The 100th Post

Yay! 100 posts...

Four weeks ago tomorrow I got out of bed way early to travel up to Warda for the annual Dirty Dozen/Super 6 12 and 6 hour mountain bike races. I signed up for the 6 hour race. Turns out there were some pretty bitchin' storms that rolled through the area the night before the race. So my getting up early, checking the weather, checking the website for any delays, checking the weather again, and then hesitantly climbing into the car to head up for the race WAS for nothing, the race was delayed for three hours, that would have been some great sleep! The races had also been shortened from 12 to 8 and from 6 to 4 hours. I call my race the Filthy Four instead of the Super Six.

So after some socializing and then a short nap I got all ready and put my bike in the bike area and lined up for the Le Mans. (A Le Mans is when they start all the racers some specified distance from their bikes so the racers have to run to the bikes, this helps to separate out the field). The start was good, wasn't too far back going into the singletrack. I was doing well, passing people, and feeling good. Then the second lap happened, I was about 1/4 of the way into the lap and all of the sudden had a hole in the tire. Knowing Stans is kickass, I jumped off my bike and tried to get the hole to seal with the Stans, no luck... DAMN!! With no tube, I had to run the bike in, find a tube, fix it, and then head out to kick more ass. Luckily the trail was real muddy so all of the events that had transpired led me to not being too far behind. For the rest of the race I kept a good pace, stopping every lap to wipe the mud off of my glasses and get something small to eat. I had to wash my bike 3 times to keep the caked-on mud at a manageable level.

I kept mashing until the last lap, didn't really want to go out on the last lap but I did. I'm glad I did because I was able to drop the guy who was trying to hang on to my wheel, that was a good feeling!

I ended up fourth in the Men's Open 4 hour race, not bad considering the flat!

I'll post pictures of the race and the mess soon.

Was sore the next day!!

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!

Well, I dropped the ball

a bit so a short summary of a couple races followed by a lengthy partial update of an epic race will have to do. Warda - hard awesome race. Rode hard, paced pretty well, sprinted a guy at the end but I couldn't quite edge him out. Comfort - long drive, good hanging out with some good friends and and awesome trail. Not the typical omnium as in years past but that's not necessarily a bad thing. The race was tough, rode hard up the climbs, felt pretty good. Saw a guy in my race gaining a little ground on me about 4 miles out. Put the hammer down and beat the kid by a couple minutes...sweet! Post race run damn near killed me, that's a long hill oh there at Comfort. Oh yeah, free ice cream guy was there, awesome! Solavaca - another long drive but this time I had a great friend and future mountain bike racer with me. Sonia made the drive go by much quicker. Rolled out to Solavaca for a pre-ride on Saturday morning and about 3 miles into the ride I tore out my sidewall pretty good. Walked the bike in then took out a Specialized demo bike to pre-ride the course. Much fancier bike than I normally ride with it's full suspension and tiny little 26" tires. Even though it was pretty sweet the handlebars were so wide I thought I was riding a full grown longhorn. With such wide bars I felt the need to tell myself not to catch a tree riding through the tight, twisty section, two seconds later I caught a tree in the tight, twisty section and went down pretty hard. Nothing like crashing a fancy $9,000 bike you don't even own. Got up, straightened out the seat and finished the pre-ride. The race was tough, 3 laps on an 8 mile course with no decent recovery area was tough!! I finished closer to the winner than I thought I was going to and I was having a pretty shitty race so I was marginally happy with that. Ouachita Challenge - EPIC. I took the Friday before the race off so I could drive up to Dallas and stay with the cycling parents on Thursday night and then drive up to Oden, Arkansas on Friday. An early morning and quick packing and we were on the way. Pretty long drive and we were in AR. The further we got from the TX/AR border the more we could hear the faint strum of banjos in the background. We got to the packet pickup area quite early so we decided to tour the checkpoints. Some beautiful scenery and weather brought back fond memories of a Sed Strat class field trip down to this area. Finally the registration was ready so we picked up our packets and then headed back to Mena to stay at the Queen Wilhelmina Lodge. Absolutely spectacular views and some good food made for a great night! The tour was on Saturday and since Alan (cycling Dad) was the coach of the Team in Training group we had the opportunity to get up early and cheer on all of the tour riders. The morning was really nice, beautiful sunrise and just enough fog to eminate the pervasive pink of the sunrise. Lot's of cows scattered about the countryside brought back memories of Wisconsin. The ride started at 8 so we watched everyone take off then we went to the first checkpoint to await our riders to support them. As the tour riders made their way through the checkpoints we followed them around making sure they all good to go. We ended up back at the finish line before we knew it awaiting the arrival of the tour riders. One by one they trickled in, only one rider did not make a time cut, very impressive! We all headed back to the lodge for a much needed pre-ride and dinner. The pre-ride was sweet, out along the road atop the ridge the hotel was on with a couple good climbs and some great descents. The chatty conversation of the dinner the night before was now a relatively quiet dinner with the stern concentration of the racers and the tired mumblings of the tour riders. After a good dinner it was time to get some much needed rest for the epic race the following day. Sunday started out pretty nice, much warmer than the day before but there were few clouds and little wind to begin with. Another early morning put us back in Oden with a little over an hour to get ready to race. Some hasty preparations and changing and it was time to get ready ride. A short warm-up and then it was time to line up. I got pretty close to the front to start but was still 4 or 5 rows back. At 8 we rode out. A quick tip from an Austin acquaintance showed me a good shortcut that may have been more than just a slight shortcut but it was sweet and put me up near the front. There was about four miles of paved road before the gravel road to get to the singletrack. On the gravel road my hasty preparations came back to bite me as the spare tube I taped under my seat fell and got caught between the rear tire and the chainstay. Nothing like locking up the back wheel while hauling down a gravel road with a bunch of other racers who are also hauling. Stopped grabbed the tube out threw it in the jersey then took off again. Riders really started getting strung out along the road, I made up some good ground I lost with the spare tube ordeal. There was a good climb right before the singletrack and once we got onto the singletrack the climbing continued. At least the pace eased a bit on the singletrack so I could recover a bit. I passed through some kickass singletrack sections, some good technical sections and one small brush fire. It was on one of the short climbs when I realized I was going to have some pedal trouble but I had no idea what I was getting myself into...

Warda '10

Last weekend was the Warda race and it was the first race for me as a Cat 1 racer. The weather was great and the trails were in great condition. It was nice to not have to get up super early on Sunday morning to make a 9 o'clock race time, 11 is much better. As normal the start of the race was a long open section until the single track, this was only true for Cat 2's, Cat 3's, and the Single Speeders. Thanks to all those Cat 2's that were still on the course that got us a shorter start. The raced started fast, kinda like I expected it would so I was set on not blowing up right away. I made it to the single track and I think I was in last place but I passed a couple of people but that was pretty much all I passed. The race was long and fast and I wasn't really sure what to expect. On the third lap out of four I felt a slight twinge of a cramp in my calf so I pounded some water and took it easy for a bit. The legs felt fine the rest of the lap. The fourth lap consisted primarily of staving off the cramps until the finish. I did succeed but the legs were pretty sore afterwards. No thanks to the neutral water feed that didn't really exist, could have used that. Oh well, I got 7th and I'm happy with that for a first Cat 1 race.


This weekend I also bought another Orbea Lanza from a friend of ours, I'm going to turn it into a single speed eventually. The conversion to a single speed might have to wait though until I pick up my Gary Fisher Cronus that I am apparently getting even though I was pretty much convinced the UT team wasn't going to order for me. Sweet!

Some Race Pics:

Other things that occurred:

Lauren got into Vet school at Texas A&M!! Yay for vet school! Boo for A&M!! She is excited and will likely start in late June taking an Anatomy class before the real thing begins.

Seu got to meet a cow, Longhorn none the less:

This will have to come in pieces (1)

Most Important First:

Last weekend was the first and second time I have ever road raced. The Walburg race was on Saturday and Kyle's prediction of cold and rain were correct. The race went pretty well, probably went out a little too hard but overall it felt like it should I suppose. I was at the front right away and soon after the start I settled in to the pack. The race was faster than I thought it would be but I hung with the pack until the end. I slowed down for a near crash near the end and the front of the group got away a little but I finished without crashing (my goal). I don't know for sure where I placed, I've been guessing around 30th out of 50 so I'll just go with that. It was a darn good training ride too.

The Pace Bend race was on Sunday and I was hoping the weather would be a little better. The start was good and I was hanging in the pack until some tard barn decided to run into me. I decided it wasn't worth crashing and went off the road. I didn't have to stop and I got back on the road but the pack had gotten away a little. I worked hard and eventually caught up to the pack and started recovering a little just as some guys about 20 feet (6.15 meters) ahead of me crashed going around a corner. Yay, off the back again. I worked hard to keep the pack at a manageable distance but they soon started to pull away and I was done. I finished the race 23rd out of 30 I think. It was a little frustrating, I see how that race could be fun but oh well I didn't crash. The weather did get better right after our race. Congratulations to Kyle for getting 2nd!!

Mountain bike racing is definitely way better and that begins with the Warda race this weekend!!

Other random things that have happened lately:

Neighbors down the street moved:

Seu met a chicken:
More to come...

Warda

Warda is a great little camping area with some sweet single track about an hour and a half east of Austin. Last weekend was the TMBRA race out at Warda. Lauren and I headed down on Saturday to pre-ride and then campout.













Being Cat 2 we started early in the morning. I had hoped to place well (top 5 maybe) but that isn't exactly how it happened. The start was good but super long, dang runout start. Once we got into the single track I started to make up some ground but I could only make it up to tenth. I wish it had gone better but I suppose I have something to train up to now.

Reimers ranch next weekend, hope to do ok...

Happy April Fools day, you'll never guess what I did today. . .


unless you are Kyle who also participated in the AFD shenanigans.