Superweek Whitnall Park Road Race- 7/18/11

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to race your bike in a sauna?




I found out exactly what that feels like this past Monday. It was hideously hot and humid as I started the Whitnall Park Road Race at 10:00 in the morning. In my opinion weather shouldn't be unbearable before noon. On Monday, though, it was. Of course, this didn't stop any of us from coming out to race. 23 of us lined up to broast ourselves in the terrible heat for the Men's Cat 4/5 field.



Whitnall Park is where I won a race in April, so in some ways I had a home court advantage. The course on Monday was slightly different--longer actually--and in the opposite direction that I had raced at the Whitnall Park Criterium. The roads were in decent shape, but not fantastic. However, the course had only one sharp turn which was a hard left hander before heading up the finishing climb. The course was rolling and finished with a short steep section approximately 0.5 miles from the finish with a flat/slightly downhill section for the final 300 meters or so. The hill meant the finish would be difficult, but that the final sprint might actually be fairly fast if you could recover in time to give it a go. Although, there was a huge dent in the road just 30 meters or so before the finish (I don't really know what else to call it) that stretched about 70% of the way across from left to right. This meant that my plan was to give a burst of speed on the final climb and then try to stay along the right of the road through to the finish line.





We rolled out only a few minutes late (which is a pretty amazing feat for Superweek) and started our 11 lap (~23 mile) "road race." The race was operated as a road race instead of a criterium which meant no free-lap rule and there was actually a support car driving behind us. Our first couple laps of this glorified circuit race were somewhat blistering in pace as the 4/5 field always seems to like. There was a strong wind from the west, so the north side of the course was a bit difficult as we dove down from the start line and then climbed up into a headwind.

I decided to race this one with my head instead of my legs, so I mostly just sat in following wheels while I let the racers with teammates do most of the work. It paid off and I still had some energy left in the tank to race strong during the last lap. Coming through to the start/finish at one lap to go I found myself in front with a couple other riders as we all spread across the road waiting for someone to take the lead. We eased around our first corner and into the downhill, so I just let myself freewheel easy and wound up on the front. There were a couple piddly attacks as we headed into the headwind and I let myself drift back 5 or 6 places while others initiated the chases. With about a mile to go, an attack lifted the pace as we headed back towards the finish line and I was prepared to stay with them. I got onto 4th or 5th wheel and pushed hard. We hit the hard left hander uphill and I just hung on. I had a point on the hill where I wanted to go all in, but I was forced by the high pace to start my jump two or three bike lengths earlier than I wanted to. It meant that I didn't quite have the power at the peak of the hill that I wanted to, but I was still with the front runners and it stopped me from getting passed by anyone else behind me. I was on the left side of the road and with too many people to make a wild move over to the right where I wanted to be, so I just made the best of my side as I could.

Two guys were strong enough to go off the front over the top and the rest of us were in wild pursuit. Tristan Horvath from MACK racing managed another win against the KS Energies rider who finished second. Meanwhile 9 of us were stampeding towards the line in a group sprint. About 25 meters before the finish I got squinched by the rider on my right as he veered off his line and the rider on my left who was trying to move off the barriers. I sat up enough to avoid a crash and probably sacrificed a place or two in my finish, but still managed 9th. It was a good day, albeit a VERY hot one. Looking back at my heart rate monitor, I recorded yet another new Max HR. 207 this time! This racing back into shape thing isn't going so badly after all.

Next up is the Bravo Cucina Italiana Criterium in Whitefish Bay on Sunday. After that Superweek will be done I won't likely have another race until mid August. Although, I will have more adventures in Colorado to tell about in the interim. Stay tuned.

Before I go. Props to Tristan Horvath! He raced the entire race as a marked man and most of the group made him do work on the front despite being a lone rider without any teammates on Monday. He earned the win the hard way. Nice Work.

South Shore Cyclery Classic 7/14/11

Yesterday I raced in my first Superweek race of the year. I had planned to start my Superweek Stint at the Geneva Grand Prix in Geneva, IL on 7/9/11. However, as luck would have it I was severely undertrained during June and then managed to strain my knee as I began to ramp up my training miles a couple weeks before the Geneva race. Bummer, eh?

That meant that yesterday's race in the South Shore Cyclery Classic was my first race since April. That's a long stint of too little riding and too little training, especially since this is supposed to be my summer of freedom before starting M2 year next year at MCW. I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles.

Anyhow, back to racing. I was happy to be back and ready to ride after dealing with a couple weeks of knee pain, but knew that I wasn't about to be competing for the podium. This is an important thing to figure out as close to the beginning of the race as possible. Sometimes it takes a few laps to know, but I knew it before I lined up so I set my goals accordingly. There were no primes to try for so I decided that I would try to instigate a breakaway close to the finish. I didn't entirely expect to be able to stay with a breakaway given my lack of miles in the past month but I figured it would be a good test and it would be more interesting than just sitting in the pack and going for a glorified group ride.

As I lined up, I met Ben Stengel of Team Emery's Third Coast Lifecyclists. I've read his race reports a few times while he was riding at ToAD and thought he'd be a good fella to try and align myself with after reading about his attacking style. We set out for 18 laps (19.06 miles) and after about 5 laps I found myself talking with him towards the back of the field discussing an opportune moment to make a break. He had already conferred with a few other riders and told me they were considering an attempt around 5 or 6 laps to go. I thought that sounded good and offered to help get away with them even if I couldn't stick it out all the way to the finish.

6 laps to go as we approached the start/finish line and the pace had just slowed after a surge had been brought back. I told Ben as we passed the line that if the pace was still a little sluggish on the back side of our 1 mile lap that I would hit out hard from the group to try and start a break.

That's exactly what I did, and I did it with all I had. I took off with a full bore sprint to corner #3 on the course. I glanced back and saw the whole pack spreading out across the road as they all sprinted in pursuit. I still had a gap as I made my way to corner #4 and one rider from MACK Racing bridged to me as we were coming out of the corner into the finishing straight. He took a pull and a third rider joined us crossing the start finish line. We weren't the most organized yet and I tried to figure out how to slot back into the line and recover a little bit. We rounded corner #1 and I found myself fighting to grab the wheel of a rider from Flatlandia cycling team. By the time we got back around and out of corner #2 I was back on the front and running out of steam. I pulled off and tried to hold my speed as I now had 3 breakaway compatriots, but I had been redlining for the whole lap and in the wind for about 75%. I decided to drop back to the pack, but as they came charging through in pursuit of the break I was too gassed to hang on there as well. That meant it was 4.5 laps of trying to make it to the Finish Line solo.

I kept my pace above 21 mph for most of my solo trip to the line, but never made any gains on the pack. In the end, the three other breakaway riders stayed away for the win with Tristan from MACK Racing taking it at the line while the other two rounded out the podium. I finished dead last. Yep, dead last. However, I've never had so much fun losing in my entire life. It was great. A few more training miles and I could have stayed with that breakaway (okay maybe double the training miles, but still...).

On the bright side I was able to break away from a hard charging pack and hold out around 30 MPH for almost half a mile before being joined by any other riders. AND I set a new Max HR for myself... 203! Crazy, eh?

In hindsight there were only 19 of us who finished so it might have been a better idea to stay in the pack since the prize money paid out to the top 15 finishers...but what fun would that have been? Oh well. That's bike racing!

The Argyle Warriors

Argyle is back and badder than ever.

I think it's fairly safe to say that even after only 5 days of racing the folks at Garmin are having their best Tour de France ever. A win at the Team Time Trial followed by Tyler Farrar's first Tour de France stage win followed by a stunning uphill climbing effort by Thor Hushovd to stay in the yellow Jersey is a pretty stinkin' awesome way to charge through the first week of Le Grand Boucle

And equally exciting...Argyle is back! I for one was pretty unhappy when the always recognizable Garmin argyle got replaced by a classy-but-bland Garmin-Cervelo uniform at the beginning of the cycling season. Having made the typical team Cervelo move of changing from black to white in the heat of the summer, Vaughters must have used a little leverage to bring back that Garmin trademark we've all grown to know and love. I couldn't be happier (with their uniform or their results).

Best of luck to the Garmin boys as the take the Tour by storm.

I am not a Pro

I am not a Pro, and so when things go wrong, I try to take them in stride...unlike some of the frustrated professionals whose bikes are simply office equipment to them.

(I, admittedly, would throw a pen across the room into the garbage if it suddenly ruined an important document I was working on)

Horribly Hilly Hundreds 6/18/11

"Oh, that's right, it's called the horribly hilly hundreds."
"At least it's not the horribly windy hundreds." I replied.

This was the kind of banter and sick sarcasm that was needed in the middle of this ride. But before I get to the middle, maybe I should start at the beginning. A very good place to begin...

I signed up for the Horribly Hilly Hundreds in February. A long time before I knew what kind of shape I would be in come ride time. I just couldn't turn down a event whose motto was "Biking Like a Viking." Could you? I figured I would be in reasonable shape since the last week of school was at the end of May and the ride was June 18. And I was in reasonable shape, more than reasonable considering the fact that I was balancing cycling with med school (among other things); but unfortunately the preceding three weeks before my event were marked with lots less riding (around 75 miles or less in three weeks) than I had hoped for and allergies that were sapping the power I needed to get up steep inclines. And even though I like to fancy myself a climber, I'm not. I'm really just a masochist. A wannabe masquerading in polka dots.

So you can see why an event like Horribly Hilly would appeal to me. 100 miles, 9300 feet of climbing, Viking-like toughness. Not only is that hard to do in a notoriously flat place like Wisconsin, that's just plain hard to do, if you know what I mean. And even though I'm more sprinter than climber, I do have more skill in going upward than the typical sprinting type I might line up against. As the day drew nearer I began to realize more and more what I was really up against. This was going to beastly.

Before the event the weather looked bad. Actually, just "bad" is being generous. I was thinking this was going look a lot from the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy sees her mean old neighbor lady turn into the wicked witch of the west as she gets sucked into the tornado on her bicycle. Thunderstorms were supposed to roll in the Friday night before the ride began Saturday morning and then continue throughout the day on Saturday. I had a campsite reserved in Blue Mound State Park. It seemed like a good idea seeing as the ride more or less started and finished from there, but with thunderheads rolling in it began seeming like a good idea gone bad.

Fortunately the rain never came. Each time I woke up in my tent Saturday night to a peaceful night without rain I said another prayer that the rain would stay away. Thankfully, it did, as a matter of fact it stayed away an entire 24 hours. When I rolled out at 6:45am on Saturday morning the clouds looked thinner, but still possibly holding a shower to come. As it turned out the day only got better. The clouds rolled away and by 40 miles it was actually rather hot.

I rode the first 30 of the day mostly with a guy named John from Chicago who was riding the 200k route. I was disappointed when we had to split, but that's that. So far I had navigated our first real pretest as we rode up the backside of Blue Mound State Park and twice up Scherbel Road Grade where our first rest stop was. The course looks kind of like a cloud or sheep drawn by a little kid with loops around the outside of a central core. This made it convenient because you stayed near the big hills that make the Blue Mounds, WI area interesting, but never got too far from your destination in case you ran into trouble. You can see the route here.

The first section was one of the hardest. It was probably the second most difficult section. For the 150k (actually 100 mile) route the course was divided into 4 sections with a rest area every 25 miles and some water stops interspersed in between rest areas. This worked out very nicely. 25 miles over this kind of terrain was about enough to drink 2+ bottles by the time the sun was out and heating up the day. The Horribly Hilly organizers did a good job with rest station support and water. As a matter of fact, the spread at the rest stops was AWESOME. The food was fantastic, the volunteers were cheery and friendly and did I mention the food was great.

It was during the first section that I met John from Chicago. He was a Cervelo-Test Team clad lawyer riding a Cervelo S2. I keep meeting lawyers while I'm on my bike. Last year I met a lawyer named Steve with whom I tore it up at the Durand Road Race. Hopefully I keep meeting them on the road and not in the courtroom. John had done the event last year, so he helped me navigate the early course when there were fewer people out to be able to follow along with. We parted ways when the 150k and 200k routes split and I didn't see him again. I rode alone from there until the second rest stop which was located at the 51 mile mark. It was a little lonely after leaving all of the 200k riders that I had been riding with because most of the 150k riders started about 15 minutes after me and hadn't had much time to catch up since I didn't stop long at the first rest stop.

I decided rest stop #2 was my lunch stop. I hung out a little extra long, ate half a peanut butter and jelly bagel, a ham rolled tortilla, a Honey Stinger waffle (My new favorite Honey Stinger product), a bunch of grapes, and even threw down a couple endurolytes pills. The day was getting hot, so I decided to make sure I had enough 'lytes on board. By the end of the day I wound up using 6 Nuun tablets and 4 endurolytes. That's about 5 times what I normally use in a day of training. I also figured that I drank around ten 20 oz water bottles over the course of my ride and immediately post ride fueling.

Shortly after leaving rest stop #2, I met up with a couple of riders wearing Copper Triangle jerseys. This brings us back to the conversation I started this post with. One of the guys was from Colorado Springs, CO and the other from Eagan, MN. They both had plenty of experience in the saddle and I rode with them until we started to break apart regularly on the climbs. I then joined Eric, a rider from Chicagoland. He claimed he was in advertising, but his jersey was plain white which I found it rather ironic in a sport that is blanketed in ads. We stuck together until the third and final rest stop before the finish. I took an extended rest there as I put on an extra layer of sunscreen, force fed myself to try and top off my fuel tanks and looked over the map to see what I'd have to make it through to finish.

I took off without any riding buddies seeing as I planned to put it on cruise control over the last 25 miles so that I could save all my efforts for the inclines. I had mentioned that I thought the first 25 mile section was the second hardest. I'm pretty sure that the final 25 mile stretch was the most difficult. Combining the fact that I had 75 miles under my belt and the day was hot, the final 25 miles still had 2770 ft of climbing to do, not to mention the killer uphill finish. As I rolled away from the final rest stop I broke the remaining miles into each portions, each ending at the top of a big climb. Somewhere on those climbs I think I got passed by Robbie Ventura who was supposedly on the course that day.

Finally, I arrived at the killer finale. It had been my goal to try and be an encouragement to anyone who I passed while going uphill, because getting passed while going uphill is typically somewhat demoralizing. I did a pretty good job of this until the final climb. By the time I got there it was just a matter of surviving. I put my bike in the lowest gear and tried desperately to climb out of the deep dark pain cave that I was putting myself in. I don't remember a lot of that climb, but I passed a lot of people who were struggling and those who had given up the struggle on wheels to walk. My ultimate goal was to stay on my bike and not walk. I managed this successfully and crossed the finish line after 6 hrs and 35 min. That comes out to an average speed of 15.3 mph, and I'm proud to have gone that fast.

It was a long brutal day. Maybe one of the hardest rides I've ever done, but it was worth every turn of the pedals. We never had a drop of rain during the ride (although, torrential downpours came that evening), the wind was calm, the people were friendly and the support was fantastic. Finishing the final climb there was chalk-written encouragement all over the road. If I would have had any reserve mental capacity for reading during the climb it would have been really great...okay, maybe I wasn't that deep in the pain cave. All in all, it was a great day. I would definitely do it again and would recommend it to anyone crazy enough to try.

Thanks for tuning in, I know this was a long one. If you get a chance get out and try "Biking like a Viking," you just might get hooked.