Friday, April 29, 2011

Mudslinger 2011: An reparation for broken legs and shattered souls

[rep-uh-rey-shuhn]
–noun
1.
the making of amends for wrong or injury done: reparation for an injustice.

The 23d annual Peak Sports Mudslinger was one of great atonement for me. After last year's painful 12th place finish, I was determined to give a better performance this year. Last year I was far too focused on the direct competition between myself and one of my buddies and with that conflagration further fueled by another buddy, the chances of my ultimate success were set ablaze. After an all-out attack up the first first 3-mile ascent, I went deep into the pain cave, far too deep. There was no recovering from that, in fact, I didn't feel back to normal until well into the next week.

With all of that on my mind, the goal for this year was to pace myself. From the gun, I decided to simply race my own race. And this time, having a better understanding of what was to come, I felt it better to taper my efforts slowly over the nearly 4000 feet of climbing in just over 22 miles.

In theory, this was the best option for me, however, I found that it was shockingly hard to slow myself down. Knowing what a too-much-too-soon kind of effort can do to my fragile soul, I endured the agony of watching other riders speed ahead of me up all those god-forsaken hills. However, I remained true to my strategy; and by keeping this slightly truncated pace, I was able to prevent the imminent plunge into the darkest nether regions of the pain cave (scenes of Lord of the Rings come to mind here).

Ever so slowly, I started pulling away from some of the riders closest to me; one by one. Though at this point I just put my head down and raced my own race. I kept myself at an 8 or 9 for nearly all of the race. Only once did I approach 10 or 11. This was about mid race, when there was one guy from my category that just would not let up. He would attack and I had to follow. I attacked and he matched me; this went on for nearly 2 or 3 miles. Finally, on one particularly devilish climb, as my heart rate neared it's critical mass, I capitulated. I decided it wasn't worth feeling how I felt the previous year. Although I was ready to give up the place in the standings, somewhere deep inside I new it wasn't over between him and me. Having experienced the pain of riding up a hill like that at someone else's pace, I had a feeling I would see him again soon. Sure enough, about 20 minutes later, while climbing on some single track, I kindly asked him if I could get by when he had a chance. And there it was, boom, he was shattered and I never saw him again.

And now I'll fast forward to the last 2 miles. After roughly 20 miles of grueling climbs and descents, there is a light at the end of my tunnel vision: the gravel road back to the school. It's mostly downhill and relatively straight...and I am all alone. Not the situation you want to be in when you are trying to stave off the impending attack of the other racers. I entomb myself into time trial mode and suffer the fact that the tunnel vision will only become more claustrophobic. With only about a mile to go, I hazard a glance behind me only to see 3 racers quickly approaching (seriously, who pace lines on a mountain bike). As they caught me, I was able to glance at their number plates and see that none of them were in my category. Whew! I jumped onto the back of their pace line and let them pull me home.

Last year I finished in 12th place at a little over 11 minutes behind the winner. This year saw a great improvement at 5th place and only 5 minutes behind the winner. The key for me was to race smarter, not harder. If I can keep this up, I feel I may have my first podium finish under my belt before the year is over!

Monday, April 11, 2011

Hornings Hustle complete with a Trail of Tears

Wow,

2011 Mountain bike racing has begun in earnest. A quick recap of Echo Red to Red, which was the first mountain bike race of the season in Oregon. Tensegrity racers Ryan Garner and Lindsay Jones drove the 4 plus hours to race in Eastern Oregon. Ryan had a great opener and finished 5th in Cat 2-19-39. Lindsay pulled in a 12th place finish in the Cat 1 women.

Yesterday was the second mountain bike race in the River City Cup series Hornings Hustle and it was great spring Oregon weather, 40-50 Deg and raining the whole time. The race was super chaotic, first it started a half hour late, then as we started racing over ones number plates fell apart. So we had to yell our race number every lap for them to record us. Which led to a lot of missed lap counts. In the end it led to no good results, as it didn't have the top 3 finishers scored in the top 3 positions. In the confusion I may have finished anywhere between 2nd and 5th place, but who knows if they will get it sorted out.

As for the course 1400 ft of climbing every 5 miles in the rain was rough. There was no such thing as a good mud tire, and a part of the trail was named Trail of Tears cause the single track was too muddy and steep to ride, so it led to 20-30 person pile ups, attempting to walk in the most slippery mud I have seen outside of the Cross Crusades.

The first three laps going up the monster climb that was ride able hurt in ways I had long forgotten. But on the fourth lap climbing up I was trying to remember why I mountain bike race as both my quads, and my right hamstring and calf where all cramping at the same time. In the end I gutted it out and sprinted another Cat 1 at the line to beat him by a wheel length. It felt good to beat someone in a sprint as that is not my strong suit by any means.

Ryan Garner raced in Cat 2 19-39 and had a rough race, it wasn't in his legs as he put it. So when he watched another racer take a really bad fall in front of him he stopped and manged the racers injuries until the medics came up to him. In the end Ryan finished, and just goes to show the type of racers that are on this team. Ryan was determined to finish and helped a person along the way.

Dave Bisers raced in the singlespeeds with his new custom built Huckleberry bike and rode hard, digging deep into his brief case of courage. Yet we do not know how he placed again because of the wacky results with no plates.

So in recap Ryan, Dave and myself rode into painful places that most people would like to avoid, and we all survived. In the end it worked out alright as Hopworks had two kegs at the finish and some good mashed potatoes.