Tour of Lancaster 40+

Photo credit: Joe Hess, pictures can be found here:

Day 1. Road Race: I decided to make a go of it as I was on Bikereg.com looking for races this weekend. I wanted to see how my fitness is coming along and I thought Page Valley was this weekend. I found out that it wasn't and was next week. I looked at the flyer and thought it said that there only 200 ft of climbing and the TT was mostly flat. So I decided to go. Well, I arrived and spoke to one of my teammates Andy Shaw about the course and why I came. He laughed and said that I need to see the hill for myself as I said it wasn't supposed to be hilly. We'll I misread the flyer. It actually said 696 feet of climbing instead of mostly flat.
I was in for a big surprise. The first lap was performed at a very leisurely pace, one which I enjoyed including the scenery along the creek. The hill started after a right hand turn and immediately it sloped steeply upwards, then merged into another longer hill. I danced out of the saddle and was within the first 5 riders over the hill, however at that point I needed some recovery time. Not many of the others, they hit it afterwards on the false flat. Oh well, I hung on for dear life at that point. Every lap it continued, though on the 2nd lap, 5 or 6 guys got away at the hill. I could do nothing except to hang on and on the downhill section, I was able to recover. I tried to stay towards the front knowing that I would have the best chance of not getting dropped. Art Brown who missed the break was at the front working trying to bring the break back. I was behind him on the 3rd lap and he turned around yelling at others to work...I just shook my head and told him I was already tapped out. He of course probably didn't believe it. However based upon my training this year, I have such a limited base with most of my rides lasting only 20-25 miles at the most (a couple times a week). He bridged up later in the race, as did Randy Thrasher as well. Ray Manyoky who was up in the break dropped back into our pack. I didn't think he would have as he's a strong climber and has been looking really strong this year. Funny thing this guy Andrew Melnychenko, kept remarking that I was still there after the hill, I chuckled saying that I was lucky. On the last lap, I asked him if it was the last lap and he gave me the affirmative and I remarked good because I wouldn't be able to take another hill climb. That was the truth, the last time up the hill, taxed me, I dropped back as my legs were cramping and I soft pedaled for a while trying to recover. Two riders behind me passed me and I tried to work with one guy for a while, though he was much stronger and continued to pull away. My teammate Mark Klein, was nowhere in sight as he dropped back behind me on the climb. The climb to the finish was insult to injury. I basically soft pedaled to the finish as originally I thought the finish was before the hill. As I went up the hill I saw the 200m sign, oh well.. just continue to ride to the finish. Ouch, my legs were definitely cramping as I got in my car for the drive home.

I got back and went to the The Bicycle Shop to pick up my Polar cycling computer as I would need it for tomorrow for the Time Trial. I put my leg over a bike at the shop to check it out and immediately my hamstring cramped up badly. I quickly dismounted and rubbed it out. I got home and ate a chicken dinner with some pasta trying to refuel and recover for the next day.

Photo credit: Michael L. Kirk; pictures can be found here

Day 2: Time Trial
I got up at 5:30 am, took a shower and got in the car to leave at 6am so I could arrive with plenty of time before my 8:57 start time. It seemed to be a bit longer in distance than I originally expected. It was raining and I was not going to like the TT. I arrived with about 30 minutes before my start time and didn't have much of a time to warm up as I didn't want to get too wet. I've been riding without my Polar CS200 for about a month and a half. I actually forgot how to read it and didn't use it except for the Speed guage. Even that, I didn't take a look at it for much of the TT. I was totally paralyzed by fear because of the wet roads. I took some of the corners at good speeds, till the technical part of the course with the curves. I ended up on one turn into the farmer's corn field because I didn't want to panic as I took the wrong line as a truck was in front of me and slowing. No hitting the brakes for me, I took the line into the field and for about 10 seconds I came back on making sure that I took a place on the asphalt which didn't have a large difference in height with the corn field. The girl watching the corner probably had a great view and good thing she didn't have a camera out, otherwise I'd be on that infamous web site. After that I took most of the corners pretty slow. On the back section, I kept my pace at a decent level, as I didn't know how much further I had. Then I saw the officials tent... oh no, so I buried myself and sprinted to the finish. I had plenty of energy left. I should have put in 120% of the effort when I turned on to the back stretch. Next time I will, now that I know the course. I finished up pretty disappointed with myself with the 20th place. Kind of like yesterday, though I was actually happy yesterday that I finished not so far back.

Crit:
Fast and furious for the first five laps. George Opria was the instigator and Art Brown hung on to George as they were battling for the GC. I was around forth wheel for the first five laps. I was over the redline and needed to fall back and drop the pace down a bit. That's when the break happened and I had nothing in me to chase on. The rest is history. Every time Ray, Randy, Mark would attack the Spinners Cycling and Swashbuckler Brewing guys would jump on and prevent anyone from working. Yes, they did a good job on teamwork, however after the break got out of eyesight, they shouldn't have kept that tactic up. I went on a two lap flyer, got a little gap going however I had a guy on my tail who wouldn't pull through to help. I finally made him do some work, but by then, we were starting to get caught and I was pretty toasted. The last couple of laps Ray was up front pulling everyone along, then the jump came and went, I was blocked out on a turn, then tried to give it a good last sprint at the end but there just wasn't enough runway as I was catching the three guys ahead of me but the finish line was just after the final turn. Oh well, such is racing. No lead out train for me. I was pleased with this weekend as I didn't give up or get dropped in the criterium. So over all my fitness is getting better, however who knows what my training will be in the next few weeks.

Great event in my opinion and maybe I'll be better prepared next year. 

One other point to the promoter, Rich Ruoff,  on how to improve it.  Don't give omnium points for those who do not register for all events or complete all events.  They can win money for the individual events, however they aren't in it for the GC.

Poolesville from the back.

As Rayman often does, I got a chance to view it really from the way back! Nah. I wasn't even riding. I was driving the sweep car in the Mens Cat 4 race. Well, to say the least, I really didn't see much as I was relegated to picking up all of those riders who flatted. First lap around, right around the corner to the gravel road...a rider apparently flatted, I picked him up. Then, I passed a couple of others who flatted, however didn't want a ride. Then another closer to the end of the gravel section and another up the rollers. I was full with 3 riders in my car. Luckily I put my Thule bike rack on top of the car today. I had a fork mount and an upright carrier. The last bike I had to take the wheels apart and put it in my trunk with the other front wheel. I didn't think I would be able to fit a large bike in the trunk, however did pretty well. Next time I'll opt out of doing the sweep car as I don't have enough room. I dropped them off at the start, went looking for extra tubes because apparently there was a mechanic who was repairing flats at the end of the gravel road. I think someone grabbed them already so I went back to picking up all of the other flatters. The first time around there must have been about 8 flats. The second time, I picked up another full car, and brought them to corner 1 and dropped them off. I was beginning to wonder if there would be a lap without a flat. 3rd lap, racing around to get back in the caravan, I went around and found a turtle in the middle of the road...I quickly backed up and then scooted it across the road into the woods. It could have made for a nasty crash, plus a nice dead turtle. I went around picking up another three up this lap. The final lap, a crash happened on the gravel area. Apparently someone lost a bottle, causing it to get lodged in someone's front wheel. Guys were laying around in the woods. I'm pretty sure there was lots of poison ivy there though these guys decided to just lie there and roll around in the stuff. I asked them if they needed rides or if they needed medical attention, all of them including one who had a nice wheel out of true declined. Luckily for me, as I wasn't sure if I wanted poison ivy all over my car and me. I don't think I had to pick up anyone on this lap, luckily.

I'm just glad I didn't race today as I don't tend not to do well on this course. I think I've only completed it once. I crashed out once, flatted once up the rollers, luckily picked up with Super Dave in a pickup truck, so I didn't feel badly that I didn't finish as the best of them didn't either.

Well after picking up lunch, I lined up as the follow vehicle for the Womens 3/4 race. Well, I didn't have to pickup any flatters as the sweep van was in back of me. The Womens 3/4 race was a small field of about 12 or less women. It seemed to be a leisurely pace for a the first few laps. I don't think any one flatted. At one point it seemed to almost stop. Well... they did stop a couple of times, neutralized, as the CAT 123 and CAT 3/4 racers passed by. I was really surprised no one woman would try to solo it for the win with 2 laps to go. I think it would have been pretty easy for one or two to get away. The last lap was the telling lap on who was fit. The womens field broke up to two fields before gravel section, then after the gravel section it dissipated to pairs of riders. So.. that was the view from the back.

After I did my job, I went for another 2 1/2 hour drive to Bethany Beach to meet up with the family. It was a very refreshing recovery day for me on Sunday. I got sunburned pretty badly on my back, trying to even out my tan. Sunday afternoon, I went out to eat crabs! Yum.. I hadn't had crabs for a while. It was a great treat.
Back to work today... I think I'll race Greenbelt Wednesday for the only time this year.

Punishment why?!!

Well, someone's trying to punish me. I didn't race Tour of Washington County because I had some family stuff to do on Saturday and Sunday. I blogged about miracle road rash cures.... didn't knock on wood.

On Saturday morning, I found some free time to go out on a bike ride. I joined up on East West Highway when the DCVelo ride was waiting for the light to change on Connecticut Avenue. I u-turned it to get in line at the back of the pack when the light turned. I said hi to another teammate, Kyle, and then pedaled quickly up the hill to turn onto Conneticut Avenue. Then all of a sudden, my front and back wheel just slipped out. It wasn't raining yet! No gravel which I could see on the ground, I thought I was cornering pretty well. Wham! bike sliding out from under me, hitting my left hand and elbow really hard on the ground with my hip. I quickly got up and readjusted my left shifter. Nothing seemed to be broken, however I told Kyle that I would head home and for him to catch up to the other riders. My hand was coated in oil and my butt, and side. Instead of going home, I decided not to go back and wake up my family with a racket, and I needed to ride, so I continued on to chase back. I spoke to several guys in the pack and they said they saw the Metro Bus leaking a whole lot diesel. Well, thanks guys for telling me. A nice contusion and scrape on my elbow, which looked like it was broken, nice road rash on my ass, and a bruised left wrist with a small scrape. The ride actually was a good ride as the usual hammers were not there, more my speed this time and I actually did every hill. It rained the last part of the way home and I got back to wash myself off. I jumped into the shower, smelled like diesel and couldn't get the oil off of my butt, even after several attempts with soap. The same was true when I washed my ripped bibs and shirt in the washer. Oh well, I'll smell like diesel for the next couple of weeks.
Well, I followed my treatment again, luckily I had some left over Drs. Choice pads. Hopefully in the next couple of days, I'll take the pads off and find out that everything is healed over. Oh yeah, my neck is sore like I got whiplash. It's amazing how even in a fairly slow crash, I probably wasn't going too much over 15 miles an hour, can cause so much destruction.

So much for not crashing this year. Paybacks for not racing? Bad luck for posting about miracle cures for road rash? Who knows. Bad luck.

Recovery.

Well, I thought I'd be back in shape sooner than later. It's been almost 3 weeks since my hernia surgery. I was thinking about racing the Tour of Washington County. Unfortunately, I don't have a TT bike or some clip on bars. So that was a major negative for me in making that decision to do Tour Of WC. The other factor is that since my surgery, I have no core anymore. 3 slices into your stomach muscles are bad. On the long hills, or extended long efforts, I just get tired and fade away. I get gapped and can't come back. Sucks. Oh yeah.. by the way, I went in to the oral surgeon to follow up on a sore bone in my mouth, this is about 5 months since my tooth extraction because of a cracked tooth. Well, he was thinking that it was caused by a bone trying to make its way out of the gum on the roof of my mouth. He probed a bit and couldn't see anything and recommended that I go for a biopsy. Well that is a term for cutting you open and taking something out. So, since I had a bit of time and no meetings in the morning, I decided to go for it. The surgeon basically cut my gum near my molar then peeled it upwards to the bone growth, found no bone chips and decided to cut down the bone which was growing and irritating my gum. Yep.. he took pictures too, it was pretty cool to see how the proceedure was like. However teeth pain for me is like the worst kind of pain. That low throbbing pain cannot be taken away by any medicines including codine, vicodin, etc. I found the best is several Motrin's was best. That's my choice for medicines. Anyway, after getting stiched back up and released, I went back to work. The stiches worked itself out by the end of the day, however a few came out after a few hours. I went out on the hill ride, sucked wheels for the whole time and got dropped. Something is really wrong. It could be the lack of base this past winter, however more likely it's the lack of consistent training. This year is a wash for me. Maybe next year... or may be retirement.

Gamjams miracle road rash cure.

Here is a copy of a post I did on the Bicycle Place listserve almost year ago, (July 6, 2008), when a fellow racer crashed at Nationals.

I found Drs. Choice as the best as it was similar to 2nd Skin "moist burn pad" however it was better at sealing everything up so you don't have to tape the sides so that the pad doesn't move. Drs. Choice's "Hydrocolloid Pad" had the cooling/soothing effect and it also has the ability to soak up some of the draining of the wound, of course most of the draining does leak out. Tegaderm seems to be just a very thin layer as a cover, which works well, however doesn't have the cooling/soothing effect which Drs. Choice's have. 2nd Skin's moist covering was probably the most cooling of the batch, however it never stayed in place when I slept. (I used tape on them, and of course that didn't work out too well as it just slipped off and the tape found itself on the wound itself).

My treatment was to rub the wound with my clean palm/fingers or a clean towel, under the shower. I used Betadine as a antiseptic as it is known to kill bacteria really well and doesn't sting when you apply it. I don't think cause a harsh reaction to the skin like hydrogen peroxide.
Once cleaned dab the wound dry and apply a thin layer of Neosporin + Pain Relief. This stuff is the best for the keeping bacteria out of the wound while healing. Apply the Drs Choice pad choose a size larger much larger than the area of the roadrash. If it is wound is larger, you can always overlap a certain amount of the pads as they are breatheable.

Once the pads are on, you might get some seepage from the wound, don't worry about that, just dab with a tissue or sterile gause. You can keep the pad on for a few days without changing it. (As long as you're not getting any puss or bad smelling leakage, which means you're getting an infection). After about 3 days, you'll probably want to change it as the pad will start not to stick as well as before. I actually changed mine on the 4th day and found that everything was already healing.
By the way, you can shower with these pads, just avoid standing directly in the spray of the water. Wash around the pad and quickly dab the pad dry while making sure the pad doesn't hold much water in it.

If you change your pad, go through the whole process of cleaning the wound in the shower, lightly rinsing and cleaning the wound (don't scrub), dab dry and reappl the Neosporin and pad again. Within about 5 days, my scrapes were already sealed over. I took the one on my elbow off after about 4 days and the one on my hip off within a week. It's still pretty tender, however, everything is nicely sealed up and healing without any scabbing.

If you start getting any bad smelling leakage out of the wound, clean immediately as you probably had some bacteria trapped under the pad or still embedded in the wound. You'll probably have to do some deeper scrubbing and I highly suggest using Betadine. And make sure you use Neosporin as well.

That's my advice. All of these "pads'' work well, and everyone has their favorites, however try them and don't go down the "gauze pad route and let it scab over"as the scabbing will cause more damage later on during the healing process.

By the way, Giant Food had the Drs.Choice pads on a 50% clearance a few weeks back and luckily I bought some. (Maybe I shouldn't have, as that may have jinxed me.)

______________

However recently because of my hernia surgery...the surgeon used a glue which sealed over the incisions really well and apparently this stuff lets the skin breathe and heal just like 2nd skin or NuSkin, however thicker as it holds the skin together. The problem I see with this treatment is that it may not provide pain relief or soak up the oozing.

I haven't crashed in a while...knock on wood, partially because I haven't been racing much and I'm not on the bike as much. The best prevention for road rash!

Online persona: The Muscle

Local winner of many National and Pro races, Russ Langley AKA "the Muscle" from the looks of his blog,(over the past year) makes him look like a bad ass. No fear, take no prisoners, just get out of my way attitude, a big FU to you...

The funny thing is that here is the same guy in a picture captured by one of our local photographers Les Doerfler.



In my opinion, this is a great capture of the riders in our area. Yes... we would all love to be able to put out huge amounts of power, drop your competitors on a whim, and are have an attitude that we are invincible, however the otherside needs to be promoted as well as we are also fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, caring for love ones, making that extra effort to help one and another. This is what we are all about. We love competition, however it is only part of who we really are.

Great capture of the image...

Now for the humor....Russ "The Muscle" just put up a picture of himself modelling...I betcha the "gay racer" will love it. Haha. So do we really know who are fellow racers really are???

Off again.

On again, Off again is my repertoire this year. It seems that my training has been broken into 3 weeks of on and 3 weeks of off the bike this year. It started out gaining fitness, then losing it again, because of the weather, bike issues, then vacation, then rain, then work, family events, then health issues.

Well, I did say I would provide you some pictures of the trip to China.

Here is one from X'ian where we visited the museum where the Terracotta Soldiers were being unearthed and put back together from broken pieces. It's like trying to put together a puzzle with the same color.
It was truly an amazing site to see what humans are able to accomplish through their hard work and dedication.  They didn't have tools we have today, so this must have been one hell of a production line, or at least they performed it over many years of constant labor.   This site was only one of the three sites they had uncovered.  As you can see this is about the size of about a few soccer/football fields combined under one roof. 

On another tour, we got to visit a remote village in Yangshuo.  We met a farmer who was about 75-80 years old and fit as an ox.  He was very kind to share with us his house and we experienced how he lived.  He wanted to impress upon us how his fitness was.  At that point he picked up a large stone (around 250-300 lbs to my estimate) and dragged it several feet and back again.   Then he picked up a couple of stones he must have carved into weights (40-60lbs.) He performed several one hand military presses.  Pretty strong and fit!  I then decided to see how heavy the stone pillar was.  Well, to say the least it was heavy.  I picked it up a few inches, moved it about a half of a foot then released it as my arms/shoulders felt some major tingling and shocks.   It felt like I had stretched my muscles not totally properly.    Well, that was enough for me.  This guys was impressive, though he probably was used to all of the labor and has the strength which I am no longer used to since I don't lift weights anymore. 


Well, later that evening after our huge dinner, I went back to the hotel room, stuffed, then looked down at my belly.  There was a bulge coming out from my crotch which wasn't typically there.  I must have bust my belly.... I knew this was probably a hernia.  Oh no, we were less than half of the way through our tour.   So the next several days, I kept an eye on the hernia and hoping not to stress it so that I would end up in the hospital.  I can't attribute it to the lifting of the stone, as I didn't feel anything rip in my stomach or groin area, however it may be the cause. 

The next photos are from our trip in Guilin, a small city, population of almost 2 million, however very different from the larger cities like Beijing, X'ian, Shanghai as it didn't have quite as many skyscrapers and the pace of life was much slower. The scenes you see are from a boat trip we took down the Li River to a smaller town called Yangshou. The town was very picturesque. Here's a link to the view of the town from above:
As we were traveling down the Li River by boat.


There was lots to do as far as shopping was concerned as it seemed to be a market for everything. We did spend some time purchasing some painted scrolls there.

We also toured a large cavern, however was not really impressed as if you've seen one cavern you've seen them all.

One of the unique things in Guilin was to be able to see the silk factories where the silk was produced and spun as well as to go to a silk market where we of course were trapped to buy lots of silk stuff including bedding and clothing.

The next day we traveled back to Guilin to see the beautiful lakes where many of the Chinese celebrate their honeymoon.

We then traveled to Hong Hong were exposed to the Gateway to the East. Hong Kong was impressive just based upon the number of extremely high sky scrapers on the horizon. Everywhere you looked there were skyscrapers. It was a unique experience, however not really a place for tourists unless you are there to enjoy city life. There were little shopping bargains to be found as the cost of living is so high. There was a shopping market, however only for outlet stuff (closouts)and even that wasn't much of a bargain. The below picture is a view looking at Hong Kong City from a hotel on Kowloon Peninsula, where we were sitting having some late night eats drinks.

Our last stop was in Shanghai, a busy city, again with skyscrapers all over the place, similar to Hong Kong, however probably better shopping. We didn't

Anyway, enough about my trip to China. Basically it was off for 3 weeks then I got going again on my training, only to be broken up with all of the rain and weekend activities including my son birthday party, my anniversary weekend, more family stuff and of course last Friday, I got my hernia operation.
I went in on Friday morning, came out with a few small incisions in my belly for Laproscopic surgery, I was working in the evening catching up and then by Saturday, I was mowing the lawn and weeding. Stuff I'm not really supposed to do. It was time off to do those things instead of going for a ride or taking my kids to tutor lessons, play dates, etc... My doctor says I have to stay off of the bike for 2 weeks, and I know I will be going crazy thinking of the fitness I will lose.
I don't know when I will actually race this year and it is frustrating.
I'm actually thinking of retiring from racing if these things keep coming up to take me away from being able to race and train properly. Oh well. C'est La Vie!