Page Valley RR.

What a tough course! Of course it didn't help that I rode hard on Saturday as well.
I was expecting more of a rolling course than one with two tough climbs.

Saturday, I decided to go out an do the 7 am DC Velo ride. We climbed Mass Ave. with a decent pace, and the pace on MacArthur and Clara Barton didn't seem too taxing. So, I decided it would be a good spin. I purposely didn't take many pulls on the front. We reached Anglers Inn, and the climb started out steadily, then faster. I was feeling really good and noticed that my heart rate was fairly low and if it did spike it dropped down quickly. I reached the top of Anglers with about 5 guys. You know the usual 50+ suspects (Ad Bax, Paul Middlestat). We descended down Great Falls and started back up. Paul seemed to be kicking up the pace constantly. I don't remember who he was chasing, however we were going pretty hard. Back down to Brickyard Road then up the steep hill. Wow.. I was not suffering a bit. Usually at Brickyard, I'm lagging, but on Saturday, I was going strong, only one back from the rider in front. We got back up to River Road and no one was waiting for us, so we all hammered to catch the other guys. We caught a group and passed them on Oaklyn, I rotated through several pulls up the hills and we met up with a faster group at the intersection at River Road. From then it was a fast pace through Potomac and then the final sprint on Democracy. Aziz gave the signal to follow him as he would try to lead me out. James Palo started the first leg, then Aziz, who got caught up in a bit of traffic, then I did my sprint. It felt good. I motored on home to recover after the ride. My legs were feeling good.

I relaxed watching some of the Olympic re-runs, then decided that I should do some house work before the family came home from their vacation. I was on my feet for most of the day. I had a late lunch because of the delay in my father in-law's schedule...We had a nice lunch in Bethesda. It was more like an early dinner as it was about 4 pm. I wasn't too hungry later that evening, however made some pasta at about 9pm, I watched more Olympic coverage til about 1am then went to bed. Oh yea, during the evening, I finally decided to change my chain, as it had been shifting a bit funky. You know you're never supposed to do things like that. I cleaned the cassettes and it didn't shift too well so I put some lube on the cassette and went out for a test ride. Well, it worked decently so I didn't decide to make anymore changes, except to clean the bike. It had definitely been some time since the last cleaning.

As you can see, these are not good habits to follow.

I awoke at 6:15 am, feeling a bit tired still. got packed and ready to go. I made my coffee and had a bowl of cereal. On my way. It was a very nice scenic drive for me and I left with plenty of time to spare. Of course, I passed the turn off of 340 and headed into Stanley, where I went to the gas station to fill up the car. I proceeded down the road looking for the sign, however never saw it. I kept going till I saw the next town and knew I drove too far and backtracked. Luckily I saw another cyclist heading towards the race so I just followed him till I got there. Still plenty of time and I warmed up a little bit and then the race started.

The first lap was slow and everyone seemed to be having fun chatting. I stayed up with the top 10 slots putting in little effort. We reached the first long hill and I found myself moving towards the second position and the guy in front of me was putting in a good brisk effort, he pulled off then I continued the pace from mid-way to the top. Well, I didn't feel too out of breath and it looked bright for me. Next hill came up soon afterward and that one again, I stayed up in the front several spots, dropping back a slight bit when others who had more power decided to pass me.

Down the first part of the course, the pace really picked up. The first half of the course was the recovery section and pace was decently fast. I was in good position coming back up to the long hill. This time I was swallowed up my the pack deciding to go at a much faster pace as a couple of guys attacked the field. That put the hurt into me and I was feeling that I was putting out about 95-100%. The problem was that I found myself towards the back of the pack up the second climb. Several racers picked up their feed and I was caught behind them trying to pass them to bridge back to the pack. We got back to the leaders on the front side downhill section. Time to recover again. It seemed like the pace was not picking up. Obviously riders were sensing that there were several of us, who might not be recovering as quickly.
Third time around on the hills, attacks kept up. This time, however, the attack happened on the bottom of the rise before the hill got steeper. I decided not to put out too much effort as I didn't want to run out of juice for the next climb. I found myself at the back of the pack as apparently many had already dropped. The starts and hesitations on being in the back caused me to suffer. I made it over the top and I definitely wasn't feeling good. The next climb, I was in the middle towards the back of the pack and again, feed zone attack. I tried to react, however my legs wouldn't give me anything, so I backed off. That's when the rubberband broke. I was gapped enough before reaching the top and my heart rate wasn't subsiding. My head wasn't into it and I let the pack go. A couple of riders passed me on the decent and pretty much sat up. That's when Art Brown (who was racing the 123 event), caught me and passed me. I thought, well if he can keep up his pace then I can possible do it to and catch the pack again. I put my head down and started my time trial after Art. I was averaging over 27.5 mph and gaining on him. Well that was till the hills started approaching, my speed dropped and he went out of my sight. Here comes the hill climbs again. My legs were definitely feeling tired, I felt like I had bonked. So, I just took it easy up the hills, some one had yelled that I was 5 minutes behind. That definitely didn't help. So I dropped it another notch down and slowly pedaled up the last hill to the finish line. Over the hill I just looked for the place I was supposed to turn off and go to the parking lot. I stopped and asked for directions with one road guard and then trudged my way back. Another hilly road race which I didn't finish. Oh well, you have to know your limits.

Lessons taught, but probably not going to ever learn:

Don't ride hard the day before a taxing long race. (you can do a short crit and race another race the next day) So you have to wonder how these guys in the Tour de France do it (day after day).

Don't change your bike parts/positioning the day before the race (though nothing happened to me), however it's always bad luck.

Don't stay up too late before a race.

If you've exerted yourself and you know you have to rest, just rest! Don't do all of these other things on your feet.

Eat appropriately before a race.

Oh yeah.. take a day off of riding and rest. I've been riding to work every day this past week and thought I was going to take Friday or Saturday off. I didn't.

So, Today, I'm resting. :)

I hate DNF's.

Vacation and Pain.

I took a week off from Thursday, Aug 7th through Wednesday, Aug.14th. I was really starting to need it. I've been riding a decent amount this year, however most of it comes from commuting (9 miles each way to and from work), sometimes catching the Hill ride on Tuesday and maybe riding on Wednesday at Greenbelt races.

I arrived in Seattle, WA and spent the evening at dinner with the family and my wife's friend at an Ethiopian restaurant. Afterward we enjoyed a couple glasses of wine with my wife and her friend on the roof of her apartment building. What a nice sight of the city, harbor and background mountains.
We left the next morning for Spokane, WA, where we stayed at a beautiful hotel, called The Davenport Hotel. Our children enjoyed a nice swim at the pool, had a nice dinner. My wife and I, had a nice seafood dinner at a local restaurant, Anthony's, which overlooked the Spokane Falls. It was really relaxing. The Davenport Hotel really did a good job of pampering us.

The next morning, we had a long and late breakfast, mainly delayed because of the hotel's restaurant became overloaded by a wedding party. We were comp'ed for the breakfast, which was really nice of them. We headed on our way to Glacier National Park.
The drive was lengthy, however beautiful. Mountains, lakes, rivers were all welcomed scenery. We actually passed a forest fire which was consuming a mountain range. Pretty wild, as we could see the smoke from several miles away. The fire was peaking over the mountain top. As we wound our way around the mountain range, we saw the fire spread over about 20 different areas on the range. It was pretty sad to see this happening, however I heard on the radio later that week that it was started by lightening. Nature's way of rejuvenating the forest. We approached Glacier National Park from the West Entrance and saw that they had a fire a few years back as part the forest was pretty gray/brown from far away.
We arrived at for dinner at Lake McDonald Lodge, a beautiful, historic, hunting lodge. The main entrance area included a huge fireplace (used originally for cooking the meals for the guests, many trophy display pieces of local game including bear, elk, moose, eagles, and a polar bear pelt. Dinner was typical of a US National Park service hotel. It doesn't typically match the atmosphere. My wife and I typically stay at nice hotels (Historic Hotels of America), and typically choose a very restaurant to eat at. So, when you're at the US National Park hotels, you're stuck with whatever the hotel offers as there is limited choices in the park. This was the case at Zion National Park and at the Grand Canyon, though Zion Lodge was probably the best out of all of the restaurants we visited this past year.
We went on a hike on Avalanche Trail to the Cedars. It was a nice stroll uphill next to beautiful river from Avalanche Lake. See link for the e-hike. My daughter recently had a wart on the bottom of her middle toe, which my wife had the dermatologist try to burn off with liquid nitrogen, which didn't work too well even after two tries, then another doctor used some type of acid. The last treatment was done a few days before I arrived in Seattle. So to say the least, she was having a bit of pain on the hike. I carried her back down the hike, only to find that my quads were cramping badly. It was really weird. In the beginning of the summer, I was at the beach, playing around and doing these long strides with my knees bent. I thought I had pulled a muscle in my quad. I had to go out and buy some icy hot to give me relief. I'm thinking it may have been a major cramp as well. I think I'm in decent shape and I don't think the hike should have really tired me. I just checked the internet to see that I probably need to do some cross training. See here: http://www.cptips.com/muspain.htm The next day I had the same problem coming down from the hike on Logan Pass. The hike up was no issue but the downhill walk killed me. I was walking slower than a 90 year old. I had to walk backwards or sidewards while coming down. My quads were constantly cramping and my shins also felt sore (shin splints). So there is definitely something physically wrong with my muscles and training. If anyone had the same experience, let me know, what you did to alleviate this issue.
The hike to the hidden lake at Logan Pass was amazing! We hiked over snow fields, even though it the middle of the summer. We saw lots of Columbian ground squirrels (which look a bit like prairie dogs). From the top we saw a few mountain goats down in a rocky field near a lake in the valley. Other than that we didn't see many other animals.
We traveled from the West side to the East side of Glacier National Park. Then, I left heading back to Seattle to catch my plane home. My family continued the opposite way towards the Teton's and Yellowstone.
I had a nice time, however the next time, I'll probably want to do some camping, so that I see more wildlife, also I'd probably want to do more rugged hiking, though I don't know if my legs will be able to take it. Fishing is something else I really want to do. A few hours fly fishing and or lake fishing would be really relaxing and fun. I know that my family had done some camping already so the hotel stays were probably was a good break for them.

Well, I took the red-eye home and went straight to work. I was pretty tired as I didn't get much sleep on the plane because of this little girl screaming and crying the whole way. I ended up leaving work for the Greenbelt training race. I didn't know how my fitness would be as I've been eating well and enjoying my wine while watching the Olympics. Luckily for me, my fitness hasn't left after a week off. Good! I finished I think 7th, however for the second time, they didn't get my placing. It doesn't really matter, as it's just a training event.

I rode to work on Thursday and took Friday off. Today, I did the Highway to Heaven hill climb. I saw the Gamjam post by Nick Bax on his strategy, however don't know if that really would help anyone except for him. He's a guy who can climb and attack on the a climb. My rides with him every once in a while on Brickyard or Mountaingate is proof enough that not to many can do what he does on the hills. So I rode the hill time trial blind. On the start, I hammered it, thinking that by the second part of the hill, I could recover and keep a good pace up that part. Not the case, as I should have known better, from my climbs. I die if I go too hard on the bottom. In the case of Mountaingate, if I pace myself up, I can be ready for an attack or can attack and make it to the top and recover after that. Well in today's case, the second part of the climb killed me. I dropped from about 14 mph, from the bottom part, down to about 8 mph. Even if the pitch was not as tough as the start, I was blown. It really hurt and I was happy when I reached the third part. I shifted into my big ring and hammered away as Nick has said. Only to find out that I wasn't hammering away to a flat finish. The last 200 meters was another steeper pitch which wasn't ready for as again, I abused myself and blew up. I could barely pedal finishing up at a crawl. I waited for the results and Ad Bax, told me that I was at the top of the list. I was pretty amazed and couldn't believe it as I thought it wasn't a great performance. Unfortunately about 10 minutes later, the ref. said that there a protest. Yep...Karl Connelly from Kelly Benefit had been placed up top. I thought he had probably done well as he was in his long sleeve skin suit and looked like he could climb. I know that I'm not a great climber except for short sprints up, so I couldn't believe that I would win my category. Oh,yeah... I was wheezing and coughing at the end and still am coughing now (8 hours later). Weird, it feels like I have water in my lungs. The thing is that others were coughing like I was including Nick. Hopefully I feel better this evening. I'll probably have a couple glasses of wine to give me some relief. Just like last night, I had a few with friends and stayed up till about 2am watching the Olympics. Yep, Michael Phelps is amazing. Looks like my training regiment includes grapes (wine). Apparently there's a study about grapes(Resveratrol) about how it may enhance performance. I guess I'm a good test subject without really trying... hehe.