Excruciating

Last weekend was the annual race from Warda to Rocky Hill and then back to Warda.

The morning started early (4:00 early), on the road by 4:30 and at the gas station by 4:35. It was real foggy but that didn't slow me down, had to get to race!! The race started at 7:30 with a racers' meeting at 7:15. I got all ready to go only to realize I had lost my car keys... panic!! After about five minutes of searching I found them inside my collapsable lawn chair... WTF. Back to race, I rode around a little bit made sure I had everything, left my supply bag with my teammate's, James Webb's dad (So thankful for the support!). Put my bike down in the bike staging area and headed to the racers' meeting. I got to catch up with a lot of my friend racers while we waited for the start, the Le Mans start. Some anxiety some negative anticipation about how much the race was going to hurt and all of the sudden we were going.

After the Le Mans and some shuffling around I was approaching the entrance to the singletrack and then my rear tire came to a grinding halt and I had no idea why. Apparently the skewer had worked itself a little loose. Wonderful... I got it back on and got back on the bike, about 50 positions back from where I was, and in the thick of the mostly non-technical riders... ugh... I also noticed I gashed my finger pretty good while fixing my bike and the blood was flowing off my thumb like no other. After some slow singletrack and passing a bunch of people, and then some more people, it was time to get out onto the road for the first road section.

I started out with a pretty fast group that could not hold a steady pace for anything so we were constantly going from 23mph to 17mph with short hard accelerations in between. I decided it not worth the effort to try to stay in the group so I let them go so I could hold a more steady pace. Eventually, another group caught up to me and I joined in that group, a good friend, Tracy Jones, was in the group and since I wasn't really "in" my race too much I decided to ride with her the rest of the day. Just as we were about two miles from Rocky Hill Tracy flatted so, being a nice guy, I stopped to help her get it fixed, Stan's is great tire sealant!! Back on the road and almost to Rocky Hill, I was really looking forward to some food. Refueled, Tracy and I hit the trails at Rocky Hill, one of my favorite riding venues. I rode in front for a while, picking good lines, then I would let Tracy lead for a while, she did not pick good lines and I was too sheepish and followed her... then I would lead again for a while. A while later, about 20 miles or so, we came to the end of Rocky Hill singletrack, nothing very eventful happened at RH.

The road section back started with a big climb and then was reasonably flat all the way back to Warda, just a few slow grinders. Tracy and I and one other dude started a paceline and kept picking people up as we went. I noticed my knee starting to hurt pretty good about half way back, not sure why it was hurting. Kept on cycling through the paceline getting Tracy back into contention for the women until about 4 miles to go, at which point I was pretty much spent for the day. I didn't totally slack off but I definitely was riding a bit easier. After I was done I actually felt pretty good physically, except for my knee, that was killing me.

I ended up fourth in my age group, not too bad, and Tracy ended up as the second woman overall and first in her age group. Way to go!! After a delicious burger and a chat with my coach I headed on back to Houston. Way to go to my coach, by the way, fifth overall for men, Great Work!!

Now it's back to training.

Next weekend Sonia and I are travelling to rural Alabama to visit Sonia's Mom, Maria. I haven't been Alabama for a while and it'll be great to meet Sonia's mom so I'm definitely looking forward to the trip!

Rocky Hill Horror Show

So somehow I convinced Sonia to come out to Rocky Hill to ride and check out some sweet singletrack even though both I and another one of her friends told her she would hate it the first time. I'm pretty sure that is what happened.

We went out on Friday so we could get out for an early pre-ride on Saturday. It was effin' hot and super humid!! I had originally planned on doing a short Cat II lap but was stupid and hadn't realized the Cat II and Cat I loop was the same 17.5 mile loop. So off we went, like I thought, Sonia hated all the climbing at the first part, I do believe the line, "I hate all of these stupid rocks on this stupid hill!!!" came out at one point. Then she realized why the course was Rocky Hill : )


Once we got out of the first part of the climbing and into the flatter, more flowy singletrack the riding became fun!! We were cruising along at a pretty good clip, stopping every once in a while. The ride was a great pre-ride. Then the ride started getting a bit long, I was getting some looks from Sonia saying, "How long are we going to ride for?" After a bit more riding I started thinking the same thing... Then we stopped and Sonia asked, "How far in are we?" to which I responded, "about three-quarters of the way," I had no idea...

We kept trucking along, Sonia being a champ, and giving me dirty dirty looks until we got to the spot I knew was getting pretty close to the end. I sent Sonia down the easier trail with another lady while I rode the rest of the trail, good thing, it was significantly different with a lot of sweet, new singletrack. I ended up passing Sonia and other woman on the way down to the finish, I stopped by the turtle pond so the turtles could cheer Sonia up a bit, she was NOT happy with me. But after seeing turtles and having ice cream things were a bit better. We met up with Kyle and Mom for dinner on Saturday, it was great to see them!

Sunday brought on the race, it was warm and a bit muggy. I got a good warm-up in and felt pretty good, the legs were a bit sore from the long-than-expected pre-ride but they felt ok. As I expected, it was a hammerfest up the hills, the singletrack was feeling pretty good until about mile 7, then the legs started going. I eased up a bit but the legs did not come back and I couldn't get the heart rate to drop. No Bueno!! I held a bit easier pace but I was toast. I settled with pacing it in feeling the legs the whole way and trying to enjoy the singletrack. It was a bit of a disappointing end to the season but I learned to check the race course before riding from now on. I got some food after the race, the worst decision I made the whole day. Thankfully, Sonia was there to drive me home. The next 28ish hours after the race were pretty ugly but I'm better now and back to training!!

I ended up 5th overall in the series, not bad for only having five races and forgetting to turn in my Paydirt.

Huntsville

or should I say Hurtsville. Last weekend was the race up at Huntsville State Park. The course is pretty non-technical and fast and there really is nowhere to recover at all. I felt a little sore going into the race after I participated in a charity softball tournament on Friday.

Softball Tournament, our team was decent but we did end up losing all three games we played. In the first game I hit a double and a home run. In the second game I had a single. In the last game I moved to play second base and participated in the only double play our team had all day. It was a lot of fun to participate in and I'll likely do it next year, as long as it's not before the Huntsville race.

I went up to pre-ride on Saturday and met up with Lauren there. We hung out for a bit after the ride and then headed back to College Station for the night and to watch the Texas/Nebraska and Wisconsin/Ohio State games. Both the Horns and the Badgers won so that was definitely a great college football weekend. Still perplexing though how Ohio State is ranked higher than the Badgers.

The race started at nine on Sunday so that meant an early morning for Lauren and me. My legs definitely felt a little sore Sunday morning so I warmed up quite thoroughly. The race started fast and just kept going fast. I was definitely struggling to hold speed. I ended up fifth which isn't too bad but I should have been more rested for the race. Then I got to hang out with Lauren for a while.

Now it's recover time before the 24 hours of Rocky Hill this weekend.

Since then

then being Camp Eagle, I have been pretty busy. Work has been busy as I have been given more responsibility, I suppose that's a good thing. Outside of work has been pretty busy too. Two weekends ago I went up to Lauren's and hung out with her. I did some Paydirt, volunteer trail work for the Spring TMBRA series, and then went riding. I thought it would be good to ride the trail since there is a duathlon up there in a couple weeks that I am tentatively committed to. The ride was good until I got to the back part of the loop where I discovered my cleat was loose and I couldn't get my multi-tool into the screws. I kept riding and once I got into the wooded area I noticed a disgusting high density of spider webs spanning the trail. Not only were there webs but there were bunches of spiders too, including crab-looking spiders and orb spiders. Orb spiders eat finches, see below:



Just the sight of the spiders brought me back to an encounter I had another big spider, banana spider, during a past climbing trip, see below:

I was quite disturbed by the spiders everywhere to the point I crashed because I didn't want to go through the huge web engulfing the entire trail with a big spider in the middle. It was at that point that I got onto the open trail and avoided the uncleared single track for the rest of the day. Then I rode back into college station and got some yogurt with Lauren and went to the bike shop to fix my shoe. On Sunday Lauren and I went out to ride the horses and then got some frozen yogurt and I headed up to Austin to ride with a friend. We rode Walnut under nearly perfect trail conditions, good times. I miss Austin. I was in Austin for a recruiting event at UT Austin, had a good time, saw some friends, and recruited many. Then back to work.

Fast forward one weekend to last weekend, Lauren came down from CS. We didn't really do anything which was kinda nice and relaxing.

Camp Eagle 2010.2

The race morning was good. Some good brefackst then a nice morning ride and finally some warm up. Some a couple of old friends during the warm-up and the dude that crashed and got medflighted back to Kerrville. He turned out ok and apparently just had a concussion, sweet ride home from the race though, pricey too. The start of the race was good and fast. I hung with Patrick for a little while and then took off. I was in either fifth or sixth so I knew I had some people to catch. My first lap on the South loop was ugly, I climbed very poorly and definitely lost some time. The North loop was good, the second pass at the South loop was much better, the climb felt good and I passed one guy in my class. The Cat 2's were out on course so I was passing a bunch of them which made it somewhat tricky to tell who I was racing. I thought I had passed another guy in my race and when I got in I was placed third. The race felt good and the legs still felt pretty good after the race. Apparently someone in my class had come in and they had missed them so I ended up fourth. Oh well, still felt pretty good.

After the race I went down to a friend's cabin down in Leakey (pronounced Lakey) which was about 45 miles away or so. When I got there we had some food and then travelled on down to the creek to put our feet in the water. It felt pretty dang good. Later in the evening we took a tour of the community on the golf cart and we saw some pretty big deer. Since Ben, my buddy, and his wife were getting up super early and going to a run I decided to get up and head on back to Houston. I got back to Houston around 10:30 and got some things done around the house.

It was a good Labor Day weekend.

Camp Eagle 2010

Last weekend was the first race of the TMBRA fall series. I was pretty excited about the race since I hadn't raced since the end of May and I'd been putting in a bunch of training miles. I also switched to training with a power meter about a month ago so this was the first test to see how that was going. Camp Eagle is a pretty technical course with some tough uphills and some technical descents.

I left work a bit early on Friday with hopes of beating the bad drivers out of Houston, I was doing pretty well until I got to the edge of Houston where five lanes of freely flowing traffic condensed into a two lane creep of winter molasses. Once I got far enough out of town traffic finally picked up and I headed to Buc-E's to get some jerky, I also got Lauren a present but I cannot post what it is since I have not given it to her yet. I arrived in San Antonio a little after 9 to stay with my friend Steve who I did the 24 hours of Rock Hill with last year and who is going to marry Lauren and I. It was great to catch up with Steve and meet his family!

Saturday morning I got up and had breakfast with Steve and family and then headed out to Camp Eagle. Two hours further West from San Antonio I arrived at Camp Eagle but not until I saw two deer-like animals fighting in one of the large ranches on the side of the road. I met up with Kathy and Alan and then went for a pre-ride of the south loop. The course was good and I felt pretty good so I tried not to overdo it. There is much more climbing at the Camp than in all of Houston combined. Then Alan, Kathy, and I headed in to Kerrville for some steak and a good night's sleep.

The race was Sunday, I'll write about that tomorrow.

Finally

We set a date for the wedding. We are going to get married on June 11th, 2011. The wedding is going to be at Saint Croix Vineyards near Stillwater, MN. The reception is going to be at the Water Street Inn in Stillwater.

Last weekend we went to White Linen Night in the Heights. It was also Lauren's Birthday on Saturday so that was part of the celebration. It was a great night with ample hangin' with friends and drinks.

Here is a picture of L and I:

Here is a guy with a sweet bike with some huge wheels, puts the 29er to shame.

Here are a couple of pictures from Lauren's sister's wedding:

On another note, the TMBRA fall racing series starts in a little less than a month. SWEET!

Juan Pelota

The Juan Pelota ranch was pretty sweet. The race and the weather were not so much. Lauren, Seu, and I arrive at around noon on Saturday to catch the start of the Pro race. It was effin' hot. We met up with Kathy and headed to the super-sweet, shaded viewing area to watch the pro race. It was a good spot for sure, especially after landscaping a bit so my chair was level and after the sun moved behind that tree branch. The pros were definitely pretty fast. We had a couple Texans do pretty well in the race too so that was sweet. We didn't sit around for the finish because it was like a sauna but a little drier but still like a sauna. We headed back to town to stay at the same sweet hotel we stayed at the weekend before and hung out for a while until dinner. We hit up Texas Land and Cattle for dinner and it was delicious. Post dinner Lauren and I were headed back to the hotel when she decided she wanted some ice cream. We stopped at the Exxon down the road from the hotel. After buying some ice cream, water, and a couple of lottery tickets we walked out only to see some dude getting guns pulled on him by the cops. I quickly realized the guns were also pointed in our general direction so I quickly grabbed Lauren and scooted off to the side. At first I thought the dude was getting busted for driving a convertible Volkswagon Beetle, who does that? Turns out the dude was doin' a little drug dealing. It was pretty sweet to see the cops bust him and pull out a pretty good sized bag of white powder, not totally sure what it was, that's probably a good thing. Then we went back to the hotel and you . . . know . . . scratched lottery tickets. I bought five dollars worth of tickets, two-two dollar tickets and one-one dollar ticket. We scratched the two dollar tickets first, I didn't win anything on mine, Lauren won five dollars on hers so she let me scratch the one dollar ticket and I won thirty dollars. Not bad for a five dollar investment.

Popo's:

The race was on Sunday which is normal and I got out and ready early. I warmed up pretty good and was feeling pretty good when I headed to the start. I hadn't ever ridden the course so I wasn't sure how it would go. The race started pretty fast and with the heat I knew I wouldn't last too long if I tried to keep it up. I was doing pretty good, about mid pack and recovering from the start and starting to feel pretty good. Then I went over a little descent and my front tire hit the one rock that was sticking up and I briefly popped the bead on my tire and I went down pretty hard. After getting up and giving my bike and then myself a once over I noticed my tire wasn't totally flat. I decided to try riding very gently. It didn't work, I soon flatted and I was left to walk it in. It was a nice hot hike to the start/finish area but I did get to cheer on all the other racers along the way, they looked pretty overheated. It was the first time I had a mechanical and couldn't finish so I wasn't terribly upset and after seeing how most people felt after the race I suppose this was the race to crash/flat out of. I still managed a fifth place in the series.

In other news, I started a new position at work this week. I will be working closely with geologists both supporting them and helping them with their work. It should be pretty interesting, I will be learning a lot and meeting some pretty cool people. I will have more details after I've been there a little while.

Solavaca Part Deux

So we sat around on Saturday waiting for the race course to open up and finally about 2:30, as I recall, the course was finally opened to preriding. The course was sweet, I went out with Lauren and Jen and then we met up with Claire. We were taking a pretty easy pace and about 8 miles later we were back. Packed up our crap and then headed in to town to shower before dinner. Mmmm Italian with some BYOW (Bring Your Own Wine).

The race was Sunday morning and we were the first group off behind the Pros starting at 8:30. I wasn't sure how it would go since I hadn't raced in about a month and a half but I was feeling pretty strong. The first lap was rough, I think I went out a little hard and didn't get into a rhythm for a while. The second lap was feeling pretty good and I started feeling better and about 6 miles into the second lap I saw someone in my race. "Sweet, I can catch him," I thought. So I rode the third lap with what I thought was better technique but I couldn't catch the guy in front of me. I finished fourth, out of four. It was a tough race, I need to race more often.

Couple o' pics:

Solavaca Part One

The second to the last race I did was two weekends ago in Glen Rose, TX. It was a pretty good drive so we headed up Friday after work. Besides the water smelling like sulfur and the pancake batter being bad on Saturday the hotel was great. Saturday I got up early and cleaned up the bike a little before going out to preride, a nice relaxing morning was good.

We got out to the race course and found out that it had rained and the course wouldn't be open until 1 0'clock. Bummer, so we did what all cool people do, we went garage saling. We headed to a couple that were back towards town a ways and Lauren got a pair of shoes, the only sweet score of the day. On the way back to the ranch (race course) we took a little detour down a little back road only to find out there was water crossing the road in pretty serious fashion.

The first water crossing was pretty wide but also pretty shallow and after a short examination of the local geology we forded the river. We did not caulk the wagon and float it across and we lost no oxen. A ways up the road there was a little more serious water crossing. Serious to the point the road was closed. After wandering around a bit and deciding it was about time to go I walked over a little bank only to see a 3.5 foot copperhead swimming in the water. It caught me by surprise and Lauren too, even after I was like, "Lauren check out this bitchin' snake!!".

Pictures:

Water Crossing #1


Water Crossing #2


Copperhead, Lauren would not pose with the snake so I had no scale. It was about 3.5 feet long.

Past due race update

Three weeks ago now was the Comfort race. I had never ridden Comfort so I didn't really know what to expect. I had heard technical, bumpy, rough, hilly, and hard. Sounds like a good place to race. I hadn't know this race was an omnium until I looked it up the Monday before the race, it was then I figured the race was going to be hard. There was a short track and time trial on Saturday followed by the Cross Country race on Sunday. This means I didn't have a chance to pre-ride any of the course except for the time trial part. Oh well I suppose...



The short track race was tough to say the least. The course was fast with some loose dirt/sand/gravel and one loose corner. I hung with the pack for a couple of laps then the race started to spread out. The last couple of laps were tough, the legs weren't happy but I did finish.

The time trial was later in the day so I went and chilled for a while to let the legs recover a bit. My time trial was pretty late in the order so I had a while to eat and cool off and then warm up again. I started second in our group for the time trial hoping to catch the front guy, Luke, but he's fast and I never caught him. I ended up third out of four in the TT so I'm happy I beat one dude.

A great steak dinner that night ensued...mmm

Sunday was the cross country race and the legs were feeling a bit worn. Since most of the guys in the field didn't do the omnium race I figured I was going to get wiped pretty good. That was pretty much the case. I held with the group for a while and then they pulled away. It definitely didn't help that I had never ridden the course. Oh well, I know what it will be like for next year now. The first loop had a bunch of climbing with some technical/rough rocky sections at the top. When I went through the feed zone I was feeling alright but that feeling was short lived as I got into the slow, long uphills in the second half of the course. I was struggling along on the second half feeling some cramps trying to set it so I drank and ate. I changed my mindset from racing to finishing and rode it out to the end. On the whole the race was tough. I did end up getting 3rd in Omnium so I won some money, Woohoo, first ever money won from racing! I also didn't feel quite as dead after the race so hopefully the conditioning is coming around.

Oh yeah and we saw the Kerrville Fighting Antlers. I think it should be the Fightin' Antlers but oh well.

Series Wrap-up and all

Last weekend was the last of the TMBRA races at Rocky Hill. The race was one 21 mile loop that everyone had to do. Since I had the series locked up I decided not to race but Lauren still did.

I got out to pre-ride the course on Saturday and it was pretty good. Lots of trail I hadn't ridden before and it was fun.

Since I wasn't racing on Sunday I decided to volunteer and go out and hand out water bottles for the racers about 13 miles into the race. Lot's of people that were glad to see us. Some injured people and some fast looking people. Lauren came through toward the end of the time we were out there and I was glad I was out there for her. I wasn't sure she'd finish but she's tough like that.

About the time we got back to the finish line and since it was a TMBRA race it had to start raining. Then I encouraged Lauren to the finish and then went down for awards. After some heckling about not racing from the guys in my class I took the podium:

Lauren ended up fourth in her class, CONGRATS!!
It came at some cost though:
After the race quote from Lauren, "I need to learn to fall on my right side!"

Now a little off time before training for Spring racing. I'll be going back to Wisconsin for some exciting deer hunting next weekend and all of next week. Probably have to shop for Christmas sometime soon and plan a wedding. Please give tips for the wedding part!!

Lauren and I hope Kyle is doing well!! Speedy recovery!!

Ruston, Louisiana that is

Last weekend was the fourth race of the Fall TMBRA series in Ruston, LA. It was a long drive (five and a half hours) but Lauren and Westley (a high school kid) picked me up at work so we could head up from there. It was a good trip but long.

This race was a little different from most races as there was a short track and time trial on Saturday and the typical cross country race on Sunday. I haven't ever done a time trial on either the road or the mountain (No special bikes or cool pictures of BA mountain bike time trials) bike so I didn't really know what to expect.

SIDE NOTE: I've also never tried a tandem time trial, I'm gonna have to ask Lauren if she's into that kind of thing.

The short track race was the first race on Saturday but I didn't do it because it didn't count for the Cat 2 GC and it costed more money. The time trial was pretty much what I expected it to be, a painfest. I downed a GU and some drink right before I started which may not have been a good idea. Oh well. The race was pretty good. The first guy I caught was nice and got off the trail for me right before a slippery corner which I slid out in losing a couple second for sure. The second guy I caught was not so nice and he didn't let me by even though I was considerably faster than he. He did proceed to stall out on a switchback leading up to the finish making me stop and costing me a few more seconds. In the end I got second a mere six seconds out of first.
Here's some TT pics:

Racing, intensely

The cross country race was on Sunday and I was really looking for a win. I started out pretty fast trying to stay at the front and was feeling pretty sore from the TT and probably a little sore still from the 24 hour race but feeling alright. We stayed with the whole field for a while and then three of us (James, Josh, and I) started pulling away. I went back in forth from second to first to third and when I pulled back into second James took off. Neither Josh or I could respond and James built a decent lead. Josh and I took turns pulling until Josh tore off his derailleur. This happened at a good time for me since I looked back and saw a couple guys from our class closing in. I picked up the pace a little and held everyone off for second.
Here's a XC photo:

I ended up second overall in the GC to James but it was enough to solidify a win for the series. Yay!! I am not going to race the last race now but Lauren is so I'll get some updates.

Lauren did tear it up at Ruston, too:

She looks awfully perky though for racing. Game face Lauren!!

The awesome pictures are from KarmaBiker!

Bryan

Well, rained again. That pretty much sums up the Bryan experience but I'll put it in a little better perspective. We left Houston on Saturday morning at about 11 after hitting up some book sales, garage sales, the bank, and somewhere else on the way up to Bryan (~100 miles away). Apparently the DOT decided to close down two of the three lanes on 290 which led to some serious backups and waiting in traffic. Once we got going again we noticed some ominously dark looking clouds looming on the horizon to the west and north (near Bryan) but we were hoping to beat the rain there. Approximately 10 minutes after saying, "It looks pretty light up by Bryan", torrential downpours struck. This demotivated me to pre-ride and slowed traffic considerably. We finally got to Bryan about an hour and a half later than I had wanted to but it didn't matter because the course was a real piece of muddy work so I didn't pre-ride anyways. Keeping my fingers crossed, that the rain would stop, I registered and then we headed into town for some food and later, sleep. Lauren somehow talked me into going to the Large Animal Vet Clinic at A&M, creepiest feeling ever!

About dinner time the rain started up again and, as far as I can tell, it didn't stop until about 8:30, 30 minutes before the Cat 1 race. Awesome, I thought as I peered into a couple of the large puddles we had to go through 20 feet after the start line. The course officials had shortened the course considerably after a pre-riding racer was consumed entirely by a large mud hole on the western loop, that's not actually true, but they did cut off that section of trail. The final trail length was 11 miles, "That's not too bad," I thought. Thinking I would catch some of the PSE riders coming up the final stretch before the start finish line, I waited around until I had to go get ready and warm-up. Something struck me then, "11 miles and the pros aren't even back and it's been over an hour," this could get ugly. After a good warm-up I headed to the start line. One of the race officials was saying, "Watch out when you go down the hill by the 'Slippery' sign because there is a large telephone pole at the bottom that you could crash into."

The race started slippery and fast, I got into the single-track in second and was right on the tire of first place until he slid out and off the trail on a wet bridge. Being in first, there was no one around and I didn't know how for ahead I was. Then, a rider that went to A&M caught me and apparently he had taken a mountain biking class out there so he knew every inch of the trail. We were pacing each other and then all of the sudden another rider from our class was on us and he was looking pretty strong. He got into first and I stayed with him for a while then I lost him on a short nasty muddy uphill in which the other guy passed me too. Now I was in third and I was starting to get tired. Having not pre-ridden I didn't know when to attack but this wasn't a big problem as my chain kept binding up which slowed me down quite a bit. I started to catch back up to the two in front of me and then I passed second place after he had flatted. I tried hard but I couldn't catch first. It was a tough race and I ended up in second.

Last hill, it hurt, I think my tongue is sticking out.

MuddyBike bath time, I think I dropped something...

Seu got it