Adjustments

    I wrapped up a long period of work in early February, ending the maternity leave coverage I had been provided for several months. While I enjoyed having steady hours at one place and making some money so I can one day buy a new mountain bike, I was ready for a break. The company I work for no longer holds the values that I do. Everyone is being overworked and told they aren't working hard enough. Good patient care was becoming impossible because you just had too much to do. Seeing three and sometimes even four patients at once was becoming the norm. They were misleading us on production numbers and expecting us to work through lunch and do our paperwork after work, all with no pay. A lot of this is due to the changes in healthcare reimbursement that have come about the last few years, but most of it due simply to greed and the fact that the higher-ups are so distant to the real employees that they don't know what goes on at our level anymore. They want to make the same profit percentage as they did 10 years ago when there was no cap on insurance reimbursement. The goals they are setting for us are beyond our capabilities and border on completely impossible. It was a good experience for the memory. It made me remember why I quit working for them full-time and why I need to work harder on my bike and at home so I don't have to work there as much.

     I wrote last year about spending a lot of time improving my flexibility so I could get to a lower position on my road bike. I am not trying to get into some crazy-low position. I sit up way higher than most riders because I have been too tight in my hamstrings and glutes to tolerate being bent over any farther. I finally got a spacer lower on my stem last year on the road bike. When I got back on the cross bike this year, it felt very short. It is in fact shorter and actually too small for me. The Redline cross frame is a 54 cm and I need a 56. Without changing stem length, it will never fit me properly. But I had it set up even shorter with my seat slid forward and handlebar as high as I could get it. I could feel the difference, then got visual confirmation after seeing some pictures from the races at Clarksville and Harpeth. I was riding very upright with a rounded back. Not only is that not aero and not allowing you to use all of you large muscle groups to their full extent, the rounded back also takes your core out of the pedal stroke. I began to extend my position and work hard on engaging my core. It felt better on the very first day I made the changes.

     The changes in position also revealed some weaknesses in my pedal stroke. By riding upright for so long I had adopted a pedal stroke that was dominated more by the upstroke than the downstroke. I was actually pulling harder than pushing, putting a lot of stress on my hamstrings and calves. The hamstring is strong enough to take the extra stress, but evidently the calves were not. This pedaling style is likely what has caused my gastroc issues over the past year. I overworked the gastrocs, causing increased muscle spasm which eventually got so bad that it caused irritation at the muscle-bone junction on the distal end of my femur. That would also explain the weak quads I discovered when I started doing weights in December. I was not using the quads very much with that style of pedaling. The goal on every ride became to stay in that new, more extended position with the core engaged and focusing more on pushing than pulling when pedaling.

     The second race of the Montgomery Bell Winter Mountain Bike Time Trial Series was my next fitness check. A lot of things had changed in the five weeks since race #1. I had started to change my pedaling style, I had spent a lot more training time doing intense efforts for 60-75 minutes like this race would be, and I had dropped 7.4 pounds of body weight. I was still well over where I need to be to race well, but I had made a lot of progress with weight loss. I was also feeling stronger throughout my body with all the strength training sessions I have been faithfully doing. I worked hard to correct that quad weakness, pushed my core to a new level and worked the upper body to get it ready to handle the stresses of mountain biking. All these changes were very noticeable in the race.

     It was another perfect day for winter mountain biking. We had some heavy rain earlier in the week that damaged some of the trail, but Michael Edens and his crew put in a lot of manual labor and got everything looking perfect on race day. While there were some slick corners in the sections that had no leaves on them, the course was better overall than in January. It was rode-in better in the leafy sections and just felt faster. I knew it was a good day to lay down a better time. I wanted to knock off at least 30 seconds so there would be no doubt about that time discrepancy a lot of us felt was there in the results of race #1.

     I started about five riders back. I was fine with that as I wanted somebody to chase. There were several juniors starting ahead of me and dang were they fast! The one that started 30 seconds ahead of me, Harrison Klapheke, held me off for much of the race. I started slower and gained speed over the course. I was surprised to not even see Harrison until almost halfway through the race. Once I got to him, it took me a long time to actually pass him. I picked up two sticks in my rear wheel and had to stop to clear one of them. Each time I would get back across to him, something would happen. I was a little stronger up the climbs and finally got by him with about four miles to go. He is a strong rider and one to watch out for in the future for sure.

Scott Schlapman of Alabama

Bobby Jones getting underway

Michael Edens

Me starting my run

Photo by Randy Woodward

Schlapman

Bobby Jones

Harrison Klapheke

David Jones. Glad to see my high school friend getting into mountain biking now to help with training for hare scrambles.

Dustin Burkeen. He is always fast, but a hard crash after clipping a tree messed up his rhythm today,.

Clint Burkeen

Grant Wilson on his fatbike. He finished 7th today on that hog!

Simon Lewis

Cayce Tielser

Jeff Barber

John Carr

Scott Marx, the Singlespeed winner today

Mike Taglio

Jean-Paul McNeely

Butch Carter

Joe Grubbs

My Dad, Jesse Greer, in his first mountain bike race in years

Steve Smail

     I managed to catch everyone that started ahead of me except for one. Again, it was a Junior. Bobby Jones started about 1:30 ahead of me and I timed him at 3:00 ahead at one point near the end of the lap. He was flying! I had a great ride and ended up bettering my time from January by 1:32. My official time was 1:10:16. Bobby smoked it with a time of 1:08:18 to get the win. He was 1:58 ahead of me, which means I pulled back some time near the end. Cayce Tiesler started deeper in the field on his home course and clocked a 1:08:45 for second place. That was very impressive considering how much traffic he came through and that he was on his singlespeed. I took third place and another podium to kick off the year. I was happy to see progress, but I want to win some races this year. I still have a lot of work to do to really get back to a Pro level on the mountain bike. With this series being decided by your fastest single race, I know I have to really step it up in March if I want to win. I hope the weather will cooperate again next month. It was awesome to see some new faces at the front, especially Bobby and Harrison, both of which are just 15 years old!

Bobby Jones near the end of the race

On my way to 3rd

Photo by Randy Woodward

Photo by Randy Woodward

Edens

Klapheke

Schlapman

Dustin Burkeen

David Carpenter

Simon Lewis

Grant Wilson

Cayce about to take 2nd

John Carr with his game face on as usual

Marx

Barry Reed

Gib Morehead

Butch

Carey Dincauze

Sarah Moore

Lucia Colbert

Pops made it out

Christie Brinker

Tagz

Marsha Williams

Kailin Acheson

     I was tired after the race, but not near as much as in January, so I took another lap on the course to get in some more miles. I pushed some of the hills, but just stayed steady overall. This race is short at 1:10, so I needed more to get me ready for a full two hour XC. I enjoyed catching the back of the field that were still out on course. The Juniors were at the back. It was fun to cheer on the little junior girls. They were all so nice and riding so hard! I wish I had been that determined when I was that age. Some of them are just 13-14 years old and out there tackling a very tough course. Everyone gives credit to the overall winners for being so great, but these girls are the ones that are really throwing down and reaching beyond themselves.

First buttercup of the year popped up along the race course today. It gives the illusion that Spring is here, but I am sure we have a lot of cold suffering yet to come.

Photo by Laureen Coffelt

     My Dad even came out to race for the first time this year. I talked him into a few road time trials last year, but this was his first mountain bike race in years. He has not been riding much and this course made him pay. His legs cramped badly at the end, but he made it out and finished 27th in the 40+ class, far from last place like he thought he would finish. I just have to get him more motivated at home so he can make it through these races without quite so much suffering. He did buy a racing license so I know I will get him out to several more races this year.

     After the race, I went to the airport in Nashville to pick up Shannon. She had been in Utah visiting Gma for their birthdays. They both have the same birthday and both were hitting milestone numbers this year. Shannon turned 30, but Gma hit the big 80! Most of the family was able to get out there and throw her a surprise 80th party. She was happy to be able to see everyone. They also did a very cool thing for her with the party invitations. Everyone's invitation was a picture of Gma and they were asked to write their favorite memory of Gma on the back and mail it back to her. There were some really funny stories that came out of that!

    I mentioned in the last post that I had been playing with some new settings on my GoPro, like the timed shots and burst settings. I figured out how to do some time-lapse and caught a nice sunset at the farm a few weeks ago. The video is below. I'm hoping to try time-lapse out some more in the coming months and also experiment with some new video settings I discovered. My Hero2 does not have all the functions of the newer GoPros, but it has more on there than I have been using. It makes me want a new one because some of the new functions are really nice for slow-motion video and also burst shots. GoPro has many tutorial videos posted on their YouTube channel. If you have a GoPro camera it is worth your time to watch their videos. They're very helpful in learning how to get the most out of your camera.

Video: Time-lapse sunset on the farm