Granogue

This past weekend was Andrew Mein's Excellent Adventure at Granogue, which is just a long way of saying fun. It's one of two racing weekends (the other being a pair of Cross races in the fall) held on private grounds at the DuPont estate. The weekend has changed formats over the years (and rumor has it will again next year) but this year the party included a 10k trail run and 3 mile time trail on Saturday...then Sunday came the normal gambit of XC races and a four hour endurance race. For the truly sick at heart they created the Iron Monkey, which is there version of a "triathlon" for the lack of a better word. The IM competitors did both the run and TT on Sunday, then had to do the endro on Sunday.

FatMarc, L-Webb, Tom and Buddy put on some of the best events in the area and put in more time doing so then must people will ever know. With that said, then I was offered the opportunity to help out I jumped at it. With this my weekend started Friday helping out with the course marking.....Wifey showed up a few hours later and helped me knock out our area before heading home to repack the car for Saturday.

Saturday morning came early, but lets face it.....if you shove donut holes in my face at 6AM I'll be there. An hour before the 10k start time (9AM) multiple people were saying "where the Hell is everyone." We all have the mindset of mountain bikers, if the race starts at nine you need to be there two hours before (lots earlier for some) between setting up a pit area, getting your race number, warming up, maybe preriding the course, etc....not to mention riders start staging at the start line 15-20 minutes before there race.

About half an hour before start time runners started walking up in small groups, and within 15-20 minutes we had 150 runners ready to go. But something just seemed wrong, the race was starting in 2-3 minutes and 95% of the runners were standing 15 yards back from the starting line in small groups quietly talking......some were even laughing. What was wrong with these people, there was no trying to push and squeeze your way into the gridlocked first five rows of riders...it's like they were civilized or something.

But the race started and we all headed out....yes, I said we...myself included...really, I have proof.

The run went well for someone that's not a runner, just kept a mild pace the whole time (been having calf problems when I have been running) and tried not to hurt anything. Somehow I ended up in the top 25%.

After the race the runners disbursed just as fast as they came, in/out in less then two hours...still weirds me out. But next was the TT, Marc joking (in a way) called it the " DE, MD, PA, NJ Mountain Bike Time Trial State Championships." And what's a championship without a photo:

The TT was fun....fun in the way as I should have stayed home and just kicked myself in the nuts kind of fun. The last thing my legs wanted to do was sprint for 20 minutes only a couple hours after the run, but it was over before I knew it.....and the course record was destroyed by over two minutes in the mean time.

Wifey and I headed out in time to get dinner and home for an early night with the furry kids before what would be again an early ass morning.....have donut holes, will travel.

Driving down Sunday morning Wifey asked how my body felt, "like we're driving home from an endurance race not to one" I told her. So after doing a little helping out and alot of sitting on my ass:
I started to get warmed up for the race. From looking at last years race I knew the leaders did six laps, so that was my goal.....I would have been ok with five given my body was shot, but I still wanted six.

I ended up rolling down to the starting line a little late (10 minutes before kinda late) and was far from upset having to line up mid pack......little did I know Marc was gonna give Jeff, Buddy and myself a call up for the work "we" did....and by we I mean they did, Buddy has put more work into others trails then anyone and should have been given a five minute head start.
The lap starts with a 300-400 meter sprint down a paved road, so needless to say with the way my legs felt and Buddy being on a single speed being front and center was both awesome and horrible. The horn sounded and Buddy and I huddled together as close as we could as we rolled down the road as not to be ran over by the thundering her the filed by us on both sides. About midway down the road we finally got more then what felt like an inch apart and started the single track about mid pack. I followed Buddy thru the first few areas so I could watch his lines, but he had to pull over to fix a small mechanical problem....the next time I saw him was a few hours later with a beer in his hands.
So like any endurance race you just find your grove and roll with it...and even thou it took a hour my body started to come around, one of the few times I've felt better the longer I rode.
By the time I finished my third lap I was working on the math for the fifth and sixth....was gonna be close on time to head out for a sixth.
Lap four ran into five and I made the cut off to go out for a sixth lap by about 3-4 minutes. I did little more then slow down in the pits as Wifey did a bottle hand off to me.....it took me a few minutes of riding to run thru in my head Buddy calling my name and well as seeing Jeff standing there. A quarter of the way thru the lap I heard L-Webb saying that Jeff was not very happy with me, seeing me go out for another lap made him think he also needed to in order to stay first in the IM results (not so, but we did not really know at the time.) I yelled back to tell'em I'm sorry and that this would be the slowest lap in Granogue history.

Wifey met me at the finish line with my recovery drink and everything else under the sun. A few minutes later I was changed, somewhat cleaned up and had beer in hand...I wanted to do it as fast as I could before my body shutdown. Which happened about 20 minutes later as I started falling asleep in a chair in the registration area as Wifey helped with results. Tom walks up and says "go lay down of the couch in the trailer." I said thanks, but I'm ok......he replies with "I'm telling you not asking." I next thing I know is I hear "he's sleeping in the trailer" over off the microphone and Jake D. opens the door..."they're calling you to the podium, they're calling you to the podium."

Out the door I stumble with my eyes hardly even open, 8th of the 60ish Solo men:
and 4th in the IM....it's not that I could not stand up, I just felt like a tool standing in a spot that was not mine.
After I was awake a little it was time to clean up my course marking mess....still half asleep.
Looks kind of like Arnold Schwarzenegger meets the Pillsbury doughboy.

I what to say thanks to Marc, L-Webb, Buddy and Tom for once again a great weekend, hope we made things a little bit easy for you.

12 Hours of Santos

Last weekend Wifey and I headed back down to FL for the second time in a month for a twelve hour race. After my less then ideal showing at the first one (Oleta) I had mixed feelings heading down again....but the way I look at these couple of races is a little different then most racers/riders doing them.

I guess the best way of putting it is I treat this races as training rides, a way to test out new things on the nutrition/equipment front and to kickoff changing gears on the training front. Since our racing season does not really get kicking until Aprilish I'm not looking to get into a knife fight and/or burn one of the few matches I have this early in the year....besides, with these guys coming into their peaks right now (not that they ever really aren't) at best I'm bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Ok, enough of me running my mouth. The week before the race I was debating on signing up for the singlespeed class....let's say the debate was over once I pulled the geared bike of the hook to clean it up for the race.....singlespeed it is.

So after a short trip to meet some news friends:
I wanted to get in a preride of the course to check out the bike/and gearing. Sadly that did not happen, let's say that Wifey is no Magellan and leave it at that...cuz if not I may get smothered with a pillow tonight. So off to the hotel and dinner we went, which was cool because I got to meet Sebastian for the first time (other then watching him ride circles around me.)

After setting up our ghetto pit we heading down to the lemans start, and for some reason I convinced myself it would be best if I did not kill it on the run (figured since I'd be on a SS I did not want to be "that guy" holding up the geared racers at the start.) Not my greatest idea ever, even with the couple hundred meter run and dirt road start it took half a lap to get thin things out. But once I got to keep the cadence I wanted to thou I was like a fat kid eating cake...the 32x18 I was running was perfect. It's always cool to be on a SS and pass riders on geared bikes on climbs....or better yet, make climbs they even can't.

As normal the first few hours were a blur, but around the four hour mark the lack of riding the SS was beating on me...the upper body was getting worked alot more the normal with the short power climbs. An hour later I pulled/threw my chain off and thought it'd be cool to try and remove a fingertip putting it back on. But thanks to full fingered gloves and the fingernail it was just a sweet cut and blood, not that I knew at the time thou.

An hour later I ran into Wifey in the ghetto pit, she was having far from a good day. She had gone down a couple times and was just mentally out of it, not that's she's right mentally right in the first place....I mean she did marry me. So with that being said I told her to go finish her lap and I'd back up the fort.....after all, six hours on the bike is still six hours on the bike (and this time of year I'm happy with that.....besides, we had a cooler full of beer that was not gonna drink itself.)

Sunday morning we went over to Ormond Beach and did part of my old road loop for a recovery ride:
and I did get yelled at a couple of times for trying to chase down roadies that came by. But with a midway point like this how could it not be a good ride:

Want to say thanks to the Goneriding crew for as always putting on a great event, and maybe next year I'll bring more then a B game....or maybe I'll just take up basket weaving.

12 Hours of Oleta

After Wifey and I shoveled 6-8 inches of snow last Wednesday we made our annual trip down to North Miami for the 12 Hours of Oleta.

Going in I knew Oleta was not gonna be an "A" race for me giving it's the middle of the off season up here and I'm no where near any kind of racing shape.....unless we're talking about a donut eating race, then hold onto your pants....cuz there's gonna be a throw down. But Wifey and I use it as an excuse to get the Hell out of the cold/snow and head back to our home state of Florida. Not to mention the people....and no, I'm not talking about

.........sadly, that picture took up an hour of my time. Funny the amount of time it takes to find just the right picture...yeah, that's it.

But back to where I was....we both miss the people down South, call it southern hospitality if you want but I just think people seem happier down there....most people up here outside the cycling world are just gruff at best.

But to the damn point......for those of you that have not done this race before I highly recommend it. It's a great location right on the river less then a mile from the beach, the course is fun/fast and the Berger's of Goneriding know how to run a race/series.

As always the race started with a lemans start to thin out the herd, and as always I ran like a wounded hipo:

But once I got on the bike things were going well, not great I give you but well. The course was in perfect shape, dry but not dusty and really fast. The course was changed up a little from prior years (for the better I think personally) with a couple of the "climbs" taken out and the first part of "Gilligan's Island" added back in.

It took half a lap for riders to get placed right (anyone that's done a lapped endurance race knows what I mean) lap one ran straight into laps two and three with no problems....aside from nearly choking myself with a Kind bar (note to self, don't ram a whole damn bar in your mug at once....it can be done sure, you just won't be able to breathe for a minute...which is always great when you HR is upwords of 165.)

Even thou I was giving up 3-4 min's a lap on the two leaders and I felt great, on lap three I knew I had a couple small problems I needed worked out. First being a newish pair of Sole insoles that were killing the outside edge of my feet and second....lets just call worn out bibs and say things were not sitting/staying in place right. That would explain my face in this last picture atleast...



So after lap four I ran out to the FJ got the thinner insoles for my shoes and started lap five with all things right in the world......for about 10 min's.....then I had a brain fart.

I was on a bridge that I've ridden 100 times (about 16-18 inches wide, 50 yards long with a couple small twists and about 18 inches off the ground) and then it happened. No idea what happened but I put two and two together and got the normal three of what I must have done.

My front wheel slipped off the right side of the bridge just enough to drop me down onto the rotor which bent 90 degrees under the weight of my awesomeness......(yeah, that's it) and I dropped straight down on the bridge itself left elbow and knee first before falling down to the ground to the left and pulling the bike with me....and still clipped in. Needless to say I hit like a ton of bricks and it hurt like Hell (so if any seismic activity happened Saturday in the area around one...that was just me....sorry.

It did not take long to figure out my day was over, the rotor and handlebars were easily fixiable, the body not so much. I knew the knee was not broken, but I could hardly move it. Luckily I was a short walk to a dirt road that led to the pit area, so onto the shoulder the bike went and off I hobbled.

As normal at races I had more then a few people ask if I needed help in any way, including the local Cannondale rep that sat with me asking questions I now know he already knew the answers to just to make sure I knew who/where the Hell I was.

I want to say congrats to Sebastian for a great race thou, the man was killing it. And I look forward to trying not to make an ass out of myself next month at Santos.

Knife...what knife?

The only problem is I'm the one carrying the knife.....and as you can guess we're going to a gunfight.
Guess the good thing is I'm in pink, and that'll make the Wifey happy. But it still does not fix the problem.....and my problem is lack of power. Seems like everytime I need power/strength I've got nothing. Short power climbs, countering attacks or even trying to stick the landing on that double backflip off the ceiling fan. It's like Scotty's down in the engine room preoccupied by something else...
Not sure if it's a nutrition/hydration thing or just a little Summer fatigue thing....because it sure as hell is not from being over trained. Either way I need to start kicking up my speed work...in a way.

Been finding out more and more that I've got two speeds. I can go 95% for 30-45 minutes (which will hopefully work well for Cross) or 75% for 12 hours.....but with XC races being in the two hour range I gots myself a problem. But it's a problem that I'm not even sure I want to work on fixing right now. Cross training groups are starting next week and that's where my buttered up cheeks will be...but in and out of the saddle.

Now just to finish building up the bike itself.

Deadbeat blogger

Warning, warning......deadbeat blogger on the move.

It's been WAAAY to long for any kind up an update (not that anyone is waiting on pins and needles) and for no real reason...so here's the highlights.

I suck...the end.

Races are still happening, even thou I'm not sure why. I've been enjoying the nice easy riding with even better groups of people more then racing itself.....but something still draws me to them like a fat kid to cake.

Even thou I set it as a goal four months ago, I some how pulled a first place at the 12 Hours of the Cranky Monkey back in late June. This race damn near killed me two years ago with heat and my own stupidity, but with a little luck and great friends to help keep my head on straight I had a good day.

I've also somehow found my way back to the starting line of a few XC races again in the past month....including a night XC lastnight. A few mechanical problems and a couple of second places are the highlights....in all not bad with my lack of training for speed. But things are a changing, Cross season starts in a little over a month and I'm for the first time looking forward to it..... but still a couple more XC's to knock out of the way first thou. One being our Team race at Neshaminy.

Got a few non racing things that are gonna be taking up lots of time here soon (more to come on that...and it won't be two months this time) but either way I need to start kicking up the speed work.

D&Q Summer Sizzler

Sunday Wifey and I rolled out early to hit the Summer Sizzler over in Sewell, NJ. The race is put on by Chris Afterburn of Danzeisen and Quigley and has always been a favorite course of mine.

After a short pre ride it was time to prim and prep the Boss for her race

Two for the price of one.

I know I said last post that I was not into the XC racing thing this year, so therefore what did I go do? Yeah, a XC race.



A little over a week ago was the Bike Line Fair Hill Spring XC down in MD, this was the first race in the MASS series here in the PA area. I'd always planned on going to the race (the Wife had it on her schedule) and even thou I love the course I was not planning on doing it. But somehow I found myself on the starting line of my age group.



Having done ZERO speed work since last year, waking up sick and just an all around feeling of not really want to do the race I lined up pretty much in the back of the group. They released the dogs and the pace is fast, real fast. After dancing around a near crash I find myself working my way threw riders...not knowing why or know. Ninety minutes and 23 miles later it was all over and strangely I felt good. I never really pushed myself really hard, just rode my own race and ended up 6th of the 22-23 riders. So for better or worse I'm rethinking things again.



Fast forward a week, Wifey and I found ourselves down in VA for the Leesburg Baker's Dozen. After meeting up with friends, pit set up it was time for an easy pre ride lap. The course was perfect, fun fast and fun. After a little more BSing with the pep's headed out for a couple beers and grub before hitting the hotel....my camping days are over.



Normal for me the night before I race I slept like crap. Ended up watching a couple Married with Children's before I got Wifey up for the morning prep. After my race morning breakfast, 3-4 pit stops, bottle/food and ball prep once again it's off to the starting line.



The several hundred riders at the line are off with the sound of the fire truck siren...really:

....and in a dust cloud we were off.

The first few laps went by in a flash, sub 30 minute laps in an endurance race are a little strange....but I felt good and was just rolling along. I was stopping every other lap for a bottle change and throw down a little grub. Things were chugging along just fine till I went out of my 6th lap. The first single track section was a flat and VERY fast section with a few slight turn here and there. Well lets just say I misjudged my speed on one of these slight turns and a tree ran out in front on me.....and by saying it ran out in front on me I mean I tried to do a power slide to miss it and it reached out and pulled me into it.

Pretty much broadsided the tree, lost some skin on the forearm, and slammed my shoulder into said running tree. But the biggie was I whacked the back of my head pretty damn hard. I must have tried to turn my head away from the impacted and most of the blow was taken by the back of my head just below my helmet. Let's say it hurt a little, but after a couple seconds away I went. The head hurt the worst until about five minutes later when I started feeling my jaw. Could not really open my mouth (which the Wife would love) without pain, so the wheels upstairs started thinking I broke my jaw.....nice, liquid diet...this may not be so bad.

An hour and two laps later I pit to see if I can eat. Was not the easiest thing in the world but I got a banana down...pretty much bite off a piece then used my tongue the smash it against the roof of my mouth. Not ideal, but it worked and back out I went. But this is when the other problems started.

Once I went back out my eyes could not really focus that well and for the first time ever the sunlight was not my eyes friend. I could see fine, but I just could not focus in on anything. Kind of felt like I was daydreaming and then would snap back into what I was doing. Needless to saying this was not ideal, one small half crash and a couple near misses I finished the next lap and week out for another knowing it was not the best idea in the world.

About a mile into the trail I tore a sidewall in the near and was on foot. I ran/walked as I debated what to do in the pits. I had a spare wheelset so I knew I could be in/out in a couple minutes. I was in the pits for less then 2-3 minutes when the Wife came running/rolling in....with the same problem in the rear. She'd heard the reports of the tree on rider abuse and turned off the racer switch and turned on the Wife/Mother questioning switch.

Ten minutes later I had beer in hand. Good, bad or indifferent everything happens for a reason. More then likely she saved me from doing something stupid....well, something stupider then normal.