Suffer-o-rama

I’ve had a pretty crappy spring, racing wise. For some reason I am slow and tired a lot of the time, and (duh!) it’s affected my racing and training. But enough whinging, lets get right to the abject humiliation:

3/30/10 Copperopolis RR M45 cat 4 16 of 16 finishers.
Yep, dead last (of the finishers. a few guys quit). Copperopolis has a lot of different fields, with 1/2/3, 4 and cat 5 for the masters 45, the fastest growing age group in NorCal racing. The 45 4s was so large they split us into two groups, A and B. I wasn’t going to do this race because I felt like crap and because every time I have done it I have vowed to never come back. The climb is short and steep and variable, more like two power climbs stuck together than the long endless grind type that I like. There’s a lot of riding in cross winds and head winds, which I suck at, and some more short steep kicker hllls after the windy section which always seem to be my undoing. Then there’s the pavement. It ranges from pretty good to truly terrible, and most is the latter. Did I mention that it was cold and windy? I don’t like cold and wind.

But I saw that there were three teamates on the signup list for the 45 4B field so I signed up hoping that even if I was on a bad day I could help a teamate out. But I was wrong- on the first time up the climb I was already in trouble. I rode around with teamate Allen and a couple other guys until I got gapped on one of those kicker climbs after the windy section, then rode the second lap on my own. I rode a while with a p/1/2 on his 5th lap. I mistook him for a junior, how embarrassing.

The only good thing from the whole day, besides being on a bike which is always good even when it sucks, was that I figured out the tire pressure to run- 90 psi front, 95 rear. The ride was not bad even on the worst of the pavement.

4/24/10 Wente Road Race, M45 4/5, 32 of 75
I have enjoyed Wente in the past. Its on roads I know and is hilly enough to cause a selection. But for some reason on this day I could not move up in the pack. The field was large and generally slow, filling the entire lane (center line rule strictly enforced). I started at the back and stayed there almost the whole race. I’d pass a bunch of guys on the hill each lap and most would catch up during the rest of the lap, swelling the field again. Each time on the descents I’d get filtered to the back as I left just a little more room around me than I should have and guys would take it. Coming to the hill the second to last time I went up to the front (finally!) and got in about 10 riders back, only to have half the field do the same thing and shuffle me back to the back again. That time the climb was especially fast and I got gapped but rode my own pace and worked with some other guys to get back on. At that point I knew it was going to be a sprint up the climb to the line and I suck at that sort of three minute effort so I didn’t bother to even try to keep position. I just wanted to stay with the pack to the climb. It turns out that about half the field had been dropped and I was (barely) with the non-dropped guys, so at least I accomplished that.

ericm races

I raced the Everest Challenge last weekend. This year I wanted to see what it was like to race with the leaders, and I was hoping for a better placing, so I raced in the 4s instead of the 45s.

On the first day I hung with the lead group of 8 til a bit past halfway up the first 6000′ climb. Then I had to back off a bit to save something. They were pretty close for the next 3000′ climb, but on the flat section before the last 6000′ climb my stomach was feeling really bad. I ate, drank, took more electrolytes, but nothing worked. By the first feed zone up the last climb I was in really bad shape. I stopped and got a feed from Laura, then tried to go on, but I just felt too bad. I didn’t think I could make it to the next feed, let alone to the top. So I turned around and pulled out of the race. I got a ride back to the motel, puked and took a nap, then started eating.

The way the EC works you can race the second day even if you DNFd the first… you just aren’t competing for the overall so you’re not really in the race. I felt better in the morning and rode well on the second day. I think I finished 9th and was closing in on some of the lead eight. My time was about 17 minutes faster than last year. I’m pleased with that but bummed about not finishing the race.

If I’d finished both days, I would probably have placed better in the 45s than in the 4s. I didn’t like being a group all that much, so I will probably go back to the 45s next year… then they’ll go back to being faster than the 4s again.

Gory Race Details-

The group was really mellow on the first day’s neutral rollout. We even stopped to pee. I used it as an opportunity to get near the front. After the neutral rollout we still went slow. When the climb started there was a stiff headwind coming down the slope, so no one wanted to be on the front. I pulled for a while when we were in the lee of a cliff but for the rest I sat second to fourth wheel. Every once in a while someone would go to the front and go fast, everyone would get on his wheel, then he’d realize that he was doing more work then he needed to and would stop pedaling. Then we’d all have to swerve to the side to avoid hitting the rider in front. The speed up, slow down was kind of annoying and let the weaker riders keep up, so we were still a large group by the time we hit the top of the small descent about half way up. I’ve never been with the lead group by this point so I really wanted to hang in. I was fifth wheel at the top. As we started down there was a car a ways in front of us. It braked hard for a turn so I thought that the turn was sharper than it really was, so I braked harder than I needed to and left a small gap. Once we got back on the climb it looked like the riders in front would take off, so I worked hard to close the gap. I got back on just in time for them to turn it off and slow again, which let everyone else back on too. That was a waste of effort.

Near the top of the first half of the climb, where you ride on highway 395 for a mile, one guy (Matthew Younkins- Racing Greyhounds) rolled off the front. I was second and didn’t feel like chasing, and no one else did either as no one came around. The guy next to me said “he’ll be doing that all day. It’s what he did at Challenge last weekend.” “Can he hold it?” I asked. “Nope” was the reply. Reading his race report after the race, it sounds like he was caught later on the first descent. On the descent I worked with a couple guys from another field but they both got away from me on the short flat part before the second. The second climb I did at my own pace, passing riders from other races.

On the 10 mile flat part before the last climb I was feeling bad. I got caught by another 4- Alex Lugosch, Bike Nut (a shop in SF)- but I was too busy fishing electrolytes out of my jersey pocket to get on his wheel to work with him. I was feeling bloated and my mouth was dry like I was dehydrated.

We had a small mix up on the feeding- I’d expected Laura to be at the start, and was out of water when I got there, but she wasn’t there. I had to stop and beg for a fill from someone else’s support. The wind was about 20 mph so the next five miles up a very gradual grade before the real climbing begins was a miserable slog.

Once on the real climb I was in trouble. I was getting caught by riders instead of catching them. A couple from my field passed me and I felt too bad to race so I just let them go by. A couple public or tourist class riders I caught wanted to talk, but I felt too bad to be able to say anything.

Laura was at the next feed zone, which was up the climb a ways. I stopped and asked for different food than she had, so she had to run over to the van for it. I didn’t care about lost time at this point. I shoved down a rice cake and ate some other food but it didn’t do any good. I tried to keep going but I was riding at about 4 mph and feeling really bad. After a half mile or so I turned around and went back to the feed zone. Michael had already abandoned and was sitting there looking dejected. We loaded my bike up in his car, and he took me and another cat 4 who was abandoning back to the start and into town. I don’t normally get car sickness but I was really concerned about puking in the back of the car.

When I got to the motel room I did puke but there wasn’t anything coming up. I took a nap, then ate something. Then I ate some more. Some of us went out for pizza, which went down well, and then I ate some more when I got back to the motel room.

On the second day I was feeling back to normal. The race started slow again and started pretty slow up the first climb. I was bored. Lugosch (Bike Nut) did a slow-mo attack and the guys on the front (all from the previous day’s group of eight) loudly said “dont’ worry about him, he’s not going anywhere”. And he didn’t, dangling out there for a while before coming back in line. Then Younkins put in an actual attack and was ignored. Maybe 10 minutes later someone else made a move, and then Chance Whittacker (Swamis), who’d been one of the main drivers the day before, went to bridge and a lead group of 11 or so went off. I let them go as I was on the “riding my own pace” plan.

On the descent I managed to catch Lugosch and another guy near the bottom. We worked together on the flat part before the second climb. They told me they were 10th and 11th on the road, and I told them that I hadn’t finished the first day and was thus not a factor in the race. They stuck with me for a while on the next climb but dropped off the pace. Farther up I caught a Platinum rider who said we were 9th and 10th. I told him that I hadn’t finished the day before but he still wanted to race me. He wound up a ways ahead of me at the turn around, and I had to stop to refill my bottle of HEED (most of the turnarounds were not handing out bottles like last year). But I went fast down the descent and caught and then dropped the Platimum rider. I was pretty happy with that as I have had a problem with descending in this race before- in the past its been me that’s been dropped on the descent.

On the last climb I was trying to catch some of the leading 8 riders. A couple times I thought I saw them, only to find out it was someone else when I caught up. But Kevin finished just a bit in front of me and said he’d passed a couple fours right before the finish, so I was close to some of them.

As far as why I got sick-

I heard there were a number of people puking on the side of the road and/or pulling out near the end. One of my teammates had really bad food poisoning. I don’t know for sure if it was the cause but I will avoid the pre-race pasta feed next year.

The pasta feed was supposed to be vegetarian (I have been vegetarian for the last 20 years). The organizer told me they would have veg pasta and sauce. So when I went up to get some and saw they had pasta and sauce in one tray, and meat in another, I assumed they did the usual thing of making veg food and having meat to add to it. Perhaps I am too used to the Bay Area…. I got some pasta and started chowing down, only to find a piece of meat. I thought it had fallen in, so I gave it to Laura and kept eating. Found another one and only then started asking other people at the table if theirs had meat in it.

It turns out that the vegetarians were supposed to ask in the kitchen for the veg version (plain sauce on pasta). I don’t think that eating a little meat would have made a 20 year vegetarian sick- I am sure I have gotten occasional meat molecules during that time- but it can’t have helped. Laura’s theory was that it was the salad, but she’s not sure of that either.

Unfortunately for me, low electrolytes, low blood sugar and being dehydrated all make me feel ill in the same way, so they’re all also a possibility. But it looks like I consumed most of my electrolyte pills, I think I ate enough, and I had plenty of water. Nothing’s sticking out as the obvious cause.

I did use HEED with added Sustained Energy for some of my calories. I’ve used that in training for the first bottle of the day but I was using it for all my bottles this time. I was getting sick of the taste of SE, so I won’t do that again. And I was depending more on Hammer Gel than I normally do. So I kind of broke the rule of never doing something new in a race. I have used both of those in training many times without a problem, just not to the same extent as I did in the race. I was trying to avoid using Clif bars since the last couple years I have gotten really sick of them by the end.

On the second day I went back to plain HEED and Clif bars plus home-made rice cakes, and that worked fine.

I wound up with a sore throat/cold starting Sunday night that’s still going now, so there were plenty of germs to go around.

I added up what I remember eating, and it looks like I ate quite a bit on day 1, especially the second climb… like 550 calories/hr. Supposedly more than 300 cal/hr makes you ill, although I have never had problems from eating too much, only too little. So maybe that was it.

ericm Everest Challenge, races

4/18/09
DNF

I didn’t take this event seriously, and my results show it. I started out using a small headlight that’s been sitting on my workbench for a year, and a small clip-on taillight, clipped onto my seat bag. I started with the 5am group, in the dark. The first five miles or so were well lit from streetlights but when we lost the streetlights I noticed that my headlight wasn’t actually lighting the road. The ride started much harder than I expected, more like a cat 5 road race than a 200 mile ride. I was with the lead group when I noticed the headlight’s uselessness, so I just rode next to or ahead of riders with better lighting. A few more miles in and the headlight stopped working… the batteries died.

I was doing ok by riding with other people and using their lights until we got to the steep short downhill before the climb up Diablo. The pavement there is poor and there’s a lot of potholes. It’s challenging in the light. I rode next to Marco and his wife on a tandem, who had a good light, but I still hit a pothole. The impact knocked my taillight off. Now I had no lights at all. Once I got through the rough part at the bottom of Diablo I was ok, I knew the road was smooth and I could see just enough from the other rider’s lights to stay on the road. I kept to an easy pace, riding with a small group.

The sky got light as I got to the top so I had plenty of light for a cold descent. My bike was wobbling and it took me a while to figure out that it was because I was shivering. Around the back of Diablo I hooked up with some other riders for the climb up Morgan Territory and then through Livermore and out Altamont Pass. Altamont had us going into a headwind but a big guy from Olympic Club (a tri club) was doing most of the work. I was trying to stick to a heart rate under 150.

The whole way I was worrying about the lights. I figured that I could do the ride in about 15 hours, which would put me at the finish right as it got dark. But if I was late, I’d be riding in traffic with no lights… not good. At the 90 mile checkpoint outside Livermore I borrowed a cell phone from a worker and left a message for Laura, asking her to bring lights to the Crother check point, which is the one closest to home.

I rode with the Olympic Club guy up Mines rd but when it leveled off I backed off even further to around 135-140 so I could save some for the steep climbs up the back side of Mt Hamilton and Sierra. At the lunch checkpoint at “the Junction” (a biker bar out in the middle of nowhere) I couldn’t find much to eat- they had meat sandwiches (or hamburgers or hotdogs) and chocolate Clif bars. I’m vegetarian and wouldn’t eat a hamburger on a ride even if I wasn’t, and I don’t like chocolate much either, especially not during a hot ride. I made myself a cheese sandwich but that was it.

As I was leaving, Bryan and Bo from my club rolled in. They were the leaders from the 6am start group and were flying. I told Bryan that they’d be catching me soon but it took about 10 miles, longer than I expected. They passed me right as we got to a climb before the backside of Mt Ham, and they slowly pulled away. They are slightly faster climbers than I am but much faster on the flat, and Bryan is a wicked fast descender too.

Right about the time that they passed me, about 125 miles in, I started fading. By the time I got to the steep climb up Hamilton I was in trouble. My stomach had been bothering me for a while and I hadn’t eaten much. I ground up the climb in my lowest gear, barely turning the pedals over. I’ve done this climb a bunch of times and this was by far the slowest I have gone on it. I have done better in 107 degree heat!

There was a water stop near the top, and I got off my bike and sat down. My feet and butt were hurting a lot and I felt sick. I ate my caffeinated GU and drank some water and felt good enough to go on. But by this time I didn’t think that I could finish. Sierra is steeper than Hamilton, and there’s some smaller climbs after that.

The descent off Mt Hamilton takes an hour, and halfway through I was feeling bad again. I crawled up the two small climbs, and soft-pedaled down the descents. A few riders passed me, asking “how’s it going?” I didn’t want to burden them with my issues, so I lied and said “ok”.

When I got near to the 150 mile check point I spotted the Eurovan. I recognized that it was our van, but I was too wasted to be able to decide what to do about it. I slowly rolled by and Laura called out “Eric! Stop!” She brought out the lights and I told her that I was going to quit. I rode up to the check point to tell them I was bailing out. Then I had Laura drive me up to the start so I could get my car.

If I had taken this event seriously, I’d have set up some good lights. I would have figured out what I can eat for 14 hours on the bike and packaged up a bunch of it for delivery to some of the checkpoints. Depending on the organizer’s food was not a good idea. I’d also have figured out shorts and shoes that don’t make my butt and feet hurt after 10 hours. They work ok for the longest event that I normally do (the Death Ride) but not for 10+ hours.

Ordinarily I would be really upset about failing at a ride and I’d be making plans to address that next year. But I am not sure if I care that much about double centuries to do that.

ericm Uncategorized, races

3/21/09
10th of ~40 starters

Orosi is a 60 mile hilly road race with about 5000′ of climbing, supposedly the hardest course in the district. One “big” climb, lots of large rolling hills, some technical descents, and a five mile flat section on each of two loops. Lots of poor pavement, nice scenery.

My field of old slow guys was one of the larger with about 35 riders. After the neutral rollout we hit the major climb and I went to the front so I could navigate the potholes without having to deal with other riders, and not get gapped when the split happened. I succeeded in the first but couldn’t quite hang in to a group of 9 that went off the front. I wound up in the second group and we chased hard for a while. Halfway through the first lap some reinforcements arrived from the rear, swelling the group to about 10 including some big guys that I did not want to go to the line with, since I can’t sprint.

On the second lap I went to the front on the climb again, hoping to lure a couple of the stronger guys with me. But only one came and he wouldn’t work. I wasn’t getting enough of a gap anyhow, so I sat up, but that had whittled the group down to five. I kept the pace up on some of the larger rollers and we got rid of one more, leaving about the right number to get to the finish without getting caught from behind.

One was my passenger from earlier in the lap, and he wasn’t working much. He’d been in the lead group but crashed on a turn, and he was complaining of cramping. But we gapped him a couple times and each time I went to the front to keep the pace high and he was still able to get back, so I figured that he was stronger than he looked.

Near the big descent we caught up to a large guy from our race. He dropped us on the descent- the crasher guy was understandably a bit tenative on the descent, and I didn’t want to take a chance by pushing past him on the narrow road.

The large guy caught a group of M45s that were in front of us and we thought he was working with them so we started to chase hard. Then we realized that he’d ridden by them and was disappearing up the road.

Once we knew we wern’t going to catch anyone and we could see that no one was going to catch us, we slowed down as everyone thought about the sprint. Last year I’d escaped with another guy from a group of seven and TT’d in the last two kms but that didn’t seem like it was going to work again. So I waited until the road turned up (about 400M from the finish) and jumped then. Too early, as two of the three guys passed me. But then one, the crasher, faded. I caught him, then he surged again and passed me, then faded again and I passed him before the line. I’m sure it must have looked quite slow motion from the side of the road.

ericm races

What I learned: don’t try to keep up with a teammate who has been slightly faster than you on all your joint EC training rides. Not even if you think you have more in you on race day… you don’t. I gave up trying to stick with Kevin halfway up the second climb on day 1. But I went just a little too hard before then, and I paid for it for the rest of the race. I think that if I’d gone just a little slower the first day I’d have been able to go 15 minutes faster the second day.

The other thing that I learned is that if I need rest I should take it. I messed up my training schedule timing and wound up trying to have about a 6 week long “block” coming into EC. Two or three week blocks has been the norm for me, with a rest week between blocks. I tried to do mini rest weeks- just an extra day or two off. I finally had to take a real rest week two weeks before EC, then taper. I normally have a one week taper. My CTL had gotten up to 120, where in the past I could only hit 110-115 before needing a serious rest. There were non-power meter signs too, like not being able to finish my intervals or being dead tired all day after a ride. I chose to ignore them thinking that I could just HTFU. Wrong. I am recovering a little better and am a little stronger this year than last, but not that much.

Initially I was very disappointed with my race. I’d looked up the times from the last few years (not counting last year with the course changed due to weather) and a 13 hour time in the past has been good for a top-10 in the Master 45s. And this year, with the best weather (for me) ever, I only got 12th. Dammit! But I can’t control who shows up, and more fast guys than usual were there.

With some thinking about it, I’m still disappointed- even though I met my time goal I could have trained and ridden smarter and done better as a result. So I feel I still have something left to do at this race.

ericm races

2008 Everest Challenge, also known as the “Eatathon 175″

Stats:

• 2 days
• 175 miles
• 29,035 feet of climbing
• 9 Clif bars
• 10 bottles of HEED
• 8 gels
• 3 Recoverites
• 3 finish line burritos
• 2 stacks of pancakes
• 4 eggs
• 1 large spinach lasagna
• most of a large pizza
• 2 salads

My challenge on these long races is getting enough food. Even with the intake listed above (and assorted snacks), and followed by the largest veggie burrito I have ever seen, I still lost about 2 lbs. I am making it up this week however, with actual beer! on a weeknight!

Anyhow, on to the story.

The plan this year was to ride with the master 45s, the big boys. (If you are not up on bike racing categorization, there are some age categories but also experience/ability categories. Those start with Cat 5, for beginner racers, and at the top are Cat 1s and Pros. Open Master 45s means that I, a lowly Cat 4, am riding with Cat 1,2,3 guys- much better racers).

Webcor/AltoVelo had four guys in the M45s- Kevin K, Bryan, Jamie and myself. During the neutral roll-out I found myself stuck near the back and had to put out a little effort to move up to the front where my smarter teammates were. On the way I found myself next to Chris from the KOM series- he’s a 35+ but was late to the start so he left with the 45s.

When we got to the end of the neutral zone it seemed like no one really wanted to work (unlike the 4/5s which usually get here and explode in an ugly mess of pent-up energy). Kevin went to the front and set a good tempo across the remaining flat and up the first climb for quite a ways. The known top guys were sitting right on his wheel. I even thought about attacking then but I knew it would be stupid. Kevin finally peeled off and last years winner, Mark Schaefer (PaulTracy.com) took over. The pace went a little higher but I was still hanging in. Kevin dropped back and not long after I decided I’d better back off too. A group of about 10 including Bryan gradually got away. Kevin and I worked together for the first climb (about 2 hours) shedding a few who tried to ride with us.

I had been concerned about being able to stick with Kevin on the descents but I had no problem. I have had problems getting dropped on descents in this race before. Maybe it was the aero wheels (deep Reynolds carbon clincher rims) or just being more aggressive about accelerating to get onto wheels. We worked with another guy who seemed to know the turns well but we could still catch up to him when needed.

On the second climb Kevin was still setting a good pace. About halfway up I started having problems sticking with him. I really wanted to hang with him on the descent and then work with him on the 10 miles of flat before the last climb, but it was not to be. I let a gap form and just couldn’t close it.

Near the top the leaders were coming down after turning around. I watched my computer after the first two went by together so I could give Bryan the time gap on them (about a minute). We were up among the M35s and public racers so it was hard to tell exactly how many from my race were ahead, but since I hadn’t caught anyone from my race and had been caught and dropped by one guy I knew there was about 8 or 9 up there.

I rode the flat 10 miles on my own but at a decent pace, catching more public racers.

The last climb is a beast with a long section of 8 or 9% and a series of 15%+ ramps at the end. I caught a pro near the bottom, probably the only time I will be passing a pro racer who is half my age. Farther on I caught one from my race who sat on my wheel, and another guy caught both of us. When we got to the long 8% part Laura was on the side of the road waiting to feed me, so I told the guys that I wanted to move to the right to take a feed. I’d thought about attacking them there but wanted to wait until I’d gotten my feed, but when I looked back I had a good gap so I grabbed a bottle from Laura and kept going. A couple miles up I looked back and one Team Fremont guy was still in sight. Right about then I started getting that crampy feeling in my legs. Then my left quad cramped up hard. Ow! That’s never happened before. I kept pedaling but with a lot less force, and the cramp gradually worked out. But now my legs felt really bad. I knew how steep the finishing climbs were and I had a vision of standing up for them, then cramping, falling over, and laying there flopping around like a bug that’s been turned on its back.

Thinking about that had me going slower. To be honest, I felt pretty bad. Getting to the less steep false flat section before the finishing ramps made me feel worse- the change in tempo was hard for my legs, and the false flat looked like something I should be going faster on than I was.

I kept checking back and on the longer straights I could still see Fremont back there. I ate some more Endurolytes and hoped that going a little slower would let me rest up enough so I could make it up the ramps.

Getting close to the ramps I spotted a Webcor. It was Bryan, looking slow and visibly unhappy. I almost caught him when I got the first ramp. Fremont was back. I had nothing- I was worried about simply making it up. I had nothing left to race with. I congratulated him on coming back. He passed me and then Bryan, who went faster on the steep ramps. I managed to finish 10th, about 2 minutes back of Fremont (8th) and 1:30 back of Bryan (9th). My time was 7:14, which was a little faster than I’d predicted (7:20). Kevin finished best Webcor (6th, 6 minutes up on me).

It took a while to get back to the van and gather everyone up. I could have been better about refueling both myself and my teammates- I forgot about the big box of Recoverite I’d brought for everyone.

At the motel I tried to nap, couldn’t. Walking down the stairs to go to dinner hurt, a lot. That’s not a good sign. I had more than usual of the “pursuiters’ cough” too. At least the lasagna was good.

Second day:

Went to breakfast way early. There was hardly anyone in the restaurant but a few fishermen and some bike racers. One guy, obviously a racer from the thinness of his face, came in and sat in the booth behind us, facing me. When I got up I must have groaned, because he laughed. I laughed too. It’s a laugh of shared stupidity… why are we doing this again?

I didn’t get much of a warm-up. While riding around aimlessly one of the guys that Kevin and I shed on the first climb yesterday came up and complained about Kevin “attacking” him. I told the guy that’s how Kevin rides, he was just going fast, but the guy insisted that he was willing to work with us but Kevin attacked him. Whatever. I also talked to Bill Brier, the Team Fremont guy who caught and dropped me the day before. He said that he rode in the Public class the year before(!). Looking at his results he’s done pretty well this year.

The group was pretty casual about the start, I had no problem staying up at the front as no one wanted to pull even at 18 mph. As soon as we get out of town the fast guys assembled at the front. My legs were NOT WORKING. Crap. I let them go, figuring that I’ll warm and loosen up eventually and something will happen. Brier came by on his way up to the group. He caught them and then I could see Jamie hanging in, then dropping off.

Eventually I felt a little better and caught up to another straggler in Sho-Air kit. My legs seemed to work ok when I stood but when I sat I was not making much power, so I would go slower. I caught Sho-Air during one of my standing surges. He and I did the whole climb together, mostly in silence. Stand up, speed up; sit down, slow down. He didn’t seem to mind my erratic speed. Near the top I started thinking that I recognized him from the 4/5 field a couple years ago so I asked if he raced it. He told me that he normally rides 4/5 but did M45s this year even though there’s a lot of fast guys in it. As soon as he said that one of those fast guys came by- an Eastside Velo rider who also passed me on the second climb on day 1. Sho-Air sprinted to get his wheel and they took off. I swear I saw them shake hands but I don’t know what sort of deal they just struck.

Not long after we reached the turnaround. I had been trying to catch up so I could draft them on the descent but I was about 20 feet back. Eastside cruises around the cone while I slowed to take on water and HEED. (the feeders this year were WAY better than last year- no one yanked back a bottle as I was grabbing for it, they had water and HEED separate and they fed on both sides of the cone so if you missed on the way up you had a second chance).

Sho-Air said “hey guys, I need water, wait up” and went to stop for water. I wasn’t going to wait, I started jamming for the steep part. I expected Sho-Air to catch me but he never did.

On the three miles of flat between the first and second climbs a couple Cat 4s caught and passed me. Then a small group of them. I can see them catch the two escapees, and the group slows down to just about my pace.

As we started the second climb a couple M45s caught me. I hadn’t seen these guys before, they are new. They didn’t want to pull though. I slowed down a bit wanting to conserve for the vicious final climb. I mostly conserved by not standing as often; I still lacked power when seated. The guys on my wheel didn’t seem to mind the slow erratic pace. It’s not long before I realized that we have a slight tailwind so there is no penalty to pulling up the climb. I think maybe if I pull we’ll stick together and I can draft with them on the descent.

After a while some more Cat 4s came up. I could still see the group of them up the road, they were not pulling away. The guy pulling this chase group gets next to me and says “Are you Eric?” When I own up to it, he says “I read your blog. Great stuff!” which is just about the last thing I expect to hear in the middle of a race. Ok, I started this blog partly with an eye for accumulating a bunch of Everest Challenge info so obsessed people like me who are searching for it on the internet can find it, but it’s mostly to give me an excuse to write and to keep my friends up to date on my racing (the few who are interested in it that is). I don’t really expect anyone to be reading it.

I tried to give mr blog reader (I forgot which team he was from, sorry) some intel on the group of 4s up the road, which was probably superfluous since he could see them on the longer straights too. He was pulling at a nice clip which I didn’t think I could match if I wanted to sit down or finish the race, so I let them go too. My new M45 friends were still on my wheel though.

We passed Laura, I declined a feed knowing that she was short on bottles and with the race feeders doing well at the tops of climbs it was a better strategy to get bottles from them anyhow. As I passed I asked how far up Jamie is, Laura said a “little bit”. I asked how long that is (we’re going about 8 mph, plenty of time to talk) and she said a couple minutes. One of the guys behind me said that he prefers to not know how far it is. Now that the ice was broken, they thanked me for pulling and I told them that it’s only because we have a tailwind.

However it still must have counted for something in their eyes because we worked together well on the descent. Each of us in turn would get the draft of the leader, slingshot past in a tuck, then as we slowed in the wind the next guy would take over. Doing this is faster than going solo. Even better, it let me sit up and rest my back for a moment in the leader’s draft before taking over. That’s much easier on the back than trying to stay in a tuck for the whole 20 minutes.

Back at the bottom we passed the cars again. The other guys stopped at their cars. I had full bottles and Laura up the road to give me food so I started up the final 6000′ climb. I put on some speed now, both to get rid of the chasers I knew were behind and to try to catch someone from my race.

The last climb has some really horrific parts. The bottom half is about 9% with little rollers that are even steeper. I felt pretty good on this part- I was standing for much of it, and going at a decent pace. I could see Jamie up the road a couple minutes. I caught some other guys but no one in my race. After what seemed like a long time (probably because it was a long time; this climb takes over 2 hours) a guy caught me. He just sat in though, so I finally turned around and asked which race he was in. “Public” was the reply. “Good”, I said, “that means I don’t have to race you”. Mr Public sat on my wheel for the remainder of the first part of the climb. There’s a couple mile flat section between the two halves, and when I got on it the change in pace completely shattered my legs. Seated, I could do a heart rate of only 120 or so. Mr Public went around and took a pull but I couldn’t even stay on his wheel. I could see him looking back in his mirror and waiting for me, so I waved him on.

At this point I really wanted to stop. Many people in this race want to quit at least once, but last year I didn’t. I was dismayed that I would consider throwing in the towel this time. But passing Laura on the road, even though I didn’t need anything from her, cheered me up just enough. The caffeiniated gel helped too.

We started up the final section. Mr Public stopped to pee. I passed the 10k to go sign. Normally in a race having only 6.2 miles left means that you will be done very soon, but these are special extra hard miles. There is about 3000′ of climbing but a good two miles are flat. That means that the rest is very steep.

I was using lower gears this time than I did on the same climb in last years race. My legs were really fried. I got to that turn that means I am going to finish but instead of last years elation, I just felt disappointed. I’d caught a few riders but none in my race. In fact I had hardly caught any M45s the whole race, unlike the last two years where there was almost always someone in my race to catch. Near the top with 1k to go I finally spotted a M45. With 400m to go I sprinted by to make sure he wouldn’t get my wheel, and then tried to hold it to the line.

At the finish line feed they had a bunch of food. I ate three burritos. Maybe I wasn’t eating enough during the race? In any case by the end I was sick of sports drink and bars and wanted real food.

My overall time was 12:49, which was a little under the 13 hours I had predicted. But it was only good for 12th place so I am a bit disappointed there. Kevin wound up with 5th and third in the California Climbers championship (the top two guys being from Utah). Bryan felt much better, did a great job helping Kevin out, and then went on his own at the end and almost made up all the time he’d lost on Kevin the day before. He wound up 6th. Jamie rode smart- conservative on day 1, finishing behind me, and faster on day 2, for an overall time 12 seconds faster than mine and 11th place.

ericm Everest Challenge, Food, races

2008 Mt Evans Bob Cook Memorial Hillclimb 7/19/2008
Idaho Springs, Colorado
M45 31 of 80

This is one of those races that I’ve heard about for years and always wanted to do. Early this year a friend who’d moved to Boulder and I challenged each other to a friendly showdown (he’d be racing the citizens race). And my father recently moved to Boulder, so I could visit him too. And it was a week after the Death Ride. I’d already be 300 miles closer. Road trip!

The Mt Evans Bob Cook Memorial Hillclimb is a 28 mile climb from Idaho Springs to the top of Mt Evans. It’s only 6900 feet of climbing in 27.3 miles. If you’re wondering why the numbers don’t quite add up, it’s because there are a couple short descents in the upper part. And if you’re wondering who Bob Cook was, he was a super gifted young rider (think Greg LeMond or Tom Danielsen, but in the late 70s) who won the Mt Evans race five times before he died of cancer at age 23.

Anyhow, 6900 feet in 27 miles is not hard. Except that Idaho Springs is at 7600′ and Mt Evans peaks at 14,100′.

I’ve ridden to just over 10,000′ a couple times and that’s about as high as I have ever gotten. So I naively figured that 14k would be about the same. Maybe I’d have to breathe a little harder. It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?

My preparation wasn’t ideal- I did the Death Ride the week before, then drove to Boulder. So I got to spend a week at about 5000′. Most of what I have read says that its better to either spend 2-3 weeks acclimatizing or show up the day before. A week is probably about the worst amount of time, but that’s what I had.

During the week I got to explore some of the canyons but went pretty easy on them, trying to recover from the Death Ride and not exert myself too hard before the race. I was slow and tired and breathing hard, pretty much what I expected would happen. Colorado was having a heat wave but it felt nice to me.

On race day I packed my wife, bike and 73 year old dad into the van and headed up to Idaho Springs. We lucked out with a good parking spot so dad could walk to the start and I had plenty of time to find a good road to warm up on since I don’t warm up well on a trainer. The road west out of town parallels the freeway and has a gentle grade with some rollers that are good for jumps.

I lined up at the start and wife and dad were there to see me off. The riders around me all seemed very fit and serious… fitter than the average guys in the M45 4/5 races that I have been doing. They were thin, no one had hairy legs, and their legs were cut. I overheard one guy talking to a friend “last time I was at Nationals” blah blah. For a moment I thought I’d accidentally lined up in the P/1/2 race. I had to wait till a couple guys turned around so I could see the wrinkles.

I wasn’t close enough to hear but later Laura told me that Dad was telling the riders near by how I’m a great climber and was going to do really well. It’s cool that Dad’s proud of me but he was inadvertently getting a bunch of racers riled up to teach the weenie Californian a lesson. Fortunately in a race like this it doesn’t really matter.

The start wasn’t too bad. I’d been expecting it to go hard from the beginning but instead we eased into it just right. A couple miles up the shallow grade up the canyon I briefly felt like I could roll off the front if I wanted to. That didn’t last long. The leaders kept the speed the same whenever the grade went up and that had the effect of making the pace variable. People were dropping off the back and it wasn’t many miles before I was at the back and yo-yoing off and on. There was about half the field left when I got poppped for good. I was breathing really hard and I just couldn’t stick when the pace went up.

After that I settled into a comfortable hard pace. Up the road I could see others who’d been dropped just after me, and I was catching them. They’d try to get my wheel into the headwind so when I caught one I’d rest for a moment on their wheel and then put in a small surge to make a gap. I chased one especially aggressive group of four for quite a while before catching them. Then they all fought for my wheel with the guy who’d been looking the strongest getting it. I accelerated like I’d been doing to the other guys but they hung on. So I sat up for a moment and acted like that was all I had to get them to relax, then stood on it hard to make a gap.

Echo Lake is halfway in distance and at 10,600 feet is 3100′ from the start leaving 3500′ to the top. I reached it in just over an hour which I thought put me in a good situation for meeting my time goal. At that point I’d caught and dropped a number of guys from my race and no one had come back or caught me. Other than breathing hard and not being able to get my heart rate quite up to LT I was feeling pretty good. The road gets a little steeper on the second half but it’s still not very steep. I brought my usual 50/34 and 12-27 cluster but I don’t think I ever used a gear lower than the 34×21 (about the same as a 39×25).

As I rode I was catching even more riders. But they were all from a different race! I must have caught 30 of them, and only two more guys in my race (I figured out later that I’d been catching the M35 cat 4 guys). I was breathing even harder now. After an hour and a half I was getting hungry. I’d forgotten to pack a gel so I’d brought a Clif bar. Normally I can eat one while going hard up a climb- take a bite, chew a bit, then breathe for a while, chew some more, etc.

I only skipped a couple breaths to chew and I started getting dizzy. It took a lot of breathing to catch back up. I eventually finished that little piece of bar but decided that I couldn’t afford to stop breathing long enough to eat any more. I’d just have to go hungry.

By now we’d left the tree line behind. The heart rate I could maintain was getting lower. At the start I’d been pretty close to my LT but by 12k feet I was a good 10 BPM lower. My legs hurt and I was breathing hard but other than that I felt like I wasn’t working that hard. I was feeling dazed and stupid though.

At 12,800 there’s a short descent and some rough pavement including a giant sinkhole that a race worker was directing us around. Most of the rest of the race I was in a daze. My HR got lower. A Echo Lake there’d been a sign saying the top was 14 miles. So when I got to the 14 mile marker and the top was nowhere in sight I was really disappointed.

At the 1k to go sign a guy caught me. He hung on my wheel so I couldn’t see his number. I asked him what race he was in, but he was breathing too hard to reply. I dropped back to see his number and it wasn’t from my race- he was the leading M55. I told him to go and he rode on, big ringing it at about 40 rpms. (he won in 2:12)

The finish was anti-climatic and I was happy to be done, although my time of 2:27 wasn’t that great. They had volunteers telling riders to find their clothes and put them on. It was cold and I felt bad- slow and stupid and dizzy. My fingers were going numb from lack of oxygen. I found my bag and put on my thick AV winter jacket. I felt bad enough that I wanted to get a ride down in the van, but they didn’t look like they were organized yet and I wanted to get down right away. I waited long enough to decide that it was safe enough to ride down if I took it easy.

It took me almost an hour to get down. Once I got down to Echo Lake it was quite warm and it got very hot in that winter jacket by the bottom. The experienced racers send a backpack up in the clothing truck so they can stop and take off some clothes when it gets too warm.

The organizers had lunch at the start, and posted partial results there while we were waiting in line. I finished 31st of 78 finishers. If I’d ridden the M35 cat 4 race, the one that had all the guys I’d been catching, I’d have gotten 18th of 82. Ironically, I’d signed up for the M45s because at the time I hadn’t yet applied to upgrade from cat 5 to 4 so I couldn’t ride the M35 cat 4 race.

I can’t help but wonder how much better I’d do if I was acclimated. Now that I know that I won’t pass out, just feel bad, I think I could push a little harder at altitude.

My friend in the citizens class didn’t do as well as he wanted. He wanted to do a 2:30 (ok, he wanted to beat me too). He finished in 2:46, which I thought was pretty good for his very first race, especially since he lined up near the back and had to fight his way through a few hundred riders before he could start making time.

He was especially bummed since he’d managed to score an altitude tent for an article he’s writing, and it should have given him an advantage at altitude. He told me afterward that he didn’t think the tent did much for him.

ericm races

I went to this race after all (see whining in previous entry). But I didn’t do my usual job of preparation- forgot the directions to the race, forgot the extra food and water, and most important, forgot to obsess about the race beforehand. The pre-race obsession is important. It puts me in the right frame of mind for the race. If I’m too casual about it, in the race I’m too willing to give up.

I made a mistake on the drive up- took the wrong freeway- so I arrived later than I wanted. After signing in, using the facilities and pinning a number on I wound up with a warmup of only about 20 minutes They ran the 35+,45+ and 55+ cat 4/5s all together, so we had a pack of about 40. Three team-mates took off from the start on the flat/rolling section and stayed away. The pack went moderately hard but not all out. My lack of warmup (and two days off the bike) meant that even at the moderate pace my legs really hurt.

As we got to the turn that marks the start of the climb I move up from the back and when we got on the first litle steep part I stood up and went past the front of the group (the other three guys still being up the road) and stretched out the pack. I felt pretty good for about 1/2 mile then realized that I wasn’t dropping many riders and I was going a little too hard. I dropped back and about 15 guys went by and got a gap. Then another five. Crap.

But the five wern’t getting away. Over the next three miles I slowly reeled them in, getting closer when the climb got steeper and losing ground when it leveled off. I finally got some of then near where it gets steeper and the rest on the first steep part. We passed some other riders too, including at least one of the three breakaways.

The last couple miles are insanely steep. I finally got rid of the last of the five and a couple more we’d caught too. But someone was catching me! I glanced back a couple times and he kept getting closer. On the very steepest part I could hear him breathing. Then I heard some gasping, choking noises, then nothing. I think he had to stop to puke. As the finish approached there wern’t any riders ahead that I could catch and no one behind, so I eased up a bit. Then I realized there was a guy behind and he was coming fast. He got almost up to my wheel and I put in a surge but I didn’t have much left and it wasn’t enough… he recovered and passed me about 200 meters before the finish.

I congratulated that guy as we were cooling down. Unfortunately he was another 45+, so I lost a place there. Maybe if I’d been psyched for the race I’d have had just enough extra motivation to hold him off.

Placing? I have no idea. I didn’t want to wait around for the results. Maybe as good as 15th or so overall but who knows how many of those were 35s. I’ll put the result here when I get it.

ericm races

I’m behind in my race reports again. A couple weeks ago (5/24) I rode the Heartbreak Hundred, the final in the KOM series. Last year it was very hot, like over 100, and being able to ride well in the heat moved me up in the KOM series standings from 30-something to 9th. This year we already had the hot ride that got me 10th at the Mulholland Challenge, so the Heartbreak had to be cold and miserable to make up for it.

I was in 5th overall going in and had a chance to catch 4th only 8 or so minutes ahead. Third was 45 minutes and there was no way I’d catch him. On the other end there were two or three riders just behind me in the overall who could catch me. This ride suits me less than the others- there’s 20 miles of flat between the two climbs, and another 10 of rolling hills after the second climb, and I am not so good at flat or rolling.

I camped out in the van at the start and it rained overnight. When I got up in the morning the mountain right behind town had snow on it, down to about 300′ above town. Since we go up 4500′ from there it looked like it was going to be a very cold ride.

The weather didn’t warm up any by my start time but the first climb had a tailwind so it wasn’t bad. I kept a good pace up the climb, not too hard. No one passed me, but I’d started kind of early, hoping to beat the headwinds in the valley section, so I was passing slower riders.

Near the end of the long rolling descent a group of serious looking guys caught me. I sat in a bit then wanted to get into the rotation but for some reason they didn’t seem to want to let me in. Maybe because I tend to draft a little far back behind riders that I am not sure about. Then WHOOSH, giant red triathlon dude went by! The same guy who passed me on Breathless. Only in full tuck, TT bike, skinsuit and a pointy aero helmet. And about 10mph more speed. Holy shit.

The group got disorganized and guys muttered something about “state time trial champion” but I noticed that while he’d passed us going fast, he wasn’t disappearing all that quick. So I went to the front and pulled for a while. GRTD wasn’t getting any closer but he wasn’t disappearing either. The paceline got reorganized and they started letting me into the rotation.

Then we turned into the wind. Boy did this part suck. The pace dropped to 14-15 mph (I rode this section solo last year at 18-22 mph). GRTD disappeared into the distance. I drafted real close in the paceline. It seemed pretty easy until it was my turn at the front, then it was hard but not that bad. Some of the other guys were breathing real hard when they pulled off and I thought we were going to lose a couple. We caught a few riders and they worked into the group.

The next rest stop (I’d skipped the first one) was halfway through the flat headwind section. I made a quick stop and got out in front of the group. I worked for about 5 miles to catch a couple riders up the road who then slowed down. I felt I could go faster but when I rode away they jumped for my wheel. I should have attacked harder but I didn’t think that I’d be able to stay away, and getting caught would look dumb.

As we approached the turn to the gradual start of the next climb the old group I’d been with before caught us. I thought that when we turned I’d have a tailwind so I gunned it to the front in preparation for leaving them all behind, only to discover that I’d miscalculated the wind and it was still a headwind! Oops. Back to pacelining until the actual climb starts. Some of the riders were getting tired and making mistakes (getting too close to the rider ahead and suddenly swerving) and other riders were yelling at them. I was getting irritated with the whole thing so on the first actual rise I attacked and rode away.

Only one guy was able to come with me. There was more flat road before the real climb. He wouldn’t pull through but he looked weak enough that I figured I’d get rid of him when the real climb started. Right when we got there we caught a small group of riders so I attacked again figuring that my passenger would be just as happy to sit on their wheels as mine. It worked but a half mile up the road, someone was on my wheel again. Dammit!

He came up and said “hey, I remember you from last year!”. It turned out to be Chris, the guy I’d ridden part of Heartbreak with last year. He’d been in that group I’d attacked, riding with some teammates. We talked as I kept up a decent tempo on the beginning of the climb. After a bit he dropped off to go back to his group. Finally I was on a climb and alone (although I wouldn’t have minded trading pulls with Chris, he’s strong and willing to work).

I tried keeping a good pace up the “Heartbreak” climb (it gradually gets steeper and steeper). The headwind made it a little tougher but it wasn’t that bad. Near the top my calves started threatening to cramp so when I got to a section that was in the lee of a cliff I rode no hands and fished a salt tablet and ibuprofen out of my pocket. I need a salt pill every couple of hours on long rides and the ibuprofen helps me ignore the little nagging pains you get from being on a bike for a long time (and riding too hard and being old).

The last rest stop was right around the corner. No one else there, I was close to the front of the ride now. The wind almost blew me over as I rolled across the gravel to the stop. The nice people there filled my water bottle while I grabbed some pretzels. Someone asked how the weather was treating me. I told them that I greatly preferred last years weather (it was 103 degrees). Everyone stared at me and someone said “really?” “Yep,” I replied, “but you have to ride what’s available” and I rode off.

Last year the part after the last stop really hurt. There’s about an hour of rolling hills where you think you should be done, surely, around the next bend. I’d driven this part on my way down to Breathless this year so it was fresh in my mind. I’d even mentally noted the turns that had gravel in them so I’d remember to slow down there.

About halfway the course turned and we had a tailwind for a long stretch across a valley. I was flying (for me) here. I was checking behind and on the other side of the valley I looked back and a couple riders were gaining on me. They caught me eventually. Two teammates, one very strong 30-something guy and a 50-something dude just hanging on to his wheel. The younger guy and I traded some pulls, me pulling harder up the hills. We got to the point that I remembered from my reconnaissance as being the start of the descent, so I told the other guys. They didn’t seem to be that interested in working hard, but I realized that I still had something left, and my time was awfully close to 6 hours already. If I wanted to salvage any sort of good finish (i.e. under 6 hours), I’d better put out some effort.

So that’s what I did, for the whole descent. It really hurt and I was surprised that the much larger young guy wasn’t taking pulls, but I didn’t want to waste time trying to get him to work. In hindsight I think I was going pretty hard. A couple miles away from the finish the wind changed direction again and we were blasted by a headwind. I wilted and the other guy finally came around and pulled into the wind, which I was grateful for. We’d dropped his older teammate by that time.

We turned onto the frontage road and I won the sprint up the hill to the motel parking lot, then flew around to the back where the timekeepers were. We both got the same finish time, but since I’d left later I got a lower overall time. My time was 5:53, just a little better than last year.

Hardly anyone was there, but the winner (giant red tri dude) was there. His time was almost 40 minutes faster than mine, and it’d been enough to move him from third to first overall. Riders started trickling in. I talked with a bunch of riders- GRTD, the older teammate, Chris, white jersey guy from Breathless (Mike, he won the over-50 class). Riders from the group I’d worked with on the flat came in and gave me the “good ride dude” nod.

I hung out long enough to get some results. I’d been in 5th overall with 4th not far ahead, but a couple guys were close behind me. Two of them turned in a time a couple minutes better than mine. I wound up 6th in the Heartbreak. In the overall the guy who had been in 4th was almost 20 minutes slower, so I moved up to 4th.

I’m pretty happy with fourth. I’d like to do better of course but given the talent of the top three there wasn’t anything I could to to catch them. Giant red tri dude (I looked it up later) is actually a two-man team record holder in RAAM, recent SoCal masters TT champ, and won the cat 4/5 overall at the Everest Challenge a couple years ago. Yea, he’s super-human good.

ericm races

Another KOM series ride/race- the queen stage of the series, with the most climbing and the longest climbs.

Unlike last year, this year I picked a slightly better class of motel- no bulletproof glass in the lobby. It was still noisy and hard to sleep. There were other riders staying there but I was the first up at 5am for the free breakfast. Really watery coffee. Mini donuts don’t work for me but I’d brought my own breakfast. After a huge dinner I still managed to get down a hippie bagel (sprouted whole wheat) and one and a half of these giant vegan low sugar cinnamon buns I’d gotten at Whole Foods.

I got signed in early and had to wait around till it was time for me to start (faster riders need to start later so the checkpoints are open when they arrive). At the last minute I decided to get rid of my long sleeve jersey, which turned out to have been a good decision as it was much warmer than last year. I intended to start off with a big group of Santiago club riders and some others including George Vargas who I know has done well before. But the signout guy was being really slow marking me down and the group went up the road without me. I sprinted to catch up, almost made it but got stopped at a stoplight, and then had to sprint again, all on cold legs. Ooof. But I got on. I wanted to get with a fast group for the initial flat parts of the ride.

The group gained people and got up to about 30 including a very agressive riding woman. On the first small climb a guy went to the front and got a gap. He has on kit with so many logos that I couldn’t pick out the main club/sponsor but he had a giant AUDI across his butt. The agressive woman shot up to take his wheel so I went up to get on. We gained a couple others and a good gap from the Santiago group. But on the other side we had to stop at a stoplight and they all caught up. At least we had an easy ride behind them for the next 10 miles of flat.

I knew that the first “pass” of the ride, Jackrabbit trail, had rough pavement and potholes so there’s not much room to pass. I tried to move up in the group so I wouldn’t get boxed in behind slower climbers but wasn’t completely successsful. When we got on Jackrabbit I had to ride through a couple potholes before a gap opened up and I could shoot through to get past everyone. A couple came after me and one even passed me. The woman and Audi caught up. They were going my pace so I fell in with them. But they were riding side by side so when we caught slower riders they’d be trying to go three wide when there was only one or two riders’ worth of room. After a couple times of getting balked when someone braked suddenly I went around them and suggested that we ride single file.

On the front of our little group I could be more careful about picking a good line while passing riders. Picking a line is important on this road as it’s full of potholes, gravel, and chunks of rock. We passed many riders on the side of the road fixing flats.

The next flat part Audi and the woman caught me. Audi would barely acknowledge my presence but the woman and I talked- she was going for time and had won the woman’s divsion last year. I told her that I’d done 6 hours last year and was hoping to do 5:30. I could tell that she was thinking “yea right” but too polite to say it. That is a big jump and to be honest I didn’t think I could do it.

I made a fast stop at the checkpoint/food stop, grabbing a banana and muffin to eat on the road. Audi and Colleen (ok, I looked her name up in the results) caught me. Audi was stronger than me on the flat and whenever he slowed for a moment Colleen would go to the front to keep the pace up. I could tell by the way she was riding that she was really amped up to get a good time.

On the first real hard climb, Oak Glen, Audi dropped back and Colleen got a gap on me. I’d gone hard to get on the Santiago group and to get rid of them on Jackrabbit and I had to slow down a little to recover. I could see her up the road for most of the climb. A guy from Swamis (a SoCal club) passed us both and proceeded up the road. Near the top I couldn’t see either of them. I bombed the descent, cornering hard and tucking in tight on the straights. Working with a couple other guys helped. Near the bottom we caught Colleen, and at the next rest stop, Swamis dude was still there. But I needed to pee, and they didn’t have any portapotties! There were bathrooms at the forest service station we were at but the people in them were being really slow and there was a woman with small children in line in front of me. I couldn’t bring myself to cut in front of her so I stood there with time ticking away… probably three or four minutes. I should have just found a tree or something to pee behind but no, I was trying to be polite. Dumbass!

The next part is hard for most people, the organizers call it “Damnnation Alley”. It’s a long gradual climb, you can see way up the road and there’s a tailwind so it’s hot. I like that so I was going well. But a couple riders actually passed me here! One guy in white, another guy breathing funny, and then when they were just a bit in front of me and I could catch them if I wanted, this huge triathlete rocketed by me. He quickly caught the other guys and they killed themselves to catch on the train. They didn’t get that much farther away though- for the next hour I could see them up the road. Somewhere in here I caught a guy who grabbed on to my wheel like a limpet. I thought I recognized him and finally realized that he was the guy who’d out sprinted me at the top last year. Rotten little wheel-sucking dweeb. There was no way I was going to make this guys ride easier for him, so I gave a good acceleration to drop him.

At the next checkpoint, last before the top, white jersey was just leaving as I arrived, and Colleen was there too. I grabbed some food and took off after white jersey. The next 10 miles were rolling hills. This part killed me last year but I was feeling good. I hung behind white jersey for the entire time as he was going exactly the pace I wanted to go. The end of this section is a short twisty descent and I caught up to white jersey on this. At the start of the final climb we talked- he asked who I was and when I started, and then said that he’d started at 7:15 and was in fourth place. I’d started right before 7, so I wasn’t much of a threat since I couldn’t make up 15 minutes on him on the last climb. At least I didn’t think so; he tried to convince me that the key to the event was taking it easy on the last climb so maybe he did. But I wanted to crush it on the last climb and use up what I had left. I told him that my goal was a 5:30 time and he said “oh, I think you’ll make that” right as I dropped him.

After that there was only one other guy, who said “you’re going well, go go!” as I went by. I kept up a good pace for a couple miles and was feeling pretty good for having climbed 10,000 feet. Then I stood up and my legs just about locked up. Oops, maybe I went a little too hard at the beginning. I tried to ride the rest seated but it’s funny how much you want to stand up when you think you can’t. I started doing the math in my head and realized that I really was on a good time. It was kind of wierd to not see any other riders. The top came sooner than I expected and I wound it out, still seated, to the top. The timers cheered and gave me a time- 12:10. Since I left a couple minutes before 7, that’s a time under 5:15 (5:13 official time).

There were only a few riders there. Swamis guy was just leaving(!). Big triathlete dude was there, and a couple 20-something guys. I relaxed for a bit and then started sampling some of the food the volunteers were laying out. Off in the bushes one of the 20-something guys was puking (I figured out later that he was the winner). If you don’t go hard enough to vomit you’ll be wondering if you could have done more. Tri guy said he had a time just under 5 hours but didn’t win. White jersey guy came in about 8 minutes after me. As I hung out at the top we tallked; he recognized me from the Everest Challenge (I beat him there). Colleen came in just after white jersey guy; she broke her previous women’s record but was concerned because somone told her that another woman had come in before her, then was worried that another woman behind her might have started at a earlier time. I guess if you’re good enough to be the best you have to worry about staying on top (she wound up with a 5:21 time, a new women’s record. The next woman was just over 6 hours).

My time would have been good enough for second last year but this year the course was faster due to better winds. Still, it’s way better than I thought I could do. I was hoping it’d be in the top 10 but lots of riders went fast so it was only 12th. It’s helped me a bit in the KOM series; I’m 5th.

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