Gloucester - Part 1

The big weekend has come and gone - and after all the hype I'm quite satisfied with my first experience at New England World Championships. Brian came up for the races, and proved that its not possible for him to take any sort of cycling lightly.

We were both registered for the men's 4 race, which went off at 9 am both days. Friday night I begrudgingly set the alarm for 5:30 and reminded myself why I should train and move up to B's and get some freakin' sleep.

I awoke on Saturday morning out of frustration for the MBTA Bus barrier in the cross race during my REM. When I rolled over to check the time I saw it was 6:30 - the classic set-the-alarm-for-PM-instead-of-AM mistake had gotten me again! Despite our panicked departure we arrived with plenty of time to get our numbers and preview the course.

As I got to staging I was a little uneasy about the start - an uphill pavement stretch with a slight left hand turn, oh, and 124 other cat 4's. We were staged by registration order, and I was about 90th. The whistle blew and there was a good 5 seconds before I was in the saddle. I knew the only hope was to burn it for this first lap or the front of the pack would be gone. I made my way through the pack, picking off riders in groups of 5 or 10, sometimes taking my track experience and squeezing through some fairly tight spots, much to the dismay of the other riders.

When we hit the hole shot I had probably moved up about 35-40 places, puting me around 50th. Through the first lap I picked off enough riders to get up to about 35th place. Things were feeling really good - I wasn't going under, still had some gas in the tank. Turns out taking 2 weeks off with a head cold left me well rested and ready to go.

On lap three coming into the run up I discovered that my new pedals and shoes weren't exactly dialed in, and the resulting 35 degree release angle on my left foot sent me nearly through the tape at the bottom of the barrier run up. Frazzled as I was, I made my way over the barriers, which felt like they were about 4 feet tall, and into the SRAM switchback section. Made it through the 180, but the off camber wet grass got the better of me, and I went down hard on my left side, sliding across the grass.

Shit. I dropped my chain, my brain wasn't working, I had no idea what I was doing. Maybe it was the lactic acid getting between the neurons. I fumbled for a minute with the chain, until I was yelled at for standing on the turn. I snapped to, and ran the rest of the turn as about 10 guys, including Brian, got past me. Up until then I held on to a shred of hope that maybe, just maybe, I'd beat Brian in a cycling race. Not going to happen. Finally I got the chain on and headed back up the pavement.

Despite the embarrassing chain debacle, I held on for a 43rd place finish, which was good enough for me given the crash and my terrible barrier traverse.

Goals: Part 1

Low key weekend. Last weeks efforts left me with a nagging head cold that I've been unable to shake. I got out on the bike once and managed to shake my fears that I would forget how to remount. The true test will be when I'm shoulder to shoulder with 124 other Cat 4's. This weekend will be ridiculous.

And since nothing brings on motivation like being sick (and thus having an excuse to not act upon that motivation) I've been pondering some goal setting. It is, after all, all the rage.

Mounts/Dismounts:
While it is true that thanks to Mark McCormack I finally can remount the bike, it has yet to be race proven. I'd like to remounting without a stutter-step 100% of the time by the end of the season. Similarly I would like to be able to be 100% comfortable with the 2 step, 4 step, 4 step routine for the double barriers, such that I'm always jumping off of, and landing on, the same foot.

Upgrade:
I would like to gather the points to upgrade to a 3 from a 4. This should be attainable, considering I actually get my ass out of bed early enough to race in the 4's, and am also succesful at the next goal, which is:

Strong Starts
Yeah, I've only raced two races, and yeah, the second race was a 3/4 that I had no business being in so I sheepishly lined up at the back of the group for a 50 foot coast to a stop, but the only way to get top 10 finishes is to seal the deal in the first two laps, which means a solid start. At Bedford I was caught in the pile up in the first turn, and left the carnage in last place, at which point i made up about half the field to get into 19th. Looking at the results I was 30 seconds out of the top 10, something I totally could've closed. This also means being at the line 25 minutes before the gun, and being (be - be) agressive.

Tokyo Drift:
Cause how do you corner, anyway?

And the requisite "reach" goal:
would probably be a top 50% finish in the 3/4. I figure that since the long trail killed all my bike fitness, and I'm likely not going to gain much in the next two months given my work/school schedule, this is a bit of a reach.

Thats it for now..

I can remount!!

most of the time... Basically in 2 1/2 hours I went from never properly remounting a cross race, to remounting in the drops after double barriers. Whats the trick? Mark McCormack. The former national champion held a private clinic for the Cambridge Bicycle Cyclocross Team tonight, and everything came together. My goal is to be 100 percent with it by Gloucester, so at least I can look like I'm going fast.

In other non-cyclocross news, I got a phone call today from my attorney. He informed me that he had a case similar enough to mine that he dug up my file, and was encouraging me to piggy back on it. So here we go, back in the legal game.

Now that I've got cross on the brain I've got to set some goals, including mastering the McCormack 2-4-4 barrier dance.

Amesbury Cross

What a ridiculous course. Amesbury combined roots and sand into a dusty clusterfuck in the Men's B.

First off, I have no business riding in the B's - this was my second cross race, and I spent the month of August completely off my bike. But somehow the idea of not waking up at 530 am to make it for the C's appealed to me, and I justified it as "more training time."

I lined up 20 minutes prior to the start in the back 20% of the group. Hard to say what row I was in, as people were pretty much just jammed in almost perpendicular to each other. The whistle goes and take what space I can for about 100 feet until the course bottlenecks 50+ guys into a 6 foot wide trail. Dead stop. I scooter around some kids and enter root city. I was running my tires at about 45 psi and still bouncing around substantially, but didn't want to risk a pinch flat.

After the barriers the course went back into the woods. At each corner I was stuck behind riders taking terrible lines. I finally got a chance to make a move when a guy in front of me goes down hard and my front tire hits his torso dead on. For the first time in years I was up and over the bars. It was good, I needed that. At least 10 guys got by at that point, but I was up and moving.

The rest of the race was gritty and rough. I ran the steep descent each lap, and maintained the same pace as those who rode it - sometimes even passed them. I took one hard crash on the off camber and sent my knee into my drops. Doesn't feel so hot today.

Despite finishing in the last 5% of the pack, I met my goal, which was to not get lapped, and I wasn't DFL. Given the racquetball sized contusion on my left leg, I feel pretty good about it.




Gotta love those shoes...




Next weekend off I suspect, Gloucester after that.

new seasons

Well I'm officially terrible at updating. Let's see...

Track season ended with, well, not so much a bang, but it did hurt. Turns out that 23 days in the woods destroys what little track sprinting ability you may have. Needless to say, I lost my last match sprint of the season by no less than 3 inches.

So what now?

Cyclocross, obviously. Last weekend I hit up Bedford for my first cross experience. I'm quite late on the race report. Its best summed up as I line up in the second row, and notice that the guy directly in front of me is in his granny gear. It only got more interesting from there, as the entire field piled up in the first 180 degree turn, leaving me in last place out of the start. I scraped my way through the rest of the race and managed to pull off a reasonable enough mid pack finish.

So what does a mid-pack finish in a C race mean? Do a B race, obviously. Yeah, somehow I signed myself up, fully conscious, for the men's 3/4 race up at Amesbury tomorrow. The goal of tomorrow is to not get lapped.

In other news, my wrist is still potentially broken from my mishap on the Long Trail, which obviously means that I have not seen a physician. Why would I do that?

Out of the woods

Actually for a week now. Last Saturday, on my 24th birthday no less, Sarah and I found ourselves standing at the Canadian at the northern terminus of the Long Trail. After 23 days of roots, rocks, mud, and trail magic we had completed our 273 mile journey. Even a week later its difficult to find much to say about the trip, knowing that it takes someone who has done a thru hike to understand a thru hike. I know that getting into this I had no idea what it would be like. I'll get some pictures up soon - and tell a story or two when the time is right (read: when I'm less lazy).

A walk in the woods

I thought I would have had more time in the past weeks to write about the prep for the long trail, but I didn't.

We leave in the morning.

I think we're ready - the bags are packed to the brim with probably too much food, and not enough of something that I'll know what it is in a few more days. My pack is heavy - lightweight gear doesn't make up for 20 pounds of food.

Well, 270 miles to go. Wish us luck.