Slow Motion with D

Kansas. Cross Nationals 2007. Months and months of trying to stay focused. The big goal of the year. Base miles, intervals, traveling, good race results, poor race results. Highs and lows. Good weather, epic conditions that challenge you mentally just as much as physically. This year has held a little of everything for me, so why would this weekend be any different?

My actual journey to Kansas started the Monday before. As has been typical this cross season, I loaded up the Pedro’s van with gear and dog. As hard as I tried to find an English speaking co-pilot, I was alone for this journey to middle America. 3 days of driving. Crazy ice storms hitting the roads that map quest had laid out for me. Worried emails and calls from the mother ship. Don’t worry mom, I’ll drive safe. I have no desire to drive off the road, even before you told me to be careful. It’s nice to know she cares though! Fortunately, the storms seemed to be just ahead of me the whole time. As I pulled into a rest stop in Kansas, there were signs of the terrible ice storms. Signs of no power, but my path was clear. Every tree, every bush, and every rock covered in a smooth, even layer of ice. My pictures don’t do the beauty justice.


Upon arrival at the race venue, we were greeted with a wet, muddy course. All the trees had started melting right onto the course. A few pre ride laps after Thursday’s races got me mentally ready for a slow, muddy, and power sapping race. The course was a fun mix of fast sections, off camber challenges, slow mud and cornering. The start stretch was 150 yards or so of uphill pavement followed by a tricky right turn, ditch/rise combo. A tricky start at high speed for sure. Friday’s races dealt with the same conditions and the dropping temperature made the mud a bit thicker and slower, creating many different, deep lines all over the place. With all the previous storms, the weather reports for the weekend were all over the place. I heard 2” of snow, 6-8” of snow, 50 degrees+ with sun. As I went to bed Friday night, I was prepared for anything.

When I woke up Saturday and looked out the window….snow! Not 6”, but there was a layer of snow that had blanketed our area of Kansas. I rolled over to the course to warm up and watch the U23s. Amy Dombroski of Velo Bella took her 2nd stars and bars and my boy Nick “The Killer” Weighall (whale, get it?) from Seattle took 4th in the men’s race getting out sprinted by Danny Summerhill. Carson Miller rode great taking 6th, just off the podium. Boy doesn’t wear knee warmers. Crazy.

Having no idea what the course was like, I lined up for my very first age group race. Masters 30-34. My racing age is 30 even though I have 9 months until the big 30 hits. I’ll take the extra opportunity to learn the course before the elite race. I started 5 rows or so back when the gun went off. I think this was my best start ever! I hit the right turn top 20 or so and as people flailed all over the now icy terrain (including myself) I found myself top 10 midway through the first lap. Over the next laps I just concentrated on riding my own race flirting with top 15ish. The deep ruts from the previous days had turned into frozen trenches of death! Racers would arrive at a corner, or churned up section, pick a line and hope that it took you in the right direction. Many times it didn’t. I would be carving the turn just as expected and then suddenly I would shoot off to the side. I even went through the tape a few times. I was fortunate to stay up right and floated just outside of the top 10 with 2 laps to go. I set my sights on the all white skin suit of Jed Schnider up ahead. I had figured out where I could lay down the power, and where I had to back off. I started passing people and closing the gap to Jed quicker than I had expected. I was putting myself in great position to battle on the last lap.
riding well in the top 10!

Then my pedal started squeaking. No big deal I though as I approached the first of 2 run ups. As I ran up, I looked down and noticed that my pedal was ½ way off the spindle. Without much thought I reached down and hit it, hoping that it would go back on and allow me to get to the pit. I mounted and took the next downhill and that’s when it happened. My foot slipped and I came of my seat. I dismounted and started running to the next set of stairs and as I looked down again…no pedal, just a gold spindle. Without hesitation I remounted and started pedaling to the best of my ability. I rode the next off camber downhill, then slipped on the following muddy rise. I remounted again and hit the pavement. What followed next was extremely frustrating. The pit was 1/3 of a lap away and it was the part of the course that you could hammer the most. All of the uphill, the following turn onto the mud/ice, longer sweeping corners and the straight a ways were done with basically one leg and sitting. Riders went off in the distance and riders came flying past me. All the hard work I did to get into the top 10 rode away on 2 good pedals. I did what I could, considering my dilemma and got to the pit. Took a bike from Shanks and off I went to finish the final lap. I rode well, passing a few guys back and almost got another at the line. 13th place, out of 124 starters. 1 min 11 seconds off of Jed. Jed finished 7th.

Ah, what could have been. Not saying I would have beat him, but I would have gone down swinging. Molly was another minute up, so 7th would have been the best virtual result I could have obtained. The worst part of the whole thing is that top 10 get a call up for next years race. 27 seconds away from a front row start at next years race. Whine, whine, whine, boo. That’s the way it goes. Only 1 younger guy beat me…the winner Andy Jacques-Maynes. Yeah, he raced age group, then finished 6th in the elite race.  Oh yeah, -6 degrees w/wind chill is what I heard.

Sunday brought more of the same, but with a worse start spot. My start wasn’t bad, but not good. People went everywhere as they hit the same frozen ruts that were now coved with a layer of mud. The course favored skill just as much as power. I’m sure you’ve all seen Ryan getting the wind knocked out of him. There were people going all over the place including me. If you watch the video of Ryan, you can see me cross the course too. I was constantly on my toes reacting to the ruts and other riders. Certain things couldn’t be avoided and it’s unfortunate that Ryan was a casualty of bad course design. He wasn’t the only one (look at the guy he collided with collapse in the video), but he was the highest profile. I rode clean other than one time when my bars got clipped by one of the course markers. It grabbed my bars and threw me down, bending my shifter in the process.
disaster

I remounted, tried to fix the shifter on the fly, but no luck. I had to stop and mess with it. With that one mistake, I went from a few spots behind Molly C (23nd) to finishing a lap down in 37th. I’m still pretty happy with that result and my legs felt great again. A guy that started next to me, who I also battled with in the age group, finished 12th! Sean Babcock finished 17th!!! I wonder if Page is upset that the finishing time was only 52 minutes. He was closing fast on Johnson and one more lap would have been sweet to watch. Not sure if it was my level of skill on the bike (well, almost skill), actual fitness, or a combo of both that had me riding well. I’m hoping it was both because I’m already excited for next year and want to build on a rather successful weekend….is it cross season yet?
See you in 2008 Kansas!

Arrived in Kansas late Wednesday and headed out to pre-ride the course for cross nats late Thursday.  Trees that had been frozen, from the storms that moved through, had started to melt and turned the course into a muddy mess.  Slight inclines were made difficult to ride and it was hard to navigate the many ruts that had been worn from the first days races.  I'd heard multiple weather reports for the weekend.  6-8" of snow, 40+ and sunny, but for Saturday it only ended up being a few inches.  It did however keep snowing for most of the day...chances are that Sunday will be even different...

Pre rode on Thursday in this (note off camber in upper left)

This is the same off camber on race day.

This is how deep the mud in the barriers was....

and this is where the barriers WERE.  They got taken out for race day because everything is frozen and it was a little dangerous to be dismounting at speed on icy ruts.

Gotta keep the motivation for nationals!


Trying to fine tune what fitness I have leading into nationals.  CX skills in the park today.  21 degrees.  Dismounts and remounts.  Corners.  All out run ups and sprinting after x 6.  Feels good.  Leaving for Kansas tomorrow in the Pedro's van.  Road trip anyone?  Seriously.


Sun is going down.  Marcroft and FMB.

USGPs round 5 and 6.  Home turf advantage.  Training all fall for this and the coming weeks.  Legs felt promising.  Weather, epic.  Everything seemed to be falling into place to have a good weekend racing.  

My weekend started Friday as I drove over the pass to the valley.  I got a bit of a late start because I had to wait for UPS to bring Jason’s bike that he had shipped to me from Colorado.  I also received an email saying that I would need to prove my US citizenship in order to race the UCI races.  Didn’t I do this last year when I got my UCI license?  I didn’t figure I’d have to do it every year.  To prove this I needed my birth certificate or my passport.  Good luck finding where I put my b.c, but I figured my passport could only be in a few spots.  No luck.  After scouring through my room (actually clean for once) and the, “important boxes,” in the garage I was baffled.  I know I had seen it recently, but couldn’t find it.  I think I may have brought it to Vegas, so my current theory is that it is lost there along with my cross form.  Oh well.  I decided to chance it, hoping that I could sweet talk the UCI official w/o proof, and Jon and I loaded up and headed out.

We hit up River City for the meet the riders food/beer gathering and I was on my mission to get approved to race.  After showing my 2006 UCI license and promising a photo copy of it to the official, he agreed to let me race!  I got in line to get my registration number, for once not worrying about starting in the back of the 80 or so rider field.  You see, as in any cross race, it’s really hard to start from the back at a USGP.  When the start whistle blows, you get to watch the front half of the group ride away before you even get to clip in.  Then it’s all bob and weave as you try to make up any ground possible as everyone is full throttle.  I registered kind of late, but put an email in to Bruce, who started and still works for Pedro’s.  He’s also the executive race director for the USGP series, and told me that he would line me up behind the UCI point holders if I came out and raced any of the events.  Sweet.  Here we go…sign the waiver, proof of license, and get my sweet number…uh, 73?  That doesn’t seem very good.  “How man guys are racing,” I asked.  “About 76.”  I was told.  Then I was informed that after the UCI points, the start numbers are randomly generated.  So much for industry contacts!  Bruce still tried to finagle something for me, but no luck.  He told me that Sundays race number would probably be different and in my favor….It was different, but not in my favor, I was number 75.  Ha!  After the meet and greet, I headed to the airport to pick up some Clif Bar kids and we went for pizza…and beers…a theme of the weekend!

Race days were similar to each other.  Cold, rainy, windy.  Makes it hard for the motivation to get a good warm up, but luckily we had tents and portable heaters set up for the Sunnyside crew.  I’m not sure I warmed up good enough either day, but did get an opener or two in and felt good.  At the start grid, I was in the very back.  Not great, but I tried to make the best of it.  The gun went off and I pedaled hard, but a bit conservatively.  After the long pavement stretch we hit the left hander that led to an off camber side hill.  Awesome and muddy.  The only thing that sucked was that everyone thought they should ride it and not run it.  The section was very ride-able, but not with 80 dudes all seeing cross eyed from the start effort.  People were flailing all over.  If people would have just ran it for that first lap, it would have been way better.  I was impressed with Ben as he rode right through people, but then even he screwed everyone around him up when he had to get off.  Run, mount, pedal through more mud.  That was the order of the day.  I was feeling ok and felt like a 20-something result was possible.  A few laps in I slid out on one of the muddy dips and got mud packed into my rear shifter.  Great reason to pit is what I thought.  Use my crew and get a clean bike.  This is the big time!  Into the pit I went trying to figure out what rain gear clad helper was mine.  Rather than look blankly, I started calling out his name.  “Don?  Don?  Don?  Don?”  No luck.  I hit the end of the pit and promptly turned around.  If you leave the pit w/o repairs, then you get a big fat DQ and I didn’t want that.  Half way back through the pit, screaming my lungs out, Jon came running up to me with a bike.  I dropped my current steed and went off frustrated and mad.  That didn’t help the rest of the race any.  I should have just focused on the task at hand.  It’s hard when you’re racing for 30th place and you lose what seems like an eternity of time.  Everyone around you is basically your equal and a mistake like that can make it impossible to catch back up to the group you were trailing.  After that I refused to go back into the pit and just rode it out until Johnson lapped me.  I’ve never been lapped by Tim, but he was riding out of his brain on that course, so it was meant to be.
photo: oregon velo

Sunday wasn’t much different, but my pit exchanges were pretty good.  Another back row start, but the legs felt pretty sweet.  This days mud was wet and soupy, and the course was pretty fun, even using part of the bmx track.  Picking my way through people and riding the mud sections went pretty well.  Other than the wind blowing me off of the bmx track, I was happy with the way things were going until my rear shifter started acting up.  It was sticking in the shift position and not returning to the normal spot.  This made it tricky, as I didn’t notice until I went to brake and didn’t have a working lever.  Overshot a corner and I had to get off my bike as I almost hit a tree.  Guess I’m going to the pit!  There’s Don!  Take the Ridley, shout out that the shifter is screwy and head off to chase back to Ben.  I still felt pretty good and rode a few good laps on the, “B,” bike.  Time to get my Marcroft back!  Back into the pit a few laps later.  Yes!  There’s Don.  Grab bike and go.  Oops, I fell in the mud slop.  No worries.  Pedal, pedal, pedal.  Ah….my shifter is even more f’d.  What????  Lose places.  Bummer.  Back into the pit for the Ridley again.  Another good exchange and I was off for my final laps.  Ryan got me, but I lasted a fair bit longer than Saturday and finished right with Ian.  Weekend over.  Disappointing results, but the courses were pretty epic and fun.  Good people and maybe a few too many drinks every night made up the weekend, so all in all, it was a success.  Results are only a small part when you’re racing in the middle, so it’s good to be surrounded by friends.