“It’s just a parking lot crit”, I kept telling myself as I drove home, but it still felt like a big loss to have the race postponed. I had underestimated how much I wanted – no, needed – that endorphin hit you get from a hard race effort. It seemed like a lot of other racers were feeling the same way, as the racing community was buzzing on facebook (literally and figuratively) after the race that wasn’t. Everyone drowned their disappointment with a few cold ones.

So my inevitable upgrade to Cat 4 would have to wait for at least a few more weeks (I am closing in on the ten road starts needed to upgrade). Not a huge deal. Sunday would bring another opportunity to race, but offroad instead of on this time. After sitting in the heat all day on Saturday at the Fat Tire Festival, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to racing in it the next day. Still, I woke up stupid early on Sunday and drove out to Hamilton Creek to help set things up.

The race started at 10am and we were still messing around with stuff up until the last minute. Fred even committed the cardinal pre-race sin of wrenching on his bike right before a race. We were divided into two duo teams; Fred and Jonathan on team 1, Todd and myself on team 2. We let Jonathan and Todd race the first lap, which meant that they also had to stuff their legs into hot, itchy burlap sacks and potato-sack race for the unique twist on a Le Mans race start.

30 minutes after they dissapeared into the woods, Jonathan and Todd popped out signaling time for Fred and I to take our first laps. For the next six hours we settled into a rhythm of hot lapping Hamilton Creek’s lakeside trail, cooling down for 30 or so minutes, then spinning the tightness out of our legs for another fast lap.

We showed up with only the intention of having fun and riding a few hard miles on the bikes. No one bothered to check on lap times or results for the majority of the day until Jonathan walked over to the official’s tent with around 2 hours left in the race. He came back to our pit area holding up 1 finger on one hand and 2 fingers on the other “We’re in first, and you guys are in second”. Wow. I walked over to verify and sure enough, Jonathan and Fred were in first by around 12 minutes, followed by Todd and me. Third place was trailing us by more than 15 minutes.

Our next laps were attacked with renewed energy as we realized we might podium a race we hadn’t even planned on taking seriously. At 2:40pm, Todd entered the woods for his fifth (last) lap, and I sat down hoping he would be back within enough time for me to take my fifth lap. Only laps completed by exactly 4pm would count towards our total, and we had been averaging lap times around 35 minutes all day. 30 minutes came and went. 35 minutes. 40. After 44 minutes, Todd rolled through the relay point, “Sorry I took so long, I got a flat”. With only 35 minutes left on the clock, I kicked off.

There’s a zone you sometimes get into when racing that is different than when you are just riding around. It’s an odd mix of being hyper-aware and completely unaware at the same time. Supremely focused on each moment while retaining no attachment to anything. Very zen. On this lap, an Orc battle from the Lord of the Rings could have been happening ten feet from the trail and I wouldn’t have seen a single sword blow.

For the entire lap I was one mistake away from a hard crash. Pushing the pace and not thinking about how much time I didn’t have. When I got back to the two-way entrance, I had a good feeling that I had time to spare. Tim Spencer called out “TWO MINUTES to go!” as I rolled past the official’s table. Skin of teeth.

Jonathan Woody and Fred Cothren in 1st, Todd Essig and Nathan Taylor in 2nd

Gabrielle found a riding partner from Lexington to ride with, allowing Jonathan and I to stretch our legs a bit in the first half. Although Gabrielle has only been on a handful of road rides since she got her bike last year, she consistently finishes centuries and long rides. By 60 miles in, Gabrielle’s riding partner turned off for the 75 mile route, and we proceeded as a group of three for the rest of the ride. Our pace slowed quite a bit over the last 40 miles since we wanted to stay mostly together. By the last few miles, I started to pull ahead and decided that it wasn’t worth regrouping when we were so close to Georgetown College. Hot, slightly dehydrated, and hungry, we all devoured a plate of barbecue provided for the riders before heading back to my parent’s house to shower and rest for a bit.

We rolled back into Nashville around 1am Sunday morning, still fatigued from riding 102 miles and driving for 3 hours. None of us would get much more than 4 hours of sleep that night as we all had to regroup in Maryland Farms for the Gatorade Criterium the next morning.

By 6:00am that morning I was in the parking lot behind the Brentwood Publix helping set up the race course. I had no intention of racing on so little sleep, especially after riding for as long as we did the day before. We got the last of the hay bales set up in the corners with only ten minutes to spare before the first race (Cat 5 men’s race) and my teammates convinced me to at least kit up and start the race with them. I figured I had nothing to lose, and would at least last a few laps before blowing up and heading back to the pit to help coordinate the rest of the day’s races. Turns out I had more in m than I thought.

I was gapped off the back in the first lap due to a poor start, and spent the lap after that cranking hard to catch back on. By the beginning of lap 3 I was back in the main field and feeling warmed up (typically you start a crit race by warming up – no such luck today). As we rounded the pinch point onto Maryland Way, I found myself on the outside of the field with enough momentum that I shot to the front. Still figuring I might not make it through the entire race, I decided to push it a little. Ten strong kicks and I was away from the front. I held a gap for a full lap, then knew that I was losing my break halfway through the next lap. I was caught soon after and dropped back into the field to recover. A few laps later I was feeling good again, so I did the same thing. The second break didn’t last as long as I was getting gassed pretty quickly, so I dropped back behind the leaders to recover again. Four laps to go, then three, and I was still in the mix. Harpeth had 8 racers start this race, and we had someone at or off the front for the entire duration, which was great to see and be a part of. I crossed the line at the front as they rang the bell for one lap to go and the pace immediately picked up. I was able to hold on until the hill before the final straight, but I didn’t lose much position and gave a half-hearted sprint at the line for 11th place.

We finished the day with several beers at the Cross Corner pub talking about how much fun the race was, how well our team rode together, and how tired we all were. The perfect ending to the weekend was that most of us had Monday off to recover.

Rob hadn’t been on a mountain bike for a while due to a shoulder injury, so he picked careful lines through the rocky sections and chose the bailout options on some ledges. I can’t blame him since Hamilton Creek is a hematoma waiting to happen if you ride it carelessly. The trails are rocky and rooty, with some of the lines either requiring a pachinko-ball maneuver in between narrow slots, or a hop up onto a foot high ledge in order to clear. I was riding “heavy” since I’ve been off the mountain bike for several weeks and could hear my chain slapping the chainstay over the roots and rocks. On technical trails like Hamilton Creek, it helps to ride “light” and absorb the larger hits with your body instead of banging into them and letting the bike take it all – especially on a hardtail. The sound of the chain on the chainstay is a pretty good indicator of lightness, and mine wasn’t sounding light.

Once we had covered a few miles of trial I started to get my Hammy groove back. I picked a few tougher lines requiring more pop up onto the ledges instead of rolling around them, and worked a bit on flat landing some of the shallower drops. Photo Op Drop still requires a last minute chicken out move. I have yet to take the main line on this 2-3 foot ledge, always opting for the step down to the left (not the full bailout line, mind you). One of these days I will go out and just practice this drop until it’s second nature, but not tonight.

After a full lap of the race loop, Jonathan and I split off from Todd and Rob and headed back in for another partial lap. I made it to the far side and was riding smoothly, but missed a line through a slot between two boulders and got thrown sideways into the rock pile. A few choice words uttered (therapeutic cursing. Mythbusters proved that this lessens pain) and I made sure that no permanent damage was done to the bike. I was fine too, but could feel a deep bruise in the palm of my hand and a few on my hip. Pretty light losses for a still inexperienced mountain biker at the most technical trail in the area.

Jonathan wanted to finish out the lap, so I turned around and headed back to the trailhead. I sessioned a few of the ledges several times in each direction (drop off, climb up, drop off, climb up) to work out the post-dirt-nerves. Line selection is key to this trail, as is technique. If you hit the wrong rock at the wrong angle, speed, or body position, you lose. Tonight I lost, but since I hadn’t wagered much my losses were minimal. By the end of summer I should have enough time out there that I turn the house odds in my favor. The trail is only a few miles from work, and the race loop is short enough to make a lap and still be home early. It’s still a rigged game, but I say bring on the rocks.

Cat 5s went off hard and chaotic, and the cornering skills were such that if you were in the middle of the pack around the first two corners you were already way behind due to the yo-yo. I had a rough start, so that was where I was, but I took it easy and made up a few positions around each turn (come on guys, where were you when I was teaching that cornering class yesterday?).

End of lap 2 saw the first two of three crashes. One when a rider cut across my teammates line and clipped his wheel. Boom. Emergency braking to avoid running over teammate. Lost a ton of position. Second crash happened at the same time, but I didn’t see much other than the thud of a helmet on the ground. Both riders took their free lap and jumped back in.

My avoidance maneuver kept me upright so I didn’t get to cash in a skin-ticket for a free lap. The rest of the race was a cat and mouse game where I would pick a wheel half a lap ahead, catch it before the upwind back stretch so I could sit on it for 200 yards, then sprint around on corners 7and 8 onto the downwind finishing stretch. Lather, rinse, repeat. Made up at least ten positions, but they were too spread out from the main field to catch back on. No points for me tonight. Immediately after finishing, I could feel the muscle soreness kick back in from Monday nigh’s weightlifting session in the gym. I’m glad it stayed away during the race at least.

That cornering class I mentioned was a series of clinics run by Les Wooldridge (of the Harpeth Racing Team, and also VP of the Harpeth Bike Club). Les put me in charge of the cornering class. I set up cones to show entry points, apexes, and exit points on a couple of different types of corners. We went through things from the ground up; all the way from pedal position to countersteering, line selection, and body position. By the time the class was over they were making smooth turns at speed with nary a line change through the curve.

We had another group working on contact drills at the same time. After both groups had been through the classes we split into groups and worked on riding a smooth paceline around the racetrack at the Nashville Fairgrounds (the Pseudodrome).

It was cool to watch the progression from beginner rider to more confident Bicycle Pilot. it’s also amazing to think how much of those skills I take for granted. Even as a relative beginner I know that the time spent working on riding technique has paid huge dividends in safety and smoothness in a pack or race situation. Last night’s crit race really showed that. Many of the riders would brake hard before a corner, sacrificing a ton of hard-earned momentum and position in order to go through the corner at a speed that they felt comfortable with. I would set my entry speed early, apex the corner with enough room for error, and sail right past them without touching the brakes.

It’s a crazy packed week this week. Cornering clinic, Crit race, tonight I’m going to check out the race loop at Hamilton Creek on the mountain bike (more about that later this week), then on Friday we head up to Kentucky for the Horsey Hundred on Saturday, then right back to Nashville for the Gatorade Criterium that Harpeth Racing is putting on. Hope my legs hold out!

Finally, something cool. I’m going to have to build some of these. Austin from Green Fleet Messengers pointed them out, and I definitely have some tubes that can’t be repaired. Click pic or here for full post

Bicycle tubes turned into shelving

Brian, Chuck C., Shawn, and I lined up at the front and had a good start. By the first turn at mile 1, a couple of guys from the Krystals team launched a breakaway and I jumped to try and join it. My thought was to work with them for the first few miles and maybe get a headstart on the climb before we got caught. Intentions or not, I didn’t have the legs to hold with their pace. After working hard to try to hold on for a few minutes, I sat up and waited to get absorbed by the field.

That initial effort pushed me close enough to the limit that I hadn’t recovered enough to sit comfortably in the pack once they caught me. Although there was nothing steep, each of the rolling hills in the first 14 miles of the race were a shock to my legs. By ten miles in, I was losing ground to the main pack and had adjusted my goals to bringing in another rider who was gapped. I caught him and we worked at tempo until the base of the climb up Baker Mtn Rd.

The climb was tough. 3 miles at an average grade of around 8% (I think) and sections much steeper than that. 900 feet of elevation gain. I marked my climbing partner and stayed with him until we reached the plateau. He recovered a bit faster than I did and joined another rider who had made up ground on us on the climb and I lost them too. The next 30 miles were an exercise in frustration. Frustration in riding alone yet again during a race. Frustration in my lack of fitness and readiness for this race. Constantly fighting the urge to DNF the race. 30 miles is an ego-crushingly long way to ride at a tempo pace by yourself.

Every few minutes I would stand and push a harder gear to relieve my muscles. Somewhere along the plateau I started to feel the twinge of oncoming cramps and dialed my wattage back slightly to see if it would go away. In a group ride of this length I would have time to stop, refill water bottles, massage the kinks out, and continue on. Not knowing if there were any riders behind me kept me from stopping for fear of losing any additional position.

By mile 45, my quads were starting to cramp in earnest. I spent a couple of miles pedaling with one leg, the other hanging straight down to rest it, then alternating. This helped some, and I was able to regain tempo. It occurred to me that I couldn’t even remember the last time I rode 55 miles without stopping. If ever. I was glad to reach the downhill and tucked in for a quick 40+ mph blast down to the base of the plateau. Four miles to the finish. I’m not 100% sure that the officials even noticed me cross the finish line. I decided to skip the Time Trial and criterium.

I have a much better understanding of what level of fitness will be required for this race next year. I also know that I was nowhere close to that level this year, and with that, I am happy to have finished it. Many racers bailed partway through with flats, or just bailed. Several others crashed out, with one requiring an airlift to Chattanooga with fairly serious injuries. The possibility of racing your way into a State Championship jersey pushed the competitiveness to a higher than normal level for amateur racing.

I met Jonathan at the shop in Cool Springs early Saturday morning and we drove North to White House in an on and off again rain. Mostly on. Once we got there, it was obvious that the rain wasn’t going anywhere. If we were going to race at all, it would be in the wet. Warming up was nearly pointless, as any warmth that I was able to spin into my legs was just as quickly removed.

The Cat 5 men’s race started 45 minutes late. The lead official kept the pace slow as the first section was neutralized. It wasn’t until several miles into the 24 mile race that he finally pulled into the other lane and waved us through to start “racing”.

I had allowed myself to get pushed back into the middle of the field during the neutral section, so I tried to use the next few miles to move up. There wasn’t much room. There were a couple of riders from a Memphis team who were half-wheeling the riders in front of them, effectively blocking the road for anyone who wanted to move ahead. I didn’t feel comfortable making an aggressive move past them with the roads covered in standing water, so I remained stuck in the middle of the pack for half of the race.

At mile 14, I started watching the front of the field to see if Brian and Shawn were going to make any moves like we had discussed. No breakaways stuck, but the increasing pace at the front caused the pack to string out over a series of rollers. Stuck in the middle of the pack, I got hammered by the dreaded yo-yo effect and was gapped. The main field was still in sight, and I could see that Brian, Shawn, Jonathan, and the Chucks were well positioned near the front.

I chased down three other riders and we worked together for a bit before missing the turn onto Garrison Branch. I corrected quickly and tried to chase down the quickly receding taillight of the sweep official. Not enough legs for that effort. The flat section of Garrison let me regain my composure before the steep climb (the only real climb of the race other than typical Mid TN hills). I looked back only once to make sure the three riders weren’t closing in, and committed fully to the climb.

Yet another lone slog to the finish, but I felt pretty strong the whole time and gave it what I had. The race officials split the Cat 5 race by age group, which allowed my mediocre performance to net my first top 10 finish! Points on the board.

Next race, Highland Rim.

The short story is that the mountains were hard. We did the usual Six Gaps of the Six Gap Century route, and added on Brasstown Bald (the highest point in Georgia) at the beginning. On Sunday we did three of the gaps again from the other direction. Everyone had a great time. I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5… crap. Lost count. What’s the screen say? 6 minutes left. Crap. I’ll start counting again at the next minute. 56, 57, 58, ok, start counting pedal strokes. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6…. focus…. 9, 10, 11. crap. lost count again. How many minutes now?

We’ve been working on building strength in the last few weeks at Endeavor Performance, which means pyramid intervals at or above lactate threshold and all done at 70 rpm.

Normally I try to spin at a cadence higher than 90 rpm, which works the cardiovascular system more than the leg muscles. Tonight we were doing the opposite. Slow cadence and high torque quickly fatigued my leg muscles and forced me to eliminate as many distractions as I could in order to finish the intervals. I settled on counting pedal strokes as the best method.

Since we were holding a steady 70 rpm, all I had to do was count that many pedal strokes for as many minutes as each interval lasted. It worked great for the first two efforts of two and four minutes at 105% of lactate threshold. I started into the next interval of 6 minutes at 100% and quickly found myself losing count. Each time I started counting I would make it to 15 or 20, then I would lose the count for a second and forget if I was on 20 or 30. It didn’t really matter what number I was on, as the mantra of counting was offering the real distraction. Watching the seconds tick by always makes it seem a lot harder.

This class was tougher than usual because I had already been through it two days before (two sessions this week since I will miss next week), and because last week we re-tested power levels and increased our training zones.

…63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70. Can’t believe I counted to 70! Look at the screen. 3 seconds left – cadence must have been a bit high. Oh well. Workout over. I know I will be feeling the combined efforts of tonight, last night, and the night before in the morning.

Working on the logo with her (that means offering unecessary commentary while she came up with the design), I came across some great examples of race posters that inspired me for future events.

The poster is the first thing a prospective racer sees when they learn about your event, so it is important that it captures some of the essence of what the event is about.

The poster design influences the vibe of the event and sets the tone of what kind of event is being held. They are kind of like movie posters, or concert posters in that way. Fixed-gear crit in an industrial park in the middle of the night? Something like a punk rock poster from the 70s comes to mind. State Championship Omnium? Something more formal that brings to mind the high level of competition and notoriety of the event.

I saw these two posters on Trackosaurus Rex and wanted to share them. Both are great examples of the art. I especially love the inclusion of the World Championship stripes in both of them. It’s a perfect, slightly tongue-in-cheek touch reference similar to how a lot of local racing clubs refer to their weeknight group hammerfests as the “Tuesday Night World Championships”.

Pre-beatdown warmup

This season is definitely going to be an immersion classroom in “The education of a racer” for me. I’m learning a lot even if I can’t apply it all yet. From these three races my pain points have all been the same – hills. More specifically my unwillingness to dig really deep early in these races to make sure that I maintain contact with the group on the first hills. Some of that is fitness, sure, but I also know that a lot of it is inexperience.

In today’s road race, a couple of things were working against me. First, it was pouring rain from the time we left the neutralized zone at Lake Lurleen State Park. The first hill came right after crossing the lap line and the pace was already very high. Just like in the Hell of the South and the Crit, I had trouble maintaining position in the group on the hill – especially when the entire front of the pack stood up at once and slowed dramatically. I had to brake, which really pissed me off, then surge to try and regain contact with the group as they sat back down at the top. Positioning myself nearer the front from the start would have prevented this.

By now the rain had stopped, but our tires were still kicking up roostertails. I worked myself back onto the group for the rest of that lap, but on longer hill on the back section of the course I fell off pace again and lost some ground. There was a fast downhill just after this with a couple of turns, so by the time I crested the hill I couldn’t see the main group. Once again in solo mode, I ramped it up a bit and soon found Joe (my Steel City Cycles wheelman from the crit) and we worked together with a couple more guys to see if we could catch back on. I spent a lot of time on the rolling sections and the flat sections on the front and pulling hard, then sitting in for a few seconds before pulling back around and increasing the pace again. Few of the other guys seemed inclined to bridge the gap up to the main group, so I burned a lot of matches on lap 2. I feel like I can take about 65% credit for us bridging back up to the group before the last climb. Even earning a scolding from one of the race officials for drafting off of the wheel truck (which we were not doing). We reconnected briefly, and I saw Joe move into the pack a few places. I was in the process of moving up when we hit the hill and I once again moved back a bit. One of the Velocity Pro Cycles riders (one of the chief race sponsors) and I lost connection with the main group around the downhill bends and didn’t see them again on lap 3.

The Velocity Pro cycles rider had helped some on the last bridging attempt rode with me, alternating pulls through the first half of lap 3. We talked about sticking together and seeing who we could take on the last few miles. By the time we hit the last hill, he was starting to cramp up and told me to go. I knew the hill had given me trouble the last two laps, but figured “what the hell” and gassed it. By the time I topped the hill I realized that I should have been riding the hills like this way earlier in the race and not burning so many matches riding solo when there were probably riders just out of sight behind me that would have been willing to work together. After the race, another racer said something that hit home “If you are off the back of a group, sometimes it’s better to swallow a little pride and let yourself be caught than try too hard to catch back on”. It’s funny, but when I am in that situation burying myself in the pain cave is a heck of a lot easier than sitting up and waiting to be caught.

Brian and I talked on the way back to Nashville about tactics and positioning. He thought that I would have been fine staying with the group if I had just made it through the first lap with them. The group was taking turns gingerly due to the wet roads, and was riding entire sections at nearly a recovery pace! I was behind them by myself, or in a small group, killing myself to make up time lost on the hills. That hard effort that I put in on the last hill of the last lap was completely mis-timed. That effort belonged on the first lap of the first hill. Had I done that I probably would have been able to sit in and help Brian out. He rode a smart and strong race, staying close to the front the whole time, never getting himself in trouble, and finishing 5th.

Education of a racer homework: Stay with the group in the early part of the race even at a high cost. They will sit up and recover at some point. Class Dismissed.