Mountain Bike Racing Adventures

2011 Pisgah Stage Race

2011-10-07T20:33:00.007-04:00

I knew I should have tried to keep up with race write ups each day as now it all feels like a blur. Like, really? Did I just ride my bike for 5 days over 195 miles and 28,000 feet of climbing. It sure felt like it on Saturday, the final day. But it is a funny thing about racing, you somehow forget the pain. Despite the last day being a very tough one, I actually still feel like riding my bike.

After riding sort of conservatively on the first day, I was ready to amp it up a bit on Day 2. It was going to be a tough, but they all are. We had a remote start today but finished up at the usual start/finish area. So we had to take a trolley ride through Brevard. It was a tad boring. Pflug had wanted to carpool over to the remote start but I didn't think that would be a great idea as I knew I would be finishing well after him and he had a massage appointment in town he had to make it to on time. So I rode the trolley that took forever and he carpooled with Garth Prosser ( his fellow competitor). I was sort of jealous but it didn't really matter as we all had to wait for the bikes to make it over to the start. It was kind of chilly that morning, but it was supposed to warm up nicely into the mid-70s.

The bikes all finally showed up and we rode a short distance up to a field campground for the start. We did a very short lemans start and down the dirt road with shallow creek crossing right at the beginning and then a sharp right to start the day's first big climb. The climb went on forever and got progressively tougher the higher up and then we dropped into the 'toughest/most rugged' trail in the forest that bikes are allowed it. It was crazy - super steep, with waterbar drops and, well, I got off an ran as did probably 98% of the racers. I am not too keen climbing forever and then having to ride a trail that's well not -rideable. Then it was on the bike, off the bike, on the bike off the bike. There were several rocky, slippery stream crossings that weren't rideable and then some steeply pitched sections that were also not rideable. It was tough to get into any sort of rhythm. I had been feeling pretty good thus far though and tried not to let it get to me. I did initially have intentions of trying to stay with Melanie, the first place woman, but she was just too fast climbing and I knew I couldn't hold that pace without exploding. Not a good thing to do on Day 2.

The rest of the trails that day didn't seem too bad as far as being super technical. There were some more hike a bike sections which although annoying to be pushing my bike versus riding it, didn't feel as bad as it did on Day 1. We finished up on the same downhill as the previous day. It seems to help make all the hurt and pain and suffering melt away. It really is a super sweet downhill. I definitely rode a bit harder than on day 1, but I still felt reasonably well. I grabbed a sub on the way back to my hotel since I ate like every snack I had after finishing up the day before. I went back to my hotel and cleaned the bike, then cleaned myself and ate my sub. I massaged my legs out and rested with them elevated for a bit trying to do all the recovery stuff I could.

I headed into town for the podium awards and then chatted with fellow racers at the reception afterwards. No alcohol this evening. Gerry and I then went to dinner at the same place. I got the same thing - turkey, stuffing, potatoes and green beans. Seemed to do the trick the night before. Gerry went for the pot roast and said it was delicious.

I slept ok that evening. I'm not sure why I was getting race nerves now a couple days in. I knew after today that to catch Melanie would mean her having a serious mechanical issue or totally cracking, not super likely. And third place woman was pretty far back. I had planned on taking it easy on Thursday, our shorter 'recovery' day, since Day 4 and Day 5 were both going to be super hard. Se la vie.

Day 3 was a remote start and finish and thus a later start time, 11am. It was only 25 miles with 3,200 feet of climbing. I had heard it was fast and flowing, but I didn't totally buy it with quite a bit of elevation gain in short miles. I was feeling relatively good still which I was quite pleased about. So much for taking it easy. The trails were really fun and fast and flowing for the most part. It was hard not to ride them hard. I was having a blast. There was one gnarly downhill section that I had been overly warned about so I rode it completely backed off and walked a good portion of it. It was really short in comparison to previous days' hiking with the bike. We hit the huge climb of the day late in the stage, but I was still feeling pretty good and climbing pretty strong. I was determined to stay on the bike as much as possible and managed for the most part. The end of the stage was deceiving. We came out onto the dirt road climb that we started in on and I figured we were just taking it all the way back to the finish, but we turned off it onto a jeep road that rode as mostly singletrack and that was rolling climbing. It seemed to go on and on especially since it seemed like one more corner before we turned on to this trail and we would have been done. It finally turned off onto some fun downhill singletrack to the finish. Yeah!
But boy, was I feeling tired by now. I drove back to the hotel ate a sub, took a shower and napped with my legs elevated.

The nap did me a world of good. I would have been a crabby monster at the awards podium and reception. Gerry and I decided to branch out tonight with a group of racers and check out a Mexican restaurant. It looked like that had some decent, not overly heavy chicken dishes so I was keen on it. Plus, the mariachi band was playing! It was quite entertaining. It did seem to take a bit to get service. My dinner was quite yummy and quite large, enough so that I had lunch/post-race food for the next day. I was sitting next to Clair, who was racing the open women's category. She raced it last year as well while visiting from Australia. Funny, she ordered burritos and two very large burritos came on her plate. She was served before most and waited till everyone had their food. I wasn't quite sure why she was so patient as others had started eating already. I finally got my plate and took a couple bites and then I looked over at her plate and only part of a burrito was left. I was like, hmm... maybe she only got one burrito. Nope. She really ate it that fast. Amazing. And she wouldn't do the pie eating contest the last evening!! Anyway, everyone was a little anxious about the next day's stage which had been touted as the hardest, or at least the longest time wise.

Day 4 entailed 39 miles and 8,000 feet of climbing on mostly singletrack. I had guessed based on the finish times from last year that I would likely be out there for ~5.5 hrs. It was a long day out there but some really awesome trails. I was still feeling pretty good, had some climbing legs etc. It did seem to take forever to get to Aid Station 2 at 20 miles. I seriously started to think that maybe we had missed it somehow. But nope. It took a good 3'15" to get there. I was banking on the 2nd half of the course to ride must faster and thankfully it did. I still felt good up the last climb and was railing the downhill that we finished on Day 1 and Day 2. Super sweet. It really makes you start to forget all the pain of the day's ride. I was still annoyed with myself for chickening out on two short sketchy parts and running down them. Maybe tomorrow....
One more day... one more day.

After the stage, I decided to take the time to drive up the road a bit and check out a couple waterfalls. It is so beautiful down there in Pisgah National Forest. I highly recommend a visit to the area to anyone who appreciates the beauty of the mountains and thick, lush forests. It's a outdoor enthusiast's paradise. I then went back to the hotel and showered up and rested a bit. I didn't get to nap really and probably should have but I seemed to feel ok and thought I'd be fine getting through the last day. I went to town for the podium awards and reception. Everyone was talking about the cold weather coming in for the final day. The temperature for the start was going to be ~40 and only get up to mid-50s. Brrrr....and to top it off we had a bunch of creek crossings early on. Yuk! I hate being cold. The first Aid Station was a mile 14 so most racers dropped spare shoes (if they had them) and dry socks. Hmm...I had both so seemed like a good call. Off to bed and unfortunately not solid sleep.

I woke up feeling surprisingly ok. Once I moved around some though, I could tell the week of racing was catching up with me, although really not too bad. It was chilly out and thankfully I had a bunch of cold weather riding clothes with me. It was a base layer day, leggings, ear warmers, warm wind vest kind of morning. I started out wearing my older bike shoes and had dropped my better shoes and dry socks and other dry items just in case one fell in the creek. We had a 7+ mile road start and it was windy. In the pack it wasn't too bad but it fell apart some. I could tell on the first climb that it was going to be a tough day. The legs were stiff and tired. And the cold in general was making me feel like I was in a fog. I was hoping I would warm up and come around some.

Early on a couple guys who I had been riding near a lot this race were with me again. One of them was riding my tail tight and I offered a fair warning of being overly tired and a bit cranky so I might bitch at him if he kept riding too tight. He took heed. He eventually passed me thankfully. We descended to the creek and then proceeded to have to cross 8 times! It was only about knee deep but long enough and strewn with boulders that you had to carry your bike across. It was quite cold. I still can't understand why they couldn't just keep the trail on one side of it... duh! j/k My feet were freezing. It seemed like a very long 14 miles considering half of it was on the road to get into Aid Station 1. I was very very happy I dropped shoes and socks. It took a bit to change since I was so cold and stiff but the volunteers were awesome. I had 4 of them helping me at once. It was a bit overwhelming at that point as my brain was not functioning to efficiently yet. One of them asked me how my warm socks felt? I said, they aint warm...but at least they're dry. And off I went.

I was wooped. I was definitely struggling to stay in the game today. We had a long climb up to Pilot mountain which of course included some steep hike a bike sections. I got to the top of the steepest portion and had a near hissy fit trying to get to my now crumbled odwalla bar in my shirt pocket under my vest under my camelback.... arggh! I got some of it and figured I should get pedaling. It took a while to crest Pilot Mtn. The views were pretty amazing up there but I was too tired to really care. Then it was a long harsh descent with super tight switchbacks on loose rocky terrain and of course lots of drops. It was mostly rideable if you weren't five days into a stage race. I had a rough time on this descent. I think I may have been extra frustrated in the fact that i was too tired to ride it and if I weren't so tired, it might have been a lot of fun. Well certainly a lot of fun on a dualie suspension bike. My hardtail was beating the crap out of me today. My long fingered gloves also don't have pads in them so that didnt' help either.

Probably about half-way down the super rough part ends in a rock garden that I almost made it through but had scrubbed too much speed. Thom Parsons (of cyclingdirt.com) was there filming some of the riders (check out the website for racer interviews). He told me it smooths out after that and gets easier...cool.... but BS.. It went on and on. Not so rocky, but still lots of waterbar drops. I was so beat up and tired. I finally made it out to the dirt road and nearly broke into tears. I was kind of surprised at my reaction since usually I just get to the point of telling myself "you don't ever have to ride your bike again if you don't want to" to get through a race, but I seemed to have skipped right over that phase and was near breakdown. What do I do? I talked myself down and told myself to just think of the funny things my doggie has done and that seemed to help me snap out of it enough to finish up. But I was not a happy camper out there. There was one more super rough descent and I was so ready to throw in the white flag. I just had to finish that's all I had to do and I'd still be in 2nd.

I finally made it to the last climb and knew I was ok. I started to relax a little and take in the scenery since this was the last day. And the descent into the finish was still really sweet. I still didnt' ride the couple short sketchy sections but I didn't care at this point. At the finish I was rather cranky and knew I just needed to get out of there to unwind and recover so I headed back to the hotel asap. I showered and ate and tried to nap a bit. Then it was time go head to the Music Center for the final awards and dinner. I was much better by then and add a couple beers to that and well...it's all a memory now. The dinner was great and hanging with all the racers was good fun. I was surprised I wasn't completely trashed but I was ok. I headed back to my hotel around 9pm and was probably in bed shortly after that.

I woke up feeling a bit sleepy. Walking up and down stairs was a tell tale sign of weary legs. Although, they really weren't as bad as I thought I would be coming out of this race. I packed up the car and drove through the forest up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was another cold day. My car thermometer was saying it was only 35 degrees up in the mountains. It was a gorgeous day out and the views were spectacular. I took the parkway to just about Asheville and then it was all highway back to Doug's in maryland and being reunited with one happy pug.

It is an odd feeling now being done the season I felt so done before the race but now it feels like it shouldn't be over. I even went hunting for ice cream tonight and the seasonal shops are closed :( What happened?! I guess it is October. Time for some fun riding, hiking, relaxing, etc.

Till next year! Probably more of the same -- or different same long distance races... something like that.

2011 Pisgah Stage Race Day 1

2011-09-27T21:08:00.004-04:00

I drove down to Brevard, North Carolina (just south of Asheville) yesterday. I got in around 3:30 and checked into my 'swank abode', per race standards, and quickly unpacked. My hotel is only a couple miles from the race start/finish. It's very nice to be so close to the venue, have a clean shower, clean room, wifi, etc. Registration and the opening ceremony was scheduled for 5pm. I had hoped to get a decent ride in to flush the long drive out of my legs, but a half-hour was all I could fit in. I felt ok. It was a warm, humid mid-80 day.

I drove the ~10 minutes to the Brevard Music Center where registration, race briefing and dinner were taking place. I pulled into the parking lot next to Lee and Brenda Simril (my 100 miler buddies). They have done this race the past two years and love it. Dinner was pretty yummy and super healthy. I had trout with pesto sauce, quinoa, veges and some bread. During dinner, the race directors went over the various courses and other race 'stuff'. Some of the trails sound pretty rough and gnarly and bordering on dangerous. Oh boy. I do like technical trails but traveling around the country had made me realize there are different 'technical' trails -- like the rocks in PA/MD are different than the Northeast, etc.. and much different than out west. Each place has it's thing.

I was feeling pretty wooped from the long drive and taking in all the new sites and trying to wrap my head around having to race my bike for 5 days. Did I really sign up for this again. It sounded like a lot of fun back in August. Now, after a long season and busy month of work etc., I was feeling a bit worn out from wanting to push myself to the point of exhaustion. But here I was in North Carolina, better get pedaling. At least the weather forecast for the week looked great - mid-70s and sunny, until Saturday which will only be in the low 60s.

I woke up at 6:30 and ate a bagel for breakfast. I headed over to the race start for 8am and finished getting and had plenty of time to kill before the 9am start. It was really damp out with a lot of the humidity burning out of the air once the sun really came out. I knew it was going to be slick out there on the trails. They have had a lot of rain down here recently and the forest is really dense so it takes a while to dry out. I figure we'll be getting wet and a bit muddy every day with stream crossings, etc.

The course today started out with a mile on a flat road and then turned onto a dirt road rolling climb for about 6 miles up to Aid Station 1. Then we had a nice smooth gradual descent. It was a bit tacky but pretty smooth sailing down to a river crossing and then up a really steep, greasy climb. I was feeling pretty good thus far but was riding conservatively. I saw the woman who came in 1st only at the start and she took hard with the lead men's group. I just let it go and rode my pace reminding myself it's a long week, lots of tough trails, lots of tough climbing and lots of tough descending. No need to kill it on day one. I also wanted to just get a feel for the terrain. It was very slick and greasy in spots. Mid-race we were riding a very narrow trail with lots of off camber roots and a nice steep drop off. I just took it easy through there and enjoyed the terrain. Put a foot down or whatever to get over some of the really badly angled roots so as not to risk crashing down the mountain. It was kind of nice in that the trail made you have to ride conservatively and not put out a big effort.

Aid Station 2 was at 22 miles. I refueled there with my 333 carborocket mix - best stuff ever. From there it was an extended road section, mostly down for a while and then some climbing back up to a double track trail. It was rocky and rough at first and then smoothed out into an almost tunnel like track with the brush growing over. Then we eventually come out to Aid Station 3 at 32 miles and hit the dreaded hike-a-bike section. Thankfully I had been well warned about the numerous and very long hike-a-bikes at Pisgah and today's hike-a-bike would be like 20+ minutes. It was hard to get the legs to come around to pushing the bike uphill versus riding but they came around a bit. The views from on top of the mountain were spectacular but I was in race mode then and didn't take too long to take it all in.

It was slow-going descent off the top part. Many deep ruts from water runoff would make 2-foot drops or more so if you weren't careful in picking your line, you were sure to go over the handlebars. So I continued in my 'conservative mode'. Further down the terrain less hairy, but you still had to really keep you eyes ahead and paying full attention. The final descent into the finish, which apparently we finish on a few more times, was super super fun and fast with nice banked turns and just enough rocks to keep you honest.

I finished in 2nd about 9 minutes back from 1st place. I felt pretty good. I hadn't gone all out although post-race now I do feel the effects some. I headed back to the hotel and cleaned up, ate some snacks, massaged the legs some. Then, I went into 'town' to check out some shops before the evening awards. There was a reception afterwards with some finger foods and beer. I had a beer. I admit it. Then I grabbed some dinner with Gerry Pflug - 100 miler single speed champion. He's amazing. He's racing on gears for this one though.

well off to bed. four more days....

2011 Shenandoah 100

2011-09-07T21:43:00.001-04:00

I am done the final 100 miler of the 2011 season. I have to admit I was way more excited about that fact last year as I was truly done my season and on to the 'just play and have fun' part of the season. This year, I have one more big race, the Pisgah Stage Race, in a few weeks. I am looking forward to the race (well maybe when I feel fully rested again) and racing on all new trails for me. But it's kind of hard to imagine riding 5 days in a row on tough trails just after finishing up being on the bike for 9 hours.

I had my best placing at Shenandoah this year, coming in 2nd. I wish it felt like a wonderful second but it seemed to be another race of just getting through. I was hoping one of the 100 milers this year would feel good, or I'd feel really. I realize it sounds funny to say racing a 100 miles will feel good, but there are those days that the legs are there, the body is there and the head is in the right spot too. I had moments here and there of that, but certainly not a whole 100 miler this year. I probably felt my best right around the Transylvania Stage race, until I got sick :( So, maybe the upcoming stage race will be my redemption on that front.

So, Shenandoah is truly a great race and I highly recommend it to any mountain biker out there interested in doing a long distance race. Chris Scott knows how to put on a good event the whole way through the weekend. The volunteers are amazing at the aid stations, pre and post race...great. The course is amazing, hard, lots of steep climbing, but amazing (when you can keep you head up and enjoy it, and even when it's difficult to keep your head up, you will still at least enjoy the really sweet downhills).

Heading into Shenandoah, the week was not without some drama. I was out riding some local trails post-hurricane Irene. I kind of had the thought in my head of "I have no business riding these trails with all the debris down from the hurricane and having a huge race a few days out." I rode the 25 minutes from my house to the trails feeling pretty good, just having a mostly chill ride and when I got on the trails they were a mess with twigs, sticks, leaves, etc everywhere, so I told myself to just stay chill and not risk catching a branch or anything to break spokes or deraillers, or derailler hangers. Well, I caught a few stick nonetheless but stopped immediately to pull them out before any damage could be done, or so I thought. I was started to hear some skipping in my rear cassette and stopped to try to adjust it, but to no avail. Upon closer inspection, I realized I had managed to bend the derailler hanger, or, I was hoping maybe just the derailler. I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes so I walked out of the wood to the nearby road to try to fiddle the derailler to see if I could manage to straighten it out. I was kind of starting to panic as A. I had ridden over here and would have to figure out how to get back home and most importantly B. I did not have a spare derailler hanger and it was likely to get one, it would have to come from Switzerland where the bike was made, which likely would take longer to get here than I had time for. Stay calm... Stay calm.

I managed to find a gear that worked and pedaled home single speed style. I immediately called Brian (if you don't remember, my best buddy in the world who fixes my bike for me :) ) and told him what happened in a very whiney voice. He didn't respond with any sort of panic, or much of anything for that matter, so I was like "Did you hear me?!" And it dawned on him that I didn't have a spare derailler hanger. He still didn't sound overly alarmed so that made me feel less worried myself. He had needed to work on the bike to replace the bottom bracket for me so a trip to his house was in order regardless. Although, he wasn't going to be home until Thursday night and we were heading out Friday morning to Maryland to get most of the way down to the race.

I took a picture of the rear of the bike and sent it to Brian, who said it didn't look that bad... so phew.. but still. Thankfully, Shannon, my team manager, had a spare frame with derailler hanger (out in Salt Lake City) so I had him overnight the part to a bike shop in Maryland to pick up Friday once I got down there. At any rate, Brian was able to bend the hanger back and everything worked fine. I did have the spare one to fall back on thankfully.

So drama over. Thankfully, it was otherwise a pretty mellow week. I was mostly packed before even having to head to Brian's to get the bike work done. He was heading down to race Shenandoah as well, which was also a comforting fact knowing if something happened to the bike before the race started then I had a good chance of it getting fixed.

I headed out Friday morning picking up Brandon in Millbury en route. This would be his 2nd 100 miler. I have a convert here :) It was nice to have company again for the long drive. We stopped in Scranton, PA again for lunch and made good time down to Doug's in Maryland. Brian was debating following us down but ended up leaving later than we did. Once in Maryland we basically jumped in Doug's car to head up to Gambril Mountain (local riding spot) to get a short ride it. Brian met up with there.

I thought jumping on the bike after being in the car for just about 8 hours was going to be painful but I felt remarkably great. This was how I had hoped I would feel on race day - loose, effortless, etc. The bike felt good and survived the rough terrain which made me decide to just leave things alone and just bring the overnighted derailler hanger with me during the race as backup.

We got back to Doug's, showered up and walked over to a restaurant nearby for dinner. Then back to hang out for a bit and off to bed. I slept ok. We didn't have to get up super early but we did want to be on the road around 9AM. It was about 2.5-3hrs to race site and it was important to get there reasonably early to get a good camping spot. We made it there around noon time and barely managed to get a decent spot. It was closer to the pavillion/registration area which I knew would probably mean it would be a bit louder than other spots we have gotten further off into the woods.

We set up camp and then hopped on the bikes to spin the legs. It was hot and wicked humid out. We were sweating in no time. I was feeling pretty relaxed still but my legs and body felt like crap. I was rather dismayed since I felt so good the day before. I chalked it up to the long drive catching up to me and hoped it would subside by the next morning.

On the way back from the warm-up ride we jumped in the river to cool off and get cleaned up some. It felt great. Then we were off to Harrisonburg to get some last minute supplies - Brandon in particular needed a new disc brake rotor having damaged it in our short ride the day before. Thankfully, he was able to get that done while we ate a late lunch/early dinner.

Once back at the campground, we registered and just got all set for race day. I was still feeling pretty chill, wondering if I was perhaps too chill. We were in bed really early, but sleep was hard to come by. I'm used to this fact though so I didn't let it bother me too much. I felt reasonably ok when we had to wake up at 5am. Time to rock and roll.

It was a quick bite of oatmeal and a banana, oh and of course some espresso. It was still really humid out and for once just being in shorts and short sleeve shirt was comfortable for race morning (although that meant it was likely to be really hot and humid later). Then it's the long wait for the port-a-pots, which seems to eat up all the time until it's time to get start, which in some ways is good.

I was smart this race and made sure I was up in the front group right with my competitors. This made the otherwise usually insanely chaotic start out of the campground quite pleasantly smooth. There weren't too many racers in front of me to be all cramming into a narrow road. The pace wasn't too insane but certainly fast enough for legs I had warmed up yet. I made sure to stay with Cheryl and Viccki, and a couple miles in I realized Brenda was already up front too. We all rode fairly tight to each other through the first 20+ miles and only getting small gaps on each other. I was sitting in 2nd heading up the 2nd climb of the day where Cheryl began to widen her gap that none of us would real in. I magically forgot how hard these climbs are. It was pretty damp so the rocks were slick and I found myself fumbling off the bike earlier than i would have like to have been. I stayed in 2nd place through Aid Station 2 and up the beginning part of the 3rd climb where I was starting to feel not so good and the legs were pretty dead already. I looked back over my shoulder and spotted Brenda and Viccki coming along. Ugh! I knew I didn't have too much in me at that point to ward them off so they eventually caught me and slowly pulled away. I could only hope they would burn each other out, but I knew that was wishful thinking.

I just tried to keep in my race as much as I could, which wasn't all that great. I tried to convince myself to just enjoy the scenery and the phenomenal trails. I at least felt like I was descending pretty well. I was in and out of Aid Station 3 at the bottom of the hill and was quick to jump on some wheels up ahead for the upcoming road section. It was an ok small group to draft off of. Brandon had passed me not to long before Viccki and Brenda but then I caught up to him again on the road section. He was singlespeeding it so he would spin out his gear on the flats and not be able to go too fast. We yo' yo'ed back and forth a bit for the next 25 miles.

The 4th climb is a tough singletrack climb. It's hard on a good day and today I felt like crap riding it. I fumbled and put my foot down and then the rock I had stepped on was slippery so I fumbled some more and just didn't have the energy to get out of my own way. It was starting to make me feel really demoralized about the whole race. I have done enough of these to know, you just have to keep going there's nothing else to do. So I dragged myself on. At least the descents, truly are so amazingly fun. It's a nice break from the misery.

I rolled into Aid Station 4 and refilled my camelback for the 2nd time with Carborocket and got on my way. I was dreading the next section. It's a really long dirt road section with several false flat sections and then it just leads you to the biggest climb of the day. It's definitely a section that can break you. Not too long into this stretch, Viccki was pedaling back to the aid station, dropping out of the race after suffering from back spasms all race. I felt bad, but now I was in 3rd place. Although, it's not a particularly great way to move up in placing. I thought Brenda had looked really strong riding by me before so I figured she had a good gap on me.

I had a hard time keeping my head up in this stretch. My lower back was really tight and my left foot was bothering me pretty good. It was a long stretch of not the kind of thoughts you want to be having while racing. I caught up with Brandon again and another friend from Kelly, from the Transylvania Stage Race. We were riding together just before you turn to start the 'big climb' and right as we were heading into the turn I caught a glimpse of Brenda and her husband riding not too far ahead.

Once starting the climb, the legs and body kind of came around some, some, not great, but some. It was a very slow reeling in of Brenda but I did finally catch her. I told her that Viccki had dropped out. She asked if anyone else was close behind and I told her no, but I wasn't sure. And then I began to slowly gap her. It was right around this point that I got to experience what the plant Stinging Nettle feels like. I suddenly felt this super intense stinging pain just under my left eye and thought, geez, what the heck? Did I get stung? I didn't see anything fly in my face. It was really odd, but incredibly painful. I thought my whole left eye/checkbone was going to swell up. It slowly subsided and went away. I had a minor worrying thought of it being some sort of spasm or pain due to pushing my body too hard and it finally rejecting in some odd way.

Anyway, I make it into Aid Station 5 at 75 miles. I try to be super quick about it knowing Brenda likely isn't too far behind. I drank some desperately needed water and grabbed another full water bottle to go. I was probably under-fueling at this point as far as caloric intake went, but I just didn't feel like eating anymore. It was pretty hot and humid by this point so straight water was the most appealing. I did keep trying to finish off my carborocket as well.

The big climb really goes on and on and on... I know this from experience, yet I kept thinking, this is the last field section and then it's just around that corner that we start to head down...nope, next corner... nope.. Finally, the descent, although, you only descend for a bit on a wicked rough stretch and then have some short steep ups to finish up before heading down the rest of the mountain. It was in the stretch I passed Michael Simonson (I didn't know it was him when I passed at the time) on a backboard strapped onto a all terrain vehicle -- not good. He had crashed hard and sliced his throat on something pretty badly, among other damage to himself. He was ultimately light flighted out to a hospital in Charlottesville. I read an update today that he was released today and should recover ok, but definitely did some serious damage to his body.

Once down the descent, I was in and out of the last aid station. yeah! One more climb to go and then downhill to the finish. I was feeling fairly confident at this point that Brenda wasn't going to catch me again although I knew I had to keep riding hard to make sure that didn't happen. The last climb is also the 3rd climb which was where she had passed me oh so long ago. I think my legs actually felt better this time around, or at least better for being 90+ miles into the race then my legs felt at 30+ miles. I don't know what that's all about - perhaps a motivation thing to be finally done pedaling.

I crossed the finish line in 9:01 in second place, which was a few minutes slower than my time last year which got me 4th last year. Brenda followed up 8 minutes later in 3rd and that let her hold onto 3rd place in the NUE Series as well. I would have had to beat her by one more spot to take 3rd place. I was pretty happy with a 2nd place at Shenandoah. It is certainly one of the more prestigious 100s of the NUE series. I always joke that if I win Shenandoah I can retire, so I guess that means I have to do it again :( I wasn't completely relishing in my 2nd place as I was pretty wooped from the race, more so than usual. It took me a while to come around and even then I only managed to drink one beer barely. What's up with that?

I went back down to the river to cool off but it was not a fun short ride back up the hill into the campground. I then showered in the portable showers they had this year. Although, I was sweating right away again in the high humidity. I ate some food and chatted with fellow racers. It took a little bit to do awards for the race and then a while after that to do the NUE series awards. In previous years they only placed out to 3rd so I didn't think I would be getting a prize or even noted for my 4th place finish but I was, so we had to stay longer for that to finish up.

Doug, Brandon and I left a bit after 8pm finally in a state of delirium. We stopped in Harrisonburg to eat at a Chipotles before heading back to Doug's. I was super fidgety the whole drive back as I was so tired but just couldn't get comfortable. I crashed pretty much immediately when we got back to his place. I don't usually sleep all that well post-race night but I did sleep. I didn't wake up feeling like I slept well at all though. The usual back tightness was there that I seems to think is worse each time. I was surprised that my knees seemed fine, which isn't a bad thing. I was still feeling pretty wiped out and dreading the 7.5hr drive home but knew I should hit the road sooner than later.

It was a pretty uneventful drive home. We hit some rain but thankfully not for too long as it was pretty tough driving tired in it. Brandon and I stopped in Scranton again but this time for a sundae at TCBY Yogurt and a coffee. I dropped him off around 6:30 and met my mom in Westboro to pick up Bruschi from her. I dragged my butt home and half unpacked. I wanted a salad from Elsa's (my favorite local place) but they were closed, so I opted for another burrito to go with my beer. It was tasty and the beer put me to sleep.

It's all rest this week, although, I am quite busy working this week so it doesn't feel like I have had a lot of rest thus far. I plan on racing the Landmine 50 at Wompatuck Park in Hingham, MA this Sunday. I hope it stops raining so it dries out nicely since it's a really fun course, except when it's wet (slippery roots and rocks everywhere). It will feel good to race a flat course.

Till then!

DOUBLE RACE WEEKEND

2011-08-23T19:36:00.008-04:00

Peak Race Vermont 6 Hour Race (Saturday) and Hampshire 100K (Sunday)

Oh, some time a month ago or so, my buddy Steve thought it might be a fun endeavor to race both the Vermont 6 Hour Mountain Bike Challenge (which goes by a couple different names, aka, 666 race and Vermont 30 - it's an awesome race, just needs to pick an identity and race weekend without other endurance races going on, or not, just a good name that makes sense will do) and the Hampshire 100k/Pro USA Cycling Endurance Tour Race.

I initially said "NO WAY". I was having a hard enough time staying motivated and focused to get through one day of racing. But then, I found myself signed up for the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race the end of September. It's a five-day stage race with 195 miles and 28,000 feet of climbing - ouch! Maybe back to back days of racing with some serious climbing will be some good training. So, I signed up for both, with the caveat of only doing both if the weather was decent. I did not feel like wasting precious brain energy on a mudfest, that and destroying my bike and having to replace all the parts I just replaced since it's been a rather wet, muddy race season. I had intended to race the 6 hour race in Vermont all along, just wasn't too keen on the second day racing 100k.

The adventure began on Friday driving up to Vermont with Steve. We both did this race last year and had a blast, along with a couple fellow comrades, Rob Paton and Chris Gagnon. And this year, I convinced Brian Spring (who does most of my bike mechanical work) that he would absolutely love the 6 hour race to join in the fun. He was already signed up for the 100k, but a glutton for punishment, like the rest of us, signed up for the 6 hour too (and loved it).

Heading into this past weekend, the weather forecast was rather iffy with chance of thunderstorms everyday. The only plus was that it was likely to stay fairly warm with the humidity in the air. I packed so many clothes in case it did rain and I got really wet, I'd have lots of spare clothes. That, and last year, it was absolutely freezing overnight camping out. I pulled out some of the cold weather clothes last minute since the overnight lows were only going to be ~ mid 50s at the lowest. I'd say they stayed much warmer than that.

We left Friday not quite early enough to be able to make it to the awesome country store in Pittsfield, VT before they closed at 8pm where registration was taking place. We could still register Saturday morning, but we needed to meet up with the race director who was going to show us where we could camp out. We made pretty good time getting up there but past 8pm, so we called Jason, the race director, who didn't answer. Steve left a message and we wondered whether we would be joining Brian who opted to get a hotel room since it was pouring when he got to Killington area. We drove the half-mile to Amee Farm where the race takes place to see if Jasn was there and luckily enough he pulled in right behind us. He told us that despite the numerous heavy downpours, they truly were 'scattered' as Pittsfield only got a brief light shower. I was psyched about that. He did say that there was some residual effects from the previous weeks' rain. I also found out that I was the only women signed up in my category. Hmmm, kind of a nice relief, but also a bummer to not have some competition to push me a bit or make me ride more laps. Although, if I didn't feel particularly great, I would be able to stop early and save the legs for Sunday. But, I decided I would have to duke it out with the boys then.

We drove up this dirt road for what seemed like a really long time. It was basically an access road to the upper part of the trail system we would be racing on the next day. It worked - it was quiet, open and flat enough for tents and surprisingly not very buggy. Did I mention, the stars were amazing. We set up our tents and were off to bed by 10pm. Chris showed up shortly thereafter. Steve and I were both surprised he found the spot in the dark.

I did not sleep that well that night. I'm not quite sure why. I didn't let it bother me too much as I had slept pretty well most of the week. I figured being semi-sleep deprived Friday night would make me sleep well Saturday night especially after racing. Beside, I didn't have any competition, I could stop after one lap... although, that would make this double weekend racing a moot point on the training front.

We woke up at 7am and headed down the mountain back to the country store for some breakfast. I got my double shot espresso, but it didn't seem like quite the enormous double shot I got last year, which was fine. We had a rather leisurely breakfast for a race morning. It's nice not having a race start until 9am. Spoils you.

We drove down the road to Amee Farm and got registered and all set to race. Since this is a lap race, we just set up a cooler and bag full of food choices and spare parts etc, at the start/finish area to refuel and/or get parts each lap. That's one of the nice aspects of doing a lap race - having the ability to have lots of 'spare' items. Of course, that same aspect just makes you pack way more stuff than you'll ever use, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. I was also comforted by the fact that Brian was here so if anything major went wrong with my bike, I had a good shot at getting it fixed before racing Sunday.

The race starts with a lemans start - ie, making mountain bikers look ridiculous stupid running in tight shorts, shoes not intended to run in, and bike shirts with pockets full of tools, etc that jiggle all around... loads of fun...But it does help spread the pack out before hitting the singletrack which starts immediately pretty much. I actually ran fairly well the whole few hundred yards we had to run. I ended up pretty near the front of the pack. It is a fast downhill start and then across a bridge over the river, then the climb on up begins. I eventually caught up to Steve on the climb and stayed with him through to the top to take the Queen of the Hill title and stayed with him on some of the downhill. I figured he would pull away from on the downhill. He's definitely gutsier than I am flying downhill. He had his helmet camera on for the first 5 minutes or so of the climb up and then the entire downhill on the first lap - check out - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMvsQJ9G80A (first 5 mins) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUnKEigLGK8 (downhill).

The course is really a blast. I reread my post on the race from last year and noted there were at least 100 switchbacks per a lap, well, I decided to count for just a quarter of a lap on the uphill and counted 32 switchbacks. So, perhaps, the number is more like 130 switchbacks per lap :) The switchbacks definitely help break up the climb and make it more tolerable inching your way up the 1,200 feet to the top. And then the descent just makes you forget about all the climbing. Sweet!!!

So, I felt ok on the laps one and two, not spectacular but pretty decent. My Zaboo definitely felt a lot more responsive and more like I was getting out of it the effort I was putting in, unlike the feeling I had at the Wilderness 101. It felt like a race bike again. Brian had worked on my Zaboo replacing some worn drive-train parts and getting my rear wheel trued again which was badly needed and likely the cause of a lot of inefficiency in my riding. The bike 'took off' again, at least when I put in efforts that would warrant such action. I actually started to feel better and smoother on Laps 3 and 4 and even 5 wasn't too bad. I reminded myself that A) I did have another long, hard race the next day, 2) I did not have any competition, but 3) this was all in a training effort for the stage race so keep riding relatively hard. So, I would remind myself to 'spin' the climbs a bit more even though they begged of pushing a hard gear and to stay relaxed in my upper body so my neck, shoulder and arms wouldn't get overly stiff. It all seemed to help.

I also did this race without wearing my camelback as I always do for endurance races. I figured a water bottle a lap filled with Lemon Lime Carborocket and a plain water bottle would work and it did just perfectly.

Of concern on Saturday was getting some serious mud down my shorts and causing some chaffing and well, the mud causing some issues with bike function. I loved Rob Paton's writeup on this matter: "So on the first ascent it took about 10 minutes to entirely negate all the painstaking bike cleaning I had undertaken two nights before. Mud. Everywhere. Under my riding glasses in my eye, In my mouth. In my drive train. In my brakes. Everywhere. Mud. All varieties. Wet, runny mud. Thick, gloppy mud. Everything in between." (Rob wrote a great write up - http://pedalpushingpatons.blogspot.com/2011/08/race-review-vermont-30-mtb-endurance.html).

I did have a spare pair of bike shorts with me back at the car and debated stopping to go get them, but opted for a outhouse break to try to get some mud out, which worked for the most part. The only other menace was some rabid pricker bushes on the top section of the course. The pictures looks odd on the left, but my arms and legs were a mess. All of us had nasty scratches across our arms, although I seemed to be the only one who got attacked on my legs too.

While I did not have any competition for this race, I had come into it with a goal of five laps. The laps were longer this year at just a hair over 10 miles so I knew getting in 6 was out but that would be silly regardless given I would be riding a 100k on Sunday. I debated for a bit doing just 4 laps and figured I would decide based on the time when I finished the 4th lap. My thought was that if it was under the 5hr mark, I would go back out for lap 5 but if I were over 5hr of riding I would stop as that would mean my lap times were pushing 1'20" or more and thus being well over the 6hr mark, which just seemed absolutely unnecessary. I finished up Lap 4 just catching up to Steve and just shy of 5 hours...ok then, one more lap.

I finished up 5 laps in 6'14" which put me in 5th overall. Steve arrived shortly thereafter having been slowed up by some leg cramps. Rob finished 4 laps a bit before that as did Chris finishing 5 laps. Brian finished up 3 laps. We all grabbed a quick bite to eat for recovery and headed back down to the river to 'ice' our legs for recovery and clean up. What a mess we all were... and the mud was just stuck all over the bikes :( The water felt really good though cold, but good.

We then enjoyed the post-race dinner and chatted for a bit before packing up and hitting the road for the Hampshire 100k in Greenfield, NH, just over 2 hours away, but on the 'way home'. We stopped at Panera's in W. Lebanon/White River Junction to grab a sandwich for dinner and ate on the road so we would get to set up camp before it got dark in Greenfield.

I was feeling the effects of the race a bit. When we got out of the car, I was more stiff than I would have liked. It was also a bit difficult to focus on directions to the race. And then we got distracted by a silly sign in New Hampshire - one of those flashing ones that typically just warn you of 'accident ahead' or what not. But this one was flashing "Don't Drive Drugged" "driving drugged is same as a DUI". We were like, what? Did that really say that? And then almost missed our exit because we were laughing so hard. I was like, I think we're driving drugged on race endorphins.

Anyway, we arrive in Greenfield, NH around 7pm and set up our tents and then get to work on fixing/cleaning our muddied, muddled bikes. Mine really wasn't too bad. Steve and Brian had some work to do. I hit the sack by 9:30/10ish but found sleep hard to come by. I was a bit nervous about how my body would feel for this race. The 6 hour race course is a tough course and takes its toll. I had 'iced' my legs, rolled them (massaged) and ate well so that was about all I could do, except for getting good sleep. I figured I was going to be so wrecked by the end of the race and be hobbling home.

We were up at 5am to be ready for a 6:45 am start. I surprisingly didn't feel as tired as I probably should have been. I got ready and waited out the long race brief and toed the line with the elite men and my one competitor (who has not done any endurance racing). I appreciated that the race start was in waves so we were all bunched up, especially since there was one short piece of singletrack half-way around the track that would bottleneck up even with our small wave. The only bummer about starting in waves was that the first 15-20 miles of this race are pretty fast, flat and open terrain conducive to drafting. My guess was that the elite men would be going off to hard and fast for me and it might be up to my competitor and I to work with each other. I ended up dropping her early on. My guess was she was riding conservatively since this was her first endurance race. So, I was hoping the next wave of Expert Men would catch up to me sooner than they did. But by the time they caught up to me, it wasn't in an area that was great for drafting and they were flying. I was riding hard, but didn't want to ride that hard, especially since I had been warned that the first 20 miles are easy and it's all tough going after that with lots of steep climbs. So, they came by and went. I was fine with that. They assured me I had a good lead already.

I was quite pleased with how good I felt. I didn't quite have a good power climb in me but I had a good pace that I felt comfortable with and spinning up the climbs in an easy gear felt fine. The first 20 were pretty flat, mostly downhill. Brian had warned us that around mile 20 you take a right turn and hit a wall. He was correct. We were riding a super flat snowmobile trail for maybe 3-4 miles which was getting boring and then the right turn came up and it was 'click, click, click...down to the easiest gear. It was a wall - holy crap, Brian wasn't kidding. I was sort of happy that Brian had me worried about the ridiculousness of the climbing in the course as it made me just take it in stride. Also, none of the climbs were as long as what I climb in the 101 or Shenandoah. They were super steep though. I used pretty much every gear I had in this race.

So from there on out, it was a lot of short, steep punchy climbs followed by generally equal descents which allowed for good recovery in the legs. I played it smart and just dropped to the granny gear for the climbs and sometimes, if the climb was short enough, I just power climbed it and recovered on the downhill. I rode sort of similar to Saturday - hard, but not digging too deep. I'll save that for when I really need to dig deep.

I really enjoyed this course. It felt like a good mix of dirt road, rough jeep road, smooth fun singletrack, ragged, jagged rocky singletrack etc. It had a bit of everything and interspersed quite nicely, well more back end loaded then front end, which I appreciated more than most coming off the 6 hour race. Steve and I both thought the course was a good mix of trails/dirt road, although we wondered if had we not rode sweet singletrack all day Saturday would we have felt there wasn't enough singletrack in the 100k... my guess is probably not. It seemed on par if not more singletrack than many of the 100 milers I race.

I was also really pleased with how well organized the race was from registration, to volunteers at road crossings or major turns, to the aid stations, the course markings, etc. It was a really great event. They even added some comic relief. About half-way through the race on some rugged singletrack there was a sign "warning: babyheads ahead" .. I was riding near this one guy and we both read the sign and were like huh? oh boy.. and then you climb up this short little hill and scattered all about are a 20+ baby dolls and barbie dolls, and we both started laughing. And then about a couple hundred yards later, we're both fumbling on real baby heads (basically a large rock garden with no good line through it) and laugh again, oh, real 'baby heads'... The picture on the right is not the baby heads, but just a shot of some of the terrain we got to ride.

So my goal for the 100k was to finish around 6 hours. The winning men's time for last year was right around 5 hours, so I figured 6 was a good goal having raced the day before. Actually, it was more like I was hoping for 6hr and thought I would be capable but realized I might be more fatigued and be slower and I didnt' know how hard the course was. I managed to finish in 6'06" which I was pretty happy with. It would have been nice to be under 6 which would be doable with fresh legs. But I was really stoked with feeling good throughout the race and actually feeling better after Sunday's race then on Saturday. That could be in part because I knew I survived my crazy double weekend. I think staying fueled properly played a big role too. I used Carborocket 333 raspberry mix for the 100k. I went through two 70-oz camelbacks and a bag of Cliff Rocks and couple water bottles.

I showered up post-race which felt great since it had been since Friday morning. This camping out thing is rough. Oh, I forgot to mention, I broke a tent pole :( I managed to tape it well enough to hold for one night. Steve finished not too long after me. He had wanted to go eat before taking down the tents but I convinced him that a storm was brewing and I'd rather take down the tents before it rained. The wind was starting to really kick up and blew out un-staked and un-weighted down tents down the field a bit. It was pretty funny. I grabbed Steve's only to watch mine blow away. We finished packing up and then ate a very delicious post-race meal of chicken, pasta with pesto sauce, sauteed zucchini and salad. Yumm.. Awards were while I was stuffing my face, so I had to chew quickly before getting on the podium. I won some $ (which help pay for my tires on my car) and a beautiful windchime with my medal hanging from the bottom.

We hit the road a short while later in a torrential downpour. I felt bad for Brian as he was still out there on the course, but then thought better of that... he loves the crazy, nasty riding conditions and was probably having even more fun in the rain. I was happy to be in the car and also happy to feel not totally cooked. I even was able to enjoy my very yummy double IPA when I got home. I figured I'd be too tired to care.

So in standard post-race fashion, I didn't sleep all that well Sunday night. I woke up earlier than I had to on Monday and felt ok at first. After eating breakfast and walking my dog, I was like, ugh.. I'm wooped. And I still am rather tired today. I think a good night's sleep is in order.

Next up - EFTA Treasure Valley Rally (~25 miles) so long as Hurricane Irene holds off until late Sunday evening, not racing if it's nasty out. It's a tough course, which I love, but no need to risk getting hurt before Shenandoah - the final 100 of the year Labor Day weekend.

2011 Wilderness 101

2011-08-01T11:27:00.019-04:00

Third 100 of the year done. I came in 3rd place which was great considering I wasn't feeling really 'on' and I got a major mechanical at about mile 85.

I first off have to thank a great mechanic, Brian Spring, for some necessary bike fixing late Wednesday night before heading off to race. I was being nonchalant about how race ready my bike was and thankfully, a couple issues forced me to seek his help before heading to the race as the bike most likely would not have made it through the race had he not fixed it. My bike still needs some TLC since I have been riding it a lot this year in wet conditions and haven't done too many miles on my road bike to mix up the wear and tear, so many parts are pretty worn out.

The adventure started out Friday morning. I picked up Brandon in Millbury just after 8am. I was looking forward to actually having some company for the 7 hour drive down to Coburn, PA (just outside State College area). It was Brandon's first 100 miler (hopefully of many) so there would be lots to talk about. Although, I was thinking by the end of the weekend I would be completely 'bike' talked out. But here I am, writing about a biking...

The drive was pretty uneventful. We stopped in Scranton for some lunch at Panera's followed up with some frozen yogurt from a random TCBY yogurt. We headed off with bellies full to finish the drive. By the time, we were on to Rt. 80, there seemed to be just enough traffic on the two-lane highway to start making me rather cranky. I decided it might be wise to get off the highway and take some back country roads to relax and enjoy the scenery a bit more. Despite the back country route being somewhat of a main route, we did pass an Amish horse and buggy along the way. They seem to typically stay to lesser traveled roads.

We made good time for a ~3:15PM arrival at a friend's house maybe a 1/10 of a mile from the race start/finish. It is the perfect location for the race. It was myself, Brandon, Doug and Lee and Brenda Simril (a couple we had met here a couple years back and run into often on the 100 miler circuit) staying the weekend.

Brandon and I went for a short ride up the opening climb of the race to shake out the legs from the long drive. It was in the low 90s and very humid out. I sweating in no time. I did a couple hard efforts which hurt, but felt good to get the body revving. I felt pretty decent and was hopeful that was a good indication for race day.

After the short spin, I got my drop bag items ready - lots of Carborocket (my sports drink mix of choice), spare tubes, CO2 cartridges and cliff bars or the like, that I never seem to eat but want on hand just in case I decide I want to eat something other than what's at the Aid Station. You generally get two gallon sized ziplock bags to have brought to two of the Aid Stations on the course for the 100 milers.

I then headed over to park where race starts and finishes to register and tried to hurry back to shower up and go grab an early dinner with Brenda and Lee. After doing several 100 miler races, the Transylvania Stage Race, and just riding with lots of different groups here at home, I know lots of folks at these races so it's hard to 'hurry'. I'd make it maybe 20 feet and run into another friend to catch up with quickly. It is a nice aspect of these races - getting to know your 'community' so to speak.

We ended up eating at a local spot, the Ale Creek Cafe which was quite delicious. They provided the post-race kegs of delicious beer (see picture of me post race).. I had a turkey club wrap and shared a delicious salad with Doug that I could have easily eaten on my own. Brandon's pesto pasta dish looked quite tasty. After dinner, I went back the race site to catch up with some more friends - including my travel mates from the Lumberjack race. It was good to catch up. Although, I was starting to feel all chatted out and the heat and humidity was making me feel pretty sleepy. So I headed back the short walk to get to bed at a decent time.

I typically start getting nervous or anxious about the race the day before, but maybe I am becoming more of a veteran this year as I seem to be less so this year. I hope that is not speaking to my motivational levels. I prefer not being anxious as it certainly helps me to try to actually get some sleep the night before the race. Most of these nights are spent convincing yourself to stop thinking about the race and how it might 'go down.'

I was thinking, though, that I was maybe a tad bit cocky about feeling good for the race. I have done enough racing to know that you never really know until you're out there racing how you are going to feel. I did slept ok for a night before a big race and woke up feeling fairly rested. I ate a couple pieces of toast for breakfast and drank some espresso.

None of us had heard a peep from Brandon's that morning, so I eventually went to see if he was up. He only peeked his head through the door to say he didn't know if he was going to race since he came down with something flu like overnight. I was really bummed out for him. I remembered I had brought some Alkaseltzer with me as sometimes I don't feel so hot the day after a race and wish I had something to take. So I offered those to him which he took. He said he didn't want to come down to breakfast and risk passing anything on to the rest of us. But, I was thinking uh oh, I just spent the whole day with him yesterday...hmmm...might I be feeling terrible later on today myself. Amazingly, Brandon mustered up the energy and courage to start the race with little sleep and a just a banana for breakfast.

I was still pretty calm for race day, although every now and then the thought of 'you know this is going to be hard, why do you keep doing these..." passed through my head, but I pushed it aside. I was here. I was going to race. There was no room for those thoughts. And before too long we were racing.

I know I always say this, but I don't like these mass starts of a blob of mountain bikers all trying to vie for the front position. It can be totally unnerving. This is probably the one reason I should do some road races to get more comfortable racing in a tight pack and either holding my spot well or getting better at moving up in the group. Needless to say, I didn't start that well and had to work hard on the first climb to get myself into a good position. Vicki, the eventual winner, and Cheryl, the usual winner, were way off the front by then. I had passed a few women but I had no idea who else might be up ahead.

The first 30-40 miles are pretty fast. Getting into a good group to draft is crucial but that was not panning out that well this year. Last year, I got into a really big group that held a fast, steady pace. It was great. This year I felt like I was having to waste a lot of energy working with other riders who would surge and fade and surge and fade. So I would work hard to keep their wheel. Then they would drop off and I'm on my own working hard again. It was a tad frustrating. I'm wasn't feeling particularly great at that point either so it was hard to not worry I was putting out too much work then so early in the race.

Brandon caught up to me between Aid Station 1 and 2, maybe around mile 35 and we rode together into the Aid Station 2. He was a good draft, riding super strong, especially after feeling sick all night. He was looking forward to the Aid Station to finally get some food in him. I was happy he was feeling much better and looking like he would be able to finish the race. I stopped briefly at the Aid Staion to refill my camelback with my 333 Carborocket mix and fill up on water. It was definitely a day to stay on top of water intake.

I was still feeling mediocre at this point but I know by now, that all you can do is keep pushing on. I am thankful that my body knows this and just keeps going, even if it doesn't feel great. Heading out of Aid Station 2 was a long, gradual climb and part way up Cheryl comes bombing down the other way. I was with a couple other riders at this point and we asked if she was ok, but she just flew by. So we weren't sure what had happened - apparently she got sick and pulled out. She's the kind of rider though that makes you worried that she just went back for who knows what, something she might have left at the aid station, and will turn around and catch you again. But she did pull out of the race.

A bit further up the climb, Brenda and Lee passed me. I was worried about her 'being trouble' this race since she seemed to start really strong and that's not her usual pattern. She's a steady racer and generally gets stronger as the race goes along. I wasn't feeling like I had much gas so I knew this would be a struggle to keep up with her. I did find some oomph to get climbing and passed back by. We then hit the first of some nasty technical descents that I rode down well. Although my hands and feet and back and well, most of my body was pretty mad at me by bottom of it. Unfortunately, the downhill did take a toll as I started back up a steep climb shortly thereafter, my inner thighs cramped up on me. I had to soft pedal and down some electrolyte tabs. Brenda caught back up and passed me again.

There was a new singletrack section that was nicer than a long slog climb the race route used to use. But I was feeling like I was going no where on it. I was getting a bit frustrated at this point with how I felt. I felt like I was putting out a good effort but just going no where. I kept thinking that I didn't remember it all hurting this much last year or at the stage race, that it felt like this much work. I just kept plugging along.

I eventually made it to Aid Station 4 about 70 miles in. I refilled my camelback again with my 333 carborocket mix. I ultimately went through three 70 oz camelbacks of 333 carborocket mix and 5-6 bottles of water. That's definitely a few more water bottles than normal for me. It was hot out there. Thankfully, my body handles the heat pretty well. Out of Aid Station 4 is a long long climb that's kind of consistently bumpy. It can take a lot out of you at that point. It seemed like an eternity even though I knew from having done this race several times that it just keeps going on and on. I just wanted it to end. It did...eventually.

There were some more changes to the course between Aid Station 4 and 5. We ultimately ended up on this ridiculous jeep road descent that was just strewn with jagged rocks everywhere. There was no good line. It wasn't steep at all but just enough of a descent to have a lot of speed but with all the jagged rocks, it was super painful to the feet and arms and back. I just wanted to sit but there was no way that was happening. Well, I would sit, but for maybe 2 seconds. I had caught back up to Brenda. She was just in sight and I figured I would see how I felt heading into the last of the climbs out of Aid Station 5. But then, pssshhtt... *%%#@@! I flatted like instantly. That was not good.

I stopped immediately so as not to ruin my rim if I hadn't already. I pulled off the trail and saw right away that I had sliced the sidewall of my rear tire. I was done I thought. I tried to guess how long of a walk out it might be and then convinced myself that I should try to fix it as it's probably a long walk. Miracle of miracles - Wednesday before having Brian work on my bike, I had to get some parts from the bike shop last minute and when I was there I asked if they had any tire patches or whatever they use to patch up a tire. I was handed a sheet of 3M tape and happened to take them with me. Premonition? This race doesn't have a ton of sinlgetrack, but the singletrack it has is super rough, rugged rocks. I had passed many many racers on the side of the trail already so I was trying not to let myself get too frustrated or stuck in a 'why me' mode. It happens and as far as racing goes, I have been pretty fortunate to not have a lot of mechanical issues in races.

So, I pulled off the rear wheel, removed the valve stem, tried to dry out the inside of the tire from all the tire sealant, stuck the 3M tape on as best it would stay (it was still kind of wet on the tire), stuck a couple more on the outside and threw the tube in. But then, I couldn't get my CO2 head to grab the valve stem of the tube enough to blow it up properly. Thankfully, a friend stopped and helped me out and we got it blown up. I then rode as daintily as possible down the rest of the hill as the tube was bulging where it was torn a bit. I managed to make it out to the dirt road and into Aid Station 5, without getting passed by another woman, but Brenda was long gone by then.

I asked for a tube at the Aid Station so I would have a spare, but then thought better of that and asked the mechanic there if he thought I would make it the rest of the way on my torn tire... emphatic NO! He had a spare tire there and replaced mine for me quite quickly. I thanked him profusely and hit the road. It would have been a long 11 miles from there if I hadn't gotten a tire change. So I just tried to finish up strong from there and maintained my 3rd place. I wasn't entirely happy with how I felt out there, but given that, I was very happy to still manage 3rd place given the lackluster legs and the torn tire.

I finished up with little fanfare and went to sit in the creek to cool off. It felt great. Funny, Cammy, who's house we were staying at, came down to chat with me and asked me if I "saw the snake". I thought she meant there was a snake right there in the creek the way she was gesting and I started to panic, but she said that Brenda and Lee had seen a bit rattler out on the course. I missed that, surprisingly as it sounded like where they saw it was near where they had passed me on a climb. At least it wasn't right beside me ready to attack :)

I cleaned up and went back to get some post-race food and beer and chat my brains out. Oh, and do the podium thing. It was all good fun. I was definitely feeling my lower back and my triceps. Ouch. Note to self for Shenandoah 100 miler and the Pisgah stage race in September that doing some serious core exercises on a regular basis is in order.

We all went out to eat at Mt Nittany Inn which sits up on the mountain side with a great view out over the valley. The food was delicious. It was actually a fairly quiet drive back and in to bed. I slept ok for post-race too. A wonderful breakfast by Cammy in the morning and then Brandon, Doug and I did a short ride along the river to spin out the legs before driving home. Brenda and Lee had gotten up earlier and had already ridden.

I found the more 'obsessive' racer in me came out when I got home and saw my 'data' for the race. I would have guessed my average heartrate was low for the race given how I felt, but it was actually rather high. So, it got me to thinking about how was 'inefficient' then if I put out a hard effort but didn't feel like I got the result or felt like I truly had that kind of effort in me. I'm sure some it was due to it being so hot. In retrospect, I realized that taking off the time I lost dealing with my tire issue, my finish time would have been right around or a little bit faster than last year and last year I felt great at this race and nailed it. So, that was a promising note. The course this year, however, was riding about 10 minutes faster than last year due to a climb being taken out. I guess it's nice to see that I still have fast race times even when it doesn't feel that way.

I think the interesting thing of having a mediocre race is that it makes me reflect more on what could I truly have changed to have a better race or feel better - like rest going in? or eating more properly? is my bike as efficient as it can be? Getting the flat out there was absolutely just bad luck. I rode the same tire over pretty much the same trails for Transylvania race. So, it will leave me pondering and hopefully making those small changes that will make a difference in the next race. If it were truly a day of feeling totally off, I would chock it up to just that, and to some degree, I chock it up to just having a not so 'on' day, which happens. But, I wasn't totally off either. And as I've said before in my 'books', that is just the way racing goes.

Next up is my killer weekend - 6 hour race on 8/20 followed the next day by the Hampshire 100K... ouch! But this week, I will rest :)

Lumberjack 100 Miler 2011

2011-06-20T20:13:00.012-04:00

Oh, where to begin my book...

The couple of weeks between the Transylvania Stage race and the Lumberjack 100 were incredibly busy, mostly in good ways. It was part of my motivation to bag the last day of the stage race after getting sick there, to get home on Saturday to have a all day Sunday to rest, recover, get caught up, etc., which I am very thankful I did. It was a full week of work and family stuff -- niece's high school graduation, dad's retirement party, which meant lots of family around to hang out with...etc., etc. It also meant I got little riding in and not as much sleep as I would have liked which was a tad frustrating but it was what it was.

Needless to say, I figured I should be "fresh" for the Lumberjack. The women's field was incredibly stacked, much like the stage race. I was trying to get in the mindset of "I have done enough of these 100 milers that I should really truly try to push and see what I have, and if I bonk, I bonk." Of course, I knew that would be semi-contingent on how the legs and body felt on race day. I was after all, feeling a bit spent from all the activity heading into this race. So, mostly, I wanted to have fun. I do not make my living off racing so there should be some pleasure in riding a 100 miles (haha!).

I had some new travel mates this time around. Down at the Cohutta 100 back in April, I had run into a friend/fellow racer I had met ~5 years ago at the Jay Challenge in Vermont - a 65 (er, I mean ultimately a 72 mile) torture fest that had 'broken' me and had me crying at the end of it vowing to never ride my bike longer than 2 hours ever again (that lasted huh?; what is wrong with me?). I didn't have anyone to travel to the Lumberjack with so Chris invited me along with his friend Matt. They lived in Poughkeepsie, NY so it would only be about 3 hours to get there. I told him I'd give it some thought as I had been debating bagging the race altogether for another one later on in the season, but I decided to go with them.

I headed out Thursday morning to Poughkeepsie and arrived at Chris' just around noon. Chris had given me directions to get there either via Rt. 90 or Rt. 84 to Taconic Parkway. I took the Mass Pike (90) since I've been driving 84 all the time. The directions seemed so straightforward that I didn't bother to look at a map before heading out. I got on the Taconic Parkway and thought it was 8 miles south from Rt. 90 to the exit I had to get off at, but I was chatting on the phone and had probably gone well over 8 miles by then, and started to realize, hmm., maybe I should have looked at this on the map. So I called Chris and well, it was 8 miles off the Taconic Parkway, but many miles heading south on the parkway first.. Got it. It was really simple.

I arrived around noon and Chris' buddy Matt showed up about a 1/2 hour later. We packed up Chris' mini-van and hit the road to Youngstown, Ohio, about 6 hours away. Oh joy.. the beginning of many many hours in the car. It was a pretty uneventful trip. We chatted a ton about biking of course -- training, nutrition, strategy, etc. Chris asked me what my goal was for this race. I was like, huh, I guess to do better than last year. I try not to set myself up for a bad head day on the chance that if I'm not feeling great, I don't want to have the added expectation of killing it, even if that is ultimately what I want to do. The Jay Challenge had taught me to be cautious of too lofty of expectations. I hadn't even looked at my time from last year on this course. I had guessed it was around 8:20 or 8:30 (it was closer to 8:30). Anyway, Chris and Matt were great traveling mates. We all got along well and were accommodating to each other, although I think they were perhaps a bit more accommodating to me, giving me, the "well you're the pro", which kind of cracks me up.

We ate dinner at an Applebees somewhere over the border into Ohio (or maybe still in Pennsylvania). Getting a beer was very tempting, but I behaved knowing I was probably still trying to 'catch up' from the crazy busy weeks I just had. Then we stayed at a cheap hotel in Youngstown. Matt is an early bird which wasn't a bad thing as it was probably a good thing to hit the road at a decent time since we still had many many miles to get to Manistee, MI. Chris had mapquested the various routes to take to the race with going through Canada being the shortest and fastest. He's from Netherlands originally and has a green card and thus didn't want us to get hung up at the border (and who knows how long it could take at the border regardless). By Chris' calculations we would have 7 hours to drive on Friday, but the GPS calculated it out saying 9hrs. Yikes! That would get us there about 5pm and we still wanted to get a ride in, get dinner, get everything set for race day...but thankfully, it did really only take 7. And, thankfully Chris and Matt were pretty chatty and fun to hang out with so the time didn't totally drag. Chris is also quite the cook. He quite generously shared his delicious banana bread with us.

We arrived at the race venue just after 3pm and picked up our race packets. I caught up briefly with some friends. Then we went to the cabin I had rented for us to settle in and get ready for a ride to loosen up the legs. The cabin is basically on the back side of the course so we rode from the cabin to the race start/finish area and back. I felt pretty good considering I had just spent 17 hrs in the car over the past two days. The legs were a bit heavy and dead at first but I did a couple of hard efforts on a climb that helped kind of open them up and that made me feel a bit more awake.

We cleaned up and headed into the small town of Manistee for dinner. It was reasonably early still so I suggested we head down to the waterfront on Lake Superior since neither Chris or Matt had gone in the previous times they had done this race. It was a beautiful evening out, warm, sunny, cool breeze. The water looked inviting (but chilly). I had been wondering about the "good morning buttercup" Matt said to Chris that morning, but then I caught a picture of them holding hands. I told them I would blackmail them to their wives :) (completely joking around here/silly).

We ate at the restaurant I have eaten at the past couple of years for dinner the night before this race. I knew it was pretty good food and shouldn't pose any problems for racing the next day. I refrained from a beer or glass of wine again. We hit a grocery store for final supplies, post race snacks and beer etc. Then, it was back to the cabin and preparing for race day.

Man, the mosquitoes are ridiculous there. There was a nice little deck with chairs to sit outside and enjoy the evening with the very late sunset (close to 10pm since it's at the end of the eastern time zone), but we'd have no blood left to pump through our body for race day if we did that. So, it was to bed before it was dark out. I felt like I was like 5 years old again.

I didn't sleep all that great that night but I was, for once, actually not overly anxious or nervous about the race. It's usually race nerves that keep me up. Anyway, 5am comes early regardless and the thoughts of "why the heck do I do this" coming flooding through my brain. I ate some oatmeal and downed my coffee and then we were off to the race, about a 10 minute drive.

We set up our cooler and other bike parts/supplies for the race at the start/finish area. This is the one 100 miler that I do that is 3 laps. The mosquitoes were pretty bad that morning and thankfully I was able to bum some bug spray off a friend. I forgot mine in my car back in Poughkeepsie. I was still surprisingly calm for pre-race time, especially given the many talented riders in my field. I knew I should be pretty fresh, but I was worried that I hadn't done a ride longer than 4hrs in quite some time. Normally, by this point in the season I have done several 5 or 6 hour training rides. I also wasn't quite what kind of impact the busy few weeks would have on me once I got several hours into the race. I reminded myself again that I don't do this for a living so just try to have fun out there and if you feel good, go with it.

I actually did warmed-up with a couple hard short efforts to get the legs opened up. The race starts down the paved road a couple of miles to help spread out the pack before dumping onto singletrack for the majority of the race. So, you have to be ready to go super hard to make sure you have good position getting into the singletrack or else you can lose a lot of time on the first lap. I'm sure I have said this in my blogs in the past, but I hate the starts like this - a few 100 mountain bikers all jockeying for the front spots. It is quite stressful. I tried to stay pretty close up front as I could but wasn't doing an overly good job of it. Once we hit the singletrack, I realized I was kind of farther back than I had hoped to be. That, and I hadn't tracked who of my competitors were ahead of me.

I made some stupid passing decisions that I sort of crashed myself but thankfully didn't take down anyone else. I apologized quickly, but was annoyed with myself for the wasted effort. I wasn't overly happy with the pace of the group I was in and you can lose a lot of time right there in the beginning as there really aren't great places to pass on this course. And early on in the race, no one wants to let you pass since they all want to pass whoever is in front of them.

I finally kind of settled in and found a 'spot' of my own. I find in these race that I always seem to end up around the same group of racers for a majority of the race. You pass them, they pass you and so on.

I felt pretty good for most of the first lap. I can't say I felt like a superstar or anything, but my effort and heart rate and feel all seemed ok. But by the end of the lap, I had started to feel the effort already and was a bit disheartened by that. I also didn't know what position I was in. I knew there were at least 3 women ahead of me, most likely more. When I came through the start/finish area from the first lap, someone said I was in 3rd which I knew was wrong unless Amanda or Cheryl had dnfd. Highly unlikely.

I refilled my camelback with my Carborocket powder mix that I had pre-measured out in ziplock baggies. (I finally got to meet Brad Keyes, owner of Carborocket, my awesome sponsor - very nice guy. He had a great race on his single speed.) I made a bit of a mess on my camelback since I was in a hurry. I grabbed an Odwalla bar, ate half and stuck the other half in my pocket and hit the trail again. The 2nd lap is tough since you have gone pretty hard the first lap, especially since the trails are super fast, flowing awesome single track. There are no major big climbs which means you are pedaling all the time pretty hard. On a course with big climbs (ie, Shenandoah or Wilderness 101), you just find a smooth climbing pace you can hold for, oh, an hour or so, and then you get to descend for a long time and hence get a long recovery, or use you legs in a different way. The Lumberjack course is just go go go. So, now you still have 2 more laps and your legs are starting to feel the hard effort.

I got in my head a bit too much this lap. I was not enjoying it and how hard it felt. I have been starting to think I don't want to do these 100s anymore. Of course, they are always hard. I don't know why I assume they will ever feel easy. Anyway, I convinced myself that I would only do the two more on my schedule this year and next year, none. I would just take a nice break and go have fun riding some awesome trails out west and enjoy a good beer or two in the evening. Get up and repeat. And then, I would remind myself to make that decision at the end of the season. Nonetheless, I convinced myself to keep going. I just tried to keep riding steady and try not to worry too much about getting caught from behind. I was assuming I was in 4th at this point which was confirmed (if I wanted to truly believe the person telling me at the start/finish area).

I finish Lap 2 and stop to refill my camelback one more time. I figured I wouldn't want any food so I gulped some water and hit the trail for the final lap. It was nice to know it was just one more time, even though it was a long one more time in comparison to doing short 2 hour races where a lap is done in an half-hour or less. I actually felt pretty good starting out on the lap. Fairly early on in the lap I saw Vikki up ahead and eventually caught up her. This of course was motivation. I chatted with her briefly asking how her ribs were feeling after hurting them at the stage race (she came in 3rd still there with broken or badly bruised ribs!). I passed her on the next climb. She had told me Cheryl (2nd place) was about 5 minutes up. I thought, ugh, 5 minutes is pretty significant and Cheryl is such a strong rider.

I just kept riding strong and was happy to feel like my legs felt better this lap then the last lap. I had tried to calculate out whether I thought I would be able to do a sub-8hr 100 here, but I was guessing given my lap times and having taken about 8 minutes longer on the 2nd lap, and my last like would likely be at least the same or longer that a sub-8hr was not probable.

I was passing some guys on the final lap and one of them told me Cheryl was about 2 minutes up. I was inspired in that if that were true, I had been gaining time on her. And not too much longer after that I saw her up ahead. I finally caught up to her and just stealthily stayed behind her and a guy she was right behind. I hadn't quite decided how to play it out. We were about to hit the aid station which was half-way through the lap. I was starting to figure I would just see how we both felt on the next climb to see what she had in her legs still and to see what I had left. To my surprise, she stopped at the aid station for water and I didn't need to stop since I had plenty left in my camelback so I rode right on through wondering if she realized I was right behind her and/or saw me pass her.

I was hoping she didn't see me and then she would be less likely to dig deep to catch me again. I figured it was highly unlikely she didn't see me or that someone wouldn't have told her I passed. I kept trying to look back to see if she was coming up while reminding myself that she is a very strong rider and if she catches me, well she catches me. But I didn't see her and I just kept riding hard. (She told me after the race that she figured it was coming up on her that far into the race and at that point she had bonked.)

Eventually, I was in home stretch where I knew Cheryl wasn't going to catch back up to me. I started to calculate out my time and realized that hey, I have 6 minutes to get in for a sub-8 hour race. I have 5.. I have 4... and finally I knew I would make it in on time and finished in 7'57". Woo hoo!!! My first 100 under 8 hours and a 2nd place in a really strong women's field. I was stoked. My lap times were 2'36; 2'43" and 2'37" --very nice to see a big drop on the last lap :)

I couldn't wait to get my shoes off and get off my saddle. My shorts are getting a bit old and the seam for the chamois was digging in to my butt quite nicely, or not nicely, for the last few hours. It was rather uncomfortable to sit after that. I got cleaned up, which was a chore. My camelback mouthpiece has starting leaking a bit so I had carborocket sticky water on my legs that had attracted quite a lot of dirt/dust. It got warmer out than had been predicted too so it was a challenge to change when I was still sweaty.

I ate post-race food and chatted with some friends/racers waiting for Chris and Matt to finish up. They both had strong races, although not quite as good as they had hoped but they didn't get too hung up on that. We headed back to the cabin to clean up and then headed in to town for some food and a beer and ice cream!

We got back to the cabin and packed up the mini-van that evening as we were heading out at 5am since Chris and Matt both wanted to be back home to work on Monday. I was like ugh.. I usually do this drive over two days but oh well. I had figured I would just crash in Poughkeepsie Sunday night and finish driving home Monday morning. It wasn't too bad heading out at 5am, granted they both did all the driving. I had offered to drive but they were quite kind. So, I spent some time in the back trying to nap, and then riding up front to avoid getting carsick and so on for oh, 14 hrs. We made back to Poughkeepsie a little after 7pm. I wasn't completely cooked so decided to drive the 3 hrs home so I could sleep in my own bed and hopefully sleep in really really late.

I was pretty wooped driving home. My left eye kept twitching on me. I did make it home safe and sound, well except for one close call with a deer. It took me a while to fall asleep, probably too much caffeine. I did sleep in some, but not as much as I had hoped so I need to catch up. This week is looking kind of busy too though.

It's a nice long break till the next 100 - end of July. I will probably do some local short races before then - hoping to race Putney, VT Root66raceseries this Sunday.

Thanks for reading this far :)

2011 Transylvania Epic - Stage Race

2011-06-05T14:40:00.011-04:00

Well, the 2011 Transylvania Epic Stage Race (TSE) turned out to be a roller coaster ride for me. I went into the race with the mindset of getting on the podium for any one of the stages would be a really good day given how stacked with talented riders the women's field was this year. Many of my friends were trying to convince me that, I too am a 'talented' rider, but I know my competitive side would have eaten me up if I went in with the attitude of having to be in the top three all week. It would have taken away from the fun factor putting that kind of pressure on myself. I knew it was better to race as hard as I could each day and whatever happened as far as results was what would happen.

I arrived at the Boyscout Camp (race headquarters for the week) on Saturday afternoon. I registered and headed up to the lodge I would be staying at all week. At least this year, I knew what I was getting myself into as far as living in a bunk bed all week, sharing a bathroom that would get filthy, and a kitchen that was also less than cleanly, so it didn't phase me as much this year. I unpacked my car and settled in as best one can settle into this style of living for a week. I then got ready to go pre-ride Sunday's Time Trial, Stage 1.

It was a pretty hot on Saturday, with the forecast only getting hotter through Tuesday. I was ok with that as I tend to do really well in high heat and humidity. It sometimes starts to throw off my stomach some, but generally, I'm ok. I started out on the TT course which was marked already. It wound through the Boyscout camp, which had some very wet stream crossing and other muddy sections, and then out onto the road but opposite the direction we went last year. I thought I had messed up following the arrows. I saw a rider coming up behind me and it happened to be Ray Adams, one of the race directors, and he told me the course had changed from last year and this was the right way. We rode together for a while chatting away. It was a few miles of road before heading into some very twisty singletrack, unusual for PA riding. Ray had to stop to help out with some course markings so I finished the pre-ride on my own. It was shortly thereafter that the long singletrack, loose dirt/rock climb started. I was like, ouch...this kind of hurts and granny geared it to the top where it joined the course we rode last year for the TT. The rest of the course was the same from the previous year which was pretty fun, although it follows along a stream heading back into the boyscout camp and that was super wet, muddy and slippery. Oh, and it felt like a long distance for a time trial.

I got cleaned up, ate some dinner, hung with fellow racers for a bit and then went to bed pretty early. It was surprisingly quiet in the lodge but the smell was pretty nasty. I believe this was the first time the lodge had been opened up all winter and it was damp, musty and stank of vinyl-finish on the walls or something. Icky. I slept pretty well but had started to get some pre-race nerves going. It helped knowing I had all morning to chill as the TT didn't start until 3:00, with my start time being 4:13.

I went into State College for breakfast and hung out reading for a while before heading back to camp to get ready to race. I was the first women to start. It didn't matter all that much as we had a minute between us and the course was long enough that no one knew what the times were before starting. I just didn't want to get passed. I warmed up as my coach had instructed with some semi-aggressive intervals to really get the legs opened up for the short hard effort of a time trial. I arrived right on time at the start line for a 30 second count down and I was off. I felt pretty good but I just tried to keep reminding myself to ride hard and not worry about how I placed. I got immediately muddy through the first couple of stream crossings and wet/muddy patches. Then it was out on the road section which was hot in the sun. I rode steady but fairly hard. I made it through the twisty singletrack and began the long climb up and started to get a cramp in my right shoulder/neck area. I tried to relax it out and take it back a notch since I was going pretty hard, especially with six more days to come. I settled into a rhythm and finally reached the top of the climb. I rode pretty aggressively still and kept thinking in the back of my head that this was a really hard effort that I hope it at least gets me in the top 5. I finished out the wet nasty stream bed section having to pass a couple riders fumbling through the slick roots and rocks. I continued riding hard around the pond at the base camp and across the finish line. I was not sure of my time as I didn't start my bike computer on time.

I pedaled around lightly to help flush the legs out and then got cleaned up and started 'recovery' for tomorrow's hard stage. I eventually went back down to the timing tent to try to get some results for my race sponsor, MTBRacenews.com and when I saw Zac, the timer, he was like 'nice job'. I was like thanks...'so do you have results?" and he told me I won. I was like, "no way! you're pulling my string." But he was serious. I was truly shocked but obviously extremely happy. I couldn't believe I won a stage which also gave me the leaders jersey, as least for a day :) It certainly made me feel better about how hard I went. I had a 40 second lead over 2nd, who was the winner of the whole race last year and just over a minute on this year's to be winner. I was stoked, but also knew what a long week it was ahead. It definitely helped the confidence.

Monday's stage 2 started at 9:30 from the base camp. Last year it was a remote start but they were trying to simplify the schedule a bit more this year which was nice. This meant a bit more dirt road however, which I wasn't thrilled about. I for some reason didn't quite pay attention that well to where exactly the stage was heading out to until we were out on it. It was a neutral roll out of camp but after the first turn it was balls to the walls on wet downhill rough dirt road. I thankfully felt pretty good and was able to reel in the women up ahead and we mostly rode in a pack of 5-6 of for a while. I was happy to have the legs to hang there and not feel like I was pushing it too hard yet. It was still early in the day though. There was a lot of technical rocky trails in today's stage which was good for my skillset.

It eventually ended up a group of three of us, myself, Vikki and Amanda. We rode through the majority of the stage together switching up leads etc. I finally broke free from them through some switchback technical trails when Amanda messed up on some rocks. I needed the gap as we were going to be coming into an aid station within 4 miles and I had to stop to re-fill my camelback whereas they were both going to be handed bottles and not really have to stop. I also was happy to get out front on the technical trails finally as I can ride them much smoother at my own pace and finding my own lines versus following someone who doesn't always pick the best lines or just throws you off your rhythm. I made it in and out of the Aid Station without being caught. But shortly thereafter one my ties holding my number plate broke so my number was bouncing down into my front tire. I was like crap. I tried to get the bottom tie loose and wrapped up around my cables while still riding and it worked for a bit but dropped down again. So I finally had to stop and take the bottom tie off and use it to replace the top one that had broke. A little bit of wasted time :(

On the final ~8+ miles of road to the finish, Amanda caught back up to me and said that Selene had caught up at the Aid Station. I was a bit bummed out about losing the lead but I was at my limit at that point. Both Amanda and Selene are super strong riders and I was pretty pleased with myself with how strong I had been riding all day. My legs were starting to feel a bit twingy/crampy so I took a bunch of electrolyte tabs and just tried to keep it steady. Amanda was getting a gap and I could see Selene up ahead but just couldn't get back up to her. I could also see Vicki back too and focused on keeping up my pace up the final climb to not lose 3rd place, which I managed to do.

Two days in a row on the podium. I was stoked. Twice more than I had anticipated. It was definitely a boost to the confidence for sure. I felt ok after the stage. I felt like my carborocket had kept me fueled pretty well and hadn't upset my stomach. My new Zaboo bike was handling awesome. I definitely had gone pretty hard again but I was able to eat well after the stage and ate a good dinner that digested well despite it being another really hot day out there. Last year, my stomach was bit a undone by the heat and race nerves by this point. So I was hoping for some good rest and recovery that night and see how stage 3 would go. I lost quite a bit of time on Stage 3 last year. I don't think Stage 3 gets the credit or respect that it deserves as far as how hard it is despite being mostly dirt road. The climbs on it are pretty long and steep. It makes it feel like we hardly climbed the day before.

Anyway, I slept ok that night only to wake up maybe around 5am with my stomach feeling a bit nauseous but I was hoping it would go away. It didn't. I knew it was bad news, but was trying to avoid accepting that. I kept thinking was it something I ate, or did I eat too much? I had felt fine last night and no indications of digestion issues. But the couple across the from me had gotten sick over night throwing up and then the women bunking beside me woke up feeling really nauseous and none of us ate the same thing the night before. Ugh! I tried to eat a piece of toast but my body wanted nothing of it. I got a piece down but it was not good. The guy who had gotten sick that night said he got an anti-nausea pill from the on-site doctor and said it helped him out some. I was so bummed out. I hopped on my bike and just pedaled down the driveway and broke into tears as I had that gut feeling that it wasn't going away. I found the doctor and took anti-nausea pill and some tums and figured I would hope for the best and start the stage.

I toed the line not feeling good about it at all. We started out from the camp again in a neutral start for maybe a mile. I had nothing from the get go. I was so depressed. I had no energy and the nausea wasn't going away. I was starting to feel achy too. We had a rough downhill that I would have normally eaten up with smiles but it just hurt my body. I figured I'd try to get to the first Aid Station at mile 17 and pray that this feeling would miraculously turnaround. But I was starting to think through that I was going to be so far back today that it didn't matter if I finished or not as far as staying in the top of the GC. I knew it would be stupid to push it not feeling good, especially in the heat and miss the rest of the week.

Some women had gone off course early and came up behind me and tried to convince me to hop on their train. I got semi-inspired to keep going but I just felt horrible and eventually let them go. I broke down at this point as I knew it was over. I just rode chill down the road into Coburn (where the Wilderness 101 starts) and tried to enjoy the views. I had thought the aid station was right there in town but it was farther out which was nice as I got to enjoy the mostly flat road along the river and just took it easy to the aid station. The doctor was riding around course with Mike Kuhn (the other race director) and they came by me to see how I was doing and I told them I felt worse and was pulling out at the Aid Station.

I made to the aid station and tried to keep it together. I knew I was making the right decision but it sucked, especially after starting the race so amazingly well. I had to wait a while to get a ride back to camp. I had moments where I felt ok and then a wave of ickiness would hit me again. I was starting to get chills and it was probably approaching 90 by that point.

The drive back to camp felt long and I was freezing in the AC. I felt like absolute crap. I had at least avoided throwing up though. I got back to camp and showered. I had some bike clothes soaking in soapy water that I knew I needed to rinse out and hang up or else they would rot so I managed to do that before resting. Racers had already finished up by this point and I was hoping someone was going back down to the main lodge to get a note to have the doctor call or text me when he was back on site but no one was heading down there. I walked down there and thankfully the doctor was already back so I went with him to get an IV bag of saline hoping that would help me get back on track quicker and maybe riding again tomorrow. I'm not crazy about needles and almost got woozy at first but chatted with the doctor to take my mind off it.

I walked back up to my lodge and tried to sleep. The fever part of this bug was really starting to kick in. I felt horrible - achy, cold, hot.... It's no fun being sick period, but really no fun being sick with no one there for you in a stinky lodge in a bunkbed. I had a fan that I had to keep turning on me and then away. I tried to eat that night knowing if I wanted to race again I had to get some calories in me but I only got a couple pieces of toast down and half a can of soup. My stomach was still really off though so it was debatable whether it was worth the discomfort. By then, I knew my hopes of riding Wednesday were out, which was a total bummer as it was the Raystown stage. Raystown is a sweet sweet trail system that rides like a giant pump track. It's really fast roller coaster like terrain. Last year, I was totally cooked on this day so I didn't really get to enjoy and well this year, wasn't happening either. I think I will just try to go spend a weekend there riding the trails and swimming in the lake and not involve a race.

Some of the other racers in the lodge knew I raced the 100 miler series and there was the Mohican 100 race in Ohio this Saturday. They threw out there the idea of bagging the stage race and heading over there. I was like, hmmm? I figured out much farther it was, 5 1/2 hrs and the weather forecast was dry and 90. I could handle that. I wasn't too keen on the drive over and then it meant 11-12 hour drive home on Sunday. I had some buddies doing the race who I could stay with, so?? I emailed my coach and ran it by him. I was up in air about myself as I wasn't too psyched to drive that far. Anyway, coach said I 'could' do it, but only if I felt significantly better on Thursday.

So Wednesday I probably should have just rested in bed all day again, but I was not too keen on staying in the lodge all day. I drove over to Raystown lake and hung out at the dam and the overlook. It was a pretty hot, humid day, but I was enjoying sitting in the nice breeze. I could have taken a nap but just day dreamed. Later on, I caught up on some emails at a coffee shop in a town near there. I had thought I would eat lunch there but I was feeling a bit nausea again when I got there. By the time I headed out I ordered a sandwich to go which I managed to get down but it was slow going. I went back to camp and debated on my plan for Thursday. I was at that point not feeling overly optimistic about a big turnaround for Thursday, or more importantly to ride hard Friday and Saturday. Both stages were pretty technical and suited my skills for a good day but only if I had enough energy to ride the rocks which at that point, I was most definitely not feeling up to the challenge.

Thursday I woke up feeling a little bit better but digestion was still slow and not quite right. I was feeling kind of tired, so I knew going to Mohican 100 was out. I figured I would go ride today's stage mellow and see how the legs were doing. I was on the fence about doing that or just doing my own ride near camp and then heading into town to read at a coffee shop. In retrospect, I should have done the 2nd option. Fellow racers were happy to see me back out there riding again. I however felt overly tired still and felt pretty labored in my breathing way too quickly. It was really depressing as it made me wonder about even being able to even race the final two stages. Friday's stage had lots of great singletrack and an awesome ridge line trail. After riding a couple of the mini-stages and hanging out at the aid station, I thought about heading back to the car at that point but started to ride out to the 3rd mini-stage. I calculated out how much longer we would likely be out there riding and decided to turn back with another racer. We rode back on the dirt road together and did the last mini-stage. It ended up being a long day which was probably not in my best interests as far as recovery. It totally bummed me out and I was thinking of just packing up and heading home Friday instead of sticking around. It didn't seem worth it to try race a tough stage through rough rock gardens and risk getting hurt because I didn't have the energy to ride it well, or risk recovering properly from being sick.

I was chatting with some of my fellow racer about what to do. I was pretty sad and bummed out Thursday night. I talked to my sister for a bit who was trying to encourage me to just take it easy and maybe go see a comedy movie and finish up Saturday. It had started out as such a great week and went down hill so fast. I had kind of held myself up with the hope of coming back to race hard Friday and Saturday, and well, that just didn't look like it was going to happen. Amanda has suggested starting the stage, which had a 3-mile group ride out to the start and then if I felt like crap still I could bag it at the Aid Station at mile 20 and get a ride back with her husband. So, I figured what the heck. I convinced myself that this would be it. I would ride out there and see how I felt and if I felt good enough, that I'd I would give it what I had and then call it quits and head home on Saturday, skipping the last stage.

So I started out the stage and felt better than the day before. It was hard to tell what I had in the tank on the ride over to the start but that at least felt like a lot less work then the chill riding between the mini-stages yesterday. And then we were off racing and I had something to work with. I held onto the front women through the first dirt road section. I could go relatively hard but definitely wasn't 100% but nobody else was 100% by then either. I managed to sit in third for the day. The first technical singletrack section we got on, I felt kind of spacey on but I finally came around. Every now and then, I had that feeling I might just totally bonk at any moment, but I stayed really good about fueling, taking in my carborocket and trying to eat a little since I knew my glycogen stores were probably still pretty low. It seemed to work and I had a pretty good time riding the trails.

I made it to the aid station which we hit at mile 20 and 26. Coming back through the 2nd time I refilled my camelback and reminded myself I could do this. It was only 12 more miles, long miles, from here. The ridge line trial is amazing. You totally want to look around and take in the views but you do so very cautiously scanning up ahead for any rocks that were going to take you out if you stopped paying attention for too long. I definitely love singletrack. It inspires me.

I was pretty stoked to pull of a 3rd place after being so sick. It felt great to back in there in the mix. I briefly debated racing the final day, but once I got back to camp and was starting to come down from the race, I could tell it took a lot out of me and that I was still trying to recover from being sick. It wasn't worth pushing it at this point with the next 100 miler race two weeks out. That, and well, I was totally sick of staying in the lodge at this point too. I also was looking at a couple of really busy weeks before heading out to the next 100 miler and well, a full day at home and sleeping in really late sounded nice. I almost changed my mind when I found out that the women had decided to ride for fun again like we had done last year for the final stage. I was tempted since it wouldn't be too bad of a workout, but I kept with my plan. So I enjoyed the last night hanging with folks. I got up and watched them start the final stage and took a bunch of pictures. Then, I packed up and headed home.

I picked up my pooch from my mom and unpacked some, watched the Bruins but called it a night when they went into overtime. I slept in very very late :)

2011 Cohutta 100

2011-05-02T20:47:00.007-04:00

This past Saturday, April 30th, was the first 100 miler of the season down in Ducktown, Tennessee (southeast TN) and is staged out of the Ocoee Whitewater Center. Roughly 30 miles west of the Whitewater Center, tornadoes had gone through one of the towns we passed through. The damage we saw driving through the area was truly eye opening to the force and power of tornadoes... Maybe New England winters aren't so bad. The race course itself had few signs of rough weather, and was mostly in pristine shape.

I started the long trek to Tennessee on Wednesday evening by heading down to Doug's in Maryland. I was originally planning on departing Thursday morning but my work schedule was such that allowed me an earlier departure. I prefer to drive late if it's going to give me a full day of 'down time'. I got there at 1am Wed (well Thurs technicall). I was glad I made the drive then as I would have hit some of the severe storms seemingly hugging Rt. 81 Thursday morning, and thus would have made for a sketchy, stressful drive. It was rather gusty though Wednesday evening but there was no rain until after I made it to Doug's.

The week going into this race I was actually feeling pretty relaxed and not running around like a maniac trying to get ready, work etc. All I had to do Thursday was put some new disc brake pads on and just take a spin to make sure everything seemed fine (mostly, a last minute check on the new saddle I had only been riding on for the past two weeks and my new shoes that have been giving my left heel some issues). So, I swap out said disc brake pads which takes much longer than I anticipate and the piston won't push back in properly on the front brake thus rubbing annoyingly. I fussed with it for a bit but it was just frustrating me. Then, for some reason, the front derailler was not quite working properly and well, I just didn't want to deal with it anymore (which might have ended in my throwing my bike and having more problems to fix) so I decided to bring it to the bike shop for a quick tuneup since the mechanics could fix this is 5 minutes. Doug's bike was getting last minute work done as well so we were going to the shop anyways. And, thankfully, it was all fixed easily. I bought myself some new gloves while I was there, which was a tad risky to go with 'untested gloves for a 100 mile race, but I realized all my short finger gloves were in pretty sad shape. New gloves wouldn't be worse than goign with what I had. Plus, it had this extra side thumb pad thing that struck as a nice feature and proved to be durign the race. Anyway, mostly uneventful day otherwise.

It was to bed early and up at 5am to hit the road to Tennessee Friday morning. I have to admit, the driving is getting old. 5am was not met kindly. I dragged my butt into the car, which we had packed the night before, and even nodded off again for the first couple of hours. And then it was just a long long long long drive down 81. I had gotten a book on CD which proved to help pass the time. I am not a fan of channel surfing through country songs, classic rock and christian music.

We passed through one of the towns in Southern Virginia that was hit by the tornado. It was impressive the damage that was done. There were still 18 wheeler truck bodies strewn about the median. A whole travel center/building for turcks was wiped out and trees were completely blown down or half chopped off. It was stunning damage. The exit was closed there. We passed through another area just west of the race by about 30 miles. There were downed powerlines and damaged buildings, etc. I was almost afraid the hotel we were staying at might have suffered some damage but the tornado didn't travel quite that far.

We checked into the hotel, changed into riding clothes and drove the ~25 minutes to the Ocoee Whitewater center to register, get our race packets and ride the beginning section of the course. It was pretty warm out, well the warmest weather I have ridden in all season thus far. Not an entirely surprising fact. To my dismay, my disc brake pad was rubbing again which was very annoying since it had just seemed fine post bike shop tuneup. That, and I had to stop a couple times on the ride to tweak my saddle position. I finally got it right which made a world of difference in comfort. After the ride, I thankfully was able to adjust my brake pad/pistons.

We headed back to the hotel to cleanup and go grab some dinner since it was getting late. We ate at the same small italian place we ate at last year. I remember I was being 'smart' last year and going simple chicken and rice dish but I recalled it being bland. So, I decided on something a bit more flavorful. When it arrive at my table, I saw I had what I had ordered was super sloppy, juicy, cheesy... It tasted ok, but I didn't want to eat an overly heavy the night before a race. I ate my bland potatoe and picked at the entree best I could.

It was a chill evening watching some TV before hitting the sack. Funny, Doug set his phone's alarm which also has his calendar events in it and it went off around midnight to 'alert' of an event the next day. He jumps out of bed and said and said, "Ok, race time!" I'm cracking up (since I hadn't fallen asleep yet and knew it wasn't possibly 5 in the morning yet). Back to bed for a little bit. I slept ok for a pre-race night. I hadn't really gotten too nervous about this race all week but it was starting to make me a bit anxious and thus hard to fall asleep, which seems to be standard for me.

And 5am did come early. I ate some oatmeal, drank some espresso and was off to the race with the dread thought of why? It's going to hurt...but I have to keep pedaling anyways. It was chilly that morning. I knew it was going to warm up but it was hard to not want to put on all my standard winter riding wear. I did start with arm warmers but the short fingered gloves left my hands quite unhappy for the first hour of the race.

The race starts up a moderate 3 mile road climb which helps spread out the pack before hitting the tight single track. Positioning onto this first single track is very important so I tried to go pretty hard. But then again, there's still 97 miles to go. I went into the singletrack in 5th place. Got into 4th half-way through but passing on a tight corner. Towards the end of the opening section it widens out some and by this point I had made it into 3rd place, but mostly because Viccki had to pull off to check her bike. Mechanical? I wasn't sure. Anyway, Amanda (the 100 miler series winner last year) and Cheryl (previous 100 miler winner, and fresh off a grueling long stage race) were up front and I wasn't overly confident I could catch them. I was a bit more worried about who was behind me at that point.

I managed to hold that lead throughout the race. I felt pretty good overall, especially for not having a lot of long sustained climbs under my belt for training this winter/spring. The legs felt, for the most part, 'there'. Although, the feeling lessened as the climbs kept coming, especially since it's all mostly over the long 60+ mile stretch of dirt/gravel roads that bores the crap out of me. So when my back starts hurting, and my feet are starting to make some noise and my legs are starting to feel heavy... there's not much to distract me. Although, there were some very nice views here and there. It is a held in a beautiful mountain range SE Tenn/NW Georgia. There seemed to be a lot of newly laid gravel on the roads which made some of the fast descents rather hairy, sliding around some corners. I don't know if there is any tire that handles that well.
The race does seem to go on and on these dirt roads that every corner looks the same after a while. I was mostly on my own, with the typical group of male racers that would pass you, fade, you'd pass them, and fade...etc. Although none of us seemed overly chatty with each other - too much suffering? Maybe too much wondering why are we suffering so much? My sister's frequent question of "wouldn't it be easier to sit on the couch eating bonbons?" seems more and more appealing.

I of course forged on, occasionally cursing the course at the top of a punchy climb that my legs no longer wanted any part of. The gravel made it difficult to stand and climb much to use the muscles differently and stretch the back out. I finally made it to the last stretch of single track. I was trying to remind myself that there was a lot more climbing in this section than you anticipate at this point. You are still rather high up on the mountain and the end of the race is just down the side of the mountain, but of course, it's not that simple. While I was happy to have the distraction of single track at this point, it just seems to be endless. And having the climbs in there that seem cruel at this point despite not being really all that long in comparison to other of the 100 miler courses. You can almost smell the end of the race-- it's just down there....if we could get there. And eventually you do and finish up with 1.5 miles on the road. I felt pretty strong finishing up and gave it all I had at that point, just in case one of my competitors had been sneaking up behind me. It would absolutely be disheartening to lose 3rd place in the last mile. So I crossed the finish line in 3rd in 8:18. I'll take that. Amanda superstar was 7:33 and Cheryl was 8:03.

I hobbled off my bike. My lower back was quite tight. I went down to the river and joined some other racers soaking their legs in the cold water. It felt good. I cleaned up a bit and went back to hang out with some friends/fellow racers and get the scoop on how their days went. I even almost won a raffle prize for 'person who drove the farthest to this race' - it was for a thompson seatpost which would be excellent timing as I need one to build up my new frame from our team sponsor, Zaboo Bikes. But some dude said he drove from California.. yeah right.. oh well.

While, I can't say this race is a favorite of mine - it's a long drive for a lot of dirt road riding - which is not my strong point - it is beautiful down there. We drove home heading east from the whitewater center and into Asheville,NC for lunch. Really gorgeous! And the weather was spectacular Friday through Sunday. Just long long drive home. Stayed in Maryland Sunday night and back home Monday.

Next up is Transylvania Stage Race at the end of this month... going to be some real tough competition. Being on the podium there for any of the stages will be quite a feat.

Bakers Dozen 2011

2011-04-11T21:33:00.013-04:00

First, well technically 2nd race, and kind of ironically, on the same course, of the season is under the belt. The Bakers Dozen, held just outside Leesburg, Virginia, is a 13 hour race starting at 9AM and finishing up at 10PM wherein you try to do as many of the 9.2 mile lap as possible. Doug and I rode in the two-person coed category which proved pretty competitive. We came in 4th after holding 3rd place until the last lap.

I had come into the race more in the frame of mind of getting some good training in which was good as I stayed pretty 'chill' leading into the race, but apparently not enough 'chill' enough so as to keep me from feeling under the weather. It was tough packing for the trip since doing a lap race, one has the opportunity to change in between laps and be picky about what you want to eat. The weather forecast was not spectacular, upper 40s/low 50s for a high with a chance of rain. So, I packed just about every piece of bike clothing I own. It was ridiculous but I figured I'd be happy to have it "just in case" versus being there on race day thinking, gee, why didn't I bring that?...

I drove down to Doug's in Maryland Thursday afternoon with Bruschi in tote. It was pretty uneventful drive down. It did finally dawn on me that I hadn't packed everything. The race would require a couple laps after dark, and while I did remember my light, I forgot my helmet in my basement that has my helmet strap on it. Too late now. At least we had all day Friday to deal with that.

Friday was a pretty mellow day. I slept in hoping to kick the 'not feeling so good' feeling. We stopped by a bike shop on our way to the race site to see about getting a helmet strap. The bike shop didn't have one but they gave us some good ideas of how to rig mine up. We continued on to the race site, which was only about 45 minutes away, to set up an Easy Up tent and regular tent for hanging out in during the race day. Getting a good spot along the course in the transition area was important and we weren't sure how crazy it would be to find a good spot - not really that 'crazy' but good that we planned ahead. We were hoping to do a pre-ride lap which would have been nice to loosen up the legs after my long drive on Thursday, but it started raining pretty good and other racers who had shown up earlier were coming back from riding a lap pretty muddy, so we bagged that idea. It's not as if we wouldn't have plenty of time to ride the course the next day.

Doug was able to attach my light onto his helmet strap with some zip ties that evening. It worked out pretty well so that was the end of worrying about that. He had a handlebar mount that he would use for his light. We ate some dinner and got to bed early. I actually slept pretty well and woke up feeling ok, but still not quite 100%. I was still pretty relaxed, especially since Doug was doing the first lap so I figured I wouldn't be riding until almost 10AM. Doug wanted to get to the race site early as he thought it was going to be a mob scene with racers setting up camp etc. But we got there plenty early and were all set to go in no time. It was a pretty cold, damp, overcast day. I was starting to wish I had packed my very warm winter down jacket, but I had convinced myself that that was overkill, maybe not.

The race went off at 9AM in a mass start with not a lot of space to spread out before hitting the sinlgetrack. I was happy it wasn't me having to deal with the mayhem of a large group all vying for the front. I went back to the tent and checked on the dogs and made sure I had everything ready to go for my first lap. Doug came through in about 56 minutes which was pretty decent lap time having had to deal with bottlenecks the first lap at the few tough obstacles on the course, that are all rideable so long as no one is in your way. We swapped the timing chip and off I went up the field to start out my first lap. It hurt a lot at first. I realized I was kind of an idiot for not warming up at all, especially after not riding too much for a few days. The legs and lungs weren't crazy about going hard right off the bat. The course was slick and slippery after the rain from Friday. It thankfully wasn't too muddy and dried out some as the day wore on, but it became more of a tacky, sticky, suck your energy kind of feel. It would be a very, very fast course if it were dry. It was pretty rolling terrain, in and out of woods and through fields, with no major climbs. I was happy to have the 2nd lap as the racers were all pretty spread out by then. It was tough to pass sometimes on the singletrack, and I would look up ahead and see I was gaining on a group, I was like, hmm.. this will be fun to get by. But, it usually wasn't too bad, mostly racers would let you pass.

Once I got into my lap, I was feeling ok. I didn't have "race" legs that felt fresh and snappy but they weren't awful either. I finished up my lap in about 50 minutes and was happy to have a break. We had talked about riding a single lap for the first couple of turns and then going to doubles. I wasn't so sure after that lap if that's what I would be up for, but then after waiting around for 10 minutes and starting to freeze as I cooled down, I figured it would ultimately be better to go to double laps to stay 'warm' while you're riding and then having a longer time to eat and be in dry clothes while you waited. I get chilled fast though so it was rough waiting around. I cleaned up the bike some. There was a bike wash but Doug said the line was long and my bike wasn't that bad I figured I'd pass on wasting my 'down time' standing in line.

From that point on, we both did another single lap and then went to double laps. I felt fine on the 2nd single lap, and the first of my double laps. By the end of my double laps I wasn't sure I wanted to do another double lap but left it up to Doug which way he wanted to go on that and he went for double's again. My 2nd double lap would put me on the course when it was getting dark so that meant I had to carry my light with me for those two laps despite not needing it to well into the 2nd of my double lap as it would take too long to get it all set up in between laps. It's an older style light (the technology of newer lights is amazing, lightweight, super bright, etc.) so the light would keep kind of pushing my helmet down my forehead some. Oh well. I was definitely starting to feel the hurt on the 2nd lap of my double (6th lap) and starting to go down the path of "why do I do this?" and "how much longer do I want to make myself suffer like this?"... not good. I didn't wander too much down this path of thinking. I tried to assure myself that I'll feel better when it's a nice, warm sunny day out and I'm not trying to fight off being sick. I finished up telling myself just one more lap, one more lap.

Doug went out for what was supposed to be his last lap. Neither of use had checked the stats on where stood placing wise in the race all that much. We just knew we were in 3rd and thought our lead was ok enough. He rode a pretty strong night lap and when he came through, I was all set to go out and jokingly said "don't make me do it" and he just kept on pedaling through then. I shouted "I'm kidding!" but it was too late unless I hopped on my bike to chase him down and get the timing chip off his ankle from him. I was thinking he's going to regret that when he gets up to the top of the field. That, and he told me his battery for his light was only good for maybe 2hrs and at that point his lap time was just over an hour, and doing a double?...He's going to run out of battery. Oh, well. I just changed out of my riding clothes and starting packing up. I figured he'd be doing the packing up while I finished up racing.

He came in about 10:15 with his hiking light. His bike light died about a mile from the finish. The hiking light is definitely not a lot of light to ride by so we lost a bit of time there and ended up in 4th instead. I wasn't terribly distressed about this. Doug seemed more bummed out about. All in all, it was some good hard training in my book. We finished packing up and ate some post-race pizza and hit the road home with some tired pups in the car too boot.

A hot shower was welcome. Sleep took a bit as my stomach was not all that happy that night. It was tough eating race foods all day and my systems were just out of whack. Seems like I get sick before the first race of the season, thankfully it wasn't a 100 miler this year as the first race. I woke up Sunday with a pretty bad head cold and must have gone through a box of kleenix throughout the day. I didn't feel too bad race legs wise, just pretty bad in my head. There's been lots of stuff going around. Anyway, the drive home was equally uneventful as the drive down, well aside from a lot of knee steering to be able to blow my nose. Bruschi was pooped out and slept like a baby the whole way. And I slept like a baby Sunday night. Feeling a bit better today, but got some resting up to do before hitting the next race, this Sunday, just a short one. Hopefully the weather is better. I don't think I have too many more cold, wet races or rides in me. Am I getting too old ? :)

Oh, pretty cool - Brian is 12 years old and rode his unicycle for a lap!!!! holy cow! He's amazing.

Come on Spring!!

2011-03-03T17:55:00.009-05:00

It's been a long time since I have posted to my blog. I have been meaning to update it for a while but this winter here in Massachusetts is beating me down (as it is most folks here) and leaving me with minimal motivation for anything, much less being overly inspired about the upcoming season. But alas, spring will come and maybe our trails will be clear by June.... ugh

I took a long break after the Shenandoah 100 last year. I did do a 12 hour race in Maine with Doug which was a lot of fun, but after that it was a long stretch of riding just when I felt like it with no agenda or purpose. It was great. I had a lot of fun. When I was making riding plans with my buddies they were like, really, no grueling 6 hr training ride?? You won't get after us for yip yapping... Nope! I have to admit, I didn't miss not racing cross. I surprised at how long my fitness stayed with me since the weather was pretty cooperative here through Christmas pretty much. The trails were really dry and in great shape so I was still getting in some decently long rides on the weekends.

It was all fun until Thanksgiving weekend I did a really randomly stupid thing -- I tore an extensor tendon on my middle finger at the last joint on my left hand -- ie, I had no ability to straighten my finger at the last joint. When I realized it was a tendon, I was horrified. I work as a massage therapist - how was I going to be able to work? Tendons take forever to heal. I googled it right away and it's called 'mallet' or baseball' finger. Six to eight weeks in a finger splint!!! So, I saw an ortho first thing Monday morning to get said finger splint for said injury and to get an x-ray to make sure no bone got pulled off with the tendon, which is not a good prognosis. Thankfully, the x-ray was clean. The doc said it would heal in time (time being the key word), but to do my best to not bend it all in the 6-8 wks. It was such a pain in the butt working around that. After a couple days of splinting it, I realized I was going to have to wrap a thin layer of gauze around it as the splint was plastic and keeping too much moisture against my skin which could get nasty if I didn't take preventative measures. I had to learn to type without my middle finger (I'm just starting to get used to using it again to type with and it keeps messing me up.), drive, grabbing anything was awkward, it's my brake finger for biking... and of course massaging was interesting. I certainly used my right hand a lot more. When I had a follow-up checkup on at just over 6 wks, the way the doctor said it was healing up made me realize there was a chance that just splinting it might not work and that I might have had to have surgery. Needless to say, I was quite pleased I didn't have to have surgery, but I could tell it still have several weeks of healing to do. It was probably almost 9 weeks before I started massaging without the splint on and being a bit bolder with using it. It felt really weird. It's mostly healed now, but I still have to regain full flexion. It's still swollen across the joint and weak.

So riding in December I was a bit more backed off to say the least and only riding on the weekend caught up with me. It was back to specific training in December, although a slow buildup to get back into the swing of things. It was a tough transition to getting back on the bike 5-6 days a week, and that including trainer workouts. It took a few weeks, but I was feeling back into the groove somewhat. Then, mid-December or so, my friend (who I won't name here, you know who you are ... :) ) was helping me swap out some tubeless tires and well, he was filling one up with an air compressor and I was putting on the 2nd one right next to him. The tire seemed to pop/bead a lot right away so I was surprised he kept putting air in with the compressor and just as I was thinking "I should move back"... BOOM!!! The tire explodes off the rim. We were both in shell shock. It was so unbelievable loud. He was holding his hands funny and I was like, uh oh, he's screwed them up bad and we're going to have to go to the hospital. But thankfully he didn't - I think they're a bit screwed up tendony wise. Anyway, holy cow. Our ears were ringing and I got a feeling of being car sick sort of. Very odd. We much more cautiously put the tires on and put the one on that had blown and it rubbed funny on the brake, and that's when we realized the tire blowing off it had warped the rim to the point of being ruined. :( So I had to get a new wheel (which turned into a new wheelset, a nicer wheelset, but still ouch to the pocketbook.) So, now I had a messed up finger and a messed up ear. I couldn't hear that well in my right ear. I had it looked at and was told there was a spot on the eardrum with lines coming out from it kind of like a crack in a windshield. It could take 6-8 wks to heal and get back to normal. What's up with this 6-8wks?? It was really ringy/toney for awhile and kind of felt clogged but it seems to be at least 95% normal now. Craziness.

I spent Christmas week down in Maryland and got in some great 3-4hr rides a few days down there. Then it was back home for a long, horrible stretch of winter. It had actually snowed quite significantly Christmas weekend here but it mostly all melted by the time I got back home. I rode outside the weekend after New Years on some icy trails and well that was only the beginning of my snow riding this year.

After that it snowed, hmmm, like every 3-4 days, like a foot or more of snow each time!! With no melting in between. Unbelievable! The first storm, you're like, ok... It's pretty, shoveling isn't that bad, and hopefully the Cape (cape cod) didn't get too much and it will melt fast. (The Cape typically doesn't get as much snow and the soil is sandy so it drains well when it melts.) HA ha hahaa.... I was ready to put boards across the top of the snowbanks along my walkway so I wouldn't have to keep trying to heave it up the probably almost 5 foot snowbanks to be able to walk my dog everyday. It was pretty wild, kind of a cool site, but also pretty terrible for a bicyclist. The roads got all narrowed as the plows even had a hard time plowing back all the snow. I can't remember the last time we have had this much snow on the ground and snow cover for so long. It's March and we still have about a foot of snow on the ground.

So typically, if there's this much snow on the ground and it stays as cold as it did, we can ride snowmobile trails, but even that too a long time to come to fruition as most of the snowstorms dropped really light fluffy snow that took a long time to pack down well enough and to harden up to be able to ride on top without sinking. I did a couple attempts in desperation and usually ending up riding back on the nasty, sloppy road. The snowfall did finally abate and the snowmobile trails became more rideable. In fact, there were a couple of days that the conditions were just right that I could ride on top of the snow just about anywhere in the woods. But that's a rare occasion. I did get a couple winter hikes that were nice.

I was back down in Maryland the end of January to race Snotcycle. Of course, it snowed down there too - a good 6 inches or more the Thursday before the race. I went down to visit Doug but thinking we wouldn't likely be racing. He assured me they would figure out some way to hold the race. I was like, yeah right. There's no way. I know snow and what you can and can't ride in. So we drive to the race Saturday morning. It's frigid out. My race wasn't the 3rd group to go. There were a couple categories that started before me and probably half dnf'd as they were sick of running the 8-mile lap that is usually super fast terrain. I rode down the driveway start of the race and it quickly turns into a field, and yup, I was off the bike pushing my bike through the snow. I was this is stupid, especially with my finger just about done the major healing phase. I figured since we were there I'd try do a lap. I'm no runner so that was going to be interesting. It took the first guy to finish from the earlier groups just about 2hrs to do one lap! hmmm.. So I started the race with not too big a women's field, maybe 8-10 of us. But the men had just started and we bumped right into off running our bikes too. It was silly stupid. I guess I kind of put on my race face and I don't like to run. It was useless to try to get on the bike and even go down a short downhill (which really, there weren't too many hills) as you'd have to kick the snow out of your cleats on your shoes and hope you actually clip in and get some balance...From everyone running there was somewhat of a path getting created it but it was so narrow it was tough to get going on the bike and even if you did manage to get going, it was equally difficult to hold a line and not get off into the thicker snow. Eventually, towards the 2nd half of the lap it became a bit more rideable and I was more determined or had figured out better how to try to stay on my bike. So, I got going somewhat and came through the start finish area in about 1'25" or so.. I can't remember exactly. I was totally thinking they wouldn't make us do a 2nd lap and thinking that, I hadn't brought any fuel with me except a water bottle. So when they said my category had to do another lap, I was like, oh, huh.. I better drink some water, and maybe it won't take quite as long as the last lap did but I was dreading it. The competitiveness in me must have taken over. But, I was actually happy they made us do a 2nd lap as it had started to warm up a tad so the running path had gotten packed down to a smooth packed surface now so if you could stay in the narrow path you could actually move along quite nicely. So, the 2nd lap was actually a lot of fun, especially after suffering so much the first lap. Anyway, I ended up winning it so I can retire for the season now a winner :) Ha! I was a bit sore from the running the next couple of days. But hey, the post race beer was mighty nice.

So back to Massachusetts...oh right... snow!
It has been incredible hard to stay motivated for the season and doing hard workouts on the trainer and not getting to at least get one ride in outside to remind yourself of why you do it. I did 'enjoy' a nice suffer fest with a couple local racers on some snowmobile trails a few weeks back. It was soooo cold that morning. It was ~8' F when we started. I thought many times of bailing those first 5-10 minutes. I had to stop and put heat warms in my gloves. It did warm up and I did warm up trying to keep up with those two. It was a good hard workout but somewhat of slog as the top layer of snow was just enough to have to constantly work hard to get through. It was a good workout and outside, but not what I'd call a ride that put a smile on my face. The next two weekends, I tried to do my long ride on the Cape but the first weekend of that there was still a lot of snow and a lot of ice so, it wasn't quite a good workout or particularly enjoyable. The next weekend was ok - a bit more rideable but still large sections of snow that we had to push our bikes through and random icy spots so you just didn't feel comfortable getting a lot of speed going.

But finally, finally, last weekend I went back down to the Cape (which is where we'll be probably for another month to do long rides) and had a very good ride that put a smile on my face. It had poured on Friday and then finished up with some nice crusty, snow/sleet mix even on the Cape. I was driving down there thinking man, we just can't get a break. I figured it still had to be better than the previous weeks and it was. Even occasionally, we'd go through a section of completely dry ground and the sun was out and it felt and even smelled remotely like spring. But I am not fooled. It's still a ways off here. My coach has tried to console me noting that I will be 'fresh' in July/Aug/Sept instead of starting to feel burned out by then. I was like ha... whatever... I have some big races early season :( I'm coming to terms with it. It's just going to take a bit longer this spring to build up the base for the 100s so I should maybe try to mentally focus more on the later season races and while I'll still give it my all early on, know that it is what is. Maybe I'll surprise myself. But, I'm trying to be realistic too as the trails locally really are going to take a long time to clear of snow and to go through a thaw muddy phase, and since there is still so much snow around, even as it warms up, the road are going to be really wet with snow melt for a long time. I really should get some fenders.

I will be quite happy when summer really truly is here. I hope we get as nice as a summer as we had last year, especially after all this suffering this winter. There have been many many days I've been close to packing up the car with as much as I can fit and heading to Arizona. Some day!

Well, my race schedule this year will look pretty much like last year so long as gas prices don't totally skyrocket like is being threatened. Then I'll be bagging the races that are long drives (most of them) and staying local as I don't have much of a race budget to begin with, unless a miracle happens :) I like miracles.

Till the first race!
-karen

2010 Shenandoah 100 Miler

2010-09-08T17:34:00.011-04:00

Sorry for the delay in the writing of this race report - just sleepy...

The finale of the National Ultra Endurance Series (NUE) went pretty well for me. My goals for the race were to podium (1-5 in this race), hopefully be under 9hrs and have fun?... I got 2 out of three - 4th place in 8'56" and, well, I mostly had fun although at times it was a struggle.

Shenandoah is my favorite of the 100s that I have done. Oddly this year, I think I enjoyed the 101 a bit more, which had typically been my least favorite of the 100s (although I think Cohutta will take its place), but maybe that's because I felt really good at the 101 and only so so at Shenandoah. Thankfully, my so so pace is pretty good. I felt like I had decent legs for the first couple of hours but then I kind of petered out and just had my "all day" pace to struggle with. My head game with myself was a constant reminder of that this was the last meaningful race of the season and I get a nice long break when it's over so keep pedaling. No cyclocross this year. Just play, recoup, recover and be all fired up for next year. Not that this season has gone badly at all, it just isn't quite there for me mentally to keep the discipline in the training that is necessary to be really successful in this series and to really enjoy it. I fell somewhere in between.

Anyway, I headed down to Maryland on Thursday afternoon. I hit some traffic going through Connecticut since I was passing through pretty much at rush hour. It got me a bit stressed out since it took about 3-4 hrs before I could relax and not have to pay attention so much. I did see an absolutely gorgeous sunset over Scranton hills. And much to my delight, the construction zone where 81 intersects 80 wasn't that bad. The past two times heading down that way have been terrible backups since it goes from 4 lanes to 1 with a lot of truck traffic, and continues as one lane for ~12 miles. But it was smooth sailing through there. I was getting anxious from driving so long and thought I was home free getting off in Harrisburg to head down into MD but then I hit some more construction, similar 3 lane to 1 kind of crap...erggg. I thought about how easy it to just snap and do something really retarded, but I refrained and just showed up at Doug's a crabby cranky fidget bucket. So I drank a beer :) but that only helped a little.

Friday was mostly a chill day. Doug and I met up with a New England transplant, Mike Joos, to do a ride at Gambril Mountain. It was a beautiful day out and the trails were fantastic. I did a couple oh shi... and felt like I kind of pulled a muscle in my back but thankfully that subsided. After that it was just making sure I was all packed and ready to leave first thing Saturday morning so we could get to the race site Stokesville Campground and get a good camping spot since the race filled up. My friend, Laura, from the Transylvania race was driving up from North Carolina and I told her we'd save her a spot too.

The drive down was fine. I was still feeling pretty sleepy but I was hoping that would mean I would fall asleep quickly Saturday night. We arrived at the race site around 1ish and got a decent camping spot. We set up camp and got ready to meet up with Amanda Carey to go stretch the legs on a short ride. On our way out to ride we ran into our good friends Lee and Brenda Simril so they joined too. I felt pretty decent on the ride. The legs felt a bit like they had a long drive in them but I was hoping that was a good sign and that on race day they would be great. It was nice to catch up with everyone. I haven't really chatted with Amanda since last fall during cross season. She's been kicking butt this year in the endurance race scene.

We got back to camp and Laura had arrived. It was really good to see her again too. She had bunked across from at the Transylvania race and we shared lots of stories together. I semi talked her into doing Shenandoah this year. She had done it a couple years back and was on the fence about it, but I reminded her of how fun it is :) Haha!! Anyways, she wanted to get a spin in so Doug and I then headed off to our favorite pub in Harrisonburg for dinner. The food is fantastic and the beer is good too, but I refrained from the beer drinking tonight to 'behave' for race day. I was hoping we would make it back there post race to enjoy the beer and scrumptious looking nachos, and peanut butter something or other ice cream cake, and ... Really, the dinners are actually pretty "healthy" there if you want to eat healthy.

Back to camp to finish prepping for the race, chill, catch up with Laura and hit the sack. I slept reasonably well for a pre-race night. It got pretty cool overnight and at 5am when we got up it was darn chilly, but it always is in my recollection of doing this race. Brrr... Ate some oatmeal and had some espresso. I was just standing around and I felt this odd cold sort of damp feeling sort of thing on my back and I was like what the heck is that and I felt behind my back and it was a nasty bug of some sorts.. absolutely grossed me out. I ended up mushing it with my fingers not realizing what it was. All traumatized I took off all my layers and it left an icky mess on my race shirt. Thankfully I had another one with me so I put the clean unscathed one on instead.. gross... total girlie moment.

Well then it was off to the start line. They were attempting to stage the start based on estimated finish times to try to help ease the craziness of the start of this race. It seemed to semi work as it didn't strike me as being quite as nuts as it usually does. We head out of the campground on this narrow dirt road that usually you get kind of pushed or shoved around or someone messes up or goes off the edge of the road... not fun. It wasn't that bad this year but perhaps because I am probably getting more used to that kind of start. Then it's super fast down the road and onto a "rolling" mostly uphill dirt road which helps start to spread out the pack. I was feeling ok through here. The legs were warming up and when we hit the first more pitchy climb I felt ok and had caught up to Cheryl who was riding in 3rd at this point. I was with her through the singletrack at the top of the first climb and down to Aid Station 1. I was feeling a bit sketchy on the downhill and thought, hmm, maybe the dualie would be nice. She might get me on the downhills alone on her dualie. We caught onto a wheel and mostly drafted on the road section till the next big climb. She did try an attack and I pulled her back in and then we chatted briefly. She gapped me starting into the next big climb but was only a few riders ahead through the climb. I was starting to feel the legs a bit already and I was just hoping at that point that they might come back around to feeling good again, oh maybe in a few hours.

I hate the downhill on this section as we're still pretty bunched up in the race and there are always some yahoos that come screaming by passing in really sketchy areas. It unnerves me. I was following behind a slow guy and had some others pass us and then finally I got by the slow guy to get up to another slow guy with some more yahoos breathing down my neck so I tried to get by but clipped his handlebar and almost crashed big time. Very scary moment. I managed to stop and of course the two slow guys get by me again. I sat back there for a bit not feeling it worth it to risk passing. I finally got by them further down.

Then it's another road section for awhile to Aid Station 2. I had put my first drop bag here so I had to refuel quickly even though I hadn't really drank too much of my camelback yet. The volunteers at the aid stations in this race are amazing. They are so helpful and quick to get you water, food, etc. I was on my way quickly and off to the next big climb which we do again at the end but only go half way up then before turning off to head back to the finish at the campground. I found a decent pace but wasn't feeling super spunky. As I passed the turnoff for the next time we'd be climbing this I had a lingering thought of how nice it would be to just turn off there now :) But I climbed on reminding myself that this one just keeps going and going and going, like most of them. I did struggle to keep this thought in my head though. The downhill off this mountain is one of the best in the course. It's a bit rough and rocky up top but then as it gets down the mountain its slightly off camber smooth sailing and drops you right into Aid Station 3. I didn't need to stop here as I had my next drop bag at Aid Station 4 and would make it fine with what I had. I got out onto the road and sprinted a little ways to get on a wheel to draft for this section. The group was ok but not particularly well organized but it was better than riding it solo into the wind.

The course heads off the road and crosses a dry river bed which we all walked and then up a steep embankment onto the next climb. We were still sort of in our pack which was good for motivation to keep moving and not slow down too much as someone was right behind me especially since I was feeling like I could have easily backed off too much on this climb. It's kind of a fun climb but gets draining by mid-way and then there are some loose rocky sections which are tricky when you're barely moving along as it is. I got into one of these sections and got too wobbly from going too slow and stepped off the wrong side and fell down the hill a little bit. The guy behind me was like are you ok? I was too tired/mad to answer right away and he asked again.. I'm like, I'm fine, just pissed off now.. Got some nice bruises from that one. Anyway, I carried on and well the downhill on this is pretty darn sweet too, just about as nice as the last one :) I was happy I had learned how to brake properly with one-finger this year for these long descents. It makes it a bit easier on the arms. I forgot how long it was out of the trail at the bottom to Aid Station 4, but thankfully more level/down than up. I refueled here as well although the volunteer messed up and put my powder mix in a water bottle which I didn't take instead of my camelback which I didn't realize until after heading down the road :( hmm... Thankfully I had extra powder mix on me as that was my last drop bag and there was still just under half the race to go. It did make me drink more straight water which I think was a good thing. I just made sure I ate more of my food that I had with me to make up the calories.

The next road section just sucks. It goes on and on and on. I know this and I know it can break you before you even start the "big" climb. It was tough. I actually got to draft for a little bit of it which helped. I couldn't help but notice that there was a lot of road/dirt road in this race this time around. I guess I had always kind of blocked that fact out since the downhill trails are so so sweet!!! Anyway, the dirt road goes on and on and then turns and starts the huge climb that takes about an hour to get all the way up. This guy was riding with me chatting about the race and he asks so how far up the climb are we? Poor guy. We haven't even started the climb... really? yes. It goes on forever I tell him. He asks how long till we go down again? I'm like, hmm, an hour. There are actually a couple short downhills within the drawn out climb but it really does take a long time to get all the way up it. From Aid Station 5, which is about 2/3rds of the way up or maybe only 1/2, it took me 1/2 hr to finally top out and start the decent down... which still actually traverses a ridge so there are some more short ups before really heading down. Those ones always feel so harsh - short but steep and the legs are pretty cooked by this point. At least when you drop out onto the road, it's only a short ways to Aid Station 6 (which was also Aid 2) and then just the one last climb :)

I had hoped to finish up in under 9hrs but was feeling pretty skeptical about that at this point. I wasn't climbing too well but all you can do is keep pedaling. When I got to the turning point on the last climb, I started to think, hey, maybe I can make it in under 9hrs so I got moving and cranked out those last few miles. I kept checking the time thinking, hmm, 7 more minutes to get in... and then finally the whoopty doos into the campground and across the finish line in 8'56" :) yippee.. I'm done! Done the race, and done for the season!!

I slowly make my way up to our tent site and get changed and cleaned up and eat some food, then head back down to the post-race dinner, and more importantly, the post-race beer :) Some nice Dogfish IPA. I chat with my fellow racers...we pack up... do some podium pics.. and hurry off to Harrisonburg for a nice treat - I got to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law as they were driving up from Houston to Albany for work. I get to see them maybe once a year so it was pretty sweet timing that they would be passing through the area after our race. Of course I was pretty wiped out from a long day but got some food and drinks and chatted for a while before nearly passing out from exhaustion. Funny, we ate at Texas Roadhouse Grille... Doug and I had passed it the night before heading back to the race site after eating at the pub we like in town and I joked, hey, do you think Brian and Wendy will want to eat there... guess so :) It was pretty good and within walking distance from the hotel.

I slept reasonably well for post-race but of course was still dragging on Monday. We all got breakfast together and then hit the road. I'll get to see them again at the end of the month before they head back down to Houston.

Well, it was a good season. I am looking forward to taking a break now and just riding for fun or doing some other stuff, like hiking and kayaking and not feeling guilty about not riding. It will help me refresh for next year! Oh, I do have a 12hr race in Maine next weekend that I'll be doing with Doug, so long as the weather is nice. But other that, just chilling, trying not to get too fat or too slow :) Or whatever. Till then... thanks for reading my blog! I know they're long.
And thank you to all my sponsors, friends and family for their support!

Peak Adventures Vermont 6 Hour Race

2010-08-23T20:44:00.009-04:00

So instead of driving all the way down to Georgia to race the Fools Gold in the pouring rain, ruining brake pads and risking limbs crashing into the wood, I instead raced a really awesome course for 6'40" in Pittsfield, Vermont. Peak Adventures 6 hour mountain bike race was a blast. I have to say this race exceeding my expectations of how fun of a course it would be. The race organizers have definitely spent some serious time making some sweet trails on their vast, privately owned track of land. I definitely see this race growing in participants quite rapidly next year.

I headed up on Friday with fellow training/racing sufferer, Steve Segenchuk. We drove the scenic way up all back roads through quaint little Vermont towns, passing like 20+ ice cream shops and various homemade pie signs (mmmm...) thinking we could stop at like 1/4 of them on the way home. We made it up to Pittsfield, which is just north of Killington on Rt 100, about 6pm and registered for the race. I only had one other competitor signed up in my category all week so I was feeling rather chill about this race. When we got there to register there was a woman from New Zealand who had come over to train for next weekend's World Cup race in New York but opted not to do it since she wasn't happy with her speed thus far. I was like, uh oh... world cup racer making the trip from another country must be pretty good.. OH well. Competition is good.

We then checked out the sweet little Country Store to see what they had for dinner possibilities so we wouldn't have to drive 10 miles back towards Killington to find dinner. They had sandwiches, etc. so that would work. We then drove up the dirt road from there to the National Forest to find a camping spot, and had to drive 1/2 mile down the forest road that I'm certain my Matrix would not have made it down in one piece (or rather up, or back down). We found a good camping spot and set up our tents and drove back down to the country store for dinner and to wait for our buddy Rob to show up. Did I say I love these quaint country stores. They even had rocking chairs out on the front porch area. Rob showed up just after 8 and we drive back up to the camping spot.

I take out my lantern to use to finish setting up camp and attach it to my little propane canister and light and it turn it up high and well, it's not getting very bright. To my dismay, I realize that I never really checked to see how much propane was left and it was quite clear there was not going to be enough to boil the water that Steve and I were going to use to make oatmeal in the morning :( I used to be a 'good' camper.. . Thankfully the country store was opening at 7am and the race didn't start until 9am. And Rob built a fire so we had something to do :) It was very very quiet in the woods there, much better camping experience than my previous time this year back in July where my sister and I were stuck next to party people at a "family' campground. And, it was nice and dry.

We wake up early at 6, pack up and head down to the country store for coffee and breakfast. It is really foggy down in the valley. My oatmeal does the trick and some good dark roast coffee. The race is 1/2 mile down the street so we head over and get the bikes all set up and all the necessary items for the cooler for the transition area. I warm up for about 1/2 hr since I hadn't really ridden all week and was somewhat worried the legs would feel dead because of that but they seemed pretty good. The only concern was that my stomach was a bit off, but not too bad.

The race begins with a lemans start which just about all of us hated - running in bike shoes is no fun, but it did spread us out so that the immediate turn to the downhill double track wasn't so sketchy.
We continue down a double track with a table top and a few jumps, that I mostly avoid as I don't like to take too many risks in a race. The course continues to drop down with a few other sweet jumps along the way until it bottoms out at a river and then the long climb up the mountain begins. There must have been 100 switchbacks over the 8.5 mile course (although my computer put it closer to a 9 mile lap). The 1,200 feet of climbing flowed nicely with all the switchbacks up what would otherwise be an nearly impossible steep climb. I rode it mostly in a power climb mode in the middle ring save one section almost in the middle of the climb that on the first two laps didn't feel that hard, but by the third, I was definitely granny gearing it. I was hammering the first lap to win the King/Queen of the Hill Climb and to also use it as training for Shenandoah since the start there will be super hard and fast. I messed up a couple of the switchbacks coming into them a little to tight and leaning. But I got those all down the next time around. It was a pretty fun climb as it would rise up some, traverse the slope with some short downhill and then switchback to continue climbing up and up and up... All the switchbacks also offered the opportunity to scope out the racers below to see where the competition might be.

I was working hard and made it to the top in just under 40 minutes to win the climb. The top had spectacular views of the surrounding area. I thought we were just heading down from there but the top included a pretty technical, twisty rooty, rocky section that had many racers walking. I fumbled a couple corners myself and it took a few laps before I figured out the lines that would get me through it cleanly. Once out of the twisty technical section it was ear to ear grinning on the way down with a series of banked turned, super fast descending reminiscent of big mountain riding on the edge of a cliff hoping you don’t lean too far the wrong way and slamming the brakes into hairpin turn after hairpin turn. It was a "working downhill" in many regards as there wasn't too much just letting it go and not having to focus too much. At the bottom, we cross over the bridge and ride through a flat field, up a short but painful climb, especially after a few laps, into the start/finish area. I was riding through with another ride saying, man, that course is a lot of work. There's no real resting until the flat field section that takes all of a minute to get across. But it was really fun and the there was an immense amount of work put into these trails. I kept wishing I had put my camera in the cooler and I would have taken it out on one lap to get a shot of the downhill where there are about 10 banked/bermed switchbacks in row and you can down a few. It was really sweet.

So, I rode my first two laps at ~1hr each. I was calculating out how many laps I would likely get in. We were allowed to go back out for another lap so long as it was before the 6hr mark, which meant, by my calculations, that I would have time for 6 although it was a question of how much longer after 6hrs I would be taking to finish that lap. I stopped to refuel after lap 3 feeling pretty good overall. My stomach was still off but I was trying to keep up with fuel/h2o intake. I downed some water when I stopped but forgot to take electrolyte tabs which I was semi worried I might cramp up since the course was so much work, even on the downhill. So, I stopped again to take some after finishing Lap 4. I was definitely starting to tire on Lap 5 and had to battle my head some on whether or not to do a 6th lap. I was pretty sure I was in the lead and likely didn't need to do a 6th lap, and, well, obviously I'm out there much longer when racing the 100s so it would be good training. I was at the top of the climb on Lap 5 and there had been some m&ms at the aid station there so I was craving some and figured I'd stop to get some "fuel" and of course, they were all gone :( so I had to settle for a nature valley granola bar instead. I stuff it in my mouth and scurry off, convincing myself I can do one more lap. I make a couple bobbles on the downhill and make note to self that I better be more cautious since I was getting tired. Coming through the transition area I just kept telling myself not to think about stopping, and to consider that Steve was likely going to do 6 laps too and I'd hear about that the whole way home if I didn't do 6, and it was good training... so I put my head down and kept going. It was fine. I calculated that it would definitely not take 40 minutes to climb up and it would definitely not be a 1 hour lap...but it would be fine. It was. I came finished in 6:39 to win and 7th overall. Steve was about 10 minutes back. I did get a lot of comments on how sweet and light my Felt 29er looked... I know :) It rode awesome.

I cleaned up the dirt and little bit of mud off my legs and arms. My arms were a mess. I must have hit every single pricker bush/branch out there and really, there were not that many. But I kept hitting the same spot each on lap, and go, geez, I have to stop hitting those...Really, my arms are a mess. I convince Steve to ride the 1/2 mile down to the country store (it's probably really like 1/4 mile) to get some chocolate milk for recovery and some espresso. Yummy. My double shot of espresso was like a small coffee. I gave half to Steve and probably still had a triple shot... woo hoo.. We rode back to the race and partook of the pig roast post-race dinner, drank a beer, ate a huge chocolate chip cookie. Yes, my stomach was a bit concerned with this. Needless to say, we didn't stop for ice cream on the way home. Awards were around 5pm and then we chatted with the race organizers who knew my buddy Brian, who does the crazy 50 and 100 mile runs Peak Adventures hosts. I also threw out the idea of them putting on a 100 miler, which would be crazy long, and there was definitely interest. Maybe I'll only have to drive 3 hours to a NUE series race some day :)

We drove home the highway, no ice cream, but hoping for a pie shop, but it was too late in the day for that apparently. It was a stop at Moe's about a mile from home instead.

Next up, local EFTA race - Treasure Valley Rally Sunday August 29 and then Shenandoah 100 Labor Day Weekend!

Wilderness 101 Report

2010-08-01T19:47:00.007-04:00

Yeah! A good 100 miler... I felt good, had good legs, had a good time (even on one of my lesser favorite courses) and came in 2nd in 8:15!

So, a month off from racing was probably a good idea to regroup and get refreshed. I wasn't sure what to expect coming into this race as sometimes time off is good and sometimes not. That's the way of racing I guess. Training had gone pretty well heading into the race. I had put on some new tires, WTB Woleverines which I won at the Transylvania Stage Race, that I've been pretty happy with as far as rolling resistance and grip goes. I got back to handlebar grips I'm happy with and just other minor bike adjustments so things should be good. And the weather forecast for race day couldn't be better - sunny, dry and low 80s! Pefect!!! The past couple of years the course has been a tad wet or at least the numerous rocks have been "sweating" which make them nearly impossible to ride a good line through them.

I drove down on Friday coming off a pretty "normal" week which was nice, instead of being crazy busy and stressed out. Traffic was fine except the stupid Pennsylvania highway construction just south of Wilkes-Barre, a few miles before getting onto Rt 80, where you go from 4 lanes to 1 in oh a mile... sucko! I was about to get off the highway and figure out another way to get down to 80 but thought, oh, it doesn't look too bad... 20 minutes later, 3 miles later, I'm on 80... but I was making good time so no worries. I got off of 80 quite a ways east of Coburn and much more east than I have taken in the past but I figure I had driven enough highway by that point that a nice country highway through the beautiful farmlands would be nice and it was... drove through a couple really quaint towns... I think Pennsylvania is growing on me.

I arrive at my cabin about 3ish and check in. The crew from Bike Barn, a shop in Whitman, MA, were all staying at a house there as well so I got to see all them (buddies I rode with a lot in the winters down on Cape Cod (when they don't get hammered with snow). I then drove the 3 miles to the race site and to register and get a warm-up ride in. It was a beautiful day out Friday as well. I ran into the same group from Pittsburgh who have an adorable black pug, Mia, so I could get my "pug fix" while away from Bruschi :) I hopped on my bike and rode up the first climb of the race and was feeling, happily, pretty good. I even got a "view" shot in part way up. After getting back from my warm-up ride, I finished getting my bike ready for race day and headed back to my cabin to eat, hang out with some old friends, and hit the sack relatively early. I was feeling pretty relaxed, but it was still tough to sleep well, which is usually the case the night before a big race. I thankfully had slept well the previous nights so I didn't get too stressed about it.

Up at 5AM, eat and .... and.. wait till it's time to head to the race site and then make sure everything is all set with the bike and that I have with me what I need for tools, fuel etc. It was pretty cool in the morning and I hate being cold so I was probably 1 of like 300 who wore arm warmers despite climbing within a few miles of the start of the race. I was catching up with my competition, Cheryl, Selene, Brenda pre-race and then all of sudden we were off. It's a "neutral" start for a couple miles then we take the left up the dirt road climb that starts to separate everyone out. I was feeling pretty good still but it took me a bit to really warm up. I got up the climb pretty well sitting in about 4th place and by the top was in 3rd. I got into a good "train" to draft and hung with that group for a while and we eventually caught up to the group teammates, Cheryl and Selene were in. We were all in a group working together until the first aid station at ~20 miles in. It was there that Cheryl took off and I was back and forth with Selene for a while. I was happy with myself that I wasn't letting myself get stressed about riding so close together with my "competition". I was just happy to be feeling pretty good so far and just hanging with them and reminding myself that it was so early in the race still.

I ending up passing Selene for good when I noticed she that her saddle bag had come undone and was hanging down almost hitting her rear tire. I told her it was coming off so she stopped to fix it and I didn't see her again after that, although, I kept anticipating her catching on again at any point. From there I just rode steady and within my pace. I was feeling pretty good most of the race which was so nice compared to the first 100 milers this year. I found myself actually looking around and enjoying the scenery some. I got lucky coming off trail sections and being able to grab onto a wheel to draft for most of the first half of the race. By the second half of the race we were pretty spread out and drafting was pretty non-existent at the point. I'd occasionally get updates that Cheryl was ~2-5 minutes up. I just kept trying to ride my pace and if I caught her, I caught, and if I didn't, I didn't. She's an amazingly strong rider. I was having a good race and enjoying and that was my goal.

I was finding it interesting how much of the course I had "blocked out" or was confusing with other courses. Coming into Aid Station 5, I was like, no, it can't be coming up that soon. I must have forgotten about some other trail or climb we have to do before hitting it, but nope, I was there and in amazingly fast time and still feeling pretty. I knew there was one more pretty good climb and one technical trail section but otherwise, I was home free... yippee. I started up the climb and passed one racer who was happy to be on the last climb as well but worried about cramping. I offered him my electrolyte tabs but he didn't want them so I scurried on. I was thinking, wow, so this is what it feels like to have some legs left at the end of one of these races, but the climb kept going on... but it was certainly not the hardest in the race. I made it over the top and was trying to calculate my finish time and was pretty excited about how fast it was going to be. I pedaled hard from that point as it was a motivating factor, and thankfully so as 3rd and 4th place weren't too far behind. Brenda (3rd) had caught Vicki (4th) in this last stretch hammering it to get a couple minutes ahead of her... thankfully I had enough of a gap by that point... I crossed the finish line quite pleased with 2nd and in a smoking fast time! Yeah! I was about to say that it was the first time being quite pleased to finish there but the 1st year doing this race my legs cramped big time about 60 miles in and I didn't think I'd be able to finish and when I saw the finish line that year, I was quite ecstatic if I recall correctly...

anyway, it was nice to have a good race, the body was there, the head was there and it all worked this time. It was good to catch up with friends/fellow suffers and make new friends, get my "pug" fix... I think most racers felt this year's 101 went pretty well, mostly on account of it being so dry so that the super technical rocky trails weren't quite so obnoxious. My hands and arms were killing, don't get me wrong. I think some of the downhills took more out of me than all the climbing.

Well, hopefully everything will be "on" again for Shenandoah which will be my last 100 for the year. I've had some 'bad' luck there the past two years so... hopefully, I'm due some good luck!!! and good riding, and good mindset, and good legs..

Lumberjack 2010

2010-06-22T18:45:00.005-04:00

The Lumberjack 2010 went ok. I came in 4th in probably the tightest top four finishing for the women's fields in a 100 miler - all within 13 minutes. The race for me however, felt like crap. It was a struggle the whole way through, both mentally and physically. Perhaps, I set myself up a little for this one in that I've been 2nd the past two years so I was trying to get my head in the frame of mind that I could win it, I have the potential... and trying to keep in mind that, well, it all depends on what legs you have for race day still and I have to accept that, but not having good legs on race day proved to be hard to accept this go around. I had to remind myself too that I just had a really good race finishing up my first stage race and most likely needed a little more recovery. The positive spin on it is I have some depth to have such a fast "flat" pace.

The long long drive out to Manistee, Michigan was pretty uneventful. I was actually happy to be doing another route for once since I seem to have been traveling down Rt 84 to Rt 81 a lot in the past several months so the "novelty" of driving Rt 90 forever felt nice. I made it to Erie, PA in 8 hours smooth sailing to meet up with Doug. We drove another hour or so and stopped for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory outside Cleveland. I behaved and skipped dessert and saved half of my enormous portion of dinner for lunch the next day. Then we drove another hour or so and found a hotel. I was eager to check in and catch the Celtics Lakers game much to my final disappointment on that one. I tried to go to bed right after that but was a tad wired so I didn't sleep all that great that night.

We hit the road again to finish the remaining 5hr or so drive to the race. Again, a pretty uneventful drive. It starts to get pretty boring up driving but I managed to not get too antsy. I was actually pretty surprised at how I relaxed I felt. I usually start to get some race anxiety on the drive to the races, but I was pretty chill. My team sponsor, MTBracenews.com, Shannon Bofelli and his wife Jen Hanks had come out to do this race and I finally got to meet them for the first time when we pulled in to pick up our race packets. They were both very excited about the race. It was Jen's first 100 miler and she kicked some butt coming in 2nd! Shannon was also kind of enough to bring more of my coveted racing fuel, carborocket, to keep me going for a while longer.

Then we went to find out cabin which was about 5 miles from the race start. It was a quaint little cabin that actually abutted the forest land we were racing in. We unpacked the car and got our bikes ready to go do a ride to stretch out the legs. We figured we might be able to hit the course if we continued on the dirt road out from where our cabin was and sure enough we found it and rode the last 30 minute stretch of it. It's really sweet riding - very smooth, sort of make me think of riding Otis on the Cape locally although not quite a punchy hill wise. I was feeling rather heavy legged on this ride but hoping that it was attributable to the long drive and not being not recovered from the stage race. Unfortunately, that smile on my face wasn't there on race day :(

We rode back on the road from the race venue and finished getting the bikes ready for race day. I noticed I had a thorn in my tire and of course once I pulled it out it started to lose air and apparently the stans sealant I had in the tire was getting pretty dried up and having a hard time sealing the hole. We pulled the tire off a tad and added more stans and thankfully that did the trick and made it through race day with no issues. After that, we headed into town to get some dinner. It's a cute little harbor/touristy town, although it's looking like it's seen slightly better times. We ran into a couple other racers, one of whom - John - I met doing Cohutta last year when I caught up to him to draft on the long flat horse cart path, and his friend Bill. They were finishing up their dinner so we just joined them and chatted for a while. Then it was time to get back to the cabin and off to bed. I still wasn't actually too nervous about the race but I did start to get anxious a bit when I was trying to fall asleep and then had a hard time getting to sleep. I try not to stress about lack of sleeping as it just makes it worse, but it's frustrating to say the least.

Race morning comes early as always. Up at 5AM, get some oatmeal and espresso in me and off to the race venue. We had to lug the cooler and other 'supplies' over to the start/finish lap area as this race you pretty much support yourself since it's a lap venue. (Race morning smile went away too.) Then it was time to ride out on the road a couple miles where the race is staged from so as to have some thinning out of the pack before it enters the singletrack. I wasn't feeling too overly anxious for a race start. We were off down the road at not too crazy of a pace, well not until about a few hundred yards from entering the parking lot and then the front of the pack goes hard core. Once the intensity picked up I was starting to feel it, of course I didn't really warmup at all except for the couple miles back to the parking lot, so it was hurting pretty good right away. The course was changed up from previous years 4-lap format to 3 laps this year and the layout changed up quite a bit, especially the first climb - it used to be a short steep sandy pitch but then it rolled nicely for a bit so you could recover pretty quickly before you had another short climb that required digging deep again. The start this year was a more gradual and very extended climb that the leading pack was flying on. I was getting passed a lot which usually hasn't happened to me on this course. It was a tad frustrating and more frustrating that my legs felt like crap and were not recovering. My stomach was also feeling rather upset. I felt like if I pushed any harder I would be yakking up those silly energy chews I ate before starting. I didn't like how this was going.

This course is usually a lot of fun. I spent the previous day saying how fun it was. This wasn't any fun today :( I was just trying to hang in there but the thoughts of being not recovered from the stage race kept popping up and how if I pushed too hard through this race in an already depleted state that I might ruin the rest of the season. I had all I could do to convince myself not to quit that first lap. I tried to remind myself that I've had several races where I didn't feel good at first but the legs and body came around later on. It was a struggle. Jen was riding smoothly behind me for a bit and then I was like "do you want to get by? I'm not doing too good here so you don't want to hang out behind me." And she went off and finished strong!

I came through the start finish area and refueled at the cooler. I was trying to convince myself that it would be ok and that this lap just ride with what you've got. At least the pack was well spread out now. I felt a little better on lap 2, but the legs just never really came around, every "effort" was an EFFORT. I made it through that lap ok but near the end for some reason I started to lose it in my head. I cracked and I haven't cracked like that in a long time. I convinced myself to pull it together before coming into the lap area since there were all kinds of spectators and I didn't want them to see me like that. Unfortunately for Shannon he had broken his front suspension and had to pull out of the race, but fortunately for me he was there at the cooler and helped me refuel etc and provided some distraction from how bad/unhappy I felt. I forged on but was pretty sour. I ran into Bill (from dinner) the previous night and he too was in a "bad state" both feeling pretty sour on the bikes today. We rode together for half of the last lap and tried to keep each other motivated like with thoughts of good food and beer after the race. He probably helped me more than I him... Then about half-way through the last lap, Danielle, who was on her singlespeed, caught up to me. I knew since she was catching up to me that it was unlikely I would hold her off for 17 miles. I was about to pass by the aid station out on the course and I wanted some straight up water so badly but I couldn't stop. I passed by with a very longing look. I also noticed Doug, who was having a really strong race, at the aid station and was going to say hi but didn't want to waste any time with Danielle coming up behind me. Danielle was riding pretty darn steady - her laps times were all the same! She finally caught up to me and passed and well, there I was finishing up in 4th with a still pretty strong time of 8:32. I still had to go off and get some of my "mental anguish" out so to speak. I don't know why I was being so hard on myself or where exactly that came from. All I knew was that I was happy I have a long break till the next 100.

So a couple beers later and chatting with fellow racers, I was feeling better. I was still disappointed at not having any legs or much fun. It's sort of a double whammy in that I get frustrated with myself for not being able to control the "break down," when I know, I just have to accept that that was it for the day. It didn't all come together on race day and that's how racing goes. I guess it's a reminder too that I can't really set out definite expectations. It's kind of better just keeping the mental set of "100 milers are pretty darn tough" aint nothing else to be said about that. Good day or bad day, riding that long and that hard is going to be tough.

Anyways, the drive back went relatively smoothly as well. I was home and reunited with Bruschi Monday night and slept in, (really late) on tuesday to catch up on all my lost sleep.
Thankfully the next 100 isn't until the end of July. I'll have some much needed time to recover and refresh for the end of the season. It feels like a lot of racing already and summer is only beginning.

The nitty gritty on the Transylvania Epic

2010-06-07T20:46:00.006-04:00

Ok, so here we go with the lowdown on how my race week unfolded....this could take awhile... think about how much I write for one day of racing :)

Transylvania Stage Race
http://www.transylvaniaepic.com/blog1/
The shorter version is below this post, or check it out at www.MTBRacenews.com

Pre-Race

So, my spring training has been less then stellar. It's been a tough few months for a whole slew of issues and, well, I've been sort of sour on riding. Coming into this stage race, one of my main goals was just to have fun again; the other, to finish. I knew I couldn't focus on how well or not well I was doing as that would just set me up for a terrible week as much of endurance racing is a mental game as well. There were several very strong women racers signed up as well, with two that would be formidable opponents all week, but what's a race without some good competition.

The week leading into the race was of course extremely busy and hectic. I had yet still to resolve the whole seatpost/saddle sliding back on the rails issue. I had somehow managed to "make peace" with this fact finally before heading to the race. It was what it was and I knew what it was going to likely take to fix it - a new post. Figuring out what I might want to eat all week was also proving quite difficult. I couldn't quite tell from the race schedule whether or not I would have time during the week to make it to "town" (State College) to get more supplies should I run out. I was going on that I notion that I would probably eat what I usually eat at home. My coach's advice was to make sure I was never hungry all week and to eat lots of carbs to keep the glycogen stores topped off. The quantity of food suggested was insane though - 2-3 potatoes or 5 pieces of french toast and eggs... yeah, I like to eat but I don't think I can eat that much at breakfast before racing. We'll see, I guess. I knew staying fueled was important but wow... and then thinking about all the other crap to bring with me - tons of clothes, spare bike parts, etc. I didn't think I would fit it all in, but I did.

I headed out Friday of Memorial Day weekend to drive down to Doug's in Frederick, MD and then I'd head over to the race Sunday morning. It was about 2.5-3hrs from and the Stage 1 TT didn't start till 3pm. Hmmm... heading out on a holiday weekend on Friday... yup.. Got on the Mass Pike and within 3 miles stopped traffic, WTF. Dumb dumb dumb. I was thinking it was already backed up Rt 146 all the way to 84 (~20 miles)... Maybe I should get off and go late late tonight? I forged on, or rather decided too late to get off the highway. A couple miles up there was an accident and after that the traffic was heavy but it flowed. It looked much much worse heading in the opposition direction. I was doing fine with the drive till just past Scranton/Wilkes Barre area where, only in PA, do they shut down one lane of a two-lane highway for 15+ miles at a whack.... It took like an hour to go the 15 miles. So Karen got very very cranky. I called Doug to warn him that it might take a few beers for me to chill...

Day 1 – 10 mile TT

Saturday was a chill day - cleaned up the bike and went for a mellow ride, caught a movie. I couldn't sleep at all that night though, so Sunday was a rough day getting going and certainly not how I wanted to start my first stage race. I was pretty darn tired and worried about going balls to the wall for a 10 mile TT on Day 1 of 7 days of racing. I arrived at the Seven Mountains Boy Scout camp in a foggy state of mind. I got my race packet which included some nice schwag, sweatshirt, bike jersey, etc., very nice. Then I headed over to the lodge that I would be staying in - there was a 1st and 2nd floor, hmm... I walked in and was like wow, this is going to be an interesting week. There were bunk beds attached two together packed in there and already pretty full and that was with each of us having our "own bunk". Thankfully I had brought extra sheets to make a 'cave' for myself for privacy. There was one refrigerator that was full of mostly beer already... oh vey! I unpacked and found some room in the refrigerator for my week's worth of food. Then I tried to chill for a bit before getting ready for the TT.

I was a bit worried to say the least about putting out a big effort on the TT being so tired and it smoking me for the rest of the week. I was the 3rd to last woman to go with my strongest competitors starting after me, which was a bit of pressure to go hard and hope they wouldn’t catch me. I was also trying to remind myself that it’s one stage in a very long week and that likely one of the stages with more climbing or more technical trails would spread out the time gaps more than this stage.

I warmed up for the most part per my coach’s instructions. I slacked a bit on the “hard” effort in warm-up but I was feeling a bit fatigued and didn’t want to overdo it. While waiting for my start I got to witness one of the racers bite it in the gravel 20 feet from the start - note to self of what not to do that… poor guy.

I took off pretty strong. The course passed through the boyscout camp and then out onto a dirt road climb which felt harder than it should have. It was near the top of the climb that woman starting after me, Selene Yeager , caught up to me. I was like crap, that was pretty quick. She’s already got a minute on me. I tried to stay focused on the fact is was only stage 1 and to go hard but not so hard it already hurts too much tomorrow. I kept her within sight and was right on her tail heading into a knarly singletrack descent. I pretty much stayed with her on that and then it was back out to a dirt road section for a stretch and back into trail where I passed her, although it seemed as if she had backed off some. The closing stretch of singletrack was really fun. I probably could have gone a bit harder on it but I didn’t want to implode on the first stage. I just tried to stay focused and smooth. I ultimately came in 2nd about 45 seconds back from Selene and about 30 seconds up Rebecca Rusch, a very experienced endurance/stage racer.

I was pretty pleased with my effort. I went pretty hard but didn’t feel like I completely laid it all out there. I knew I just needed to get some good sleep so I could somehow get through 6 more days. I went back to the lodge and cleaned up, ate some dinner, and got organized for tomorrow's stage which was touted as the hardest stage of the event. The awards ceremony was held at 7:45 each evening, followed by a preview of the next day's stage and then by a picture slide show of the day's stage. I was anxious for it to be over so I could start in on that rest I needed so badly. I went to bed pretty much as soon as that was over. The lodge was surprisingly quiet that night and pretty much stayed that way all week. I shared my 'attached' bunkbed with the second place finisher in the open men's race, Drew Edsell. I didn't think I had slept that well that night but he claimed I was snoring way so apparently I got some rest. :)

Day 2 - 40 miles of lots and lots of knarly PA singletrack...

I woke up feeling a bit more rested. I was anxious though and it was tough eating breakfast even though I was eating what I normally eat at home and maybe an extra piece of toast or packet of oatmeal. Tthankfully most of the days, we didn't start racing till 10:30-11ish. Today's stage was a remote start so we had to have our bikes down at the main office by 7:30 to load and then be at the shuttle bus by 9 to be dropped off and then we finished at back at the camp. This stage was 40 miles with lots of climbing, lots of tough singletrack and then a dirt road stretch to the finish back at the boyscout camp.

The bus ride seemed to take forever. I was trying to stay "fueled and hydrated" on the drive as was everyone else, so soon as we arrived, everyone scurried off to the woods. Then it was find your bike and warm up and then off we went. It was supposed to be a "neutral start" for a mile but it was fast and then even faster once the lead vehicle left. I was like wholey moley, we have to keep doing this for five more days after this... Selene was up ahead but Rebecca was relatively close to me. We were on a dirt road for a bit and then onto a double track climb that really only had one good line so it was singletrack pretty much. I was a couple riders back from Rebecca and feeling like I was settling a bit too slow of a pace and decided to pass and then not too much further up a bunch of riders got thier bikes tangled up in some sticks/branches, including Selene, and passed her too and was off up front for the rest of the race. I felt pretty good this stage. It was probably the hottest day and very humid but I like those conditions. My muscles tend to stay loose in that kind of weather. It was a lot of tough, jagged rocks that went on and on... every now and then, I was wishing for my dual suspension bike instead of my Felt 29er hardtail, but overall the Felt was great. My recent bike fit at Grace Bicycles in Holliston, MA helped tremendously with feeling comfortable on the bike. But these PA rocks just bounce you around no matter what you're riding.

I had to keep reminding myself on this stage that it was only Day 2 and that it wasn't a 100 miler where you could put it all out there in one day and be done. I have to do this for 5 more days so I pretty conserve some energy. I was feeling pretty good and staying well fueled and hydrated. I had no gauge of how far back my competition was. I just kept trying to ride steady and within a reasonably range. The dirt road section back to camp seemed to go on and on but finally I was nearing the finish, still in the lead. Very cool!

I won the stage by a few minutes and that gave me the leader's jersey as well! Yeah!! Holy crap.. I can't believe I did that well! Yeah! It was definitely a hard day to recover from since it was so hot and humid. It was hard to eat post-race. I had a nice headache by that evening. There were handful of people who ended up in the hospital or needing an IV due to getting severely dehydrated. Rebecca was struggling with her asthma in the thick PA air and thus had a tough day out there.

I tried to do all the right recovery - eat well, hydrate well, roll the legs out on a foam roller and with the 'stick'. I was pretty stoked that day. Although, I knew the next stage was certainly not going to favor my strengths. It was 47 miles on mostly dirt roads with lots of climbing... ugh!

Day 3 - 47 miles of lots of dirt road
I woke up not feeling quite so hot as the previous day. I finding it very perplexing that I just did not want to eat. It took forever to get through breakfast, just very odd. I was already swearing off eating on sunday when the race was over.

This stage started and ended at the camp so there was no shuttle or driving to do. It was an icky weather day - rainy and gray. I think we managed not to start in the rain but the short singletrack section that started the stage was already getting sloppy. Selene went off hard and I was ahead of Rebecca for a little bit but she passed me on the first long descent into Coburn, the town where the Wildnerness 101 starts - we were actually heading down the first road climb of the 101 and passed the quaint Bed and Breakfast I stayed at last year for the 101 and will back there in late July. I tried to stay on Rebecca's wheel on the descent, getting sandblasted from the wet road. A guy passed us and she jumped on is wheel and I couldn't keep the pace and off they went leaving me with a bad sinking feeling of how the day was going to unfold. I tried not to dwell on it and reminded myself that there were 4 more days to go, to blow it on a roady stage would be such a waste and that my main goals were to have fun and finish. It helped somewhat so I just tried to settle into a paced I knew I could sustain. It felt like a ton of climbing that day. It was interesting to download my computer data and see that there was actually slightly more climbing the previous day. The countryside was beautiful despite the gloominess of the day. It started pouring rain again when I was within 10 miles of finishing. We had to ride back UP the singletrack we had started out on and man did it suck now. It was a total slog...including having to walk a couple sections of it. I came in 3rd and lost the lead by ~14 minutes and had the 2nd place standing eaten into as well. ugh... I was a pretty tired post stage. I tried to keep up with all my recovery efforts and hit the hay post slide show ASAP...

Day 4 - 32 miles of sweet biking heaven, if only i weren't sooo tired!
Wednesday's stage was an absolute blast... well it could have been if I weren't so dang tired. I woke up feeling very sleepy, wondering if I slept at all that night?? It was a remote start and finish, which I chose to drive myself to. I was following other racers and lost them at a traffic light and then shortly after that managed to take wrong turn. Thankfully those following behind me were more awake to read the directions than I was. hmm.. I knew this was going to be a rough one. My bike computer was all funky today too (probably from the nasty conditions yesterday, although I just did Cohutta in the pouring rain for even longer and it seemed fine after that race) - none of the button would work so once it was on there was no shutting it off or switching screens and it would only detect heart rate - nothing else except running time.

I felt semi-ok leg wise warming up but I just felt utterly tired. There was a steep paved road climb to start and then onto some of the best flowing singletrack I've ever ridden. The climb killed. Selene was off the front again and I was ahead of Rebecca but only for a short period of time. I only had one gear that day and that was it. Rebecca looked great and was riding great. This course was like a giant pump track with obviously more climbing and descending, but super sweet. I would love to get back there with fresh legs. The checkpoint came quickly which was a relief as it meant I was 1/3 of the way done. And 2nd time hitting it meant 2/3rds and came up pretty quickly. I didn't refuel at the aid station. I just got more water which was sort of silly as I ran out of my camelback not too long after passing through. Not a good idea to get behind in fuel and water with three more days to go... :( Thankfully the stage was a tad shorter than originally slated and I finished up not having to go too long without food or water. I came in 3rd but lost 8 minutes or so again - bummer.

I was wiped out though. This was my very bad day where I was truly worried about my ability to finish this stage race. I was quite ready to relinquish the 2nd place standing. I drove back to camp in a stupor...having stopped at Subway for a large sub...It was good to get something different than what I had back at camp, but still tough to eat. I finished it up for dinner later on. I cleaned up once back at camp and tried to take a nap for a bit. Wicked headache again. I continued with recovery stuff and barely made it through awards ceremony. I went to bed really early. I had called my mom that day and it still cracks me up her asking me "why are you doing this?".... hmmm, I can't answer that today.... because it sounded like a good idea at some stupid point..

Day 5 - mini-xc's - very different stage
This stage was kind of odd, sort of recovery and sort of very painful all in one. It was another remote start and finish at R.B. Winter Park which was about an hour drive from camp. I was at least much more awake today although still anxious about racing and concerned about the effects of the previous four days on my body. I wasn't too keen on the short intense efforts this stage would entail. We all rode together for ~6-7 miles to a short race segment that would take ~ 12-15 minutes and then regroup post segment to ride neutral to the next one for a total of 4 segments. The slow ride out was great for the legs and it was fun socializing. Initially this stage was touted to be a Super-D but it was far from "mostly downhill".... They 'segments' all seemed to start on an incline and it was all out intense so much so that on the first one, when I hit the downhill section my legs were so fried I could not stand at all... I was bouncing around on my bike until I could recover just enough to stand up for just a few seconds, ouch! And then we hit the sketchy sections of deep narrow ruts and then Karen was flying over the handlebars.. holy crap... I thankfully wasn't hurt nor my bike damaged (well, my handlebars got shifted some but I didn't notice till after the segment was done). I quickly jumped back on and kept going to finish that segment 2nd. It sucked riding tough trails all out like that after four days of racing. It seemed a bit dangerous to be riding such knarly trails in a full tilt mode. Maybe I should have brought the dualie out for this day... hmm.. It was a few more stages similar to that, although one of them was a super sketchy downhill down a stream bed of big boulders for a good stretch -- you hit something just wrong in there and it's going to really really hurt... I ended up 3rd overall in the cumulative time for the stage. The stage wasn't intended to shake up the GC (general classification standings) and it didn't but I lost ~45 seconds on the day. Rebecca and Selene seemed to be riding really strong.

Post race, many of us waded in the cool lake water. I realized later on how good a recovery tool this is and need to keep that in mind for other races - cold on the legs/body post-race. It was fun hanging out with everyone for a stage and I think that was a main goal of the stage for everyone to ride together. It felt a bit harder than I would have liked. I was also getting rather anxious about my 2nd place lead dwindling going into the last hard stage of climbing and singletrack. I got back to camp which by now was getting a pretty funky smell in the lodge and everything felt damp and icky from the high humidity all week. I kept up with all my recovery tools and a couple other racers in the cabin wanted to use my foam roller and stick... It was cool - the camaraderie in the lodge - them wanting me to hold onto 2nd and hoping Drew would make it back onto the podium and possible top GC standings.. I was trying to downplay it knowing that Rebecca could have a great strong ride the next day and 6 minutes could go poof, She's a very experienced endurance/stage racer and this is my first and just finishing hanging in the top 3 is pretty darn sweet. Of course holding onto 2nd would also be very sweet.

Day 6 - the "queen stage" 24 miles of some of the best singletrack in the area - and some climbing... Friday was another remote start with the finish leaving a ~5 mile mellow ride back to camp. We loaded up on the bus at 9 again. It was ~45 minute drive. We had almost an hour to kill once we got to the start to warm-up and be, oh, just a tad bit anxious...Warming up I wasn't feeling too hot. I felt kind of sleepy again but not quite as bad as on Wednesday. It had rained overnight but the woods looked pretty dry, but there was mega humidity hanging in the air. The men's race was still super contentious. They actually paced the beginning of the stage in what felt like a "fast neutral" start until the steeper climb began. It was kind of nice warming up like that although a bit "road race" like in that many were jockeying for position so it was sometimes hard to keep a line in the pack. Rebecca's boyfriend came up beside me and clipped my handlebars and almost made me crash. I was like "hey', cut the shi...". I knew it was a ploy to take me out...kidding :) ! Anyway, we start the double track climb that starts getting steeper. Selene yet again riding strong off the front and I manage to get by Rebecca. I would do the over shoulder glance back from time to time to gauge where she was and how soon she might "warm up" and come kick my butt... but she didn't. The humidity and thick air was giving her lungs a hard time again. I wasn't ruling her out as coming back on strong though. I told myself even if she does catch up she's got to make up 6 minutes. It really was SUPER humid that day. By the top of long climb I was drenched in sweat. My gloves were soaked! It made the first descent, which was one of the toughest of the race, really difficult. I could barely hold on. I kept cat and mousing the single speeders and unfortunately this downhill was no where to pass someone. I stayed upright somehow and my hands and arms were killing by the end of it. But, positive note, I was feeling good. I had some legs again :) yippee!!! There was lots of great singletrack, some very rough sections followed by some flowing sections (thankfully). I was trying to stay well fueled again and well hydrated. I came into the aid station where they told me Selene was only about a minute up. The next section was an awesome ridgeline trail - a short ascent to the ridge and then a long crossing. It was so much fun. I caught up to Selene on this stretch and debated trying to duke it out but figured it wasn't really worth it since she was so far ahead time wise it would only mean a "possible' stage win and at what expense if I could even manage to pass her... She went off again after my making contact with her. I was just having a blast at the point.

We eventually dropped down to a dirt road for a bit. There was a huge snake on the side of the road. I saw it and thought it was stick at first and then realized it was a snake and then realized how big of a snake it was... yikes! Although, I couldn't quite tell if it was alive or not but I wasn't going to wait around to see for sure. There was another pretty tough climb before we descended to the finish. I came in 2nd and had managed to cement my 2nd place standing. Selene was about a 1 1/2 minutes ahead. I was stoked. It was great to see the body come around like that after racing all week. I totally didn't think I would be able to finish out like that. I was constantly counting the days till we finished and Selene and Rebecca were like, why do you keep doing that? and I'm like because I'm not sure how this all goes. It's tough. Prior to the start of this stage, we had mentioned just riding for fun on the final stage since the standings were pretty set so I knew for the most part this was it. It did really feel like the last day of racing to me.

I rode back to camp, although at first I was worrying I took the wrong turn but finally made it to a point that I recognized. I cleaned up quickly and jumped in my car to head to town and get some good food and ice cream and just vege away from camp for a bit... and spend my $20 gift card I had won to a sports store in town. I couldn't decide what to get at first, but ultimately bought a new bladder for my camelback that was getting all nasty this week from daily use and being subjected to warmth and humidity all the time. I did have a pretty bad headache again. I'm guessing I hadn't drank enough water for the day. Dinner was yummy, although it was still tough stomaching a decent sized meal. Ice cream was good too but I couldn't finish it! I actually threw out some ice cream... What's up with that!!! What has happened to karen?..

Back to camp for awards and hanging out. The lodge I was staying at seemed to have most of the singlespeeders. They're a breed of their own.. in a mostly good way. A bit intimidating initially but once you get to know them, they're pretty cool, they are mountain bikers after all. I can't imagine doing this race on a singlespeed and many of them do it on a rigid singlespeed- i.e. no suspension. No way!! I would be so wrecked doing that. Kudos to them!!! So they wanted to know I was "cool" too so I finally had a beer that night with them, how you pass up a Dogfish 60 minute IPA... mmm.. and I knew the final stage was going to be a chill ride. yee ha!!!

Stage 7 - 21 miles of mostly fun singletrack...
So we had made our pact to have a fun ride and keep the GC as it was for the last day - well, the women and the singlespeeders that is. The open men and master men were still duking it out.. in the open men's category 2nd and 3rd were tied after 6 days of racing and 4th was like 10 seconds back from that.. wow! so there was a big gap at the start line from those who were racing and those of us were riding. The singlespeeders drank beer the whole ride. So we rode together for this final stage for a bit. Rebecca's asthma was still acting up and she told us to go on without her. So Selene, myself and the duo women (Kristin Gavin and Nikki Thieman sp?) all rode the stage together. We had a good time socializing and riding chill. The climbs still hurt though and it was wet in the woods from overnight rain. The stage still flew by pretty quickly and we finished up in ~2'15" keeping the order of GC standing. Wow, I survived my first stage race. I think I want to go ride the ridgeline trail again :)

The post-race dinner was great - they put on a sit-down meal of steak and shrimp and potatoes.. yummy, and some wine from a local winery. There was lots more great schwag for all the racers finishing. We all received finish medals and wooden stand for it to sit in which they're sending out plaques in a week or two with our names and finish times to put on the stand; and a very nice backpack with TSE logo; and a great picture from the race photographer - my picture is great - happy racing face :) There was lots of partying going on. I was kind of a party pooper though and just hung out with a few fellow racers at my lodge. The party was going on at the other lodge which was fine with me as I was rather tired and glad to get to bed at a decent time - so lame in my old age...

I woke up early and could tell I wouldn't fall back asleep, so I got up and finished packing the car and headed home by 6:30AM. It was a chill ride home. Lots of reflecting on the week - that it went so well for my first stage race, and things to make note of to do better if I do this again, which I'm guessing I probably will (ok mom? :).

Kudos again to the race directors for putting on a wonderful race. I am looking forward to next year's edition. Great competition, wonderful fellow racers etc. Excellent way to spend a week. It was kind of weird having to be back to work as usual... Although, I was reunited with my pug, Bruschi, who was pooped out himself after hanging at my folks house all week playing in their big yard. Thanks mom and dad!

I highly recommend this stage race as it's lots of fun, tough, but doable! Great trails, great people, well run...and I think it will probably just get better.

Lumberjack 100 is up next - June 19th!

Transylvania Stage Race

2010-06-07T10:30:00.004-04:00

2010 Inaugural Transylvania Stage Race

First off I want to send out a big thank you to Mike Kuhn and Ray Adams for putting on a wonderful stage race. It was very well organized and everything ran smoothly as far as I could tell. The volunteers were great, including Mike and Ray’s parents who were instrumental in seeing this stage race come together. Their parents even made some of the prizes – like the very cool and unique handmade TSE coaster – I love it! The photographer, A.E. Landes Photography was great too. Abe put together a slide show each evening of the day’s stage. Also, a bit shout out to Freeze Thaw cycles out of State College who were the onsite mechanics working very very hard everyday. They fixed my seatpost creaking issues... yeah!!! Mike and Ray had some great schwag for prizes for everyone who finished as well as for daily stage winners. I hope they can continue to secure good sponsorship for this race, which I imagine they will be able too since it seemed to be a big hit this inaugural year.

The TSE was a great first stage race for me to enter into this new format of racing. Granted, half way through, I was thinking I wasn’t going to survive, but that had nothing to do with how the race was put on. It was tough but doable and with some really fun stages to boot. Finishing out the week, I’d say maybe, just maybe, it was a tad short, although that’s because I am done now and at home looking at a couple of nice rest weeks before my next 100 miler. But I really don’t feel ‘wrecked’ like I anticipated feeling finishing this race. I was a tad worried about doing this race on a hardtail, but my carbon Felt 29er worked great. I had no mechanicals aside from the seatpost issue.

There was good variety in the stages, although, I wasn’t particularly keen on the long ‘roady’ day, but it was a break from the rocky, rough terrain of PA. And unfortunately, my most tired day, Stage 4 at Raystown, was some of the most fun, fastest trail riding I’ve done in a while – smooth, giant pump track like terrain. It was sweet. I would love to go back there to ride those trails on fresh legs. There are some wonderful trail systems in PA. We got to ride lots of them in this race and hopefully even more of them next year. I won’t lie – it is rocky, but mostly it’s just purely true mountain biking in my book. And my competition was pretty tough but I was pleased to hang in there in 2nd place with some really experienced endurance racers, and make lots of new riding friends.

I’ll get to the nitty gritty perhaps in individual posts per stage! Along with pictures shortly.

Cohutta 100 - First Race of the Season

2010-04-27T20:47:00.009-04:00

I'm feeling a bit out of practice writing this race report. Maybe it's because I'm past my post-caffeine, long-drive craze frame of mind.

Well, the first race of the season didn't quite go as well as I had hoped. I still had a pretty decent race overall coming in 5th in 8:53, but it just felt 'off'. The women's field had some really strong competitors which was leaving me a bit anxious coming into this race. And the week leading into the race was less than restful.

I had finished up a pretty hard, high volume training block on the previous Sunday feeling, finally, pretty good on my new Felt Carbon 29er. It has taken me some time to get it dialed in and well, still needs some tweaking fit wise for me. But towards the end of the last training ride, I flatted my 2-week old bontrager acx and put a tear in it so it was useless as tubeless tire at that point. Also, I had some stomach/intestinal bug coming on that made my drive home from my favorite trails in Amherst area a pretty uncomfortable ride. I recovered mostly from it by the next morning. I then spent most of Monday traveling from bike shop to bike shop picking up race supplies (CO2s, tubes) and trying to find a new tire for my bike. I had my dog, Bruschi, with me who was acting very oddly as if he were car-sick, and he usually loves riding in the car crazily chasing passing cars as far as the vehicle will let him. But not today. I get finally get home with just enough time to walk him and get to my office for my massage client, and as I hurriedly let him out of the car, I shut the door and lock my keys, my phone... everything in the car. :( :( erggg.... An hour later, AAA opens the door in like two seconds and I'm running off like a maniac.

Tuesday, I was still dealing with bike fit issues and was really stressed out that doing a 100 miles was totally going to wreak havoc on my body because something was "off".
Wednesday was a bit less stressful, except for I woke dragging and feeling like I was coming down with a head cold - what the *^**^ ? Anyway, Doug had been up in Boston for a sales conference/trade show so he drove us down to Maryland Wednesday night, and I actually kept falling asleep most of the drive which is unusual for me. After not getting in until 1:30AM, we woke up ridiculously early as Doug thought it was another 14 hrs down to the race so we were trying to hit the road by 7am. Thankfully gps informed us it was only another 9hrs to southeast Tennessee, not far from the Georgia border. I fell asleep again on the drive down for a bit. We arrived at our hotel around 5PM, relaxed for a few and put up feet up to let them drain from the long drive. Then off to get some eats and a much needed good night's sleep.

Friday morning, I woke up feeling fairly rested but I didn't like that my throat was feeling pretty scratchy. We walked over to the breakfast joint nearby to hang out with the locals for a late morning breakfast. Afterwards, I just chilled out for bit reading a book while Doug got some work done. Then it was time to head off to the race site to get our race packets and stretch out the legs on the bike. I started to get really anxious on the 1/2 hr drive to the site. The race was being staged from the Ocoee Whitewater Center which was the where the 1996 olympics whitewater competition took place. It is an absolutely beautiful area, rolling hills/small mountains, lakes, rivers and it was pretty green already, although the pollen was really high and making me rather congested.

We got our race packets and took the bikes out for a spin. We rode the first 10 miles of the course which starts with a 2 mile road climb and then drops into some really sweet swooping, sweeping fast singletrack. It was actually kind of dusty on the trails which was making me a bit concerned I didn't bring my riding sunglasses, but lets just say that wasn't an issue at all! It was a beautiful day out, sunny, low 80s, aahhh.. As we're about to get back to the whitewater center, I notice something that doesn't quite look like a stick and let out a really loud scream and Doug's like 'what the heck was that?"... snake!!.. as we're already by it. What a girl! heehehee

We headed back to the hotel to pack up our drop bags for the aid stations (which I had annoyingly forgot about bringing my stuff with me so we could do it when we registered, which meant another 1/2 hr back up to the center).. then it was dinner and to bed early again. It's always tough to sleep well the night before one of these races. I try to push out any thoughts of the race and think I'm being successful but then the thoughts come back and the butterflies flutter away...

5 AM comes early but I'm awake before the alarm goes off. I eat quickly, have my espresso and we head to the race. It had rained overnight and the forecast was less than stellar, like 70% of rain and severe weather... lovely... It's still dark as we pull in to the parking lot and get ready to go. The staging area for the start was a narrow chute, and since I had waited in a long line for an outhouse so I didn't have great positioning at the start. It was a fast, hard start up the road climb but I knew it was important to go hard and get in as best a position as I could going into the first long stretch of singletrack. I felt ok on the climb, not stellar but not bad, but I didn't have a good sense of who of my competitors were ahead of me. I figured quite a few.

The first 25 miles were mostly fun, fast singletrack. There was some climbing, nothing too sustained in there but enough that I was noticing I didn't really feel like I had "great" legs and could just power up them all that well like I should be able to. That was a bit disconcerting, but I chalked it up to maybe having gone a bit hard for the first road climb after not having warmed up at all. I was riding with the 4th place woman (although not knowing our positions at that point) for a bit but she dropped me once we started in on the long, long, long dirt road climbs. I had in my head for some reason that the singletrack was the "hard part" of the race and that the 60 miles of dirt road would be relatively easy.... ha! It wasn't the same hour long uninterrupted climb like in Shenandoah. You would climb a bit, then descend briefly, and climb again, brief break... but my legs weren't liking it. I kept hoping they would come around but I was just feeling very inefficient. I felt like I was putting out a hard effort but just not getting anything for it so I started wondering about my tire choice, the bike fit, being sick.... and lots of stuff that wasn't going to help me get through the race. I forged on.

My "fuel" in my drop bag was at aid station 3 which was a long ways out ~50 miles or more. I was guessing the first 20-30 miles would go fast and the roughly every 15 mile aid station would be closer to mile 45. In retrospect, I wish I had dropped my bags at Aid station 2 and 4... oh well.. And sometime before aid station 3, the sky opens up and man does it start storming. Nice!! Well I'm glad I did wear the windbreaker vest after all, guess I won't be leaving it on my drop bag. It's windy, whipping, pouring rain, thunder, lightening. The dirt roads held up pretty well but they were definitely starting to feeling slow and sticky and energy draining. After Aid 3, there's a bit more climbing but then it's down down down, with some annoying "rollers" still but the up is nice at this point since coming down soaking wet was freeeezzzinng (think warm fuzzy thoughts, karen, warm...)..and the ups would let you warm up some. Oh, but crossing the top of the mountain, still within tree line, the wind blew me across the trail a couple of times, pretty crazy... I was like, well I guess this is what it's like to do one of these 100s in the rain.

I felt a little bit better on the second half of the course although still not quite as well as I would have liked. The dirt road just went on and on. The pouring rain actually cleaned off a lot of the mud and dirt until the last section of singletrack. I was again having foolish thoughts that this last singletrack was "mostly" downhill, yeah right for 8 miles..., but nope, starts out on this slight climb that's all bogged down and muddy now. I'm like come on...and it's not even really singletrack at this point either. When I finally do get on the true singletrack, I was annoyed at how much climbing there was in it and it was getting sloppy and muddy and my bike didn't want to shift into easy gears all that well... It felt like it kept going and going, and I was like just put us out on the road, despite being a devote singletrack lover. Finally, finally, the end is in sight. The course drops down to the road we drove in on to the whitewater center and follows that for about a mile to the finish.. yeee haawww.. I pedaled hard as I realized I would make it under 9 hours, a feat I didn't think was going to happen this day.

I was completely covered in mud, as was my bike. I just walked down to the river and half-got in and tried to get a lot of the mud off. I wasn't planning well on this front as I only had a small hand towel and couple wash cloths to try to get clean with - not an easy task, and try not to get Doug's vehicle too messy.

I actually felt pretty decent finishing up - my bike didn't totally wreck my body, nor the course per se...my stomach actually felt pretty normal and I wasn't feeling overly smoked. So, I guess that's good. Perhaps, I need some fast two-hour racing to get me going from the long steady pace...

I wasn't sure where I finished up as they didn't post results past 3rd for a bit. I was quite surprised that I managed 5th with how it went for me on the course. So, we waited around the awards ceremony and then I caught up with some of my fellow racers who all such truly wonderfully nice people (and I don't mean to sound sappy saying that). Then back to the hotel to get cleaned up... might I say there were some very dirty butts... :0 We just ordered some pizza delivery and had a couple of beers and called it a night. It's hard to sleep post race too. Too much adrenaline? Too much sugar all day? I slept ok for post-race. My knees were really achey so I know I need to figure out what's not quite right with my position the bike, that and to find my "power" position on it. It's a beautiful bike and gave me no issues in this race so I can only imagine how good it will be when I'm fitted to it properly. This was my first race using Carborocket, one of my team's sponsors. It worked really well for me. I've noticed that I feel pretty satisfied/not hungry while using it in this race and during training and it's easy on my stomach. Also, yummy honey stinger chews, another of my team sponsors. I am very grateful for their support.

We had intended to wash the bikes before heading home but didn't feel like dragging them out of the car again. We drove home heading east first into the mountains through North Carolina and stopped in Asheville for lunch and to check out the sites - very pretty area. My knees were pretty stiff the day after the race. I didn't want to have to bend down for anything. It made me feel pretty decrepit, although that's all that was really sore on me so I can't complain too much. The drive back up through Virginia was pretty uneventful, had to skirt around one accident but not too bad. Ate some dinner at a brewpub we found in Harrisonburg last year when down in that area for the Shenandoah 100. Doug was nice enough to drive so I could enjoy some good brew :) Then we drove into some of the thunderstorms still hitting the area which was a bit treacherous after a long day's drive. We finally arrived back in Maryland at Doug's around 11 just at my threshold of being in the car.

I finished up my drive home with rain the whole way about 8:30PM on Monday.

Time for some rest and recovery, kick this congestion out, and get the bike all set for my next adventure the end of this month - the Transylvania Stage Race -- what have I gotten myself into?? :) :) :)

Many thank you's to my sponsors for iRideAdentures/MTBRaceNews.Com team!!

2010 Season is coming up!!

2010-03-29T09:44:00.005-04:00

I can't believe the season is about to start. My first 100 is less than a month away! I was feeling pretty good about all this back in January doing some long rides and feeling pretty good, but the past month has been a bit tough training wise from getting a bit "stuck" so to speak from a crash on a snowmobile trail on an icy corner and straining my back pretending I was Wonder Woman at the gym...It made training extremely exhausting (mentally and physically). I was starting to worry that I had maybe burned myself out, but I was feeling good in January?!.. But, I'm back on track after some help getting "unstuck" from Carol at Biosynchronistics and Jan of Step Beyond Physical Therapy. If you have never experienced manual therapy bodywork and are having chronic pain or some other injury - go see someone who practices it!!

So, I apologize to those who I told I would blog about my ski racing adventures over the winter and I didn't. I'll give a quick rundown here. I basically started off right where I left off, just under the pretty slow time of 40 seconds, even with no time on skis prior to the first night of racing (see, I'm obviously not more passionate about ski racing than bike racing, something about it being really cold out...). I attribute the fact that I started where I left off to some better skis this season thanks to the "Chair" of skichair.com. I got many comments on them and I couldn't even tell you why they're so "awesome" for ski racing, hmm... I wish I could live up to ski's abilities... Each week I'd tell myself I'd get up to the mountain to actually practice before the next week's race, but somehow that never happened. I did manage to get a little bit faster and a little bit faster for the first half of the season. I had my first crash I believe the third week of racing clipping a gate. It was pretty undramatic except for that it was so close to the end of the course and in view of the spectators. A couple of pre-race clinics helped me get a bit more speed. Although, one of the time we were practicing getting out of the gates faster and when I applied to my race, I kept nearly crashing out of the gate. Oddly enough my fastest time, 36 seconds, came on a run that I did almost crashed right out of the gate and near the bottom of the course almost totally blew a gate. When I finished and heard my time, I was like -- no way! for real! And was pretty excited. I thought I could better that, but not this season. That was about it for excitement on the ski slopes. The weather got a bit warmer the last few weeks of racing which made the course get really chewed up/grooved in the corners which as a 'newbie' skier is pretty scary. I did better on them this year than last year. My mantra down the course was "stay in the grooves, stay in the grooves, stay in the grooves their faster.." - oh crap.. that one's really deep.... anyway, it was a good time. Maybe next year I will finally actually practice some. But, it was a good time - fun people.

Back to biking - so this year I will be racing for i Ride Adventures/MTB Race News.com and was hooked up with a Felt Team 29er to race on. I got the bike two weeks ago and have had three rides on it so far. It's pretty sweet, super lightweight, and will be awesome for the 100s this year. It's been a bit interesting going from my epic (dual suspension) to a hardtail again. At least the epic mostly rides like a hardtail until you hit bumps, so it's the until I hit bumps part I need to remember, but the larger volume 29er tires help eat up the impact for sure. The felt rolls super fast on open stretches and when I get rid of the 'rider error', I'm sure I'll be riding super fast on the tight twisty New England singletrack. I was getting a bit schooled on some of my local trails by my buddy who swears by the 29ers now this past weekend, but I'll catch em...

I have some big training weekends coming pre-Cohutta (April 24th). It does almost seem too early to be doing a 100 miler in April coming from New England but the winter wasn't too bad for training overall. Kind of quirky -- like riding in Western Mass in February - where usually it's always riding the Cape or other coastal areas during the winter. I only rode on the Cape twice this winter.

It's time to get race face on -- or something akin to that. Get the new rig totally dialed in :)
It's going to be a great year racing!! New sponsors, etc. I'll post some pictures with my new kit once they come in, which probably won't be till post-Cohutta.

Till Cohutta !

End of the Season

2009-12-18T21:53:00.003-05:00

Oh, joy, winter is here. I am having a hard time dealing with the fact that winter is here in full force. I'm not quite sure if that is because we had such a mild November, and because I was riding in bike shorts on December 3rd that it's so hard to take this ridiculously cold weather and a terribly first snowstorm to boot. whine whine whine... one of these days I will truly move to Arizona.

So I did finish up the cross season this past weekend with a couple of wins racing Saturday in the Ice Weasels Race in Wrentham and Sunday in the Beer Cross finals in Dayville, CT. The races were pretty fun. Ice weasels was about half snow covered with some pretty icy corners which kept me (and most racers) from racing full-tilt for fear of seriously injuring oneself. I went down once but in a silly slow u-turn mud corner, but I'll take that over the hard pack icy ones. There was a great turn-out at Ice Weasels even with most racers off at Nationals out in Bend Oregon. Lots of beer and cupcake handups in the men's races..

Sunday's Beer Cross had a smaller field. There was much less snow in Dayville so the pace was a bit faster. The snow that was there had amazing traction until it started raining at the beginning of the women's race. Very fun course, fun singletrack, good runup that forces you to get back on and clipped in for a downhill right away.

Then it was onto a week of "play", ie, I could ride if I felt like it or not... Of course boredom has totally set in with there being just enough snow on the trails to make it tough going, but mostly rideable (I rode in Millbury on Wed but got sick of the slow going quickly). I need to get some exercise in but it's mostly boring choices, trainer or jogging and not even jogging in the wood. The snow is such ick snow. It would almost be better to just get some decent snow pack for snowshoeing etc.

So, I really only have a three week break from racing and then it's onto downhill slalom ski racing at Mt. Wachusett. ooohhhh.. because I'm wicked fast, not. Funny, my neighbor, who owns www.skichair.com, convinced me it would be so much fun and that it's just like bike racing, although I haven't quite made that connection yet (maybe I'll figure it out this year). So I decided to try it last year after not skiing for like 4 years and probably only having skied about 10 times in my entire life. I was semi-hoping the coach would nix the idea when I asked him what he thought of my racing and fitting it into the training plan and then I'd be off the hook, but I got the ok on the premise it would keep me "fresh" over the winter. Let me point out that I have up my "rest day" for ski racing. It was interesting and fun once I got the hang of what I was doing. Oddest thing was being such a beginner again, like these people who race are like me in bike racing. There's all this 'ski talk' that I'm not well versed in, handicaps, medals, etc. etc.. I'm a year more 'versed' now so hopefully I'll have something to add to the post-racing ski chats at the bar drinking some Tuckermans :) I'm sure I'll still be wicked pathetically slow, but I'll set some goals and go with it. It's just for fun. Ski racing starts Tuesday after New Years. We had a kickoff party last Thursday night and of course all the true skiers there were stoked for winter and skiing etc and I'm like, this blows, it's cold and the ground is covered in snow :( I just got some glares..

Finally, some excellent news. I finally got some sponsorship. I'll be racing for www.mtbracenews.com next year thanks to Amada Carey, a fellow endurance and cyclocross racer, who connected me up with her friend who is organizing the team. Our bike sponsor is Felt Bicycles so I'll be racing on a new bike next year, going with a 29er (for non-bikees - bigger wheels versus regular 26 inch mtb bike wheels)... should be a pretty sweet ride, going hardtail though so I definitely need to keep up the core exercises, but I think it's going to be fast ride for the 100s. Looking forward to getting it and dialing it in. I'll post some pics and other team info as it all comes together. The plan for 2010 is the NUE series again starting with Cohutta in Tennessee April 24th and continuing on the same five I did this year. And, I'm going to do my own grass roots stage race for some good torture, likely late June/begging of July -- some of the days I have planned I'm thinking the dualie might be good to soften the ride, but we'll see.

Happy holidays!!

Late Cross Report

2009-11-24T13:57:00.002-05:00

So I left off taking a break post-Gloucester race, oh so long ago... and well, the Coach said "if I want to keep racing cross this year, I had to take a break for a couple weeks." So I did. Well I got a head cold post-Gloucester and really needed a break then. So I proceeded to get lazy and fat...and slow.. I was pretty focused there for a few weeks on trying to find some sponsorship for racing next year, but that has proved to be fruitless thus far. I guess I have to be an "world cup" status rider, which I'm not...and don't really want to do that kind of racing scene.

After a couple weeks off from riding or training or racing, it put me at the New Glocester Maine races. That Saturday the weather was cold, icky and very wet, so I decided one more day off might not be a bad thing for the head. So I went to Maine and raced in the nasty thick mud on Sunday, but at least is was a nice day out. It definitely would have been nice to have a pit bike for this race. I actually started pretty well but fell back into 7th for a while, until the second to last lap when I picked some bad lines in the woods and got stuck and passed by a couple other riders. I finished up 9th questioning the purpose of this kind of racing. I haven't quite figured out what is so fun about it -- suffering for 40 minutes. I just don't want to work that hard. Anyway, 9th got me a couple UCI points, woo hoo... (it really doesn't matter at this point).

So the following weekend I raced Sunday Nov 1st in Putney, VT. The weather was spectacular and no rain the day before so the course was dry. The field was pretty small but definitely some great racers there. Again, I started well and then fell into 4th place. I was going back and forth with 3rd for awhile and 2nd had a gap on us that we weren't closing very fast nor was it getting too much bigger. I was feeling pretty good for this race, rested, etc., but still totally thinking I'm retarded for doing this as it hurts so much. It's just so much suffering condensed into 45 minutes. You would think from the 100s I'd have the capacity to suffer for a long time, but it's so much different. Anyway, I decided it was time to chase down 2nd place even if all I accomplished was getting on her wheel, so I dug deep and reeled her in and dropped the other rider. Now it was coming down to the last lap and the last run up to try to pull off 2nd place. I came out of the cornfield and just hammered, whatever hammer you have at that point in a race isn't much, and dropped her but she caught back on before the runup so I thought I was screwed since I just blew everything I had on that attack. I felt like I was going to fall down the hill trying to "run" up it. the legs were swearing at me... but she stayed right behind me so I knew I had a good shot for taking 2nd and just hopped on my bike and told my legs to get moving and held her off... phew.. That was kind of fun, not at that exact moment when it hurt like heck and my heartrate shot through the roof. Funny, cooling down after the race chatting with 3rd and 4th place ladies, they were like "i love cross" it's so mellow, blah blah blah.. and I'm like "what!" mellow?! you're kidding.. this is so intense coming off 100s. Anyway, it was a good day racing, I still am not convinced I like to cross race but for some stupid reason I keep doing them.

The following weekend I raced the next Verge series race in Northampton. This time there was a pretty stacked field. I only raced Saturday as I had "better" plans for Sunday and it made no sense to me to suffer two days in a row, well not this late in the season... On my drive out there, I knew I was feel so so and certainly not motivated to race. I was wishing I had my mnt bike and probably would have easily convinced myself to go mtn biking instead of racing. But I raced. And it went kind of like I thought it might giving how I was feeling. I just didn't have much of a punch in the legs. My start was so so, not bad, not great. I fell back some again. Perhaps I should just start sucko and then use that energy to move up, but that doesn't usually work out very well in cross racing, well certainly not if you hope to hang with the top dogs, but hey, I'm not hanging with them all that well so I shouldn't be so concerned about that. I battled it out mid-pack absolutely telling myself that I don't like this. But stuck it out to finish in an all out sprint for a couple hundred yards - that I actually held off the woman drafting me which was probably the only highlight of this race for me. I finished 14th.

Then I took a weekend off on a trip out to Pittsburgh. Did an absolutely beautiful ride on Saturday 11/14 out there - mid-70s and sunny. It was great, no watch, no heart rate monitor, just playing. It was nice. I realized some of my not loving cross this year was I had set myself up to want to get to the world cup in Belgium which I knew was a completely lofty goal but I thought it was a possibility, until I found out the requirements to get in which there was no way I was going to qualify unless I was winning or at least top 5 every Verge race which is just silly not having focused on training for cross. Doing the 100s is such a different ballgame and I think I knew that intellectually, I just thought I could make the switch over better - not that I'm doing bad, just not as good as I had hoped so post-break, I've been trying to readjust the expectations and try to have some fun racing cross rather than taking it so seriously, which I admit fully, is tough for me to do.

This past weekend, I raced Shed Park, Lowell race which was a decent field, but a lot of the top riders had gone down to New York for a UCI event. The course was a lot of fun and the weather was great for mid-November, 50s and mostly sunny. I started pretty well and was leading for a lap and then got passed and just hung in 2nd the rest of the race. I didn't have a lot of zip in the legs, just some ability to maintain a pretty high output but not top notch. I actually felt better racing Sunday which kind of surprised me. I went to my mnt bike sponsor's race, Beer Cross, put on my Danielson Adventure Sports. I knew the fields were going to be small given the UCI race in New York and another race out in Easthampton that was part of series had unfortunately drawn most of the local riders. I went to the race knowing I'd race with the 'boys' for a hard race. The field was pretty small, but I had my boyfriend to beat, and couple other friends I ride with (or have ridden with a lot in the past) to beat... I was a bit concerned about this, beating them, and this having to beat them,.. was going against what the coach and I had discussed about not focusing on "outcome"... hahhaa.. anyway, the course is a blast..I highly recommend everyone come race Beer Cross 3 and 4 Sat/Sun 12/12-13 - it's a lot of fun, grassroots, good for anyone wanting to try out cross as well as some good competition on a great course - really good mix in it - I of course love the single track sections, but there's a track start and lots of flats, a small climb and decent run up that forces you to get on right away at the top... so I took off and lead the boys around the first corner and then got passed by the winner pretty quickly. I battled in 2nd for a couple more laps and then got passed by 2 and 3 and stayed there the rest of the race, although my friend who beat me at the mnt bike time trials back in the early summer was closing in behind me. I was getting pretty worried he was just getting smoother on the course and was going to overtake me, but he didn't close up the gap enough and going into the last lap I put the hammer down, well at least for the little climb in the beginning that I was figuring was hurting him more than me by this point since to his credit, he had raced the mens-4 race that morning...and put a larger gap between us. And since two cross races in one weekend wasn't enough, a couple women showed up so I raced with them as well, and on a victory lap around the track drank my beer for Beer cross !
Really, this is a great race - go race it in December - lots of fun, totally laid back. I can truly say I had fun at cross race finally! It's not sanctioned so you dont' need a license to race it and mtn bikes are ok.

So a few more weeks of cross racing.. a few more weeks to have "fun".. hahahaha
and then short rest and back then back to serious mode for the 100s next year ! no more drinking, eating ice cream, and other totally fattening foods... (um right)

Early Cyclocross Racing

2009-10-04T12:08:00.008-04:00

So, I should be up at Gloucester today for Day 2 of the 2nd round of Verge racing, but I think the body has finally protested adequately to too many weekends in a row of racing. So, instead I'll update my blog and get some sponsorship requests together and chill for change.

I raced Suckerbrook in Auburn, NH the weekend after Tahoe (9/20/09). It went well. I came in 5th and felt reasonable strong during the race, although I didn't quite feel like I had a lot "juice" in my legs. Funny, Zanc (mike zanconato, my cross bike builder) asked me what I thought of the dusty conditions of the course and I was like, this is nothing...I've been racing super dusty courses for the past two weeks. It was pretty dry, but traction was good. I started ok but then let myself get passed in the first couple of corners because I don't quite trust my cross skills yet and I'm just not used to being that aggressive on the bike. Then I have a lot of work cut out for me to get back into good standing. I got going and picked off some riders and then hung in with the 4th place finisher for the last couple of laps. There wasn't too much to the course to excel as mountain biker, but for the first one out 5th wasn't too shabby.

Then it was off to Vermont the next weekend to begin the Verge Series races. I went into the weekend not having slept well for a few nights, and then Doug and I and Bruschi were camping out in Burlington pretty much right on Lake Champlain. I didn't sleep well Friday night, especially since I was camping with Bruschi in the tent who didn't seem to want to settle down. Saturday morning was a chilly day, but the walk along the lake in the morning was absolutely stunning. Breakfast at the Skinny Pancake was excellent, but perhaps a tad heavy, but I thought I'd be ok for the 4PM race start. I was feeling pretty wiped out though, and debated just skipping Saturdays race and trying to get some rest for Sunday's race, but I couldn't bag a race yet... So I head off to the race venue, register, warm up and get ready to race. I started terribly - missed my pedal and was totally off balance. I had all I could do to stay upright and not knock down any other racers. I would have been horrified if I had been the "one" to take everyone out at the start. So needless to say i was off the gate slow on this one. I worked my way up some positions. The course had a lot of climbing on it, which after climbing for over an hour in my 100s I thought would be no big deal but they hurt. I was able to gap a couple racers finally on an uphill in the woods that had a few logs in it that I was able to ride while they would run it. Aside from my start, I was happy with how focused I was on the race. Focus is pretty big in these races, unlike the 100s where you can zone out for long periods of time pedaling up some climb forever. Anyway, I came in 12th on Saturday which I was please with given the talented racers there, my terrible start and being so tired. I was a bit crabby that night to say the least. I just wanted some dinner and bed. But I probably waited to long to get food in me and I only slept so so Saturday night. At least Bruschi was tired out from a long day at the race.

Rain came in overnight which I knew would make for an interesting day racing, but a muddy course would actually be good for me as a mountain biker. I was still pretty wiped out. I knew it was going to be a tough day racing. I'm not used to racing hard back to back days so I was worried about that, had been worrying about that during Saturdays race when i was thinking there's no way I can do this again... The course Sunday was a lot a different. The corners were pretty greasy but it wasn't all that muddy. Warming up I knew I was kind of in trouble for having a stellar performance, but I tried to convince myself that the legs would come around. I focused on getting my food in the pedal at the start and did, and actually started really well. I was amazed at the sprint I had, but that was about it. I faded in the first climb and got passed by a bunch of woman. I held on as best I could and did manage to pull in some riders. I was pleased to see that I was actually passing them on corners which I hadn't felt was a strong suit of mine in cyclocross, so that was a confidence booster. Anyway, I ended up 11th on Sunday, in a slightly smaller field. The legs were definitely cooked, but I was happy to see I could race back to back days. Then it was the long drive home and time to get some good rest for going into Gloucester races. Doug was awesome supporting me at the races, taking pics, taking care of bruschi and putting up with my crabbiness.. and then driving home like a maniac...

So, I kind of knew all week I wasn't feeling great on the bike. My workouts during the week have been really pretty low key so I was hopeful that I could/was recovering from the back to back weekends of racing, but not quite. My heart rate has been low all week and just no zip in the legs. I had signed up for Gloucester already so I didn't not want to go. The forecast was very bleak all week. Rain, rain, rain for Saturday. The rain did come in. I figured what the heck, I haven't done any truly nasty races this year so I thought hey, maybe it could be fun, and certainly the muddy conditions on a more "roadie" type cross course could be to my favor. I showed up in Gloucester to wet, very windy, nasty conditions. I was kind of excited about it. I got a great number 117, how lucky to me... and I actually pinned on my number all by myself very well! (I suck at that, I have to give myself like 1/2 hr extra getting ready :))...
Anyway, warming up I could tell the legs were still feeling kind of like junk still. My heart rate seemed to be responding a bit better, but I just didn't feel great about it. It was freezing on the start line, but once we got going it warmed up fast. I didn't start really great. The legs just weren't there. I did manage to pass a lot of racers early on though in the muddy, nasty corners. That was kind of satisfying. I felt like crap through most of it. The legs just burned way too early and just didn't have much to give. I was kind of bummed out about that since I was riding the course pretty well and certainly had a advantage with my mnt bike skills. Thankfully we only had 3 laps, as I was totally fading in the 3rd lap. I had yo yo'd with a few riders, passing them in the nasty stuff and then getting beat on the flats (not usually the way it goes for me). Kind of frustrating to just feel so crappy. I knew I was cooked from too much racing as much as I hate/d to admit it. I came in 15th, again not too bad with the depth of talented riders in this race. I just wish I had some legs as I know I could have been much further up there and could have had a lot more fun in the mud. So driving home I was pretty bummed out by the fact that I obviously need a break. I heard Providence's course next weekend is a lot of fun and then it's a weekend off after that. I convinced myself that not racing today, Sunday, in Gloucester was good idea and that maybe if I rest all week I can have some better legs for Providence. So, we'll see how that goes.

TAHOE Sierra 100 Miler

2009-09-17T12:36:00.009-04:00

Ahh, the end of the mountain bike season... kind of sad. First off, I'd like to thank all of the wonderful people in my life who have helped me this season and over the years of my bike racing - my mechanic, bike shop sponsor, dog watchers, coach, friends and family for support etc.. thank you very much. It all went by so fast, although the Ohio race seems like an eternity ago.

So, Tahoe... what a beautiful place. I highly recommend getting there at some point to ski, sight see, hike, bike, whatever, it's amazing.

I was a bit worried about this race being at altitude and coming off such a hard effort at Shenandoah dealing with the mechanicals issues etc. I was pretty wiped for a few days post-Shenandoah which hasn't really been the case with the previous 100 miler races this year. I was brain fried till Wednesday evening and feeling kind of stiff and tight from the race and long drive. I brought my bike to my awesome mechanic Brian to help me pack it up in the bike box to fly out on Thursday. I thought this would be like a 15 minute affair but it ended up to be like a 2hr affair and some dinner.... He double checked the bolt on my suspension link to make sure it was all set and it wasn't. So he fixed that, and fixed my bottom bracket that was getting pretty stuck from water having been trapped in the down tube. Thankfully my old epic was still hanging around his basement so he yanked off some parts from that to get me through this race. Then finally on to packing up the bike. I haven't had to do this for a while and looking at the size of the box I was like, there's no way that is going to fit in there. Well, it does with lots of parts coming off. But Brian meticulously packed it all in there. I'm thinking, I'll never get it back together - at least I'll be at a bike shop when I get out there just in case. Since it took awhile I hung out and had dinner and some delicious pie with he and Karen, very yummy - thanks Karen. I headed home pretty late and decided to just pack up Thursday morning.

So, I tried to pack light knowing I'd be lugging around a heavy bike box. I think I did a good job. It was tough to know what to bring as it was supposed to be pretty cold in the evenings out there and get pretty warm during the day. In retrospect, I could have left some things at home for sure, but... I was feeling kind of anxious this morning. I went out for a mellow ride to see how the legs were coming along recovery wise. They felt ok, but I felt heavy chested like I was coming down with a cold. I thought uh oh, that won't be good having a cold on top of being at up in altitude, must take some serious vitamins when I get back. Bruschi meanwhile is looking concerned about the bags getting packed again. But he may have been semi-confused getting left at home since my downstairs neighbor, Paul, was going to watch him for me this time around. I headed to my parents house and my mom drove me to logan express to catch the bus into the airport. It's so much fun lugging that bike box around, actually it wasn't too bad. I realized I hadn't flown for about three years so some of the anxiety was from making sure I made it 'on time' to each of the places I needed to be. Once I was at the airport I actually felt better. I had to check my bike and bag and the airline was on top of their game having a cart already to take it away before I made it to the ticket counter... this is good.

The flight out was pretty long but uneventful. At first getting on the plane I was sitting next to a family with a baby and toddler and i was like oh boy.. I wish I had those Bose headphones (eh, hem, Dad ? j/k)... but they both were incredibly well behaved and quiet, especially for such a long flight out to Phoenix. We actually landed early but got stuck waiting for a gate to open up, and that's when the baby finally had had enough and I was thinking yeah, I could start acting up too now. It was a short layover and then a very full flight up to Reno. Getting on the plane I almost got into a brawl with this chick who had gotten on the plane already but had apparently needed to put her bag in the overhead space down the aisle from where she was sitting and then thought she could just back the line up to get to her seat and we backed up some but we had no where to go and there was an end seat open where she could just pull in to wait for some of us to get by and make some more room but she wasn't about to do that so I asked her why don't you just wait a minute so let some of us by and she flips out on me "why don't you watch your attitude before I slap you?" and I'm like chill out... she pulls aside and we move along and I turn back to the guy behind saying 'that wasn't very nice" and we were just laughing... oh vey.. someone needs to chill, and not me for once.

So I land in Reno after 10PM out there (1 am here)...Doug was flying in a little bit after me but he showed up right as I was getting my bag and bike box. Doug had borrowed his brothers bike and shipped it out to a bike shop ahead of time. So we gather up our stuff (my stuff) and wait for the hotel shuttle to come pick us up... cram all out stuff in and head off the hotel and to sleep.
The time change has thrown me off some so we wake up kind of early but started putting my bike back together. It wasn't as big a deal as it looked like it was going to be. I just couldn't remember how many spacers when in the headset above or below, so I'm like let me call my mechanic, which Doug didn't think he'd know, and I'm like, he'll know... yup, one.. :)
After that just ate some breakfast at the hotel and then waited for the rental minivan to show.. yup, we were styling.. actually it worked out really well for two bikes, luggage etc. Then we off to the bike shop so Doug could put his bike together, make some tweaks and tighten up some stuff on my bike and grab some tubes and co2 cartridges. We left the bike boxes there since we were going to have them pack and ship the bikes home. We drove through downtown Reno on our way out to the race site. Cute little city for sure. And the sky, oh, beautiful clear blue, and once the sun comes up, it warms up quickly. It was a beautiful drive up 80 towards Soda Springs (we were north and west a bit from Lake Tahoe itself for the race).

We were staying at Ice Lakes Lodge, which is a smallish ski lodge, and the race start/finish was right across the street. The picture with of me with the lake behind me was the view from the deck of the lodge. We settle in and grab some lunch at the lodge, delicious chicken salad... which I was thinking kind of wasn't in tune with my coach's advice of eating more carbs and drinking more water to deal with the altitude. Oh well, I'll eat some more carbs at dinner. We relax for a bit, and then head out for a mellow ride. It was basically down down down the dirt road that would be our start of the race. I didn't want to go down too far since we had to come back up that. It was kind of tough to breathe, certainly a bit more labored. The legs and body felt good otherwise so I was happy about that. We road down to this lookout point and man, it was spectacular. The ride back up the road wasn't too bad, then we just around the lake where we were staying and gawked at all the beautiful homes.

It was time to register and get all set up for the race - ie drop bags ready, the bike ready, clothes laid out ready to go etc. I was worried about getting lost on this course as last year was the first year they ran it and a bunch of people got off course and the race director had kept sending out emails ahead of time talking about clearing this trail and marking but the markings were getting taken down, etc. etc..not very comforting... So I did try to study the map and get a sense of the course. There were a lot of aid stations, 10 I think, so you would hit one almost every 10 miles or sooner so that should help in the not going off course. I was still kind of anxious since I knew I needed a good finish to get back into 2nd place in the series. A beer at dinner would have been nice, but I was behaving, behaving all week. We went to bed early, since the time zone difference made it feel late and waking up early was no problem.

The lodge put on a really nice continental breakfast for us and good coffee too! The time was here to start this race. The course was actually shortened to 91 miles which was quite all right with me, and I'm sure everyone...it was really dry out there so it was going to be wicked dusty. We threw around the idea of starting a few minutes after everyone since we were just going mostly downhill for the first 8 miles and it would just be a dust bowl, but I didn't want to lose the leaders so quickly in the race, that and there was a 50 miler option for the race and they were starting a few minutes after the 100 milers. Tinker Juarez was there so I jokingly said I'd stay on his wheel... well I tried at the start but couldn't :( hehehe.. but I was in a good position at the start, got out in a good front pack and actually spaced out nicely for the downhill which was ridiculously dusty and had lots of little boulder rocks strewn about that took out a bunch of people. There were a couple women ahead of me and then the eventual winner and 2nd place woman came by on the first climb. I was just trying to go steady and not go too out of my comfort zone since I didn't know how the body ultimately would respond to the altitude over the long haul. The climbing certainly hurt and it was labored breathing for the effort, but not too bad, not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The course was probably 85-90% dirt roads/jeep road etc, which is kind of boring to me. I had a hard time staying out of my head on this one. There were a few sections of sweet single track but it was made difficult by the deep moon dust - which has no traction whatsoever. You had to be really with your bike to corner in it that stuff and even then you weren't always going to hold your line. It was kind of fun, well when it was downhill, going up in that stuff was nearly impossible. The longer downhill in it was tough too though as with speed into some of the corners you had little chance of making it around. I was doing the 'go go gadget leg' a few times to not crash. I caught up to one woman on the downhill (and bunch of guys) and passed her thinking she might catch me on a climb again but I didn't see her again. The middle part of the course had a huge, pretty steep climb, including a hike a bike section on a dirt road, and then finally into a drop bag aid station, which I needed my fuel for sure. But then it was more climbing out of that aid station that seemed to go on forever. It was an almost breaking point for me mentally. I'd try to convince myself that oh, it's so beautiful out there, and it was, but it seemed like it would be much more enjoyable sitting on a rock staring out into the vastness, but I knew if I got off my bike and put it down, I'd have a hard time convincing myself to get back on it. There were some pretty high up dirt roads way out there, that kept going and going and seemingly going mostly up. Some really cool trees in some of the lower areas and some huge, like over a foot long, pine cones, that I wish I had put on my camelback and brought to my next drop bag for them to bring back to the finish for me as I didn't quite find any that big when riding post-race. Some storm clouds were gathering off in the distance and I was thinking that was going to be mighty chilly if it rained way up here, but I just kept hoping they would stay off to the north and dissipitate, they mostly stayed away from where I was. I got sprinkled on briefly which was fine. Every now and then I would be off on my own for a while and I would start thinking, huh, what if I run into a bear?? I'm so tired already I don't know what I would do, but then I would get lost in the thoughts of suffering again and playing the mind games with myself... i want to stop riding.. you can't... just keep going... but this sucks... argg...
There was once section where you did a 7 mile loop and came back to the same aid station, and upon my return and heading off from it, I got to see Doug heading into it. It was nice to see him so I knew he was still on course and no mechanicals or crashes had taken him out, and likewise for him seeing me. That was a fun 7 mile loop - good singletrack with a not too steep climb back into the aid station. Having the aid stations pretty close or so many of them helped the mindset some too for ticking off the miles. We had this one dirt road climb that we did a portion of twice, it was part of the one I hated earlier so here I was back on it and I pass this guy walking his bike and ask "did we do this climb earlier" and he said no, so I was like sweet, it isn't that horrible climb, but I get around the corner and I realize, yes it is..!!! but thankfully we got to a point where we had turned off but this time we kept going straight and it wasn't too much further to the next drop bag aid station. Slowly ticking off the miles. I was being told I was in 3rd place and I was like sweet....It seemed like forever to get to the next aid station. When I arrived a volunteer was like this is the last aid station before the aid so you should fill up since it's a long climb to finish.. I slowly get off my bike and pick up my water bottle which is still full and she's like what do you want, some this? or that? or .. and I'm like I cant' think.. how about some fig newtons? go fish.. umm... she kept asking and finally this guy was like "she's wants to stop suffering" and I'm like yeah, that's it.. and grab a peanut butter and jelly sandwich piece and get going. I was dreading the final climb but at least had some downhill before it would come up. Of course there was some uphills before the final climb and I didn't want to check my computer to see if this was it or not, but I finally did and I knew it probably wasn't the climb yet since the mileage was too short still :( :( I pass some guys looking pretty weary dreading the same final hill thinking that they don't realize that this hill isn't it... Finally, I finish dropping down to the "bridge" we went over at the beginning, but I quite remember and funny, there were these cabins/homes down there that I had missed coming down, perhaps because it was too dusty...anyway, we had ticked off some more miles by that point so the what I thought was going to be a 8 mile climb back up and by my calculations of how slowly I would climb would take like 2hrs... thankfully it wasn't that long from that point and there were some level parts and some slight downhills. My left knee had starting bothering me about half-way through the race so I couldn't stand without it bothering me a lot but man that last climb.. I'll just say I was totally sick of sitting. I kept telling myself to keep drinking my powerbar drink mix and eat something as it was still likely an hour till I finished. I totally didn't want anymore cliff blocks and I was thinking about the two boxes of them I have at home that I won't want either. I was getting myself through the finish of this race by telling myself I don't ever had to ride my bike again if I don't want to, you know you will, but you don't have to for a long time, screw riding with your buddies over the next couple of days out here and screw cyclocross...I just kept pedaling and I managed to pass a woman on the climb, semi-worried she might try to pass me back and I only had the speed I had, nothing more.. but she didn't respond at all. I made it to the point where Doug and I had ridden down to and knew I was probably 15-20mins away from the finish.. ahh, yes. I was thinking I was in 2nd now too, but the aid station people had not told me the right thing.

I came see the finish finally and am so relieved I can get off this bike soon :) I come across the finish in 9'37" - very nice... The race director comes over to me and he told me I was 4th which was kind of a bummer since I just spent the final moments of the climb thinking I was in 2nd, but hey, it was still the finish I needed. Later, checking the results he was off one and I was 3rd women overall and I think ~20th out of men too. I told him it was very very hard. It felt like the hardest 100 miler (well 91 miler) of the series to me.

I was a dusty mess so I hobbled across the street to the lodge and took a shower and just put my feet up for a long long time... and then thought about what I might actually want to eat since I should have something. But your stomach and well everything just gets so off doing these races. I got myself together, the soy wasabi almonds seemed to be the thing the body wanted then. I went out to look at the results and wait for Doug to finish and get his picture finishing up... he came across i 11:03 quite pleased to have finished a high altitude 100 (he had attempted Breckenridge a couple years back, which is quite a bit higher than this one and dnf'd)...

Yeah, we were done... Although I didn't quite have the elated feelings I thought I would being done the series now and having pulled myself back into 2nd in the standings. Maybe there was a hint of sadness that the season was over. Or just too tired to care... I called my folks and my sister to let them know how I finished and then we grabbed some food and beer. And I was all excited about the beer, but my stomach wasn't really, so I after saying I was going to get rip roaring drunk after the race, well, that just wasn't happening. That would be pretty cruel to the body on top of the effort... tomorrow :) We now had a couple days to kick back and enjoy the area.

So Sunday it was nice not to have to drive anywhere or anywhere far. We did some sight seeing post breakfast at the lodge, really yummy continental breakfast, some eggs, bacon, granola with yogurt, fresh strawberries...mmm. Then we drove down into historic Truckee and then over to Lake Tahoe finally. Tahoe is so beautiful, did I say that already. We got some coffee and walked down to a pier and hung out there for a bit just soaking it all in. Did some tourist shopping, got the most delicious nachos a pub in Tahoe City. It's awesome out there that guacomole just comes with everything instead of having to pay $2 per a tablespoon back east here. We drove down the west coast of the lake for a ways and then hiked up this little peak that ends with this awesome view of the lake. I ruined my sneakers in the moon dust though.. I don't know if that reddish color is coming out or not... We headed back up to the lodge (which was about 40 mins away) and it was kind of funny as only a few other people were staying there and all the staff just left. You let yourself in.. no eats there that night. So we dragged out weary bodies back out thinking we would have to go back into Truckee for some dinner but there was a pub/restaurant nearby that we got some pizza at and some beer and even a beer to go :) Then crashed...

I had called some riding buddies who were out in the Tahoe area doing a biking vacation trip since I felt compelled to ride my bike again, especially to do some of the sweet single track around the lake. It would be a shame not to hit that while we were out there. I convinced Doug they wouldn't be super fast as they have been riding hard for a couple of days by now. So we packed up Monday morning and headed to Truckee to eat at this diner that has 70 omelets to choose from, too many.. and had the best breakfast ever :) And I couldn't stop eating my food but I knew I had to not overdo it too much if we were going to ride later. I found a happy medium... We met up with the guys from Petersham to do a 20 mile ride on the Tahoe Rim Trail and thankfully they had someone who would drive our minivan back into Town so we could go point to point with them. At first the legs were pretty heavy but they loosened up for the most part, except after stopping for bit... but what a spectacular ride. Awesome singletrack and hardly any moondust on these trails. And the views were gorgeous. Doug had found some pretty big pinecones (not quite as big as what we saw during the race, but pretty close) and I put couple on my camelback, and Peter put a few on his. It would make me crack up following him seeing the huge pinecones hanging off... he lost one by the end of the ride. We were hanging out in the sun on some rocks overlooking Tahoe before descending back into Tahoe City...ahh.. I reminded myself to soak it all in as I'd be back on a plane back to normal life tomorrow... just spectacular.

Doug and I went back to the pub in town for nachos and beer... then drove the north rim of the lake into the Nevada side (which didn't seem as nice as the California side of the lake). And then back into Reno. Ate some mexican and had some margaritas - well one there and they actually let us take one to go :) and passed out... I dont' think my stomach enjoyed that one in the morning.. But then it was off to the bike shop to drop off the bikes to be packed up and shipped back. I was kind of sad leaving my bike there and knowing it wouldn't be back for over a week. Funny how when you can't ride it, I wanted to... Then return the car and then the airport and back home... after a long flight.. The Reno airport is so simple.. no lines, small.. simple, easy.. I got back into Logan 11:50 pm thinking I could catch the last logan express out to Framingham, but nope.. I guess they do really come at midnight. So at 12;10 am I'm calling my sister for a ride to my car back in Framingham... she rocks! thanks... Finally make it home about 2AM and I could have slept in yesterday and written this thing yesterday but Bruschi was too elated to see me to let me sleep in.. or something like that..

Anyway, thanks for reading these ridiculously long posts. I promise to keep cyclocross short and sweet, just like the race, except the race isn't sweet, just painful... :)
why do I do this???

Cheers! to a successful season
-karen

Shenandoah 100 Miler Race Report

2009-09-08T21:03:00.007-04:00

Well, it feels like a long time since I've posted to my blog - a month now...
Let me start out by saying - arrrrgggg!!!!!!

This was supposed to be an awesome race for me. I was feeling good going into it, no injuries, well rested, excited, great weather but the mechanical devils were out to get me this weekend. I drove down to Frederick, Maryland on Thursday to hang out with Doug and then head down to the race 1/2 hr outside Harrisonburg, VA on Saturday morning. The drive down wasn't too bad. I avoided 95 purposely despite mapquest telling me it was the most direct route, direct, but most trafficky... ick.. So I went out 84 to 81 which was fine, except one pretty bad accident that held up traffic for a bit. I had worked that morning and didn't leave until 1pm so by the time I arrived in Frederick around 8pm I was pretty wiped. We went out for some dinner at a local brewery and had a brewski to relax.

Friday we headed out to Gambril Mountain State park to do a mellow mountain bike. My legs felt pretty heavy and sluggish from the drive. I didn't like that feeling, but convinced myself that's standard for post-long drive, but it was hard to push aside the thoughts of how good I felt a week ago - strong, loose, ready to go - if only I felt that good for this weekend. I did loosen up by the end of the ride and started to shake out the long ride feel and the not sleeping in my own bed stiffness. Spent some time seeing the sights and got some delicious tapas at a Spanish restaurant in town for dinner.

Saturday, we were up reasonably early and hit the road for Shenandoah. The weather forecast was looking great - upper 70s, partly cloudy and dry. It had been dry for a while down there and the trails were wicked dusty. I don't typically wear shades when I mountain bike but I'm certainly going to invest in a set of clear lenses very soon...like before Tahoe (ok, maybe I'll just use my yellow tinted ones, something about any tint to them throws me off on the trails). We wanted to get to the campground that the race is staged from at a decent time to get a good camp spot up in the wooded section, which we managed to do, barely - lots of folks there already. We set up camp and then went back into Harrisonburg to wander around the town and grab an early dinner, which ended up being another local brew pub with some very yummy dishes. I wish I had gotten what Doug got, it sounded so heavy and fattening and not good pre-race food but it wasn't that bad, and certainly much tastier than my chicken pasta dish that I mostly just ate the chicken out of and had hoped for more veges in the mix, oh well.

We head back to the campground and pickup our race packs, get our bikes ready and head out for a mellow 1/2 hr ride to get the legs moving again. On the way back through the campground we stopped at my friend/best bike mechanic Brian's tent spot. He had come down to race along with Brian Jr. and Karen, his girlfriend, had come down for support. So we just start chatting and Brian notices my bolt is sticking out on the rear suspension link. We take a closer look and the bolt is gone! Ugh.. When Brian gets a certain look, I know it's not a good sign. I stayed calm hoping we would have no problem finding a bolt, right? Wrong. Of course it's a very specific bolt size etc. and he hadn't brought much with him in the way of tools and spare parts. Brian was trying to think of something to use to fix it. I went off and asked the race director if he might know of someone who could help and pointed to Thomas of Shenandoah bicycle http://www.shenandoahbicycle.com/index.php who was trying to come up with possible ideas. He wanted to see what the nut looked like to make sure there wasn't some we were missing or something special to it. I hunted around the campground for someone else with another 2009 epic and finally found one and went back to hunt down Thomas to show him the epic. It was sounding bad as far as getting the right bolt size and it holding. He said he might be able to come up with something back at the shop but it wouldn't happen until late in the evening.

In the meantime, Karen offered up her mountain bike for me to ride - it was a 2007 epic just my size and mostly set up similar to mine. I got lucky she brought it with her as she said she was going back and forth on bringing that or her road bike. Since the probability of fixing my epic was sounding too iffy and too last minute I opted to pull some parts off my bike and get hers ready to go. So off camp my seatpost, pedals, bike computer, number plate, bottle cage and pump... I would have loved to have my wheelset and tires but her disc brakes were too different than mine to get them to mesh easily. So, I was ok with and had stayed surprisingly calm. I finally got back to the tent and ate a bit of food and hit the sack, and then nerves kicked in and I had a hard time falling asleep.

Up at 5, ugh.. at least it was relatively mild out. I had being cold waiting around to start. Down some oatmeal and espresso finish getting ready and head down to the start area, one last pit stop and then it's time to get going. There were a lot of very strong women in the race. I was trying not to let it get to me at the start line. It's a long race. I just get through the start, which is a tight, narrow road dirt road start out of the campground. I hung on Doug's wheel out of the start area since he's a roadie and better at holding lines etc. It was a fast start once we got on the road and into the first dirt road climb. I was already starting to miss my bike severely when the borrowed one was feeling really sluggish for the effort I was putting out. I thought it was funny I used to love riding kenda nevegals but these sucked now, energy sucking sucked. I tried to let it go. Then somewhere on the top of that climb and first part of the descent there's some very rocky, sharp rocky singletrack that I managed to slice the sidewall of the rear tire. It didn't flat completely but was soft enough to wash some on the corners and certainly didn't want to go when you pedaled hard. I was getting passed by so many people. I stopped at the first aid station 10 miles in to use a pump there but it was useless and I had to pull mine off my bike to pump up the tire. I knew it was probably fruitless and I should just change the tube. I think at that point I hadn't seen the cut in the sidewall. I got back on and headed down the road only for it to go soft again... ugh... I stop again to put air in. Got going again, soft again and this time when I stop I see the cut and basically go "fu---" as that can be pretty race ending. I decided it was time to probably try to put a new tube in or something and thankfully Brian had caught up to me by this point, so he stopped and helped me out. I had broken a spoke too. We put a patch in and hoped it would hold. It took a bit of time, but not too bad. Back on the bike, but it still felt sluggish to me...way too much work/effort for the speed I was getting out of it. We get into the first big singletrack climb and now I'm trying to pass people walking their bikes which takes a lot of effort, after doing this a bit the tire is going soft again!!!! Brian had also witnessed the shifting issue that when I shifted into the largest cog in back it would drop the chain on the inside. Anyway, I stopped to put air again, get passed by all the racers I just got passed... tried to get going again but this section sucks in a bad train unfortunately, since it was pretty dry it was much more rideable than in other years, but not with everyone already walking it so walking it was for a good portion of it. I somehow managed to get down the mountain without totally flatting the tire and risking ruining the rim. I couldn't really go fast on the downhill without washing out of hte corners though so more time wasted. I was thinking I was done this race unless they actually had a tire at Aid Station 2.

I make it out onto the pavement road section into Aid Station 2 but it's a long ways still and I'm going now where fast on this soft tire. It was terrible. I could see my heartrate being pretty high and knowing i was expending a ton of energy but not gaining much by it. Other racers would pass me and say "looks like you're nursing a flat" and I'm like, I know, believe me I know.... I couldn't believe I was going to have dnf another Shenandoah. It would be a cursed race for me (I had to dnf last year due my knee injury). I knew I still had Tahoe next weekend and would certainly be fresh for it if I had to bail on this race now, but I didn't want my finishing the series to rely upon Tahoe, that or having to have a good finish there either. Anyway, I finally make it to aid station and ask loudly "does anyone have a tire", to which I just get mostly blank stares, and now I'm like, oh 'fu*^*&".. but one of the mechanics at the aid station holds up a tire and I'm like sweet... although I'm so far back now it's not even funny. Brian is still at the aid station so he adjusted the rear derailer limit screws so it wouldnt drop the chain on the inside of the cassette. It took forever for the tire change though. I wasn't going to complain since I was still going to be able to hopefully finish this race. Finally, 3 1/2 hrs into this race I'm leaving Aid Station 2 with Brian thinking, I didn't drop lights, like this might take me that long if that effort to aid station 2 really tapped me. I also just lost Karen's fancy tire valve cap (well, I didn't lose it particularly, but I won't point fingers)..
anyway, I was on my way again on a much better rolling tire thank god. I started to put the hammer down, well as much as one can for a 100 mile race, and got going up the next huge climb. I was feeling ok, but definitely know I expended some serious energy pushing that flat for so long. The downhill of this mountain is sooo sweeet!!! Oh so much fun. I was finally having some fun. And then I went to pass this guy who had pulled aside for me and my right inner leg cramped... oh, f*&(&( you've got to be kidding me.. so I tried to shake it out still on the bike to some degree of success and then the left leg goes... ahhh!!!! I suck it up and push through it and manage to get them to subside. I make into Aid Station 3 and quickly ask for some electrolyte tabs and down like a gazzilion and then ask for some more to take with me but don't really have anywhere to store them so I down those too.. I go hunt for my bike since they awesome aid station people will take your bike for you and lube the chain etc... it is truly nice, well run race (I'm being serious).. Anyway, onward I go. There's a long road section and I see a rider up ahead and hurry up to get on his wheel and work with him and then a small group for a bit and then they slow down so I head off on my own still trying to make up time. Next big climb is kind of a fun singletrack climb to me, although it can be a bitch, especially when it's wet, but I like singletrack better than roads. Also, this was where my knee started to hurt me last year so I was quite psyched to be riding it this time around. I've mostly been picking off riders all the way through aid station 4. I was very happy heading out of Aid Station 4 still on my bike, feeling, but not in the sag wagon this year :)

Onward to the big climb, which is preceded by this ridiculously never ending dirt road section that every time a car goes by another year of your lungs is gone and you can't see anything for a long time from all the dust that gets kicked up...and it goes on and on.. I remembered from the first year doing this race that that's what it does and it can totally break you before you get to Shenandoah Mountain. I actually get excited to take the turn up the mountain as it's something different, but after about 200 yards, it's like, oh, yeah, this sucks... but you push those thoughts out your head. I was trying to calculate my finish time based on where i was and was thinking I was doing not too shabby considering all the time I lost early on. Maybe I'd get in 10 1/2 hrs instead of the 11+ I originally was thinking this race was going to be. I make it up to Aid Station 5 where Karen had volunteered and she was like what happened... she figured something was up when i wasn't up there with the top women riders. So I gave the shortened version of what happened. She said Brian Jr was about 15 minutes up and Doug was about 25 up. I was thinking poor Doug must have thought I dnf'd getting hurt or some mechanical since I hadn't caught up to him yet. I was thinking it would be tough to gain that amount of time in 25 miles. But I got going. The top of this climb just keeps going and going... you go through a small field and think, yes, this is the last one of those and then you get to another one that looks like the last one and think this is it.. but nope... so you tell yourself not to think about it.
I passed a few more women and finally catch up to Brian Jr before heading down to Aid Station 6. He did smoking fast time -he's got a lot of talent riding that strong with like a month of riding in him this year - holy cow!!!

I couldn't remember how long of a road section it was into Aid Station 6 after coming down the big mountain but you turn out from the trail and it's like right around the corner. I was like sweet.. I needed to use the outhouse. As i pull in there's a woman just about to head out. I thought maybe i can catch her, after I go... I get back on the bike and try to close the gap but to little success...damn.. I can see her ahead the whole time on the last climb and keep thinking maybe I can catch her on the downhilll.. yeah.. I can also see a jersey up ahead that look's like Doug's. I keep plugging along, feeling pretty much to my limit. I was going to come in pretty close to 10 hrs which I was kind of amazed at but also kind of frustrated at as I would have had a smoking time without all the issues. I finally caught up to Doug who had just let the women pass. He had said before starting the race that all my bad luck was behind me... so I said to him as I passed... "my bad luck wasn't over"... and he said it was good hear my voice since he thought I had dnf'd or something. I tried hard to catch the woman up ahead. We hit a downhill singletrack and I let it rip.. even for my standards.. and she let me by but was pretty much on my tail still and then we came out on a dirt road section before the final descent and she had more legs than I did so that was the end of that... I came into the finish in 9th which was great considering the problems. I was happy to have finished the series at least and for the time being was able to push aside the frustration with all that had happened.

Doug came in a few minutes and then Brian Jr. We were all a complete mess - darkened legs and arms from all the dirt and football looking eyes.. silly. I wish I got a picture of that before cleaning up. Post-race it always kind of funny. You' just don't know what you want to do first or what you want to eat and can't seem to do anything orderly. But it felt good to kick back. I was pretty hurting from putting out a huge effort, certainly felt like the biggest effort on one of these 100 milers to me this year. I've been a tad worried about that for going into Tahoe this Saturday. After cleaning up we grabbed some post-race eats and beer. Brian Sr had just finished up and he would have had a smoking time too if he hadn't stopped to help me so many times !!! Thanks Brian!!!! and Karen for letting me ruin her bike!!!! I had to find Thomas to get my bolt back from him, kind of wishing that I had taken my chances with the fix and riding my bike, but I couldn't do anything about that now. But thank you, THomas, very much for helping me out. Doug and I had stopped in his shop when we were in Harrisonburg - very nice shop.
We decided to head back to Frederick that night which was a good idea since I had to get back home Monday and that would have meant a really long day on monday. I was cooked and starting to feel the disappointment and frustration of the days events. I'm glad i was able to push that all aside while I was out there as it would have made the day a very very miserable day otherwise. He asked me I was going to call home to see how Bruschi (my dog) was doing at my folks and I was like, I can't, I'll cry now when my mom asks me how the race went since I had wanted it to go so well and could have gone so well. But I eventually dozed off a bit. It was nice to get in a take a shower and hit the sack. We went out for breakfast before I had to hit the road home. I think I gave myself a concussion getting into his suv... i just couldn't seem to time my ducking down under the door well enough, and wump... ouch... maybe that was why I was so brain dead driving home and today. All the dust made me really congested and my eyes were killing. It was a tough drive home in that regard. So that's my excuse for not writing last night -concussion (j/k) and I couldn't keep my eyes open, and still barely can. My legs tightened up on the drive home too, I'm hoping a couple good nights sleep here and I'll be good to go again. Of course last night, I just starting ruminating about how good I could have finished. I looked over my heart rate data and saw that I stopped for ~45 minutes dealing with the tire and add on the slowed down pace... and wasted energy on the soft tire.. man.. I could have been sub-9hr race... gotta let that go, gotta let it go... mechanicals are bound to happen at some point, and honestly, I have been pretty lucky for the most part racing for 10 years, so what can you do.

I did start to get more anxious about getting my bike fixed in time for Tahoe. I basically have to have it all set by Wed evening. I called the local Specialized Rep, Jim Mercier, to ask for his help getting the bolt and he got back to me on my drive home - very kind of him, to help out a stressing out racer... he said it shouldn't be a problem getting the part through Bike Alley or overnighting it from Specialized. (I was kind of thinking worst case was they send the part to the shop in Reno where Doug shipped his bike to and put it together there Cali to Reno not so far, Cali to Mass very far..). Jim said he'd call Neil at Bike Alley and let him know I'd be looking for the bolt. I called Bike Alley to see if they were open on Labor Day, but no.. so first thing today, I called.. and Neil's not in till noon, what I can't resolve this till noon.. let it go, let it go..
But he called back in a short bit and said he had another epic in the store that he could take the part from till one came in from specialized since I needed to get going to the next race. Awesome... Doug had took a picture of the link where the bolt had to go so I sent it to Neil to make sure we were talking about the same thing and yes.. it would be all set... straight to the bike shop post-work. Thanks a million!!! Tomorrow it will be back to Brian's to get my parts back from karen's bike and then the bike packed up to fly out with me to Tahoe on Thursday. Woo hoo... I have to admit, I am wiped though. I postponed a client of mine tonight that I felt terrible about doing. I hope that my getting to sleep in these next two days is enough time to recover as I need a good race out there now.. rrrrgggg... here I come.

Tahoe!
-karen

(sorry for typos and maybe unclear ramblings.. like I said, I'm pooped)

Wilderness101 Race Report

2009-08-03T21:50:00.000-04:00

The short of it - I came in 4th out of a very very talented women's field and was quite happy with that as going into the race I was thinking I would definitely need a stellar race to podium at all. I finished in 9'08" which was a few minutes slower than last year which I was only ok with that given that I just didn't feel the "race" legs were there for this one, so to finish that well on a "not on" day is pretty sweet.

Hmmm....well, the couple weeks leading into this race seemed to be very hectic and busy and rather stressful, and I was just waiting to get in the car and maybe unwind some on the 7 or so hour drive to Coburn, PA (near State College) on Thurdasy. I was working near Providence morning so it made sense to just take 95 down to 80, made sense... I had tried to make a deposit at my bank en route to Providence to make sure not to bounce any checks while I was away, and my local branch was being "serviced" so I figured I would just catch one in RI. So after leaving the stable I was working at, I stopped at three different exits that looked promising as far as a lot of shopping being around for my atm to no avail. I was getting frustrated pretty quickly as I hadn't anticipated it being so difficult to find a banknorth in RI. I finally call customer service and found out they basically don't exist in RI so I had to hit on at some exit in CT. So after wasting almost an hour I hit the road and got some more specific directions to a bank in Stamford from Doug, but I missed the first instruction of taking a right off the ramp exit ramp and get lost for a bit and have a near temper tantrum as this was not the "mellow" kick back drive I so needed. Oh, and this was after already sitting in 30mins of backup... Ugh. I finally get my 'sh'' together and find one of the streets from my directions and find the bank. Back on the highway heading into NY, yup.. more traffic, Karen's favorite thing in the world. It takes forever to break free of that and finally get to 80 down in Penn and it's still spotty stop and go traffic.. what the f-... sorry... finally, break free of that and chill some and make a stop in Stroudsburg, PA to get a Starbucks coffee and some gas. I'm heading back to the highway but the signs aren't very clear which way to go and it looks like you're supposed go straight versus a left and head up this big hill away from the highway.. huh? The car in front of me has the same realization and we u-turn and go back to the now right turn and are two blocks from the entrance to the highway again only to have the road blocked for an accident... you have got to be kidding me... talk about some bad traffic karma.. geezz.. that one kind of made me laugh - it was like a 4 block thing from the gas station to the accident to the on ramp.
oh vey... I finally get off the highway and hit some very nice back country road through Amish country and get sucked out my head immediately by the beauty of the farmland and mountains and all the Amish buggies going by. It was so cool. I was attempting to take a picture on my cell phone and thought better of it for fear of running them over. It was pretty neat to see.

So, like a couple extra hours of drive time from the 7 peaceful hours it was supposed to be, I arrive at the very nice bed and breakfast about 1/4 mile from the start/finish of the race. Perfect. I put my bags in the room and then Doug, who had gotten there a couple hours ahead of me, and I went to downtown Millheim (it's a happening place, for a small little town) and got some food. I wasn't all that hungry since I had plenty of snacks in the car and it was on the late side, but I got a delicious salmon salad that was pretty light so it did the trick. Back to the B&B to hit the sack and have a total chill day on Friday.. ahh, finally.. then clip, clop, clip, clop, and another amish buggy goes by... so cool.

Friday, we wake up to rain... blah...I would have liked to tour around the farms and find more amish folks to take pictures of even though they are probably quite done with that.. and then just wade down a stream. But after eating a very delicious breakfast, we headed off to State College to wander the shops. I even bought myself some new socks just for the race :) Just meandered, got some lunch, (yes, allison, I had a turkey sandwich, ok)... and then went back to Coburn to pick up race packets and get ready to go. Since it was wet out, we wussed and didn't ride more than 10-15mins, which I think was a mistake for me anyways post long drive. Doug had maybe a 3hr drive from Pittsburgh so not so much to work out of the legs. Cam, the B&B owner, told us about this new restaurant that opened up a couple towns over that was housed in a bank and you could eat in the vault if you wanted. So we went there for dinner on Friday night and ate in the vault. It was pretty neat and decent eats, although I think I overate a bit and my chicken was perhaps a bit heavy for 'pre-race eats'.

I slept ok Friday night but I did start to get anxious about the race which I hadn't really gotten to anxious about since the email the race director sent out on Tuesday with the list of "big wigs'" showing up to this race. When I saw the women's field, I was like holy crap and emailed it to my coach being both happy to be included on the list but also like, omg, it's going to be tough to podium even with a good race day. Will did good and calmed me down with 'they're going to do their best, and you're going to do your best and you can't control them...".. it helped get my head in the right place. I didn't want to set up expectations was all. I basically had the expectation of doing better timewise than I did last year, and even altered that to, well given that it's pretty wet due to lots of rain, maybe even the same time would be a reasonable goal, even though I've dropped a good amount of time from last year on my previous two 100 milers this year.

anyway, race day I woke up feeling ok. I wasn't all that nervous but I could tell I was perhaps not quite in race mode...ate a bagel and had some expresso and ride the short little ride to the start line. The race starts out going down the road a couple miles in a controlled start, ie tight in a pack of mountain bikers ... which is very nerve-wracking to me. But it turns a corner and starts a dirt road climb that thins out the pack quite nicely, although I felt like I was getting passed by more people than I cared to be passed by, and my legs felt pretty heavy, hence the 'maybe I should have spun my legs out for real yesterday'... I felt a bit like a slug for a lot of that first hour. I was trying to not let it get to me too much, reminding myself that on my last long training ride I felt not so good for the first hour and then the legs and body came around.

There's a lot of dirt road on this course, which is not to my liking. It really pays to get in a train and draft. I worked a tad hard to get on a fast train and stayed with them for a little bit but it was too much for my legs that just hadn't woken up yet. I dropped off and spent probably most of the rest of the race on my own, which was much different from last year when I worked with a group for a lot of the first half of the race (which is predominantly dirt road and very fast paced) and then again in the end of the race. After a certain point though, I was around the same 5-6 guys but we all seemed to have different strengths or weaknesses and just never got working together. This one guy I would pass on the climbs and then he'd come by on the crazy sketchy downhills, we did that a bunch of times until after aid station 3 (~60 miles in). I felt reasonably good for hours 2-3-4 on the bike and but my bowels were starting to umm, not be so cooperative. Then for some reason at aid station 3, I thought it would be a good idea to have a big handful of trail mix (which I never eat during races) and then start this tough single track climb. I was making good time to that point but going up that climb, I was felt like crap, like I was going backwards... I couldn't pass the guy I had kept passing on the climbs. I felt very close to just stopping for a bit to let my body settle but I didn't think that would be a good idea, in that it'd be pretty hard to convince myself to get going again. That was probably my toughest stretch from Aid 3 to 4... but, then again, it's probably the toughest stretch for most of the racers too. It's pretty fast and mostly dirt road to that point... the harder trails come up in that stretch. I felt like I couldn't ride anything well. It was pretty slippery, slick, throw you around jagged rocks for a trail, with lots of roots meshed in and not a lot of "ground" so to speak. I was thinking back to my last training ride with my buddy Jeff out in Western Mass, my favorite trails are all big rock, very specific line picking kind of trails and Jeff was hailing me as the "rock goddess"... well i was no "rock goddess" today. This is my least favorite of the 100 milers, as dirt road riding is boring to me and then the trails just beat the snots out of you and the downhills that you just climbed so hard for are slow going since they're so rough, ragged, slick rocks, off camber, craziness, and I usually think of myself as a pretty strong technical rider.

Anyway, I never felt fully on my game, not completely off, but just not quite "race mode" and my bowels weren't helping me out either. I just kept plugging along and reminded myself that I was just riding my bike all day and it might take a bit longer than I anticipated and that's ok.. that's all I have today. I tick off the hours, and the aid stations...really didn't chat with too many racers, but did run into a few that I knew, which is always nice to have a distraction for a bit. I hadn't let myself think about my placing and no one at the aid stations were saying, you're the ___ women to come through, so I didn't ask. So I was kind of surprised when I finished and was told I was 4th. Very cool, since I didn't think I would podium unless I had a really good race day out there. Pua who is a superstar endurance rider won with a time of 7'43" and was 8th overall... holy moly... and then Sue Haywood and Besty, 2nd and 3rd in 8'40". My time put me in 59th place overall. Not too shabby.

I rode back to the B&B and cleaned my bike and myself. There was another race couple staying at the B&B and finished up not too long after me. I was just about to head back to the race to catch Doug finishing but he was already outside cleaning his bike too - having a 30min PR for this course (or so he recalls it that way : ), fast B&B crew :) We headed back to the venue for some eats and beer. I was able to eat some and drink a beer, but my stomach was still not entirely there yet. Did the awards thing and chatted with a bunch friends... Then Doug had convinced Lee and Brenda to go for some eats at the Bank restaurant. They staff must have thought we were odd. Post race eating is odd.. You're kind of hungry, but not.. and not sure what's going to sit well. We munched on some nachos which wasn't doing it for me. I didn't want to add hots to my already "hot" stomach.. or whatever that is.. the salad actually seemed much nicer. I was surprised to sleep reasonable well post-race as well, at least somewhat better than usual. Breakfast was fantastic, although the coffee left one needed an expresso still.. I didn't feel too wiped out from the race and stomach seemed to be doing better. I have noticed this year I don't feel the need to consume everything the next day or two post race, which I'm taking means I'm more fit and better fueling myself during the race.

It was raining again on Sunday, which was kind of a bummer. It would have been nice to just do a chill ride following the river and driving amish people crazy trying to take their picture. But Doug and I just headed back to State college, caught a movie, and ate some burritos and drank a very tasty margarita, well I had two, which was probably one too many... phew.. but it was good. Nice chill day. I woke up feeling really good this morning, not achey, stiff or sore.. I was like, huh, this is good. Had breakfast and hit the road for a nice, no traffic, drive home.

One more for sure - Shenandoah - which I'll be redeeming myself from last year for not finishing due to my knee injury. And possibly Tahoe for the series finale - yet to be determined, but hopefully determined this week.

-karen

6 Hrs of Pats Peak

2009-07-12T19:17:00.001-04:00

I am very glad I (we, my coach and I) decided that the 12 hrs solo would not be a good idea...six hours was plenty. This is a tough course and kudos to all of you who did 12 or 24 hours. Phew. 12 hours would not be worth the mental anguish and the physical abuse. I still have a couple 100 milers left and need all the mental toughness for those ones.

I wasn't taking this race all that seriously as No. 1, six hours has become my standard long training ride that I seem to do every weekend and No. 2, until Thursday, no one else was signed up for 6 hr solo women so what the heck. I was glad I pre-registered though as by the time this race did come around, I was feeling a tad worn out from a couple busy weeks and just wanted to chill at home. But finally, Thursday, I was starting to get my act together and think about getting ready for the race - just usual packing stuff, like what I will need in the feed zone, parts, etc. will i camp out over night, bring the dog, etc. etc. I even had the last minute picking the bike up from Don (bikect.com) who had attempted to get me new disc brake pads only to find out that the avid juicy ultimates are very particular and only "ultimate" pads will work, despite many trying to convince me that all avid juicy brake pads work on all avid juicy brakes, NOT.
So, I'll get them this week I hope. Who needs brakes anyways? I wasn't too concerned as I still had some pad left, I was just worried about a late day t-storm coming in and that would be the end of those.

I packed up Friday night and had intended on bringing the pooch along but my sister said she'd walk him for me mid-day and figured that would be a better option than worrying about him being too hot, or a noodge for someone I pawned him off on to keep an eye on while I raced. Woke up Saturday feeling decent but certainly not in race mode at all. The drive took a couple hours, pretty uneventful. I stopped at Starbuck en route to get a triple expresso for mid-race pokiness on hand. I tried to stay fueled and hydrated on the drive. The day was looking pretty good weather wise, except for a potential t-storm sometime around 6pm, which would hopefully be after I was done or not at all.

I arrived about 10ish to a relatively small venue. Met up with my buddies, Brian and Brian Jr. doing the 6hr solo as well and Rob and Kenny doing the 12 hr team race, and respective awesome support/significant others. I had done a 24-hr 5-person co-ed team (with Brian Sr) race years ago here and done a couple regular Root 66 races, so I knew the course, which has a lot of climbing per a lap and a pretty fun downhill. I had calculated out based on my last regular length here that doing 9-10 laps would be pretty good for 6hrs. It was tough to say for sure until I did a lap to see what condition it was in and how I was feeling today especially since I was feeling pretty darn mellow and not like I was racing.

Due to the incredibly inclement weather over the past month and half, the course was of course, muddy. Although the last time I raced here it was in a complete downpour/t-storm pretty much the entire time that each lap I came through praying they would the race but they didn't until after starting my last lap, ergg.. Anyway, I set up my cooler where Kenny and Rob had set up their tents right along the course nearing the start finish area. It was a good spot. The 6hr race went from noon till 6pm, and you had to be on the course till 6 and finish at 6 or after. The race has a lemans start which I hate, even though it's a pretty short run to the bikes. I picked a strategically uphill point to start the run so it would be mostly downhill to my bike :) I convinced my buddies of this important strategy as well and we all started off en mass.

I thank god didn't trip, roll my ankle or do other silly things getting to my bike. I hopped on and took off to get in good position, which yes, does seem silly to hammer from the getgo because it's a long race. But it felt good to go. Sure enough there was lots of mud. There was this one section through the woods with a mud stream coming down it that I was actually riding pretty well while the other guys in front of me were walking and I'm like hey 'rider'.. made it a few times through that section staying on the bike... not sure it was worth the effort but I usually felt inspired to try. Then there were a few nasty mushy energy sucking field sections crossing the ski slope, one particularly bad one before starting the biggest climb on the course. That was a drag. I was going pretty hard the first lap. My computer hadn't picked up my heart rate though so I didn't get to panic at how high the HR was likely going...must fix that next lap through. The climbs didn't feel too bad the first lap through and even into the upper single track it was pretty good going. The downhill though was tougher than I had remembered - lots of turns on slick roots and chewed up corners. It was definitely a wake up call to get back on track doing my strength training/core exercises. Ouch..

I came through the first lap 7th overall. Pretty good going. The stomach was a bit off though, and it was a bit hot and humid for the first time in forever this summer. I was making a not to myself to keep up the hydration and electrolytes, the fuel intake might have to slow down a bit to let the stomach feel better. I Got the heart rate monitor working starting into the 2nd lap and took it back a notch but still had some desire to do the first 4 laps faster than my last time racing it here, silly, I know since I would have to keep going after that. And by the 4th lap I was like, phew. That's a tough regular race. But I started my mental games of well, that's 1/3 of the race, 2hrs down, 5-6 more intervals (long ints), what was I thinking? thank god I'm not doing 12hrs., can I really do 10, maybe 9 will be fine... and on and on. I think it was finishing up my 6th lap I was feel a bit sleepy so the expresso sounded like a good idea. I stopped at my cooler and took a big sip, and then another.. ahh.. and carried on. At first, I thought my stomach wasn't going to appreciate it, but it settled after a little bit.

My 7th and 8th lap were probably the toughest, knowing I still had a couple more to do or not? I started to calculate out whether I could do a 10th. I was guessing I'd have plenty of time to start the 10th but did I want to? when I brought up this debate next time through at the cooler, the crew was like come on do 10... ok... I started out on my 9th lap feeling pretty good again, but still debating whether to hold up at the end and finish right at 6 or do the 10th. I ran into Kerry on the long climb (who I traveled with to the 100 milers last year) and had the debate again...but I feeling ok by then and was leaning towards 10 and hey, that's what I calculated before starting. Then the lead 6hr solo guy caught up to me and he was debating whether starting his 11th or not but he had to figure out whether the 2nd place guy would come through in enough time to start an 11th lap as well. He didn't want to do another lap since he was racing the regular cross country pro race on Sunday (insane... although that insanity had crossed my mind like once or twice and quickly threw out the idea - thank god). Anyway, I didn't see him waiting up at the end of the lap and he apparently not realized you couldn't check in from the lap and not go out for another if it was before 6 so he had to go do an 11th or be dnf'd...I came through at 5:40 so I knew I better get out for one more lap and not be a slacker and get all 6hrs of training in :) It was nice knowing it was the last time, and it's always comforting to tell yourself you don't ever have to do this race again if you don't want to after this lap. I took a quick moment to enjoy the view from the top of the climb. It is a pretty sweet view. I managed to get my brake pads through the race. It was kind of good motivation to lay off them some on the downhills so as to have some left at the end. I'm pretty sure I need new pads now and my bike needs a pretty thorough cleaning.

So I came in at 6:15 with 10 laps, 1st 6hr solo woman and would have put me 4th in the men's group. Not a bad day's effort. I showered up and ate some food, drank a beer and really needed to drink some water. I definitely got way under hydrated on this one, which thankfully didn't seem to affect me too badly during the race but I'm paying for it some today. They did awards promptly at 7 which was nice. I chatted with some fellow racers and then went back to my buddies' tent to hang for a bit. Kenny was thinking better about his enthusiasm for doing a 12 hr team race. I haven't had the experience myself but I've heard it's really tough being on and off and on and off, the body has no idea what's going on. I like being consistently working and then done...

So I left about 8ish glad I forwent the 2nd beer so I could drive the 2hrs home. My eyes felt bleary from the mud and sun and well the hard effort. It started to storm some down around Lowell and most of the way home from that point on, and it seemed like a lot of cars on the road for 10 on Saturday night, even a cop car that decided to be the nice guys that they are and came flying up on my butt and I had a slow car in front of me, they finally get out of the way and I speed up to get out of the way and the cop passes me and I, not realizing it till to late that it was a cop car, flick him off for being a prick, and he (i'm assuming it's a him prick..)... brakes hard and pulls in behind me.. uigh.. I'm like sh--- I'm going to get pulled over for that, and really thankful I didn't drink the 2nd beer now. He sits behind me for a while doing 60 with me and I'm panicky at first than mad that they have the right to harass you like this, like they wouldn't flick off someone tailgating the crap out of them... but he just follows me for awhile and then gets off onto Rt 2. I'm like phew, although i would have attempted to fight it if he gave me a ticket.

anyway, made it home fine - had to do 2.5hrs today...that hurt... definitely tired, definitely looking forward to a mostly rest week this week...

next stop Wilderness 101

Root 66 Race - Putney, VT

2009-06-28T22:23:00.000-04:00

A normal length race -- I was happy to find out that my legs can still do 2 hr race pace.
I woke up kind of surprised to see it raining out. I thought today's weather was supposed to be somewhat similar to Saturday's weather but not quite... what the heck is up with this weather this month!!! I'm lucky I went away for two races and had the chance to race in some decent weather, phew! So this morning I actually packed arm warmers it was that chilly out. As I drove to the race, the sky seemed to brighten up so I was hopeful that the weather was just crappy in the east. But to no avail. It started raining again :( Not really bad, but I knew the course would be sloppy and Vermont mud is tough. I was also pretty concerned about parking my little toyota matrix that is so low to the ground in the field parking lot and envisioned getting stuck badly if it were to rain more. I chose a spot pretty close to the "path" in. Then registration took forever, so I had about 1/2 hr to warm-up. I was sort of thinking it would be nice to do a full lap and really get the legs going since I had most of the week off the bike as recovery from the 100 last week. I just rode the first 10 mins of the course and turned around. I didn't feel too bad, but didn't feel super 'zippy' or anything, which sometimes is a decent sign for me. The single track was pretty greasy so I knew the downhills later on in the course might be a bit sketchy. Anyway, we had a decent women's field, five good pro women. I actually had some "go" at the start and stuck to the lead woman's wheel for maybe a 1/3 of the lap and then she dropped me on a climb and that was the end of seeing here. I was hoping I had made her semi-nervous yapping about the 100 milers and then being able to hang on her wheel for a bit, but I don't think it had much effect. She's strong, as were the women behind me. Gotta keep going. I went pretty hard the first lap, although that's the usual business in these races. I was feeling decent still but definitely worried about whether I could keep up the pace. I was thinking, I know I did the Bums time trials but that was for ~40mins at best so who knows if I can keep a fast pace past that timeframe. I did slow some, and got caught going into the 4th lap on climb. Actually she had caught up to me early in the 3rd lap but I mustered up some energy to try to fend her off that lap. I got some space in the singletrack and downhills but she'd gain it back on the climbs and eventually got me on a climb. I caught back up to her in the singletrack/downhill but just let it go since we were going to a decent climb again. I was pretty happy to be able to come off the 100 and feel pretty decent for a 2hr race pace. There was definitely lots of evil thoughts of the pain of 2hr pace. Race with joy.. my a--- .. :) and now i have to clean my bike (which, miracle of miracle, I did once I got home).
anyway, got myself some ice cream to celebrate, oh wait, who am I kidding, I would have gotten it anyway.
Next stop - 6hr race at Pat's Peak in a couple weeks (weather permitting, on my account anyway)

Lumberjack 09 Race Report (very long)

2009-06-23T21:23:00.001-04:00

Ok, here were go... sorry for the delay. The short story -see picture - 2nd place, in 8:26, pretty smoking fast :)

Lets see, it all seems like a blur now but it will come back to me. As I may have noted in my pre-race blog, I was a bit more anxious going into this race, something about the pressure to keep performing well. I asked my coach for race pep talk and he came back with "race with joy"... hehehe. It sounded funny so that helped for the moment. I didn't ask if he intended it to be silly sounding and thus make me chill out a bit. I found once I starting truly packing for the trip, I felt better and just needed to get on with it. I was checking the weather forecast every day and it just kept saying 40% chance of showers and high of 71 :( :( but, if any of the courses that can handle some rain, it's this one. My final weather check before heading out the door Thursday morning said no mention of rain. I can race with joy now!!!

So I left about 8:30 in the morning for the long long long drive out Rt 90. I was meeting up with my friend Doug in Erie, PA. He managed to put up with me quite well at the Mohican race to be willing to travel with me again, thank god, so I wouldn't have to do this ridiculously long drive totally solo. The drive out was kind of annoying, in and out of rain, not seeing anything getting stuck behind 18 wheelers, and some crazy fog out in Western Mass. Other than that, just some good, kind of old tunes, and time to try to get my mind in the right spot about racing. I was rather disappointed in my memory of the turnpike having more Starbucks en route. I'd see the rest area listing, and no starbucks. Man, I need a coffee. I'll wait one more rest stop, nope... geez.. I finally succumbed to Lalavazz or whatever, "the best coffee in italy", hah! Italy must be so embarrassed. But, yup that was the highlight of the drive out. Very exciting.

I arrived in Erie about 5:30 and had a little time to kill before Doug was showing up, so I hung out at Barnes and Nobles not really being able to focus on anything. I was wishing I knew who sang a certain song I liked and had stuck in my head as I would have bought the cd for the trip home, but no. Doug showed right on time and we loaded up his car to make it to Toledo for the night. It was good to have company again and be a passenger. We had some very yummy eats in Cleveland. I strayed from my usual safe chicken choice for some fish, oh and a glass of wine to relax and death by chocolate cheesecake :) mmmm

It seemed like forever to get to Toledo. We got in around 10:00ish or sometime thereafter. Watched some mindless tv and called it a night. Breakfast was interesting at a local diner, many people who probably can't even bike a mile, or maybe even fit on a bicycle... hmm.. And we never did find out what "holy toledo" means (ok, here you go, in case you are wondering now too http://www.dotoledo.org/gtcvb/history/display.asp?id=6).

Then driving and driving and oh, more driving to Manistee, MI, up along the northwest side of Michigan. I was pretty tired, so I semi remember some of it. (Maybe I should have had another glass of wine and skipped the cheesecake the night before to help me sleep). I may be missing some minor details here.

We arrived in Manistee at this cute little cabin we rented that was very conveniently located a couple miles from the race site. It was pretty quaint with a river running through it, oh, I mean behind it, that the owner advised would be a good "icing" down of the legs post-race. Good note. We unpacked some stuff and road down to the race site to register and move the legs some. It was threatening to rain at this point so I brought my big raincoat. I was finally getting a bit excited about this race, or maybe just excited to be out of the car. See pic (top right) :-)
It did feel good to move again. Doug hadn't done this race before so I was explaining the layout of where we lap through and where we'd leave the cooler tomorrow for our "pit" spot and then we grabbed our race packets, and I figured it would be good for him to see/ride the first little sandy climb that kind of bottlenecks on the first lap and/or you pick a too sandy route and have to walk it. It's just good to know what's coming up first thing onto the course. I was excited, remembering what a blast this course was last year.

We went back to the cabin, got our gear and eats and bikes etc. ready for race day and then headed off to the downtown Manistee, which is right on Lake Superior. It was Fish Fry night... I hadn't heard of that. But I did again stray from my safe chicken dinner and got some very yummy salmon, oh and some wine again to chill the nerves. We drove over to a beach on Lake Superior, froze our toes in the water, and just killed some time enjoying the view. Oh, and I attempted to slide down the giant slide there, but it was kind of not so slidy. Looked dangerous to me, especially for the drunken partying types...it'd be a tough fall. I am being serious on that one, thankfully I just a glass.

So I thought since I was pretty exhausted from sitting in the car and not sleeping well the previous night and having a glass of wine I would totally crash and get a good nights sleep. UM, nope! I was awake for quite a while just trying not to let it get to me too much. It started to storm outside sometime early early in the morning. It didn't concern me that much since I was hoping that meant it would be done by the time we starting racing and that that hopefully was the chance of "morning rain". As I mentioned before, the course is really sandy so it drains really well. It was done by morning, 5Am wakeup. Doug remembered his expresso maker this time, no Walmart stops, so we ate our breakfasts and juiced up on expresso and got to the race start on the early side to get a decent parking spot. You have to lug your stuff - water, supplies etc to the start/finish lapping area so I didn't want to have to walk too far. Somewhere in that timeframe I noticed Besty Shogren (Mohican winner) milling about and I was like, huh, I didn't notice her name on the pre-reg list, bummer, oh, right, good competition, she and I thought Cheryl was coming, and Danielle Musto (the local rider home turf)... mmm.. Race with Joy, Race with Joy...

The race with joy starts out of the park down the road a couple miles so the pack can thin out some before hitting the singletrack. We got eaten alive by mosquitos waiting to get going, but it was a nice start otherwise. It was Besty, myself and Danielle (cheryl didn't come to the race afterall, she only needs one axe trophy :) (she won last year)) up front with the fast guys. It was a pretty tame pace to start until we hit the singletrack and it was hammer time, heart rate soaring up the first sandy climb. Betsy was still right there and Danielle got stuck behind someone and ended up off her bike and I passed her then and that was the order for the rest of the race. Funny, on the first sandy climb a little Bambi came crashing through woods, leaped over the racers and landed in a heap all legs scrambling to get out of the way. I was surprised the poor thing didn't land on someone. It was a cute little Bambi, lots of adorable white spots, just like Bambi.

So back to the race... I'm pretty happy with the start thus far. I'm in a good group, fast paced and actually spreading out quite nicely. Betsy gapped me a bit but I caught back up to her later on and stayed with her for a bit, but then she dropped me. I was sort of caught up in true race mode a lot that first lap and maybe mentally more than physically spent myself and had to get back into my head of racing my race, not being cocky about the position as anything can happen still. But, I did lose mega motivation going into the second lap. I was feeling a bit tired, and not having gotten great sleep the previous two nights was worried that caught up to me and would just worsen, I had to fight the thoughts of just not wanting to be there. It was tough, especially since I really loved this course last year, at least the first two laps were a blast. The race with joy wasn't doing it either. I tried to keep it going. I was on my own a lot that lap which usually I like but I was starting to think for mental purposes maybe not. I came through to start my 3rd lap, there were some spectators there helping out their friends/significant others who were also very helpful to me coming through the transition - helped me fill my camelpack up etc., giving me the race spread, ie, Betsy was up ~5 or so mins and Danielle was down similar.. mmmm.. better get going. Then starting out that lap I felt much better. The legs were really there again and I was very pleased about that, that's when I go ahh, all that training did work, phew.. and I got some silly songs in my head, like "i feel good,... like I know I shoud.." yeah and making up various words to that. It was my best lap, at least mentally. I was much more focused and feeling more alert. The course has some pretty flat sections that actually get a bit tedious and I had found myself zoning out a lot on Lap 2. So coming into the last lap, which is so nice, the women helping me with my camelback were excited for me as I had cut a few minutes of the lead Betsy had on me, so I was pretty stoked. Although, you come by the transition area after doing an 8 miler inner loop, so Betsy was advised of this and got got going again. I raced the last lap totally on "this is the last time kiddo" feeling. My left knee was starting to bother me though, so I was a bit uncomfortable with that and had to alter pedaling some on account of that, but otherwise I felt pretty good still going into the last lap. I kept thinking when I'd hit some hills or sections, gee, I remember that feeling really hard last year and this time it not being so bad. The last lap though, you start lapping riders, so that gets a bit tricky. Thankfully, 99% are awesome and move out the way quickly realizing that you're likely in position and they still have at least another entire lap to go. Funny, our cabin neighbors, one of the guys we ran into post race packing up and he said yeah, I saw you finish just as I was going for my last lap and he said "i hate her, I really hate her.. (in jest, of course).. I'd hate me at that point.. Anyway, the course really is a lot of fun, smooth, twisty, singletrack. Many of the sections remind me of Star Wars when they're flying the jets through the trees in the Ewok land, kind of like that on the bike. Sweet! So, as I'm finishing up my 4th lap, realizing I'm not catching Betsy, I at least realized I'll make my personal goal of 8 1/2 hrs and hammered in to make sure I got that time. Besty finished in 8'20, new women's course record. I crossed the finish line and Betsy was sitting there commenting that I looked "fresh" still. yeah, right.. but I didn't feel all that bad considering I just road a 100 miles. It certainly is nice to straighten out the back, phew. Oh, I was quite pleased to see my lap times were really really consistent, despite not necessarily feeling that way. My last two laps were only 9 seconds difference, and lap 2-3 only 1 min. My specialized epic road like a dream again, very nice, smooth sailing, tracked well for windy flats, climbs, smoking descents... ahhh.

I sat on the cooler for a while, doing the post-race, drunken mindset state of not knowing what to do first, eat, drink, change.... what... I'll just sit here for a while. I finally got changed and grabbed the beer mugs from the car and waited for Doug to finish up - he rolled across in 9'19, oh wait he didn't want me to write that, that I beat him... :) :) But I had the all important beer glasses ready to go.

We ate some food, had some good beer, although they were having some issues with it pouring too much foam.. :( but it still was tasty. Chatted with Betsy and Danielle. Did our podium shots. I love the trophy for this race. I have to keep doing the race and doing the long drive, ugh!! Then it was back to the cabin to ice the legs in the river. It had turned into a beautiful sunny day, pretty warm in the sun, so the river felt good, after a few minutes. We headed back to Manistee to find some more eats, not sure exactly what we were feeling like. It's an odd post-race kind of hungry/not hungry feeling. So we had some salad, nachos and beer, followed by, just my luck, some ice cream. I didn't think anything was going to be open that late.
And finally slept pretty well that night, which is a new thing for me. I usually sleep like crap the night after a race, just too jazzed up, or achy, or both.

We hit the road relatively early to make it back to Erie that evening. Ann Arbor was about half-way so we stopped there for lunch, and more ice cream :) and wandered around for a bit. Funny, we were in an outdoor shop and the clerk saw our Lumberjack race t-shirts which have a tree saw (there's probably some appropriate for such a saw, but I can't think of it right now) and asked if we were doing some "lumberjacking" (I didn't hear exactly what she asked) and we were like huh, oh, no, it was a bike race. No, really , we cut down a 100 trees in 100 minutes. But after that we were semi-paranoid that people were looking at us like tree haters..

On the road again to Erie, and last funny story for this report, we ate at this wings restaurant which was pretty tasty, but our waitress was perhaps a bit new... anyway, I had been craving some twizzlers recently, which is a bit unusual for me, but I hadn't bought any yet and at the end of the meal we got a couple twizzlers with the check (instead of mints, I'm assuming).. so I was like, sweet.. I finally got my twizzlers and had made a big deal about it and the waitress said that they give them out because, according to her boss, they're good for your teeth.. huh?? I thought they were made of high fructose corn syrup, and that's why I didn't buy myself a whole bag... I actually googled it to make sure I wouldn't make a fool of myself making fun of her. Maybe real, true liquorice.. we were delirious already so it didn't take much to humor us at that point.

So, I hit the road solo again Monday morning feeling a bit bleary eyed and was semi worried the drive was going to feel particularly long back to Massachusetts, but I woke up some as I belted out some tunes and had smooth sailing trip home. Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised to see many more starbucks going eastbound, unfortunately I had already given up hope of there being any and had gotten some Tim hortons coffee, but it was decent, certainly better than "Italy's Best" (the italians should do something about the erroneous claim)..
and that's that.. told you it would be long, see what you get for waiting :) on to some local races for the next month.. hopefully Putney will go well this weekend. It should only take 2hrs or there about, it will feel like a short day... just not so sure on the "speed/pace"..
Next 100 is the Wilderness 101 August 1st

Wait one more day for the report

2009-06-22T21:22:00.000-04:00

Hey all
I'm sleepy... and totally procrastinating writing this so I'm going to sleep on and write some extra pages tomorrow to make up for it! And maybe truly some pics too :)
went well though.. till tomorrow
-karen
oh, ok, I came in 2nd, details tomorrow evening

Pre Lumberjack Michigan Race

2009-06-16T21:26:00.001-04:00

So, it's just about time to head out for the 2nd 100 miler. I can't say I'm in the same mellow place I was going into the Mohican race. I wish I was... that was nice. I'm not too nervous, but just a bit anxious to get going, and well, I do feel some pressure to live up to the past performance. I'll be spending a lot of the drive reminding myself what fun this course is and that's the whole point to have fun, right? I had the 'dream" earlier this week that it was race day, and it was pouring torrential rain, and nobody wanted to race but they started the race anyways, and well I waited some for no particular good reason but then i went to get ready to go and realized i had not water and road to some convenience store that didn't have any gallons, and well it was just turning into such a struggle.. and then I woke up and reminded myself it's not till Saturday, phew... silly pre-race jitters.

On a positive, I'm not sick.. Yeah!! And I'll be meeting up with my friend Doug in Erie, PA so I don't have to do the whole drive alone. Yeah!! And my friend Paul, who lives downstairs from me is taking care of my dog, so I dont' have to drive him anywhere which is nice. Yeah! And really, this course was so much fun last year. It's the only one of the series I've done that does 4 laps, and well, at least I remember having a lot of fun on the first two laps and then getting through the last two... and still loving my new specialized epic. Hopefully, this will be the same smiley face race day morning...

I will try to get a race report up on Monday night when I get back, from the long long drive.

Mohican 100 miler race report

2009-06-01T21:43:00.000-04:00

So how many pages do we want here ?? I'm sitting down with mmm.. another celebratory beer for coming in 2nd !! yeah! I took 1hr off of my time from last year (half of that due to better trail conditions), felt pretty good despite the head cold... so I'm pretty psyched!! All that hard work did pay off.

As I mentioned in the pre-race blog, I was surprisingly mellow going into this race. It was almost kind of weird not getting pre-race jitters. I was thinking that maybe I was forgetting something important, or perhaps just blocking out the pain and agony. I think reason took over and controlled those thoughts from surfacing since I was going to do it anyway, no sense in bringing it all up before it was necessary.

I started out Thursday driving solo to the Pittsburgh area where I'd meet up with my friend Doug who I met at this race last year drinking a beer and eating pizza post-race. I missed having some company for the long drive but sometimes it's not so bad going solo as you can listen to whatever crap you want to, belt out tunes, take as many or few pee breaks or coffee breaks etc, talk to yourself, talk to the other drivers (or curse them, I'm embarrassed to admit certain things since certain people of importance might be reading this), and swerve every now and then picking out some new music and not really scare anyone... Overall, a pretty uneventful drive. Although I did pass an 18 wheeler that somehow got itself in a position off the side of the road I can't quite figure out how it did so??? It just stopped traffic for a while. That and noticing the long slow lines of traffic going through constructions zones on the other side of the highway thinking, hmmm.. I hope it's not that bad when I head home, maybe I should think of some alternative routes.... I was getting ancy about 7hrs in and just tried to remind myself that in hopefully less than 3hrs I'd be able to be a passenger.

I met up with Doug north of Pittsburgh about 5:30 and just left my car at hotel. I was thinking it shouldn't take that long to get to the resort and finally be able to stretch the legs and back and everything. He had a GPS system but set to the wrong Mohican whatever (everything in that area has Mohican in it's name) so we were driving around this crazy back country roads and then we realized it wasn't set on the right location... so we finally arrived around 8:30 or something like that. This was the place Kerry and I stayed at last year that reminded me of the resort out of Dirty Dancing. Although this year I was looking forward to that. It is pretty cush.. and the view from the dining room and deck is spectacular (I'll get pics from Doug and post at some point), that I wanted to use the hot tub that I thought existed (turned out to be just a kiddy pool, but it looks like it would be a hot tub from a distance :( ) We grabbed a beer and called it a night.

Friday, I was dragged around Ohio in search of a camping style expresso maker that Doug insisted on finding so we could have a good cup of expresso in the morning, and I"m like, there's no way in hell you're finding any type of expresso maker out here. It was mostly an excuse to tour the area. Yeah, we toured a Walmart, and some other shops :) Of course, there was no expresso maker to be found, what a surprise... We just got some expresso from a starbucks to drink room temp in the morning, which, really, was fine by me. It was better than my canned version in my opinion. We headed back to the hotel and went for a short spin to stretch out the legs. My legs felt heavy and I was a bit concerned but I just tried to remind myself that they kind of felt like that last year after lots of driving. I didn't like that my head cold certainly wasn't going away. But the trails were in great shape, pretty dry, pretty fast, everything seemed to be working on the bike and I was still pretty darn mellow even after driving to the race registration and dropping off my drop bags for the Aid Stations, which I had diligently calculated out the calories, H2O, etc a week ago so that was pretty easy. The only "stressful" decision was whether to drop a 3rd bag or not since we got to drop 3, and I did "just in case". Dinner, beer and then to bed all pretty mellow still! What's up with that.

I slept pretty well, despite some bizarre dreams. Woke up before the alarm clock a little ancy and got ready to go. The weather forecast was still perfect, mostly sunny skies, mid 70s, slight, slight chance of T-storm (supposedly, not even close), although it was pretty foggy that morning which made for some cool scenery on the 20 min drive over to the race. It was a bit chilly outside for my tastes. Although, I was anticipating starting in arm warmers, and would have liked leg warmers and a coat to do the 1 mile ride from the finish spot to the start in downtown Loudinville. From the pre-reg list, none of the "top" NUE women riders were pre-reged but I knew not to count on the list and that was a good thought since there were all there. And the mens group drew out some big names this time around too - Tinker and Jeremiah, and the usual top 5 men...

So I knew this year to start out in the near the front since it did matter a lot to get onto the singletrack as much in front as possible as the first 25-30 miles was predominantly tight singletrack. But the start out of town goes up this ridiculously steep climb, oh wait, that's all of the climbs in that area.. anyway, it's about a 2-3 miles on the road before dropping into singletrack but there's usually a bit of a backlog (ie stopping) before starting int eh woods so going hard on this climb is pretty important and I went fairly hard but not too bad and I felt like I ended up in an ok position going into the single track. I wasn't quite sure who of my competitors were ahead but after a little bit I surmised it was Besty Shogren (the winner) and ?? else ... Maybe an hour into the race I pass Doug who pulled off the side of the trail which kind of surprised me as I didn't expect to pass him early in the race but he said Besty was less than a 1min ahead and I knew Cheryl (last year's NUE series winner) was maybe less then 20 riders back from me, but you can't worry about those things that early on. Both of them are very experienced long distance racers, what can you do?? So I just kept with my pace, which I was semi-worried was a tad too much, but that's racing pace I guess. I know this year I didn't get passed so much on the singletrack as I did last year. I was in a pretty good train of riders and jsut had to keep going at that pace. Although, about a 20miles in I can hear this rider coming up from behind mentioning to some other racer that he flatted and he was trying to make up time... and anyway, he gets up to me and wants to pass, but there are so few places to pass on this singletrack and we're at a point where we're cooking and I finally get to a section where I can move over a bit and he could move over a bit to pass, but the **@&&^@ doesn't move and clips me bad making me crash hard. I was pissed to say the least and yelling some nasty words at him. There was no need for that. I hopped back on thankfully not getting hurt or breaking my bike. What a jerk!! The only other annoying point was getting behind some rider who kept crashing or messing up but wouldn't move out the way to get by so that was making me pretty pissy for a bit but finally he messed up on a short steep up and I got by him then, but he was pretty obnoxious about not letting me pass him. Otherwise, it was mostly nice racers out there. It was certainly nice to have a new bike that shifted beautifully (unlike my debacle with that issue last year) and that the trails were really dry. It was pretty fast paced from the getgo, but I felt good and I was making through the miles feeling strong and in just such a better mindset that last year. The year's experience too of knowing not to waste any "easy" terrain by not hammering it or not finishing up a hill strong to have speed starting the descent helped me immensely. I also found myself in the position of having to worry about taking a pee break or not since knew Cheryl wasn't that far behind. I made it to aid station 2 where one of my main drop bags was that had my "fuel" in it so I had to stop and thankfully they had a bathroom so the stop was quick. Although, later on in the race, I was about 7hrs in, I knew I couldn't wait till I finished so I finished up one of the many ridulously climbs and scurried off into the woods and hopped back on my bike right as a truck was passing by and going down the ill that I could have gone faster than the truck on and it was kicking up dust like you wouldn't believe... I was like the timing... ugh.. I could tell the driver was trying to go faster but it still sucked.. anyway. one other big lessons from last year was to pace yourself or draft whenever possible on road sections or flats, downhills.. Somewhere mid-way through I was riding with the Masters' winner of the Cohutta race in Tennessee and I asked him how long it took him and he said 8 1/2hrs and I said well I'm drafting you then.. so I stayed with him and one other kid for a bit but got dropped. BOth of them hadn't done this race before and didn't know about the 10mile flat horse cart path leading into aid station 4 (71 miles in) but I saw the Masters guy on the road again and I convinced myself it would be quite worthwhile to get up on his wheel so I got going and when I caught up to him again he was like "you just worked pretty hard to get up here huh"... and I"m like yup... the long flat stretch is coming up.. So I hung with him for 7 or so miles of that and he got tired so I figured it was only fair to take the last few miles into aid station 4. The 1st half of that "flat stretch" was maybe a tad up, it certainly felt like more work even drafting for the first half than the 2nd half. Anyway, so I'm making good time, still not exactly sure if it's just Besty in front of me and not a 100% sure if Cheryl maybe passed me at an aid station or pee break without my seeing her).. but I was thinking I was in 2nd place but trying not count that too much. I actually had my hardest motivationally speaking point post aid station 4 (which was quite opposite of last year)... but just kept plugging along and finally make it to aid station 5 and they tell me 6 miles to go... woo hoo!!!!
I'm starting to feel stoked at this point. We head back into some fun single track and I'm going pretty hard now 'smelling' the finish line.. and this singletrack is pretty sweet.. so I'm dropping back down towards the campground area where the finish line is and thinking holy crap I'm going to be close to 8 1/2hrs, unbelieveable, patting myself on the back and then right before hitting the campground is an arrow sending us back into the single track up a hike a bike climb... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!... geez... I'm like is this for real and follow it only to have two more hike a bike sections (but those three probably equal only 1 of 3 'real' other hike a bike sections).. but it's backtracking on some early section of the course and then dumps out onto a dirt road into the finish!!! yeah~!~~~ 8'47 -- sweet!!!! and doubly sweet when I find out it is 2nd place...

Then it's the semi-comatose 'un readying".. it's probably kind of amusing to watch as you just don't know what to do first, take off the helmet?? take of shoes? usually some mixture happens and everything in disarray for a bit.. but I get it eventually and take a shower and grab some eats and hang out and drink some beer... and do the podium thing.. I'm feeling not too bad post-100 miler, the good finish certainly helped. My knees were a bit achy and all I certainly felt like I road for a long long time but overall, I didn'' feel like crap so that was good--thanks to my good coaching from Will (www.tri-hard.com) who I just couldn't tell that I got a head cold right before the race... and thanks to my sponsor Don D - (www.bikect.com) and my mechanic, Brian Spring, for always fixing my bike with more care and detail than I can be bothered with (and yes, even with the new bike there were several tweakings ahead of time!!, but kudos to Specialized for the new epic)...

and then it was just post race beer and pizza and some sight seeing of the Pittsburgh area, thanks Doug, and then, the Long Drive home....

Lumberjack is less than 3 wks... . the pressure

_karen

Pre Mohican 100

2009-05-27T11:13:00.000-04:00

Well, it feels quite different going this year going into these 100 milers having done them last year. I feel almost too mellow, so mellow I seem to have to gotten a cold :( :(, which needless to say is bumming me out as my training has been great and the rest going into this race has been going well. I did the Team Bums mtn bike time trial last night and my legs felt pretty good, I just was a bit off through the technical, twisty, tough 6 mile course. I liken it to playing Operation. I managed to scrape a few trees and dabble quite a few times and still not beat the previous week's best time :( :( oh well... I was tempted to try one more time last night but thought better of it and well wrapping myself around a tree or a rock or my bike doing similar... not a good idea. That, and I could tell I was feeling pretty congested and getting a sore throat. geez!!! I'm going to suck it up and try some hard liquor tonight to knock it out of my system. Other than that, it's packing to get going and on the road first thing tomorrow morning. I'll have a write up post race (monday??)

My first blog

2009-05-24T20:41:00.001-04:00

Hey all,
Just trying this all out... I'm behind in technology times. Too much time riding my bike. I'll post some race reports and various training escapades shortly.
-karen