Happy Birthday, Blog

 

Finally had a few minutes to sit down and update the good old blog, and realized it's birthday had come and gone.  As a present, I'll make sure to actually update a few times this month rather than once. :)

Where to start, well... my wife got a gorgeous new Track Bike that the weather gods have not allowed her to race on Friday yet.  Hopefully tomorrow will fix that.

PIR on Monday nights in the 1/2/3's have turned into a total clusterfuck of late and I have better things to do than be taken out by a sketchy-ass rider who isn't paying attention.  Yes, I'm talking to the guy who put my teammate into the fucking concrete wall on the last lap of the 6/22 race.  Thanks for not bothering to see if we were okay after!  Ass.   I DNF'd my last two races (one mechanical, the other the crash) so I figure its time to step back and relax and do something safer.  ShortTrack maybe? :p

Speaking of mechanicals, huge thank you goes out to Mark Duff from VeloForma who light a knight in tight spandex came to the rescue and assisted with the fix of my front derailleur hanger on the VeloVie.

We've been cleaning out our garage, and recently sold Traci's old road bike to a good friend of ours, its her first "big girl bike" (her words) and she's absolutely in love with it. 

We also recently parted ways with my 350z, which literally had been gathering dust over the past 2 years.  (1700miles put on the car since Oct 07.. 2400miles put on my new VeloVie since March 1st of this year.)  Ironically we owned the car for *exactly* 6 years, with the purchase and sale date being 6/20.  With the TT bike being demo'd by Burke (dude, you back from the islands yet?) The garage looks spacious even with the Mini in it.  Hmmmm we could possible fill it with...

A Tandem!  Well, at least a borrowed one.  Last Saturday Traci and I celebrated our 11th Wedding Anniversary.  I was on the tail end of a rest week and I wanted to ride with her, so I borrowed a tandem from our good friends Dean and Barb and we rode with the 21's on the Saturday ride.  I'm happy to report we are still married, and I have both my kidneys intact.

In non-biking related news, the 2009 edition of Bridgetown's "Stumptown Tart" will be released shortly.  Last year this beer (a Marionberry infused Belgian) was my favorite beer of the summer.  This year they went with a Yamhill sour cherry rather than Marionberries.   I look forward to seeing it in the market soon.  I'm also happy its just about the end of allergy season.  After previously posting this season wasn't to bad, Murphy drop-kicked my sinus multiple times over the past few weeks.

Stay tuned for some exciting news about the upcoming months!  I'll give you one hint.  Cross.

Monday morning update

 

Hello blog.  Had a crazy week at work last week, and it will continue to be this way for a couple weeks rolling into a software release for work and a wedding on the East coast in a few weekends. Sorry for neglecting you, but realize training has suffered a bit as well.  Life pops up, ya know?  It's probably good that it happened as we really needed to get the house cleaned up. (What are these boxes from? Christmas?!?  How much laundry do we have to do?)

So, our house is cleaned up now.  (The downstairs mess migrated upstairs.. I guess that's clean?)  Clean enough for company!  We had an awesome time with our closest friends yesterday, including an appearance by the Crazy Prospector Dance Team.

The "Monster Cookie Beatdown part Tres", took place last Sunday (4/2) and was crazy hard ride.  11 PV race team folks along with about 40 club members descended on the state capital grounds for this annual ride put on by the Salem Bike Club.  The team left at 9am and rolled back into the finish around 12:40 with a quick stop in Champeog State Park at the half way point.  The Black and Blue Pain Train rolled through the 63miles at roughly at 23mph average and called out "on your left" roughly 2145 times.  Next year we think we might bring out the Cookie Wagon to run lead on the train.  I will also not start the ride hung over.

April PIR wrapped up this past week, with B-Rat taking a very hard fought April series that unfortunately went sour in the final moments.  A wreck in the final sprint took out Jeff Harwood from Ironclad along with Jeff B from PV and a couple other folks.  Jeff Harwood was the leader on the road at the time of the crash and was riding really strong.  Hope you are healing quick!  I think I took 3rd overall for April.  Not too shabby for only racing 3 races. This will probably be the last 3/4 race I do on Tuesdays for a bit, and just in time it seems.  Apparently there was a second wreck in my race when someone's pannier rack hooked another riders handlebars and dragged them down.  I mean seriously?  I'm all for folks commuting out to PIR via bike and the fenders don't cause issues, but a pannier rack sticks out well beyond the arc of your wheel and just shouldn't be out there in the peloton.  

In another "heal up quick" note, PV's own "Kromonster" suffered a compound clavicle, AC separation, and a pair of broken ribs along with a busted bike after saying hello to the side of a SUV.  Alex unfortunately overcooking a corner on Newberry earlier this week.  Anyone who's been down Newberry probably knows the corner being referred to.  Fortunately Alex was able to make it to the First Friday party the next day.  He's a machine.

My own bionic knee is feeling much better after a regimen of stretching and deep tissue massage on the hip flexor and peraformis muscle group.  Rides on my road bike don't hurt that much anymore, and the diagnosis was further cemented by the amazing amount of discomfort when I was on the TT bike on Saturday.  (The more aggressive position on the TT leads to more stress on the regions causing the knee issues.)  I plan on hanging on for dear life racing the TTT this year with a few of the PV guys, so I'll be spending a lot of time stretching and adapting to the bike over the next couple weeks (hopefully!).

Monday afternoon musings...

 

• It is seriously gorgeous outside, and I'm glad I rode my bike into work today.  The 4.5 mile ride home will be a nice way to cap off the day.
• This weekend's riding had one serious beatdown of a ride book-ended by two lazy recovery days on the bike to total about 160mi of riding.
• Allergy season is coming.  Are you ready?
• I finally was able to mix it up with the team on Timber Road during one slug-fests out there.  Very happy!
• It's stuffy and probably 77 in our office building right now.
• Last week felt like a super hard week on the bike, but the overall stress of the workouts was not terribly high.  Glad I've got a rest week this week.
• PV continued with a very strong showing out at PIR and put me across the line first for the second week in a row. I <3 the team.
• My wife has been under the weather for the past week and it hurts me to see her feel this way.  I'd gladly take her place if I could.
• Hubris is a bitch. My knee started acting up two days after I posted this.  I'm still trying to sort out what's going on.
• My "O.F." got together on Saturday for a joint birthday party for James and myself.  Was great fun and they surprised me with an awesome gift.  Silly details here!
• I received an envelope in the mail on Friday from OBRA.  Inside was a sticker that said "ROAD:CAT3" along with my other details.  I'm now a very small fish in a very big pond filled with very fast fish.  At least I can cross off one of my goals for this year though. :)
• It was silent at 6:50am when I got into the office.  Its now 3:36pm and again, it's silent.  I'm going home.
• For whatever reason, this didn't publish until Tuesday morning, but I'm not changing the title.

Comeback Complete!

 

So last night, my journey back from my knee injury and subsequent surgery came to a close.  Tuesday was the first day of racing at PIR, and PV came out in force for the Cat 3 / 4 race.  Ty, Jeff, Flemming, Feig, Mitch Lee, B-Rat, Mitch Gold, Johnny, Kromonster and myself all lined up with 67 other racers to kick off the PIR season.

There were a few well represented groups out in the field tonight along with PV.  Ironclad, Team O, and Three Rivers all had some significant numbers.  Made for a painful night if you were flying solo as the average speed of the race was 26.5mph.

The race was a short one, being early season and still fighting for daylight.  10 Laps with a pair of hotspots.  My legs felt poor during warm up, so I let Ty know I'd wait for the finish if necessary.  The plan was to have Mitch attack early, and he did right from the gun drawing a mix of jeers and cheers from the field.   Once it was brought back it was pretty steady racing for most of the night.

Few attacks got away free, and PV made sure to be represented in all of them.  As with most early season races there were some tactical snafu's and learning experiences to be had. 

When it came down to the last lap, the pack was still together and teams were starting to get organized for the field sprint.  Ironclad and PV were controlling the front keeping the tempo high.  I pack surfed a bit and latched on my lead out man Brian with 2k to go.  The two of us hung to the left side of the field coming through the last corner and shot up the middle of the road on the final straight away.  The field went right and were bunched up against the infield wall making it hard to move around.

Brian showed some impressive power as he launched the two of us away from the field to the 200m mark, dropping me off to take the win by a good gap.  His lead out was so stellar that he hung on for second place after sounding like he was going to blow a lung in the final 200m.

I picked up my first win of the season, my first ever win in a 3/4 field, and my first win post surgery. It made for a good night at the Burrito Shack afterwards with the crew.  I may not have had the best legs last night, but I had the best teammates.

A big thank you to Dr. Rask of Hillsboro Orthopedic, Dave McHenry of TAI, and Russell Cree of Upper Echelon for getting me back on the road.

-Side note and a bit of a soapbox.  A pair of crashes during the sprints made for some dicey moments last night.  One early on when some wheels got overlapped during a prime, which unfortunately happens. But another in the final sprint which sounded like it was mid pack?  Sprinting for 20th is reckless.  Attacking from mid pack probably won't do you any good.  Take the opportunity to ride in safely with your fellow racers at the end of a nice evening.  I do hope those involved in the wrecks heal up quickly!

Isn't there an old saying...

 

... something about returning to what you are familiar with to re-center yourself or revisit past success?  Last night was definitely one of those moments for me.  After spending the weekend indulging in far too much boozy goodness, I stepped on the scale in the Monday morning having gained close to 5 lbs over the weekend.  Now I know weight shifts a lot over the course of days, but this wasn't one of those trends in my mind.  This was a sign to not let myself fall back into the weight bracket that I had worked so hard to get out of earlier this season.

I knew some of my teammates were planning to head out to PIR for the Masters 4/5 race in the evening and I was a bit torn on heading out there myself.  In this day and age of high gas prices, I do what I can to minimize the amount of driving I do, especially for things that I don't consider totally necessary.  PIR is one of those things that I don't consider necessary. It's on the other side of Portland through rush hour traffic to participate.  But I really wanted to get some hard efforts in under my belt to start the week out on the right foot.  I ran home at lunch and got everything together to leave as soon as work was done.

I get home a bit late due to a last minute Doctors appointment, and I see our car already loaded with my bike sitting on top.  Traci rules.  I eat a snack, get dressed and we are on the road in twenty minutes.  Traffic reports some slowing on I-5, but nothing major.  Go go iPhone GPS.  I do my best to stay relaxed as we settle in for the drive.  I've raced out here almost 10 times this season, but I still get pre-race jitters.

We arrive fairly quickly and park in the shade.  Paul, Couzens and Alex are already here and Marc pulls in not 5 minutes later.  I see a lot of familiar faces during warm-up as well.  Larry and Drew from 343, Ken from Skyline, big Mike from Three Rivers, Dave from Ironclad, and Steve from Team Oregon are all in the field tonight.  There are also a lot of unattached riders as well.  Those are the folks you really have to watch.  Last thing I want is to hit the tarmac due to sketchy riding.

The big topic of the warm-up is the wind.  We are running counter-clockwise tonight, so the backstretch is into the headwind the majority of the time.  We notice quickly that riding up against the wall provides some shelter.  My legs feel tight during the warm-up, and the hot lap we do as a team puts me in a bit of stress.  Too much beer I tell you.

The start of the race plays out much like most other PIR races.  A few who are feeling their oats shoot off the front and are quickly reeled back in.  I spend the first few laps dodging the sketchy wheels that will hopefully fade into the back of the pack as the ride progresses.  We hope to get Alex or Couzens off on a break at some point but with the wind being as strong as it is, it will be a big effort for whoever is out front.  The first hotspot comes and 343 leads a train up the right side, I stay calm and watch things unfold, hoping to launch Alex on a break if a few others go once we bunch back up.  No luck this time around.  The pack closes up fairly quick as we head into the wind.

The second hotspot bell goes off and things are a bit less organized this time around.  Two distinct groups form heading down to the line.  I grab Ken Lee's wheel on the left side as he accelerates towards the front of the pack.  As if almost in slow motion, a gap opens in the center of the field and I break for daylight.  I get about 5 bike lengths on the peloton and coast through the line (hands on the bars, fuck you very much) to win some swag.   First time in a long while that I feel some of my prior acceleration available when I called upon it.

Somewhere along the next few laps a 2 man break gets off the front and gets a good gap.  It wasn't until someone mentioned we'd be racing for 3rd did I realize it had happened.  (I blame the beer for my lack of attention.  You can't prove otherwise!)  The PV crew did a lot of work for the next few laps to try and bring them in, but no one wanted to help out.  I did my best to marshal others to the cause, barking out orders and evening trying to goad the other well represented teams into participating in the chase.  I ended up dragging the eventual winner to within 50m of the break, allowing him to bridge up.  Unfortunately the two of us were off the front of the peloton, dooming me no mans land with no legs.  I sit up and wait for the pack to return. 

The remaining laps are filled with half hearted pursuit.  No one wants to help out and the break continues to sit 200m off the front of us, and now there are three of them.  I get away again with 2 others to find ourselves out in no mans land once again.  I sit up and get the rest of the team organized so we could get Alex free for the pack sprint.  The backstretch gets all clustered up again and we are moving really slow. 343 finally moves to the front and we integrate in with them.  Couzens and Alex are behind me, with a 343 guy in front of me and the two big sprinters from 343 behind them.  We kick the speed up to stretch out the peloton.  I'm yelling at the guy in front to keep it moving as we come through the last corner but he starts to fade and pulls to the right.  I hit the apex of the corner and drop the hammer for the last time, hoping to spring our group free and get Alex a clean set of wheels. 

After 5 seconds I don't see any shadows below my wheels.  The sun's low in the sky and at our back... there should be long shadows... I look over my shoulder and see a huge gap.  Crap.  I had ridden off the front of the field and no one was coming around Couzens and Alex.  I pressed on hoping to open my advantage from this stupidly far distance.  The cells in my body burning the leftover Stumptown Tart that I had so glutinously consumed the day before.  My lungs and legs seared. I looked down at my HRM and was running close to 105% of my season's max. 

And then it happened.. a clear moment in the anaerobic pain induced haze when I looked up and saw the finish line 200m ahead.  I wanted to sit up and pack it in.  I reached for the gear shift to ease the pain in my legs and actually went to a bigger gear.  In that instant, the frustration of chasing and failing time and time again turned into  "if the rest of you are content to race for 4th, I'll make sure you finish at least 5th."  Ten more seconds of effort, ten more seconds of pain will guarantee that I finish ahead of the pack and give me a small nugget of satisfaction for the night.

The race ends and we all roll back to the registration area.  Mike thanks me for the bridge to the break then apologizes to his break mates for piping them in the final sprint.  Alex, Couzens, and Larry from 343 comes over and congratulates me on my finish.  Friendly recounts of the night are flowing all around.  Due to hotspots I end up tied for 4th with a guy who was in the break, so I take 5th anyway. ;)  Such is the life of masters racing. 

Traci helps me pack up as I chat with some of my competitors.  In fact she packs up almost all my gear.  I feel bad,  but I'm so thankful of how incredibly supportive she is when I'm racing. 

The drove home is fun and we are both in a good mood considering its after 8pm and we haven't had dinner yet.  We stop at Freddies for some chocolate milk.  Sometimes its good to go visit an old stomping ground to let the familiarity of it all allow you to let it all hang out and see what you can do.