OOPs

Running

Since bike races are pretty much over for the year, I've started running a bit again. No marathons this year, but maybe a 5k. Yesterday I did some track workouts for the first time since maybe 8th grade. And it hurt!
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Have you ever looked at the times reported by the UPS guys? They work some crazy hours (and this is coming from a grad student!)


12 PM
7 PM
10 PM
1 AM
5 AM
11 AM

They have pretty much the whole day accounted for.

Lance

Maybe not?

Hopefully he'll still be entertaining.

5-0, less 30

Well, its been a week since I did the 5-0, so I figured I'd better publish this post.

I've done this race twice before and both times its kicked my ass. Baldy and I drove up to Spearfish at 7am. We didn't get a chance to warm up much, but its a long race so I wasn't too worried. During the four wheeler leadout, I surfed my way to the front and had a great spot going into the climb to Tinton trail. I lost a little bit on the climb, but that was fine. I just wanted a good spot going into the singletrack (its better to get passed than have to do the passing I say). I hit Tinton and starting railing the singletrack. Its a sweet trail and I was really enjoying myself, but my heart rate wouldn't come down (was it the lack of a warmup?). Half an hour into the race and I'm still wheezing for air, so I stopped and took a quick breather. Ten minutes later, I'm still not recovering and really starting to bobble the trail on my rental bike, so I walked a little bit and had a Gu and got passed by a dozen racers. After riding for another ten minutes I stopped and blew some green stuff out my nose (which did really help the breathing); something wasn't right. Another ten minutes and I stopped and checked my blood sugar. 53.

Hmmmm. That explains a little. I stopped and ate a little and drank about a quart of sports drink and sat down for a bit. Once I felt a bit more human I limped into aid station 1 and ate a little bit of everything they had. I waited around a little and started to feel better so when Baldwin rolled up, I decided to keep going with him.

At this point I was over a half hour off my goal time with a little under 40 miles to go, so I decided to take it easy and enjoy the rest of the ride. I started feeling better after the first aid station. A little before the second aid station, I started going fast. I wasn't pushing myself so much as I was really getting in a good groove on the trail.

After the second aid station, Baldy and I descended down into this creek valley with some real quick and twisty trails along the side of a hill. I was having a real blast, punching it up each short roller and flying down the back. I guess I was going a little too fast. Over the top of one hill, I bumped my front wheel and did a sort of nose wheelie down the hill. At the bottom I was going way to fast and ran into a fallen tree. When I picked myself up I found my front was too bent to roll through the front rim brake. I decided to throw in the towel. Maybe I could have fixed the wheel with a lot of trouble, but after all my bad luck I figured I'd had enough.

I walked 20 minutes down to Iron Creek Lake and begged a ride back into town. At least I got my t shirt.
Baldy finished in a little over six hours. He hadn't been riding much this year, so it was quite a suffer fest for him. The winner was a ringer from CO on the Trek factory team. He obliterated the course record by 20 minutes. Kerkove finished first in his age category with a crazy HR profile. I don't know how its possible to hold over 170 bpm for 4 hours.

So the score so far is Dakota 50: 3, Karl: 0.

I could use a million different excuses. I had a head cold going into the race. I was riding a rental bike. I didn't bolus right the morning of. My training didn't come together right in August. Whatever it is, I just never seem to have it on Labor day in Spearfish. Maybe sometime I'll get it right.

Dakota 5 0

Its on!

I'm hanging out in the Black Hills, fully prepped. Got a bike, sent in my registration, camelbak's waiting patiently... I can't wait.

Who's gonna take it this year? Jeff Kerkove is in town and he wants it. I think it will be the first time a national guy in his prime has lined up, so he's gotta be the favorite. Otherwise, I think a local has to be the underdog. I'm picking old man Jon Nelson, since he's been so close so many times and he has such a badass last name.

As for me? I'm just trying to finish in one piece. Training has fallen apart with the last month of visitors, deadlines, moving and now vacations. Earlier in the summer I was in great shape so I'm just hoping some of that finds its way into my legs for sunday. For now I'm not relaxing at grandmas and enjoying the time off. Chris pushed me into the creek last night, so don't go thinking my life is too great just yet.

Olympics

I've been obsessing a little more than usual over the Olympics this year. Maybe its because you can live stream just about any event on the web (sans announcing). Has anyone else discovered http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/index.html?

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Does anyone in Rapid City have a mountain bike big enough for a long legged 6'4" which I could borrow Aug 31?

singletrack discovered

I did some mtbing today. I went to these trails right out my back door. I'd ridden there before, but just recently C.L.I.M.B. mapped out the trail and I realized I'd missed a huge section. Turned out it took me three hours of riding to do one lap. Epic! Of course, I'm moving in a week, but not to far away so I'll definitely ride them again.

I really like my mountain bike when I'm just riding. Its comfortable and unflappable. In the two races I've done this year, unfortunately, its felt soft and slow. I'd really like to avoid getting a new race bike in the future, so I hope some faster tires might help.

A whole new level of nutrition

Errrr.....


Its nice to see an athlete who likes to eat. I always read those Bicycling interviews of what racers eat for breakfast and the answers are "organic granola with half a banana and some tofu". Unlike those hippies, Phelps likes his food.

Busy Busy

Eppen's bored at work, so I need to write something entertaining. It seems like everyone runs out of bloggin juice this time of year. I think its hard to keep interested in something (even as awesome as cycling) all year long.

Work at school finally picked up and the Jago's were in town; I've spent the last week running all over the place. They'd never to NY before, so there was a lot of sight seeing involved.

We rode the Staten Island Ferry to see Ms Liberty


We walked through Times Square


... and got rained on in Times Square.


The next day I went to another Kreb race. I wasn't sure how my legs would feel after two days of zero biking and one day of walking all over the city, but it was worth a shot. Impending rain limited the field size, but all the big guns showed up anyway. Sure enough, attacks opened up after a few laps. Finally, everyone slowed a bit and Joe Z started going hard. I kicked to follow him and we got separation. He pulled like a horse for a whole lap then waved me through. I kept it going a half mile and then he took over again. When I pulled through again, I could tell I didn't have it. I sat on his wheel, taking soft pulls and trying to recover enough to make it to the end, but he dropped me after a few laps. As soon as the chase group caught me, there was a counter that I couldn't follow. Now it was me a half dozen guys and I knew we weren't going to catch the leaders. We rode out the remainder of the race like that. Why don't my legs like it when I take the day before a race off?

The next day we went to the beach, which was a blast. I've only been twice now this summer and its something I ought to do more.

Kreb 8/1 Race

Last weeks race was kinda boring, so I didn't have anything to write about. This week all the big guns showed up, so I knew something would happen. It's been a pretty hard week, but my legs felt good and I was in a real mood to race. There were a few attacks and Zaverdas Sr took the first prime, but nothing really happened until we started lapping the B's. Brian went to the front and drilled it. I hung onto his wheel and when I looked back we were clear. It was a good mix in the break: Charlie, me, the brothers Wolff, Zaverdas Jr, and some other strong guys. If we worked together, there would be enough people blocking for us to stay away. Brian was pulling through like a madman. I couldn't tell if he was intentionally turning the screws or if he just wanted to push the pace, but every time he pulled through I was on the rivet. As we tried to stay away, the pace kept getting higher and higher and I felt like i was ready to....

*pop* *hissss* *wobble wobble wobble* My tire blew before I could find out how far I'd make it.



Funny thing is, I knew this tire was in rough shape and I was gonna replace it after this race. Oh well. The bitch of it was, I was on the far side of the course from my spare wheel, so it took more than my one free lap to go get it.

Once I got the new wheel, I jumped in with the chase groupe. At this point it was pretty obvious the break was gonna stick, so everyone was taking it (relatively) easy. I took some pulls to have a little fun and get a workout in.

In the end, the break was shelled down to four riders. Charlie took the sprint over Brian, which is pretty cool.