August is a warning

July is the definition of summer.  The nights are warm and the days are hot.  Sunshine starts early and stays late.  The last of the green grass dries and the hills turn golden.  Long pants and long sleeves only come out for work. The trails are dusty and my post ride laundry pile is about the size of a grapefruit.  I keep track of where the sunscreen is.

                                             testosterone ?
For dedicated cyclists we get to drink in the Tour de France while typically enjoying the fitness gained by our winter and spring riding.  We fly up hills that were a slog in March.  We pick up STRAVA PR’s without trying.  “What do I wear for my ride?” is a question of style instead of dressing to minimize discomfort.
August takes the baton from July and for a few days there is no change.  Then all at once you realize things are happening.  People start talking about Football.  If you cycle then you know August is a time of panic.  For those who race cyclocross those races start in September.  On plan or not, your training increases in intensity in August. For those who don’t ride in winter the “Now or Never” panic sets in.  Early risers note the sun is sleeping in later this time of year. At higher elevations the longer nights result in cooler morning temperatures.  Where is my long sleeve shirt?
 Summer is far from over but it no longer feels like it will last forever. The summer bucket list gets prioritized as you concede that you won’t be able to do it all.  When you come across your winter riding jacket you almost look forward to some rain. Soon the mud will be flying the sweet smell of embrocation will be part of the pre-ride ritual.  Times they are a changing.

Kids aren’t immune from the panic and are either anxious or dreading a return to the classroom.

Once we become reconciled with the thought of summer coming to an end we cannot help but look forward.  The leaves will turn bright colors and the air will be crisp.  The trails will get tacky and fast.  Cyclocross gets going in a big way and with it the unique bond shared by all those who battle in the mud.  We no longer have to endure the latest “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” chapter in the season long slaughter being endured by the hapless 2015 Seattle Mariners and their broken-hearted fans.
The Methow cools down.

The fires will burn out.
Hottie will heal up and get to ride again.

Snow will fall and we will play.

I don’t know who was on the committee that decided we would have seasons but I appreciate the thought they put into it.

Bit by stinking bit

The road to hell is paved, so I'm safe on this one...

Finally I feel like I have some decent training under my belt. I am still way, way behind where I was last year. This is a different year with different objectives so hope is not lost.  Last year the objective was the volcanoes trip which involved lots of miles and long, steady climbs.  For 2014 the targeted epic is the gravel odyssey where the miles are fewer, the roads rougher and the hills wickedly steeper.

A tag team of injuries starting last fall and ending in February absolutely killed my base training and my guilt-motivated foray into the world of underprepared road racing just complicated the equation.   Spring came quickly followed by what seems to me like an early summer. It is well past the “now or never” phase.  It is now the “you is or you ain’t” phase.  I think I is.

Typically the training build up goes one of two routes.  The first is where you build strength and then incrementally add intensity.  This is the preferred path as you constantly have the feeling of accomplishment.  You feel that you’ve conquered one level and are prepared for the next challenge. 

The second training route is where you don’t really have the base and are constantly behind the power curve. This route is characterized by the miserable feeling of failing the challenge, but then taking on the next level even though you didn’t master the earlier one.  This is kind of like our public schools. Yep, you failed second grade, now let’s try third grade!  Even if this path ends up in the same place your ego is frustrated by a seemingly endless series of failures and a nearly total absence of successes.  This requires an almost unhealthy mental outlook to continue forward in the face of frustration. Luckily we cyclists are a warped bunch.

I finally have accumulated some base and although I am not sharp, those sharpening workouts are on the horizon.  My two recent Coffee and Lies outings revealed that although I can go all day, I can’t go super fast for very long. Intervals are the answer to that question and those start shortly after the Gravel Odyssey.

I have stolen a few glimpses of fitness including one on my homeward commute just the other day where my pedal stroke just seemed to turn over effortlessly.  It was awesome and I collected an unexpected Strava KOM to validate my self-perceived speed.   My climb up Starvation Mountain gave me a chance to focus on that same pedal stroke but with a lower cadence and I felt some benefit from that focus during my ascent.

The cumulative impact of my hard work APPEARS to be translating into some level of fitness.  At the very least I do have some impressive biker tan lines.  I’m also down to what I refer to as my “France” weight.  That transition seemed to have happened all at once.  I don’t understand why that is but I am just glad it happened.

Between the gravel weekend and the Fondo I managed to convince myself I have the base miles.  I suffered through both of those adventures but I came out the other side in better shape.  Although I recently found myself on Cougar Mountain riding the wrong bike (53/39) with the wrong cassette (a borrowed 11-25) I managed to find a rhythm and pass a couple of my brown brothers who are traditionally much faster on the climbs than Evo.

My self-talk came to a peaked when I rode up Starvation Mountain. I didn’t do the whole climb in zone five or anything but I was pushing harder than when I did the Fondo and when I finished that adventure I was twice as tired.

Tired Belgian Thugs

I showed up for the Coffee and Lies ride yesterday and had not seen any emails that anyone was going longer. I had a single bottle and a lone out-of-date Luna bar.  Before we set out McWoodie indicated some might be up for a few more miles. Fortunate for me, Einmotron grabbed a spare bottle which I gladly took.

The Coffee and Lies portion was wicked fast and took no prisoners. It got crazy both ways. Then McWoodie, Einmotron and I ended up tacking on 45 miles to our usual 34 miles and we rode to the top of Cougar Mountain. When I say the top I mean where the antennas are.  I kept working on my pedal upstroke and although it made me faster my legs were audibly swearing.  My legs know a lot of dirty words; more than I thought they knew.

About sixty miles in my lack of calories on the bike caught up with me and I got the Bonk in a big way. I kept at it convincing myself I was close to the finish even though it would have been smart to suck down a candy bar or something, anything with sugar.

At the Cairo airport once upon a time..

We ended the day with 125k and 1,550m of climbing.  The whole ride was punctuated with hard efforts and I was absolutely blown for the rest of the day.  Every inch of my legs hurt which was a pathetic, but good, sign. Sure I had trashed myself, but the fact that it wasn’t just one part of my legs that hurt was an indication that I had been using all of my muscle groups.  In my training log I gave this ride a ten out of ten for effort.  I don’t give myself a lot of ten’s.

I felt a sadistic satisfaction at the level of effort I had expended. In a way I was impressed I could push my body as hard as I did and considering the bonk it was even more remarkable.  Lucky for me the endorphins kept me lucid the rest of the day although no yard work was started or completed.

The trick now is to use whatever base I do have as a launching pad and get some higher intensity secessions while keeping up the mileage. I do have a plan and I am trying to stick to it.  If you see me riding down the street doing one legged spins, just know that even if it doesn’t help my physically, I will at least think I am faster. Without injuries limiting my riding I am back to the familiar conflict of sticking to a plan contrasted by listening to my body.

Ten days until our Gravel Odyssey and the corresponding Alpha-sequencing that is inevitable. I am glad it isn’t tomorrow, but I expect I will be ready if I can continue to dedicate the time and mental energy to stick to the program.

Reflections on the Winthrop Gran Fondo

This worked for me !

Time heals many wounds and gives perspective to past events.   One of the reasons I started this blog was to document what worked and what didn’t both as a benefit to humankind and as a reference for me the next time I decide to get in over my head.

For an assortment of reasons, most of them physical, I had decided not to push myself too hard on this event.  The reality was that similar to States in Cyclocross at the Arlington Airport in 2012; the course simply wouldn’t let you go easy in several places. 

Here are my takeaways:

Core and secondary muscles are way more important off road compared to riding exclusively on the road.  Between wrestling the bike up hills and around obstacles there was squeezing the seat between your legs on descents and being in a different body position on many descents (tucked in the drops, but just barely out of the saddle).   My adductors and abdomen were sore.  Gotta do more core work.

Denial can only go so far.  Despite warnings and plenty of information that could be found on the web; there were more than a few who showed up on road bikes with road tires (albeit wider ones).  I passed a guy who was changing his fourth flat and this was before the halfway point.  To further complicate his life, he had only brought CO2 and was all out.  Someone had loaned him a pump and given him a tube so he was okay at that moment, but part of doing one of these epics is being as self sufficient as possible.

Nutrition is the holy grail and for once I nailed it!  I drank ten bottles during the event. Eight of those had scratch labs and all ten had nuun tablets.  I dropped 3 Hammer Endurolytes before the start and had the same in my drop bag halfway through.  I ate homemade bars made from almond butter, agave syrup, protein powder with dried fruit and nuts and some grape nuts.  I also had Clif Shot Bloks and some gels.  I kept eating and pounding the drinks.  The middle aid station had normal food and cookies and all manner of temptation.  I showed exceptional judgment and skipped all of that and stuck to bars, gels, bloks and liquids. 

When I finished I ate two pieces of pizza and then felt fine while Hottie drove me back to Seattle.  The next morning I had a scone for breakfast and felt just fine.  Usually after an epic I am eating constantly for 24 hours.  This is a measure of success.   That other food may have been more tasty, but it would not have digested in time to help me out.

Fat is where it’s at.  The 35mm tires I was on are not UCI Cyclocross legal.  They are, however, very at home on rough mountain roads. There were lots of guys on 30, 32 and 33mm cross-legal tires.  I generally flew past those guys on the descents. They looked nervous and they should have been.  I also have over 800k on those tires without a flat.

Pactimo Summit Raptor Bibs are the schizzle.  I can’t think of a harder test that this fondo. Including tooling to and from the ride and the pizza infused park I had over eight hours in the saddle.  I could not have imagined a better performing short.  The muscle compression was a life saver and the pad served two very different missions.  It protected my netheregions from friction and provided some much needed vibration dampening.   They look good, fit great and are a bargain at full retail.

On the downside my Giro helmet kept drooping on bumpy downhills and although the white color was cooler and the venting wonderful I was disappointed in the helmet.   In retrospect I should have worn my headsweats headband to keep the sweat out of my eyes.

Coffee and Lies and Ribs # 50

Even with a race later that day; El Jefe took some time for bicep curls.

This week saw Evo out of sync with his teammates.  I went for a long slowish ride Saturday morning while my racing brethren were resting up for the season finale on Sunday.  On Sunday whilst the band of brown brothers (and sisters) were suffering, I was ringing the cowbell and urging them on to glory.

My alarm went off before six and I left Casa de Evo in the dark. The forecast promised a dry ride and I dressed accordingly. I didn’t get a drop of rain from the sky, but my tires didn’t roll an inch on dry pavement as it had rained overnight.

It was dark enough that my headlight illuminated the yield sign up yonder. 

Leaving my house requires a climb and it served to warm me up.  Soon I was down and riding along Lake Washington and everything was working.  The plan was for 130-140k and I had pockets loaded with food for the journey.

I made it through Seattle and then past the airport in Renton. Once onto the Cedar River Trail I just spun my legs and watched the k’s roll by.  My route was deliberate as I wanted to check the hours for some of the stores that were on the route of the Winter Solstice 200K.

 As the sun brought some light to the sky I was rolling down the Burke-Gillman trail

After crossing Madison I got a great view before dropping back down to the lake

To make a long story shorter, not much will be open when we need it.  Oh well, plan accordingly.

OMG, I'm taking photos of road signs.  It's like I'm a Randonut !

 I didn't waste a lot of time contemplating taking a swim

The return journey covered some roads I had been on before and it was good to connect the dots so to speak and add this part of the world to my route index.   Soon I was over a hundred k and then just short of 130 I turned off the trail and headed home up over Perkins way.  138k on the day !

Maybe it says something about me, but I think my bike is in its glory when it is spattered with mud and organic matter.  I'm guessing Doug Curtiss of Curtlo bikes would agree !

Once home I showered and felt pretty good aside from some quad soreness which can’t really be a surprise.

The next day Hottie elected to rest up and watch our Seahawks dominate the New York Giants whilst I picked up Feral Dave and made the journey to Enumclaw for a day of racing.

 Guy partook of the glorious mud that is Enumclaw 

We arrived early enough to stake out a place and it was then that El Chefe’ and I were able to spring our surprise on everyone.  We had a team BBQ. Ribs, Hot links, BBQ beans, Cole Slaw, Cornbread with honey butter and hot apple cider. It was a good day to be on our team.

El Jefe inspecting the Ribs !

Oh yes, there was excellent food and excellent course proximity 

In the first race Feral Dave broke a derailleur hanger as he was literally taking over the lead.  Talk about bad luck !

Busted !

He was soon sitting in the tent watching El Chefe’ and Guy do the brown proud.  Unfazed, and this is something I really admire about Feral Dave, he borrowed a bike that didn’t fit him and entered the next race, the open cat 4’s and had a good race!!

Warming up to the aroma of hot links !!

El Jefe, Le Pirate, Seabiscuit and Mr. T joined Hot Pants and Coats and Daggers in a later race and had a blast. Faith and Lily represented La Femme de Marron in style. Finally Brad gave a beat down to the fast guys in the final race of the day. 

 He comes from Louisiana okay ?

We offered some hot link and rib hand ups and only a few wise (or crazy) racers dared partake.  

We were joined by Terry who, being a fan of the Rapha, can only be photographed in black and white.