Sunday, August 12, 2012

ToC - Races #9 and #10

ToC...as in Tour of the Catskills that is!  After a tough prior two races, ToC was looming on the horizon.  Given my struggle to gain enough fitness to be competitive, I briefly contemplated dropping out of the ToC before it even started.  This is a tough three day stage race that normally I'd be very excited about, even peaking my form for the event.  This hasn't been a normal year however.  A three day race you say yet only races #9 and #10 in the title?  More on that in a bit.  Despite the fact that I still have a lot of work to do to be competitive again, I decided to go anyway and give it my best shot.

Friday's stage was an individual time trial around 12 miles.  This was my first time trial in a long time and it was actually pretty fun...although I did have to dust off the TT bike.  Hey, what can I say...I prefer racing directly against others.  I have never been pushed harder than some of the road races I have done in the past.  Plus you don't always control the situation adding to the fun and difficulty.  Despite my lack of form and training on the TT bike, I turned in a performance I was happy with.  I'm sure I left a good 30 seconds on the course because I was riding blind, no computer what so ever to measure anything.  I'll have that fixed by my next TT where hopefully the result will matter a little more than just training.

Finishing the TT.
Post TT deep thoughts.

Saturday brought a 65.5 mile road race which included the infamous Devil's Kitchen on a nice hot 90+ degree day.  Since many of you have never heard of Devil's Kitchen, let's just say it makes the Devil's Backbone back in Ohio look like...not even child's play, it doesn't even register compared to the Devil's Kitchen.  My goal was to stay with the peloton until the base of Devil's Kitchen and then simply survive.  Well, I achieved my goal but it was waaaay harder that I ever thought it would be.  Only a few miles in, we hit the first climbs of the day.  Nothing too serious but the peloton was in a serious mood causing many watts to be poured out even on the minor stuff.  About 6 or 7 miles in, I was taken out on a climb by some guy who rode into someones wheel and took a hard right turn directly in front of me.  I was even riding in the top third of the field!  I didn't go down but I did smack my left hand and brake hood and had to clip out, stop, and untangle.  I sorted things out quickly and chased back on without any major issue, fixing my crooked brake lever along the way.  From there things got worse as we climbed toward the first KoM of the day.  Gunning from the back is never ideal, especially on a climb which means constantly going around those getting gaped but I had no option thanks the crash.  Well, one moment's inattention was all it took and some guy gaped several of us a good 50 feet off the peloton and I was pinned in.  I finally broke free as a Cosmic rider went flying by to bridge up so I jumped his wheel.  We rejoined as the peloton made a left turn and the road kicked up for the final climb to the KoM.  By now I was in the red and couldn't hang onto the back as the cracks opened up.  Luckily the climb wasn't too terribly long and we had a nice descent to catch back on so I rode my pace to the top.  Once over the top, I had company from three teammates from another team who were chasing hard.  I let them work a while and then jumped in as one of them started to tire.  Shockingly it took longer than I figured and more energy than I expected to catch back on.  Once back, it was pure survival mode given the number of matches I had burned.  Heck, I think I stole someone else's matchbook because I didn't realize I had as many as I did with my limited fitness!  Regardless, once the descent slowed and the rollers started, hanging on was all I could do.  I managed to get a brief reprieve as the course completely flattens/bottoms out about 6-7 miles before Devil's Kitchen.  It was then that I knew it didn't matter, I was done.  56 miles in, I was immediately dropped at the base of Devil's Kitchen and after a couple minutes of climbing, stopped, dismounted, and began to walk.  Walk, really?  Well yes and I wasn't alone by any stretch of the imagination.  You see, Devil's Kitchen consists of 1.4 miles at 16% average and totals 2.1 miles of climbing depending where you measure from.  So yes, I walked.  This bitch makes Brasstown Bald look reasonable.  Both times I have ridden it I have been in complete shock at the gradient.  You cannot comprehend this climb until you have seen it and ridden up the beast plain and simple.  For a detailed write-up, check out this post I found from last year from some guy...

http://thedailygrind.robdamanii.com/2011/08/09/getting-fried-in-the-devils-kitchen/

And if you wonder why it is called Devil's Kitchen, it is because even on a cool day, the heat comes out of nowhere on that climb and cooks you.  It is always hot, searing hot on that climb.  So back to the race, I eventually made it to the top with a series of ride/walk intervals.  Once the road returned to civil gradients, I was immediately back on it and strangly feeling better.  I rode the final 7ish miles strong and finished 59th of 73, somewhere around 15 minutes back.

Chilling before the start.  FGX was well represented, Ira almost won stage 2 and Jimmy took 6th overall

After recovering a little and taking in what seemed like a ton of fluids, it was clear I was pretty beaten up...mentally and physically.  After three consecutive race weekend beatings, by the time Sunday rolled around the weekend had stopped being fun.  The though of fighting just to cling to the back of the peloton yet again was extremely demoralizing.  A minor point was that Stage 3 was the hardest of the race and generated plenty of buzz among the top riders regarding difficulty.  By the time the start rolled around, I packed up and called it a weekend.  Mentally, I was cooked.  It has been a long, challenging road back to health and riding/racing and there's way more to it than I've ever written about here. Not that that is an excuse, but I gave it my best shot and failed.  While some cannot accept or even admit failure, that Sunday it wasn't very tough to accept and admit failure.  Being the competitive person I am, I did beat myself up a bit over my decision...quitting is never easy.  But hindsight being 20/20, the real failure would have been not attempting something so challenging for me for fear of not finishing.  It took me a few days but I'm proud of what I accomplished that weekend.  Those close to me know just how much of a victory that failure actually was.  Maybe next time I'll plan a less grueling comeback haha. 

 

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Mt. Greylock

My posts are a little out of order but that's what happens sometimes when you are playing catch-up.  For Tour of the Hilltowns, my wife and I stayed in Williamstown MA and decided to make a weekend out of the race.  On Sunday, we rode Mt. Greylock...the highest peak in MA tucked up in the northwestern corner.  We started out Sunday morning and climbed the north face first, descended the south face, turned around and climbed the south face, and then descended the north face back to Williamstown.  It was an absolutely beautiful day and afforded me the opportunity to get some more steady climbing into my legs.  Mt. Greylock tops out at 3,491 feet and the northern ascent is about 7 miles in length while the southern ascent comes in around 10 miles.  Both are beautiful but I enjoyed the northern ascent the most.  The view from the top was outstanding and given the clear conditions, we could see four states.  Here are a few pictures from the day...









Now I can check one more state's highest peak off my list!


Race #8 - Capital Region Road Race

After getting my ass handed to me at Tour of the Hilltowns, I decided to jump into another hard road race the following weekend...Capital Region Road Race.  Brillant idea I know!  FGX lined up with six in the Cat 3 race as the rain began to fall.  We had a pretty good line-up with three strong riders, Jimmy, Ira, and Alexi and three on the rebound, Etsu, Darius, and myself.  For me it was another training race and I simply hoped to stay with the peloton as long as possible.  Soon we were under way as the rain began to pick up a bit.  We headed through the feed zone neutral then the pace car sped off and the race was underway.  The pace immediately picked up and seemed to stay at a fairly high level.  The course rolled for the first 6 miles until we hit the first serious climb, a 2-mile stair step climb that seemed to never end.  I slid backward as we climbed but I did manage to hang onto the back of the peloton.  I was again surprised at the wattage the Cat 3 peloton climbs at as the pace seemed aggressive.  My next focus was to recover as quickly as possible because the second kicker of a climb was only a couple miles later.  Before I knew it we were already there and we turned off onto a small side road that seemingly shot straight up and bent around a turn.  I was immediately in trouble as I had yet to recover and I began to slip away from the peloton, a familiar feeling these days.  After I rounded the bend, the road continued upward in excess of 10%.  The top was so close yet so far.  After I crested the climb, I was able to quickly pick up the pace and eventually collected a few other riders.  We worked together for the most part until we hit a main road with some gradual rollers.  On the first roller I heard a yell from the back and we had dropped a rider.  We eased up and waited figuring it was best to remain together.  This happened on the next two rollers and by the third time, I kept the hammer down and never looked back.  At that point, I could see the cars trailing the peloton...I'll be damned if I was waiting again.  A total of three of us hammered ourselves back into the peloton over the next few miles.  I sat in and tried to recover as best I could knowing more climbs were only a few miles away.  As we hit the feed zone climbs, I was shot and dropped away, this time for good.  I continued on after a short debate on dropping out.  I wanted to get at least another good lap in before I'd consider anything.  About 6 miles into the second 20 mile lap, the skies completely opened as I soldiered on.  I didn't seem to mind, in fact it was nice to be out there alone in the pouring rain.  I hooked up with another rider for the last half of the lap and we started rotating.  Unfortunately the sensations weren't right for me, something was off.  I was completely fatigued.  At the end of the second lap, I pulled out of the race.  As I headed back to the car I ran into Darius headed back to the finish line to cheer on the rest of the FGX guys.  I grabbed my rain jacket and did the same.

Afterward, I learned that both Darius and Etsu were dropped before I was.  Neither of them had a good day either quite obviously.  I did manage to take the race for what it was, more training, and not beat myself up too much.  I knew I still had a ways to go to be competitive again.  My goal now became gathering as much fitness as possible and then rest up before Tour of the Catskills.  ToC would be another gamble of a race for me but I was committed to at least giving it my best shot...but that's another post.