Kicked in the Teeth Again

      Before I talk about the horrible race last night, I'll share a few pictures from the week. Our friend Pat has been having a lot of problems with her car lately. She drives a Mini Cooper, which fits her perfectly. It's a small go-cart on steroids and well, she's small and full of energy too. The car has given her fits the past few weeks, with everything including the brakes, clutch, tires, battery and alternator going bad on her. And that's just the things I know about.

     Shannon and I went over to her house this week to help with the dead battery. I tried to jump her with my car, but it wouldn't start. We pushed the car up her driveway and were going to get it rolling and dump the clutch to try to start it. Just as they were about to push me off the hill I tried to start it one more time and miraculously the car turned over! We followed Pat to an auto parts store where they replaced the battery for her. She was happy as could be, but then found out the alternator was bad. I felt bad for her. She has spent so much money on that car lately. She is just death to cars. Her other car, a CRV, also died recently with engine failure. And she borrowed a friend's truck while her Mini was in the shop for the clutch. The first time she drove it, the battery died. Shortly after she returned the truck, her friend broke a front axle in his driveway. Yeah, she's not driving my car. Ever!

Pat's dog, Shiner, hopped in my car while we tried to jump start the Mini. She was ready to go for a ride!

     Our plants at home are finally doing well. The stump out front has gone through various stages of growth and death. We started off with a full bushel of orange flowers, then they died and purple ones grew up. Then the purple died and the orange returned. It's so strange. The big stump in the backyard is sporting a 'fro of morning glories. The vines have now made their way all the way to the top and are growing a few more inches everyday. It's been just a green, leafy blob until this week when the flowers started to form again. I don't think we've seen any flowers in several weeks. Now there are at least 30 blooming every morning.

Front yard stump

Our tomatoes and peppers plants have been producing some tasty veggies

Back yard stump of morning glories

We have three colors blooming now: purple, pink and white. The white ones can be all white, or have blue, pink or purple stripes inside like this one.

     My rides at the end of the week went well. Shannon and I got in some late afternoon rides to keep the legs loose. I love the way I feel when I'm in good shape. The slow active recovery rides really help the legs and you feel stronger at the next hard workout. We saw some cool sunsets this week as the atmosphere was being disrupted by Hurricane Isaac down to our south. It seemed to be pulling all our clouds in towards it. Every cloud in the sky had a tail that was trailing to the south. We could also see the curved outer edge of the storm as it extended over Tennessee. Seeing the edge of it way up here in Tennessee while it thrashes the edge of Mississippi and Louisiana really puts into perspective how big the storm is.

Clouds being pulled south as Hurricane Isaac moves toward land

     Our drive to St. Louis looked like it might be miserable, but the remnants of Isaac stayed west. We had little rain to deal with until we got to our hotel. It even looked like we may be able to get in the first race of the Gateway Cup, the Tour de Lafayette, without getting wet. But then it rained. And it rained a lot. We couldn't even see to drive. It was scary for a few minutes as we made our way from the hotel over to the race. We couldn't find a close parking spot, but we did manage to find one near a building with an overhang. It was perfect for me to change and warm-up under.

Eating on the road

The skies were looking a bit unfriendly as we approached St. Louis

     We got soaked as soon as we got out of the car. We were so well prepared that we only brought one rain jacket for two people. We watched a few laps of the Cat. 4 and Cat. 3 races before heading back to the car to get ready. I had never ridden my Maxxis Cormet tires in the rain, so I made some pressure adjustments and took them out for a few practice turns through the streets around the venue. I was comfortable on them so next it was time to hit the trainer. We rode again this morning to loosen the legs up before the drive. I think that helps me later in the day. I don't need as long of a warm-up on the trainer to be ready to go. I had GREAT legs in warm-up. I hit the highest heart rate I have ever seen on the trainer, 187.

    I was pumped for the race. I wasn't excited to get out and race in a downpour, but I can't say that I mind it either. I actually like the adverse conditions. I usually do better when the weather is bad. The course here is a good one for a rainy day. It's wide and flat. There are just 4 corners, all wide lefts and all 90-degrees. I like this place too. I raced well here last year, getting in a break at one point and finishing in the main group. It was my first ever finish in the group in a big Pro/1/2 race.

Tour de Lafayette race course

     We started later than scheduled, not getting underway until 9:30pm. I got a great starting spot, taking off from the second row of 91 riders. I was fortunate to get that because I had an emergency run to the port-o-john right before we lined up. Maybe pizza on the drive up was not such a good idea!

     The start was fast. We really weren't backing off much in the corners despite the soaked roads. I was comfortable the first two laps, staying in the top 15. Then I started to slide back some. The pace through the corners was fine, but we were accelerating hard down the straightaways. I hit some ripples in the pavement in a few corners and got into a rough stretch of potholes on the backside of the course that aided in my falling back. My backslide was slow at first, then became faster. The pace was picking up and I felt like I couldn't get a draft. Gaps were already forming and I got hung out in some of the gaps as I fell back.

Pro/1/2 Men rolling through Turn 1

   
     I went from sitting good at the front, to hanging on the back by the fifth lap. My legs felt great. My heart rate was high, but I was comfortable. I was sprinting off the corners well, despite a little sliding around on my back tire. I just couldn't seem to hit the top speed of everyone else. I gave it everything I had, but came off the back after we went down the front stretch at 33 mph and followed that up with sprints out of the next 4 corners. I got pinched into the curb in turn 3 and that was it for me. I couldn't accelerate fast enough to close the gap. I was far from the first rider off the back, but I was off after just 10 minutes of racing and that was failure today. We had a 28.3 mph average speed when I popped off. I kept the hammer down and rode hard until they pulled me after 17 minutes of racing. I was so disappointed. I felt so good and felt so ready for this weekend. I can't even explain what happened. I never even felt like I was hurting that bad, but I couldn't hold the wheel in front of me. I was totally destroyed to be watching yet another finish from the wrong side of the barriers. My stats for the race were 25.1 mph average speed , max heart rate of 189 and average heart rate of 181.

More Turn 1 action

The few riders left in the main group roll through turn 4 with 5 laps to go

My heart rate data for the short race

     Local favorite Brad Huff won in a bunch sprint finish in the pouring rain. I managed to film a little during the last 10 laps after I had changed clothes. Laura Van Gilder won the women's event after making it through a crash on the final lap. CyclingNews race report is available here with some pictures as well.

Pro/1/2 Men Video

     I'm hoping for a dry race today for the second race, the Tour de Francis Park, but right now it is storming with more pop-up showers expected throughout the afternoon. Hopefully, I'll be able to hang in there better today.

Reactions

    We have enjoyed the past few weeks, enjoying the time before the big end-of-season races. We have been riding and playing. I've been putting in the time suffering with some intensity training to try and get my speed back before Gateway Cup.

     Our kids at church are really awesome. We are still teaching the 10 yr. old class each Sunday. We promised them a pizza and pool party during the summer. We made good on the promise and had a swim day at my parents' house, complete with letting them create their own pizza. We all had a lot of fun getting water-logged and filling our bellies with pizza.

Shannon and Snoop

Pizza!

Ground clean-up crew

     Shannon and I hit our 1 year wedding anniversary two weeks ago. This year has really flown by. It feels like it has only been 3 months since we were in the church mingling with family and taking pictures with every person in the place. We still had the top of the cake in the freezer. It was frozen and therefore well-preserved. But we didn't cover it so the icing was hard as a brick. It was weird tasting at first, but once it thawed out, it became closer to edible. We ate the whole thing despite the taste. I found it best to bury my pieces at the bottom of a cold glass of milk and eat it soggy with a spoon. Milk can make any stale food better.

       As far as riding goes, like I said before, it's been all intensity work lately. Shannon has paced me behind the car a few times, which really helps get me used to race speed and also helps me push a little harder than I would alone. You can get your heart rate up higher without destroying your legs when you are in the draft. My max heart rate for this year is 190. I saw that number three times: twice prior to my sickness in March and once in May at Ft. Wayne. Since then, I haven't been able to go above 183. The goal of the recent rides was to get closer to 190, but I only managed to see 184 and that came on the last day of pacing behind the car. We have filmed a lot of rides lately with the GoPro. We are working on several shorts videos to make into one big one. Here's a few pictures and clips from our recent filmings.

Hammer and suffer!

Faster!

Wearing some of the paint off the bumper of the car

Following Shannon on the infamous Thomasville Rd.

A shot from the helmet cam on Thomasville

Shannon climbs the first steep hill on Thomasville Rd. It hits 23% at one point.

Video clips

     Our trip to Utah is approaching. We have been planning out our day-by-day plans, which has turned out to be quite difficult. There's just so much stuff to do out there! We want to bike, hike and raft throughout the trip and Utah is just outdoor heaven. All we know for sure is that we are going to spend a few days in Park City and a few in Moab. The rest will be decided when we get there. I'm really pumped for Park City. They have several trails serviced by chairlifts. I can't wait to do some downhill riding. It will be fun to play all day, riding up the mountain on the lift rather than climbing it on the bike. I had planned to take my Racer-X, but after seeing the double black diamond trails and skills parks in Park City, I've decided to take my Remedy.          I dusted off the Remedy last week, getting in two rides with Shannon. The trail is still covered with spiderwebs, almost to the point of frustration. Plus, every little ounce of wind seems to bring down a million sticks. We didn't like stopping every 5 feet to clear a downed limb, but we did get the trail cleaned up. It was worth it on the second day when we could really rip the trail and have fun on our bikes. She has been riding my Sette hardtail to see the difference between it and the Superlight she normally rides. The lack of rear suspension was a bit harsh on the butt at first, but she's getting the hang of it now. We actually spent the day prior to the Lynskey Performance Southern Sunset Criterium on the trail, which is something I don't normally do.

Shannon riding on the trail

      I felt great on the mountain bike on Friday. Saturday morning started off rough. Shannon made some sour cream and onion crackers that were delicious! I was snacking on them as we waited for breakfast to cook. We thought that the onion powder used in the recipe was made from white onions. The ingredients just said "onions." Well, it had red onions in it too. I figured that out after about 10 minutes of munching those powder-covered crackers when I began sneezing. My nose was pouring so much I couldn't even look down without it running out. It was a fine way to begin a day that would end with a big race. I hate having an allergy. It's just one little thing, but I feel so limited now. They taste so good!

       We went out for a morning spin to loosen the legs before the drive down to Chattanooga. It helped clear up my symptoms, even though it turned into a tough ride. I noticed my brakes were a bit loose so I tightened the adjustment lever on the rear with about 6 miles to go in the ride. I was feeling bad. My heart rate was way higher than normal and I was sweating profusely. Shannon, on the other hand, was kicking my butt up the hills and hadn't even broken a sweat. At one point, we were doing 12.5 mph with a tailwind and I was dying. I blamed the allergic reaction and thought tonight was going to be one difficult race for me. We stopped by the mailbox at the end of the ride. As I pulled into the driveway, I heard a little squeak from the rear wheel. I got off and rolled the wheel. It didn't even make 1/5 of a turn. The brakes had been dragging since I tightened them! I have never been so frustrated and relieved at the same time. At least I knew that my body was not the problem. That brought back some of my confidence for the race. My body was feeling better after the ride, but I wasn't 100%. My stomach wasn't feeling much like food and I ended up just skipping lunch. If you know me, you know I really don't feel good if I'm skipping a meal.

       We drove down to the race through some thunderstorms on Saturday afternoon. Luckily, the storms didn't follow us all the way to Chattanooga. It was a warm day, but a gentle breeze kept things comfortable. The temp got even better as the sun dropped behind the mountains for the later races. This was my first time racing the Lynskey Performance Southern Sunset Criterium. It's part of the River Gorge Omnium which includes one of the toughest road races in this region. I had hoped to do the road race this year, but it was on Sunday and we had a temple prep class to go to at church. So everything was aimed at Saturday night's crit. There is good payout for this race, so it draws big fields and some good talent. My warm-up was great. I had awesome legs while on the trainer. I even hit 184 bpm with my heart rate. That's close to the highest I have ever seen on the trainer.

Cat. 3 Men on the start line

Looking down on the descent from high above the course on top of a parking garage

Sweat drops accumulating on my top tube as I warm-up on the trainer

     The race course was technical, featuring 6 turns in less than 1 km. Some of the streets were narrow and almost the whole thing was bumpy. The start/finish straight was flat, wide and fast. Turn 1 was a 90-degree right that was narrow on the exit and followed immediately by a good uphill. There was another right turn at the top, followed by a slight descent to a left turn. Then came more climbing through the next two turns, before a fast descent down to the final corner and onto the finish stretch. The downhill let you carry a lot of speed onto the flat finish straight.

Course from my GPS

Cat. 3s battling on the streets of downtown Chattanooga

Cat. 3 Men in Turn 6

     We had 100 riders on the start line. I got a fairly decent start spot and was around 40th on the first lap of our 60-minute race. I did a bad job picking the right line to follow the first few laps. I got shuffled back to around 60th, mostly losing ground on the downhill. The pace was really fast, but I was comfortable. It's the first time this year that I have been comfortable maintaining 185 bpm with my heart.

     Tim Hall came by me and I latched on. We started picking off riders ahead to move back up in the peloton. It was hard to pass. Turn 1 was so tight that it bottle-necked the group. I liked the outside line, but the curb was big and creeped up fast at that speed. The uphill was a dead sprint. The other straightaways were so short that it was hard to pull out and then get back in the group for a decent line through the next corner. You really needed to get a good line through the turns because there were cobbled crosswalks, potholes and manhole covers everywhere. The finish straight was wide and long enough to move up, but we were going so dang fast that it was hard to pull out of line. The course was short too, so any effort you made on the descent would have you hurting on the climb. I think there is an art to being smooth when moving up on a course like this. I need a lot more work on that.

Turn 1 close-up

    There were constant attacks off the front the first 15 minutes. The U23 National Crit. Champ Ty Magner went off the front with a big attack that caused a stir up front from Team Type 1 and Kenda-5 Hour Energy. That upped the pace even more and put the hurt on much of the group. Gaps started forming way up in the field. Guys were popping off the back in every corner. I was up into the top 50 and thought I was safe from big gaps. Then a gap began to open about 10 riders ahead. I moved up on the finish stretch and had just two riders in front of me as we entered turn 1. The gap was only a few seconds, but that changed in an instant as both riders ahead of me went down and piled into the curb exiting turn 1. I had to jam the brakes, but I squeezed by on the inside, losing a bunch of spots in the process. The gap was now bigger and I was starting to panic a little. I moved back up at the end of the lap, only to be right behind another 2-rider crash in turn 1 the very next lap. This was a bigger, harder crash and disrupted the field a lot more.

Ty Magner on the attack

    The back-to-back crashes totally split the field in half. There were 45 riders up front and another 30 chasing. The pace of the chase blew our group to pieces. I was still feeling good and came to the front to do my share of the work. I pulled as hard as I could, leading the hill a few times. I knew I had the legs to do something if I could get back to the main group. My pulls blew a lot of riders and our chase group dwindled down to just 10-12 guys. We were 20 seconds behind the leaders now and they were still attacking hard. Those crashes couldn't have happened at a worse time. I knew we would be pulled soon so I gave everything I had until they took us out. We made it 24 minutes before the officials pulled us out. I thought that was a bit early because we were still a half-lap ahead of them. But that's the way it goes in crits. That's why it's so important to be up front.

The winning break of three

Heart rate and elevation graphs from Chattanooga

     I was disappointed to watch the second half of the race from the sidewalk. I felt too good to not be out there. I wasn't alone on the sidewalk though. Some fast guys got caught out by those crashes. I ended up 49th on the results, even with being pulled before halfway. The best thing about the race is that I survived two crashes without going down. Again, I made good reactions and kept my nose clean through the chaos.       A break of three got away and made it stick. There was a large crash with 5 laps to go that disrupted the chase and sealed the deal for the break staying away. One guy busted his nose and was bleeding all over his face. He may have even broken his nose when he flipped over the bars into the rider in front of him. There were only about 30 riders left before the crash. A good 12 guys went down. Free laps were over by then, so they were essentially out of the race. Ty Magner sprinted away from the break to win the race. After the peloton sprinted for 4th, the officials put the crash victims back on the course for a 2 lap battle for positions. There were so few finishers that not all the money spots were filled so they allowed the riders that had fallen to sprint for the last few positions rather than score them in the order they fell. I thought it was cool. The officials didn't have to do that. My race stats were max heart rate of 187, average heart rate of 181 and average speed of 26.1 mph.

Lynskey Performance Southern Sunset Criterium video

     We had a great time and I am happy to see my form is finally back. We drove home after the race and got back pretty late. Shannon was snoozing before I finished unloading the car. This week has been a tune-up week to ready the legs for Gateway Cup in St. Louis. I'm so excited for four days of racing, but it looks like we may be swimming for part of it with Hurricane Isaac headed that way. Right now, the forecast is for 10-12 inches of rain in St. Louis between tomorrow afternoon and Sunday morning. Yipee. I had a great Tuesday night ride, feeling even better than I did in Chattanooga. I hit 191 heart rate! That's my best of the year. I was even able to launch a big attack with my heart rate already at 187 and then solo to win the first sprint. Things are looking good for the weekend!