Endurance

Furnace Creek 508 2011 Race Report

2011-10-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

Its been almost a week since the 2011 508 finished and I have had enough time to sort out the emotional ups and downs, race successes and failures, and describe the experience. For months I have been thinking about this race and trying to figure out how to ride fast, not just survive like I did in 2006. I know that the 508 is famous for throwing a ton of curveballs to each of the racers and throwing them off their plan. I felt that my training was great, but still wondered what would happen after 200 miles as I had not done any training beyond that for this years ride. What would happen to me out there? I would find out soon enough that the 508 would have many demons hiding the bushes to sabotage me.

My first real ultra was the 508 in 2006, so I know the course. The week up to the event went really easy this time as I took a couple of weeks to slowly prepare all the gear and equipment so it was way less stressful. The crew and I took off to the race, easily got through vehicle and bike inspection and were ready for the race. The weather was perfect as we snaked out of town. I made my way towards the front of the pack and we hit San Francisquito Canyon. I was riding comfortably at about 280 watts average up the canyon. This was higher than the 250 I was supposed to ride based on the pre-work analysis I did. It felt so easy, that I could not resist cranking it up a bit to stay up in the front. When we pulled into Johnson Summit, I was in 4th place which was pretty unusual for me. The feeling of passing all the cars and get the great support from so many crew members pumped me up. Steve LaChaine, a strong ultra guy I did Hoodoo Voyager with exclaimed, "Dude.. your in 4th place!" Hmm. I wonder if this was a good thing or not.

I pushed onto the flats and the team met me and we swapped out to the TT Bike and Helmet. I started cruising at the pre-planned 210 watts for the flats and rollers and felt great as I had trained for hours at this pace, doing several 3+ hour training sessions at this wattage, and it was really easy. This was to be my "treatment" for the next 8 hours or so I and settled into my rope-a-dope as I told my crew. I calmly cranked out the miles and my crew gracefully supported me. After Escape Goat passed for a few minutes, I passed back and stayed in that position for the next 150 miles. I swapped back to road bike for the the WindMill Climb came and went easily at about 250 watts. Piece of cake. Then we swapped back to the TT bike and smoked it very hard into California City. I was hitting about 29 MPH on the flats into town and ripped it past the time station. It was fast riding all the way to the Randsberg Climb which I did in the TT bike. This started to hurt, but I was able to hold about 220 watts or so, which was in the sweet spot. I had been drinking a bottle of home brew maltodextrin and fructose concoction which contained approx 360 cals of carbs an hour to this point.

We took the left towards Trona and I noticed I was slowing down slightly. It was getting a bit warmer and the fatigue of riding without any rest started to hit a bit. Overall I was still good. A photographer caught a bunch of shots of me descending towards Trona and I was getting excited to get to Time Station 2 in 4th place. I pulled in and we were told that the only gas station in town was out of gas and we would have to figure out a plan B. I was getting used to being in the front of the race, although I knew there were a ton of people bearing down on me and we kept up the ride to the Trona Bump.

The next section to the base of Trona started out mellow. I had swapped out to the road bike, but I should have waited a bit as it was pretty flat for quite a few miles. It was a great descent after the Trona bump and I settled into some nice rollers to the the base of Townes Pass. The team managed to score some gas in Panamint Springs and get to me about 5 miles shy of the start of the climb. We went into night follow mode and started the climb up Townes Pass before night fall. The going was slow. I locked into 200 watts and pushed up the climb steadily. Wade Baker passed me here and was climbing like a maniac up the hill standing up on his pedals and looking really strong. I tried to ignore him and stick to my boring plan. I was in a tunnel climbing the hill and it was over in about 1:20 from the bottom. Not fast, but ok. I grabbed a jacket and started the long descent into Death Valley.

I did not really open up on this as I felt nervous about descending too fast at night. It seemed to take forever, but we finally hit the flats and swapped out the TT Bike. Escape Goat came by and took off like I was standing still on the flats. I was feeling tired and could tell that my power was flagging. Hmm. I look down and notice my Heart Rate was about 120 and my power was about 140 watts avg on the flats compared to 210 all day on the way to Townes Pass. I did not have any pains or aches, but I have no power. Maybe I needed some Rock Star or Diet Coke I thought. I continue to ride down toward Furnace Creek TS3 and am just fatigued and not able to put two and two together. Hoopoe passes us before the Time Station. Damn. I am really slowing down now. I cant stay with anybody. My Heart Rate is now about 110. No power. No nothing. The reader might wonder why we dont have a quick team meeting and discuss. But, in the bubble of the ride and not wanting to get off the bike I just blindly plod on. Silly mistake number 1 was being realized. Sugar Free Rock Star and Diet Coke dont bring on power. Without realizing it, I had stopped taking in my carb sources and starved my body of carbs. My team thought at least the Rock Star had sugar in it, but we had not communicated too well on this part. I was feeling ok, but putting out the power of a ride with my daughter to the park. Yet, I did not want to regroup. Martin my crew mate made me a sandwich which went down well. But we pulled into time station 3 with me flagging badly. Notice how my HR drops from the start to the end of this section in Badwater. I would expect it to drop, but not like this. At least I was still moving.

Now were in Badwater and I am pedaling still in my self created miasma of low power. We took the left up Jubilee pass and I climbed this slightly faster at 166 watts. Great American Toad, the original RAAM team passed by looking real strong, and I kept going. The descent to the base of the Salisbury climb came and went and we headed up the main climb. Here we got passed by several solos. Martin made me some strong coffee half way up as I was close to falling asleep and it seemed to kick in. I think we had another sandwich and a lot of Diet Coke and Diet Rock Star, but no main carb drink as I was brain dead and not able to properly communicate with my team as we continued in the carb depletion mode. I ended up doing both climbs at 150 watts and a total time of 2 hours and 20 minutes. The good thing is the coffee was really strong I found out later as I actually enjoyed the descent into Shoshone which was first night descent I liked. Descending when tired is not one of my favorite things as I cant get the thoughts of disaster out of my head and want it over.

Was in the death march from Shoshone to Baker. The weather was great and it was a beautiful sunrise. The true beauty of the desert reveals itself in the early morning. The long shadows over the distant mountain ranges were slowly disappearing and this was really nice riding. I was slow as hell though, but more resolved to keep pedaling and hope to not get passed too many more times. We kept moving. We did a quick clothes change before Baker which felt great and we headed into the Mad Greek and Baker with my stomach starting to feel awful. Damn. I ordered a giant Gyro and Strawberry milk shake from the crew and took off slowly while they fueled up and did what they needed to in Baker. About 20 minutes later they came. I was crawling having just been passed by Honey Badger and Turkey Vulture with his unusual short cranks that I am guessing were Power Cranks. When the crew came up with the bag of food, I was worried about eating it. Martin said that it would solve all my problems. I liked his confidence and scarfed the whole Gyro and Milkshake in 3 minutes and amazingly my stomach felt great. I took off a bit stronger to the top feeling better than I have since the beginning of Death Valley. The never ending climb finally started to top out as the road decayed. The descent was slow as I could not bomb it like I would have wanted to as I was afraid of falling as I had taken on a noticeable lean to the right due to some overcompensation I was not aware of, but my crew and observers were. They thought I was suffering from an inner ear infection, mild stroke, or something, but I told them I was just a bit tired and this lean was no big deal. When we pulled into Kelso, the guy running the station mentioned my lean, but I told him I was ok and it was a natural compensation due to 400 miles of hell. Luckily, I found out my crew mate Martin has a secret career as a chiropractor and masseuse and was able to quickly work me over and make me feel alot better. He is a man of many hidden talents! I was suffering from awful hot foot for the last 100 miles. Martin took a look at my feet and exclaimed I had witches feet. They were so tight and cramped I could barely move them. I screamed while he worked on my painful witch feet until I felt almost as good as new. We took off quick to Boulder Mountain. Being able to see the rocks of the summit made this a much easier climb than the previous one. I was on fire now and pedaling harder than I had since Townes Pass.

The team started to realize that we might be running a carb deficit and started jamming gus and powerbars packing my mouth to the point of absurdity. I was acting like angry child at the force feeding and would secretly spit out the bars like a mental patient snubbing their meds. It is uncanny how difficult it is to prepare to deal with your behaviour at mile 450. You need your crew to force feed you to get the carbs in because you will resist no matter what. Martin told me that I was unable to mentally comprehend what was necessary for me to succeed and I was in something akin to a diabetic coma, wandering around blindly in the desert. He was onto something. I was happy to start getting some power, and finally was realizing that I needed to start eating more Bring on the maple syrup shots if you really want to make this interesting! From famine to feast, but hey, something was happening. I was moving up the climb from Kelso with a power surge. I passed Pancake Tortoise and another solo easily, kind of like the way Honey Badger and Turkey Vulture did to me on the Baker climb. This was my first power surge in 12 hours and it felt great. We cranked up to the top of Granite Mountain and ripped down the backside. I passed Mako at this point and was happy to be back in the game. We got to Almost Amboy and were told we had to follow in the car due to a decree by the RD in the name of safety. I waited as we got the follow going and took off with Spike the Wonder Dog and Mako in the vicinity.

The last time I did this stage in 06 I was having massive hallunications including a life altering discussion with a 50 foot Mastodon, so my memory of the route was a bit off. This is a pretty easy section and I should have been in TT Bike, but I settled into a slowish pace behind Mako as it was getting hot and I did not want to pass and then stop for a cool down and get passed again, so I tried to be not too annoying and stay back 100 yards or so. I imagine we were pretty annoying hanging back there. The sun was mocking me on this section baking me on the right side. I yelled at it, but it did not seem to care. We kept moving up and every 20 minutes or so I would stop to get a cool down with the ice from the cooler. I was paranoid I was going to get heat exhaustion at this point which was silly, but a good indication of the fatigue I was in after 34 hours solid of riding hard and suffering. We finally crested the hill and I took the descent conservatively and we hit the long straight slightly up hill into 29 Palms. Knowing we were close to the end I cranked up the power to over 200 watts for the first time in a long time. I pulled past Mako for the last time and knew Wild Turkeywas not far ahead as he had passed when I was delusional about the heat. I started to really crank hard as if the governor holding me back completely broke. I could not be stopped and figured that 36 hours might be crackable. Full out assault until the left on Utah Trail. My crew mate needed a pit stop and we waited a minute or so and kept the hard assault to the end. I probably should have been enjoying this bit, but I decided to go all in to try and break 36 and road maniacally through 29 Palms almost to the point of being ridiculous. I just missed breaking 36 hours, but almost collapsed at the end. I looked about 75 years old though at the end completely caked in salt and had several people ask me if I was ok. I had trouble standing up for about 15 minutes. Not the most graceful exit, but I left it all out on the road. In 2006 it took me 46:36 to finish. Looking at the all time race stats, I have one of the biggest improvement in finishing times of 10 hours and 32 minutes. Thats a reward in itself I guess.

The crew was awesome. We had such a cruise on the first day, then a lot of pain and suffering on day two, but finished strong. They really were the greatest team a guy could have. I will never forget their support in this journey. These rides give us a rare opportunity to peek into the magical world of dreams, visions and leave our normal concepts of mind and body behind. The competition, the watts, the fueling drop out as you realize that you just have to pedal and move forward. What could be more simple than that? I really want to thank Chris Kostman and all the volunteers that give us the opportunity to surf in this alternate reality. Its a true gift to anybody who goes as the person that comes out the other side is always better off, usually in ways not known for many months or years.

2011 Furnace Creek WebCast with Results and Photos

Peformance Analysis

I did a bit of research to determine the best approach to using power for the 508. There is not a lot of information available for Ultra road cycling events like this. The closest information available is from the 24 hour endurance mountain biking world. A few riders train with power and blog about and I found out some of the elite guys can hold 60-70 IF for the 24 hour rides. I planned on starting off at about 250 watts for the climbs average power, and about 200-210 for the flats and rollers. This was pretty doable for the first 12 hours, but clearly I was unable to keep this going and you can see power drop to 148 watts avg at hour 16 and never recover from there. This could be fueling issues, major fatigue, or just what Ultracycling does to you. I might have burned alot of matches with my fast start. I need more experience on very long rides with power to see if I can keep things going stronger at night. You can really see my exuberance in the first four hours. You can really see how I fell into a hole at hours 24-27. I would like to come back soon and work out my fueling and pacing issues and take a few more hours off of my time.

Ride Stats Part 1
Ride Stats Part 2
Ride Stats Part 3

508 Stuff

2011-10-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Fly Over of 508 Click on the 3D link to get newly released google maps flyby feature. My plan for the 508 is set. 250 Max Avg watts on the climbs and a low of 210 watts for the flats and rollers. 250 watts will feel easy at the beginning, but will be about all I can do later on at Townes pass and further. Holding 210 on the flats in the TT bike will keep me moving quickly. This should keep things moving and keep me out of trouble and not trying to keep up with the truly fast riders or the pretenders which I should hopefully start scooping up as the night moves on. Who knows. Had a great hard ride on Saturday that felt too good. I wonder if I should have saved it for the race? Hit the TT today for 45 minutes today and felt ok. Always feel a cold coming on during race week, but taking it easy this week to keep it at bay. Packed 40 baggies of maltodextrin and fructose and the place looked like one Pablo Escobar's hide-outs. Scales, powder, baggies all on the table and powder everywhere. Nobody was knocking on the door looking for a hit though. I guess thats ok.

Good luck to everybody racing. Should be alot of fun.

2011 Furnace Creek 508 Pacing and Odds

2011-09-30T22:40:00.000-07:00

Joe Friel responded that 55-60 was a decent strategy for something like the 508, but he was clear he did not know the ins and outs of the race. I contacted another 24 hour Mtn. Biking coach online who advised 60% of so is a good pace. Just read the 2009 blog entry of American Krestel who handled the crazy winds well that year. He talks of doing the "Treatment" which for him was holding 280 watts or so all day. I like that approach, but for me my target will be quite a bit lower, especially on the flats. Based on what I read there, I would have to guess this guy is one of the favorites for the win. He was not that far behind Emde and Ragsdale in 09 and since they are not riding, he rises up. Betting a battle between him and Rock Rabbit is in the cards as that guy is smoking this year based on the the Terrible Two first place I witnessed and some sick power output I see on Strava. Its an open race this year with only one top 10 from last year in the race. Could be a dark horse out there, but I will give a shot with admittedly poor predicting skills:

508 Predictions for Podium

Rock Rabbit: 3 to 1: 1st in Terrible Two, stomach issues finally solved
American Kestrel: 3.5 to 1: 3rd in 2009. Enuff Said
Holstein: 4 to 1: Won Hoodoo Voyager. Previous low 30's finish.
Escape Goat: 20 to 1: 12 hour and change Mulholland Double. Could be breakthrough race
Honey Badger: 25 to 1: Sub 13 Hour Devil Mountain Double is Nice...
Tapir: 200 to 1: Been drinking bee pollen. Feel psychic breakthrough coming any day.

Ultracycling Pacing

2011-09-18T18:46:00.000-07:00

Been trying to get advice on how to pace for the Furnace Creek 508. Not surprisingly, there is not a ton of information about how to properly pace a 500 mile bike race. Joe Friel's Advice for Ironman Pacing Joe Friel mentions in this article

The sub-five-hour racer will usually ride at 70 to 80 percent of FTP. The eight-hour rider will do something like 50 to 60 percent of FTP. In between finish times will probably be 60 to 70 percent of FTP. Why the difference even though the slower rider has a lower FTP? Simply because you can’t hold a high percentage of a high output for a long time. If the sub-five athlete was going eight hours in a longer distance event he too would have to ride at a lower power output in the neighborhood of 50 to 60 percent of FTP. That’s what I mean when I say that the fast rider and the slow rider are not doing the same race even though both are in an IM.

For me, 50-60% of my 330 FTP would be 165-198 watts. I am guessing that most people intending to race the 508 go out way too fast, end up over-heating, and start to slowdown and end up wondering why they are feeling so awful. My last 508 gives me little experience to go by as I wisely was advised to just finish and took it extremely easy and ended up finishing near the cut-off. This time, I want to be a competitor, and I want to avoid a lot of the mistakes I see people make and would prefer a smartly paced race at 190 watts to 200 watts vs one that starts at 280 and ends up with me crawling in. What do you think? Would you start out very slow right off the bat at 190 watts, or go out with the leaders and see what happens?Will do more research.

DMD 2011

2011-04-24T21:36:00.001-07:00

54,000 feet of climbing this month so far. All systems go. I know what to do. Just need to crack the endurance whip and not get off the bike for more than 20 minutes to do what I want to do.

Beat the Clock Time Trial

2011-02-20T14:28:00.001-08:00

Suffered on the Beat the Clock TT in the rain and cold yesterday. I believe this is good mental training for the upcoming Triple Crown Stage Race as the effort required for these TT dwarfs what you end up pushing on the doubles.

2011

2011-01-17T20:14:00.000-08:00

Another new year means new goals. I want to do the Triple Crown Stage Race and finish off the year with a solo Furnace Creek 508. I had planned on doing RAW , but not good timing for me this year. I might have to wait until I have enough time to commit to RAAM even if its in a few years as I still want to give that a shot.

Ended up 2010 with 6732 miles and 354,000 feet of climbing. This was the first year I averaged 15 MPH, but my climbing was a bit down, so maybe thats why. 2010 was a good year and I would like to keep improving. Been working with a much longer stem (110mm) on the rain bike and getting used to a more agressive position. It sure feels better descending, but tougher on the neck and back.

My first goal is to break 14 hours on Devil Mountain Double. I think its possible, but it will take a perfect day. My fuel last year was not as dialed now for a long ride like this and I think the maltodextrin/fructose home brew will take me over the top. Today's ride up Mt. Hamilton was good for Jan. I started out hard and ended up slowing down for a 1:45 time which is ok for Jan. Was shooting to break 1:40, but not bad. I always thought my descents on Mt. Hamilton were bad, but Strava showed me today that I was only 3 minutes behind their top 10% with my 56 and change descent today. Great having data to know this as I dont see too much poing in pushing beyond the comfort zone to drop 3 minutes.

Hoodoo 500 Voyager Race Report

2010-09-02T20:45:00.000-07:00

The alarm clock goes off at 4 AM on Saturday August 26th and I get ready to face a very long and arduous bike ride in Southern Utah called the Hoodoo 500. I chose to ride this in the Voyager category which was non-supported other than 4 drop bags sent ahead to aid stations containing food, warm clothing, lights and anything we thought we would need to get through this ride. I had failed in my attempt at this ride the previous year due to being cold and exhausted and had worked hard all year on a plan that would keep me warm, fueled, and able to finish. I road to the race with a fellow voyager Steve LaChaine who had DNFd the Voyager twice and was as motivated as I was to finish this ride. We both dressed and gave our bikes one last check and head over to the starting line in the pitch black. We were the last guys to get there a couple of minutes before our the start. After a photo or two, the countdown began. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 go. We took off in the dark streets of St George Utah and road through town in a pack. One rider Russel Stevens took off immediately which was surprising as we could ride in a pack for the first 10 miles or so. The rest of us road at a pretty fast pace outside of town towards Hurricane. My goal was to keep my heart rate under 150 for the first 85 miles or and even though I could not see my bike computer, I knew I was failing at this goal as I was already struggling. I was pretty annoyed at myself, but more angry that I was already struggling 15 miles into the ride. Were these guys this strong, and I this weak, or was I sick? I did not feel sick, but I was already questioning everything. A rider flew by me who I later figured out was Joel Sothern. He passed me so fast it was comical. In previous years the Voyager division was a mixed bag of rando guys, comic adventurers with gas cans of water attached to their handle-bars, but not a deeply talented group. For some reason, 2010 brought out a strong group of riders and I was already feeling this as I was riding in last place 20 miles in with a heart rate well above 150. We hit Hurricane and then climbed up Hwy 59 into a head wind. I was still feeling pretty lousy at this point and pushed toward the Arizona border. I saw Steve at a gas station on the border that was supposed to open at 8 AM but was a bit late. Steve was waiting for them to open, but I am way too impatient and grabbed a bit of water from the tap and took off. He looked pretty good, but I was feeling lousy. Its pretty discouraging at mile 50 of 519 mile ride to feel like crap. Steve talked alot about "fixing yourself" when things were going bad. I had never heard of that term, but I really liked it and decided it was time to relax a bit and work on fixing myself as I headed toward time station 1. The combination of the fast pace and altitude must have put me in a a bit of trouble and it was time to really calm down and take it easy. Luckily the winds started to shift a bit and my speed picked up and I started riding stronger. I crossed back into Utah and hit time station 1 in Kanab at 10:15 AM. It took me 5:15 to cover the 82.2 mles of stage 1. My average speed riding was almost 17 mph, yet I was 45 minutes behind the top rider Joel Sothern who was flying with Adam Bickett and Stevens right on his heels.

I loaded up my drop bag and started the long ride up hwy 89 North toward Bryce Canyon National Park. I was taking in the calories with no problem. My main fuel was a home brew of 2 parts maltodextrin, 1 part fructose, and a bit of lemonade flavoring. I had heard a podcast from Asker Juekendrop, a well known sports nutritionist who promotes the advantages of ingesting fuel with a 2 to 1 ratio of glucose to fructose. I have been experimenting the last six months with this and decided to use it as my foundation fuel for the Hoodoo 500. So far, so good as I was doing well as I passed the century mark in Mt. Carmel Junction. Steve passed me looking strong I followed him at a distance to a rest stop at about mile 118 where we both pulled in and rested. He mentioned that he slept at this aid station in the past two rides, but he must have been feeling good as he took off after a few minutes. I followed him out and he dropped me on the climb to Hatch. I saw Tim Carroll another voyager on this section, and I knew Rick Jacobson was a bit behind at this point. We had a nice tail wind to Hatch and I took off down the descent towards Bryce with a wicked tail wind. I was flying for the next 15 miles or so before the right turn towards up hwy 12 towards Bryce Canyon. We hit the Red Canyon bike trail which parallels the freeway and I cramped up so bad in my quads I felt I was going to fall off the bike. I screamed in pain and managed to calm them down. I popped a couple of s-caps knowing this would fix the issue. One thing I realized is I did not put any salt in the home brew which probably was a mistake as most sports drinks have at least some sodium in them. I saw the first soloist crew for James Good which was much later in the race than last year which made me feel happy. I did not get passed by him until time station 2 at the Chevron gas station near Bryce. Last years winner David Holt's crew was waiting for him there and Steve came in a minute or so after me. Steve believes Subway is the ticket to riding success and I was feeling tired enough to follow him to the Subway in Bryce for a 15-20 minute lunch break. Normally I am too impatient to take breaks like this, but I figured it would be good in the long run to take it easy. My face was covered in salt and I was pretty tired. This was only mile 155 or so but I was 1:10 faster this year than last year, so things were going ok in that regard. I tried to chill out but felt my heart beating in my chest due to the high altitude (almost 8000 feet). I only ate 1/4 of the footlong and brought the rest with me. I loaded up the bottles with Dr. Pepper and Coke and took off on a nice descent towards Tropic which leads to a nice climb in the Grand Staircase National Monument which is an incredible place to ride as its drop dead gorgeous in every direction. We still had a nice tail wind as I summited the last climb before the long descent into Escalante which I pulled in at 6:45 and under 13 hours of riding time. Pretty fast, but I was in second to last place This was one tough group I was riding with this year.

At the motel in Escalante I loaded up my gear, put on the lights, and changed into warmer clothes to face the 5000 feet of climb up to Boulder Mountain Summit. Last year I took a shower, but this year I did not want to get too comfortable. Steve left before me and I talked with Tim Carroll and Rick Jacobson who arrived a few minutes after I did in last place. Since I froze in 2009, I decided to go overboard and pack heavy snow pants and a full down jacket that weight 3 1/2 pounds. This combined with my rack, bag, food, and other gear brought my bike to way over 30 pounds. It was a calculation I had analyzed for months and determined it was better to be safe than sorry. The weather was still wam, however, and I was doubting that my decision this year was going to be necessary, but you never can tell whats going to happen. I took off from the aid station and grabbed 4 5 hour energy shots and some ibuprofen just in case carrying the heavy loads up the hill would cause any pain. Its a fantastic ride in the red rocks which I luckily got to start in the light for the first time. The road pitched up in 12-15% stinger grades which were very difficult with such a heavy bike. I just ground it out until the descent into the town of Boulder. I stopped at a restaurant and 3 nice women loaded up my bottles with coke for free. They mentioned Steve had just passed by a few minutes before. I called my wife and let her know how things were going. It was great talking to her. I was pretty optimistic at this point and pushed on to the 9600 foot summit The climb was pretty consistent until false flats at the top. I was passed by the 8 person tandem team and they gave me a big cheer which pumped me up to the top. I noticed a rider at the side of the road and it was Adam Bickett, a very strong guy who was having stomach issues. He was pretty messed up unable to talk that well and clearly hurting. He was way ahead of me at the previous aid station, so must have been really sick to lose so much time. Tim Carroll was talking to him and I took off At the 9600 foot summit, I put on the ski pants and jacket and road a very toasty descent into Torrey. There were annoying hills at the bottom of this long descent which sucked in the heavy gear. I took off the heavy gear in Torrey and realized I did not really need it this year, but the insurance was worth the money as I could drop it off in Loa and I really had no way of knowing. The next miles into Loa contained some climbs and false flats and were very cold. I pulled into the motel in Loa a few minutes before 3 AM. My stomach was starting to feel bad, but I was happy with my time.

Steve was laying in bed when I arrived. My instincts were to get in and out fast, but I was pretty tired and figured a little rest might do me good. I laid in bed next to Steve who like Old Fathful, was farting in a perfect rhythm of 1 per minute or so. The room was stinky as their were no windows. I guess we did not have the presidential suite, but the bed was ok. I started to immediately shiver uncontrollably in the bed. This was not good. I had done this at the end of Race Across Oregon, and last year on the Voyager. Past a certain level of exhaustion, I get cold and cant seem to pull out easily. I was going to have to Fix myself as I laid in the stinky room and contemplated my next move. Adam Bickett and Tim Carroll then pulled in. Adam was still very sick and laid on the ground . Tim was a bit sick as well and talked about wanting to puke. Rick Jacobson then pulled in. 5 guys in room without windows with Old Faithful pumping methane into the thin air at almost 7000 feet in altitude was turning me green as well. How as I going to fix myself? I was too sick to even rifle through my bag, but I knew I had to do something. Luckily my bag was right near the bed and I reached in and found some Whole Foods Organic Turkey Slim Jims. I love a good Slim Jim on a ride and I figured these healthier version would be good. But, would they send me to the puke house, or solve my problem? I ate two of them and waited. in the mean time, Adam scampered up and threw up all over the floor near the bathroom. This sent my stomach into a spin, but I started to notice my shakes abating and I was feeling a bit better. Adam was looking bad I figured he would DNF, but little did I know that this guy is made of steel and nothing can break him. It was close to 5 AM and I had been in this room for 2 hours. I was feeling worse than those Chilean miners stuck below the earth in this smelly cramped room and decided to hit the road. Rick and Tim took off at about 5 and me 15 minutes later. Steve was planning on leaving around 7 and Adam was going to stay as long as he had to to recover. The next section is a very long gradual climb to 8200 feet. I started it in the pitch black and finished it as the sun came up. It was pretty easy, but tedious and the descent to Browns Lane was very fast and I hit just under 50 MPH before Brown's Lane. I hit Koosharem and was immediately hit with a strong head wind. I had 25 miles or so to go to my next turn and knew it was going to be a painful ride. 30 MPH winds for mile after mile hit me and I kept my head down and stuck to my aero bars as much as I could and ticked off the miles. I never got too upset, as I have enough experience to know that you just have to engage and embrace the wind otherwise you will be defeated. If you look down at the ground for a minute or so, you will be surprised how much ground you can cover. I finally got to Otter Creek State Park where the road turned rightward into a beautiful canyon and the wind was not an issue for 12 miles or so until I hit Kingston. Now the wind was whipping up with a vengeance. I viewed it as payback for the nice tail winds yesterday and enjoyed fighting it for the next 31 miles into Panguitch. I visited a practically deserted trailer park in Circleville that had an almost empty store in it, but luckily it did have a few v8 and cokes I could buy . The place was for sale, and I could see why as this looked like a ghost town in the making. The gas station that was open last year closed without notice the week before. I started listening to the Brothers Karamazov on the ipod and it took my mind off the 35-50 mph gusts. I was losing myself in the novel and was looking down at the grey road moving by not getting discouraged and defiantly asking for more wind. You can't beat me, I was thinking. I would finish this race if it took me 72 hours, but I was not going to quit. A few strongs gusts hit me that almost knocked me on the road, but I could see the big mountain ahead that led to Cedar Breaks and I knew that once we started this massive climb, the winds would be blocked somewhat. About 10 miles from Panguitch, I saw Rick Jacobson and Tim Carroll who had left the Loa motel 15 minutes before me. Rick was pretty dejected about the wind and was talking about quitting. Tim seemed to be ready to quit as well. I told Tim this was "posion" and they had to keep going. Out of pride and defiance, I picked up the pace and dropped them for a couple of miles. The though of quitting scared me and I was worried I could get pulled into that negative vortex. I wanted to stay away from it. Part of me wanted to convince them to keep going, but I knew that they would have to face their own questions at this point of the race. At about 2 miles from Panguitch, Adam Bickett passed me. I was shocked to see the guy as I assumed he would DNF after his illness, but he was looking very strong. He complained little about the wind and had no intention of quitting. I was happy to see him and feel his positive energy as we punched through the wind. We pulled into Panguitch together at 2:07 PM which seems suspicious, but there was no drafting going on. It was truly just luck we all pulled in at the same time. It took me over 9 hours to cover the 90 miles from Loa on which should be a fast section. That included 2 hours in the pain room, but still, that was one tough section.

I loaded up the bags, changed and head out pretty quickly from Panguitch. I really wanted to descend Cedar Breaks in the day time as its a long 5000+ foot descent. The climb up from Panguitch starts with some steep bumps and I pedaled as smoothly as I could. A 5000 foot climb at mile 385 can be discouraging and the only way to face it is to just focus on the here and now. I took it easy and hit Panguitch Lake . A tourist told me about 70+ mph gusts at the summit of Brian Head and I hoped this was not true, but kept pedaling up and up. There was a huge flock of sheep at a meadow near the top which was cool. The climb never seems to end but finally you hit the 10,600 mark near Cedar Breaks. I managed to summit before dark and raced to Cedar City before I needed lights. It was getting colder and colder and I was freezing down the scary descent. Cars were passing me the whole time and it took a long time to get from almost 11,000 feet to under 6,000. I called into the race hq and let them know I was at Time Station 6, Cedar City at Mile 433.9. I was pretty excited to say the least, as I for the first time was starting to think about actually finishing this race. Adam Bickett came in 3 minutes after I did. I found out Steve did not check into Panguith before Adam left and I was hoping he was still in the race. I really wanted him to finish as well.

I grabbed 4 items from Taco Bell and took off towards St. George. It was dark now and luckily the wind was dying down! This was fantastic news for us as if we had to face hours of head winds it might have ruined us. I was riding pretty strongly and climbed up a 1000+ climb pretty fast sweating heavily. I was riding alone for so many hours now that I was used to it, but one thing i could not get used to was not knowing 100% if I was on the right road. There was no signs telling you what hwy you were on. I felt I was on the road to Enterprise, but I got neurotic and started thinking I was off course. I could only keep going as my anger and frustration and fears rose until I saw a small sign telling me I was in fact on the right road to Newcastle. I pulled into Bench road was chased by 2 very fast dogs. I had to sprint like a mad man to escape them. Every rider I talked to had the same experience. Nothing like a hard sprint this last in the race. I pulled into Enterprise and faced another 1000+ climb, our last big one of the ride that would lead us eventually into Veyo and our final destination of St. George. The night was beautiful and it was about midnight as I climbed. I had no hallucinations this ride which surprised me considering the lack of sleep, but I was not complaining as I knew I could find the Mastodon some other ride. I faced a very long 15+ mile descent into Veyo that was cold and lousy in 2008 and just as bad this year. It was freezing cold and you could not get a good reflection off the chip seal road with the lights so instead of flying down it, I took it somewhat easy, mindful that a crash would ruin everything I have worked for. I was freezing cold as well, but too lazy to put on a warmer shirt or gloves. Finally, Veyo showed up. I faced a 500 foot climb than false flats to Snow Canyon. I started to get excited as I knew I could finish know even if I had to walk in. The last 10 miles to Snow Canyon were fast as I stood up for a lot of the riding. I called in the race HQ and let them know I was in the final stretch. Its all down hill through Snow Canyon and St. George and it took me 53 minutes to pull in with a total time of 46:10. I was 5th place and Adam Bickett had managed to hold me off with a solid 4th place.

I was so happy to be done. What a ride. Almost everything worked out from the food strategy, to the lights, to the clothing, to the mental prep. I grabbed a motel room and crashed out in minutes. I was hoping that Steve would make it in as he really deserved to finish this. I could not imagine having to come back for a 4th try at this and and hoped he could not finally knock it out. I heard he only had 6:30 hrs to finish as he left Cedar City after midnight. i crashed out. At about 5:45 Steve knocked on the door and also made it. He suffered like a dog in the winds, but hung in to finish. Amazingly 7 out of 9 voyagers finished. Only 5 solo riders managed to finish with many bowing out to head winds. Joel Sothern is God. He finished the race in 34+ hours which is remarkable for this category. i dont know if many people in the country could pull that off as so many variables conspire to slow your down. David Holt repeated his victory for the solo division which is amazing as he is 58 years old, but still riding extremely strongly. I was bummed to hear Rick Jacobson DNFd in Cedar City, but he is a very strong guy and I have no doubt will come back next year to knock this one off his list.

When you plan for something for a long time and execute on the plan, it often seem easy. I was just following a script last weekend. I had emotional blinders on the entire weekend. I never got too high or too low. I never got angry, or sad, or too happy either. It was just one minute followed by another minute, which turned into an hour and a day and finally I was done. I managed to Fix myself when I needed to along the ride. I would like to think I can take this experience and fix the things I need to in other parts of my life. That may not happen, but this will go down as one of the best experiences of my life.

Race Results

James Good Race Report
Russel Stevens Race Report
Adam Bickett Race Report

Hoodoo 500 Update

2010-08-13T17:12:00.000-07:00

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=MUTBLD Boulder Mountain Summit
http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=MCLZU1 Circleville

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KUTTORRE1 Torrey

This is the crux of the solo ride in my opinion. Not because of the difficulty of the climb, but for the potential of freezing ones butt off on the descent. It bit me last year. Hopefully I learn from my mistakes.

I am done with long rides and will be doing the Spectrum ride tomorrow to get some hammer time. I have a good feeling about this years ride. I think I have enough respect and knowledge this year to finish. Its going to be a lot of fun out there. I have my 8 pounds of maltodextrin and 4 pounds of fructose and am mixing up the secret brew that should be my foundation fuel. Naturally I will be supplementing this with all kinds of bars, gels, slim jims, double caffeinated psychotic episode inducing energy shots, russian novels on tape, and some crazy sayings written on my arms to scare the competition and make them wonder who the mental case they are racing against is.

As Sun Ra said.. its time to face the music...

Hoodoo 500 2.5 weeks out

2010-08-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

Did last long endurance ride up Page Mill, down to the coast over Haskins Grade and up Hwy 1 to Pacifica. Climbed up Sharp Park and then up the Great Hwy over the Golden Gate Bridge and then into Sausalito over to Fairfax and then up to the summit of Mt. Tam. Ended up fighting some big wind on way home with almost 190 miles and 13,600 feet of climbing. It was a good endurance ride that I intentionally road really easy. My heart rate averaged less than 110 which was pretty good and I climbed really easy practicing for the first 300 miles of the Hoodoo where I want to take it very easy. The Hoodoo Voyager can get you in trouble if you push hard early and get depleted on the Boulder climb as its easy to freeze on the descent to Torrey and give up in Loa. I need to get to Loa feeling good and want to take it really easy this year. The high DNF rate on this ride I think is caused by people pushing too hard early on and getting cold at night and losing their will to go on. Its hard enough to do the ride with a crew, but the Voyager has to be experienced to know how hard it really is. Its much tougher to do it non-supported. I would say its harder to do the Voyager than the Race Across Oregon supported which is a much tougher course due to lack of easy miles. So, the plan is to go easy as hell and keep heart rate low and enjoy the night. We shall see if its all talk, or I can really do it.

Hoodoo 500 4 weeks away

2010-07-31T22:39:00.001-07:00

Did Santa Cruz Mountain Challenge today in about 6:20 riding time for 100/11000 which felt pretty good. I started a bit after 6:30 and was the second or 3rd guy in, which surprised me, but I never really saw anybody all day. I expected a peleton to pass me, but it was like I was in a break away all day. Good ride. Jamison Creek TT was fun. Did that in about 25 minutes which felt ok as I did not over-cook the effort. The climbing felt pretty easy today over all. Left knee a bit sore by end, which sucked. Hopefully this goes away. Feeling good for the Hoodoo Voyager. Very tough competition this year.

Sean Nealy, the ex-pro and last years winner will be very tough. Russell Stevens was 3rd in DMD and is super strong. Joel Sothern did the solo Hoodoo in 33 hrs and change and owns the 50+ year record for solo. Rick Jacobson was first finisher in Eastern Sierra double and was 5th or 6th in the Triple Crown Stage Race this year. Steve La Chaine is tough and riding well having done 1200 miles in July. Its great the voyager is drawing such tough competitors. Its such a mental game for the Voyager anything can happen. Somebody might have a great day and throw down 34 hours or less this year I think. I just want to finish. I dont care about what time I take. I dont want another DNF. If I am feeling good, I can push it, but I need to remember the race does not begin until Loa, mile 270.

Mountain View to Austin Nevada

2010-07-10T20:49:00.000-07:00

Been dreaming of a hard ride for a while. The idea of doing a voyager style ride to Salt Lake City became the winner and I even talked my buddy Martin to give it a shot. We left at 11:00 PM and headed over the Dumbarton Bridge. The road was peppered with broken glass and we luckily avoided a flat as we crested the bridge and dropped into Fremont. Fremont is a big city and it took a while to get over to Niles just as the bars were closing. We hammered hard up Niles Canyon and the thought of those drunks leaving the bars sneaking down Niles Canyon to avoid the cops put extra power in my pedaling as we did the section in short order. We then hammered up to Pleasanton at a fast pace and into Livermore. To save weight, I had a cheap non breathable jacket on and was absolutely soaked due to it. I yanked it off and we head over to Vasco road in the dark to Altamont. We got the perfect tail-wind down Altamont and road easily up the hills and flew at 40 mph down the hill. We kept the momentum down Grant Line road. Our average pace was over 18 Mph as we hung a left on Paradise road. We made an incorrect right turn in the outskirts of Tracy at Canal road and hit a dead end. We ended up getting turned around and ended up riding on the shoulder of Hwy 5 for a couple of miles until Hwy 120 which we escaped on. It was not as bad as it sounds riding on Hwy 5, but I would not recommend it to anybody. I was just glad we did not get pulled over by the CHP as they probably would have written us up and tossed us in the pokey. We hit airport road in Manteca and flew into Stockton. Stockton is my least favorite city as the roads are all trashed, the place pocked with random industrial hell-holes, burned out houses, tweakers roaming the street, falling down McMansions, and angry drivers even at 5 AM when we road through. We made it out of town and crossed Hwy 99 into Lockeford at about 100 miles in less than 6 hrs riding. Martin was starting to look a bit wiped out as he has not had the chance to ride as hard this year, but he kept solidering on. The ride up Hwy 88 from the valley to Ione would be nice w/o 18 wheelers and heavy traffic, but it was a work day, and we had to keep our eyes open. We caught some rollers into Ione and I noticed Martin dropping back. We finally hit Jackson where Martin called it in. His wife picked him up, but he agreed to come back and give me some pacing on the next couple of days. I left him in Jackson and I started the 60+ mile climb up Hwy 88. Its hard to imagine a 60 mile climb, especially when your carrying a bunch of junk like a spare tire, chain, tools, 6 tubes, etc. It reminded me of climbing when I first picked up riding in 2003 carrying too much weight. Slowly, I picked off little foot hill towns like Pioneer, Pine flat, (every road has Pine Flat on it) and other random mountain towns. I kept climbing and stopped at the little stores along the way to resupply. This went on for hours until I finally hit Silver Lake which was gorgeous and then hit a nice steep climb up to Kirkwood. Right as I was pulling into Kirkwood, the skys turned black and I got hit by a nice thunderstorm which had some pretty strong hail. I called it a day at Caples Lake resort with 200 miles and 14,000 or so of climb. This felt like a tough double considering the weight. Martin showed up later that night and I took off in the AM looking forward to some support. The ride up to Carson Summit was much nicer sans gear and I ripped down into Minden NV. I was making great time in the aero bars into Carson City and hung a right onto Hwy 50 and the Great Basin. The desert is overwhelmingly immense and I tried to keep focused. We passed Dayton, and into Silver Springs where we almost ate at a smoky casino restaurant, but smartly pulled out and got some pizza. The road is flat and goes on forever and I passed a guy walking on the road. I think he might have just gotten let out of jail as the prison was right there. It got really hot as we finally hit Fallon NV as my computer was topping 100 degrees. I was keeping cool as every 15-20 miles Martin would give me some water. The road gets more remote past Fallon and more beautiful. I was cruising at about 20 MPH down a nice road when a climb showed up. While hot as hell, I was feeling great until the winds started kicking up on the climb. By the end of this climb, it was a very strong head wind that I had to fight for the next couple of hours into Middlegate NV. We called it a night at the Middlegate Station motel. It was a bunch of single wide trailers converted into a Motel and it was paradise for me. I was really wrecked after a hot day w/o any shade. I was losing the momentum to push hard at 200+ miles a day, as this was vacation after all, and I found myself unable to get a really early start the next morning. Leaving Middlegate, we hit the famous Shoe Tree with hundreds (thousands?) of shoes tossed up in the tree. I fought early head winds again and finally summited at Cold Springs Summit and got a nice descent into some incredible open desert. I would recommend this section to anybody as its some of the best desert riding I have ever done. I started a climb up to Mt. Airy Summit which was a typical 2000+ foot desert climb that never got about 6%, but took forever. The next descent was 10 miles of 2% drop which was great in the Aero bars. This led to a real climb into Austin NV, an old mining town.

I decided to change the plans here as I was not going to make Utah in the tight schedule I had and was done with desert having no real incentive to keep pushing it. I ended up with 430 miles and 20,000 feet of climbing in 2 1/2 days which was a great effort. I had almost no issues with my butt having learned to over do the Assoss chamois cream, no knee pain, no achilles aches, or anything. The heat was pretty tough, but nothing unexpected. Martin was awesome to switch his plans out from a ride to support, but I achieved every goal I had for getting some real tough hard work in for the Hoodoo 500 Voyager, and it was time to do some other stuff.

We decided to head out to Owens Valley and do the "hardest" climb in CA, Onion Valley according to The Complete Guide to Climbing (by bike). The drive over was a lot of fun as we got to see Tonopah NV and the infamous Clown Motel If I knew they had crazy stuff like this in the lobby, we may have had to crash there. We got a nice simple clean motel in Independence and started the climb the following morning. It started really slowly and not that steeply. Since it climbs 5200 feet in 13 miles and averages 8%, we would pay later for anything easy now. Martin jumped in the first stream he could find as he is that kind of guy. I avoided this and wondered and waited for him to get back on the bike. We climbed up and up to a camp ground or two and up endless switch backs until we hit the summit at 9200 feet. When I say the climb was not that hard, dont take it as arrogance, but it held a consistent grade the entire way and I never felt that tired. It took a bit over 2 hours to climb it and maybe 25 minutes to drop down to the 100 degree heat in Owens Valley. We headed up to Sonora Pass hoping to grab a place to stay at Kennedy Meadows. We managed to get a cabin which was pretty surprising, as the place was packed. They had a signed picture of Rush Limbaugh at the front desk. Had no idea we were staying in a right wing resort and was worried we might get sniffed out as limp risted liberals, but it was a risk we had to take. While shorter than Onion Valley at 3100 feet, it has two nasty cruxes of sustained 13% grade that hurt alot, but managed to get over ok. It was great seeing the summit at Sonora Pass as well as 3 through hikers on the PCT. Unfortunately, Martin broke his chain and could not finish the climb. He tried to repair it and then managed to trash his derailleur in the process. Bummer. Did about a mile of coasting down the river to console this problem and the water was freezing and the river was swollen with a heavy snow year. Martin was wearing a Celtics Jersey and some Lakers fans taunted him. They almost came to blows, but luckily we managed to avoid the confrontation.

This ride really rises my confidence for the Hoodoo Voyager. It takes a lot of long painful hours in the saddle to give one the necessary respect for something as tough as this ride. I will not be trying for any course records, or winning, I just want to finish it. There is a reason so many have DNFd this ride and I think the 480 miles or so I got on this 4 days of riding was great prep in many ways.

Off to Salt Lake

2010-07-05T20:55:00.001-07:00

Heading to Carson City. The thought of riding there seems a bit daunting, but based on the doubles and longer I have done, its not that hard. It just seems long based on memories of driving there so many times over a life time. Looking forward to the descent over Carson Pass in a 14 hours or so. The ride through the valley is actually nice if you can time it right. Early in the AM, you get a feeling of what it may have been like when John Muir did his famous walk from San Francisco to Yosemite. To me, nothing beats leaving your house and riding across the Bay and weaving your way into the Sierras and managing to make it to the top of the pass in the same day. We live in a big state, but its not that big on a bike.

The ride across Nevada on Hwy 50 "The Loneliest Hwy in America" should be a challenge. Multiple sections are 70+ miles between services, so the camelbak will be in play. The section from the Nevada border into Delta Utah is especially remote with nothing at all for almost 90 miles.

Race to Salt Lake

2010-06-26T20:51:00.000-07:00

I want to do something hard this summer and have a few days free to do it. After a lot of thought, I have decided on riding from my house to Salt Lake City. I am looking for something that will be a good test for the Hoodoo 500 Voyager. Also want to go somewhere far away that will be memorable. Salt Lake City also is a good pick as it is 860 miles away with 32,000 feet of climbing which is the same as the Race Across the West. I want to see if I can do this in the same 90 hour cut off period as RAW to see how a Voyager ride of that distance feels. The first day the goal is to hit Carson City. 233 miles/12000 feet. Plan on leaving the house by 3 AM and getting in by 10 PM. The route will work its way through the central valley to Hwy 88 and climb hwy 88 and drop over Carson Pass and into Carson City. The following days will take Hwy 50 across Nevada. I have been scouting out the water situation and it looks doable. Lots of people tour this route, but the pace I want to go could make things interesting. I would like to do 200 miles the second day and 3rd day and end up with 150 or so into Salt Lake City the 4th finishing somewhere just under 90 hours. I might have a buddy even crazy enough to try this, assuming he does not get too freaked out before we start.

I have been thinking that a Voyager Style RAAM ride is something that would be interesting to do. This is a small taste of what that might be like. Race There was talk a while back of a Voyager style Race Across America, but it died down. I wonder if anybody has ever ridden across the US in 2 weeks solo crashing in the occasional motel and eating whatever they could find along the way?

DMD 2010

2010-04-25T19:29:00.000-07:00

Had my strongest ride in a tough double yesterday finishing in 14:33 and hit many walls imaginary and real, broke through more than one, and smacked hard into some that will probably keep me doing this stuff as long as I can. The 6 AM start was much more subdued and had about 30 or so cyclists in it. I was chatting with Rick Jacobson who I will be racing against in the Hoodoo 500 Voyager and he is in the shape of his life at 52 having just broke 14 in Mulholland. The ride to the base of Diablo felt much calmer and relaxed than previous 5 AM starts as the guys in charge here had the experience to know what was ahead and kept things orderly and sane. It took about 33 minutes to get to the base of Diablo and we started to split up. I road with the lead group for 15 minutes or so and could not hold them safely and fell into my own rhythm. It took me 1:03 to get to the top and and I felt pretty good the whole way up. I was maybe 3 minutes behind the top group and started the long descent down. I hooked up with 5 or 6 guys from the Wells Fargo Racing Team and got a quick ride out to Morgan Territory with them. Compared to years past we made very quick work of Morgan Territory and we got to the aid station at 9:25 or so. I jammed down the Plunge at 45 MPH which was a lot of fun and started the wind aided flats towards Altamont Pass. I was trading pulls with Massimillano Poletto down Altamont and this guy was an animal on his 66 CM Rivendell and I could barely hold him, but tbe draft was worth the pain.

I had heard an interesting podcast the Thursday before the ride that a 2/1 glucose/fructose feeding strategy was best for Endurance sports with a goal of 90 gms of Carbs an hour and I wrecklessly decided to apply this w/o testing on DMD. It seemed to work great for 60-70 miles but my stomach was rebelling a bit on the Altamont climb. I was feeling awful actually, but was mindlessly stuffing in the powerbar gel candy to stick the the 360 cals an hour schedule and got a massive spike of energy that shot me up Altamont and towards Mines Road. The gels work ok for a normal ride, but trying to ingest a 2 cases like I did, I would not recommend to anybody I consider a friend.

The 20+ miles to the Junction is one of the toughest parts of the ride and this was no exception. I was still trying hard to keep the 360 calories an hour pouring in, but it felt a bit like force feeding a prisoner 6+ hours in. I got a huge energy spike about half way up the Mines road climb and caught back with the giant Rivendell and traded some pulls into the Junction. I also got a chance to chat with David Jones and he was nice enough to let me pick his brain on his RAAM wisdom. The few nuggets I got were:

1. Do RAW first as you dont know whats going to go wrong until 600 or so miles and you might was well learn this lesson first
2. Dont take too much salt via enduralytes or s-caps or gain 15 pounds of water weight and bloat
3. He recommends 6 person for a viable crew that can work 8 hour shifts with 2 vehicles + an RV

I thought I would bypass a long rest at lunch and sneak in and out. I was out within 3 minutes, but the strategy might have back-fired as I was passed easily by faster 5 AM people and had little strength. I avoided any real food at lunch and was sticking to my Power-Gel diet. The burgers and hot dogs looked great, but I was not sure they would be good food to take on the painful backside of Mt. Hamilton. I think I believe in the 360 calories an hours, but the sickly sweetness of the powerbar gels was starting to bug me. I noticed immediate boosts of energy and then quick drops yoyoing after my force-feeding, but was more grossed out by the taste. This was the most spiky energy pattern I ever had where I would go from feeling like death to passing people on a climb in the heat like the were standing still. Very strange. It took me 50 minutes or so to get to the base of Hamilton which was not horrible, as I climbed pretty well on the last bump before the bridge at the base of the climb. I was passed by Marco a guy i follow on Twitter but managed to pass him back. There were several guys riding around us at that time, and a lot of Terrible Two jerseys. I managed to handle the dreaded back side of Hamilton climb pretty well. I was pulling away from a lot of people but was running low on water. I had to bum some of a guy which is always embarrassing, but in a double, you don't mind as much asking for help. I managed to snag a bottle from a sag wagon. It was pretty hot as usual on the backside with on the bike temps in the mid 80's. I got to the aid station and slammed some liquids and noticed alot of very tired people. The descent of Hamilton was typical for me, not so fast, and I noticed I was passed like I was barely moving by fast descenders which was annoying. I flatted 3 miles or so down and quickly replaced it as I was now starting to worry about breaking 15 hours. A ton of police, ambulances, fire trucks, and such were racing up the hill. I hoped it was not somebody from the DMD, but sadly enough, somebody died . I am sure I passed the person and said hello or something to them a few minutes before they died as the guy I follow on twitter and apparently witnessed it and was on scene for the emergency and was unable to finish the ride. Information on Rider who passed away.

I hooked up with Steve LaChaine whom I shared the infamous $350 cab ride from Loa to St. George in the 2009 Hoodoo 500. He is a really funny guy and a strong rider and he led up Sierra in his 39/27 as I barely could hold him. This was better than last year where I self-desctructed as it took us about 40 minutes to climb it and then drop into the aid station. I was panicky to break 15 hours and was quickly in and out of the aid-station without much goat-petting and Steve caught me and we shared pulls into Sunol where we arrived at 6:50 PM. A 15 hour finish was in the bag as long as things went well. We got into a 5 man train down Niles Canyon road and all of us climbed Palomares very well like we were at the beginning of our ride. It was still light out on the descent and we rocketed up Crow Canyon to Norris Canyon. I dropped a chain on Crow Canyon and lost Steve, but was able to pick up the gap on Norris pushing extremely hard and grunting up the hill knowing the end was near. Those guys hit 50+ on the descent, but I held back and rolled towards the hotel. We finished together at 8:33 for a solid time of 14:33.

Considering I did this in almost 19 hours in 2006, this was a big breakthrough. I had a lot of fun and was able to push hard through most of the day. I am going to keep working on the food strategy as I did not bonk nearly as bad as I have in the past and was strong most of the day.

Results

DMD Training Update

2010-04-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

1225 Miles/840: 146% of goal Miles
72950/7600: 96% of goal Climbing

Things are going well with DMD training and the ride less than 2 weeks away. I know what I need to do on each piece of the ride and am hoping for a breakout performance. The speed required to break 14 hours or better is not that amazing, the real challenge is piecing together all the segments, riding smart and properly fueling so you don't have a bad section that ruins the day. Its a little over 90 minues to the top of Diablo, about 1:45 to the top of Morgan Territory, a touch over 2 hours to the Mines Rest stop, 90-100 minutes to the Junction, 45-50 minutes to the base of Diablo, another 40-45 minutes to climb back side of Hamilton, 50 minutes or so to Crothers, 15 minutes to the base of Sierra, 30-35 minutes to climb SIerra, 5 minutes to the Goat, 15 more to the base of the Calavares wall, 40 minutes from their to Sunol, and an easy 90 minute ride in to the end. Simple to break 13 hours right? ;) Any of these segments are doable fresh Any 3-5 combined are doable in good shape, but when you add them all up, anything and everything can go wrong and this is what separates the top riders from the average ones.

In the end, its all about having a good time, at least thats is what I pretend to tell myself ;) I think I know how to piece together a solid day, but will the inevitable rough patch smack me hard? The massive cramps that knock you off the bike like you were shot by snipers? I expect them, and am hoping I can fight them off.

DMD analysis

DMD Training Update

2010-03-06T11:28:00.001-08:00

My goal was to get 4 times the climbing and miles of DMD between late Feb and race day. Right now I stand at:

316.5/840 Miles 37.68%
19000/76000 Feet 25%

I was a moderate maniac this morning and left the house at 4:30 AM to climb Page Mill and drop into Portala State Park for a cool 5000 feet morning. Did not run into a single car on Page Mill or the other side (Big Surprise at that time of morning), but it was good to get this ride in. This is the critical time for Devil Mountain Double where if I dont get in some good miles, that ride is not going to go well like last year. I feel undertrained, but think fitness will be around the corner if I keep doing what I did today. I am slightly heavier at this time compared to last year and can feel it. Maybe 6 pounds or so. Need to get more hard-core on the eating front.

Sadly enough, I think performance improvement would be better losing 10 pounds and riding 400 miles in a 3 month period versus riding 1500 miles and staying the same weight. Weight is where its at for riding hills and most of my improvements last year were from dropping in the 180's. Not too far away, but its never easy.

Where Nightmares Come From

2010-02-18T21:11:00.001-08:00

Random, but terrifying in so many ways.

Devil Mountain Double 8 1/2 weeks away

2010-02-15T20:14:00.000-08:00

Been a little less hard core in 2010 than 2009 to this point, but hoping I can still find smart ways to improve over next year. I am going to put out a goal of breaking 15 hours this time. Looking back at last years results DMD Rider Stats and comparing to these stats, I road an almost perfect ride into the Junction where I made a stupid mistake and ended up adding 10 extra miles due to forgetting water bottles. I was well with in the the 15:00 Hr time band to this point, but I really went down hill between the Junction and Crothers dropping to the 18 hour finishers due to this mistake as well as as over-heating on back-side of Hamilton. I lost about 30 minutes due to this mistake.

Assuming I dont do this again and avoid a flat like last year, and add in some cooler weather (were due after man hot years in a row), sub 15 is not impossible for me. The real challenge will to sharpen up the fitness from now until then. I did my local Time Trial trying to beat off this nasty cold and it took me 30:00 flat which was 40 seconds off my record. I think my climbing is ok, but will get in some hard pushes up OLH and Montebello soon to make sure.

My plan is to ride 4 X the mileage and altitude gain from now until the race for prep. I need to get 840 miles and 76,000 feet of climbing in the next 8 weeks.

RAAM 2011

2009-12-15T20:47:00.001-08:00

Starting to mentally prepare for RAAM solo in 2011. There never really has been a choice for me. This has been something I have been preparing to do for a long time. I am imagining a RAAM lite experience with two cars with 2-3 people running 12 hour shifts. Lots of time to determine the logistics I guess.

http://www.kaisercycling.com/racebudget.html Nice simple cost breakdown of a bare bones RAAM that I would like to follow. I wonder if 2 cars would be that risky? Having 3 seems like more of a headache to me. I was watching the 2006 RAAM documentary and saw how Jonathan Boyer was able to win with 1 vehicle from Kansas after a roll-over accident. I guess 3 cars is a good insurance policy.

Why we Suffer

2009-11-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

Even if the day ever dawns in which it will not be needed for fighting the old heavy battles against Nature, muscular vigor will still always be needed to furnish the background of sanity, serenity, and cheerfulness to life, to give moral elasticity to our disposition, to round off the wiry edge of our fretfulness, and make us good-humored and easy of approach. William James (1892)

Its that time of year to lay down some goals for next year. I am extremely happy to have the health of body and mind to lay down the plans for another year. Good luck to everybody else who is gearing up for another amazing year!

I am going to go for the 40 at 40 challenge this year. A Sub 40 10k has been something in the back of my mind for years but I never pulled it off. I figured it was never going to happen, but I have decided to give it a shot for 2010. Should be a lot of fun.

Old La Honda Low Key Hill Climb

2009-10-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

Results 52 people broke 20 minutes today. A pretty deep pool of local talent to say the least inhabits the Bay Area. I am happy with my time of 21:24. I have to work on this one to drop it down under 20. Chris Phipps crushed it in 15:37 which seems almost inhuman. This event was masterfully put on. They really did a great job in organizing almost 200 people and managed to get results up incredibly fast. Hopefully I can do a few more of these this Fall. Next week is Tunitas Creek, Starr Hill and Swett Road. Would be nice to do a standard coast ride as a warm up.

For the hell of it, I tried Montebello the day after this OLH LKHC. I did 36:02 which is my PR, but still disappointing as I could not break 36. I thought it was a lock, but I was just a little too relaxed to bust it.

Goals for 2010

2009-10-08T20:34:00.000-07:00

Would like to run a 100 mile run, break my PR on the Devil Mountain Double, the Terrible Two, and do the Alta Alpina Double again. Other goals include breaking 20 minutes in the 5k as well as 20 minutes up Old La Honda. Did a pretty solid 22:40 Old La Honda test prior to the Low Key Hill climb on Saturday. I started out pretty relaxed and found out that was the key to not blowing up 2/3 up and needing to stop. Hopefully I can keep cool on Saturday and use the adrenaline of the competition to drop it down a bit under 22. Who knows. Should be a lot of fun.

Hoodoo Voyager DNF

2009-09-13T19:54:00.000-07:00

The Voyager Division of the Hoodoo 500 is not for Everyone. The ultimate challenge in cycling in many ways sent me sailing off the high wire into the abyss. I took off strong with the only ex-european pro to take on an ultra, Sean Nealy, and quickly realized he was going at a pace way beyond anything I could handle. He told me he wanted to break 30 hours, which was a mighty audacious goal. I kept in second place pretty much the entire 1st stage other than a few miles where I rode behind Steve Lachaine, but I must have pushed a bit too hard as I began to really suffer on the climbs after Kanab. I enjoyed a ton of cramps, and lot of doubt about the day ahead. I realized quickly that the pannier that I had picked up in Kanab was not such a smart move as the weight was killing me on the climb. In one act of desperation at mile 110 I jettisoned my camelbak and rain jacket, but I was still suffering mightily into Hatch where I was passed by the supported solo leaders. But I kept pushing up towards Bryce Canyon National Park and started to get my legs back a bit. I pulled into the 202 mile park in under 13 hours of riding time and even though I felt pretty crappy, was doing great on time. I took a quick shower at the motel they provided us Voyagers and felt pretty solid taking off Boulder Mountain. I decided to not bring my Ski pants to save weight and slowly climbed up this climb to almost the 10,000 foot level. I froze on the descent off the mountain and started shaking so much that I had to stop on the side of the road. I pulled out the space blanket and tried to take a break, but this was probably a bad idea, as I was unable to get warm enough and I noticed a ton of black clouds above me which spurred me on to ride down the hill. I hooked up with Rick Jacobson and his crew and hitched into Loa for a DNF. The intimidation factor of riding up 10,000+ foot mountains w/o any support is what makes the Voyager so challenging. When the going gets tough, its up to you to work your way out of it. I went from feeling pretty how I would expect to feel at mile 260 on an Ultra to the bottom of the pit where I could not crawl out and it was all due to a mental breakdown. The supported divisions are so much easier as your team can keep you going and get you extra clothes, etc. I have a lot of respect for anybody who has finished this division. This year, it looks like 2 people might make it, but still not sure. The ex-pro must have had some major challenges as he may not break the existing record of 42 hours as I write.

Hoodoo 500 Voyager Ready to Go

2009-09-10T00:03:00.001-07:00

90% done with prep work for the Voyager. I must say its a bit more stressful prepping for this due to the fact you have to handle everything yourself and carry a lot. I am looking at a 23 pound bike from St. George to Kanab without water as I will be carrying a rack and a moderately large case. I will be carrying a chain and spare tire from the get-go which adds some weight. The first 85 miles are pretty easy and I am hoping I can make good time to Kanab. I will be picking up one of my panniers in Kanab with a camelbak which I hopefully will not need, but am going to take just in case. The next 120 miles has a nice gradual climb in it to about 7500 feet and a nice descent and more climb to Escalante. I will be picking up the motherlode in Escalante with ski pants, fugujack jacket, heavy bib shorts, bivvy sack, bar mitts, etc. I might have been able to put this off until Loa, but there is a climb to 9600 feet after Boulder and I dont want to freeze. I am guessing with both panniers I will be close to 40 pounds bike and gear into Loa. The "real feel" at Loa is supposed to be 31 degrees, so I will need to load up on gear. Last year it was FREEZING and I dont want to feel that alone, so I have over-done it this time. The next section to Panguitch looks like a piece of cake on paper, but it was harder that I thought it would be with a ton of rollers, and false flats. The crux of the ride comes after Panguitch with the 4500 foot total climb to Cedar Breaks. I hopefully will be able to shed a bunch of cold gear for this as the forecast looks pretty warm for the second night as we drop to warmer temps in St. George. Who knows what will happen. All I can say is that after getting all the gear together and seeing how heavy it is, any thoughts of specific times have dropped out of my mind. I really want to enjoy this and of course finish. I would be happy with finishing with enough time to get some sleep on Sunday night. Thats about as much as I am going to hope for now.

Race Across Oregon 2009 Photos

2009-08-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

RAO Photos Tx much to Jason for taking these. Takes me back to the fun and the pain ;)

Bike Set Up for Hoodoo 500 Voyager

2009-08-08T17:56:00.000-07:00

Having never set up or used Panniers, its been a bit of a learning experience to figure out what to get. Met some nice people at the Los Altos Bike Outfitter, but they really had no clue what a good set up would be for a modern road bike without eyelets. I did a bit of research and have settled for the Axiom Streamliner Road Rack based on the fact that it was designed for road bikes w/o eyelets. The price was shockingly cheap at $25.00 on Amazon, which is less than a quarter of what I might have picked up at the shop today. This will be critical to a successful Voyager ride and I hope I can figure out a light and solid solution pretty quickly.

Going to do a night ride tonight. Harwood, Hicks Both Sides, Reynolds Road, BlackBerry, Aztec Ridge, Black Road, Soda Springs, MonteVina and Bohlman. Should be a nice little ride. I wanted to load up the panniers for specific Hoodoo Voyager training, but will have to wear a heavy backpack instead.

Ended up only doing Harwood, Hicks both sides, Reynolds, Aztec Ridge, Blackberry and Bohlman. Next time will add Montevina and Black. Nice ride and a warm night.

Race Across Oregon 2009

2009-07-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

Start – Hood River, OR Best Western to Time Station #1 Tygh Valley (73.4 miles)

The Race Across Oregon in 2009 started in Hood River Oregon. The neutral start was led by George Thomas from the parking lot of Best Western out up some steep side streets through orchards to Hwy 35 which snakes slowly up the East side of Mt. Hood. Hwy 35 is an easy 5-6% climb that goes on for a long time. I met the crew at mile 18 or so and loaded up with some supplies and kept riding for the summit at Bennett Pass. Descended Bennett Pass which was a nice and fast descent to Hwy 48 which we hung a left to head out to Tygh Valley. This section was easy to descend and the climbs were not too steep. I was riding with James Cox and he mentioned his crew was meeting him at Tygh Valley because he figured he would not need support this early on in the race. Talk about hard core. We were riding through drier terrain and the trees were starting to thin out. I was moving well as we finally hit Tygh Valley at 9:32 AM in 10th place.

Stage 2: Time Station #1 Tygh Valley to Time Station #2 Moro (@45 miles)

We left Tygh Valley and crossed Hwy 197 towards the Deschutes River Valley. This is a rolling farm road with a terrific descent to the Deschutes River. The river was looking nice as it was starting to get hot as we faced the exposed Grass Valley climb that lacked sufficient parking space for crew support. The climb was not that steep, but the heat was starting to get to me and I was starting to cramp up. I popped a couple of S-Caps which immediately fixed the problem. I was passed by James Cox and Michael Maughan who was bravely wearing a black jersey in 90 degree heat. He flatted right before team support was available and had to deal with that annoyance. We also had to give James Cox some s-caps as he was starting to cramp due to the heat. We hit Hwy 97 and sadly turned away from Moro to Rutledge road where we hung a left. We were advised this should be down wind by the race guide, but sadly enough it was more of a head wind. This was when I first got passed by Karen Armstrong. I was a bit annoyed to be passed again as I was not feeling great, and this was mildly demoralizing, but I was feeling decent in the heat, while not very strong at this point. I kept pedaling and Duc, Thien and Jason worked hard to keep me loaded with liquids. I was slamming v-8, rock-star and diet coke like crazy as I started to pass Karen Armstrong just for the hell of it. She stopped and I hit a nice tail wind into the end of stage 2 at Moro. I don't remember seeing any people in this little town and I worked my way on some endless rollers and ever increasing heat into stage 3. 1:15 PM in 8th place.

Stage 3: Moro to Time Station #3 Shell Station Heppner (86 miles).

It was getting hot as we rode out of Moro and towards the canyons of the John Day River. We road down Monkland road which had a ton of rollers and then onto Hwy 206 towards Condon. There was one nasty hot climb on this section that was at least 6 miles with no shade and the crew saved my day by dousing me with ice water ever mile. This was a critical move by the crew as it prevented me from over-heating. My bike computer was reading 106 on this climb and I heard reports it was 100 degrees in nearby Heppner. I was unable to take a leak which bugged me, but I felt moderately ok in the heat as we finally got to a plateau where I pulled out the Time Bike and started cranking on the rollers. I passed Bruce Carrol from Team Almighty who looked awful. He beat me on the Terrible Two and is a strong rider, so he clearly was in a rough spot. His team saw me passing and figured it was him and offered me support. It took them a few seconds to realize I was not bruce, but I could tell he was going to have a tough time recovering. We hit a nice descent and then a solid climb where I saw Karen Armstrong again which felt good. I could not catch her on the climb, but was glad she was not too far ahead. I was passed by the very fast 4 man team Koenig's Kronies at this point and we saw George Thomas at this point. He was marvelling at Gandalf's Staff that Duc had found to prop up the trunk of the car that would not stay up with the second bike attached to it. George has done dozens of ultra's and had never seen anything like it was impressed enough to take a photo of it. Leave it to Duc to engineer something so simple yet elegant ;). We began full-time team following just before Heppner and rolled hard into Heppner at 8:03 PM in 7th place.

TS #3 Heppner to TS #4 Spray (151 miles)

We had to ride on some gravel road through a school and then hit a 5 miles climb that I was feeling pretty lousy on. I stopped a few times for some caffeine and pop-tarts and we finally summited right before pitch black. I went all out on the descent and barely needed to touch the brakes as the road was fantastic. We crossed a river and then got into another 5 mile climb that I did much better on. I always come around at night. The crew was doing a great job following me up the hill. On the descent I passed Ian Fillinger which really surprised me as I had picked him for top 3 base on his Rocky Mountain 1200 result. Before we got to Hwy 395, Ian passed me like I was standing still. I did not let it get to me, however, and I kept pedaling. I was happy to hit Hwy 395 as it meant a new direction South for us. The climb to Battle Mountain was long with a summit of 4290 feet. I was starting to climb better and more comfortably as summit approached and the race got more crowded as I saw Jeffrey Bonk, Michael Maughan, Ross Muecke, Greg Gesser and even Karen Armstrong. Being able to bridge the gap to the main part of the field energized me and I was listening to Jason's iPod with his musical tastes ranging from Industrial to 80's stuff like Depeche mode, kept me awake and guessing what would come up next. I was really pushing hard to get into the time station at Dale and passed a lot of people in the process. I pulled in to Dale at 2:46 AM in a shocking 3rd place. I was surprised to say the least, but really motivated to stay there so we quickly escaped and kept pushing hard towards Long Creek. The clouds were getting dark at this point and we got hit by a few drops of rain, but we drove on towards Long Creek. I could not believe how well the 2 5 mile climbs went as I felt like I was at the beginning of a ride as I climbed with ease sucking down hammer gel, caffeinated energy drink and v8. We hit Long Creek very early in the morning and turned right on Hwy 402. There was a short climb immediately, but we had a huge tail wind for this hill and I was flying to the summit. We then dropped into the John Day River valley down towards Spray and it was a drop dead gorgeous descent and the prettiest section since Mt. Hood. We dropped towards and passed Monument and Kimberly and down towards Spray. The road looked like a nice descent, but I was not moving too fast, but I continued to pedal. I did not want to be passed and my paranoia was starting to rise. I did a quick change at the Spray time station and quickly head out into the next stage. Time Arrived: 8:07 AM. 3rd place.

TS #4 Spray to TS #5 Imperial River Company Maupin (100 Miles)

We had more flats to the beginning of the next climb. I ran into a solo rider from Quebec who had ridden all the way during the last 3-4 weeks to this point. He had a great attitude and kept telling me I was insane and massochistic to be doing this. I could not find a good argument against that and we chatted a while. He turned off towards Bend and I then faced a big hill starting at Service Creek. This climb had 10 miles of 6% grade and I was getting a bit cocky on it feeling great. My left achilles decided to scream out a bit and I had to cool the pace a bit. This climb kept going longer than I expected and I was glad to summit. The crew told me they talked to a race official that said we were still safely in 3rd place. I quickly saddled up for the descent into Fossil which went pretty quickly. We passed the 45th parallel after Fossil we faced a nice 4 mile climb and then a 10 mile descent into the Painted Hills and then into Clarno. Jason mentioned this was a tough climb, but I really started to suffer on this climb and it was the first time on the ride I showed any cracks and weakness. We passed the Clarno Bridge and started the climb. The crew helped me out with ice water dunks every mile or so and the twisty steep road took its toll on me as I had to stop quite a few times. Finally we hit the summit and then dropped into Antelope. For those of who grew up in the 80's, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh "Osho" and his fleet of Rolls Royces was something that we all remember. I would have gladly joined their cult the way I was feeling at this point, but sadly they were all gone and they had been taken over by a new group of believers Young Life that while lacking the flair of Osho and his cohorts had their own fleet of vehicles, annoying busses taking kids to Christian Camp at 75 MPH. I managed to avoid them as we kept climbing past Antelope on a non-descript 1000 footer into Shaniko. Duc offered me an ice cream, but I was not interested as it seemed too rich. The winds were really whipping up as I had to ride a mile down hwy 97 before a right turn onto Bakeoven road. We had been warned of headwinds, but what we faced was more than tough. The winds were so bad that I almost got knocked off my bike a couple of times. I was cruising at 5 mph into a dead wind down hill and realized this was going to really force me to bear down and not panic. I managed to keep pedaling and stop every once in a while and try to be as optimistic as I could when I talked to the team. It was almost a joke riding in this wind, but this was what I signed up for and I was ready for anything. I dont know how long the 26 miles took to get to Maupin, but it had to be at least 2.5 hours. I pulled into Maupin at 5:37 PM and Duc advised me to cross the bridge and head towards Tygh Valley. 3rd place.

TS #5 Maupin to Cooper Spur Finish (59.2 Miles)

I crossed the Deschutes River Bridge and pedaled away from Maupin into the same stinking head wind. I really started to believe that if this wind did not die down, I would psychologically give up. I could not ride at 8 MPH forever, but I just kept pedaling and hoping for a change in direction. The crew caught me and gave me some great food from the store. They were really an A+ crew that never let me down once. They were so good that I was trying my best to make it to the end strongly to not let them down. We luckily turned right towards Tygh Valley and amazingly I got 4 miles of nice tail wind which I smoked at 25+ MPH and then a descent that had cross winds so bad I could not descend normally fearing being tossed into the gutter. We faced more head winds out of Tygh Valley and then an amazing wind protected 7 mile climb of Tygh Ridge. While this was a tough climb, the lack of wind made me love every minute and I rode it smoothly yet strong considering the steepness. The next descent into Dufur was plagued with cross winds preventing a fast descent. I started to whine when I got hot foot so bad it made me scream in pain. Luckily it went away and we finally got to the outskirts of Dufur and then we hit FR 44 towards the finish. The ride from Dufur is fantastic in the beginning as you pass green farms, horses, cows with an amazing view of Mt. Hood. The climb was going well and my fear of being passed was forcing me faster up the hill. Jason also did some calculations for RAAM qualication and i was going to have to ride with anger to make it in time. I pushed and pushed and pushed and the made mistake asking how far it was to the top and when I heard 20+ miles I almost got sick. I could not believe how tough and long this was. Finally we got into more heavy forest and summited the road and then had a long cold descent to Hwy 35. I started getting mild hallucunications by this point and saw a monkey or two and a small elephant. Nothing like the Hoodoo 500's Giant Bob's Big Boy, or the massive hallucinations on the 508, but just enough that combined with my tiredness made the descent less fun than it should have been. We finally saw the sign for the Cooper Spur ski resort which signaled the finish. I pushed hard as hell to the resort and then knew we had a little climb left up Cloud Cap Road to the end. I underestimated how long and steep this climb was and I kept stopping asking if were on the right road. My nice crew was ok with my annoying questions and finally I saw a car, a cabin and a single empty chair in the pitch black. We did it. Where was everybody? I expected a huge celebration with people jumping up and down, but there we were in a deathly quiet beautiful forest with an empty green chair. We noticed a red Prius with the engine running and a sleeping George Thomas the Race Director. We jostled him out of his slumber and he shook our hands as official finishers. We did it. It took us 43:16 and we managed a solid 3rd place finish as well as a RAAM qualification. In some ways, that empty green chair was a fitting ending to a team effort in which all 4 of us worked hard as a team and never gave in to fear or pain as we drove forward to the goal. We went through deserts, mountains, cold, heat, rain, ghost towns, trailer parks, driving wind and while driven by competition and raam qualification, those external goals meant nothing as much as the team work, friendship and spirit that drove us forward to an empty green chair.

Results

RAO Photos

Race Across Oregon Coming up

2009-07-05T21:33:00.000-07:00

Taking off in a few days. Did a crazy hill sprint ride with Martin up Aztec Ridge and Blackberry Hill that ended up getting us 4,000 feet of climbing in 15 miles. I could not even attempt to sprint up the top of Blackberry Hill which we did 3 times. It was pretty damn painful, but hard which made it great. Not sure if this is an ideal taper, but who really knows the secret to success in ultracycling. Not sure what my strategy will be, but I am figuring on some aggressive riding next weekend. No need to leave anything on the table.

Race Across Oregon Elevation Profile

2009-06-30T21:43:00.001-07:00

Non Cropped Images

Sadism will prevail next weekend. I knew RAO had a lot of climbing, but you dont get the full impact until you stick all these elevation graphs together. Its like doing the Terrible Two, Devil Mountain Double, and the Western Wheelers Century in a row. I can't wait.

Terrible Two

2009-06-22T21:47:00.000-07:00

The day started quick as usual from the start at Analy High. We were moving 20+ towards Santa Rosa. This was my 5th start for the TT, so I am starting to get used to the feeling. I was on my back-up bike that I have not ridden once since January giving me doubts about the day ahead. How I managed to break my fork on the way up to the ride is still a mystery to me. Somehow, a blast of wind managed to knock my bike over and snap the carbon drop out probably on Hwy 380 towards San Francisco. Some drivers were signaling to me and it took me a while to figure out the bike was sitting on its side, half way hanging off the car. The carbon drop out was still attached to the rack while the bike lied limply to the side. Luckily the damage was just to the fork and I can get that replaced before RAO. After driving back home to pick up the backup bike, I took back off for the ride. I had to adjust my goals on the fly as I knew it would be tough riding a bike I have touched since January and close to 4000 miles ago.

Riding down Bennett Valley Road with the top 20 or so, I managed to get dropped by the group on the descent before Trinity Grade. I started the climb alone and got passed by a few guys half way up. It was pretty cool out compared to last year, and I was climbing ok, but noticing that I was not climbing as well as with the Scott bike. The Trinity descent went ok and the little climb before Oakville Grade was with a decent group, but again, I got gapped on the descent as they took of at about 50 MPH down that hill and I hit the brakes. It was me and one guy trying to gap up the big group on Silverado Trail. I pushed it hard and managed to catch up, but was so tired from the effort I let them go and hung with a couple of guys trading pulls in the 22 MPH range. I felt like quitting for a minute as I was really feeling tired, unable to hang with the groups I felt I normally would be able to, and was just burned out. But, I kept pushing it into the first rest stop at mile 55 in Calistoga. I hit this in less than 3 hrs total time, at almost 20 MPH for the day, so things were ok. Was in and out of the rest stop in one minute and out to the Geysers. I managed to find 4 guys to work with towards the Geysers and we hit the base at about 19 MPH for the day. I was not feeling too snappy on the climb up the Geysers, but my overall fitness is much better, so even though I felt crappy, the first summit came pretty easily. The aid station was quickly dealt with and the descent down Sulfur Creek Canyon was as bumpy as usual. I remember hitting Mile 100 in 5:50 riding time, so things were ok. I did not get passed once on Sulfur Springs which surprised me. A couple of guys did pip me before lunch though, but I let them go. I treated lunch like a rest stop and was out in 2 mins. Skaggs was the coolest I have had yet in 5 attempts. I thought it was going to be toothless, but it still had bite and I methodically pedaled towards the top aid station never cranking too hard, but never stopping either. The second summit did not go too great for me as hot foot was coming on and I got passed by at least 5 guys. The descent to Gualala was typical for me as I took it easy. Near the bottom I got passed by Eric House and his brother and the #1 woman, Donna Nice. After taking a huge slug of Hammer Gel, I got a big energy surge. Note to self, remember to eat more on the RAO. I quickly took off from the aid station and headed to the dreaded Rancheria Wall. But this time, I was thinking of Summit Springs in Woodside and how much harder that climb is. This seemed to help as I really attacked the wall and felt the most aggressive I had all day. To that point, I felt like a survivor, but it was great to hammer that climb. Stewart's Point Rancheria at the top always interests me as I pass it. The Kashia Pomo Native American tribe were placed on a 40 acre tract on the top of Skaggs right before the drop to Hwy 1 and I am always shocked to see people living up there.

The descent to the coast was nice. We had a good tail wind to Ft. Ross and I managed to push it pretty hard, but I was not feeling particularly strong. I hit Ft. Ross at 4:33 PM and knew that a sub 14 hour finish was possible. I got out fast and attacked the climb like I did Rancheria Wall. It was damn hard, but I got to the top w/o resting and managed to keep the pressure on. The second climb of Ft. Ross before the descent to Cazadero was hard as usual, as you always think your done earlier. I got passed by some crazy descenders on the technical descent to Cazadero. But by this point, I was being extra careful as I needed to just keep moving to hit my goal. I pulled into Monte Rio at 6:20 leaving me 1:10 to get back to Analy High to break 14. Could I pull it off?

The ride towards Graton road always has more rollers than you remember the year before. I pushed hard and finally hit the left turn up Graton. I knew this would be one more small climb before the descent into Analy. The descent was a fantastic gift as it was fast, fun, and taking me home. I pulled into the end at 7:18 PM a bit surprised I made it by 12 mins. 13:48 for me was great considering where I started on this ride as a DNF and then two non-official finishes after 10:00 PM. Last years 15:01 in the heat was great, but today was a good breakthrough for me. I would like to do even better, but I achieved my goal that I did not want to jinx myself with by putting to paper before the ride, and managed to do it on the backup bike. Anyway, this was all about RAO, and I am thinking that stacking up Alta Alpina and the Terrible Two in 8 days was a good block of work. I got almost 500 miles in those 8 days and 40,000 feet of climbing. So it was a virtual RAO in a week. Two of my competitors in RAO were in the TT and Bruce Carroll beat me by 12 minutes and Laurence Kluck was behind me by about 30 minutes. Will be great to compete with them at RAO.

Results
Total Time: 13:48
Ride time: 13:18
Off Bike: 30
Total Climb: 17,600 (TT has more than it advertised ;) )
Average Speed moving: 15.1 MPH
Average Speed overall: 14.5 MPH

Terrible Two on Saturday

2009-06-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

Been resting up hard this week for a full onslaught of the Terrible Two on Saturday. Going to leave it all on the road since this is the last hard ride before Race Across Oregon. I love the TT and its something I always look forward to. I plan on staying in the top 10% out to the base of Geysers so I can take advantage of some drafting. After this, its up to you to race to Skaggs and hopefully summit w/o cramping or suffering too hard. The key will be the right music for Skaggs. Last year I found out that the Grateful Dead works well on Skaggs. Have no idea why, but I plan on making sure I have some jams lined up. I have some crazy ideas in my head about what is possible on Saturday from a time perspective, but we all know that the main goal is to finish. I cant sully a fine blog entry with stupid egotistical blatherings. When it comes down to it, I will be thinking of RAO and not to worried about what happens on Saturday.

Terrible Two Time: 13:48

Alta Alpina Double

2009-06-14T22:37:00.000-07:00

8 climbs, 20,400 feet total, 200 miles made for an epic day in the saddle. I was thinking that this would be pretty easy, as its just the Death Ride plus 5,000 feet and 65 miles. But the reality is that this is the Death Ride with 5,000+ feet of extra climbing. We had a bit of snow, rain, and freezing cold to throw in the mix to make this day stand out even more. My partner forgot his gloves and I had to ride w/o them and got the ultimate field test of Bar Mitts.

More later

Western Wheelers 100K

2009-06-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

Did this ride unofficially plus Summit Springs today and was home by 9:30 AM. Started at around 4 AM with Martin and we enjoyed a windless cool morning. We ended up with 7000 feet of climbing in 70 miles as we added Summit Springs at the end. The 21% on the top of that hill was a nice coda to the ride.

RAO Screencast

2009-06-05T23:17:00.000-07:00

Have always wanted to use Google Street View to create a simulation of riding along the road. I saw a great example of this Golden Gate Screencast and wanted to try it. I downloaded a 30 day copy of Camtasia and was able to easily build a test one. If one had a lot of time to sit and click, I guess you could do the entire RAO. It would be great if somebody figured out how to automate this. It might take as long to do an entire screencast of the RAO then to ride the thing.

I did Page Mill on the way home today in 46:10 which felt pretty good. Was nice and cool which made the ride a lot less painful. Going to do the Western Wheelers 100K on Sunday, but need to be back by 9 AM. I will take off at 3:30 AM to test out the lights as well as practice for next weeks Alta Alpina Double that will start at the same time. How will 20,000 feet of climbing feel? This is the first time I have attempted it in a single day.

Time Trial Bike Set Up

2009-06-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

Went to Mike Boester at the Palo Alto Bike Connection who set me up on the Scott Road Bike. He raised my seat on the Cervelo by more than a CM as at 80 CM it might match the Scott bike, but due to the different geometry and the more forward position, it needed to go higher. He also tweaked my bars to make it more comfortable. Going to ride in the TT bike to work tomorrow to test it out, but the little ride back felt great. Mike is a TT specialist and said he finished behind Kevin Metcalf in the early 90's on the state championships. He really takes his time and confidently set me up. Based on what he did on my Scott, I am pretty optimistic about this and how it can help in Race Across Oregon.

Time Trial #3: 26:15 Unofficial

2009-05-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

Results

The 3rd Beat the Clock Time trial of 2009 happened on Saturday and I was excited to tackle this post Devil Mountain and Central Coast Doubles. I figured I was going to crush it and felt pretty cocky, especially since I was sporting my ridiculous LAS Chronos TT helmet. I started out fast and noticed a lot of 30 MPH on the computer in the first few minutes. My joy was quickly crushed as I clearly went out too fast as I felt dead before the turn-around and felt like I was riding in mud. I figured I blew it again, but kept pushing. I got passed a bit past half way mark. It was a good thing I got passed as I was able to focus on something outside of myself and I kept the guy about 150 feet ahead of me for most of the rest of the ride. I was surprised I could keep him the same distance away for the rest of the ride, but I think this guy was much smarter about pacing and looked pretty solid. I think I went out way too fast which is a rookie mistake for these time trials as once you over do it, its really hard to come back. I managed to recover and held 18-19 mph up the last hill and cruised into the finish in approx 26:15 which was 56 seconds faster than my last two attempts. 56 seconds improvement does not sound like much, but I am glad to have picked up some time after suffering that bad. Time Trials are a great complement to the Ultra Endurance events as they are hard in completely different ways. Sure riding 500 miles is tough, but pushing so hard you feel your going to puke is hard even if its for 27 minutes.

About to head out for an obsessive compulsive night ride to insure I lock in 800 miles for May. Nothing worse than an OCD ride at night on the last day of the month to achieve an absurd victory. Luckily its only 13 miles! I can test out my new night light I got for the Hoodoo 500.

Attacking the Hills

2009-05-24T07:45:00.000-07:00

Had the kind of day where the tough hills felt easy. Black Road with Gist option went really well, then Alba felt like a breeze. We pushed hard up the last hill of the day Mountain Charlie and nailed it. My pulse was dropping in the 80's on the descents indicating form is coming. I also noticed that I could microburst on the climbs up hammering up to a tree 100 feet ahead and then quickly recovering before doing it again. It was a good day. The main question, is how do you time a good day? It seems the last two big rides on my calendar I showed up nervous and could not get the heart below 100 on the early descents and I felt moderately ill, yet I could not determine if it was really something wrong, or just nerves. It must be just experience and realizing that you cant control all the variables in this game. Even though I had 4 flats, it was a nice day. I felt bad keeping Mike and Loren waiting as I changed them. We even had to make a special stop in Scott's Valley to hit a bike shop to load up on more tubes. Needless to say I am tossing out the offending tire. Typically, we were stopped for a autograph by the tifoso in Boulder Creek. Since my partners Levi and Freddy signed, I gave in. Gotta keep the fans happy I guess.

75 miles
7800 feet of Climbing

Triple Crown Stage Race Results after CCD

2009-05-16T12:14:00.000-07:00

Triple Crown Stage Race Results after CCD Rather than waiting a month for the Triple Crown page to update the results, I just pulled down the results from the DMD and the CCD to see where things stand. I am 14th place at this point with a long gap between myself and 13th. Should be interesting to at Mt. Tam this year for the final stage. Feeling happy so far about avenging my previous Lanterne Rouge performance in 2006.

Centra Coast Double

2009-05-10T11:10:00.001-07:00

Results

Had a goal of breaking the top 30 today and my plan was to try to ride near the front of the pack to Cambria so I could catch a fast train to the base of Nacamiento. The pace was quick out of town and there at one of the early turns a guy crashed hard right in front of me when he missed a left and tried at the last second to make the turn. He flew over his bars and was pretty shaken up, but did not appear to be injured. I was averaging about 18-19 MPH for the first hour that had about 1800 feet of climbing so the pace was pretty hard. The Santa Rosa hill is pretty challenging, but pretty similar to Redwood Gulch and I made quick work of it. I loaded up quickly at the first rest stop and started the descent into Cambria. My cruddy descending was about to hurt my plan as I got passed about 1/2 way down with what looked like a great coastal train. I figured I was a lock to keep up with them, but they were really flying and I realized I was falling behind and as hard as I tried I could not catch them. I road solo from Cambria for at least an hour until I was finally passed. It was beautiful riding to the base of Nacamiento as I fought a minor head wind. Nacamiento starts out hard with some 10% ramps, but eases up into a consistent 7-8%. It was pretty hot on a few exposed sections which surprised me for being so close to the coast. The climb took about 45 minutes and I lost time on the descent to the group I was with as I could not handle the speed on the sketchy road like my comrades. That meant that I had to solo it into lunch which seemed to go pretty quick. CCD is not known for its lunch, and luckily I was in top 25% of the ride as the lunch meat and bread was not being rationed yet. I made it out of there quickly and noticed it was 90 degrees according to the Hunter Liggett temperature gauge. Luckily I hooked up with 2 other riders and we shared pulls up Jolon road. It was miserable riding and I knew a nice descent was coming which made the pain easier to take. The descent finally came and there was a nasty cross wind making the fast descent a bit less fun that it should have been. The guy I was riding with had deep dish Zipp rimms and he looked really sketchy on the descent. We hung a ride on San Lucas road and got a great tail wind. I ran out of water at this point and was starting to panic as there was no way I could make it into Lockwood. Luckily there was an ad hoc water stop under Hwy 101 which saved my ride. I loaded up here and pushed into the Lockwood aid station. We had a great tail wind for maybe 6 miles and then started the climb up Interlake road. Its not a hard climb, but my computer was reading 106 in the direct sun and I was suffering on the last turn. I chatted with a guy I did the Hoodoo 500 with Josh Talley who was having a rough day out there but gutting it out to the end. We descended into Bradley and fought a nasty head wind into the Aid station. Nothing beats Hot Dogs at mile 185 and I made it a double dog and took off pretty quickly. I road with Josh and Ernesto a guy I met on the DMD a few weeks ago. The climb up Hare Canyon is the highlight of the second half as the wind died down, it was gorgeous up there, and the heat was dying down. Another great thing about Hare Canyon is once you summit, your done with the hard part of the CCD and can expect 25 miles of fast riding to the end. I love that Google has done the Street View feature for really remote roads like Hare Canyon with absolutely nothing on them but deserted farms and ranches. I would have liked to have been the guy who got to drive these deserted roads for this feature!

The tangle of roads into the end was a blur, but I enjoyed every minute of it averaging over 20 MPH for the last hour. I attacked the hills like it was mile 10 knowing I wanted to finish before dark and there was no time to waste. I made it to the end right before dark. Like all doubles, I had highs and lows, but luckily more highs and never went too deep in the pain cave.

Distance: 219.5
Ride Time: 13:42:21
Total Time: 14:31
Total Climbing 13792
Time off Bike: 46:09
Average Speed: 16.01
Average Heart Rate: 139
Max Speed: 39
Temp Min: 43
Temp Max: 106
Altitude: 367 Min 3054 Max
Inclination: -12% Min 16 % Max
Calories Burned: 10302
Place: 22/175

Central Coast 220 Miler

2009-05-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

According to the CCD website, the ride is up to 220 miles due to some last minute road closures. Nothing like a 350K ride to really test your mettle. True to form, the weather will be 90 degrees on Saturday as well. This will make for great Race Across Oregon training. I have some illusions of finishing higher up in the standings than I did on the Devil Mountain Double, but going to play it hour by hour and see how things go. With my bling white tires I better put in a decent showing, or I will hang my head in shame. f I only had white handle bar tape, seat and shoes I could really expose true riding self to the world. Oh well. White tires is enough for now. There is one really strong set of endurance riders here. I can see 10-15 names I recognize from various ultras and doubles that will make this a pretty competitive day on the sharp end of the ride. My main goal is to try and hang near the front until Nacamiento and then see what happens after this hill. Its a fantastic climb and I am really looking forward to it. The last time I did this ride in 2006, Jason and I were near the end of the pack and they ran out of food. Jason did not appreciate the hot dogs they offered him being a vegetarian at that time of his life. We will see if things are any better this time.

Old La Honda Time Trial

2009-04-25T20:50:00.001-07:00

Could tell my form is coming in pretty good based on resting heart rate hitting new lows for me this morning of 38. What better way to see how things are going then to take on the 20 minute barrier on Old la Honda. I took it really easy on the way to the climb and made sure I had a large bottle of sugar free Red Bull drank along the way. Caffeine is my drug and I needed to insure that I had enough in me for this painful test. I was resigned to my fate as I approached hell and serene at the start. Taking off form the bridge, I was holding 14+ mph for about 30 seconds until I settled into 10-11 MPH and did not drop below 10 MPH until after 3 minutes. Was moving well and hit the 12% ramp at 9 1/2 minutes in or so. I was not able to hold 10 MPH until I hit the dark redwood section and was able to push hard until Upenuf which is near a tough little ramp that slows you down. I had to push hard until the 3 mile mark which I hit it 18:14. It was weird knowing that I had .3 miles to go and I had 1:46 to do it. This was new territory for me and sensing this I pushed hard up to 12 MPH. I think in retrospect, if I knew how close I was I might have went into death mode and pushed it at 13-14 because I could tell at the last turn to the end I was just going to miss it. I always imagine when on a tough time trial having an insane monster chasing me and pushing to the point that I would rather give in and get eaten by this monster than keep pushing any more. I relented to the beast and stopped at 20:15. Close, but not quite there. Will have to try later on this season after a bit more work. More OLH Results

Also found a new road off of Portola Road. Hang a turn onto Hayfields Road if you want 400+ feet of 15% climbing. Wayside which is the next road over looks like an even longer one.

DMD Finished

2009-04-16T17:24:00.000-07:00

DMD Results

Took 15:50. Looks like the winner was 12 hours and change. I started off very strong and was 4 mins behind 5 AM leaders at top of Diablo in 1:42. Hit Morgan Territory in about 3:35 averaging about 15.5 MPH and was again a few mins behind leader. A flat on Altamont took some wind out of my sails and got passed by a lot of people, but I got back moving and hit Mines at 11:20. I felt a bit sick climbing MInes, but somehow recovered and pulled in to lunch about 1:05; I quickly left lunch without something very important, my water bottles. About 3.5 miles down the road I looked down and saw empty cages and starting cussing. This guy looked at me and took off and I went back. Nothing like 10.5 bonus miles in 85 degree heat for a morale boost. I triied to stay positive and kept moving well. I hit the base of Hamilton at maybe 2:15 or so. I did not fly up like my training ride but managed to hold 5-6 MPH the entire way. My bike computer showed 99 degrees in direct sun light. It might have been 85 in the shade, but it was hot, and I was popping enduralytes like a junkie 2 and 3 at a time as soon as a cramp started. I sucked on the desecent of Hamilton like usual and had the dreaded stomach ache as I dropped down. Feeling lousy at Crothers. I left at around 4:30 for the dreaded demon of Sierra. I was feeling horrendous and had to stop a lot climbing this hill. At about 2 miles into the climb I had a recovery of sorts and was able to pedal to the end. I left the Pet the Goat at 5:45 PM and felt much better as it started to cool down. I actually was enjoying the ride more and listening to the iPod and cruised into Sunol. I had some Chili and left at 7 PM. The ride down Niles was not as bad as usual and I hit Palomares and started climbing easy. i got a great burst of energy and stated ripping hard up the hill passing many people I wanted to get to the descent before dark and I managed to do it. What a relief being able to see the road. i hooked up with a few guys and worked over towards Crow Canyon. What a horrible road at night. Lukily we hit Norris and I was feeling really good and took off from the 3 guys I was with and pedaled hard up that hill. The descent was nice and I pulled into the end with at time of 15:50.

218 Miles
15:03 riding time
47 minutes off the bike
14.5 MPH riding
19783 feet of Climbing
10900 Calories Burned
15:50 Total Time

Great day and definetely the toughest day on the bike for me. This was way harder than last years Terrible Two for me. My fast start plus the heat bonk tore me a new one. I wanted to quit badly up Sierra, but managed to suffer through to the end.

A huge shout out to Martin Brooks for finishing this as his first double. He started riding in November after years off and started riding the local hills in prep for DMD. To finish this as your first double is an amazing feat!

The Central Coast Double is only two weeks away. Time to get in a few tune ups and hopefully some hard fast climbs in. Would like to really see if I can hang near the front of this ride and pick up a few hours over 3 years ago.

DMD South

2009-04-03T21:35:00.001-07:00

Started at base of Sierra Rd. Took me 31 minutes or so to summit. Got to the Calaveres wall at 51 minutes. Fought a strong side wind into Sunol which I hit at 1:45. The cut over to Mines road was down wind and I easily held 22-24 MPH. I got really lucky with a tail wind up Mines Road and it took me 1:38 or so from the DMD Mines road rest stop to the Junction. This would have put me in the 12:30 DMD finishers range so clearly, I was feeling good and I had a nice tail wind. I managed to hold 15.11 MPH between Mines rest stop and the Junction which was pretty insane. I never saw as many hard-core red necks in CA as I saw in the Junction today. I am sure they appreciated my spandex. It took me about 45 minutes to get to the bridge at the base of Hamilton and 45 minutes to summit Hamilton. This time was also in the 13:00 hour range of finishers for DMD. My pedestrian descent of a bit less than an hour to Crothers was no where near the top guys. Not surprising there. I ran in as hard as I could to the car holding 20-24 for most of it. What a ride. I could hold with the top tier of the DMD if the ride was 107 miles. What happens when I have to ride 100 more miles? We shall see.

One cool thing was it took me 3:15 to ride from the beginning of Mines road to the Summit of Hamilton which is about 46 miles or 14.15 MPH. The views at the top of Hamilton were amazing, especially when cranking Hendrix live jams. Managed to hit his Star Spangled version jam and got insanely happy for a few minutes. I had a fit of happiness as I descended Hamilton ;)

Nobody will believe this, but I was not passed ONCE by a car from the Junction to Alum Rock Road. 40+ miles and not one car passed me. I saw cars going the other way, but avoided getting passed that whole way. Cycling nirvana.

6:50
107 Miles
15.66 Moving
10 minutes or so off the bike
9300 feet of climbing

Devil Mountain Double is Chock-Full-O- Hard Core Ultra Runners

2009-03-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

Eric Skaden Winner American River 50
Graham Cooper Winner Western States 100
David Goggins Multiple top finishes, RAAM 2009
Kevin Sawchuck Multiple top finishes
Jasper Halekas Winner Tahoe Rim Trail 100

There is more elite talent at the DMD than 90% of the Ultra Marathons around. I am expecting to see Karl Meltzer give his standard odds of the winner of this race as he does all big ultra runs. I would love to hear what these guys think of the DMD and if they consider it hard or not. I doubt any of these guys will come in first, as a specialist is bound to win it, but it will be great to see if they can crack the top 10.

At this rate, I am expecting to see Karnazes, Dean or Jurek, Scott in the DMD sign up list.

My training is going great as I have 700 miles for March with 42,000 feet of climbing. All systems go.

Death to VDO MC 1.0 Cyclometer

2009-03-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

Finally blew up my VDO MC 1.0 Computer as it decided to stop working this weekend. I have yet to find a good cyclomter that I cant break within a short period, or find something about it that makes using it miserable. My main requirement other than the basic ones is Altitude gained for day. Maybe this requirement forces me into the fringes of cyclomters, but I keep getting disappointed.

HAC 4: Burned through 2 or 3 of these. They just stopped working for various reasons. Having a battery in the Unit, the Mount and the sensor was always a big problem in troubleshooting issues. Too much $$ and trouble.

Blackburn Delphi 5.0: When descending, the speed drops to zero. Very frustrating problem that lacks an easy answer. Also, this computer has a stupid climb % feature that does no real dampening and jumps all over the place as you climb rendering the feature useless.

VDO MC 1.0: I liked the altimeter on this as similar to HAC 4, it has a good dampening algorithm. When it said a hill was 15%, you could believe it. Unlike horrible Blackburn and others that have no dampening on altitutude samples and jump from 2 to 6 to 15 to 7 for climb percentage. Too bad the buttons on it stopped working. I liked this computer until it quit on me. One strange bug is it switched from Miles to KM after 24 hours of use on the Hoodoo 500.

Garmin 305: Terrible Battery life (Less than 10 hours). Horrible Climb % Algorithm that jumps all over the place. Terrible bike mount that eventually caused mine to jump away on a bump and disappear down a ravine.

Polar 700 series: Having to send the unit in to change the battery is a deal killer. I gave up once it died. Heavy unit as well. Awful.

I picked up a Ciclosport 215A that has a basic altimeter sans gradient reader for 45 bucks on line. While I am bound to like it for a while, we shall see if I render it useless in a week or two. I dont consider myself insanely hard on these units, rather the ultracycling training and events just push these units to the limit and either expose obvious flaws such as battery life, or strange bugs like the VDO that switched from Miles to KM after 24 hours on the Hoodoo 500.

Canada Road Time Trial #2

2009-03-28T08:58:00.000-07:00

My unofficial time of 27:11 was EXACTLY the same time as four weeks ago. I was hoping to pick up a few seconds, but no go. My heart rate was pegged the entire time. Luckily this European stranger coached me the last mile. Some random rider guy came up beside me and was motivating me to keep going. I was passed with a couple of minutes to go and this random coach advised me he was slowing down and I could catch him again. I manged to almost hold the guy until the last few seconds and let him go. Thx god coach came by as I would have been worse this time than 4 weeks ago when I was sick. Next time, I am going to roll with the TT helmet and see if I can buy a few seconds.

Results

25 goat ride?

2009-03-21T23:48:00.000-07:00

25 Goat Route

Harwood Santa Rosa 565 1
Aztec Ridge 960 2
BlackBerry Hill 950 3
Shannon/Kennedy 790 4
Soda Springs 2400 5
MonteVina 1700 6
Bohlman on Orbit 2337 7
Black Road 1780 8
Overlook in Los Gatos 680 9
Peach Hill/Ojai 990 10
Reynolds off of Hicks 661 11
Hicks W 1120 12
Umunuh 910 13
Hicks East 1050 14
Via Santa Teresa/Scenic 640 15
Bailey/Buffalo Hill 530 16
Metcalf 1033 17
Aborn 815 18
Chaboya near Quimby 545 19
Quimby East 545 20
Quimby West 1700 21
Mt. Pleasant 440 22
Clayton 840 23
Suncrest 610 24
Sierra 1830 25
26421 Feet

Only 200 miles. Sounds like a lot of fun. Who is in? Seems like a nice way to spice up that little aneurysm in your life. How about challenging the obsessive compulsive gremlin in your head that keeps telling you to quit riding and become fat and happy? What better way to show that gremlin your not giving up? I am sure this is no better morally or spiritually than eating 50 hotdogs in 12 minutes, nor will it make you a better person. Any demons you face will not be real, nor will any spiritual gain be of any long term value.

Steep Hills

2009-03-21T13:51:00.000-07:00

New Steep Climb

Did Aztec Ridge today, Blackberry Hills, Harwood/Santa Rosa and Hicks. Met a guy out on the road who told us of a way to do a very direct route of BlackBerry Hill directly from Kenndy by hanging a right up Big Basin way into Teresita and then past a bunch of "Do Not Enter" signs to Ravina Way and then Paseo Camino before hitting BlackBerry Hill. You end up climbing 1300 feet in 1.88 miles for a ride 13.09%. This is steeper than anything on Western Wheelers by a mile. I did analysis of all the Billy Goats and nothing comes remotely close to climbing 1300 feet in 1.88 miles. However, Summit Springs does in fact pass this, but its much shorter, dropping it in the pain factor.

Analysis of Goats sorted by Percentage of Climb.

The trick with this ride is that you would never dream of connecting to BlackBerry from Kennedy unless you talked to the owner of the house with the "Do Not Trespass" signs like we did today. Luckily the guy was cool as hell and said he does not mind bicycles using this route. I dont mind putting this here as the 5 people who read this most likely wont spread the word to the masses ;) The only other issue is that once on BlackBerry hill, one needs to not notice the two do not trespass signs that are actually pretty easy to miss. I missed the first one. The guy we met said one of the guys up there is not friendly to bikers, but we had no issue at all today. Your mileage may vary. I would consider this the toughest climb around, but it being shorter than Bohlman, still does not quite put it in that class in my mind.

Fun stuff though. After this climb, Hicks was a nice little cool down.

Old Priest Grade climbs 1500 feet in two miles which is a tad over 14%. I did this on the famous Mountain View to Yosemite ride in 2006 training for the Furnace Creek 508. Its good to know this ride was close to that, but not passing it as that was truly mind blowingly hard after 135 miles when your climbing in 90 Degree heat.

38 Miles
5500 feet of Climbing
11 MPH

DMD Update Since March 1st:
Miles 513/621 82.66%
Climb 33520/55000 60.40%

Coast Ride Time Trial

2009-03-20T17:18:00.001-07:00

Was a bit tired from traveling to Atlanta and decided to take some time to do a fast coast ride. My stretch goal was to break 3:45 and hit 16 MPH for the ride. I started off pretty fast hitting the right on Arastradero in 18 minutes. I hit the base of OLH in 38 minutes which surprised me as it was much quicker than normal. I tried to keep the heart rate around 165 for OLH and summited in about 23 minutes at 1:01 total time. It was windy on the descent of 84 and I had to battle hard to break 1:40 at the San Gregorio store, but I did manage to do it. I only hit 33 MPH on the descent of Hwy 1 due to wind. I hit 2 hours after Lobitos Cut-Off and pushed moderately hard up the steep pitches of Tunitas Creek. I road hard at the top when the road flattens out and topped out in 2:40 or so. The descent of Kings was uneventful and I managed to break 3 hours to Roberts market. Now it was an all out ride to see how fast I could do it. Painful windy pulls one after another went by and I finished in 3:31 and averaged 16.4 MPH for 5000 feet of climbing. By far a record for me. Was one of those days on the bike when everything felt good. I must be peaking too early for DMD as I wish the damn ride was tomorrow. 4 weeks to go.

I think I feel like dancing now....!

Fun Climb Today

2009-03-14T20:25:00.001-07:00

Managed to climb up Montebello Road today and actually sort of enjoy it. It is usually a massive suffer-fest, but I purposely kept it chilled and was surprised to see a good time of 36:30 when I was done. Clearly the form is starting to catch hold. Its probably the best shape I have had for this time of the year. I need to figure out how to hold it for the next few weeks. It was cool leaving the house and riding to the top of the mountain in "Mountain View" and turning around and getting home in less than 2 hours. Other than a howling rear wheel, it was a great day ;)

DMD Update since March 1st:

Miles 340.6
Avg Speed: 15.38
Climb: 20170

For some inspirational climbing, check out this video. Gotta make the trip some day and try it.

Ryder Hesjedal :: Haleakala Attempt from Media One Multimedia on Vimeo

Just watched the Tirreno Adriatico stage that ended on the Montelupone. Over 20% climb. We need the Tour of California to have a mountain top finish. If they have these kinds of stages in Paris Nice and Tirreno Adriatico, its time for us to turn it up a bit.

Also broke the record for Page Mill on Sunday with a time of 46:55. Pretty cool to bust the record on Montebello on Saturday and Page Mill on Sunday. My time of 22:30 on Old La Honda on Thurs was a record as well, but I stopped for 30 seconds or so I would not go into a seizure after pushing the pace over 10 MPH for over 2 miles ;) I cant count that record officially. Great week. No off to Atlanta to lose all my training ;(

189

2009-03-12T20:30:00.000-07:00

New Weight I weight under 190 for the first time since George Bush the elder was president. Clearly weight in America is an national obsession. To add my little part to this nationwide psychosis, I post my picture of my scale showing 189. I never thought I would see this. I think I hit 240-250 during my craziest over-eating period in 1998, but I would never jump on a scale at that point of my wreckless maniacal eating. I did drop below this during the PCT of 1995 when I froze my ass off on Red's Pass and spent 2 plus days with a soaking wet sleeping bag in a white-out in late October, but that was a temporary drop. This time, its for real. I managed to make an ex world bi-athlon champ, George Pierce, suffer today on Old La Honda for 2/3 of the climb. I was holding sub 20 pace for 2+ miles of the ride but ended up with lead legs and had to stop and slap myself in the face to keep going. George ended up taking off and finishing way ahead, but it was fun pushing the pace insanely. Ended up finishing in 22:30, but it was as nasty effort. George flew up Skyline to Page Mill and I had to kill myself to hold on to his wheel and felt like I was going to die. Good ride.

Devil Mountain Double 5 weeks out

2009-03-11T21:33:00.001-07:00

My plan is to hit 3 times the mileage and climbing of DMD between March 1st and race day. As of today I have ridden 245.6 miles and climbed 12320 feet since the 1st of March. This is 39.55% of the miles and 22.2 % of climbing. I feel great and am confident that a good time is going to happen. I am going to try and keep my off bike time to under one hour. Based on my analysis of DMD times on their website, one hour of off time is rarely done. The average person in the band I am modeling for my time (15-16 hour finishes) was off the bike 1:15. I do not see anybody who was off the bike for less than an hour, however Franz Kelsch was able to do the ride in 15:32 with 1:01 off the bike. Based on what I can gather from his riding and what I know about him from Granger, he is a strong rider and climber. I think I will tattoo his times on my arm to try and stick within a reasonable gap from him. I received some 1 Liter bike bottles today in the mail. I have never seen them before, but they look like a great option to avoid the camelbak. I will not be rolling with a camelbak on DMD unless its going to be above 90 degrees. These liter bottles should be a great addition.

I also got the RAAM 2008 DVD in the mail today and it was a good production. While the race was a Jure Robic blow out, it was fun watching the video. I am a sucker for RAAM videos of any kind, though. Its hard for me not to like it. Will have to try and give it a better review later on.

DMD Analysis

Canada Road Time Trial

2009-02-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

Woke up feeling horrible after coming down with a cold/flu, but had a time trial to do. I loaded up the time trial bike and headed out to Woodside. This was my first time trial and I was pretty bummed it came during one of my annual flu bouts, but I had to at least give it a shot. It was a standing start with one of the volunteers holding the bike up as I took off. I was surprised to hit 32-33 MPH on the mild descent right off the bat towards Edgewood Road. So far so good. I was making ok progress and realized I had no gas in the can for the hills as I dropped below 20 and suffered pretty badly. The turnaround came quicker than I thought it would, but I forgot to set my computer so I had no idea what time I hit. I was passed right before the turn-around by a Sugar CRM guy who was smoking hard. The hill to Filoli was pretty rough as I found myself sitting up and climbing at 15 MPH. I tried to stick it hard to the finish and pushed myself in the red to the end. My unofficial time was 26:48 which works out to 21.74 MPH. Considering how cruddy I felt, I was ok with it. They are doing another one of these March 28th and I think I will give it a shot to see how I can do feeling stronger. I might try and borrow a time trial helmet for the next one as the majority of the riders had them. I did not want to look like a complete joke wearing one for my first TT, so I now that I know the ropes a bit, I will not be ashamed to show up with one ;) I think I can definetely break 26 feeling better and maybe even go sub 25, but this is a discipline I have not paid my dues for.

Results

9.7 Miles
400 Feet of Climb
26:48 Unofficial
21.74 MPH

Bike Fitting Syndrome (BFS)

2009-02-24T21:02:00.000-08:00

Finding the right seat height takes a lot of work. You get multiple opinions, pay experts to size you up, read books and websites, and in the end your not sure if your right or not. I have been sized up multiple times and set up on a height range between 78.5 and 82 CM. I always thought the last fitting that set me up at 78.5 was a bit low, but I figured the guy knew right. I have had to raise the seat up to combat pain, but for the most part it was ok. The guy who set me up at 82 CM a few years ago I figured was crazy, as it seemed way too high. Today, I went to Mike Boester at Bike Connection in Palo Alto where I got my Scott Frame ordered. He came up with a number right between the high and low readings at 80.5 CM. I had to rise up to 80.5 on the Hoodoo due to knee pain so I have done it before. Mike was surprised at how low I was set up and he said it looked I was riding a BMX bike based on my knee bend. Clearly there are differing schools of thought on seat height. I think in the end, the key is building a good relationship with somebody you trust and has a lot of experience and happy clients. Make sure that person is real close by and amenable to hearing your boring stories about knee tweaks, breakthroughs, and pathetic attempts at humor. I made the mistake of using far-away bike fitter twice (San Anselmo and Sacramento). You need somebody willing to see you in a heart beat to deal with your latest fitting crisis. I am hoping Mike fits this bill. I think he deals with enough obsessive compulsive bike nuts based on his fitting many of the Alto Velo team. I am in the honeymoon phase of this new set-up as I feel I might have found that magic formula to lead me to cycling nirvana. 80.5 is the magic I needed and the 25 MPH speed I road home helped me justify this joy.

Joy: I finally found the magic formula!
Fear: Knee Tweak! I need to immediately go back to the old setting
Regret: I cant remember what I was set to before. Let me dig up that old email
Acceptance: Oh well, this is as good as its going to get.
Divorce: Find new Bike Fitter

Good old BFS. I had my seat raised an inch today and I am sitting on top of the world!

Pescadero Ride

2009-02-21T21:37:00.000-08:00

Road up Page Mill this afternoon leaving the house at 1:00 PM. We descended down Alpine and climbed up Haskins grade before descending down to Pescadero. Was really descending great today for some reason. The Scott bike really feels secure on the descends and gives me a lot of confidence. I was climbing really great today and held 11 MPH on that little bump right after going under 280 on Arastradero. Did not even hurt. Never been able to do that before. Martin was rolling with his mountain bike so I did some hill sprints up Page Mill and waited for him to catch me. He was sporting aerobars on his mountain bike making for a one in a million ride. We were running out of light and had to climb Hwy 84 instead of Tunitas Creek. We descended 84 right before dark and managed to keep up with a car on the descent. Pulled in at 6:45 PM well into the dark. Great ride as I felt damn strong out there. The Selle Italia SLR I slipped on for fun was light at 130 grams, but started to hurt after 3 hours. Felt like somebody spanked me hard. I am not sure these types of lightweight saddles are going to handle DMD. I am hoping the Arione works out. I got Swiss Stop brake pads when I had the Scott built up. They are amazing and I have never had brakes like this before. Getting your brakes working great does wonders for you descending. These pads are expensive, but I would recommend them as it feels like I have double the stopping power I used to have.

71.5 Miles
6200 Feet of Climb
5 hours
14.3 MPH

Arione CX Not Compatible with Integrated Carbon Seat Post

2009-02-19T22:23:00.001-08:00

Wanted to try the Arione for a while and I found out the rails are too thick for the seat-clamps used on the Scott bike. What a bummer. Have to send it back and stick to the Selle Italia SLK for now. I cant wait to get some climbing in this weekend. Good weather until Sunday. Time to suffer.

Found out that Ritchey sells a modified clamp for the Fizik Arione CX. Ordered one and will give it a shot later on.

Snowed on

2009-02-13T20:27:00.000-08:00

Hit a bit of snow descending Skyline towards 84 today. Man I froze my kester off descending 84 and had to ride really slow as I was shaking like a leaf. Luckily its a pretty short descent. I thawed out in the cafe in Woodside and road him in heavy rain afterwards. Its going to be a nasty Tour of CA this year as they are predicting a strong storm with snow at the 2000 foot level. I can only hope Monday is not like today !

9 weeks until Devil Mountain Double

2009-02-11T21:13:00.000-08:00

Sent in the money for the DMD last night. My main goal will be to triple the climbing and mileage for the month of March and hit 620 miles and 55,500 feet of climbing. This will take a lot of early morning riding before work and creative use of night riding to make this happen. There is a group that meets at 6 AM to do local steep rides in the LA hills like Los Trancos and Mora and I might need to make that a regular. I think it matters more about hitting your target in as many doses as you need vs a few large chunks that might be untenable due to family or work. I predict at least 2 or 3 night time ascents of Montebello in March to make this happen. I love climbing hills at night as long as its a dead end and the traffic is not to crazy. If I am going to sneak under the 16 hour time line, the triple mileage/climbs is a necessity. Going to try my hardest to find a way to make it happen.

Getting ready to ride up Kings Mountain to check out the Tour of California on Monday. Should be great in the rain!

Long Ride to the Super Bowl Party

2009-02-02T21:19:00.000-08:00

A colleague at work threw a Super Bowl party near La Selva Beach and I had to use this experience to snag some great hills and ride to the party. Picked up Both sides of Hicks, MonteVina and Black/Gist roads before heading town Summit road to Old Santa Cruz Hwy. I descended OSCH and hit the beach for the party. Great riding, perfect weather, and a great game.

I had to wear a backpack so I could bring clothes for the party. The climbs on this ride made this decision a bit painful. This was the first time I did both side of Hicks. The back side was not as easy as I imagined. I also forgot how damn steep the last mile of Montevina is. I barely got up it. The knees were screaming. Then Black hits you in the face with at least 1.5 miles in 10+% range. This was not a ride for the faint of heart. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was tough.

72 miles
8050 feet climbing
6 Hours Riding

Bike Nirvana

2009-01-31T17:04:00.000-08:00

Perfect day today as I took the new Scott bike out on its first test. Road with a few people from Western Wheels and Alto Velo and headed up Stevens Canyon. Most people went up Mt. Eden/Pierce, but me and two others headed up Steven's Canyon to Redwood Gulch. I had a pretty easy time up Redwood Gulch. It went by quickly and we seemed to hit hwy 9 w/o much pain. The new bike felt great on the climb. We did some quick tempo up hwy 9 to the Summit. It took about 90 minutes to get to the Summit. The descent went well on the new bike. Really comfortable, safe feeling and fast. We did some fast pacelining into Boulder Creek. The ride up Hwy 236 was beautiful. 2 guys went up China Grade, but I opted to stick to 236. The weather was too good to be true.. Not one ounce of wind on this ride. We started up Hwy 9 back to the Summit and I managed to stick with Granger who was doing some nice tempo riding at 10 MPH or so up to the summit. It was surprising to be able to hang with him. The ride back over Pierce and Mt. Eden went well.

Ride Stats
76 miles
5:05
15.0 MPH Riding
7000 feet of climbing

New Scott Addict

2009-01-27T20:32:00.000-08:00

I got the Scott Addict Bike back from the shop today. Took it up Old La Honda for some speed work and it rode really well. I cant really feel much difference between the Addict and the CR1 at this point, but I only got a short ride in. I am borrowing some Easton EC90 Aero wheels and they were pretty smooth. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the wheels worked fine on my Campy Scott bike even though they were set up with a Shimano cassette without any adjustment. If I were to get these wheels, I could use them on the Cervelo P2C. If the price is right, I might pick them up. They are tubulars and I would not consider them to be an every day wheel, but they would come in handy for the Aero bike as well as the Scott or Time bike on rolling terrrains and maybe some longer climbs. The guy in the shop claims they make a good climbing wheel as well, but who knows. I have a ways to go as I suffered up OLH in 22:30 taking 4 1 minute breaks every 4 minutes. My idea was to break the climb up in to 5 chunks and break 20 minutes, but I could not pull it off even with the nice new bike. I was suffering pretty badly even with the breaks. I liked this workout as it gives you a little chance to recover making it slightly more bearable. It might be a way to finally crack 20, but its a ways away for me still.

London Marathon

2009-01-23T11:31:00.001-08:00

Got up at 5:15 AM to run the London Marathon course. I figure since I am here in London, I might as well experience the London Marathon course. It was below freezing as I ambled toward the Golders Green Tube station in North London. I forgot to bring any long tights or anything like that so I borrowed my father in laws chinese style knee warmers. They were long and brown and I had a nice gap between the top and my brooks running shorts making them look like some weird 1980's leg warmers. I was waiting with for the 5:35 AM subway to Bank station with a lot of other people but I looked out of place with my Chinese leg warmers in the below freezing morning. I managed to pick the wrong train that was heading to Charing Crossing instead of Bank station. Damn. So I had to get out at Camden Town and wait 15 minutes for the train to the DLR at Bank. Finally got there and missed the DLR by 15 seconds. So I had to sit there in my leg warmers waiting for the Docklands Light Rail. I boarded and 13 stops later and 90 minutes since I started I got to my destination, Greenwich, the start of the London Marathon. During the official marathon, thousands of people are swarming the tube, but I got it to myself. I had to ask a lot of people how to get to Grenwich park and I balked at the longish walk I had to the start. Nothing like a long walk to the beginning of a marathon. It got really cold as I walked through Greenwich park to the official start. I started solo a little after 7:00 AM at the corner of Greenwich Park and Charlton Road and took off at a pretty slow clip. I forgot how much harder it is to run with poor street signs and no idea where you are. I was constantly looking at my lousy directions and then finally pulled out the iPhone for support. The first few miles were pretty dull as I headed towards Woolwich. The route heads back to Greenwich and passes the Cutty Sark which I did not even see as I was focusing on the course. I passed a University and along along the Thames heading towards Tower Bridge. Greenwich of course is famous for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. I was wondering if my garmin would show 0 longitude and it acually hit 0.00007 as I passed through town.

I crossed this monument taking a few photos and headed towards the Docklands and Canary Wharf. I was at mile 14 or so when I realized running mainly on concrete was taking a lot out of me. I was in a decent amount of pain, but wanted to keep going. I hit what they call the Highway and ran through Whitechapel towards the Docklands and Canary Wharf. I got incredibly lost in the Docklands and ran a much longer route than I should have asking various people which way the London Marathon went and getting contradictory answers. Oh well. I did not pay for this and this was my sick idea to do this in these damn Chinese old man knee warmers. For once I did not mind being lost and just kept going. I finally escaped Canary Wharf and the dreaded docklands and got back to the East End near Whitechapel. I missed my turn but kept heading towards town. I was at mile 23 or so when I asked how to get the Mall, the end of the race. Little did I know that its pronunced Maaal here, not Mall, and nobody had a clue what I was asking for. I kept running down the Thames and past the Millenium Dome and finally hit Big Ben. I knew the end of this marathon was somewhere. I asked more people and was pointed in the proper direction. I had no spring left in my legs as I hobbled towards the Mall and Buckingham palace. Finally, I saw the end and ran under 8 minutes per mile for the last 500 feet or so. Sweet victory was mine. My time was 5:10, but I am pretty sure I ran a good ways longer than a normal marathon as I got pretty lost several times. I also added a few miles in at the beginning and end to make sure I was good and wrecked for a day or two afterwards.

While not an official finish, I think I will remember this more than if I had signed up and paid and did it straight. The next time I am in Paris, Tokyo, or New York and have a few hours, I might try this again. Its pretty fun, alot cheaper, and the memories are a slightly different than those that come from a traditional marathon. I have run enough of them to know what they feel like.

London Marathon 2007
Find more Runs in London, United Kingdom

Triple Crown Stage Race

2009-01-15T22:25:00.001-08:00

Devil Mountain Double, Terrible Two, and Mt. Tam Double are the 3 triple crown stage race double centuries in 09 according to Granger Tam. This is great news for us in Northern CA as we wont have to travel far to experience the pain of the 3 tough doubles. I am pretty motivated to avenge my Lanterne Rouge performance of 2006. I don't see anything official yet on the Triple Crown website, but expect to very soon.

Devil Mountain Double North Training Ride

2009-01-09T08:19:00.000-08:00

Today was a slightly shorter DMD North ride than planned, but a good one nonetheless. I parked the car at the Sunol Time station and took off a bit after 7:00 AM down Niles Canyon. I hate Niles Canyon due to lack of shoulder and scary drivers and the reason I started here was to get it out of the way. It took me 13:18 to get to Palomares from Sunol moving well over 20 MPH for most of it. I started moderately hard up Palomares but ran into the Christian Cycling Club (CCC) and they pushed me a bit harder up the hill than I might have normally gone. I crested out and remembered how easy this hill is when your fresh. I cruised down the hill as the CCC train came by and I caught on for a bit of a draft. I hit Norris Canyon in 1 hour and 12 mins and made quick work of this hill and dropped into San Ramon and into the Hotel where the DMD starts in 1:37:20. Doing analysis of the 2003 and 2004 DMD results, this would be the 4th fastest time of 120 recorded. It is of little value to compare this section between a fresh rider and one with 175+ miles on their legs, but it was interesting to see how I ranked.

The section from the hotel to Diablo started ok, but I lost confidence in my navigation skills and sat on the side of the road trying to get the iPhone Map to show me where I was. Turned out 10 minutes later I was right on course and I hit the start of Diablo at the Athenian school in 35 mins of riding time from the Hotel. I think I could pick up 5 mins on this easily as I did not push too hard. The ride up Diablo started great and I felt like I was making good time. I hit some nice winds half way up and suffered a bit from the Junction with the North and South roads to the summit. I got to the top in 1:26. Nothing to write home about for sure, but I kept the heart rate pretty reasonable in the 150's the entire time. I ranked 111/175 with my 2:01 time from the Hotel to the Summit. The 111th rank would equate an 18:15 overall time which is over my goal. I think the most I will pick up on race day is 5-8 minutes on this climb as I cannot afford to kill myself. While I started in Sunol today, my 2:01 time was not bad, but not great either.

The descent of Diablo is supposed to be one of the best around. I could not get over my fear of sliding out as their was a bit of gravel on the road. I felt pretty weak at this point of the ride, and a bit down. I did not descend very quickly. The section to Clayton is always deceiving as you climb quite a bit, but it does not look like you are, so you can get discouraged. Need to remember to bear down here as its not a fun section. I grabbed some salty snacks in Clayton and headed up Marsh Road to Morgan Territory. The climb from Clayon is a few hundred feet before you drop to MT. It took me 91 minutes to get from the Summit to MT. Pretty bad and something to really work on for the DMD. I think I could shave 10 mins from this if I can get some descending legs. The V8 kicked in and I had a great ascent up Morgan Territory. I really enjoyed the beauty of the climb and the isolation. No water in the rivers, however, due to the paltry rain this year. I hit the top where the aid station is in 6:01 total riding time, or 2:23 from the top of Diablo. This ranked me 120/175 which I attribute to my poor descending. I climbed MT strongly and I guess my rank on this would have been well in the 70-80 of the field.

I dropped down MT road and hit the intersection of N. Livermore and May School Road where the DMD heads towards Altamont. I decided to call it a day as I needed to get back home. I managed to hammer hard the last 16 miles back to Sunol in about 50 mins and loved the nice tail wind back to the car.

Ranking my times on the 3 sections I did, I was 42/120. My very fast time on the Sunol to the Hotel is what moved me up. Of course, this is riding time, so when I add an agressive off bike time of 20 mins, my rank would have been 52/175. One can only assume that my time will fall of as I have to ride up Mines and Sierra making a lot of this data more interesting than truly predictive. Overall, I would call today a pretty good day, especially for Jan. I will hit the remaining sections later in the month or in early Feb. My biggest weakness is my descending, especially when compared to people that fall in the 16 hour time range in this ride. The only way I can make up for this is to not get off the bike. I might need to pull of less than 30 minutes of off time if I have any chance. I cant imagine that my fitness would improve in the next 3 months to make much of a dent on the over-all time required. I could see a few minutes per climb and that wont add up to enough. I would put my odds of breaking 16 hours in the 25-50% range at this point.

Ride Stats:

100.3 Miles
7:13:08 Riding Time
8:00 Total Time
13.8 MPH Moving
9383 Feet of Climbing

New Year's Ride up Mt. Hamilton

2009-01-01T12:42:00.000-08:00

I continued along with the semi tradition of getting up early on New Years Day and riding up the tallest hill in the Bay Area, Mt. Hamilton. I had an idea of trying to challenge my best time of 1:42 set with Jason in 05 and I felt pretty good cresting over the first section that drops you past Quimby Rd. and past Joseph Grant park. I rode in thick fog until about 11 miles in where it broke. The entire bay area was covered making it look like a giant lake with the Coastal range mountains popping up on the opposite shore. I started pacing with a rider and let him go ahead. Nearer the top, I passed him again and we pushed pretty hard to the top. Ended up riding it in 1:47:45. No record, but if there was some earlier pacing going on, it might have fallen. It was a great ride. The descent of Hamilton was even worse than normal due to a ton of gravel in the road that I guess was due to the heavy snows a couple of weeks ago. I put on the heavy ski gloves which felt great on the descent. It was worth carrying them up the hill.

Two New 6 Goats + Bohlman on Orbit = Mark of the Beast

2008-12-30T20:25:00.000-08:00

Nothing beats dragging in the new year with a Triple Six Goat ride. Jason and I once did a 6666 ride that did Via Santa Teresa, Harwood, Rolling Hills and Aborn, which set the benchmark for lining up tough climbs in a single day. Today I road very slowly away from the house towards Stevens Creek Reservoir listening to Dean Karnazes who again got on the Competitors Podcast. He has this habit of exaggeration combined with faux self deprecation that comes off as pretty annoying. I am impressed by what he does, but the fact he never has any pain, never suffers one bit in his adventures physically, he comes off like a asshat. I was especially irked at his ability to run a sub 4 hour marathon at a heart rate of less than 110. I cant believe that is possible, but his ability to easily string 50 marathons in a row would seem to prove it would be possible. I would like to see him do RAAM in 09. If he could pull this off, I would go out and sell his books for him. I respect him for making enough money in Endurance sports to support a career as nobody else has been able to pull it off. Will be interesting to see where he goes with this in the upcoming years. I also listened to a good podcast on the Competitors with the director of Klunkerz , a documentary about the origin of the Mountain Bike. The director managed to interview all the key players including Gary Fisher, Tom Ritchey, and Joe Breeze. Its really worth checking out as I saw it the other day and liked it a lot. I was riding pretty damn slow today up over Mt. Eden and Pierce. I managed to get a flat on Pierce and noticed I forgot my pump. Luckily lots of people were out and I immediately flagged down a rider and borrowed a pump. I was planning on hitting the new bike shop in Sarotaga to buy a pump, but it was already out of business, so I decided to ride into Los Gatos and buy a pump there and check out some new hills. I hit the Summit Cyclery shop and scored some of the best new riding food, Power Bar Cola Gel Blasts with double caffeine. They are essentially cola gummy candies that you get in the mall. They taste exactly the same. For me, who has forsworn eating crap, this indulgence is pretty damn awesome. Since gels and power food is ok for me, this is great way to get some of those mall candy cravings off my brain. If I ever start eating this during a normal day, I will know I am in deep trouble.

The first Six rated climb was Aztec Ridge . It had a few nasty ramps on it, but nothing too horrible. Clearly in the lower Six range, though as the ramps were in the 18-20% range. I dropped down a couple of miles and took on the tougher of the climbs, BlackBerry Hill. This climb had a few scary ramps that almost caused me to fall down. I felt like I was being pulled into the gutter as the 18+% section was long and stiff. Luckily the cola gummy candy was keeping me upright as I pushed up to the summit.

I worked my way rather slowly back to face my fear. Bohlman is a scary climb even though I have done it a few times. I wanted to do it the tough way starting up Norton Road and then to Kittredge and finally Quickert before it hits On Orbit. The start up Norton is a nice 8-10% and one gets a bit cocky. The hard right up Kittredge opens up to a 15% ramp that never really lets down much until it gets even worse on Quickert. I was melting pretty badly as I finally hit On Orbit. Now the pain started. Luckily their is a nice 8-10% break until the 20+% wall comes up. I was barely able to get up it today wanting to quit but somehow pushing through the pain. The 34/25 was not enough for me today as I wish I had the 34/29 on this evil section. I finally topped out and dropped to Bohlman proper. At this point the hard part is over even though you face a nice 12% wall to take you into some nice rollers to the end. I even took the dirt road out to Montevina, but stopped maybe 1/4 from the end as I was worried about getting stuck out their in the dark. The ride back from the top of Bohlman to home only took a little over an hour which surprised me, but its mainly downhill.

If I were to channel Dean K., I would say I am the only person who has done Bohlman on Orbit and Welch Creek on successive days, tackling the two hardest climbs in the bay area. I even took the hard way up Bohlman, because I am that kind of guy. But in reality, I just survived up two beatiful climbs that I luckily have access to. The pain was great, but nothing too tough. Am hoping these climbs will build a good base for a sub 16 hour Devil Mountain Double.

I can definitively say that Bohlman on Orbit via Norton is tougher than Welch Creek. No doubt about it. This climb has multiple ramps in the 15+% range that dont relent. Welch Creek has two monstrous sections, but the start is easy and their is decent rest between them.

Long Way Home via Welch Creek

2008-12-29T21:07:00.000-08:00

Took the long way home from work today and headed to Welch Creek Road to finish off some unfinished business. The last time I did Welch Creek road in 2006 I got really dehydrated and barely made it home. It was pushing 100 degrees that fateful day. Today it was only in the high 50's making things a lot easier. I got to Welch Creek and forgot the first mile is really easy. The ride really gets hard at about 1.8 miles and sticks up at 18% or for for at least a quarter a mile. It eases up for a while and really hits hard at 3.25 or so. I used the 34/25 on the Time bike which gave me enough leverage to get to the top. It took 35+ minutes to do this. Compared to the top low key hill climb winning time of 22 and change, I am not too unhappy as those guys are pretty damn good climbers. I don't think its any tougher than Bohlman on Orbit. Having just done Jamison Creek, I would say it might be slightly tougher than that, but not by much. Its a bit longer, thats all. Will have to take on BoO really soon to get a comparison.

The ride up Calavares was pretty good. It was good to eye this section as it will be part of the Devil Mountain Double in a few months. The DMD takes this on the slightly easier opposite direction. The only thing crappy about this ride was the return from the Milpitas to home. Its a grim slog through Milpitas and then into Santa Clara down Tasman. Overall a nice long alternate route home.

Hwy 9, Jamison Creek and Zayante in the Rain

2008-12-24T20:24:00.001-08:00

Facing a long ride in the rain can cause a lot of anxiety. It is a lot easier to blow the ride off, but usually, if you can get started, the ride will end up being better than you thought it would. The climb up Hwy 9 was non eventful. The descent into Big Basin was cold and wet, but tolerable. Jamison Creek started easy as it does and kicked up into a nasty never-ending climb that surprised me in how tough it was. I had just done the Ring of Fire, and hit some tough small climbs, but Jamison was pretty brutal. It took me over 30 minutes to climb it. Comparing this to the recent Low Key Hill Climb of Jamison, I did not impress to say the least. It was pouring rain going down Empire Grade to Felton Empire road and the descent was so bone chilling cold that I could barely use my brakes. Martin and I had invaded a local shop in Felton like some marauding Hells Angels soaked to the gills. I felt bad as I left a huge puddle as well as a soaked chair as the water seemed to pour out of my shoes the entire time we sat there. The ride up Zayante was nice as it usually is after Jamison. A few intimidating ramps hit you, but you always get a nice rest to catch your breath. By that time the rain had stopped making the climb pretty enjoyable. We descended Bear Creek and Martin managed to fall going about 25 after his front tire flatted. Luckily he was not injured at all as the wet roads caused him to slide nicely. This was a great Xmas eve ride and I am very happy we took a chance to ride in the rain. As usual, it was not as bad as you I thought it might be.

76 Miles
8300 Feet of Climb

Devil Mountain Double less than 4 months away

2008-12-19T21:39:00.000-08:00

Need to get out tomorrow and do the Ring of Fire in the sub 40 degree temps. This is a good time to keep up the intensity and suffer up the steep stuff as well. Hopefully I can get away next week and do something else a bit steep and tough...(Bohlman on Orbit?). Devil Mountain Double does not have a ton of real hard climbs like the Terrible Two, but you climb pretty much the whole day. The Terrible Two is pretty easy until you hit the Geysers giving you practically 75 miles of riding before the toughness. DMD hits you right off the bat with Mt.Diablo, but I never found that climb too tough. If your in good shape, you should be able to climb it pretty easily in the cool morning temps and save energy for later on. I am really looking forward to this DMD journey as the last time I did it I barely survived. I remember wondering if I would make the lunch cut-off last time in 06. Am hoping for a much stronger showing. If I can keep my word and get up tomorrow in the 30's and do the ring of fire, maybe... just maybe I can do better. If DMD turns out to be on the Triple Crown Stage Race, I just might try and do the Stage Race this year to try and improve from my Lanterne Rouge performance of 06. This series would be the perfect training for Race Across Oregon in July. If I do this, I will only run the Miwok 100K and can the American River 50 for this year. Nothing beats setting goals for a new year. Should be a fun year.

The Ring of Fire went really well today. I tried to do Moody out of the saddle the whole time and could not quite make it. Golden Oak is one steep long ramp, but you can do about half of it out of the saddle and crest out pretty easily. The Ramona section is really tough in a Bohlman On Orbit kind of way and the last section on Vista Verde is nice after dinner drink to this pretty brutal trek. Its a shame you can't connect the top of Vista Verde over to Page Mill. You end up really close to the top of Page Mill and near Skyline on this section of the Ring of Fire.

Today was a great day on the bike. I was listening to Rage Against the Machine "Killing in the Name of" on the way back home and started riding so hard I was like a crazed maniac. Riding bikes can be a lot of fun.

Woodside 50K

2008-12-06T20:23:00.000-08:00

Finished in 5:58:44. Official Results Had a good day on the trails. Managed to keep pushing the entire time and had a little excitement at end to break 6 hrs. My two fastest miles were the last two as I realized I better high tail it in to beat the six hour mark. Duc finished his first ultra in 7:12 and also had a good day out there. I am proud of Duc for finishing his first ultramarathon. He blew off the California International Marathon to do the Woodside 50k and he finished in great style and even did a little somersault at the end! I blew off the rigid 3 run/1 walk and ran when I wanted and walked when I wanted. I ran the entire way to the 1st aid station which had an 1800 foot climb and just watched the heart rate monitor to insure I did not push too hard. I enjoyed the race a lot more not worrying about some pre-determined run/walk ratio.

The winner Keith Bechtol is a sub 30 min 10 k runner. The speed this guy came up Wunderlich was pretty insane. Looked like a 7 minute pace up hill. His overall time of 3:36 was a 7:02 pace. This run had almost 5000 feet of climbing, so that was pretty damn fast. Second place was another local fast guy I have never heard of Leor Pantilat who from what I heard at the end is running great these days. He was only a couple of minutes behind the winner. They broke the old record on this course by 40 minutes.

Will put a full report later if I can type. I took a header at mile 25 and seriously jammed my right pinkie and the next finger over. They are really swollen and hopefully not broken or badly sprained. Will ice them up and see what happens.

Scott Dunlap snapped a shot of me dropping down Wunderlich. I look like a bit disgruntled and ready to break up a bar fight. I was feeling pretty crappy at that point and it shows. This is a perfect course as the trails are soft, the climbs not too steep, the redwoods fantastic and let the perfect amount of sun in. I would recommend this to anybody wanting to jump up from the marathon into the ultra's.

Woodside 50k

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Soda Springs

2008-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

It was a beatiful morning here in the Bay Area today and I got in one of the best climbs around, Soda Springs. The climb is 2400 feet in about 5.6 miles. According to ACTC Billy Goat list its the 7th longest climb of 145 they list and the shortest in miles at 5.6. The next one in the list is Bohlman on Orbit with 2337 feet of climbing in 4.75 miles. I consider this one of the best climbs around as their is no traffic, the views are great and the gradient is perfect. According to the Unofficial Stanford Cycling Page the climb averages 8% over the 5.3 miles. While it never felt that tough today, we were not pushing it that hard. This is one of the only climbs in the bay area that lasts for over 5 miles without any flat sections. The descent is pretty hairy and it seems to take forever to drop to the bottom. Do yourself a favor and hit this bay area sleeper when you get a chance. I only wish it was not so far away. Its kind of a pain riding on Los Gatos Creek trail to get to the base, but its definitely worth it. I plan on hitting Montevina next. The insane 11 goat day of 06 where Jason and I did Soda Springs, Wrights Station, Stetson/Skyland,Mt Bache, SJ-Soquel, Rodeo Gulch, Granite Creek, Mtn Charlie, Redwood Estates, Bear Creek, Black Road, Montevina still burns in my mind. 15,000 feet of climbing in 107 miles. It has never been done before I bet by anybody sane. I might need to do a day like this to prepare for RAO.

Race Across America DVD's 1982-1986

2008-11-29T20:51:00.001-08:00

Once upon a time, the Race Across America was worthy of a two hour special on Wide World of Sports every year from 1982-1986. The RAAM organization has put the original ABC Wide World of Sports docudramas of the Great American Bike Race, the precursor of RAAM in 1982 and the RAAM events of 1983-1986 on DVD. For $29.99 for 7 1/2 hours of RAAM coverage, you can't find any better deal available for the endurance junkies in your life.

1985---> Jonathan "Jock" Boyer the first American rider of the Tour de France decided to take on the ultracyclists and embarrass them. Michael Secrest takes the place of the traditional ultracyclist in this battle. The footage of him in his small apartment in Phoenix playing opera music riding like a monk showed his focus and intensity. During the entire show, Jim Lampley describes the action with the soundtrack to the film Halloween in the background which builds tension to the race between Boyer and Secrest. Pete Penseyres, winner of 1984 RAAM, was saddled up in a support vehicle in 1985 working as crew chief for his brother Jim, a single leg amputee from Vietnam. Lon Haldeman was a non-factor in this years race. Michael Shermer is shown in 3rd place fighting the arrogance of Boyer as he moved East. Boyer is shown marveling how outrageous it was the Secrest was sleeping on the ground! "Were not cavemen..this is America" Boyer says as he rides down the road. The battle between Secrest and Boyer is dramatized with amazing skill and Lampley is fantastic as usual describing the epic battle as they rode between the back corridors of Arkansas. ABC won an emmy for this work and it is not surprising as they did a great job in dramatizing the race between the two road warriors. "If you have enough willpower.. and you want something bad enough.. you can get your body to do anything...." Jonathan Boyer. Boyer turned into an ultramarathon cyclist, pushing caution to the wind when he realized he had no choice but to push all day and night without stopping in order to beat Secrest. The 1985 RAAM had the fiercest competition and drama of all 5 years in the series.

The inaugural Great American Bike Race in 1982 is the second best of the documentaries. Lon Haldeman took off and never looked back so their was really no exciting race to watch. However, we get to witness the classic race between Michael Shermer, Lon Haldeman, John Marino, and John Howard which is done with great style and poignancy by Jim Lampley and Diana Nyad.

In the 1983 edition they changed the name to Race Across America. Lon Haldeman was still untouchable and ran away from the beginning.

There is no better ultra endurance athlete documentaries around. If somebody would release the 1980's Western States 100 Wide World of Sports DVD's that might possibly compare with this.

New Record for local time Trial 29:20

2008-11-29T15:26:00.001-08:00

I have this little 10.7 mile loop that I do to test myself in my little pathetic race of truth. Sadly nobody else knows about my course so its only me that gets to break the records. I beat my old best time by 20 seconds today coming in a tad faster than 22 MPH. Considering that I used my fancy new Cervelo bike and I only pulled 20 seconds off the old record, thats pretty sad. However I did not feel I pushed that hard today and I fought a slight wind up to Foothill that slowed me down. I think I can pull at least 2 minutes off of this time once I get the hang of riding in the aero position. I really suffered on my Time bike when I set the old best so all I can say is that today was not bad.

I also got in a little ride yesterday up Kings Mountain, down 84 and up West Alpine. I got passed 3 times by solid looking older riders. Not that I think I am a bad ass and should not be passed, but it was surprising to be passed by 3 different older guys. The hardcores came out the day after thanksgiving as it the hills were socked in fog and you could barely see. I want to take on the Devil Mountain Double again in 09 and I think having this goal will force me to tackle hills this winter and not become a slovenly bum. I did this ride in 06 and suffered alot taking 18 hours or so. I would like to see if I can challenge Jason's record, but his time was pretty good.

I am having second thoughts about this Triathlon stuff, as I cant get my ass in the pool for one thing. I hate the Tri Culture from what little I know of it or can stereotype watching them on TV in their lame looking outfits. It is still on my list, however. If I had to rank what I really want to do in 09, its Race Across Oregon, Hoodoo Voyager, and then Devil Mountain Double. Right now, the Tri is lower on the list. However, I am going to continue running and riding the Aero bike. Even without Triathalon, the Aero bike is a blast to ride and I really am glad I got one.

I have the Woodside 50k next Saturday and am looking forward to it. I would like to pull out a sleeper solid performance, but I dont expect it based on my recent running experience. I have not had a good run in quite a while, yet I keep on hoping to turn the corner. Biking comes a lot easier to me than running. Ultrarunning is something I suck at so far. I have yet to crack the middle of the pack on any of my runs. I feel worse after a 25 mile run than many 200 mile rides.

Bike Updates

2008-11-23T09:12:00.000-08:00

My Scott CR1 is toast. It was making terrible creaking noises on my last ride to the coast and by the time I got back to Palo Alto the crank was banging against the frame. Turns out the Bottom Bracket Shell has come apart from the carbon bottom bracket area. This should be a warranty job as it has happened to many people it turns out after a quick internet check. I need to work hard to get an Addict R1 and not some cheaper job as they will probably try to stick me with one of their lower end bikes. Right now the bike is in the shop being taken apart and hopefully replaced quickly.

I also picked up a Cervelo P2C a couple of weeks ago and am getting used to riding it. Based on my local time trials, this bike is way faster than my road bikes and I beat one of my old benchmarks by more than 2 minutes. The question will be how it feels to ride for longer rides as I have not taken it out on a long ride yet.

Arastradero Park into Los Trancos Trail

2008-11-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

Arastradero & Los Trancos Trail

Widget powered by EveryTrail: GPS Geotagging

Finally ran a bit of the Los Trancos Trail that starts inside Palo Alto Hills Park. Seems like a great trail. I need to take the time to take this trail up into Los Trancos Reserve and Montebello Reserve.

I like the EveryTrail service. They just came out with an iPhone app that allows you to GPS tag your trip as well as geotag photos and hit a button and upload it to the Everytrail site. This is pretty cool. The only issue is that I cant imagine taking the iPhone on trail runs or bike rides for fear of messing it up. Check out the app: EveryTrail Iphone App

59:01

2008-10-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

After a few years of attempting to break 1 hr on the long way home, we finally did it today with 59:01. It was one of the most painful things I have done in a while. We took off from work and quickly hit 24-25 MPH on the flats up to Foothill road. We climbed up Sand Hill at 16-17 or so hitting 280 in under 20 minutes. The small climb after 280 was painful, and we dropped down into Portola Road and managed to climb over the next hill before Old La Honda. By this point I was completely wrecked and had to let John pull all the way to Alpine minus 30 seconds or so. I felt bad but never apologized about not pulling as I could barely speak. John held 18 MPH the whole way which was not scorching, but was solid enough to give us a shot at the record. We dropped down Alpine at 30+ and attacked Arastradero as good as we could at maybe 16 MPH, but nothing insanely fast. The descent was fast as usual and the last small hill up Arastradero before 280 was painful. At this point we both knew we would have to get lucky to make it and never go less than 25 MPH. We cranked at 26-28 all the way down to El Camino luckily making the light at Foothill. We hit Red at El Camino and I could tell we had it in the bag at this point as long as we kept the pedal on the gas. We spun back up to 27 MPH or so to Middlefield and hit the tape at 59:01 for 21 miles. With 1000 feet of climbing and quite a few lights, it was a very painful but rewarding ride. Nice to knock one of my life goals off the list ;)

Michael Emde wins Furnace Creek 508 in 27 hrs 29 mins

2008-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

http://dbase.adventurecorps.com/results508.php?fc_eid=24&fcr=Go

Does not break record of 27:15 even though the first half was way under record pace. The wind must have whipped up into 29 palms. The times so far are way under normal and it looks like everybody out there is going to break 40 with a ton of people under 30. During his finishing interview Emde talked about how he and Kevin McNulty hit the 200 mile mark at the base of Townes Pass in sub 8:30. That is moving. I am surprised the record did not fall, but Emde talked about stomach issues which must have slowed him down. Was surprised to see Michael Secrest blow out with asthma. I was not surprised to see McNulty blow out at 400 miles as he did the same thing 3 weeks ago at Hoodoo. He must need to tweak his fueling strategy as he has amazing speed but appears to not be able to close the deal in the last 100 miles.

Joel Sothern looks to be on pace to break the all time 50+ record of 30:33 and come in well under 30 hours. Pretty impressive. He just did the Hoodoo 500 3 weeks ago and came in 35+ hours and 4th place. Catherine Berge will destroy the 40+ female record and should break 30 hours which is pretty nuts. Its still not good enough for the female record of 28 and change, but pretty impressive.

Rio Del Lago 100 DNF

2008-09-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

I gave up after 22 miles due to not being able to run well with my nasty cold. I could not keep my pulse below 150 and never seemed able to recover. By mile 22 I was fried and the thought of fighting in 90 degree heat was too much. I want to tackle another 100 next year and will make sure I dont do a 500 mile bike ride 2 weeks prior. I was really not prepared for this run and it showed. I actually intended to not run at all this morning and quit immediately. I showed up at 430 AM to retrieve my drop bags, but Norm Klein talked me out of quitting. He is incredibly motivating and told me the cold was no big deal and I might knock it out running. While that did not happen, I am glad I at least tried and did not quit right away. I am done with long runs/rides for 08, but am looking forward to a 100 mile run in 09 and potentially the Race Across Oregon.

Results It was wrecking yard in the 08 RDL. The DNF rate was very very high for this race. I think the heat (94 in Auburn) was the X factor today and it slammed all of us out there. I was really surprised at how hard the 7 miles w/o water between Rattlesnake Bar and Maidu hammered me. I did the climb up Heartbreak to Maidu waterless and it hit me really hard. I bet it just got hotter and hammered a lot of runners out there. If I do RDL next year, I will be sure to hydrate better before that nasty Cardiac. That is one nasty hill. I cant think of anything that tough around here. You can see below at mile 18 I climbed 732 feet. That is a tough little climb. I wish it was closer by to work on in training.

Hoodoo 500 Race Report

2008-09-17T20:39:00.001-07:00

Course Route

Race Results

The Hoodoo 500, put on by Planet Ultra, is the biggest RAAM qualifier (the Furnace Creek 508 has pulled out of RAAM qualification due to political war with UMCA/RAAM or it would be the biggest). With 519 miles and 30,000+ feet of climbing all of us were going to face a tough challenge. Having done the Furnace Creek 508 in 2006, I had the advantage of knowing how to prepare and plan for the event, but their is no way to completely prepare for something this big as too many variables of the physical and mental will emerge to throw all your plans into a chaos. The race starts in St. George Utah which was the fastest growing city in the US between 1990-2000 and I could tell in the first few miles as we passed mall after mall after mini-mall which sprawled in the desert. We started at 7 AM sharp and rolled very slowly in a neutral start to the outskirts of town being led out by the head of Planet Ultra, Brian Bowling. Official racing started and we head out to the town of Hurricane, Utah. The strongest riders Philbrick, McNulty, Sothern, Koenig, and a few others took off and I found my self alone behind them and ahead of the back of the pack group. I was crusing at 20+ MPH on the flats and enjoying the early morning. The first climb went pretty quickly and I cruised along and passed into Colorado City, AZ at about mile 50. This town is famous for being the home of Warren Jeffs of the FLDS Church. We passed quickly through the capital of US polygamy and radical Mormonism and never looked back. I was averaging 17+ mph by this point and was riding well. I passed the first Voyager rider of the day. Considering he started two hours before me, he was clearly having a tough day out there. I noticed my crew had left the back of the van open as they passed me at 50 miles an hour. I yelled at them to stop and luckily we did not lose the entire contents of the coolers along the road. I passed Urs Koenig at about mile 65 or so and that scared me considering the guys skills. I was riding pretty hard for such a long ride, but feeling ok. We pulled into Kanab at mile 83 at 11:54 AM which gave me an avg pace of 16.8 MPH. I was feeling slightly over-cooked and Granger and Duc set me up with a nice smoothy and sent me on my way. It was maybe 85-90 degrees out, which was not too bad, all things considered, but I was a bit over-heated as I took off North on Hwy 89 now back in Utah.

Stage 2 started with a long moderate 17 mile climb up hwy 89 heading to and then a nice 5 mile descent into Mt. Carmel Junction at mile 100. The climbing was pretty easy if not tedious along the East fork of the Virgin River. We passed through Orderville , a town that was involved in Christian Communism in the 1870's, into Glendale UT, and then Long Valley Junction. We passed into Hatch Utah at 6900 feet and had hit a right turn on Hwy 12 at mile 142. We were about to enter Red Canyon which was a beautiful section of riding. I was starting to get knee pain on my left knee and had the crew swap out my pedals to Look Keo's but we could not get the pedal removed. Turned out that Speedplay pedals are not standard in the direction they are removed so I stuck to the Speedplay's for the Red Canyon Bike Path which was awesome to ride on. The crew took off up SR-12 and I relaxed up the nice and mellow climb into Red Canyon and Time Station 2 at mile 154. I had been leap frogging a solo rider this entire section and was expecting to be passed but never saw the rider. Turned out he bailed out the end of this section. I would not see another solo ride for almost 200 miles.

Section 3 started from Red Canyon and had a great descent for almost 20 miles. I was looking forward to the descent to rest my knee, but was getting pretty worred as a knee ache is one thing on a double century, but on a 500 mile ride, it could ruin the trip and cause a DNF easily. We passed incredible scenery on this descent. Were were very close to the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park and saw many Hoodoo's on the descent. It was incredible cycling as we passed Tropic, Ut, Cannonville, and then Henrieville where a 12 mile 2000 foot climb awaited. The climb was drop dead gorgeous as it was in the Grand Staircases-Escalante National Monument. My left knee was crying out so we swapped out to the Keo's on the Purple Time Trial bike. I immediately realized that the Keo's would not help so I swapped back to the Scott bike and raised up the seat 1 cm. I noticed a bit of relief as I continued to climb up the hill. We finally crested the hill and had a nice 20 mile descent into Escalante where time station #3 was at mile 202 which I hit at 8:22 PM. This was 13:22 Double with just under 12,000 feet of climbing. I would compare it in difficulty to the Knoxville Double and I was pretty happy with that time considering the knee pain which wasted time changing out pedals and put a damper on my mood.

Stage 3 started in Escalante UT and headed up to Boulder. While I was riding at night, the scenery in this section was spectacular. Gigantic boulders, tight carved canyons, rivers, and a fantastic empty road. This section of Hwy 12 needs further exploration as it was one of the most fantastic roads I have ridden on. We climbed and climbed until a wonderful descent among rocks and dropped into Boulder Utah. The real climb began after Boulder that took us from red rocks into Aspens and high mountains. The climb was 15 miles long and took us to 9600 feet. Granger and Duc kept the high beams behind me as we climbed into the summit. It was now in the high 30's. By this point my right eye had become completely blurry and useless. I got something in it and could not flush it out. I had to ride squinting the right eye. This made the long 20 mile descent into Torrey less fun than it should have been and a lot slower. While Torrey is the gateway into Capital Reef National Park, we did not enter the park and quickly left town heading towards Bicknell, Lyman, and timestation 4 at Loa. I fought a hard wind into Bicknell and Lyman and rode slowly into Loa. I was losing my energy and was frustrated by my useless right eye. We hit Loa at 4:11 AM and I tried to clear out my eye in the aid station which was the small Snuggle Inn motel room's bathroom, but no luck. Still 100% useless. The aid station people were friendly, but we had to hit the road.

I was at a low now and was facing a 1500 foot climb in the next 10 miles. The climb was pretty easy, but I had to sit in the car for a few minutes. I wanted to quit, but I pushed my self out of the car and continued to climb, much faster than before. I hit the summit and loaded up on heavy clothes for the descent. It was now about 32 degrees and I needed several jerseys, ski gloves, and a balakava to make it down the hill. It was 5:30 AM or so, pitch black and we hung a left on Browns Ln towards Koosharem. I passed Alex Isaly at this point who was sleeping at the side of the road in his van. This was the first solo rider I had seen in more than 12 hours. The temperature was now 28 degrees. The sun started to come up and finally warmed me up. The riding in this area should not have been tough, but I was not riding very fast and the miles were plodding by. I might have been down on fuel, as this section was miserable. We rode down hwy 62 as it turned a hard right into a beautiful section with red rocks on on one side and farms on the other. We hit Kingston and the hwy 89 at mile 345. We had a 31 section of on this road that looked real easy on the race guide, but took me forever. I was in my lowest mental point at this part as the scenery was not that great, my eye completely trashed, and the fun was waning. I finally pulled into Panguitch, aid station 5, at mile 376 at noon on Sunday.

I badly needed the bathroom in the makeshift motel aid station. One older Voyager, Ray Ruppel, wondered if I was ok in their and I had to let them know that I was A OK. I dont think they understood how grim it was in there, and that the whole adventure took a gruesome toll on me, but in 500 mile bike rides under extreme duress and sleep deprivation, you lose your sense of time and space.

We left Panguitch and headed towards what might be one of the most evil climbs one could face. A 36 mile 5000 foot monster awaited us. Could I make it? At mile 377, I had a ton of doubt if I would just cramp up and end up in the fetal position on the side of the road. We found out that Kevin McNulty, my pre-race favorite gave up at Panguitch, not willing to take on this climb even though he was only 1 minute behing Kenneth Philbrick. He must have known something. The first 3 miles were pretty tough with a lot of 8-10% sections but I managed to keep a decent pace up it. Out of the blue, Duc mentioned that the people at Panguitch thought I "DNF'd" as they told him that was what was up on the official web site. Thats all I needed to hear at this point. I lost it and asked him "WHO said I DNF'd!!!!" I was pissed, morally outraged, and ready to fall off the bike as this was the one bit of news I could not take. Did I hallucinate this whole fricking ride? Maybe I DNF'd and forgot. At this point, I was not sure what was up and my will sunk down the drain. Luckily, Granger and Duc sensed how bad this was and immediately called the race director to see what was up. He advised them that all was ok and that I had not DNFd. When they told me, I was still not 100% convinced, but luckily the RD came by in his car and confirmed the good news. This was what I needed because I was suffering from knee problems and could not handle any mental cracks or I would break down immediately. I hit Panguitch Lake at mile 392 which was quite desolate and kept climbing in what seemed a never ending road towards the summit at Brian Head. I knew if I could somehow get over this climb, I would make it to the end. I had to stop every couple of miles on this climb and finally hit the 10,000 foot level. Slowly, painfully, we summmited at 10,600, the higheset I have ever ridden. 36 miles of climbing done and now a massive 28 mile 4000 foot descent faced us. We hit Cedar Breaks National Monument and descended towards Cedar City. Granger saved the day by getting my some Visine earlier which helped clear up my eye. The descent into Cedar City was horrible as it was Sunday afternoon at maybe 5:00 PM, so every weekend warrior wanted to fly down the hill and had no love for a cyclist like me. The team was following me for much of the descent as I was fried and not sure I could descend safely. It was horrible as people would pass us and honk and flip us off. I thought drivers were bad in CA, but these guys were prime asses. I did not bother showing any emotion and kept descending towards Time Station #6 in Cedar City at mile 433.5.

We hit the Station at 6:35 PM which was a Chevron station. Granger called up the RD and I took off while the crew loaded up on gas and food. I took off on SR-56W alone and noticed it was pretty easy going for the first few miles. The guys caught up to me as we headed towards Newcastle. Their was a 1000 foot climb which surprised me as I did not notice it in the race literature. I was swapping places with a two man RAAM team with Fred Boethling one of the RAAM head honchos. They were being crewed by Lee Mitchell who anybody who does Doubles or Ultras knows as he is at every single race crewing somebody, or doing a private SAG on the Doubles. I was surprised to be holding pace with the two man team, but figured that would not last. After the crest, we had one of the smoothest descents I have ever experienced into Newcastle. The road was absolutely perfect and descending at full speed at night with sketchy car light following me seemed normal and not one bit scary. I was feeling good at this point. We hit another climb from the town of Enterprise which I also managed to not read in the route description. It was maybe 1200 feet long and I pushed really hard up it after I was advised it was the last climb of the Hoodoo. All pain had left me and I was crushing it up this hill. This victory was short lived as I realized I had a 25 mile "descent" to get to Snow Canyon. The road was fine, I should have enjoyed the descent, but I was mentally breaking down and complaining and bitching about this descent. I had to stop several times, and whine about it, and then we had to change lights which always takes too much time. We hit a nice hill in Veyo at mile 495 which I did not mind as I preferred climbing to descending. Finally we hit Snow Canyon. Strangely, in the Hoodoo 500, you leave the cocoon of your support and are forced to face the void and ride into the finish line soloe for the last 15 miles. While maybe being a bit poetic, the task of facing this section in a remote steep canyon made me a bit nervous. It should have been a fast descent, but I kept checking the route sheet, convinced I would get lost and somehow blow this ride. I managed to stay on route and head into downtown St. George. I crossed the finish line in 42:50. It was a very rewarding and tough ride.

I had to battle freezing cold, knee pain, a ruined eye, but thanks to my crew members persistence and dealing with me, the finish line was found. The race management of Planet Ultra put on a great ride. I would recommend this ride to anybody who wants to jump up the next level into 500 mile RAAM qualifiers. This ride was tougher than the Furnace Creek 508 for me, due to altitude, cold and longer climbs. I would imagine this ride will grow quickly as FC508 becomes harder to get into and the number of people searching for challenges grows. It took me 5 days to feel somewhat back to normal after this as I was completely exhausted afterwards. But the experience continues to grow on me as I remember more of the details. Another great thing about this ride is the beauty of the area. Its like taking a vacation through national parks, monuments, and state parks in 48 hours. I want to come back and explore this area with a bit more time to check out the scenery.

Hoodoo 500 42:50

2008-09-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

Finish Line

What a challenge this ride was. You never know what to expect when you sign up for one of these, but I got my moneys worth on emotional and physical suffering, as well as incredible fun. Will write something up later.

Hoodoo Last update

2008-09-11T13:06:00.000-07:00

970/1008: 96.2%
46000/60000: 76.6%

I did not quite hit the goals of training mileage prior to the ride. I think I could have done it, but decided to prevent the risk of over-training and injury and not push too hard before the race. The miles have been quality as my avg speed for this 970 miles was about 16.5 mph which I think more than makes up for not hitting the goal dead on. Will be leaving for Utah tonight and hopefully getting some sleep in the car. It seems impossible to hit these events fresh as the prep work, travel, and everything else is bound to get you to the start line really tired. Oh well. I am looking for a great race. I don't want to jinx myself by putting down any times, but I think there is a good chance I can do much better in time than I did in the Furnace Creek 508 in 2006.

Speedplays?

2008-08-31T14:10:00.000-07:00

800.7/1038 77.1%
39840/60000 66.4%

Been having nagging knee pains on both knees this month. My average speed is almost 17 MPH with 31,000 feet of climbing but only with 600 miles which should not be knee crushing numbers. While the speed is almost 2 MPH faster than my fastest speed for any months since I have been riding, its hard for me to believe this is the culprit. I just popped my 508 tested Speedplay's on the bike and will do a couple of rides and compare and contrast. The good thing is its really a cinch to go back and forth as I dont have another pair of shoes with locked in cleat positions. Just having this option is a relief, since I know I used these exact shoes/cleats for FC 508. The only issue I see is that the Speedplay are nasty hotfoot creators which was the main reason I left them for the Look KEO's. I changed out my Keo cleats in the middle of August around the time the pain started creeping up, so its possible I messed up a bit on the placement. Knowing how these things are, its entirely possible I am just over-trained and the cleats are completely not related to the issue. However, I have learned in my job that when things are not going well measured change is better than doing nothing. At the minimum, it can offer psychological benefit. Before big events, it is really easy to overplay small pains into something much bigger than they are.

Hoodoo Update

2008-08-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

715.6/1038: 68.9%
35540/60000: 59.2%

2.5 weeks to go until Hoodoo 500. I have a sore knees that I attribute to a fast month. My average speed is 16.6 MPH which has included a lot of fast tempo riding that must be stressing my lousy knees. Its nothing too bad, but a typical pattern I have of pushing too much before a big event and getting some soreness. Hopefully the knees calm down. I dont want to start tapering this early, but will start early if the pain does not dissipate.

Aerobar Position

2008-08-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

Been working hard on dialing on my aero bars for the Hoodoo 500. The best way for me to improve over my Furnace Creek 508 performance is to learn how to be very comfortable in the aerobars for hours at a time and to hold +/- 175 watts. This works out to about 20 MPH on a typical flat at a heart rate around 130-140 which I can hold for a very long time. The problem has been in the past my aerobars were so uncomfortably set up I could not stay in them for more than a few minutes at a time. After a lot of playing around with them on work rides, I finally found a position that is comfortable where I can lean in and relax and stay riding for long periods of time without the desire to pull out and drop back on the handlebars. Notice how far back the pads are. The goal is to have a 90-110 degree arm bend between fore-arms and upper arm for long term comfort. The Profile CG allow me to pull the pads way back so I can achieve this position.

Compared to the following positions, its clear I am alot more upright than these experienced ultra riders. Going to keep working on dialing it in, but I finally feel like I am turning the corner.

Great Aero Position: Kevin McNulty 2006 508

Great Aero 2

Monica Scholz Nice Aero

Cat Berge

I did not realize this until today, but Pete Penseyres invented aerobars and used them for his still standing RAAM record in 1986: Pete's Position. It is interesting to realize that aerobars originated in the ultracycling world as now, the only real good information is for Triathletes. There is sparse info available on good aero positions for ultracycling. Based on dealing with "experts" in the past on bike setup, I can tell you the best way to find your ideal position is to study and try various positions in the field until you finally find something that works.

Race Across America DVD's 1982-1986

2008-08-19T19:50:00.001-07:00

Riding in Tahoe

2008-08-17T21:16:00.000-07:00

Hoodoo Update
539.3/1038: 51.9%
26320/60000: 43.8%

Spent some time in North Lake Tahoe area with family and got a chance to sample some of the pretty nice riding in North Lake Tahoe. The main ride took me from the house in Tahoe Donner into Truckee. I took Hwy 267 past North Star and climbed up Hwy 267 over the Brockway Summit. The climb had some 10% sections and was harder than I expected, but nothing too hard. The descent to King's Beach and Tahoe was very fast and I could imagine the hard core guys hitting 55-60. I was content at 40-45 and pulled into 7-11 for a cup of coffee. Along side those disgusting flavored cream dispensers they now have something called Stok that they freely give out with a warning of "Limit 2/ Day". Nothing gets me more excited than juicing my coffee with more caffeine so I pumped 3 Stok's into my water bottle along with the wonderful 7/11 coffee and headed along the Tahoe hwy towards Mt. Rose. I passed into Nevada and the classic Cal Neva casino and saw a lot of people stumbling out of the casino's. It was only 6:45 AM so I decided to hold off on the gambling and keep riding. I would never choose to ride around Lake Tahoe unless it was an organized event with cycling critical mass as the shoulders are not very consistent and plenty of people tow boats that seem to creep into the bike lane. After a few miles I saw the turn to hwy 431 toward the Mt. Rose summit. The climb is about 8 miles and climbs about 2400 feet to 8900 feet. It took me a little under an hour to finish this climb. Would love to take it down the other side into Nevada next time. It's a nice long spin and you never really get pushed too hard. The views to Tahoe are fantastic and you can see way into Nevada towards Reno at the top which is spectacular. I would have loved ripping down this descent back to Tahoe, but they have a pretty solid rumble strip along the side of the road making it a bit scarier than I would like. It was a great descent nonetheless and the ride back to the house was great. Managed to get in 60 miles and 6200 feet of climbing in just over 4 hours.

My preperation for Hoodoo 500 is a but below par, as I have been playing around getting aerobars set up and getting settled in which seems to have distracted me. I felt stronger at this point in my Terrible Two training. Hopefully things settle down with the Aerobars as I need to get some serious rides in the next 3 weeks pre taper. I also worry about my right knee which is showing slight soreness, but so far its just a minor soreness that I have felt before when I push it hard a few days in a row. I need to change out the Keo pedals as I cracked them and its preventing a full lock on my right pedal. I will blame the soreness on this and get it fixed asap. Look Keo's are great pedals, but the cleats crack very easily.

Sharpening for Hoodoo and a near miss

2008-08-09T20:23:00.000-07:00

366.7/1038 35.3% miles riding
15700/60000 26.2% climbing riding
118.4/200 59.2% running

I have been following a training plan for Hoodoo 500 that is much faster and harder and shorter than I did for the Furnace Creek 508. I am doing this mainly due to family restraints, and also based on my experience with the Terrible Two this year where I did much better than before. I think its mainly due to being in much better shape than years before, though, but I don't think Ultracycling requires tons of hundred plus mile rides to be successful. I was reading an article that Chris Kostman posted about dumb things ultracyclists including buying into the long distance lie. You don't need the 1000 plus months to be successful. Sure you need some real rides. I believe my Terrible Two ride in June and a two more 100 miles/10,000+ feet of climbing rides should be enough.

Yesterday John Wang and I attempted to break an hour for the long ride home. The ride is 20.5 miles and has 1100 feet of climbing. We took off quickly and I dropped into my new Profile CGT aero bars as we were riding 22-24 MPH on the flats. We crossed El Camino and took Valparaiso up to Alameda holding 22-25 on the 1% grade up hill. We were averaging 21.6 MPH at this point and all was good. We flew down to Sand Hill and began the climb up to 280. I was holding 20 MPH up this hill and immediately dropped John which was an idiot move in a 2 man draft time trail. I slowed back and we crossed 280. I dropped John again on the climb and descent and slowed to catch him back up near Old La Honda. I was able to hold 20 Mph all the way too Alpine and kept John in my slipstream. Due to my stupid pace up Sand Hill, I figured the hour was out of the question, but we kept pushing really hard down Alpine and sprinted through Arastradero. We were flying at 25 mph down arastradero from Foothill towards El Camino and I started to cramp up a bit and had to let John pull this section. We sprinted as hard as we could 1/4 mile from El Camino as the light was green and in miserable bad luck, the light changed and we got stuck. The little rest would be nice, but not be worth the time lost. I was yelling and cussing out that light as I could see our chances slipping away. We immediately sprinted and got stuck behind a train near Alma. Against all odds, we kept pushing at 25 on the flats and ended up finishing in 1:00:30. Damn. We just needed a bit more luck, but it was not to be. Our average speed was 20.4. We could easily make if we did not have the lights, but that's the breaks. We have to try this again next week.

This morning I rode with a small Triathlon group in their weekend ride out to Hwy 92 via Portola Valley. We started out slow, but ended up really pushing hard all the way to 92 and back. I was pushing 22-26 on the flats the whole day including really hard speed up the rollers. 3 of the people I was riding with are doing Ironman Canada in two weeks and they could put a serious pace on. The fast guy won his age group in IronMan Canada and went sub 10 hours in Kona (no slouch for sure). It was really fun holding up with them the entire ride and not get dropped. The strongest guy was definetely holding back, as he apologized about having to take off early and started flying way faster than he was during the ride with us. Damn these guys can move. A lot of times in the past I used to make fun of Tri Weenies, but I think we can all learn alot from them.

6 weeks to Hoodoo 500 and 8 weeks to RDL 100

2008-08-02T08:59:00.000-07:00

228.7/1038 22% Miles
12510/60000 21% Feet: Hoodoo

95.5/200 48% Miles: Rio Del Lago

The month of August will be key for my success on the Hoodoo 500 Bike Ride and the Rio Del Lago 100 mile run. I want to get double the Hoodoo milage before the race which will be 1038 miles. Similarly, I want to get 200 miles of running/fast walking to double the Rio Del Lago milage. I started my race build-up stats during my China run/walks.

Similar to my Terrible Two build up, I will be riding into work whenever possible and adding hard hills along the way with a few night rides as well. With work travel this month and other stuff going on, I think reaching these goals will be a challenge.

I did a 50 mile night ride with a ton of rollers and small hills that were pretty fun powering up. I rode down Foothill and Alameda de Las Pulgas from Los Altos into Hillsborough. Took me less than 1:30 to hit the Starbucks in Burlingame. I climbed some steep hills in Hillsborough and then wandered back on Alameda. I really enjoy riding at night. However, there are punk kids out there who scream expletives at you pretty much at least once every night ride. Not sure what motivates kids to call you a faggot, but I don't let it bother me as much any more. I used to flip them off and yell at them, but I am beyond that now. After I had a maniac try to hit me with his car after I flipped him off, I learned these idiots are not worth your time.

I managed to get 3000 feet of climbing. I did not have a full charge on my Light and Motion bike light and lost all light the last 10 miles. Nothing like riding in the pitch black. Its pretty fun and terrifying on the pitch black sections. I managed to take a fall as well shifting from the big ring to the small on a roller on Alameda. The crank locked up and I went down pretty hard. Luckily I was not going to fast as the injuries seem to be skin deep.

50/3000

Lots of Small Hills at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

Tian an Men Square Run

2008-07-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

Tian an Men Square Run at EveryTrailMap created by EveryTrail:GPS Geotagging

Great run from my hotel to Tian an Men square I took at 4:00 AM in the morning while mildly jet-lagged. I could not have taken this w/o the Garmin as I dont speak Chinese at all and getting lost would be really tough as you would have no way to ask to get back to your hotel. Great run.

Old La Honda Torture Session

2008-07-07T17:16:00.001-07:00

Was too hot today to train up Old La Honda, but that never stops me. I did the first mile in sub 6 minutes which is crazy fast and hit mile 2 near the redwoods in 12:30. I was right on the pace to break 20, but I started upchucking the soup I had for lunch and had to stop as I pushed it so hard I almost was going into convulsions ;) I know I can do 2/3 of the ride in sub 20 pace on a hot day. Now I need to find a cold day post China and break the 20 minute barrier. I would like to do this before Hoodoo as it would be a great to kill this one. I know Jason could easily do this when he is in shape. This reminds me of breaking 40 minutes in the 10k. Its tough to do, but if you really train for it and learn when to accelerate, I think its doable. We shall see.

Ultra Biathlon

2008-07-03T20:17:00.000-07:00

Was confirmed of my entrace into the Hoodoo 500 today. With the Rio Del Lago 100 two weeks later, this will make an interesting September Ultra Biathlon to tackle. Scoping out the route for the Hoodoo, it looks very remote with about 400 miles of it above 5000 feet and a summit of 10,600+ feet to climb. Having never been to this part of the US, it should be quite a trip. I plan on doing a 6 week build up like I did the for Terrible Two for this ride which will encompass riding into work every day and adding climbs along the way. I might do the Mt. Tam Double as a training ride for Hoodoo as its pretty close to home and a great route. I plan on running in China in the next couple of weeks. I dont really know how the 100 mile run will go. I plan on surviving that thing as I dont have any expecations other than finishing in less than 30 hours.

Riding at Night in the Smoke

2008-06-28T23:06:00.000-07:00

Put the ARC-Lion Light and Motion on the bike and took off for Montebello at 8:30 PM. Rode really hard to the base of Montebello setting a new record of 30:30. I cranked hard up Montebello feeling really good. As I got near the top you could barely see the lights of the city below due to all the smoke in the valley due to the wild fires. I was actually starting to cough as I climbed from all the smoke. I pulled into the top at 38:15 which was a new record for me. I thought I might go sub 37 the way I felt early in the ride, but I could not crank hard enough on the top ramps. Glad to knock off a PR, though. I should line them up one by one with this post Terrible Two shape. It was pretty fun riding with the strong light. I descended at 9:30 PM and had no issues at all in the darkness other than irrational fear of the dark ;). Comparing my times to the Low Key Hill Climb, I am moderately happy, though I would like to be in the middle of that pack. That would be 2:30 faster than I did. I think I might be able to pull that off sometime later this season.

Rio Del Lago 100

2008-06-26T18:39:00.001-07:00

Sent in my application for the Rio Del Lago 100 today. Only 90 days to go. What will 100 miles feel like? I have 90 days to find out.

Terrible Two 2008 Ride Report

2008-06-22T10:13:00.000-07:00

Terrible Two Results

It was 99 degrees at my hotel in Sebastopol at 7:30 PM the night before the Terrible Two. The local news forecast predicted similar temps for the following day. Facing the Terrible Two with 3 1/2 weeks of training seemed insane, but when you add the heat, my odds were dropping quickly. The start of the TT is different from any other Double with a more serious feeling to it. The TT has more grizzled looking cyclists that look in great shape. Not a lot of big guts squeezed into spandex. We started at 5:30 sharp and the peleton was moving 22-25 MPH on the flats into downtown Santa Rosa. This was the first time the pack held together as I managed to keep with the front pace group through downtown and towards Bennett Valley Rd. A guy started running beside the peleton in his tighty whitey underwear wearing a motorcycle helmet carrying a big white flag similar to the crazies you see on the Tour de France. The amount of fan support at the beginning of the TT separates it from any other double. About 3 miles outside of town, a woman was cheering us on and her bull dog jumped out of her car into the middle of the pack causing 2 or 3 riders to go down hard. The riders were immediately attended to and the pack kept moving towards the canyons. I was able to keep up with the main group to the base of the Trinity climb for the first time. The Trinity climb is pretty steep, but being so early in the ride, it never seems that bad. Was riding up with a 508 Veteran, Hare, who rode in 07 the exact same time I did in 06 (46:30). It was already getting hot on Trinity and felt muggy which was a bad omen. I summited and dropped down the other side and cranked hard down to Napa Valley. After hooking up with a group of 4 or 5 guys, I could see 5 more up front maybe 200 yards ahead so I took the initiative and quickly joined our groups. The next 12 miles or so to Calistoga were in the 21-25 MPH range and I took a few pulls breaking my personal pact of staying on the back and letting others do the work. For some reason, I can't help but do a hard pull with a big group. We puleld into Calistoga in just over 3 hours which was fast for 55 miles. I loaded up on hammer products, jammed ice in the camelbak, and got back out their. I managed to hook up with a 8 man peleton and we jammed hard into the base of the Geysers. I started the Geysers climb by 9:30 AM which was way earlier than previous years. The good thing about the Geysers is you can get into a decent rhythm once you get over the shock of the climb. It had to be in the 90's on this climb and my stomach was starting to act up. Their was plenty of support on the climb as the organizers were great in insuring we had access to water on such a hot day. I crested the top before 11:00 AM and quickly scooted out of the aid station. I did not mind the descent into Cloverdale this year and while attacked by a minor case of hot foot, was able to crank very hard on the descent and flats. I hit 100 miles in 6:05 riding which was close to 16.5 MPH which was good considering the 7,000+ feet in this century. I was riding hard alone towards the lunch stop enjoying a slight tail wind. I pulled into lunch at 110 Miles at 12:30 which was great for me. The race leader pulled in at 11:15 AM. I was in 72nd place according to the aid station guys which shocked me as I have never been this far ahead in the race. While feeling shocked and happy to be doing so well, the heat and general anxiety made me fear it could all somehow go wrong.

The TT is such a great ride in part because the route is so varied, dramatic, and capable of tearing you apart mentally and physically. No matter how many times I face Skaggs Springs Rd., I have not figured out a way to handle it. The climb started ok, but I slowly started cooking and feeling miserable. Their is this wicked section that shoots up like a maniacal "S" that is completely exposed to the sun. I had to stop a couple of times as the heat was killing my. I was popping S-caps and enduralytes like candy to keep the cramps at bay by this point. I was realizing that my fantastic performance on the first half of this ride would have zero influence on this diabolical second half as I was feeling like rotten lunch meat on this climb. I was standing by the side of the road and they asked me if I needed a SAG. I was thinking.. Wow I must look pretty crappy. Their was no way I would SAG in though. I knew from experience that you just had to get to the top of the 1st summit of Skaggs as the second part is not as bad. I began to crest the hill. Their is an exposed flat on the top of Skaggs that gives you a break and sure enough the aid station showed up. I was pretty wobbly, but able to get ice loaded up in the camel bak and slam a coke and get out of their quickly. The second summit of Skaggs was not that bad as I remembered. Once you hit that hard right hand hair pin its all over and I summited and jammed quickly down to Gualala river aid station. The descent was quick and I pulled into the aid station before 4:00 PM which was great for me. I hit Rancheria Wall and realized what a cruel joke it is. Its so steep and relentless. I had to get off the bike a few times as I could not gut it out in the heat w/o stopping. I finally summited it and hit the Indian Reservation at Stewart's Point Rancheria. Their would be one small climb and a quick descent to the Ocean. We had a nice tail wind down Hwy 1 which I attacked hard and was quickly riding 20-25 MPH on the flats. Lots of hills slowed me down, but I pulled into Ft. Ross at 5:15 or so. I avoided the chairs at Ft. Ross and quickly departed and hit the nasty Ft. Ross hill. It was tougher than I remembered it and I slowly climbed it. Near the top their was an exposed little wall and I hammered it standing up showing I still had juice in my legs. Ft. Ross is a stealth double summit as you always forget the second hill. This second hill after a small drop is tough mentally as you are cooked by this point. I managed to grind this hill out and drop into Cazadero. I ran into Eric House who was riding in a single speed. Jason and I did Eric House's self supported double to Yosemite in 06 and I always wanted to thank him for posting his ride report. He is a very humble guy and would not admit to breaking 30:00 hours in the Furnace Creek 508 which I know he did, but he seemed to forget his feat. He also was wearing the oxford dress shirt that he is famous for making him stand out in sea of spandex. I have no idea how he can climb these hill with that single speed bike, but he is one of a kind. Anybody that could ride to the Terrible Two from Palo Alto on Friday, win the race on Saturday, and ride home on Sunday is permanently in my book in a world I cannot comprehend. I cranked into Monte Rio at 7:35 or so. Only 15 miles to go. If I could do it in sub 55 mins I could break 15 hours. I hammered down the Bohemian hwy towards Occidental barely noticing the climb. Having done this section in the dark before, it was a new experience during the day. The left turn to Graton came really quickly and I hammered towards home. Having gotten lost hear before in 05, I was a bit tentative, but being able to see the TT markers made it alot easier. I finally hit High School Road and rode hard into the stop. My official time was 15:01.

It was great finishing during the daytime, especially on a hot day like this. I was surprised that I pulled it off with 3 1/2 weeks training, but it shows you that quality is more important than quantity. When you factor in weight loss plus 1000 miles of running the results make more sense, but it was a great day over all.

I found out their were more than 90 DNF's on this day and the official high was well over 100 in Cazadero, Santa Rosa and Cloverdale. No wonder I had to pop 50 S-Caps and Enduralytes. The cool thing was the usually understated official race report called it one the Cruelest TT's in history which makes me feel good for getting it done.

Terrible Two Training Done

2008-06-15T21:55:00.000-07:00

695/600 Miles: 115%
48400/4800 Feet: 101%

Did a Tough fast Century with Granger today: 104/9650 in 6:50. This was a 15.1 MPH moving speed which is a record for me looking back over the years. I have never cracked the 15 MPH speed on a 10K+/- Century and we did it today by hammering the entire day. Never took it easy. Granger was in great climbing shape as I lost him on both King's Mountain and Tunitas Creek. We broke 1:30 from my house to the top of KM which started the day well. The ride up and down Skyline was fast and we powered down 84 to Haskins Grade. No problem climbing up Haskins Grade and we jammed down to Pescadero store and Granger grabbed his pastries and I stuck to the energy bars. We hit a nasty head wind all the way down Stage Road and on Lobitos Cut-Off. The climb up Higgins was in the big ring and we cranked down towards the best sandwiches in the bay area in Half Moon Bay. We smoked down Hwy 1 at 22 MPH+ and turned onto Verde and up Lobitos Creek which we seemed to crank up easily. I tried in vain to keep up with Granger, but he got a small lead on me from the beginning and I never could catch him even as I put it in the big ring at the top and pushed hard as hell. He passed Laura Stern of 508 and RAAM fame at the top which might have spurned him on as he was moving. We cranked down King's Mountain and pushed it hard home at 20+ to insure we would get a 15+ MPH moving time. I am pretty happy with that and it gives me confidence for next week. My knees and legs are tired from 700 miles in 18 days, but I have to expect this as this is a major amount of work out of the blue. Going to ride in 2 or 3 times in this week and hopefully hit the TT with a ton of energy next Saturday. Weather.com is predicting 78 degree high in Santa Rosa for Saturday and 82 for Cloverdale. I am happy about this as I don't need real heat to make me feel good about the TT. I just want to finish before 10 PM and put this one to bed.

Terrible Two Update

2008-06-14T21:20:00.000-07:00

591.5/600 Miles: 98.5%
37650/48000 Feet: 78.4%

Going to to do my last long ride before the TT tomorrow which will take in Kings Moutain, Hwy 84, Hasking Grade, Stage, Lobitos Cutoff, Higgins, Lobitos, and Tunitas Creek. I can tell my legs are finally feeling the stress of so many rides in such a short time, as my knees are a bit tired, but its to be expected. I plan on spinning up most of the hills tomorrow and taking it easy next week.

Solid Self Supported Century

2008-06-08T19:43:00.000-07:00

473.6/600 Miles: 78.9 %
33050/48000 Feet: 68.8%

Did a self supported century that rode up Stevens Canyon to Redwood Gulch connecting to Hwy 9 up to Skyline. Took me 1:34 to get to Skyline which was inline with my best times of the past and did not feel too bad. I took a left on Skyline and climbed up to Castle Rock Park. They only charge for water, so I blew that off and hammered down Skyline past Bear Creek, Gist, Black, Zayante, Mtn. Charlie and across Hwy 17. Sprinted into the store on the left we always go to and loaded up on liquids. Dropped down Old Santa Cruz hwy that is a nice and fast descent. Hung a right at Highland past the St. Clare's Franciscan Missionary Retreat at the top near Rodeo Gulch and dropped down Branciforte. Climbed up Granite Creek which is a very easy 4 on the ACTC site. I crossed Hwy 17 and loaded up the camelbak for the climb up Mtn. Charlie and Skyline. I crushed the Mtn. Charlie climb better than I ever had in a bit more than 30 mins and w/o stopping started the climb up Skyline. Amazingly I had no problems up Skyline which usually hits me hard after a long day. After cresting at Castle Rock, I hammered down to Hwy 9, grabbed a nice hot dog and diet coke which was being served by the kid of the owner with his girlfriend who was wearing a bikini top basking in the sun. It was 80+ degrees at this time but I felt great. I hammered hard up Skyline to Page Mill climbing most in the big ring and slammed down Page Mill passing people on the descent (surprising for me) and hammering every flat I could find. This century took me 6:45 to complete and had almost 9700 feet of climbing. It was a couple of miles short, but I was not feeling crazy enough to ride around the neighborhood to get the official century. Close enough for me.

I plan on riding tues-sun this week with another century next weekend and then a nice taper with a few spin ins. I also plan on a pre TT time trial up Old la Honda a few days pre TT and see how it goes.

Terrible Two Update

2008-06-06T20:57:00.000-07:00

370.5/600 Miles 61.75%
23250/4800 Feet 48.4%

Rode long home from work with Kings Mountain, Skyline, down 84, Haskins Grade, and Alpine with a few hills in Los Altos Hills. Felt pretty good up the hills, especially Alpine. Getting mentally prepared for 200k on Sunday. This will be a great test for TT. I Plan on using the same route as the Western Wheelers Double Metric Century. I rode this before my first Terrible Two in 04 and got obliterated so hoping things go a bit better this time.

Terrible Two Update 5

2008-06-04T20:36:00.000-07:00

273.5/600 Miles: 45.6%
15500/48000 Feet: 32.2%

Good ride home today the long way with Los Trancos the hard way up Ramona and Old Spanish Trail. I don't know how Sean gets up these hills in a 39/23, but more power to him. I felt great today and waltzed up the steep hill easier than I have ever done it. A great portent for the Terrible Two as I had one of the best days on a bike I have ever had. I was able to crank the flats like a maniac and move up the hills on Arastradero in the big ring with out much problem. This goes to show you what commitment and a tough 7 days of riding can get you. I just have to keep it up for 10-11 more days and taper before the TT. I plan on doing a tough ride this weekend of 120/10-12K feet and a couple of nice long rides in to work in the 50 mile range before then. Need some major climbing to get to my goal of 48K, but the way I felt today, it should be doable.