Running With the Foghorn Leghorn

Saturday, September 5, 2015

And away we go. Wake up, make some breakfast, enjoy the morning, pack the car, and hit the road. Let's make it 2 cross bikes and 2 mountain bikes. Later I would say to @Kirt via text, I'm not selling my fall for cross this year. I'm going to enjoy the season for all it's worth, regardless of what race is what day, and the where/when/whatnot.

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Drive was uneventful. Parked near the bike shop in the shopping plaza up the road from White Clay/Middle Run. With the 2 cross bikes on the back I wanted to have them in a high visibility area and this did the trick. I had put together a loop based on @1speed Martin's old loop. Jumped into the trails and immediately this was a blast. Lots of fun, way more awesome than I was expecting today.

Got a little off track but just went with it. Eventually we found the skills area and hit that up too. more good stuff.

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Towards the end of the loop D went around a tree the wrong way and crashed. Why do I say it was the wrong way? Well, she crashed didn't she? She took the opportunity to take a break at this point. We're about 13 miles into the ride at this point.

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Wrapped up the ride with more good trails and about 18 miles. We left some of it on the table but we did a solid bunch of trails. I'll say with about 100% certainty that we'll be back here some day not too far in the future. Some may call me crazy on this but I feel like this is better than Raystown. A bit less real estate to work with but the trails are spot-on here. Just really well done. Plus there's more variety here.

Drove to the hotel which was 5 miles away, hit the pool, hit the showers, then went to dinner and ate up some food to gas up for the race tomorrow. I decided to not have a drink because this is real serious racer shit going on here. Look at us!

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Went back to the hotel and watched TV for like 5 hours because why not? Oh and I always enjoy this bridge:

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Sunday, September 6, 2015

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Race day!

Wake up, coffee, waffles, coffee, pack, coffee, then hit the road. We are at the venue in about 20 minutes and we are setting up the tent before you know it. Around 8:30 we are all set and we hit the loop for a pre-ride, D and I together. I'll maybe get 2 laps in before the 9:00 race then I start at 10. I do 1 lap on the cross bike and D is a mess out there with her bike and the shitty brakes on that thing. We get to the tent and both of us swap our bikes. There's a lot of vertical on this course and having brakes that work is a bit more important than usual today.

This lap is almost 2 minutes faster so I decide to race the MTB as well. The course is pretty rough and the turns are better on the MTB. The climbs are easier with this and really I see no down side to going with this bike. The cross bike is far more sketchy and aside from a 100 or 200 yard section at the S/F, there are no big long flat straights like you see at Nittany to penalize you.

I line up in the 5th row or so. Between the end of the week and today, I have now been predicted to come in 25th. This is all well and good and slightly more in the direction I think I should be predicted. Then the whistle goes off and all of that falls to the wayside as we plow down the road into the woods.

I feel reasonably ok to start, which is an improvement compared to every other race I've done in the past 2 years. I am clearly at a disadvantage to start with the extra pavement on the prolog but I am in the mix when we hit the woods and in the end it has not cost me much. As we start rubbing elbows I feel a bit more confident on the MTB anyway.

We go down the shitty hill then around and up the run-up, which pretty much everyone rides. About halfway through the lap I start my picking off process, and I pretty much just bury myself at race pace and try to keep things as steady as I can. We get to the barriers and they are not full barriers so I just hop them with the MTB, which really isn't very hard at all on lap 1. My left foot unclips as I go over the second barrier, but I save it and roll on. That would be the only time I unclip for the whole race.

The lap ends, we start lap 2, then lap 3 comes & goes as well. I am slowly knocking people off, keeping my pace sitting right around 11.8 mph for the race on the Garmin. At this point I see 3 on the lap cards and I am not very thrilled but I was afraid that was going to be the case. The race is going to be long, probably 51+ minutes at a good pace and likely longer since we're slowing down here as the race goes on. At this point I settle in to my "GD man there's still 3 more laps left" pace and just keep trying to do what I can do. I pick off a few here and there and someone yells to a guy with me that we are top 25.

All through the race I see @ChrisG up ahead and he more or less stays where he is in my sight until about now. Here he starts to pull away, or probably more accurately I start to fade. I am still passing people and still hopping the barriers, but the passes are slower and the barriers seem to be growing taller.

With 2 left I am thinking that this is the first race in a long time that I am not saying "only 2 more times down this f'ing hill until next year" and other thoughts like that. My power is maybe not where it needs to be but my legs feel "right". I don't know how to quantify that really. They feel like they are ready for this, even if I am carrying too much weight up each hill and maybe I have a tad less power than I would like. On the downhills this bike is wonderful, and it allows me to rest and corner with ease while I see all the other guys just white knuckling so much out there.

As we end this lap I come up on a group of about 5 guys that will be my focus on the last lap. They gap me a little on the pavement which always happens then we cross the S/F and the USAC official whistles and says my race is over. Somehow we have gone from 2 to 0 laps in a lap, and they have pulled a huge number of people it seems. I roll into the aftermath and people are complaining about being pulled. They pulled all but 2 of the 55+ class, which is mind-numbing. And they apparently pulled most of our class as well.

So there would be no chase for the 5 guys ahead of me. In the end I finished 36th, but then when they posted the results there were a ton of errors with lapped riders in the lead lap. So they took it back, then I ended up 31st. Both times I was 4 riders below @ChrisG, who had a really solid race either way. Probably the lap snafu hurt him more than me. Either way I have zero confidence in the results as they seem to be in some form of random state. But really it doesn't matter. I didn't win and I didn't lose. I was pretty much right in the middle of the envelope of pack riders out there filling the field with meat for the fast lions to eat.

In the end I am happy with the race. I don't think the bike choice slowed me down at all, and I feel like my fitness was better than it's been in the past. I still have some pounds to go and some power to get back. And of course my cross skills will hopefully come around as the season progresses. I have done nothing cross-related this year so far and riding it on a MTB may not have helped that so much. Next week I won't be able to get away with the same bike choice. But I won't be surprised if I opt for this bike again in the future.

Race 1 in the books. Let's see what we can do between now and race #2 this coming Saturday.
 
Seems the people running the race flipped out about USAC and their inability to time an event on their facebook page. If USACcan't time the event, WTF is the point? All the cost of having them there so it's a points race and the results are thrown out the window. I guess it was more important trying to pull me due to my clothing choices...

I don't understand how they don't to chip timing. I can see how you guys get away with it at the six pack with all the volunteers and how it's only the top finishers that really matter but people give a shit in cross when the points count.

Was great to get one in earlier in the year than expected.
And I *really* appreciated stealing the tent shade.
 
Monday, September 7, 2015

Woke up this morning and got myself on the scale for the first time since the day before Canada. I took last week as a detox week and decided to pick it up today. So 2 days before we left I hit the lowest weight of the year. Well today I was like 9 pounds heavier. I'm not sure how this is possible. I took a break for one goddamn week, then got back to business where I was riding hard and eating well. Not a single drink in the last week and I'm still +9 overall?

Other than that today was a day of not doing work, not riding a bike, and not setting anything on fire. Ok so sue me. I think you always need 3 things in a sentence like that. As an example..."yeah so today I ate a hame sandwich, 9 loaves of sourdough bread, and a partridge in a pear tree." The Rule of Three. I just made that up.

I guess we did little shit around the house and town. Bike work, house work, shopping, mowed the lawn - Rule of Crap To Do.

I think today we decided to do the NJ cross series. 8 races with 2 drops. Looks like we can make 6 of these, maybe even 7. Probably not 8 but you never know. I think this is a good thing for us to focus on. I really do want to keep pushing myself even if that POS scale hated me this morning. One of these days I really want to do the MAC series but no way we can do it this year. I think we can only make 1 of the first 4 races. But NJ lines up well.

@davidcarson48 - even if you do sell that wacky-stemmed cross bike, you can show up to some of these races with the MTB and do just fine. I think Nittany would be hell with a MTB. But Westwood should be fine with it. I don't know if I'll do any more of these on the MTB but I'm certainly not going to rule it out.

@Santapez - consider that shade to be our birthday present to you. Happy birthday again. Good to see you and @MissJR in the orange & blue crib yesterday. I think we need a clock for the tent. Remind me to get one next week. And a white board.
 
I'm not sure my bike choice was ever the primary issue at CX races. My CX results would be similar on a tricycle and my Blue. But agreed, Westwood was rough as hell.

soulchild said:
I am ALWAYS my heaviest on Monday morning. I was 174 this morning and I was 168 yesterday morning. Aside from whatever food I consumed, I drank 17 bottles of water between 6 am and getting home at 7:30 last night.
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College kids count their drinks, bro. Grow up.
 
Norm said:
Later I would say to @Kirt via text, I'm not selling my fall for cross this year. I'm going to enjoy the season for all it's worth, regardless of what race is what day, and the where/when/whatnot.
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Norm said:
I think today we decided to do the NJ cross series. 8 races with 2 drops. Looks like we can make 6 of these, maybe even 7. Probably not 8 but you never know. I think this is a good thing for us to focus on. I really do want to keep pushing myself even if that POS scale hated me this morning. One of these days I really want to do the MAC series but no way we can do it this year. I think we can only make 1 of the first 4 races. But NJ lines up well.
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Sounds a little contradictory, no?
 
The Kalmyk said:
I'm going to seize the moment since you gave me the opportunity!!!!

@Norm you "SHOULD" sell your cross bikes and invest in a track bike. You would kill it. And besides track is taking over!!!

Jk. You should do wtf you want
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I think this is the one form of bicycle racing I could actually get into. I'm super not into the fixie bike thing, I've tried it a few times and nearly died each time. I think that's my biggest hurdle right now. That I don't want to buy a fixie bike.
But yeah, Norm should get into this so he can geek out on the rules and people and just tell me when to show up.
 
gtluke said:
But yeah, Norm should get into this so he can geek out on the rules and people and just tell me when to show up.
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That's funny!!

@gtluke I think at this point your bike skills wouldn't warrant catastrophe on a fixed gear. Particularly on a track where you can run out to slow down.

I'm in the process of converting my Capo over from commuter to track bike. I'm buying into it!!!!
 
that downhill into that wooden bridge was frightening every time. i would have been happier on the mtb for that section for sure.
 
On the weight thing have you ever paid attention to added sugar in foods? I don't mean cake and ice cream, I mean pretty much any product that is not a meat or vegetable. It's been the topic of a few recent documentaries (yes, taken with a grain of....sugar? of course) and there seems to be some interesting science behind sugar intake, insulin levels, and the body's tendencies to burn or store fat.

Check out That Sugar Film if you have some time, quite interesting. Also look at Fed Up, though this one was a bit annoying because it implies you don't gain anything from exercise. Still an interesting perspective.
 
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