Sunday Ride

We had some uncharacteristically beautiful weather this weekend. Temps were in the high 50's / low 60's both days and the sky was clear. Pretty crazy for November in Michigan.

I went to the Michigan football game on Saturday, so I was relegated to the trainer when I got home on Saturday night.

On Sunday, I went to the group ride that Mark W organized. The plan was to ride the dirt roads around Clarkston (we used the normal Thursday night route); do a good warmup, get in some intensity, and then cool back down.

I didn't do any of the Thursday rides this year, but last year, I never made it through without getting dropped. So, my plan for Sunday was to ride smart, stay out of the wind, and keep my effort pretty steady (and try to stay with the group!).

Things ended up going pretty well for me, although I'm not sure that we went quite as fast as I've gone before on Thursdays. We stopped to regroup a few times, but the group didn't have to wait for me. I got through my usual breaking point, Horton Rd (about halfway through the ride), with no problem. I felt pretty good on the hills coming back toward Clarkston, which was a first. And when Mark (and someone else) turned the screws a bit on the last stretch of dirt road into town, I put in a good chase. Not enough to catch Mark and companion (until they sat up), but enough to gap the rest of the group.

Anyway, it was a good ride, and a nice change of pace from what I've been doing lately (short intervals on the trainer). I'm feeling like my fitness is pretty reasonable again after those couple weeks I was sick. We'll see on Sunday how much ground I've made up...

Good Training

I've gotten in a pretty good week of training so far. I did some pretty hard intervals on the trainer on Tuesday night. Last night I went out to Waterford Oaks right after work and did a little 'cross ride.

I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to do a ride like last night. I left right after I got home from work, only rode an hour, and still was happy to have my lights as I rode home. I guess that's how it goes...

Anyway, I felt much better on the bike both days than I did over the weekend, so I'm optimistic that I'll be going pretty well by the next race at Stony.

Veterans Park CX - 2009

Wow, quite a weekend of racing!

It had rained pretty much all day on Friday, so Veteran's Park was still pretty wet on Saturday. Temperatures weren't too bad, mid 40's, but we had some serious winds to deal with. Vet's Park is always a hilly course, but usually you can recover a bit on the flatter sections. With the wind and the soft/muddy ground, there was no place to recover.

After two warmup laps, my legs were already hurting, so I wasn't too optimistic about how I'd feel in the race. Because of that and the tough conditions, I started a little more conservatively than I usually do. A lot of people passed me on the first lap, but the course started taking it's toll on some of them, and they came back to me in the later laps.

I felt pretty terrible the whole race, but I ended up riding around the same people I usually do. Most of the day, it seemed like the group ahead of me was just a few seconds ahead, but I just couldn't get up to them. I was noticeably faster than the other guys around me on some of the corners and on the hills, but, on the flat sections, they would take back whatever advantage I had gained.

One thing that I'll credit Gene for was my confidence on some of the faster slippery corners. There was one downhill, muddy, off-camber corner. On one lap, I had the bike leaned over and I was nicely balanced over the bottom bracket. Both tires were sliding, but I just stayed calm in my balanced position and rode it out... no big deal. It was pretty cool. Maybe not fast, but cool.

It's been a long time since I've done a bike race with mud, so I was curious about how my shoes and pedals would work. My Time ATAC pedals worked flawlessly the whole day, even though my shoes were caked in mud. There were a few times I wished that I'd put my toe spikes in though. My Challenge Fango tires also worked reasonably well in the short muddy stretches.

Anyway, I finished just a couple spots back from where I usually do, 13 out of 28. My pace was off though, about 37s per lap slower than the winner (7%).

The weather was much nicer on Sunday. Temperature was about the same, but there was no wind and the sun was out. The course had dried out a bit and I thought the layout was a little easier too.

Photo by Bruce LeBlanc

I was cautiously optimistic that I'd feel a bit better on Sunday. I did feel a little better, but it didn't really translate into an improved performance. Otherwise, the race went about like it did on Saturday. I ended up 14th out of 27 on Sunday, about 36s per lap slower than the winner (8%). Looking at my lap times, you can see that I was totally cooked by the end of the race; my last couple laps were about 30s slower than my first one. Usually I'm much more consistent than that. Although, I noticed that most of the guys that finished around me followed the same pattern.

Photo by Bruce LeBlanc

In general, my fitness just wasn't there this weekend, but, with being sick, that's really no surprise. I've got two weeks to get ready for the next race at Stony Creek; I think that should be enough time to have rebuilt a bit. Hopefully I can at least get back to my baseline 4% at that race.

One more interesting thing: during my "rehearsal" on Friday for the race, I noticed that I pause a little after I jump back on the bike before I start trying to find the pedal with my right foot. There's really no reason to do it, and it costs me a little momentum. So, I made an effort all weekend to eliminate that pause and get my right foot in the pedal as quickly as possible. I thought it seemed to help; I felt like I was able to accelerate out of the barriers a little more quickly. So many little things...

Re-motivation

One of the problems with being sick for awhile is that I tend to lose some of my motivation. One of my overall goals for the year was to get consistent top-10 finishes in the B-races, which I've mostly done so far. So, that goal wasn't really doing much to motivate me anymore either.

So, I spent a little time this week setting a different goal and figuring out how to achieve it. The winner of the B race (whoever it is) typically rides about 4% faster than me (about 17s per lap on a 7 min lap). With the limited time left in the season, it seems pretty unlikely that I could close that gap, but I think that I should be able to get partway there.

My new goal is for a 2% improvement by my last race at Springfield Oaks; 2% would be about 8s per lap. 8s per lap is still a lot, but, frankly, I could probably make up that whole difference just in cornering and barriers. That's probably not how it will happen, but it illustrates the possibility.

So far, having a new goal has helped. This weekend will be a little rough, since I'm pretty sure my fitness won't be there, but there's not much I can do about that right now.

Maybury CX... Not!

... the race that wasn't...

So, I felt pretty decent on Friday and decided to do a moderately hard ride on the trainer. In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. On Saturday, I felt so-so and rode over to Waterford Oaks to practice some 'cross skills. It was cool and rainy on Saturday morning... probably also not ideal.

We had a big Halloween party at our house on Saturday afternoon / evening. Something like 10 kids and 10 adults at our house. It was fun, but not so relaxing.

On Sunday, I didn't feel great in the morning, but I decided to head over to Maybury for the race anyway. I rode a couple laps of the course (I hadn't registered yet), and, on the second lap, I decided that I should probably not race. My nose was kind of runny and I started coughing a little. I really didn't want to get sick again this week. So, I packed up my stuff and went home.

It's too bad, because the course was pretty different from what we usually race on. More "jungle-cross" than grass-crit. The course was generally muddy and slippery from the rain we'd gotten, and there was a long section of singletrack. It would have been fun to race on I think. You can get some sense of the course from Andrea's pictures.


So, I'm just really being careful about resuming training. I'm hoping I can get back at it tomorrow, but we'll see. Probably doesn't bode well for my chances at Vet's Park this weekend, but there are still a few more races before the season's over.

Not According to Plan

Well, things haven't exactly gone according to plan this week. It turned out that racing last weekend may not have been my best move in terms of getting over my cold. I felt a little sick on Monday, and then really sick on Tuesday. I felt reasonably good yesterday, so I spent a some time working on some bike handling skills and doing some easy spinning on the trainer. I feel almost back to normal today, so I'm going to try to do a little intensity tonight and see how it goes.

There is another low-key race this weekend at Maybury State Park. I doubt that I'll feel very good for it, so my plan is not to worry too much about it and just treat it as an opportunity to get in some hard riding.

I'm hoping I can get feeling decent (in terms of riding) for the back-to-back races next weekend at Veteran's Park in A^2.


As a follow up to my post about the Betterride camp... because I've been sick, I haven't spent as much time practicing the skills I learned as I would like. I did work on some of the drills in my practice time last night. The thing that was obvious last night was how important proper vision was. If I was looking at the right place, all of the drills I did worked better (my bike turned better, I could clear my 4x4 post perfectly, etc). When things weren't working as well, I noticed it was usually because I wasn't looking far enough ahead, or was looking down at the last second.

Cyclocross Race Weekend

I had a fun weekend of cyclocross racing, but it's too bad I didn't feel a little better for it. I'd been feeling a little sick since I got back from Richmond last week. I rode on Tuesday night, but then I decided not to ride at all after that until I got feeling better. I felt more-or-less decent on Friday, so I decided to go ahead and race on Saturday.

Saturday was the first ever Mad Anthony CX race. It was held at Fort Wayne in Detroit. Fort Wayne was a Civil War era fort that is now owned by the city of Detroit. Much of it seems to be in a pretty bad state of ruin, but the parts that have been restored look nice.

Anyway, I expected the course to be totally flat (I visited Fort Smith in Arkansas once, and I remember it being pretty flat, so I guess that was the basis for my assumption.), but it definitely wasn't. We had to climb and run a couple of steep hills, and there was one longer sidehill stretch. It turned out to be a pretty cool course. Some of the grass to pavement transitions were a little harsh, but if you unweighted or hopped them, it wasn't too bad.

The "B" field was decent. A lot of the usual B racers weren't there (saving it for Sunday I guess), but since there was no Masters 35+ race, a lot of those guys raced in the B's. Anyway, I got off to a decent start but the front group dropped me pretty quickly. I had a good early battle with Brad from TSB. Once I realized he was on a singlespeed, I picked a slow corner to try to gap him, and it seemed to work well. Still, I was impressed at how quick he was on that singlespeed!

In the middle laps, I'd put in a small gap over fellow Rhino Gary Olsen and a guy riding a mountain bike, but I couldn't extend it. They were right on me to start the last lap. I figured that if I could stay in front until the cobblestone climb near the end, I'd be OK. They must have had a similar thought, because they both came around me just before the tunnel (which was just before the cobblestone climb). I managed to get back around Gary on the runup, but I had no chance to get around the MTB guy. I put in a decent sprint at the end, but the MTB guy was too far ahead. I ended up 6th out 25. On that last lap, I just tried to go hard the whole time (I think our laps were around 5 minutes); in hindsight, I wonder if I should have tried one or two big attacks instead?

I took some pictures during the Elite race and tried to capture what the area and course looked like. Definitely a unique venue!

On Sunday, I raced at Lower Huron Metropark; it's always one of my favorite places to race (maybe because I usually do well there). The course was a little different this year; it seemed shorter and more open.

I got a great start and rode with the front group for the first lap and a bit into the second. Then, as Phil Ligget would say, the elastic snapped. For the next two laps I suffered pretty badly and hoped something would break on my bike so I could stop. (When I start thinking like that, I just remind myself that it means I'm doing it right. The pace should be so hard that you want to quit.) I lost quite a few spots in those laps. By the fourth lap though, I had recovered a bit and I started picking riders off.

Got the old "game squint" on... (Photo by Hans Nyberg)

The last rider I caught and passed was Tom Payn (who I also battled with at Munson), but Tom hung with me until the end. On the last lap, I attacked hard out of the barriers by the pavilion and briefly had a gap, but Tom had closed it up by the time we crested the paved hill. At that point, it was clear it was going to come down to a sprint. Usually, I feel pretty good about my chances in a sprint, but I didn't on Sunday... the attack out of the barriers had taken too much out of me. The sprint still ended up being pretty close, but Tom came around and beat me by a bike length or so.

(Photo by Hans Nyberg)

So, I ended up in 11th (out of 33). This was actually the first time I've finished out of the top 10 in a CX race this year.

Even though I'm a little bummed that I got nipped right at the end on both days, I felt like I had pretty decent races. In fact, I'm surprised that I rode as well as I did, considering that I'd been feeling sick and hardly rode last week (I guess I was well-rested).

My mental focus was pretty decent in both races... no flaking out at all. In particular, on Saturday, there were a few times when I noticed that my mind was starting to wander, and I brought it right back. OK, so maybe on Sunday trying to figure out the best way to quit the race doesn't demonstrate the great focus, but I got through it and finished the race strong.

Even though it's probably not the best strategy for getting my best placement, I was also happy with how I rode the first lap with the front group on Sunday. I do think that this is the way to get faster. The first step to riding consistent fast laps is to ride one fast lap; once you can do that, it's just a matter of building fitness.

More Power Stuff

I wrote a while ago about how I was messing with some power meter concepts (with no power meter!). I've discovered that I didn't do the calculation quite right. I was doing a straight rolling average, but I should have been doing an exponentially weighted average. I found a pretty cool article that describes the background for this calculation.

It took a little more effort to implement this in a spreadsheet, but I did it. I made a plot that compares the two calculation methods. The trends are roughly the same, but the absolute values are noticeably different.

So far, I haven't found that either method has done a particularly good job of predicting when I'll feel good on the bike and when I won't. Maybe its because I'm estimating my training load instead of actually measuring it. Maybe I don't have enough "data" yet. It seems like other factors in my life (sleep, work stress, etc) have a bigger impact on my performance than fine-tuning training load and rest.

Speaking of, I've been feeling a little sick since I came home from camp. Reviewing my training log, I noticed that I've once again strung together too many days of not quite enough sleep. I've taken it pretty easy since Wednesday morning, and I don't seem to be getting worse. If I feel decent all day on Friday, I'll probably go ahead and race "Mad Anthony" on Saturday; otherwise, I think I'll hold off racing until Lower Huron on Sunday. One of the interesting things that you can see with my spreadsheet though is that missing a couple days has a relatively minor impact on the overall picture. Like I've written before, I think it's much better to be conservative and miss a couple days than try to push through and end up having to miss a week or more.

Betterride Camp

I made the looong drive down to Richmond, VA this past weekend to participate in a Betterride mountain bike skills camp. The drive down was pretty uneventful, except that I got stuck in traffic around Washington DC. I was nearly parked on the expressway for about 2 hours... not so fun.

The next morning, I got completely turned around (not lost... no, no, not lost) on my way to camp and what should have been a 20 minute drive took me about an hour. Fortunately, I had left super early, so I was only a few minutes late. Still, it wasn't exactly the way I wanted to get things started.

It seemed like we didn't do too much the first day of camp, but it was probably the most useful day. We spent most of the morning working on vision and body position on the bike. I had a couple of "ah-ha" moments, where I learned some detail that I wasn't doing quite right and found that it made a big difference. Later we worked on wheelies and bike setup. Gene said I got points for my short stem, but lost points for my narrow bars. We rode the trails at the park a little in the afternoon. I'd thought that the riding might be quite a bit different than I was used to, but it really wasn't. The trail at Forest Park reminded me of Bloomer back home. The weather was also awesome that first day; it was in the mid-80's and sunny, a nice change from Michigan.

We got a little lucky with weather the second day. It was supposed to rain almost all day, but we only got sprinkled on a little. Temperatures were much cooler though. Anyway, we spent most of the second day working on cornering. Gene didn't teach us anything revolutionary, but having someone explain and demonstrate things in person made a big difference. I did pretty well in the parking lot drills, but I noticed that I was reverting back to my old habits on the trail. The good thing was that I recognized what I was doing wrong and I know how to fix it.

After camp on the second day, I went for a ride by myself on the trails at Pocohontas State Park. I noticed that I was flowing pretty well during my ride, which is a little unusual for me on my first ride on a new trail. At first, I thought it was the trail itself (which was a nice flowy trail), then I realized that I was looking much farther ahead than I normally do. I think what was happening was that I was looking far enough ahead to consistently link up the corners, and the result was a much smoother ride. Pretty cool...

For day 3, we were back at Forest Park, and the weather was nice again. We worked on switchbacks and lifting the rear wheel over obstacles. I don't really ride a whole lot of "real" switchbacks, so it was good for me. Gene didn't teach us real bunnyhopping, but I talked about it with him a little bit, and I realized that I'd been going about it wrong. He showed us how the wheelie you do for a bunnyhop is different than a pedal or coaster wheelie.

Afterward, I drove up to Kevin's house in Baltimore, and then came home the next day. Even though Baltimore isn't a whole lot closer than Richmond, I was still grateful for a slightly shorter drive on Monday.

On the whole, doing the camp was definitely worthwhile. I think that having some defined techniques and practice drills will help me a lot. Gene is also a very positive guy, and I noticed that I had a much more positive attitude about my riding by the end of the weekend.


Obviously, I haven't had a lot (or any) time to practice since I've been home, but I already noticed a difference at 'cross practice last night. In the past, I'd been a little tentative in the faster corners on our course, but last night I was much more confident and noticeably faster through these corners.

Speaking of 'cross practice, Jeff noticed (and I noticed... once he said it) that I come into the barriers pretty fast, but leave really slow. I think it's a combination of things. One is that I don't really run hard between the barriers. Since I come in fast, I just sort of let my momentum bleed off as I go. Second is that I'm not comfortable getting on my bike at higher speeds. If I'm honest with myself, I'd say that even though I do practice barriers (actually, just one barrier) in the backyard, I don't practice them very well anymore. I probably need to build a second one, and then I need to work on not ending the drill (not slowing down) until I'm back on the bike and my feet are in the pedals. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I go over the barriers exactly like I practice...

Munson Photos

I didn't think that the Munson race would be great for pictures (since it would be dark!), but it turns out that some of the photographers got great pictures.

Hans Nyberg's...

Andrea got some great shots as well (as usual).

After it quit raining on Sunday, I got out on the mountain bike for a while. It was the first time I'd been on that bike in about 3 weeks, but it went surprisingly well. I didn't feel as sharp as I did at the end of my mountain bike season, but I still rode reasonably well.

One thing that I did notice was that my fitness is obviously better now than it was a few weeks ago. I was less fatigued on the bigger climbs and, when I did my intervals, I felt like having to coast through the more technical sections of the trail was making the interval too easy.

How to split trail time and road time is something I need to think about again for next year. This year, I felt like I really needed to spend time on the trail, and it helped my riding a lot, but it looks like it really wasn't ideal for fitness (which is no surprise). Hopefully next year I can achieve a little better balance between the two.

Munson CX - 2009

I just got back from the Munson CX race. This year it was held on a Saturday night. I think Munson is probably one of most people's least favorite venues, so I thought it was a good idea to try something a little different.

The weather was cool (cold? around 55F at the start) and rainy. It was light for most of my race. It only started getting hard to see on the last lap. It was completely dark though for the Masters and Elite races.

Anyway, to make sure that the course was more-or-less lit and safe, they made it a little shorter and a little less technical than normal. It meant that we only went up the big hill twice (once riding and once running), and the rest was completely flat. Not so good for me...

I arrived a little late to the starting line again and lined up in the third row. From the start, we went almost immediately up the hill and through a couple of tighter corners. I was able to move up pretty quickly into the chase group for the first lap, and I could see that the leaders weren't too far ahead.

On the second lap, I made a tactical mistake. Once my little chase group hit the flat section (after the opening climb and first barriers), they slowed down, maybe to recover a little. I decided to stay with the group and draft (which is why I thought they were sticking together). What ended up happening was that the front group completely dropped us and a bunch of guys caught on to our group from behind (in fact, caught us and blew by). In hindsight, I should have attacked my group as soon as it slowed down. I don't know if I would have been successful, but I felt good enough at the time that it would have probably been worthwhile.

My race was otherwise pretty uneventful. I spent most of the time trying to hold off Tom Payn (a good bike racer name if there ever was one!) and trying to catch fellow Rhino Mark Caffyn. I did hold off Tom, but I couldn't reel Mark in. One thing that seemed to help me in the long flat sections was to think about a nice smooth pedal stroke. If nothing else, it gave me something productive to think about.

That leads me to my last point. I finally didn't make any big mental errors today. In the other three races I've done this year, I've flaked out at some point and made a mistake. Today, I stayed pretty focused the whole race. My mind did start to wander a bit near the end, but I brought it back. I ended up doing a couple rides on the trainer this week, and I used the time to also work on staying mentally focused (either by concentrating on something specific, or trying to clear my mind). Maybe it helped. (My tactical mistake doesn't count as "flaking out"; it was really a problem of me not reading the situation correctly.)


So... on to the next thing. I don't remember if I've posted this before, but next weekend I'm going to "bike camp." I decided a while ago to go ahead and sign up for a mountain bike skills clinic put on by Gene Hamilton. I'm going to the closest one, in Richmond, VA. I'm really excited about it! The only bad part is that I haven't touched my mountain bike since the Addison Oaks race last month. If the weather holds, I'll ride it tomorrow and this week before I leave. Hopefully it will be enough to get rid of a little rustiness.

A Few Ithaca Pictures

Superhero Dirt

We had superhero soil conditions last night at 'cross practice. It had rained a bit, but things had mostly dried out, so the ground was soft and grippy. It felt like you could lean your bike as much as you wanted. At one point, on the off-camber turn around a big tree, I could feel clumps of dirt being thrown from the tire hitting my leg... pretty cool.

I'm still getting used to my new tires. I'm not sure if it was the tires, soil conditions, or what, but it seemed like I was starting to get the bike to rotate under me a little bit. When I was in to driving cars and karts, this feeling of rotation was one of my clues that I was starting to get the corners right. Not so much rotation that the rear tire breaks free (which usually slows you down), but enough that you can feel you're doing more than just tracking around an arc.

My legs felt pretty decent once I got going a bit (it was cold last night!). I felt like I mostly rode pretty well too, but I still am not riding quite as smoothly as I could. There were a few times on connected corners where I'd nail the first one, get the light moment in between the corners, but then decide I was going too fast for the second one and brake a little, which wrecked the smooth weight transfer. Intellectually, I'm sure that I could transition from that light moment into the next corner, really cram the tires into the ground and rip the second corner, but my body still isn't convinced yet. Just takes more practice I guess...

I've been running a bit for the past month or so. Just short easy runs to get the legs used to it a little. Except for the very first run, they've all gone fine, no pain or soreness later. So, with that preparation work done, this morning, I did my first session of hill sprints. It was cold enough that I was glad I was wearing a hat and wishing that I'd brought gloves too. The sprints didn't feel too hard while I was doing them (a benefit of the cold?), but I could feel it in my legs later this morning.

Ithaca GP CX - 2009

This weekend, I made the trip up to Ithaca (Michigan), for the Ithaca GP cyclocross race. This was, I think, the third year that they've held the race, but it was my first time doing it.

We brought the whole family: wife, kid, dog, so it was a full car. Everybody but me slept all the way up, so I had a nice quiet drive. It turned out that the park was really nice and had a huge play area; that made it much easier to have everybody there all day.

The course itself was pretty fun. It was a nice mix of rolling hills, flat open sections, and tight turns. I felt pretty bad on my warmup. Since this wasn't a high-priority race for me, I'd ridden kind of hard (maybe a bit too hard) the day before.

I got to the start line shortly after they blew the whistle and found that the bulk of the field was already there (we had 23 in my race). So, I lined up in the third row; somebody moved a bit in front of me, so then I squeezed into the second row. There was a holeshot prime, so I guess that's why everyone was there early. From the second row, I figured I didn't have much of a chance to contest for it.

I got a good start at the whistle and stayed right with the front group. The road was pretty narrow though, and I didn't see a good opportunity to get around anyone. In hindsight, maybe I should have been a bit more aggressive at the start and through the first couple corners, because I lost several spots and wound up getting slowed by some early crashes.

For whatever reason (riding the day before, or that this was a one-off race), I didn't ride the first couple laps with the intensity that I usually do. I noticed this and thought that it might end up working out for me if I didn't slow as much in the middle laps. We didn't have chip timing for this race, so I don't know for sure, but I felt like I slowed down in the middle anyway.

As it was, I had some good battles in the middle and near the end of the race and worked my way up several spots. I did completely flake out on one of the middle laps and rode straight off the course. Even though I was staring right at the course tape showing the turn, I just didn't turn. Fortunately, the tape was placed high, so I could duck under it, but still, it was a really dumb mistake. By the last lap, I had pretty well dropped the guy chasing me, but I couldn't get close to the guy ahead of me. Every time I started making up ground, he'd notice it and put in a hard effort to hold his advantage. I ended up finishing 6th out of 23.

The course was varied enough that it showed me what my strengths and weaknesses were pretty clearly. I was making up ground on the climbs, slower twisty sections, and whenever we had to get off the bike. But then I'd lose ground on the open flat sections where you just had to put down the power. I also need to fix this problem of losing focus during the race; it seems to be happening every race and probably costs me at least one position when it happens.

Waterford Pictures

Hans Nyberg pictures from Waterford last weekend.



(Looks like this is exactly where I dropped my chain.)

(Yikes! How not to do it!)




(Better...)

Fangos

Last night, I got my first real chance to test out my new Challenge Fango tubulars. The conditions at the track were a little loose, but not as bad as they were over the weekend.

I ran my first bunch of laps at 25psi (measured on my pump). At this pressure, the tires were really soft and soaked up the bumps nicely. Grip was mostly good, but I occasionally had moments where the rear tire would suddenly break loose. I also think I bottomed it out once.

So, I added a little more air (with a different pump). It read 30psi, but my hunch is that it was closer to 35psi. At this pressure, the tires seemed too hard and the ride was pretty rough. Grip felt pretty good though.

Finally, I let a little air out by hand and turned a few more laps. Afterward, I checked pressure on my pump and measured it at roughly 30psi. At this pressure, the tires still seemed a bit stiffer than I'd like, but the grip was consistently good.

Next time out, I may try some pressures between 25 and 30psi.

So, in general, while my new tires are nice, they didn't provide the kind of step change that I was hoping for. I think that this speaks more to the quality of the clinchers that I was using rather than anything bad about the tubulars. That said, I think that my tubulars do provide better grip than my clinchers, in particular on off-camber corners.

Waterford CX - 2009

Cyclocross started for me this past weekend with two days of racing at Waterford Hills. Even though Waterford is my "home turf", it's really not one of my favorite venues... too flat and too bumpy.

Even though I had my new tubular tires glued up (I did end up getting some Challenge Fangos), I only had a total of about 20 minutes of easy riding time on them, so I decided not to use them for the race. I kept thinking how they might take the edge off of some of the bumps though.

My race on Saturday was good, but I made a lot of mistakes. I got a pretty decent start and was briefly in the top 5, but I really didn't have the pace to hang with the fastest guys. As I said, I made a number of physical and mental mistakes in the middle laps that probably cost me a spot or two. The most time-consuming one was dropping my chain after tapping my back wheel on a barrier. But the more interesting mistake was that I nearly went off-course! There was one section of the course that was a little chicane past a big tree; in our weekly 'cross practice at the track, we almost always go all the way around the tree. So, about 3-4 laps into the race when I wasn't thinking so clearly, I started going all the way around the tree instead of following the marked course... not good.

Still, I ended up in 9th place (out of 30), which is pretty easily my best finish in the "B" field.

On Sunday, I had a big crowd watching me (my parents plus my wife and daughter... hey, that's big for me!). I hadn't intended to do this, but I got a great start off the line and jumped into first place. At that point, I figured I might as well just let it rip and see what would happen. I led for maybe a quarter of a lap or so before I started getting passed. That's the problem with going to the front at the start... you can only go backward from there. As it turned out, only my Mom actually saw me leading the race.

My race on Sunday was generally much better. I stayed more focused and made fewer mistakes. Coming down to the last lap, I was in a tight battle with another guy. I was feeling good about dropping him or out-sprinting him on the last lap, but it never came to that. I overcooked the last corner before the start/finish straight to begin the last lap and got some course tape tangled up in my shoe. Seeing this, the guy behind me punched it (I would have done the same); he was almost halfway down the straightaway before I got clear of the tape. I chased hard and got close to him, but not close enough to really do anything. I ended up placing 8th on Sunday.

(Me, briefly leading the race on Sunday. Photo by Bruce LeBlanc.)

Anyway, despite that little disaster, it was a pretty good race. Actually, I'm really pretty happy about how the whole weekend went. I still have lots of ideas about things to work on to keep improving, and I'm looking forward to trying out the new tires this week.

Power Meter Concepts

So, I ran across an interesting couple of blog posts by Joe Friel.

Estimating TSS and Projecting Race Readiness

In "Projecting Race Readiness", he describes how you can use your power meter data and software to track your fitness, fatigue and form. From those numbers, you can get a pretty good idea about how physically prepared you are to race. Nice, if you have a power meter, which I don't, and won't for the forseeable future.

In "Estimating TSS", he talks about how you can estimate training stress from RPE or heart rate and volume. Now, it's getting interesting! His intent (I think) was to show this for the triathlon community, where you're competing in multiple disciplines and may not be able to gather data in all of them, like swimming.

For me though, it suggests a crude method of projecting fitness without a power meter. In fact, I tried to do something similar with my own formula a couple years ago, but I couldn't get the numbers to work out to anything useful.

As I read and re-read these posts, and started playing with their implementation in a spreadsheet, I realized that a big part of the value to doing this is in planning your training relative to your races. I guess that's clear enough from the title "Projecting Race Readiness", but for some reason I didn't get it at first.

Anyway, so I put in some rough estimates for my workouts for the rest of the year, and marked my races. What I found was that, according to these numbers anyway, I will only be marginally "peaked" for a couple random races (with my best peak happening at the new Maybury CX race, which I may decide not to even do!). The numbers also show that I will generally not have good form for a lot of the races I do care about. (This actually reflects pretty well how past seasons have gone for me.)

(After just a little work...)

Here's where it gets tricky though. If you decide that you want to change your workout plan so that you get better numbers prior to a race, how do you go about doing it? It's not straightforward, since you're trying to optimize a couple outputs, and the "rolling sum" nature of some of the equations makes them difficult to work with. Still, for an engineer, it's an interesting problem.

Addison Oaks XC - 2009

Yesterday I raced the Addison Oaks cross-country race for the first time. As I posted before, I was really motivated for the race and I thought I had a good chance to perform well. I did end up having a really good race, but I just didn't get the placement I was hoping for. So, here's how it went...

I changed my warmup routine a little bit for this race. Instead of doing several 30s intervals, I did a few slightly easier 2 minute intervals. I felt like this change worked well for me. I also spent about 10 minutes sitting under a tree going over my strategy and visualizing key sections of the race. This was also really nice.

At the starting line, I lined up on the front row of a pretty decent-sized field, 14 riders. My plan was to go as fast as possible on the grassy field and up the first, long climb. At the signal, the field took off, and things split up pretty quickly. I made the front group of four; the other guys here were the top guys in my class, so I tried to stay with them as long as I could. Once we hit the singletrack though, they slowly pulled away from me. That was the bad news; the good news was that I couldn't see or hear anyone behind me.

In a trend that would continue on every lap, I rode by myself for the next 40% of the course. And then, as happened on every lap, although I haven't figured out why, a small group caught me going into the last long section of singletrack. They caught me, but no one could make a pass that would stick. At the end of the first lap, an RBS rider did pass me on the singletrack, but I went right back around him in the grassy field by the start/finish area.

Basically, aside from having company on the singletrack at the end of every lap, it was a pretty uneventful race. I pushed hard on all the open sections and tried to ride smooth on the singletrack. Because of the nature of the trail, it seemed like I was going fast the whole time.

Near the end of the last lap, I had company again and was a little worried about who was behind me and how the finish would play out. As it turned out, we came up on a little slower traffic. I moved through it pretty quickly and pushed hard to build a gap. I had a decent gap by the time I exited the singletrack, so I just kept a moderately hard pace to the finish.

I ended up in 4th place, about 2 minutes back from the top 3 guys. The 5th place guy was in the group right behind me, he ended up finishing about 10s behind me. There was another big gap behind him though, about 4 minutes (!) back to 6th place.

Before the race, I was hoping for a top 3 finish, but it was clear that the top 3 guys were riding a step above me. I'm still really happy with my race though; I did everything I wanted to and I felt like I rode really well.

Since that was my last mountain bike race of the year ('cross starts this weekend!), I'm thinking about what I want to do for next year. At this point, I'm fairly sure that I'm going to move up to Expert. My lap times are at least now comparable to the lower half of the Expert field, so I shouldn't be totally getting crushed. I also don't know what I would have to gain by racing Sport again.

Bike Washing

Helping Dad wash the bikes... she had fun, but she was completely soaked by the end. She kept wanting to get between the hose and the bike.

I'm really fired up about the race at Addison this weekend. I feel like I'm more fit than I've ever been for a mountain bike race, and I think the course suits me well. We're going to find out...

Addison and 'Cross Tires

I went out to Addison Oaks both days this weekend to try to get ready for the race next Sunday. I definitely had more fun this weekend than I did last weekend, when the rain cut my ride short. I had good rides on both days, and I'm getting to know the trail well enough so that it's pretty fun to ride.

Even though I don't know the exact course (this will be the first time I've done this race), I've been timing my laps. Mostly, I haven't been pushing too hard, but I did do some harder efforts last weekend. Based on last year's results, it looks like I should be pretty competitive. Like I always say, "it all depends on who shows up." I feel prepared anyway.

It's September, and 'cross is definitely on my mind. Over last winter, I bought a set of used tubular wheels and tires from another racer. I was pretty sure the wheels were OK, but I wasn't so sure about the tires... now I think I have my answer... I need to find something else. I try to get out a couple times a week and practice basic 'cross skills in my backyard. Mostly I just work on barriers, but, depending on what I'm doing, I also corner moderately hard. Up until this week, I've never had a problem (using my Michelin Mud2 clinchers); I think traction in my yard is probably pretty good... better than most 'cross courses anyway. This week, on my Vittoria EVO XG tubulars, I heard my front wheel squeek in the corner, then it washed out and I fell... yes, in my backyard! (I'm almost too embarassed to admit it!)

Normally, I'm not one to blame my equipment for my problems, but I've done this turn countless times on my other tires with no problem. So, unless I totally blew the tire pressure, I don't think this tire and I are going to get along.

But, I think this was an instructive experience for me. I know a couple things that I'm looking for now. One is more (or better) side and intermediate knobs. I know that there are a lot of 'cross tires out there with minimalist tread patterns, and that people can ride them fast, but I'm not one of them. Two, I'd like to find a tire that has a little softer rubber. The rubber on these Vitorrias seems a little hard to me (maybe because they are older tires?). I know the rubber on my Mud2 clinchers is much softer, and those tires are a few years old.

I'm thinking about the Challenge Fango's. They're intended to be mud tires, but I've read several reviews where people have had good success using them as more aggressive all-purpose tires. Hopefully the weather will hold for 'cross practice at the track tomorrow night; I want to scope out some other people's tires. As for me, until further notice, I'll keep riding my clinchers.

What Did You Do?

I had a pretty decent night at the track last night. Running my tires at 30psi instead of 25psi worked much better. I surprised myself a bit by being able to keep my pace up through all of our hard efforts. A lot of other people seemed to fade quite a bit as we went on. After our last effort, Jeff said that he thought I looked much improved over last year and asked me "What did you do this summer?" I didn't give him a great answer, since I was still breathing hard, but the question made me think. So, here's the long version about what I did:

1. Practiced cornering... a lot.

2. Practiced riding in a "neutral" position, with little weight on my hands. (I think a couple of the crashes I saw last night were due to people trying to steer their bike with their weight forward, resulting in the front wheel tucking under and them going down.)

3. Rode less, but made sure that my rides were high-quality.

4. Rested more. The result has been one of my most consistent years; I haven't been sick since Spring (knock on wood).

5. For the last month or so, I've been much more diligent about sticking to my Paleo nutrition plan. It's surprising what a difference this makes.

6. I've been working on not letting my bike bash into bumps or dips. So, lifting my front wheel over sharp bumps/dips and pumping the bigger ones.

It also helped that I'd just come off of a rest week and I worked a normal day yesterday. The week before, I'd just finished a hard block of training and had worked a longish day.

Cross Practice

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. I've been really busy at work and at home the past couple weeks, and blogging falls pretty low on the list of priorities.

I had originally planned to race at Maybury or Fort Custer last weekend, but, after having raced the previous two weekends, I felt like I needed to get in a good week of training instead. (I also wasn't terribly excited about either race.) I did a couple hard rides during the week, and then again on Saturday. The Saturday ride was interesting, instead of riding out on White Lake road toward Indian Springs, I turned down the park road to the campground at Pontiac Lake. For all the times I've ridden by it, I've never actually ridden on it; it was much longer than I thought... definitely worth riding. The campground at Pontiac Lake also looked nicer than I expected.

On Sunday, I went out to Addison Oaks, not to go hard, mainly just to familiarize myself with the trail (I'm planning to race there next month... last MTB race already). I think I've only ridden there twice over the past 5 years or so. I checked the weather before I left (for Waterford, not for Leonard, where the park is), 10% chance of rain, sweet... no need to check the radar...

I parked at Bald Mountain and started getting ready... I noticed a few raindrops... then on my ride over to Addison, it really started raining. I thought, "just a 10% chance of rain, so it probably won't rain long." Partway through my first lap of the trail, it did mostly stop, so I did a second lap. The trails were just a little wet when I rode them, the trees seemed to keep them (and me) relatively dry. Near the end of the second lap, it started raining really hard again, so I started riding back to my car. It poured on me the whole way back to Bald Mountain, and I was soaked by the time I got to the car. Fortunately, it was warm enough that I wasn't completely miserable, and I had fun riding at a different trail.

Last night, I went to the track for my first cyclocross practice of the year. I thought my legs would be OK, but they really didn't feel that great for any kind of hard effort. So, it ended up not being so worthwhile from a fitness standpoint, but it was worthwhile to get out and ride my 'cross bike off road. My rear tire was really squirming and sliding all over the place though; I may have also bottomed out the rim (or came close) at least once. Same tires as I used last year, and I thought the same pressure. This morning I checked my setup notes from last year: I saw that I eventually settled on runnning my tires at 30psi; last night I had them at 25psi. So, I can probably safely say now that 25psi is too low for me on these tires. I also need to work on getting back on my bike and into the pedals quickly... I was fast getting off, but slow getting back on.

PLRA XC - 2009

On Sunday, I did the Pontiac Lake XC race. It was another very hot race (temps around 90F for my race). I was very conflicted going in. From a technical riding perspective, I feel like I've made some good progress again the past few weeks. But, my legs had also been feeling pretty bad for most of the week. I was a little concerned that racing would be counterproductive, maybe undoing some of my technical progress and possibly hurting my confidence. As it turned out, I'm glad that I raced.

First, I set up my goals for the race:
1. Start at a reasonably hard pace, to set the intensity level for the rest of the race.

2. Relax and maintain good body position in the technical sections.

3. Have fun!

I've started thinking about cyclocross season a little already (it's not too far away now), and I realized that I'm almost always more relaxed and have more fun at a 'cross race. Why? I'm not completely sure, but I think I get more tense about the technical features of a mountain bike race, even at a trail I've ridden many times. So, that was the reason for #3. Anyway, going in with the idea of relaxing and having fun at the race seemed to help.

I got a good warmup in, but I didn't get a great starting position at the line. There was enough space on the grass field before the singletrack for me to move up and get a decent spot in the train that quickly formed though. (I've been practicing clipping my race starts a little, just getting my foot clipped in and sprinting for a few seconds... it helped!) The pace was high, but not too bad... I think everyone was holding back just a little due to the heat. I finally got gapped after the first real swoopy section on the trail (I don't have a better description); it was a combination of the high pace and bike handling. By that point though, I'd also built a decent gap to the riders behind me.

I kept up a fairly high pace until the sandy stretch where the mountain bike and horse trails cross. I'd picked off a few of the slower people from the classes ahead of me, and just a couple people (from classes behind me I think) passed me. For sure, I got passed by a lot less people this year than last. Andrea was stationed at the little drop just before I slowed... looks like I'm desparate for some O2!

Andrea Picture #1

The rest of my first lap was pretty uneventful. I mostly rode by myself, trying to recover from my starting effort. I figured I was still doing OK in the race though, since most of the people that had passed me seemed to be flying, I figured they were the fast guys from the other classes.

Me on the last climb... (from Bruce LeBlanc)

End of lap 1 (Hans Nyberg)

On my second lap, it felt like I was mostly just riding to finish. I didn't really feel like I could push a little again until about halfway through the lap. I rode most of the lap with some guys from Cycletherapy that were in a later start wave. It seems like I always end up racing with these guys for a while. So, the three of us finished more-or-less together (although all in different classes), and that was it. I was glad to be done, and fairly pleased with my effort.

Andrea Picture #2

Last climb again (Hans Nyberg)

I was a little surprised to check the results and see that my effort netted me 3rd place (out of 8). I was about a minute out of 2nd place, and the 4th place guy was about 3 minutes behind me. So, it was a pretty good result for me, the first time I've made the podium this year (as always, placement is also dependent on who shows up!). In terms of lap times, my first lap was about a minute and half faster than last year, but my second lap was about a minute and a half slower.

Podium!(from Bruce LeBlanc)

Position

I've changed my setup on the mountain bike this week. Taking the advice of the skills gurus out there (Gene and Lee), I put a shorter stem on the bike and raised it. I already had a 75mm stem on my singlespeed, so I used that, replacing the 90mm stem that was on the bike. My estimate is that the changes moved my bars back and up about 1 inch each.

Lee mentioned a test to see if you have adequate skill to rip with a longer stem. He suggests dropping off a curb 100 times. To pass, you have to land with the rear wheel first every time. I didn't try to do it 100 times; I only did 10, and I landed correctly 8 times.

Last night, I got my first real ride in with the new setup (at Pontiac Lake, my "home" trail). I can say that it's definitely different; it took a little while to get used to. While pedaling, I felt much more upright; it felt a little odd on the road, but fine on the trail. My first impression is that I descend and corner a little better this way. For sure, it's easier to lift the front wheel. I didn't notice any real problems climbing, maybe the front end wanders just a little more, but it wasn't too bad. I did stall on the steep climb after "The Chute" on both laps, which is pretty unusual for me now. I attribute that to the rider rather than the bike though, my legs just felt dead for the whole ride.

I also had Sarah record me doing Figure-8 drills in the driveway earlier this week; it was really interesting to watch. I expected to see that I wasn't leaning the bike nearly as much as I thought (I wasn't), but I was pleasantly surprised to see that I looked reasonably smooth. What I didn't expect to see was how bad my upper body position was; I mean, I knew it probably wasn't great, but what I saw wasn't even close.

(Lee, demonstrating proper, although exaggerated, form.)

So, I've been working on getting myself into a good neutral "attack" position whenever I'm not pedaling. I figure, if the ground is flat and straight enough to pedal on, I should be in a pedaling position; otherwise, I should be in the attack position. I found that being in a good attack position also makes a big difference in my comfort level while descending and cornering. What I realized last night though is that I basically never corner like that; instead, I go to some position where my butt is hovering just off the saddle and my chest is still high. I expect that this position puts too much weight on the back of the bike, which is why I feel like the front of the bike doesn't want to turn. For sure, in that hovering position, I can't lean my bike very far without leaning with it, there's no place for the saddle to go!

Hines Park TT - 2009

It looked for a while like this race wasn't going to happen. When I went to bed on Saturday night, the report was that there was 1-2 feet of water over the road. I woke up a couple times during the night and could hear it raining hard. So, I was a little surprised to check my email Sunday morning and find that the race was still on (although probably delayed a little).

So, I loaded up the car and drove down (through more rain) to the race, where I found out the race was delayed 30 minutes, then an hour. By the time I started, it was getting hot, humid, and windy... perfect weather for bike racing!

The race went OK for me. I felt like I settled into a good pace pretty quickly. There were still some big puddles on the road; some of them where I wanted to ride. I hadn't considered that there would be a difference in puddles in the road created by rain (which is what I usually see) and those created by a flooding river. Turns out that the flooding river kind are really muddy. So, just a few minutes into the race, my bike and I were covered in mud... I usually finish mountain bike races cleaner than I finished yesterday. I tried to avoid the puddles a little more after I got coated the first time.

When I've done this race in the past and it's been windy, it seems like I usually get a good tailwind on the way out. There may have been some of that yesterday, but at times, I got a pretty strong crosswind instead, so the going wasn't too easy. There were strong headwinds and crosswinds all the way back too. Add the heat and humidity, and conditions were pretty tough.

I passed a few people on the course, including my dad, and only one guy passed me. I ended up finishing nearly a minute slower than last year. I'd like to attribute it all to the conditions, but I'm not sure if that's really the case.

Pontiac Lake

This weekend is the Hines Park TT, a 20km road time trial. I enjoy doing this race quite a bit. It's short enough that it's not too hard (I did the 40km race one year, and that was not so fun), there's nothing about the course or race format to worry about, you basically just pedal as hard as you can for about half an hour. My dad is coming over for the race too this year, so that will be fun.

So, in an effort to not really prepare for the race, I've been splitting my riding time between two activities: mountain bike "skill" rides in my backyard and rides at Pontiac Lake. The skill rides have been interesting. I'm making progress on cornering, but not so much on hopping. The improvements in cornering have mainly been due to looking farther ahead and improving my upper body position.

I'm starting to see the influence of my skill work on the trail too. I had really good rides on the trail on Sunday and Wednesday. I've noticed that I have the most trouble on corners where I can't see the exit (due to trees, grass, whatever), even if I know what the rest of the corner looks like. In those situations, you're supposed to look "through" the obstacle at where the trail will go, but I seem to have trouble doing that in practice.

Maintaining

I realized that I hadn't posted in a while. Not too much has been going on lately. I've been spending some time working on my technical skills again. The things I'm working on (mostly cornering) are getting better.

I rode at Pontiac Lake on Saturday and Sunday. Particularly on Sunday, I thought that I rode really well; the time spent on the skills stuff seemed to pay off. My biggest issue seems to be just not looking ahead enough; at times, my vision gets "stuck" on certain parts of the trail and causes me problems.

Speaking of working on skills... I'm strongly considering heading down to Virginia this Fall to attend a skills camp by Gene Hamilton. Ashwin has done this twice and has found it very beneficial.

Stony Creek TT - 2009

Sunday, I raced the 2009 edition of the Stony Creek Time Trial. I didn't feel particularly well-prepared for the race, but I still had some reasonably high expectations.

The preparation problems revolved around just not riding enough after my trip to California, and that my legs were still very sore after what I thought would be a pretty easy workout Friday night.

In the past, I've gone with the strategy of holding back a little at the start of a time trial, and then (hopefully) speeding up as the race goes on. In the distant past, I've also gone out too hard and blown up in time trials. Anyway, what I've been finding more recently is that it works better for me to go a little harder at the start, to psychologically set the intensity level for the race. So, that's what I did.

The format of these MTB time trials is that pairs of riders go off every 30 seconds. So, I went out pretty hard, as planned; the guy that started with me seemed content to draft me on the grassy start. Maybe this should have bothered me, but I'm not sure there's a huge aero advantage to be had at the speeds we were going, particularly behind me ;) . Once we got to the gravel road, he dropped me pretty quickly. The good news was that I could see that I had nearly reeled in the guy that started 30 seconds ahead of me (there was just one, the other guy didn't show up at the starting line).

Everything went fine through the first water-crossing, and then I passed my 30s guy just before a short section of singletrack. He was still close when we hit the first big climb; I pushed hard over that climb and dropped him. Even though my legs felt bad, it seemed like I was doing OK. Just after that, the guy that ended up winning my class passed me.

I hit the first long section of singletrack, The Pines, and backed off just a bit. I rode it about how I usually do, which is probably not aggressive enough. I got passed by two guys.

Basically, that's how the race went. I pushed hard on the two-track, and backed off a little on the singletrack. The passing I mentioned above was the only passing that happened. Later on, I did run into the guy that started with me. He had some problem with his chain that he'd just fixed. Once he got going, I didn't stay with him for long.

Anyway, I finished in 1hr 1min. It's a little hard to compare this time to my 2006 time, since the trail is now a little longer, but in 2006 I did the race in 1hr 4min. I guess I'm a little disappointed that I didn't finish in less than an hour. Despite the sore legs and rustiness, I actually felt like I raced OK, so the time surprised me a bit. Maybe this is a case of letting a bad result ruin an otherwise good race, I don't know.

There really wasn't one area that I can say caused me to be slow. My fitness seemed OK (despite the sore legs), although it could always be better. My singletrack riding was OK for me; it's still a relatively weak point, but (at least at Stony) I don't feel totally outclassed like I used to. I did a pretty good job of staying focused mentally. I think it's a case of going just a little faster everywhere, which would add up to going a lot faster overall.

California Trip

"Bears are everywhere, but not all the time."

- Yosemite Park Ranger

So, the trip to California... The basic plan was this: me and one of my old roommates (Greg) that still lives in Michigan would fly to San Fransisco and hang out there on Thursday afternoon. We'd meet up with a third roommate (Jacob) who lives out there, and then drive to Yosemite National Park that night. Friday, we'd hang out at the park and do our "big" hike. Saturday morning, we'd hang out at the park, and then drive back to SF in the afternoon. Sunday, the Michigan guys would fly home.

San Fransisco was pretty cool. From the airport, Greg and I took the BART to Chinatown and had lunch there. Somehow, we managed to pick a Vietnamese restaraunt, but it was good. From there, we walked to Fisherman's Wharf. We saw Alcatraz (from a distance), the sea lions on the pier, and the different ships. We used a combination of mass transit and our feet to get to Fremont, where we got our food for the weekend and met up with Jacob.

The drive to Yosemite was pretty uneventful, although we did see a coyote on our way in. Unfortunately, we got a late enough start that it was dark by the time we got to the park. It's too bad, we could see that the views from the road were pretty awesome on our way out. That night, we got the bear lecture from the Curry Village staff. As if to emphasize the point, later that night, some people did see a bear in the camp area not too far from us. The park rangers set off a big noisemaker, and we saw them outside our cabin with radio equipment, big flashlights, etc.

The hike on Friday was awesome. We took the Mist Trail up to Vernal and Nevada Falls, and then we came back down on the John Muir trail. It took us about 6 hours at a pretty liesurely pace. The trails were a little more crowded than I would have preferred, but it wasn't bad.

Friday afternoon, we drove down to the south end of the park and saw the giant Sequoias. On our way back, we stopped at one of the picnic areas to cook some dinner; we were the only ones there. We'd been there about 15 minutes when we heard some crashing noises from across the road. We scanned the woods until we found the source, a bear had climbed a little way up a tree and was scoping us out. We could see his head peeking out around the tree trunk. We quickly packed up our stuff and got ready to leave. We must have made enough noise to discourage the bear, because he wandered off... but we did see him cross the road to our side. Needless to say, the rest of our meal was a little more tense.

On Saturday, we packed up and decided to drive around the valley and visit some of the points of interest that we couldn't see too well the day before. Because these areas were easily accessible, and it was now Saturday, the crowds got worse as the morning went on. We were happy to be leaving when we did. We did see one more bear, swimming in the river, on our way out of the park.

The trip home was fine, except I ended up seeing a lot of the San Fransisco airport, since my flight was delayed about an hour and a half.

Feeling Better

A post (with pictures!) about my trip to Yosemite is coming soon, I hope.

I've been focusing on getting more sleep the last few nights; I've been generally feeling better since then and it's helped my motivation. It also occured to me that I might have been suffering from a little jet lag... even though (as a super Europe/Asia traveler) I usually scoff at that idea of jet lag from a little 3 hour time change.

I got out to ride last night again. It took me a while to get warmed up, but I felt pretty good once I did. I did a few hard efforts, which also seemed OK.

I registered for the Stony Creek TT this weekend (on my birthday). It's been a few years since I've done it. My goal in 2007 (the last time I planned to do the race, but didn't) was to get down to 55 minutes. I'll probably stick with that again this year, although really not sure what to expect. I'm a very different rider now than I was the last time I did this race, in 2006.

Stiff Legs

I got out on the bike for an easy spin last night. I didn't want to push too hard since I haven't ridden in nearly a week and haven't been sleeping enough. Sure enough, my legs felt like they hadn't seen a bike for a week... stiff and weak. Hopefully they'll come around quickly; I'm planning to race on Sunday.

Interesting interview with Jeremy Powers at Cyclocross Magazine. Part 1 and part 2. The comment that stuck out to me was: "Work on anything you possibly can. Because you are putting in 20 or 30 hours a week riding your bike and you’re not doing those things, then you’re not giving yourself a full chance. I think it’s important to just look at yourself from the outside in and say, “o.k. what can I do to make myself better, what do I know that I am not good enough at?” If that’s running, or if that’s riding in the mud, or if that’s just power, all of those things can be worked on. You can run more, you can train harder at intervals, you can go out and wet down your back yard and ride around in circles in the mud. You can make sure that you do all these things to at least give yourself an opportunity, and if you don’t give yourself that opportunity, then you have stumbled out of the start gate as if you never even tried. I would say breaking it down piece-by-piece and then taking your game to a different level is the hardest thing to do, but you have to look at each individual piece and then focus on one at a time and just knock them off. That can take years."

Riding at the Back

I went to the track again last night; it was the first time in a few weeks. Finally, the weather was nice on a night when I went.

Not too much to say, except that I still have some things to learn about road racing. I did OK in the first little race we did, except for right at the end. I ended up being near the back of the group near the end and got stuck in a position where I couldn't move up, even though I felt pretty good. Basically I was too far back at a critical point.

In the second little race, the pace picked up earlier than I expected, and I found myself near the back again. This time around, it was much worse. I kept following people, then they'd start to fall off, then I'd have to chase to close the gap. It seemed like every time I'd close a gap, another one would open up a few people up. If I could have stayed with the main group, I probably could have hung on longer, but since I kept having to chase, I ended up dropping off relatively early.

Anyway, it was a good ride...

Everybody Has a Plan...

"Everybody has a plan 'til they get punched in the mouth."

- Mike Tyson

More goin' hard on Saturday. I had wanted to get my ride in on the trails, but it rained all morning, so I opted for the road instead. I rode out toward Indian Springs; I had a good headwind to do my intervals into. I basically felt pretty decent while riding, but I was a little cooked by the end.

I got my first look at the natural gas pipeline that they're running through the park (and, as I understand it, also through a bunch of private property). There's a huge swath cut through the park right now; it looks terrible. Hopefully they do a good job restoring as much as possible.

I had a disappointing ride on Sunday; I rode over at Pontiac Lake. My plan was to ride hard if the legs felt good. If they didn't feel good (which they didn't), my plan was to work on my riding technique. That really didn't work out so well either; I just didn't ride very well. I think there were two problems: one, I hadn't eaten in a while before I left, and two, I hadn't set out my goals for the ride very well (definitely not as clearly as I wrote above). Maybe three was that I was more fatigued than I expected after Saturday. Anyway, I ended up cutting my ride shorter than I had originally planned since I just wasn't accomplishing anything.

One of the things that I've really focused on this year is to have some goal or objective for each of my training rides, whether it's working on a particular skill, doing some intervals, or just getting time in the saddle. This is the first time in a long time that I haven't accomplished what I set out to do. I suppose that's going to happen sometimes, but it's not a good feeling.

Camping

So, the reason for the meager (and late) posting last week was that the family went camping at Sleeper State Park in Caseville. We had a good time, but we also had the bad weather that seems to be tradition. It rained on us all the way up and it was cold the rest of the week.

We didn't bring any bikes, but we did do some hiking at Sleeper and at Port Crescent State Parks. The trails at Sleeper were much longer, but the trails at Port Crescent were a little nicer.

We also stopped by the Point Aux Barques lighthouse. It was a cold day, so it was nice to be inside for a little while doing things. They also had a nice playground at the lighthouse park.

Time to Get Fast

So, I decided this week that it is about time I start work on getting fast (getting some high-end fitness). My knee seems completely healed after my injury this spring, and I've got a solid base of miles in now.

I missed the track night this week because my throat was a little sore in the afternoon on Tuesday and I just didn't "feel right".

I felt fine on Wednesday, and I spent about an hour in the backyard and driveway working on some skill things. I mostly did cornering drills, but I also worked on hopping a little. I think practicing cornering in a controlled setting like that is really helpful for me. If things aren't quite going right, it's relatively easy for me to diagnose my problem and fix it. On a trail, the corner goes by so fast, so you might never realize what you're doing wrong.

I'm still struggling with a proper (flat pedal) bunnyhop/J-hop. I think my problem has to do with timing and the amount that I'm loading the rear tire. To resolve that, I've mostly been working on lifting the rear tire alone. It's been kind of a slow process.

Last night, after a short hike (still getting ready for Yosemite!), I rode over to a quiet neighborhood and did some sprint intervals. For me, this kind of very short, max effort work is the first step in building high-end fitness (once the legs are ready for it anyway). Ideally, I will work from these shorter intervals to longer ones. In the past, I've tried it the other way around, sort of tried to build a foundation from intermediate/long intervals and then top it off with shorter ones, but it doesn't seem to work as well for me.

The other interesting thing about my interval work was that I did them all from a complete stop (one foot on the ground). I wanted to do this because I've had some pretty miserable race starts lately (especially in 'cross last year). I need to work on getting that second foot clipped in... I think even if I have to look down for a while.

Room for Improvement

After we got back from camping last week, I put in a few easy rides over the weekend. Friday I went over to Lakeshore Park to ride. I haven't ridden there in a few years. It's a nice trail, but very different than what I'm used to. It's more-or-less flat, but very tight and twisty. They've also built up a number of technical features (big rock gardens, log rides, etc) that you can ride if you choose. I mostly stuck with whatever seemed to flow best... sometimes it was over the technical feature, sometimes not. The ride went fine, but I could tell I hadn't been on a bike in nearly a week. I felt a little rusty at the start, but I rode better as the ride went on.

The main reason I went was to check out the pump track that they built. It was quite a bit different than the one at Stony, so it was interesting to ride. The soil type was about the same, kind of gravel over hardpack... I was really hoping for no gravel. Some features were nicer than Stony, others weren't. In general, I thought the berms were better (they were built higher and steeper), but one of the bermed corners wasn't a berm at all, it was more of a flat bank. Some of the bumps were also too tall for good pumping, it looked like they were built for jumping (which is OK I guess, but it wasn't what I was looking for).

Saturday, I just got in a very short skill-focused ride. I worked on my drop technique and also front/rear wheel lifts.

I went to a last-minute club ride at Pontiac Lake on Sunday. This was a beginner-focused, no drop ride. There was a pretty big turnout, maybe 10 people or so. The reason I've been doing these rides is to focus on descending and cornering. Typically, people will ride fast down the hills and then go slowly (sometimes very slowly) up the climbs and on the flats. I mostly followed a guy that was new to the club (and to the area), but he seemed to be a good rider. I was more tentative than I would have liked, and more tentative than I have been at other times this year... still lots of random braking. Anyway, following him around showed me (as if I needed reminding) that I still have lots of room to improve. (My drops were all very nice though, I could tell that I'd practiced.)

Some more pictures from the Stony Marathon race...

From Ten Mile Media (great pictures, thanks!):

From Jeff Borisen:

Photo 1 (not sure where this is and why I have my inside pedal down while turning, but I noticed that other people did too... must not have been a very sharp corner...)

Photo 2

Photo 3 (finish line... whew!)

Stony Marathon XC - 2009

It's always hard to figure out what to write about this race... it's so long and so much stuff happens. So, here we go, the 2009 edition Stony Marathon XC race:

My plan was to get up around 6am on Saturday to eat, finish packing, etc. My daughter decided that she had a better idea... how about wake Dad up at 4:15am, try to sleep in a chair for a while, and then finally give up and stay up around 5:45am? I ended up getting about 6.5 hours of sleep the night before the race... sweet.

I enlisted my dad to help me at the race, handing up water bottles every lap. This was the first time I'd done it (nothing like trying a new hydration strategy at a 40+ mile race), and it actually worked really well. I probably drank more water than I would have with the Camelbak. I'm not sure that I'm ready to switch to bottles for all races, but there are lots of open sections at Stony that make it easy to drink from a bottle.

My strategy for the race was to go out reasonably hard and try to build up a gap (and clear traffic) until we hit The Pines; then, just a steady pace after that. I also wanted to get myself a little more fired up before the race.

It worked pretty well, I think. At least, by the time I hit the long stretches of singletrack, there was plenty of space for me to pass and others to pass me. I ended up having a little crash right at the end of the Pines. It was a weird crash; I'd gotten through all of the slick spots, and my front tire slid out over a very small root in a nearly straight section of trail. The rest of the lap went OK; my improvement in riding was pretty obvious in the Roller Coaster section of trail. I still wasn't great everywhere, but I could open up gaps on people just by really nailing the corners. That's definitely a first.

The second lap was also pretty decent. The only problem I ran into was another crash; this time in the Roller Coaster. I had a couple guys behind me and I was pushing a little harder than normal. I've actually crashed in this exact same spot in the exact same way before... so much for learning from my mistakes. It seemed like the second crash took a little of my aggressiveness away.

No crashes on the third lap, but I was starting to get tired. I was also mostly riding by myself on this lap. At the top of the climb to Mt. Sheldon, I stopped for a few seconds to help a woman find a shortcut back to the start/finish area. At first, I didn't give a very clear answer when she asked; then I took a closer look at her and saw that her face was half-covered in blood. Then I really stopped to make sure I gave decent directions and that she felt OK to make it back.

The other thing that happened on the third lap was that my legs started to cramp on the long climb near the end. It's the first time that's ever happened to me during a bike race. Not a good feeling! There are a whole lot of possibilities for the cause, so I'm not really sure why it happened.

I was by myself for most of the fourth lap also. The Elite riders started lapping me once I got to the Pines. This is actually one of the ways I've been judging my performance at this race. How soon do the Elites start lapping me? Every year, I've pushed it back farther and farther. I managed to ride most of the lap at a level that kept me from cramping, but it seemed like I was close to it on every climb. I had a crash on this lap too... my front tire slipped on the edge of a rut climbing up Mt. Sheldon. When I fell, my calf hit a log, which immediately caused it to cramp. Anyway, I finished out the lap and the race OK after that.

Once I finished, I felt like I'd done pretty well, but I wasn't sure how I placed. It's so hard to keep track of who's who when you're passing, being passed, etc and there are so many classes racing at once. I stood near the finish line for quite a while and didn't see anyone from my class come through (other people in my wave though). I started thinking maybe I hadn't done so well.
As it turned out, I did do OK. I finished 6th out of 14 in my class, and I was only 30 seconds or so out of 5th place. The gap behind me was huge though, about 13 minutes back to 7th place, which is why I wasn't seeing anyone come through.

Even looking back on it, I'm pretty happy with my race. I felt like I worked really hard and executed the strategy that I planned. It was a hot day, and a long, hard race. About half the guys in my club DNF'd.

My only disappointment is that my lap times, in particular the first lap, weren't a little faster. I'd need to pick up another 2 minutes per lap (~4%) to be competitive with the top Sport guys in my age group, and another couple minutes to match my friends in the Expert class. The thing I did notice is that I generally slowed down less per lap than most of the other guys in my class. I'm not completely sure, but I'm going to put most of this down to fitness, although I know I could still go faster in parts the singletrack. Most of these guys have been training since late Winter / early Spring. With my knee injury this year, I've really only been at it since May, and I've hardly done any high-intensity work.

Last thing; here's a picture that Andrea took. Not the best picture of me (and you can see I have too much tension in my shoulders), but I like the look on my face. Compare that to some of the Ruby pictures, and it's obvious that I was pushing myself harder here.