RACE REPORT: Ring of Fire Series

So the team ended the Ring of Fire in the best possible way: a win in the final race (me - FINALLY!) and a win in the series overall (Chris Emory)! It's funny how a small local race can draw such intense competition. It used to be training wheels, intervals before the race, and fun, now it's deep-dish wheels, full-teams, leadout trains, but still fun! Again, the goal this year was to win the overall competition for the team with consistent placings every 2 weeks and healthy competition for each race. We had some great battles with the other big local teams: Global Bike (with strongman Josh Whitmore), Chainheart (always bringing a big squad), Metro (coming out of the hills), and of course fast local riders like Jacob McGahey and other masters. Chris Emory was our go-to guy this year and he deserved the overall win. The rest of the team always pulled together on whatever night and helped the strongest rider go for the victory.

A big thanks to Velosports for putting this race on. We are truly lucky to have such a great local resource to use and it is a pillar in our cycling community!

Shenandoah Mountain 100 (Part 2)

So it's in the books! Last weekend marked my second big objective of the year - the Shenandoah 100 Mountain Bike Race. So after my week of tapering, eating, and driving I awoke in my lonely bed at the Hampton Inn at 4:45 to head to the start. I think this is the earliest I've ever gotten up for a race EVER! The weather was perfect on the day with sunrise at 6:45, temperature of about 50 on the start and a high of 77 and sunny. No breakfast this early, just coffee, energy drink, get dressed (all in the dark), pre-race jitters (maybe from all the caffeine), lose car key (in the dark), find key, eat banana on the start line, then at 6:30AM . . . GO! The race is fantastic for a lot of reasons: the first is the course. It is about 1/3 pavement (which we started on at 30mph), 1/3 dirt/double track, and 1/3 singletrack. This is deceiving in that you will be cruising at 25+mph on the road vs. sometimes 5mph on the singletrack, making the thirds disproportionate by time.

My goal was to get to the bottom of the 20 mile climb fairly conservatively (i.e. not going into the red zone before this point). Settling into my own pace, I rode the climbs at or below threshold and my mantra on the descents was "smooth and safe". Going to work on Tuesday was a bigger priority to me than trimming 10 minutes off of my time! I found myself with a group of about 10 riders that would separate and then regroup on the road portions. Unfortunately the lack of paceline experience was exceedingly evident with about 2 of us actually taking smooth, consistent pulls. At mile 45, after a sweet descent, I scheduled my first stop and aimed to fill up my 100oz Camelbak (the plan for the day was to drink 2!) and bottle with Perpetuem. This is when I got my taste of the event's second coolest aspect: the volunteers! One asked what I needed and instantly grabbed my Camelbak and filled it with water while another waited as I filled my bottle with powder from my drop-bag. I pounded a Honey Stinger gel (YUM!) as the second volunteer filled the bottle for me. Awesome! I jumped back on the bike and settled in with my road group to the base of the big climb. Legs were OK on the day, not fantastic, but I felt comfortable and my nutrition was perfect. As we rotated I noticed a rider from Staunton, VA and as I started to ask if he knew Andy Rhodes (an old teammate and friend), I rode up beside him and . . . ANDY RHODES! This was a nice surprise as we headed towards the biggest challenge on the day.

As Andy and I rotated smoothly in the paceline the others struggled to maintain a consistent pace. In hindsight this was due to fatigue as one-by-one we shed each of the others until it was down to Andy and I. We climbed together for most of the climb until I settled into my own rhythm and a heart rate of about 160bpm for the next 90 minutes or so! My motivation lay at the next rest area at 75 miles where I hid a Starbucks Doubleshot and some treats from my wife: 2 Oatmeal Cream Pies from the box she and Ethan gave me for the weekend! She and Ethan had gone to Virginia Beach for her annual Girls Weekend and Rock N Roll Half-Marathon. I hit the top of the climb and was well on my target of sub-9 hour pace (now shooting for sub-8:45)!

As I descended for close to 10 miles, the rear of my bike started to feel unusually sloppy. I thought a bolt or something may have dislodged, but as I headed toward mile 88 and the last aid station I realized I had a slow leak in my rear tire. Unbeknownst to me, this was due to a slice in my sidewall. However I used a CO2 cartridge and went on my merry way. Unfortunately the next descent put paid to my luck and started to open the cut further. Another CO2 caused the sidewall to blow, which led to a 15 minute tire booting (thank God for duct tape), and hand pumping. This led to a pinch flat on the second to last descent, which culminated in a catch by Andy who threw me his CO2 - THANKS ANDY!! This got me to the finish on a flat rear tire, but an intact rim. Unfortunately the 25 minutes of repairs, cold legs, etc. crushed my pacing and I blew past the 9 hour mark . . .



9:14 and 96 (my number) out of 539. Not bad, considering I had a shot at top 50 until I blew out that sidewall . . . Full results are here: http://shenandoahmountaintouring.blogspot.com/2010/09/preliminary-sm100-overall-results.html

While the last hour of the event wasn't perfect, it was an experience unlike any of the other hundreds of races I've done. The experience amazing. The feeling painful and euphoric, all at once, and the final best part of the race - the after party and beer! While it wasn't Highland, it was Dogfish Head, one of my early favorites, and uniting with old friends bonded but such an experience is something that I highly recommend, although I'm hesitant to say whether I will return to this event again . . . although I can already hear those Oatmeal Cream Pies and Dogfish Heads calling my name.

Thanks to my sponsors: Highland Brewing, Trek & Bontrager (the Top Fuel was AWESOME!), Liberty Bikes, Rudy Project, PML Pathology, Mosaic Realty, Honey Stinger, Swiftwick, Carmichael Training Systems, Dr. Steve Miller DDS, Crossfit Brevard, Joe Lilly Photography, and Affordable Home Inspections.

Shenandoah 100 Part 1: Planning, Riding, Eating

A big race is a funny thing - it's not the race that is everything, it's the experience of setting the goal, developing the training plan, executing, and finally preparing and completing the event itself. You have to utilize planning, tactics, psychology, nutrition, talent, and finally pure guts. The whole experience from beginning to end is what makes a big event special. The past two years I've gone to the Masters National Championships and walked away with a podium place and top 10 last year. With the arrival of my son, Ethan, this year a 2 week trip to Europe a week before Nationals, and the likelihood of my preparation being as seamless as last year, I decided to focus on the State TT Championships (which I won for my age group), cyclocross and some mountain bike events. After discussing options with my coach, Andy Applegate, I decided to race the Shenandoah 100 outside of Harrisonburg, VA. I like events that are close to my family so that I can spend time with them and still quench my competitive desire.

So with the above in mind I set my plan in place to begin after our trip to Europe in July. I came home and began doing blocks of 3-6 hour rides on the road and mountain bike (highly unusual for a guy that typical trains a maximum of 10 hours a week)! I steadily built up to a century on the road while interspersing the volume with steady state and threshold intervals to prepare me for an estimated 9 hours on the bike and 13,000' of climbing. This would also give me a solid base before turning to the intensity of cross training. All of this lead me to the Blue Ridge Breakaway 2 weeks ago. Since then it's been a combination of tapering and some racing to sharpen the glad so to speak.

This past week was lots of rest, the Ring of Fire Wednesday night, and finally Carb Loading. As most that are familiar with me know, I don't eat a lot of carbohydrates (relatively speaking), so this is a big deal for me! Over the course of the last three days I've been striving to eat somewhere on the order of 700g of carbohydrates. Do a little math - you'll see that this is quite an uncomfortable endeavor! So since Wednesday night my diet has been: recovery shake, burrito, brownie w/ ice cream, granola w/ soy milk and dried cranberries, orange juice, bagel w/ jam, sports drink, flatbread pizza, Fanta soda!, smoothie, graham crackers, rice/chicken/veggies, rice pudding, oatmeal, orange juice, recovery shake, apple/quinoa wrap, chocolate covered pretzels, sweet potato chips, coconut juice, frappacino, trout, rice, bread, grilled veggies, peach/cranberry cobbler, ice cream, cobbler, yogurt, sport drink, recovery shake, wrap, sweet potato chips, bread w/ honey, banana chips, chocolate covered raisins, coconut milk, fig/raspberry bars, then to top it off, pork, rice, zucchini, onions, and succatash that my grandmother made, topped off by homemade oatmeal raisin cookies from Chris Eatough's wife! Seriously I'm very happy that I don't eat like this all the time. I'm looking forward to getting back to my normal diet!

So, it's been a solid two months of training, and I'm sitting in the hotel getting ready to watch a movie and chill after a great dinner and day spent with my grandparents. So good luck to everyone out there tomorrow and a special batch for Andy Applegate, Kris Kjellquist, Jon Seibold, Doug Milliken, and anyone else out there that I know, but don't know is here!