Saturday, June 18, 2011

elkhorn - after tt (stage 2)

I slept better last night than I ever have at a stage race.  Probably something to do with sleeping outside with nothing to do the next day but ride my TT bike to the startline, race the TT, then chill, then ride to crit, race crit, then chill.  If only all stage races were this simple!  The folks at Elkhorn really pulled out all the stops. I hope anyone that sees the post KNOWS they HAVE to put this on the calendar next year.   It has been awesome!

On to the TT: I chilled a little too long this morning, so only got about 20 mins on the trainer before I had to take off to the start.  Still, legs were spinning smooth and I was able to put the power on.  I went into the TT with no real ambitions or strategy.  This is the first time I hve ridden my TT bike since Walla Walla and I changed the saddle on it before I came out to Elkhorn. (BTW: new Fizik Ares is the bomb!)  Was told most of the time is made on the way out, so I dug pretty hard on the first half.  Felt like I was going good for the 1st quarter as I caught my 30 sec man and was close to getting the 1 min man at that point.  2/4 I started dropping a bit.  Not knowing the course and since it wasn't an exact out-and-back, I wasn't exactly sure how far to dig.  Also, I felt like it was hard to find a groove on the course.  There was just enogh up and down that I found it hard to settle into an even tempo.  Even found myself coming out of the aerobars more than a few times even on the flats.  Also, I kept feeling like I was sliding forward a bit, which put a lot of stress on my arms.  Needless to say, I think I need to take a trip to see Russell at Upper Echelon to get the fit dialed in a little tighter before Cascade.  After this weekend and my mid pack finish in the TT, I am pretty confident in my ability to do really well in GC at Cascade. I still have a lot of time to work on the TT bike and get a bit more intensity in my legs.  High Desert in two weeks will tell all!

All in all really happy with my performances this weekend.  It is good to be able to ride hard and recover well from races again.  It helps that I have such an awesome team to be racing with!  Both Eli and Boone put in solid TTs putting both of them within top ten GC.  They are only a few seconds out of higher positions, so we have some plans for the crit tonight.  I am feeling good with no GC or stage aspirations, so my plan is help them as much as possible.  Probably only to keep everything together till mid race when one of them can launch a move.  If I do end up in a move that starts to stick, I'll probably go easy unless one of them ends up bridging. I just hope it stays dry!  Will try to write about the crit tonight, but might be dinner into bed since we have an early start tomorrow. 

Friday, June 17, 2011

elkhorn - after stage 1

So let me start by saying that Elkhorn is amazing!!!  I am really stoked on all aspects of this race so far.  I can't believe how long the rider count is for this race.  I would also like to say that this might be the cheapest race I have ever done.  We are camping (awesome!), we are eating the spagetti feed that the school puts on, and Eli's family cooked us up an awesome breakfast.  Here is a pic of our camp site (I took them with my computer, so they are lopsided and the quality is not awesome):





Now, how about today's race?  It was beautiful! The first hour of our race we pretty punchy with lots of people trying to start a break.   No break ended up sticking as it seemed like few were really ready to fully commit.  Today's stage had two climbs at 70ish miles.  One was about 2 miles (12ish minutes) at half way through the race.  The other was towards the end followed by a decent into flat run in to the finish.  Before the first, longer climb I was feeling a weak on the bike.  The first hour I followed a few moves and kept things in check, but really did not try to instigate.  Everyone else on the team was doing the same to keep our GC guys from working too hard. Since everyone was helping, it really made the load easier to bare on all of us.   After the first hour with nothing going, this mellowed up a bit. I sat in and as we started to approach the climb, I realized I was feeling pretty spent.  I slammed a few Gu and hoped that would help.  Sure enough, when the climb started I felt great.  We were going at a pretty mellow pace, so I moved up to the front.  I was even able to cover a few moves.  Made it over the top with everyone and most of those that had gotten popped, got back on on the decent.  The stretch between climb 1 and climb 2 was pretty bumpy, but nothing to cause gaps unless it was a break trying to get up the road. We were in good position going into the climb, and I thought it was much shorter than it was.  I covered a move early, then pushed the pace hard up to where I thought the the top was going to be.   After coming around the corner that I thought I would be descending and realizing we were about 1/2 up the climb, I realized I had blown my wad.  I try to follow one attack off  the front, and that was that.  I fell back quick after that. It took me a while to recover and by that point the field was gone.   I chased hard and was able to finish within a minute of the field. Originally I really kicked myself for not sitting in on that climb, then subsequently getting popped.  But I finished really strong and I am doing what I came here to do, which is get some good miles in my legs.  Plan on not going super deep in the TT tomorrow and trying to have some fun with the crit.   We will see what the last days holds.  I have a feeling I will either be covering early moves, get in an early break, or blowing myself up on the climb.  Whatever the case, I am happy.  I have a great team and I am stoked to be in Elkhorn racing with them.

Battery life is at 5% with no power source in site.  Sorry for the rushed report, but at least I actually did it.  PS. I ended up 19th out of 36 riders. 

Elkhorn - and it begins

We left last night for Elkhorn.  We drove to La Grande, which is about 45mins from Baker City, which is city the race will envelop for the next few days.  We stopped in La Grande because one of my team mates, Eli, has family here that very graciously put us up for the night, is currently cooking us breakfast, and is going to help work the feeds for us this weekend.  Got to say, we got it pretty good.
I am really looking forward to this stage race.  The plan is to drive to Baker City, park the van, set up a tent, and race our bikes.  Once we park the van, we are not getting back in it till we leave on Sunday.  Really stoked on that.  I think that we are camping takes some of the seriousness out of the stage race, and if there is one problem with road racing, it is that on the whole, we all take it too seriously.  Anything to lighten the load, camping included, helps.  Speaking of taking things too seriously, a big goal of mine this weekend is not to do what I usually do, which is consume 1000 calories / meal.   Trying to stick to my usual diet of fruit, veg, and whole grains as much as possible.  I'll start with this here apple.

As for today's stage, sounds like it is going to be a select group finish.  The climbs are enough to spit some people out (hopefully not me), but the downhill and flats are long enough that there will be a regrouping.  Field size is small, so we will see how the race unfolds.  There are a few riders that will likely attack early.  My job is most likely going to be following wheel, answering attacks, then sitting in if I get in a break.  Goal is to get any many guys in the front group as possible, while working as little as possible.  Sounds like a big task, so if we can get Boone, Eli (our GC guys) with Adam to stay with them and help out later in the race / on Sunday, I'll be happy.

Since it looks like we have the largest team, people might be looking towards us to set tempo.  If that ends up being the case, I might attack, because I would rather burn my matches in a break then burn them riding on the front.  

Not sure if we will have wifi at the school ground where we are camping, but I plan on posting after every stage.  Looking