Rim Nordic June 28 2009

My last CA state cup race of the year, Rim Nordic was quite an adventure for the Chicken Ranchers.

I was carpooling up with our Cat 2 contingent so that meant getting up way too early to catch the van. Paul, Gabe and I rode up together and when we started prepping the bikes, the fun began. Paul’s grips (just installed the night before) didn’t stay on the bar. Nothing a little Hammer Gel won’t fix!

I watched Rob finish up his Cat 3 race (got 2nd by mere inches!!)

and did bottle duty after watching the 2’s go off. (Yes there was a rider wearing a mask to keep out the dust .. probably a smart move)

Gabe (on the left behind the masked man) ended up with the victory! Though Gabe’s win was mighty impressive, it was rivaled only by his all-out 100 yard sprint to hand me my dropped water bottle on my second lap!

It was a tough course, probably the only course all year which required the “granny gear” to make it up the climbs. It was a lot of singletrack, very narrow, sandy terrain, just technical enough to keep you on your toes and steep. There were precious few sections of fireroad where you could grab some water or pass. And with temps near 90, lots of dust and the sun blazing through the thin 7000 ft air, the conditions were tough.

By the time the Cat 1 30-34 lined up, it was way too hot out and I was already feeling the sun and altitude. The field was small but super-competitive. Looking around at the start I realized that we had all been trading spots all season.. there was no clear winner and I could just as easily get first or last depending on my luck. About 1 hour into it, I found myself battling with the top four who were all bunched together within a few seconds (a pretty rare occurrence in MTB races). The brutally steep climbs got the better of me and James, Griffith and Justin pulled away but I kept 4th place and was satisfied that I left it all on the course after finishing 3 laps in 2:12. Bob was close behind at 2:20.

After the race, I was surprised to see Gabe and Paul hanging around waiting in vain for their results to get posted. There were all sorts of screwups with the results from all categories – supposedly they gave the win in one Cat 1 race to a DNF. How hard can it be to keep track of results and post them in a timely manner? Pretty hard apparently. Never mind the “official” results – Gabe just grabbed a medal and we staged our own podium ceremony!

But the crazy part was Paul’s crash. He went over the bars, falling 30 feet down a ravine and getting pretty cut up. No stitches required and the med tent had him cleaned up in no time.

After 7 hours in the car and a pretty brutal race with all the mishaps, its easy to question why we put ourselves through it. But as always, its for a great time with great people. Its fun to get to know all the “regulars” throughout the season and the community and friendships are really a big part of what keeps us all coming back to suffer for 2 hours on the trails every weekend. That and a shared insane desire to push our bodies to the absolute limit.

Best 5k time in a decade!

Make that my only 5k time in a decade.

Jos convinced me to run Nite Moves, santa barbara’s weekly summer 5k run (and optional swim). I run maybe twice a month, just enough to pretend that I can still do it. I used to be a fairly solid mid-distance runner in high-school, pulling off sub-17 minute 5ks in my best years.

14 years later, not so much. I got a 22:26, enough to give me 54th place. Woot! At least that gives me tons of room for improvement. The whole Nite Moves scene is great scene with lots of cool folks, a beautiful setting by the beach, live music, free beer and free food. All that’s missing is a cycling event and it would be paradise.

Jos PR’d again, this time by 30 seconds with a 24:08. She’s got another 40 seconds to shave off before she beats her first 5k time by a whole 10 minutes!!

I can’t tell whether this photo of me on the finishing stretch is a look of pain or happiness. Probably both. It was fun but very painful. My legs are fine pushing up the hills (go leg extension!) but my legs turn to crap when the road goes downhill and I have to start pumping those hamstrings and dealing with the impact shock of the concentric contractions. My heart and lungs were fine .. I wasn’t really even able to push my HR that high since the plain bio-mechanical inefficiency of my legs was holding me back.

Next week, maybe throw on a wetsuit and do the aquathon? Wednesday is now officially cross-training day.

What is wrong with us?

OK .. As I was coming back from the gym, an hilarious yet deeply disturbing scene unfolded before my eyes. The elevator door dings, a slightly overweight guy in sweats walks out and proceeds to the stair machine. I wonder if he realized the humor in the situation. I can’t help but think of this as a euphemism for how lazy and technologically-dependent our culture has become.

How american's take their dog for a walk.

SGDC #1

Today was the first race in the summer series out at Mike Hecker’s Stumpgrinder Dirt Club (SGDC).

B-eautiful day. Jos came out with me to do some exploratory runs in the Los Olivos area. Hecker changed up the course, removed one of the tougher climbs and added a few new singletrack trails. It was shorter, more flowing singletrack and slightly less painful.

The only bummer – only 14 people total showed for the XC! My class (the Pro/Open Expert) had two - myself and teammate Pete Sproul. We took off and I gained some time on Pete but we were both just taking it nice and steady – a good solid training race. I was completely alone on the course for the majority of the time. I was just practicing steady pacing, keeping the power on the pedals through the singletrack and attacking the climbs late in the race.

Mike’s doing some awesome stuff for mountain biking in the area – bringing a national event to santa barbara county, trying to promote two 24 hour events, a summer XC and DH series, weekly dirt crits, collegiate races and make a working ranch into an active mountain bike club. I just wish someone would notice… certainly not the chicken ranchers (3 of us showed) and platinum team riders (0 present); we owe it to our cycling community to come out and support these local events and the poor turnout from both teams make me disappointed to say the least. Come on guys, where were you?

SB Bike Fest Day 3 – Cross Country

Words cannot describe the fatigue I feel right now. I am done. Toast.

The Elings XC course is probably the most brutal course I have ever encountered – and I ride it almost weekly. There is no resting, you are either descending on the edge of your technical skill or grinding up a climb at the edge of your fitness. And each section comes up fast, and is done just as quickly – just enough to suck energy and prevent you from finding a rhythm in the next section. It will forever remain my nemesis.

The weather was perfect, slightly sunny with some overcast to keep the temps down. As I lined up for the Cat 1 30-34, I was the only person in the staging row for a few minutes. Then James, Marco, Humberto and Chase showed up.. and that was it. 5 guys in our category – wtf? The 25-29 and 35-39 fields were 20+ riders deep. Wierd. I knew the race would be tough since all five of us have traded places on or near the podium throughout the season.

The announcer took the opportunity to play up the crosstown rivalry between Platinum and Chicken Ranch before our start – playing up the stereotype of the late night partying chicken rancher vs. the supplement-popping, ice-bathing Platinum rider. In reality the dichotomy is not so clear cut – for example I like to wash down my supplements with beer while taking a late night ice bath. In any case, the gauntlet was thrown down and no matter how I finished, I had to beat Chase (the Platinum guy).

I took off great on the first climb, hit the descent and gained a good chunk of time on the rest of my field and carried that through the first lap. Then the climbing on Lap 2 started and my legs had nothing left. James destroyed me at the fireroad, I got stuck behind some slower riders and lost him on the descent. Marco caught me. Then Chase. Humberto was close on my tail. I started thinking “well 5th out of 5 is not so bad given the strength of our little group”. I felt like ass. My legs had nothing to give and I just couldn’t find a rhythm for laps 2 and 3.

The last lap I caught my second wind and started picking up the pace. I caught Chase before the final climb and beat him out in a finish line sprint for 3rd! Marco was not that far ahead, only 10 seconds or so. James on the other hand crushed us all and won by a few minutes. Nice job!

Podium pic via James’ blog:

OK. 3 races and 3 podiums in 3 days. I am spent. The event was probably one of my favorites of the year, the organization, the people and the fact that it was in my hometown made it the best. The SB bike fest guys did a great job!

SB Bike Fest Day 2 – Super D

Yet another great day of racing in Santa Barbara. This time it was Elings park for the Super D. The downhill was in the A.M. but I had to get some work done so I opted to just go for the Super D instead.

Lots of Chicken Ranchers out there for this event. And lots of Platinum riders as well. The SB boys were slated for some top spots – If any course has a home-town advantage, it is this one. It was mostly just the downhill/singletrack portions of the XC course (though some sections were cut and others run “backwards”) and I knew every corner like the back of my hand.

Still, right off the gun I started sprinting and went too hard into the first turn. That was the story of my day, powering the pedals like crazy but just slightly off on every turn loosing little bits of momentum here and there. I just didn’t feel as smooth as I normally do on these sections. Of course I don’t normally do these trails with my HR at 180 bpm either which may have had something to do with it. Still it was good enough for an 8:54 which gave me 1st in the Open 30-39 and the best amateur time of the day (4th best overall including pros!)

EDIT: Podium pic from Fastrack Dave:

Fun stuff. A great “leg opener” for tomorrows XC race. Time to prepare for some suffering by hydrating with some Natty Light left over from last night’s party. I don’t even think that really qualifies as beer does it?

SB Bike Fest Day 1 – Sandpiper Prologue TT

Today marked the beginning of the long awaited Santa Barbara Bike Fest, this year with a brand new event – a time trial out at the Sandpiper Golf Club at the Bacara.

This was ostensibly a “road bike” event, though one look at the course map and you could tell there would not be many funny bikes with aero bars.

There were two dozen sharp super turns, a few grass sections, some gravel, quick little rollers, all taking place on a narrow, off-cambre golf cart path. It was probably one of the strangest, most scenic and most fun courses I have ever ridden. The best way to describe it was a Super-D for road bikes.

I did 3 laps to warm up and went off at about 6:15. Blinger heard me grumbling about my late start and I told him I just didn’t want to have to pass all the old guys which set the stage for a friendly wager over which age group was going to prevail, 30-39 or 40-49. Anyways, I hit the course in the wrong gear and somehow wasn’t clipped in so I bumbled the start a bit. But I regained composure and just tried to power, power, power as much as I could while still keeping it smooth through the corners. Keeping momentum and pedaling out of the corners was key and I was pushing the limits, clipping my pedals and nearly going into the grass on a few sections. But it must have worked since I pulled of a 10 minutes, 27 second ride – good enough for 2nd place in my age group AND 2nd place overall. Thats right Blinger, the two fastest guys were under 40! Gary Douville pulled off the win with a time of 10:06 (Gary, as always, being the statistical outlier) and Big Bob Wilcher made an impressive showing for 3rd.

Fun times. Saturday afternoon is the dirt version of the super D. Then the XC is Sunday. Looking forward to it…