other again, but we didn't. I also started having some pain in my left foot early in the lap; it turns out that I got a little blister, but it didn't bother me too much. The singletrack sections were a little dicey the last time through; I didn't have any problems, but I wasn't as focused as I should have been. Anyway, I got through the lap and finished and was happy to get off my bike.

I finished in just under 3.5 hours, which I was pretty happy with. The preliminary results showed that I finished 8th out of 11; although, there might have been a few racers still on the course. I'd hoped to place a little higher, but that's how it goes; I'm not sure what I would have done differently to improve my position.

Despite eating and drinking a lot after the race yesterday, this morning I weighed 4 pounds less than I did yesterday morning.

Bunch o' Pictures

I realize that my blog has been devoid of pictures lately, so I raided my camera, and here's a sampling of what was on there...

A squirrel sleeping on the tree outside the bedroom window.



5th anniversary picture. Suzie wasn't too cooperative.

Our regular crew of Mountain Rhinos at Bloomer.

Steve Balogh's picture of me at the Hines Park TT.