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.

Photo from http://rucasmcscoots.wordpress.com/

The Hell of the South training race was yesterday in Berlin (pronounced BURlin, not BurLIN), TN. The course took us over chipseal roads, a short dirt section, and over rolling terrain for 26 miles. I raced the “C” race with 7  Category 5 teammates, while 6 of our Category 4 teammates rode the 50 mile “B”‘ race.

This was my first road race, so when I lined up for the start I looked down at my computer and saw that my heart rate was hovering around 119. I was excited and nervous, to say the least. I was on the front line and had Harpeth jerseys all around me, which was very cool. One guy from another team asked if we planned on controlling the pace for the full lap since we had 8 guys. In retrospect we probably should have.

The race started and hit a fast but manageable pace in the high 20s. I had my head on a swivel and was watching for our guys as well as watching all of the riders around me for erratic moves. Other than some unnecessary braking the peloton was made up of fairly smooth riders. Once I saw Brian and Chris in front of me by a few bikes, I started playing around with moving within the group. Initially I thought the easiest place to gain position would be on the right side, but apparently so did everyone else. I saw one guy smoothly ride up the left side on the edge of the pavement, so I tried that and got near enough to Brian and Chris (I think Chuck and Shawn were close by at this point too) to mention that we should start moving up.

I sat on or near Brian’s wheel for a few miles until he mentioned that the gravel section was coming up. The left side was open, so I made a wide turn through the gravelly corner and pushed a big gear up the dirt hill. It was rough, but very rideable, and I was surprised to gain several positions by the top of it. As we exited the gravel section and sprinted back up to speed on the pavement Chuck C, Chuck B, Shawn, Brian, and myself were still sitting in the middle of a group of around 20 riders. I didn’t take the time to look back, but apparently the rest of the peloton got slowed down as they made the right-hander onto the gravel/dirt road. Just as Les (team mentor) predicted, the dirt caused a split.

The five of us rode within the group (letting the race happen to us instead of taking the race to the other 15 people) for the next several miles. Since this section was flat, the group started to string out a little and I tried to stay in the middle. It was a constant game of move up, get passed by a couple of people, move up again. I was starting to hurt by the time we turned away from I-65 and I dropped just off the back on the two camel-hump hills. For a second I wondered if my race was over, but these hurt everyone else enough that the pace slowed a bit and I was able to push to catch back on. From miles 13-17 I pretty much sat in and kept within a couple of bikes of Brian, Chuck B, and Shawn, who were riding a bit closer to the front. As we turned South, I jumped in behind Shawn, who was in front and the five of us got organized to try and up the pace for the last few miles. I took a short pull, dropped back, and slotted in again behind Chuck C. The rest of the peloton was more than willing to let us control the pace at this point in the race, and I’m sure we could have ridden the front all the way back to the beginning of the race loop if we had stayed tightly organized.

I got in trouble when I red-lined it on the short hill right after we crossed the bridge over the Duck River. One second I was sitting pretty about 5th or 6th wheel and the next I was going backwards within the group. It doesn’t take long to be spit out the back of a group of 20 guys, so by the second hill I had a gap and was struggling to close it. It was hugelydemoralizing to have the Official’s truck pass me to stay with the lead group, followed quickly by the wheel truck. Heart still pounding and legs burning, I tried like hell to gain ground on the group. Where they would rush up hills and coast/recover on downhills, I put it in TT mode and kept the wattage as constant as I could at about 105% of threshold. I kept up this effort for 15 minutes or so with my prey in sight the whole time. The rollers were killing me, and I knew that the slight headwind was taking it’s toll whereas the peloton could bust through it like a freight train. It hurt like hell, but I eventually passed both race vehicles and clawed my way back to within 10 yards of the group. For a brief moment I let myself think about the sweet, sweet recovery I would get once I had a wheel to sit on, but as we hit the next roller both of the race vehicles gassed it past me again to stay with the lead group. That was the final blow. Heartbreaking. I gave one last push to see if I could gain any more ground, but having widened the gap enough to let the trucks between us again I knew I didn’t have enough left to catch them. I saw Chuck C on the side of the road and knew he had flatted, leaving Chuck B, Shawn, and Brian – just as Les had predicted! – in the lead group. I really wanted to be there to form a leadout train for the finish, but it wasn’t in the cards today.

The last few miles of the race were spent in solo cruise mode. By the time I got to the turnoff for the race loop, the lead group was almost completely out of sight. I looked behind me several times to see if there were any riders coming up on my tail, as I was pretty determined not to lose any more positions than I already had, but the road was empty. Was I in last place? The empty road sure made it feel like it. I rolled on to the finish line at a tempo pace since there was nothing to be gained by killing myself solo. Ended up 21st of a field of 50 riders.

I had been looking forward to this race since my DNF four weeks ago in January. After an early dinner and a good, if fitful night’s sleep, Jonathan and I were geared up by 7:30am and headed to the “Snake Pit” at the Trade Center. We got signed in, and planned on sitting in the warm car until the shuttles started to load. After loading our bikes onto the trailers, we returned to the car to find it locked. With the keys inside. Along with our water bottles, helmets, and camelbaks.

Fearing a repeat of January’s RV hydraulics debacle that put us on the race course almost an hour after most riders had started, I went into quiet panic mode. Luckily, 30 minutes later we had the car unlocked (thanks to the towing company owned by the father of one of the race volunteers) and were seated in one of the shuttles to the race start. Panic mode was quickly replaced by pre-race jitters.

In years past, the shuttle to the race start has been provided by old, used up school buses driven by crazed blue-hairs with no reason left to live. After we signed up for this year’s race, Fred told us about a past year when the combined weight of 50 adults (as opposed to 50 4th graders) overwhelmed the brakes of one of the shuttle buses as they were driving down a mountain road. The driver was passing cars in the oncoming lane on a curvy, poorly paved road, all the while cackling madly. This year the buses have been replaced by more modern transportation and slightly less deranged drivers.

Since Snake Creek Gap is a time trial event, everyone started individually with around a 30 second gap between riders. You ride up to the line, a race official counts you down, and you are off. I left around 9:30am. I settled into an easy pace and let Jonathan try to chase a group of money class riders who caught up after starting just behind us. Two miles later I reached “Dry Creek”, which was anything but. The water was upper thigh deep and moving swiftly. Jonathan was waiting at the banks of the creek because he wanted to see my reaction to this first obstacle. With no other options, we shouldered our bikes, slogged through it, and quickly got underway; hoping that movement would keep us warmer than stopping to change into dry socks.

If the high creek wasn’t an obvious indicator of the rain that North Georgia had received in the past week, the mud was. Soon after beginning the first climb, I started to get chainsuck every few minutes. Every time the trail would pitch up, I would hear the chain threaten to bind against the chainstay. I quickly lost Jonathan, and settled into a rhythm of climb, stop, swear, walk. The downhills posed no problem, and the trail offered a surprising level of traction in the mud, so I tried to regain a little time whenever the trail pointed down.

By around 12:30 I crossed the road and entered the parking lot of the halfway point. I was still feeling good, but knew that I had 17 more long miles to go. I stayed at the aid station just long enough to mix another bottle of Hammer Perpetuem, and headed back onto the trail. There were several people with damaged bikes who were forced to bail out by this point. Between missing derailleurs, broken chains, flat tires, and used up brake pads, 27 of the 108 riders who started the 34 mile route weren’t able to finish.

The trail from the 17 mile Aid Station immediately pitches up into a long climb to the top of the ridge. Just like before, my chain would suck into the chainstay every time I applied additional torque. If I listened closely enough, I could pick up the warning sounds and backpedal quickly to clear the chain before my bike stopped cold. Even with this setback, the top of the ridge came faster than I remembered it from the January race.

At the bottom of a long downhill, I decided to finally change into a pair of dry socks. Another rider rolled to a stop on the trail next to me and spoke into a radio “Last rider on the 34 down here near the creek before the fire road Sag”. He meant me. We rode to the base of the fire road climb, where chainsuck stopped my bike right in the middle of a creek crossing. Dry socks now wet.

The fire road climb to the last aid station was muddy and longer than I remembered from January. Trace (my new riding buddy) and I sprayed our chains down with chain lube again to try to free up some of the grime that was contributing to my chainsuck problem. It was just before 3pm at this point, but there were only 8 miles to go, and only 6 miles left before the pavement descent back to the start.

It’s a bit misleading to say “6 miles left” as if it is a short distance. Anyone who has completed this ride can attest that this particular 6 miles is the hardest part of the entire 34 miles, and likely the hardest part of the entire 100+ mile Pinhoti Trail in Georgia. Almost immediately after turning from the aid station back onto singletrack, the rock gardens start. And don’t stop.

“I don’t have any strength left to finesse my way through this. ” I said to Trace, who responded “There’s no finessing this stuff, you just have to power through it. Momentum is your friend.” Good advice, but momentum was getting harder and harder to maintain.

The additional torque required to clean these rock gardens, in addition to the 30 odd miles I had already ridden that day was quickly taking it’s toll. Every time I would shift my weight, or apply power to ride through a pile of volleyball sized rocks, my quads would threaten to cramp. Many of the rocky sections were too technical for the level of fatigue I was experiencing, but dismounting didn’t make things any easier. Each dismount meant walking through the cramping while pushing a 25 lb bike. After pushing my bike up an incredibly steep section that locals refer to as “The Wall” (maxing out at 34% grade), Trace said “I have good news and bad news. Good news is we’re done climbing. Bad news is the most technical section is between here and the radio towers”.

Any endurance athlete can relate to the “dark place” that you sometimes find yourself in during an event. It is that point where the body or mind may each be willing (protesting, but willing), but the combination of physical fatigue and mental exhaustion starts to become overwhelming. In this last 6 miles, I spent a lot of time in that dark place, and it was no additional comfort to hear Trace’s GPS beep every time he stopped to let me rest. The last thing I needed was a reminder of how slow I was moving from a local who rides this trail regularly.

Even with my slow progress we continued to press forward. Ride for a bit on a smooth section, dismount when I would fail to muster support from “friend momentum” to carry me through. Eventually the radio towers came into view at the top of the last rise. The trail smoothed out, and I could hear the generators at the base of the towers humming as we rode out of the forest onto a gravel road.

With all of the fatigue and cramping replaced by elation that I had actually finished this race, we rocketed down the gravel road to the trailhead. Once back on pavement I tucked in tight and held on for the 40 mph descent down the mountain to the Trade Center. Even though the parking lot was mostly empty I sprinted for the finish line and crossed it under power, 6 hours and 32 minutes after I started.

Jonathan, who finished the race in 6 hrs, 14 minutes adds this comment:

I was absolutely miserable for 30 of the 34 miles with feet frozen and soaked. Soon the numbness from toes and feet started to creep into my legs turning them into ice cycles attached to ice cubes. There was no amount of miles, spinning, cranking or hard peddling to counter the cold and keep my legs from this incurable cold exhaustion. There was no strength left in my legs. The wet cold simply zapped them into worthless scrap. My new TiMax functioned flawlessly and the race was no match for it. This race was a test of mind over matter. Not fun, enjoyable or fondly remembered. Although, we will be back in March…

- Jonathan

More information about the Pinhoti Trail system, the Snake Creek Gap Time Trial series, and this year’s results can be found at the Northwest Georgia SORBA (Southern Offroad Bicycle Association) website at http://www.nwgasorba.org/the_snake.html