Livin' La Vida Fuerte

I don't know where I am going but I am making damn good time!

While I continue down that path that most athletes travel every winter (unless you are fortunate enough to follow summer around the globe or live in a place where it doesn't get cold and dark at 4:30), I am defiantly trying to hang on to the fitness I gained this year. After my first cyclocross race last week, I got a good look at just how much I suck after just a few weeks of reduced activity.

I have been here before and I know like the Swallows of Capistrano, my legs will return. Still, knowing that doesn't make it any easier to take. I am not the naturally fit kind of person. I have to dig and fight like hell for any kind of form and if I stop training for a week, it's all gone. Depressing, yes but it's the life of any single-parent, 40something, 40 hour a week working, weekend warrior athlete.

I am already looking at 2010 races and waiting for dates to be posted to start figuring out what I am going to do. The rough draft is 12-20 races with a mix of endurance, XC, Cyclocross and Road races. So far I am confirmed for the Snake Creek Gap TT series in North Georgia in Jan, Feb and March and the 6 Hours of Warrior Creek in April. On my short list are:

Knobscorcher, 12 Hours of Tsali and Dirt, Sweat and Gears, Discburner.

There will be more but for now that's where I am planning on going. I don't want to do the long trips that I have done in the past couple of years because driving sucks and I am trying to stay relatively close to home so I can have more time with my son and we have a few trips planned for funstuff too. We'll see how it goes.

In the meantime, I have about 6 cyclocross races to keep me mentally and physically on the right track (and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners to blow it all to hell).

Guilty by reason of insanity or mental defect.

Today was round 3 of the Mud, Sweat and Gears Cyclocross series in Johnson City, Tn. I missed the first two rounds and with it my chance at doing well in the series overall. That combined with my life story of late kinda resembling a screenplay for a new disaster movie and consequently

me spending a lot of time off my bike in the last 5 weeks set me up for what was sure to be a real hum-dinger of a sufferfest. There was also a chance of rain which meant that it was going to pour at some point... it just does. Still, I loaded up bikes and gear for the deal and headed out for Winged Deer Park and a day of self-inflicted punishment. Being that it's Halloween and Spooky Cross, I decided to do something a little special

The first race was at 10:30 and the field was huge. I got a good start, 4th or 5th going up the hill and into the first turn but I knew I wouldn't be able to stay there for the whole race. I started feeling my inactivity real quick and began to fade to eventually finish 16th - still in the upper half of the field though so I was happy.

The course was really tricky with a sandpit with three turns in it (didja ever try riding in deep sand and changing direction?) plus several really extreme off-camber parts that were slick even when dry much less if it got wet.......

The rain came and was cold and steady making the course evil. Several people went down, some of them really hard (one guy probably broke a collarbone). My next race was on my singlespeed and it still had fat mountain bike tires which would serve me well. I usually ride good in slop which was another positive. I hate being cold and wet at the same time though and that was nearly a deal breaker. While I waited for my race, I looked through the car for my balls plus all the warm clothes I could find. An hour, One arm warmer and two knee warmers later, I headed out to get wet and try to get my mind right for the next 30 minutes of my life that were gonna be a bit uncomfortable. I had to ask myself why do I keep putting my body through this kind of torture. I mean days like today are exactly why couches were invented. Hmmm..... Think I'd rather suffer like a dog for a half-hour in a muddy and cold field than get fat on the couch.

I took the start for the singlespeed class and we got about ten feet off the pavement before I got a money-shot of slop right to my face rendering me blind for the next hundred or so yards. I think I got passed there and when I regained most of my sight, I was in 4th right behind my friend Mike Mefford. I felt like that was a good place to be and tried my best to stay there but kept getting crap in my face and messing up my contacts. The course was really slick and the off camber sections were pretty much a free for all. I even crashed once and slid to the bottom on my stomach, fun times.....

I ended up 6th and happy that I stuck it out. I knew this race was going to be particularly hard on me and I wasn't disappointed. Still, it was fun and after a hot shower and some food, I forgot about all the pain. Maybe for the next one, I can take some fitness.....

Hmm..........

Sometimes you gotta swing for the fence.....

I have been debating whether or not to write this blog entry but I thought why the hell not, I am among friends right?
On Sept 11 (oddly enough) my wife and I decided to end our relationship and go our separate ways. This was not a decision that was made in a few minutes or even an hour or two. The decision to part came after 5 years of counseling, trying to work it out and eventually facing the reality that "It just ain't happening". The details thereof are really not important and I am exceedingly happy that we can remain good friends and make the best of a bad situation.
It was a hard decision in the begining but as things went along, I realized it was the only decision I had to make and in the end, I truly believe that the lives of me, her and our son will benefit in a positive way.
For me, my job now is to focus on single-dadhood and give my son the best of me. I am excited about it and plan to face it like I do any challenge I have ever faced - Wide Fucking Open. I only know one way and that is to throw all I have into it.

I intend to continue racing and riding bikes although at this point I am not sure what next year's schedule will look like..... I am not really worried about it. Bike racing is and always has been something I do for me. I have fun with it and am fortunate to be associated with some really cool people that make some really cool bike stuff. I will continue with them as long as they want me around. Bikes and racing will always be there. No worries.

For those of you that have sent me notes and messages of support.. I thank you.

Rock on good people....

Upside down and backwards.........

I went to the 12 Hours of Dauset last weekend with my buddy and longtime teammate/racing partner Bob Lamberson and his wife Anet. The weather was perfect, the course was well groomed and pretty damn sweet. I had great legs and felt like it was going to be a good race. Approximately 2 hours into the race however, things went to hell quick and left me wondering if I was even going to say anything about it or just pretend it never happened.

Here's how it unfolded.

I arrived at Dauset trails in Jackson GA Friday night under the cover of darkness, kinda like a trail ninja, yeah that's how I roll. After putting the Honda into RV mode I got some sleep. Saturday morning greeted us with a perfect day for racing. After breakfast, me and Bob took off for some riding and looking at the course. The trails at Dauset are typical middle Georgia: sandy over hardpack with plenty of roots and rocks here and there. While you don't have the 30-45 minute climbs that you find further up the Appalachians, there are a lot of little climbs and rollers but this course, by way of comparison to some of the others I have ridden recently, was really tame. I heard a 1000 feet of climbing per lap and I am sure that was true, it just didn't feel like that much.
My back had been bothering me for the 2 days prior to the race, so much so that on Friday I wasn't sure I'd be able to race. Oddly enough, it felt fine while I was riding. Walking or sitting around caused problems, riding, no problem. Soon enough it was time to start. We agreed that Bob would go first and then me. I was fine with that since my back was bothering me and I hate running anyway (all Goneriding races begin with a LeMans start, another reason to hate the French!). After the start, I had about 40 minutes before I needed to be in staging waiting on Bob. I figured he'd do about a 45-50 minute lap and when he rolled in at about 47 minutes, I took off. Judging from the riders I had seen come through before him, I calculated that we were around 15th overall and most likely either leading the Duo or at worst in 2nd. Not really a big deal with 11 hours of racing to go but nice to know at any rate.
I felt great! I immediately passed two people that had left a bit before me and that felt good. I tried to lay down a fairly solid lap time but not kill myself in the process. In a lot of ways doing a Duo race is harder than just going solo. You tend to ride faster than a solo pace and you have only enough time between laps to get cold and stiff. You recover a bit maybe but it ain't easy by any means. I rode fast enough and came in without any problems in about 48 minutes.
I refilled my water bottle, ate some grapes and that's about all I had time for before it was time to go back to staging. Bob's 2nd lap was about the same as his first and I went out for what I assumed would be another great lap. What I didn't see coming was the freight train that would end my day approximately 2 miles into the lap. What happened exactly, isn't important. I had a major mechanical failure. The type that could happen to anyone at any time. The reason I am being tight-lipped about it is how in this day and age people bash everyone's stuff and that just pisses me off. I love my sponsors and they make good stuff and they have been good to me. Shit happens and what happened in Georgia was just a thang.
Having said that, I have gone for about 5 years without even so much as a flat tire so I was kinda pissed off that my day was now over. I had 5 miles to go to the end of the lap and I could ride my bike (albeit slowly and very carefully) way faster than I could run so I did. I got back and made the hand-off to Bob and he knew my day was done. I returned to the pits and considered my options. I could sit there and stew for the rest of the day; I could take my cross bike off the car (I had my cross bike instead of a spare mountain bike because I was planning to do a cyclocross race the next day back in Tennessee) and give it a try; or I could go home.
I actually did try the cross bike but that wasn't going to work so I headed home. I set out for a great weekend of racing but ended up back home before the damn race was even over.
Bob went on to finish the race and due to his efforts "we" ended up 7th in the Duo class. Anet won the Female solo in Viking fashion, she killed everyone! Great job Anet!

After a five hour drive home with some of my favorite music and a three hour mountain bike ride on Sunday, I was back in a decent mood by the end of the weekend.

Wild Chimps and Other Scary Things

The Black Bear Rampage was the first mountain bike race for me since the 12 Hours of Tsali way back in May.It has been a strange summer indeed. Last year, I was racing on average about every two to three weeks and this year it's been three months between them and that's just weird. Heading to the Ocoee Whitewater Center on Saturday, I got excited. I was ready to ride! After finding a safe place to park (the WW Ctr was too damned spooky!, I went to the Thunder Rock Campground and poached a parking place, hey the campground was full. I woulda gladly paid if I actually stayed in it), I got the Honda in RV mode and put Talledega Nights in my laptop (always cracks me up) and settled in.

Sunday morning was a bit cool and it's no secret that I am a baby when it comes to cold. I'll suck it up and ride in it but I will bitch and complain every step until I get comfortable. After getting dressed and enough nutrients packed in my water bottles for 4 hours in the woods, I set off to try to warm-up. I had been here before at the 2008 Cohutta 100. I knew the start was going to be a roughly 2 mile road climb that was gonna hurt. I wanted to be ready because my goals for the day were: Stay with the leaders up the road climb and into the singletrack, try to find a comfortable spot to hang out for three hours or so and then try to surge towards the end and pick up as many spots as I could. I wanted to podium but being realistic, this was my first mtb race in 3 months and even though I have done lots of road riding in the mountains and several short track races, there is no substitute for off-road endurance racing except doing it. I was just going to have fun.

At the start,I asserted myself near the back of the lead group of 10 or so and the climb with cold legs really hurt! Kinda like being punched repeatedly in the testicles by a wild chimpanzee.... uh or something like that. Over the top and into the singletrack, I tried to keep contact with the leaders but it was clear after the first 4 or 5 miles that they weren't going to be worrying about me that day. I faded some and found a pace that I could live with for most of the race. I still planned to try to speed up some towards the end of it but for now I was on cruise control.
There were sections of the course that were fairly rooty and rocky. My summer of mostly road riding cost me a little of my rigid singlespeed riding fitness and that manifest itself mostly in my arms got the shit beat out of them. My triceps ached by the midpoint of the race and that hasn't happened in a long time. It took me a crazy long time to warm-up after the start. My inner child was throwing a fit because I was doing something that I hadn't done in awhile but I've never been much to bow down to my personal frailties and I just ignored it and rode on. Finally on a long climb, oddly enough, near the 20 mile mark, I felt good! I passed about 7 people on my way to the top, many of which just passed me a little earlier. Unfortunately only one was a singlespeed so from that I knew I was probably outside the top ten. I didn't let it bother me and I just kept going and kept trying to keeo my pace as high as I could without doing serious damage to myself. I felt moderately good and had plenty of energy. Through the whole race, I only walked one climb and it was one that pretty much everyone I saw was walking so I was cool with that.

With about 10 miles to go, we went back through the Whitewater Center and I was "smelling the barn" so to speak, or maybe smelling like a barn, both I guess. Rolling through the final 10 miles of singletrack, I accelerated a little and had a little fun. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't closer to the front but it is what it is.
I ended up 14th in the singlespeed class and was on my bike for 3:50. Not a bad time and not a bad result really but I think I'll go back next year with a better plan. It was a very fun race and the course was a sweet mix of mostly singletrack with some fireroad and just a little pavement.

Next on my agenda is the 12 Hours Of Dauset where I will be riding on a 2 man team with my long-time pal and teamate Bob Lamberson. I am really looking forward to riding with Bob again. Our paths have been kinda funky this year and we've hardly ridden together at all.

Peace.

I am the Eye of the Hurricane

With so much going on in my life lately, both good and bad, I kinda feel like I have been in a Cat 5 storm just hanging on for dear life. I call it Hurricane Juan Pablo, don't ask me why. It's my story and I can name the damn storm anything I want. Oddly enough, I am calm and have clarity in my thoughts that I have not seen in years. I feel like I am the eye in the Hurricane.

I am leaving today for my first mountain bike race in 3 months, the Black Bear Rampage held at the Ocoee Whitewater Center and Tanasi trail system near Ducktown, Tn. I have ridden these trails some when I did the Cohutta 100 last year and they are really fun. I am looking forward to getting back to the business of bike racing. Tomorrow's event is a 40something mile romp and should be a hoot! I am hoping the form that I have discovered in the last month's worth of weekend deathrides and weeknight short track races will see me through to stand somewhere on the podium by days end.

At any rate, it should be fun and I am looking forward to it and to next week's 12 Hours of Dauset where I will be teaming up with my buddy Bob Lamberson for a 2 man team.

Until then, Ciao my peeps!

Deathride.

"You rise, you fall, you're down then you rise again. What don't kill ya, make ya more strong."

--James Hetfield.

I know some of you have probably written Duckman off and who could blame ya? I have gone "off the grid" for awhile due to several factors including but not limited to: personal calamity, shitty economy, stress, lack of audience participation, and I lost my supply of give a f**k. Can I get a witness?

One thing I didn't do in my sabatacal is forsake training and riding. Nope fish gotta swim and Duckman's gotta ride. I have missed racing this year, really missed it but in it's absence I have substituted a sometimes weekly ritual simply know as................. Deathride.

My buddy and creator of some hella-sweet MSG Cylocross courses, Dwayne Letterman has a knack for putting together tiny goat-path mountain roads in such a combination that they are a lot of fun and pain to ride. As always, what don't kill ya, make ya more strong. These rides not only build fitness and character, they also make memories.

Some of the places you have never heard of: Flag Pond, Oak Hill, Shady Valley, Bald Mtn, Windy Gap, Baileyton, Indian Graves Gap, Oak Hill. Some you may know such as Beech Mountain, made famous by one dude from Texas with the initials LA, thinks he's pretty good on a bike or something ;).

Each one has it's own brand of suffering. Baileyton is mostly flat to rolling but average speed can be in the 20+ mph for 2 hours or more making what hills are there really painful. The mountains are what they are and that's where the real fun and blue collar suffering comes into play.

Beech Mountain, North Carolina - Good enough for Lance, good enough for me.

We have some steep stuff around here and those rides are always my favorites. There's nothing like the feeling of being 40 miles from home on the wrong side of a mountain in some little place that's not on any map and forget cell phone coverage. You are tired, hot and hungry, the tank is near empty and you still have to climb up and over the fuggin thing to get back. Yeah, dog! Fun times!

Sadly, all things must come to an end, if only for a short time and yesterday's ride over Spivey Gap, Bald Mtn, Windy Gap and Sam's Gap was the last one for the season as things now will get a little busy with Cyclocross and a few late season mountain bike races to take up the weekends. Even though I have missed the racing scene this summer and missed seeing friends that I have made through racing, missed tasting all the different kinds of dirt from different places across the south, I have really enjoyed the fun, comraderie and mindless suffering that has come from Deathride.

Viva la Deathride.

I will be getting back to racing beginning next week with the Black Bear Rampage in Chattanooga and then it's off to Georgia and the 12 Hours Of Dauset the following weekend. After a week or two off, then Cyclocross kicks in and that will put my butt on a bike with a number plasterd to my back all through the fall and winter. God I love racing!

Peace y'all.

3:10 to Yuma

I decided after much waffling, to enter the Tour of Possum Creek Omnium this weekend in Yuma and Gate City Virginia. It has been about 3 years since I last competed in one and that was as a Cat 5. You see, when I quit road racing in 1998 I was a Cat 4 and heading for Cat 3 the next year. I got tired of it though and changed over to off-road. In the years since, all the races I have done have been with a USAC one-day license which allowed me to still compete in the Cat 5 (or beginner) class. This year, I renewed my USAC road license and when I did, I was put back in Cat 4 since you can never go backwards with USAC. Cat 4 races are typically longer, faster and harder than Cat 5 and as you go on up through Cat's 3,2 and 1, it just keeps getting harder and the competition much stiffer.
Given that knowledge plus the fact that this was my first road race in a few years (Crits don't really count because you don't get the full effect of the suffering potential that's available in an Omnium. An Omnium is a mini stage rage typically with a road race and time trial on one day followed by a criterium the next day.)

In short, I had high hopes for the weekend but deep down I expected to suffer like a dog. I wasn't disappointed.

Saturday morning was a 56 mile road race in Yuma. The course was two laps of a 28 mile loop that was fairly flat with a few small rollers just to make it interesting. We started and for the first dozen or so miles, the pace was like a club ride. There were a few hard accelerations on the backside of the loop but other than that, the first lap was a cake walk. Lap two would be different there were a few small attacks from the beginning of the lap and the pace picked up significantly over the first lap. I felt really good and my plan of staying near the front of the group but out of the wind was working well. The further we got into the 2nd lap, the attacks got harder and went from feeling good to hurting pretty quickly. One attack split the group and I managed to stay with the leaders although I was now officially suffering. In the last ten miles of the race, I found myself at the very back of the pack (we were all back together since the chase group caught back up). I knew that there would be an attack at one of the two small hills at the end of the lap and I had about 5 miles to make my way to the front to be in a good position to react. I didn't feel so great, the heat was bad and the effects of the hammering going on was really taking it's toll. I found myself in perfect position right on the front at the base of the hill where I felt an attack would come so I gave it a Hail Mary, swing for the fence attack from the front. I got a gap and then I had a massive cramp in my left hamstring that shut me down. I made it over the top alone but it didn't take long for the group to catch me and spit me out the back. I was really mad because I felt like I had a good chance to finish on the podium and I cramped. I drank a lot but maybe the heat and the pace (24.5 mph average for the 56 miles) caused me to underestimate my fluid needs. I wasn't the only one. I cruised across the line with my buddy and only "teamate" for the race, David Hayter, and he was cramping badly too.
I ended up 19th in the RR. Not what I wanted but it is what it is.

The TT was hard to get motivated for. Time trials hurt. It's just you and the clock and you have to go WFO for as long as it is. This one in particular had several small but fugly hills that really hurt and the pavement on half the 12 mile course was so rough it made it hard to stay in a aero position for very long. On top of that, my lack of preparation for this event included setting up my bike with TT bars but not spending enough time on it riding in them. The end result was I was unconmfortable. As I warmed up on my trainer, I contemplated the tree trunks I had for legs and the pain I was about to experience). As expected, the TT didn't go well for me. I got caught by my 30 second man, my minute man, my 1:30 man and even the dude that started two freaking minutes behind me, caught me! I suck at time trials (for now. heheheheh). I finished 12th.

Sunday brought a new day, tired but sorta rested legs and a better attitude. I spent the morning with David helping Super G move some of her stuff into a new storage unit and then headed out to Gate City High School for the Criterium. The course was one of the shortest and most dangerous I have ever seen in 20 years of abusing myself on a bike. It was barely .5 miles long and had three 180 degree turns (one of 'em was kind of off camber) and a nearly 360 degree round a bout (that one was actually not bad). I warmed up amid the heat, it must have been about three thousand degrees out there and watched the end of the Cat 3 race where one of my friends crashed twice. Kudos to him for not giving up although I am sure that second crash really hurt! I had shit for legs and I really didn't want to crash so I played it safe and just hovered near the back of the field. There were a few crashes (one right in front of me but I was able to avoid it) and a few DNF's so when the dust settled, I ended up 9th and that combined with my results from the previous day gave me 10th OA.

I am ok with that.I wanted to podium but this was my first road race/omnium in three years and my first Cat 4 race in 11 years. Despite doing a lot of riding and racing this year (the mountain bike races I do don't really give you the fitness for this stuff and cyclocross gives you the intensity but it's just not the same either) I just haven't trained for this kind of racing. So given that, I am not unhappy with how I did and besides, I had a lot of fun and that's what it's really about anyway.

Peace.

Long Dry Spell...

It's been about 7 weeks since I last raced, the longest period of time (not including winter) that I haven't been on my bike in a race somewhere in about 3 years. Oh I've been riding, a lot actually, just no races. I usually hook up with the TCRC on weekend rides, the kind where you show up with some cash in your pocket and head out into the hills or mountains, stopping at a store hear and there to refuel. Those are fun rides and with the abundance of mountains we have here, great training. I also kick in one or two high intensity rides a week, either with a group or alone. These are shorter than the weekend stuff and waaay harder.
Even though I have a couple of long off-road races on my schedule still (both are in September), I am mainly focusing on fiitness for the cyclocross season coming up in October and running through March. I really like 'cross racing and I'm looking forward to it this year.

This weekend will be something totally different from any of the races I normally do. I entered the Tour of Possum Creek Omnium held just across the border in Virginia. It's got a 56 mile RR on Saturday morning, a 22 mile TT Saturday afternoon and a criterium on Sunday. I haven't done a omnium in a lot of years and I'm looking forward to it. I rode the RR course last night and it is fast with only a few hills. It plays into my strength as a rider and that's my ability to put power down for long periods of time. We'll see how it goes though, I haven't done a road race in a few years, the dynamic is a little different than mountain bike racing. Plus I have no team around me so I will have to rely on my ability to hang with whatever group goes up the road and look for opportunities to get away by myself near the end.

At any rate, it will be fun. I've missed racing and I'm ready to go!

For Haven.......

Some of you know of this, many of you do not.

Two very good friends of mine Kris Fowler and Misty Bateman, owners of Vassago Cycles, have a very sick young daughter - Haven. For two years now she has been battling a rare and terminal form of cancer. She has been treated at Johns-Hopkins Hospital where she is right now with her family. She is undergoing a very agressive chemo threatment that will require her to be in a "clean room" (read completely sterile) for 5 months as her immune system is completely destroyed and allowed to renew itself, hopefully disease free.

Please taken a moment to say a prayer for this family, add them to your prayer list at church, spread the word.

Thanks

http://haveyroo.blogspot.com/