Going Nowhere Fast

The skies have been pissing down rain here for a week now. This is highly unusual, and most unwelcome. I haven't been out on my mountain bike for almost 2 weeks (insert short violin solo). Got a race coming up this weekend, so needed to get some workouts in.

On Wednesday, I decided to leave work at 5pm if it wasn't raining, and take my road bike up and down the Butte beside my house for some hill climb intervals. At 4:59 pm, went to the window to ascertain the weather situation : some dark clouds, but no rain, and the streets were drying out from earlier rain. At 5:01 pm, exited the building, and it was pouring down rain - WTH ? But the deluge was localized, with no rain at the house, so out I went. Several minutes later, rain. It proceeded to rain hard for the next hour, while I gamely pounded up the steep hills. My 'all-weather' booties soon filled up with water, and each foot gained an additional 5 pounds (glass half full : better workout, right ?). After 4 climbs, dragged my soaked self home. (Insert cartoonish pouring out of 20 gallons of water from each boot).

Thurday, serious rain all day. Had optimistically packed my mountain bike, but no way Jose was I heading out for a sad soaked muddy ride. Upon arriving home, decided to ride the trainer in the garage. This is for me a most unhappy proposition, as I can't stand riding in one spot for an hour or more, with no distractions save for pounding loud workout music. In fact, I never last more than an hour, ejecting myself jubilantly from the enslaving device at that point. But gotta endure it somehow - no other choice. I make up some over-under type workout, where go very hard for a minute or 2, then tone it down a bit for double that time, then rest for the sum of the hard parts. Soon I'm sweating from every pore, the liquid dripping in a steady stream all over the bike and the floor. Man, don't remember ever sweating this much. Every time I take my hands off the bar for a breather, and then replace them, the water squishes out of the half-gloves I'm wearing. Soon I've saturated every towel and other pieces of clothing, from siphoning the sweat from my oozing head. Am I working too hard ? My heart rate monitor broke a year ago, so no feedback beyond the raspy breathing and pounding in the chest.
When it's all over, head back into the house, and holy shit is it freezing in there! Check the thermometer - room temperature... ? Take a shower, head back into the garage, and it's like entering a blast furnace ! My workout must have raised the temp in the garage by 20 degrees ! (insert some vague idea about recapturing energy to save on heating costs...)

Bear Springs

Team WebCyclery/Niner headed up to the race Sunday morning, with 3 full-suspension Niners in the bed of Dan's pickup. Rob and my kermit-green Jet9's were eager to demonstrate their prowess once more, after their initial testing in the Chainbreaker last weekend. Dan was hoping to redeem himself after an early exit from that race, due to a brutal crash that ensued after his pedal clipped a large unseen rock whereupon he catapulted over the bars and made contact with the ground head first. Actually wait, Rob needed some redemption as well, as a maladjusted seat-post height had caused massive leg cramping, resulting in him not finishing the race either. I was also somewhat apprehensive, as I wondered if the good showing I'd had on this new bike was a fluke. Today's race would be quite a bit harder, and the potential for debilitating cramps much higher. I had a secret weapon though maybe : rummaging through some old boxes full of various race gels and bars, I had found this sample tube of electrolyte replacement I'd picked up at some race last year. Mix with 32 oz of water it said, and enjoy increased performance and eternal happiness - or something to that effect. Of course it's one of the major taboos to never try anything new on race day, but it tasted ok, so in it went.

The race start was the usual cluster-fuck, with a steep rutted hike-a-bike right after we'd turned off the road into the singletrack. Dozens of racers rubbed shoulders scrambling up awkwardly in stiff biking shoes, and several end-arounds were possible with quick-thinking creative route finding skills - I observed ChrisS execute a couple of these, and jump ahead several spots. Many sections of snow confused the issue as well. Soon we were spread out somewhat on the rolling singletrack, which helped dissipate some of the adrenalin. Not too long afterwards we crossed back over our initial trajectory, to the cheers of the roaring crowd - well all 8 of them. Another steep doubletrack climb, which was going to be difficult to clean due to the throng ahead of me. Oops, there goes one sideways, with a domino effect taking out a couple of riders. A minor karfuffle ensued, with much use of sailor language and use of the bike as a wacking device. Cooler heads managed just to prevail, and I was able to scoot around a large clot of walkers/wankers/wackers. Saw DanW ahead, but only briefly as he dropped his chain near the top (add foreshadowing music here:).

The singletrack was a blast, and the Jet9 was eating it up nicely. Got to the long talus field section, replete with large jagged rocks, and was hoping to drive the dually through there to see if I could make it. However a large group of riders just ahead had all dismounted it and were walking it, so I followed suit. Near the end of the section, some 'hero' came behind me still on his bike (or had just gotten back on) and attempted to call us to move over so he could ride through. Uh sorry buddy, when you see a big crowd like this in front of you walking, you've got to walk too. He attempted to ram through anyways, his tire catching the back of my leg. Ok, that's it, I turned around and popped him in the face. Just kidding :) well hopefully he got the message when we didn't all jump aside.

After a great downhill we hit a longish fireroad climb, and I saw the other Jet9 - with RobU aboard - just up ahead. Caught up to him, and that little extra effort seemed to initiate the nauseousness that dogged me for the rest of the race. Coulda been the new Electrolytes, or perhaps the 5 beers I'd consumed the night before. But overall felt great, even with the temps in the high 80's. Had been slurping go-juice at an accelerated rate all day, and sucking back more gels than usual, all in the hope of warding off the big 'C'. And mostly that seemed to work. Also noticed that riding a full suspension just makes a race more fun - I mean it was fun on the old DosNiner as well, as that thing sliced and diced it at a pretty high level - but this here ol' Jet9 just cranks it up to 11 mates !

Catch up to SpencerS, and am I hallucinating or are the cicadas just going insane around here ? No - it's Spence's Juicy7's with extra squeal appeal. Man those things are deafening ! After 10 minutes or so of languishing in his screech trail, I overtake him to put it all behind me, but he latches onto my pace and the painful high frequency sonic bath continues. RobU is also hanging with us, enjoying the sounds of nature too.

The race is almost over - or is it ? With all the corkscrew wacky windings of this crazy course, it's really hard to tell. They lopped off a few miles this year due to snow, so I'm figuring about 2.5 hours total - only half an hour to go. Usually this is a most excrutiating 30 minutes, and this year is no exception. At the start we had been warned that water levels are unusually high due to melting snow, and this will only be exacerbated by afternoon runoff with today's blazing sun. We hit the section with multiple dismounts and wading through water, and the cramps start hitting hard. I start whining/muttering about it aloud, and am comforted to hear the same stream of complaints from others in the vicinity. Am still hanging with Spence and Rob, and we get to watch each other crash spasmodically on the wet roots, and then try to remount with cramp-stiffened legs. Some of the sections are just crazy obstacle courses, with a couple of feet of icy cold stream water (actually felt real good on the throbbing swelling sore hot feet), interspersed with log sections that had been placed for us to hop on (and slide spectacularly off of:).

Now comes the steep climb out of the marshy madness, and as usual you can find pockets of exhausted riders taking a breather - maybe these are beginner or sport class riders - leaning on trees, massaging unresponsive limbs, etc. Around 10 minutes to go I announce, and Rob and I push ahead. I have sucked my Camelbak dry a few minutes before this, and hope I'm right. Soon enough the canal bank approaches, and then the ensuing road back up to the finish. Rob and I see no one behind us, and the Jet9's cruise to the finish together. Why such amicability ? Well we're in different age groups, otherwise @$%@$*%! :) No photographers are around to witness history in the making, but at least you've got me to tell you this here story. Another awesome Bear Springs - a truly classic single track battleground.

P.S. : now what of that mentioning of foreshadowing earlier on ? Well we see DanW at the finish, already changed from his biking attire... wtf did he go flying past us while we had our heads down commiserating in cramp-land ? Nope, chain-sucking and chain-dropping woes finally caused him to abandon ship - better luck next time Dano! But at least Team-Full-Susser-Niner gets 2 out of 3 finishes today, an improvement over the 1 for 3 last weekend.

Chainbreaker

Another dusty CB ? Showers were promised but not delivered.... but it wasn't too bad. And had the new Jet9 frame to try out, as the parts from my DosNiner had been tranferred over earlier in the week. Well this bike plain rocked - felt totally at home with the cockpit set up the same, and the buttery smooth ride even resulted in a 2-lap time that was less than 20 seconds off last years pace ! Wtf ? This non-training regimen might actually work ? Well, I think if I'd had to go another mile I might have collapsed, as all muscles went into rigor-mortis mode a few minutes after the race while I was spinning it out trying to de-lactic-acidate. Tried to drink a ton to ward off the crampies, and it worked for the most part, but with the cool temps couldn't assimilate much liquid - it started getting all sloshy in my stomachy - and had to reduce intake. Came across the line with over 20oz left, an annoying weight to have had to carry along the whole ride. But felt great - a little bit weary in middle of 2nd lap, and got passed a bit, but had a great finishing kick and passed a minor nemisis with less than 1k to go, who had called me out at some race last year, and thus is satisfying to beat.

Racing season is back...

Hohum... Time for the Ashland Spring Thaw. Actually this is usually a fun time - see people you haven't seen in a while, nice weather, etc. Decided to make a weekend of it, head over Fri nite, race Sat, and ride somewhere Sun.

[Hmm a week later and I still haven't finished this... writing about racing is now tiresome - it's the same old shit over and over. The races are still a blast, but the stories starting to repeat]
Anyhow I camped out Fri nite at my usual spot - well, been there once before - at the top of the pass on Route 66 between Klamath Falls and Ashland. The mega snow pack made me think I'd be camping on snow - and sure enough when hit the turn off at 10:30 pm or so, there were banks on either side of the dirt road that leads to the reservoir. They apparently plow it though, so kept going to see what I'd find. Well, tons of fishing cabins and other signs of habitation. Found a pullout on the West side of the fake lake on the other side of the road - spotted a somewhat dry and fairly even patch of ground up in the woods a bit, and setup the tent. It got cold quick, but had time to quaff a beer and play a little guitar under the stars.
During the night was serenaded by various wild bird sounds, especially at dawn when the waterfowl went nuts. Headed for race by 7am, and got there in time to get to the free parking slots. Awesome day shaping up as got ready for the early 9am slot.

As mentioned many days earlier, course reroute due to snowpack - so 2 laps of shortened course. Sounded a bit lame, but this was the best version yet, as got to do the awesome singletrack descent twice. 2200 feet of climbing up the fireroad each time was somewhat labourious, but worth it.

Was eager to see how I would fare with my new training regimen, or lack thereof. Sure enough, started to cramp on the 2nd lap, and had to go into survival mode on the climb. Still able to enjoy 2nd downhill though. I dropped into the bottom 3rd of the class, oh well.

So yeah my new training idea is to not do any training, which was growing tiresome. Unwilling to increase training time, in an attempt to compete for podium spots in the difficult Expert 40+ class, I decided to do no training, to see what this would feel like. Well, so far it feels like cramps ! The racing is just as intense - I go all out - but did not have much finishing kick. But it's not like I sit around on the potato, eating couches and playing video games - I'm still riding a bunch and getting in 8-10 hours of miscellaneous exercise a week. Just no weeks and weeks of doing intervals, sprints and whatnots. Well, I did do some intervals up Pilot Butte last week, like I do often during the year to measure fitness, and my times were down almost 8% from last year, which is quite a chunk of time if you extrapolate it over a 2 hour race - 10 minutes or so. I figured last year b4 Spring Thaw I'd put in 26 training days of long rides and intervals, and this year did about 6, of which 3 were kind of half-assed.

The post race raffle was annoying as didn't win anything, so felt like a loser. They had enough prizes to give everybody something, but often threw 3 or 4 prizes into 1, and then put even the winners back into the main draw for the grand prize bike frame.

Was hoping to hang in Ashland overnight, hit the Biker's Bash and maybe go riding somewhere the next day - but no plan developed, and going to ChrisS's house for dinner seemed like a better plan - so did that, and had a great ride the next day at Brice Creek - though the intense climbing did sear my legs good.