New Bling! Time for a new chain and I thought a gold one would look pretty sweet(indicative of future performances?). It's a KMC x10 Ti Gold. Hopefully it'll last.

Cohutta 100 Race Report

I was heading into this race pretty pumped up. I had a good dinner Thursday night and a pleasant ride up on Friday morning with my partner for the weekend Boomer. We got checked in, went for an easy ride on some of the singletrack and found some good grub.
My troubles, however, started Wednesday on my easy ride. I noticed some BB creaking issues. Bikes do have a million working and sometimes rubbing parts so noises are part of things sometimes. I decided to take it apart, re-grease, and have all back together on Thursday. Done deal. Creaking, however, continued. It got worse on our pre-ride Friday.
I woke up Saturday morning, predictably, 30 minutes before my alarm. It's always tough to sleep the night before a big race. Bagel and banana down along with other pre race rituals(yeah I take a shower before I race).
It was freezing at the start. Something like 45 degrees. I was cold getting up the road climb the begins the race. I settled into a nice group and watched a few folks ride away. Some riders are just a step(or few) above me and it's best to let them go. I made up a few places and lost some places in the singletrack. The first few minutes of singletrack are always sketchy for me.
Once I hit the gravel I settled in for a nice long day. Kyle Taylor caught up with me and we rode for a while. More and more people seemed to be forming in our group including the women's race winner Amanda Carey. I felt good about being around her knowing that she would probably finish in the top 25 men and was keeping a steady pace(I think she finished somewhere around top 15 men!).
Our group was rolling along well. It began to split up as we hit more climbs and came across Aid Stations. I skipped the first two. At one point I even passed Eddie O'Dea and began to worry that I may be pushing a bit too hard. I snagged some water from the helpful volunteers at the 3rd aid station and carried on.
Things were going well until folks began to pass me I had previously ridden by easily. I couldn't even hold their wheel, but I felt alright. Remember that creaking BB? Well now it was beginning to seize up. At that point I broke down mentally. Suffering is key late in a race, and I just couldn't find a reason to suffer. I stopped and had a pity party for a little while. I took breaks at the aid stations, even indulging in some Oreos. I came across David Ansel's coach(Andy Applegate). I spoke with him a bit, and he was quite positive. Really put me in a much better mood to finish the race. He had a worse go at it than me having what he said to be his worst wreck in the 20 years he'd been riding. He was limping on in with good spirits so why shouldn't I? I finished something around 8:23 in 32nd place. Well outside of the top 25 and shy of my 8 hour goal, I was frustrated but oh well. Some things just don't go your way. Syllamo 125k is next! Redemption?

Rain, rain, go away! I had to hop on the trainer last week and it's happed again this morning. I don't mind rain but downpours and lightning I don't do. In the end it didn't really matter. Despite 3 days "off" my legs felt pretty terrible. I say "off" because I spent Saturday traveling to Boston(after riding that morning), Sunday walking around Boston, Monday watching Parisa in the Boston Marathon and walking something over 10 miles(I was getting cramps! from walking!), and then Tuesday traveling again. To add to it sleep was a bit hard to come by. Oh well... tomorrow should be a better day. Albeit on the trainer the way things are looking.

Everybody likes pictures and we all like to know what bike our competition is riding so here is mine and mine in action at the first race of the year (SCRCS Tuffburg 1st place). The wheels and tires are what I trained on in the winter. Specialized Captain rear and Purgatory front. I'll run Specialized Renegade Controls in a 1.9 width or Conti Race King Protection in a 2.2 width for most races this year mounted on Stan's Podium MMX wheels. You can find more pictures, weights, and other bike nerd stuff on the Boardtown Bikes blog.

Ouachita Challenge Race Report:

I had done the 80 two years before and the 60 the past year so I knew what to expect. I barely snuck into the top 25 last year and was really hoping I could eek out a top 10.

I got started in the back of the pack on the roll out. Lots of knobby tires buzzing along sounds pretty sweet. I tried to make my way towards the front, but apparently everybody else had the same idea. I knew there would be some hills to help break it up and sure enough. A few guys in front of me let some gaps open up, and I was able to work my way up into the top 10. I hit the single track in good position. I didn't want to get caught behind people that would slow me down, but at the same time I didn't wanna be "that guy" either. A little gap opened up between me and the Competitive Cyclist guy in front of me(Noah Singer maybe?). Rocky stuff isn't exactly my forte. Mississippi just doesn't have anything like the Ouachita Trail so I was doing my best to go fast without flatting or planting my face on a rock. A guy behind wanted around and so I let him go when we hit the first short gravel road/aid station(Chris Renshaw I believe). There was a bit of single track and he kept a great pace so I was happy to follow. Then he stopped to get a feed. Yeah stopped.

So I just kept on rolling up the climb. He caught me on the rockiest part. I bobbled and had to unclip and walk. BLAH! I could see the group in front of me walking too, though, so I didn't feel too bad. Chris caught me toward the top of that climb and went around me at another rocky section that I failed on. Dang Mississippi and our lack of technical singletrack. Chris seemed to have better skills and a full squish 29er(an orange Intense) and was able to get away from me. Still I felt like I was holding a pretty good pace up hills and even descending pretty well. I opened up some space on the guy behind me but figured we'd probably rejoin at the gravel road section.

I popped out onto the gravel and kept looking back. I slowed and he(Tracy Martin I believe) finally popped out. I figured he'd bust his butt to catch on so we could work together but no dice. He took his merry time. Finally, he caught up and we traded pulls until we caught another rider. Somehow I popped a spoke on the road. Second time that has happened so it's probably time to rebuild my Stan's Podium MMX. I gapped the other two in the first short section of trail but had to stop and refill my bottles. The volunteers were great and filled my bottles while I took a nature break. I hopped back on and chased after the two riders that passed while I had been stopped. It didn't take long and I was up and around them.

This is when things got tough. Nobody behind, nobody in front. I just kept telling myself somebody in front may have blown up, flatted, mechanical. You never know so you gotta chase. Who knows who is feeling good behind you too. I was also fighting cramps on my inner thy. Standing up helped and finally they subsided a bit. At some point I passed Aaron Elwell fixing a flat(apparently he had three flats). I was alone for a while but finally caught Noah Singer. I was so pumped! Definitely gave me a boost of energy.

I was starting to run a little low on caffeinated gels and I popped the big one at around mile 43. Little did I know that those last 17 miles would be a bit slow going. I popped out to the second to last aid station. I had lost my other two bottles so I was down to only one. Filled it with water and the guy said I had a ten mile loop back to them. Dang! I thought it was fire road and pavement back. Oh well. I kept telling myself to keep pumping along and I may catch somebody. I was in a dark place, but I tried to stay positive. It started to turn from "who can we catch?" to "just hold this position."

About 5 miles of singletrack and some gravel later and a volunteer pointed me in the right direction and said that three were ahead of me. "Must be a group of three and then some more in front of them" is what I thought. I turned onto a fire road and saw three guys! Immediately I thought "I gotta catch them! and I can beat them!" along with "#$%^ this is going to really hurt!" But they turned the opposite way. Not the three guys ahead of me. I'm not going to lie: I was a bit relieved. I stopped at the final aid station, got some water, volunteer poured some on my head(felt great! awesome volunteers!) and trucked on in. I kept looking over my should but there was no one.

I finished and was handed a check, a trophy, and had my picture taken before I even realized how I'd finished. I had to look at the check to figure it out. 4th! I was super pumped. I grabbed some grub and waited around for my fellow Boardtown Biker Zach McCool. I must have missed him come in, but he had a great race as well finishing 29th.

Next up: Cohutta 100

Just a photo today. This is from the previous weekend's Southern Cross. I'll give a race recap tomorrow.

Steady Tempo ride today. 1:45 doing my best to hold the power steady. That's right POWER. More detailed post tomorrow.

Recovery Week

Recovery weeks are kinda boring. If you live some place cool maybe you can find something else to do with yourself. However, Starkville, MS does not fall into the "someplace cool" category. In fact its a certified retirement community, whatever that means. So today I spent 30 minutes or so on the trainer taking it easy watching a couple of episodes of Behind the Barriers. If you haven't checked em out you should.

Since there isn't anything fun going on now I'll post some pics from a previous cross race in Little Rock, AR. It was my first true cross race. After a little advice from a more experienced friend I opted for the B race. Said experienced friend had a legit battle for first in the A race. Anyway, I ended up finishing 2nd in the B race. I'm pretty sure the only thing that got me there was my fitness, bc my barrier hopping skills are probably on par with those in the back of the pack. I was just waiting to catch a toe on one of those things and get a face full of earth.

Cold one at the Nox

Trying to keep up the no excuses attitude to riding, I decided to head down to the Nox today despite forecasts of light snow and sleet. Sometimes I wish I had a recording device to record the random thoughts that run through my head on rides. Probably wouldn't been very interesting 90% of the time, but occasionally something useful pops into mind. Learned a couple of things today.

1) I don't like to wear a camelback. Just having that much extra weight on my back bothers me and throws off my balance and weight distribution on the bike. Maybe I just need to ride with one more, but hopefully I won't have to use one in any races this year.

2) Still can't figure out how to dress. Although, I was pretty close this time.

3) Icy roots suck.

4) I love fat monster truck tires

5) Fat monster truck tires don't roll fast.

Anyway, I got in a decent 4-4.5 hour ride today. Slow going with having to stop to eat, remove layers, or whatever.

Goodies!!!

Got some new stuff to show off. Tubeless has been around in the MTB world for a while and its trickling over to road and cyclocross. I decided to give it a go and picked up some Hutchinson Piranha cross tires. So far I really like em.
They weren't too hard to install and sealed up pretty easily with Stan's tape and sealant. They are designed mostly for hardpack and roll pretty fast. I've run them as low as 30 psi so far without any issues. A bit pricey at around $7o each, but the tires on the only contact I have to the ground. Or I should say, its the only contact I wish to have with the ground.
Further reviews to come later!

Little Longer than Expected

I planned on doing a 2.5 hour ride today but apparently my memory doesn't serve me too well, and the route I chose was more along the lines of 3 hours. Good ride today though. 5x5 minute efforts at about the same level I put in on the intervals with David on Tuesday. For about the last hour I kept a pretty good steady pace although I began to fade a bit toward the end.

Other things of note: I want a power meter! According to Joe Friel, without one, I'm simply training blind.