The quiet before the storm...

Tomorrow is Pilarcitos SuperPrestige Round 2. Possibly the biggest cross race of my life, my best performance ever, or maybe my worst, or most forgetable, with a candy-like shell of mediocrity. Most likely it'll fall somewhere in the middle.

I'm excited. I get a front-line call-up tomorrow from my 5th place finish in the first race...a 5th that could have and learly was a 2nd, though that's another story. The call-up is a big honor, a sortof milestone for me, a point of pride and a considerable tactical advantage, as it guarantees a decent starting position. And since this is a big, important race series, I'm hoping to hold my own and maintain a good overall position with a strong finish tomorrow.

That said, my form has recently skipped town on me. All week I've felt flat. Relatively speedy, but not powerful, strong or anything like the superhero I've occasionally been in recent months, and that's messing up my outlook for tomorrow.

It's tough. You can't let this sort of thing freak you out, or you'll begin to lose the race before it even starts, because you'll expect to have a bad day. It's very, very important to stay mentally focused and sharp, even when the odds are clearly stacked against you. Sure I expect to have less than 100% of my full powers tomorrow, but then again, I'm still very strong, skilled and experienced, and who knows...my competition is also succeptible to colds, bad days, dumb tactical moves and poor mid-week training, lack of sleep, all of that. There's no reason to think that just because my legs feel like wood, that they still won't be enough to turn the screws on the other guys, or that their legs don't also feel like wood. I mean, I can't see that things would be much different for any of my competitors.

The way I see it, racing is a collection of hard days in the saddle, sore legs, bad luck and situations that could have gone better, which leave you muttering "if only this" or "If I hadn't that". And if you're lucky, you'll have a few days sprinkled in here and there when everything does fall into place. Good legs, a course that suits you, no crashes, no flat tires, all the right moves at all the right times, and you'll win, or even just do extremely well. I'm lucky and I've already had a couple days like that in my life, one earlier this season even. But those are the exceptions.

Maybe this is the best way to look at it. In racing, you're probably not going to have a perfect day. So it's really about riding as hard and as smart as you can, and making the most out of an imperfect situation you're likely to be in. And keep in mind that everyone else is in the same boat, trying to do the same thing while enduring similar challenges.

With that in mind, I'm going to imagine that my cometitors have sore, flat legs. That they're mentally and physically tired, maybe on the brink of illness. That they're dreading tomorrow for fear that a gang of fresher, stronger riders are going to take them to task. Think about it...the whole front of the field is like that, just like me. It's a mental game and I just have to get beyond the physical side and push myself harder than I believe I can go.

Where the hell did my form go?

For a trained athlete, you have fitness, and form. Fitness is what you get from lots of training over a period of time. If you've been training consistently for 3 years, you are most likely fit, to some degree at least. Form, on the other hand, is how much of that fitness you have access to at the moment. So on a given day, a fit rider with no form may be no faster than a rider of lesser fitness, with better form. But that's as good as things will get for the rider of lesser fitness, whereas the rider with bad form will be much, much faster when his or her form returns.

That said, I am fit as hell. I knew that coming into the season, and after the first few races I did. However, my form is a different story. I had all kinds of form for the first Sacramento race, and I had a decent bit for the 2nd and 3rd Sacramento races. I even came back from Vegas with a reasonable bit of form for the first Pilarcitos. But since then, despite a good dose of weekend racing with smart rest rides peppering the weekdays, my form seems to be receeding. My form is suddenly like that girl you've been dating for 5 happy, blissful sex-tastic months, and suddenly, she seems melancholy and distant. Ask her what's wrong and she says, "Nothing...I just need space."

It's messed up. I need my form. I worked hard to build fitness, and when I've had my form, or even part of it, I've been quite pleased with my performance. And here we are, exactly halfway through the 2005 cyclocross season, and I feel like my top end has disappeared. I can cruise at a good speed, good enough to land me consistently in the top 5 so far (crashing and technical issues notwithstanding) but I don't have that extra push to chase down attacks and that sort of thing.

This week I tried to ride carefully, getting the "right" mix of intensity and recovery rides, along with plenty of food and sleep. It's now Saturday night and it's tough to tell what good this has done

Surf City #1 Report

Could have gone better, could have gone worse. It's still debatable as to whether I'm doing too much effort during the week between races, or not enough. Though lately, it seems more and more apparent that the former is the case. More on that later.

Surf City #1 happened at Aptos High School, a course I've never done. Let's be clear about one thing...this is a messed up cross course. But at the same time, it's probably more authentically "cross" than a lot of the stuff I've done where you only hop off the bike once per lap. Oh no...in contrast, this course had five, that's right five run-up's of the sort that required bike shouldering, and two of them in particular were so absurdly steep that you had to be careful where you placed your feet or you'd slide back down. This was in dry, sandy conditions...I can't imagine what it would have been like if it were soggy.

That said, I rather liked it. Other bits were similarly tough and technical. If only I'd had legs to hit it at 100% of my abilities. As it was, I got a decenct but not stellar start, and settled into 3rd, where I could watch Robert Mau and Dave Samples ride away from me. I held my own for most of the race, despite getting tangled in the caution tape in a section of tight, slippery 180 degree turns on wet leaves. I crashed hard enough to mess up my second helmet in a month, and nearby spectators let out an "oooooohhhhhh" as I hit the ground. But I held onto 3rd at that point, surprisingly. It wasn't until later in the race when some guy whizzed past me like he'd just started, and then later I found myself battling with Jordi Cortez, a strong rider whom I normally beat. He passed me but I passed him back, and we were heading into the final few corners in close contention. It would be tight but I think I could have held him off. Instead I botched a dismount and dropped my chain. Again. In the time I lost fiddling with it, Jordi and some other guy got past me. Unfortunate. And 6th place. Ironically, my spare bike was so close that had I remembered and went for it, I might have held 4th. Alas.

Still, 6th is respectable and I can hardly call it an injustice, especially since I rode far from a perfect race. Most disturbing, I still seem to lack that "snap" that I had before. And I sure could use it.

I didn’t sleep well Saturday night. It’s typical after a race…I feel hot, restless and generally can’t pass out and sleep peacefully. All the more frustrating after a weak performance at Ione and a desperate, desperate need to get some rest for a good ride come Sunday.

Granite Bay, Sacramento. I‘ve raced there before, in fact I think it was the first B’s race I ever finished, a few years ago on the brown Rock Lobster, and I finished top 10. I recall being pleased about that even though the field was dinky. But that was then, and this is now…I ride for a big, proud team, I have a coach and allegedly, some fitness. Or so I thought until yesterday’s weak-sauce ride. Today will be different…gotta keep telling myself that…today will be different.

And it was different. Bigger field, and a better course. There were four distinct nasty sand sections in the course, two of which made for crippling runs. My plan today was simple: don’t go ballistic at the start, follow Jim and Eric, let them set the pace and make a move when they fade. Or rather, /if/ they fade. From the start, those guys exploded. Along with us went Mike (the punk that got 3rd ahead of me the day before) and Dan Dixon, who missed the party in Ione. The five of us pranced off and never saw any element of the rest of the field after the start.

Right away, Eric and Jim started attacking, and it was Mike who stepped up and did some work with me, but I was not trying to pull away at this early point. Perhaps I should have been…but with so many long flat sections it seemed unwise to go it alone against the group. Before long I found myself at the front, going hard but not attacking, looking to Eric and Jim to take the lead. Eric attacked and I figured I’d let Jim do the chasing, but he was playing tactics. He’d sit in on me, attack, and then sit up when I’d catch him. Eventually I got bored of this and just let him go. In retrospect, I should have attacked him but at the time, I just didn’t have the legs or the will, or both.

And that’s pretty much how it ended. Eric and Jim way off the front, Dan and Mike chasing just seconds behind me. I finished 3rd overall, theoretically winning the 30+ group depending on how you play the age game. It’s not a bad ride and I definitely feel better about things than I did the day before, but I expect more out of myself than this. I still didn’t have the kind of jump that I’ve had earlier in the year, and if I’m ever going to beat those guys, I’m going to /need/ that jump. I’ve vowed to diligently do my recovery rides, eat better, sleep more and drink no beer this week, and stay motivated. I have to keep in mind that in the first race, I could have beat Jim, and at SuperPrestige, I dispatched with both of them, and 90% of the field, with little trouble. It’s in me, I just have to get back on track.

Fast forward one week. It's Saturday night and I'm at Kate and Roby's. Nichole dozes on the couch.

Not a great race today, and I have no idea why. I rode a bit this week, doing a standard road ride on Weds, and a bit more spirited and intense ride on Thursday, followed by a very easy ride on Friday. But my legs felt sore Friday night, and that had me a bit worried.

The course was in Ione, which is 45 minues away from Sacramento, or to be more precise, it's in a little central valley foothill town in the middle of nowhere, off Hwy 88, where the hicks and mountain folk roam free. By design, the course was very cool. It had a little bit of everything. Starts out paved, two logs for a forced dismount, and then the course winds around some oak groves and a bit on the grassy park area under the trees, even up a small bit of stairs, which is always my favorite cyclocross thing. Later you head down this hill and cross a creek once, twice, yes three times before heading back up the hill towards the start/finish.

To look at it, I'd have said it would be a perfect course for me except for the creek crossings. They were too muddy to ride, but it was definitely slower to run. Either way they were lame.

From the start, I do my thing and get the hole shot. Eric and Jim to /their/ thing, which is to sit on my wheel until I start to slow down a bit, and then attack me. It worked flawlessly at Negro Bar and it worked again when they did it today. Disturbingly, today it happened much earlier in the race, like 1/3 of the way through the first lap. Not sure what was wrong, but I just didn't have it today, either mentally, physically or maybe both. I had concerns about my legs when warming up...I just didn't feel real snappy, but I was hoping it was all in my imagination. Guess not.

And shortly after Jim and Eric passed me, some other guy also got by me. I tried to chase but I just couldn't find the power to bring them back. Slowly, they all rode away from me. Nobody else came close to me, so I had 4th overall locked up, but that's no longer good enough. And I'd later find out that the 3rd guy is 34, so I didn't win the 30+ group either.

Oh well. It's probably a good thing...maybe I needed to be humbled a bit.

I'm baffled as to why I didn't ride well today, but there's not much I can do except drink, eat, rest and recover, and hope that tomorrow I'll have better legs things will go better. And even if that doesn't happen, hopefully I can turn things around for next week's Surf City Round 1.

SuperPrestige Round 1 went better than expected. I mean, at Interbike I was on my feet for much of the day, and not riding at all. We had these bar stools that were like torture devices...sure you're sitting down, but they tilted your ass forward in such a manner that you had to use the footbar at the base to hold yourself up in the stool. So your legs are loaded up, even when you're sitting. Flippin' dandy. I get back to the room and my legs were a little sore, and that's not a good thing. Add to that a week of stress, shaking hands and all that, and I felt close to sick on Saturday afternoon when I got back, and for Sunday's race I expected two things: a mediocre ride, and the complete onset of a cold afterwards.

Instead, I got two entirely different things: My best Pilarcitos/SuperPrestige finish yet, and my hardest crash in a while.

I warmed up well and felt pretty good, but I gotta say I fricking hate the Candlestick Point course. It's windy, flat, and treacherous. There are several tricky sections involving deep silt and sand, and fast. gravel-coated corners. And there's really only one good line on the whole course. Drift off that line and you'll lose speed, crash your balls off, or both.

When the official called the B's to the line, I happened to be standing on the line already, so I got a great starting position. The start is always critical, but on this course (when ran in this direction) it's especially so. After a short sprint on the pavement, you hit a hard right hander and then a quick left onto the dirt. From there, like I said before, there's really only one fast line for quite a while.

The gun goes off and I'm second into the first corner. I hit the dirt and the guy in front of me is already spinning two gears higher than me. I don't know what's going on behind me, but I suspect crashes, bad lines, yelling and general pandimonium as 60 B's riders all bottleneck onto a narrow, slippery and bumpy dirt section.

I ride the whole first lap hard, watching the guy ahead just ride away. But nobody's catching me, either. Some dude on the sideline yells "upgrade" to us. Through the start/finish line and I'm still not looking back, but I have a little gap it appears. I'm running 2nd. A few more laps fall and nothing changes. It's too good to be true. Am I this strong?

I get the 4 laps to go card. Can I hold this for another four laps? I don't know. Some guy catches me on the pavement and sits on my wheel. I make him pull, and then on the dirt he misses a corner and disappears. I'm starting to fade a little, and I'm getting nervous because the chasers are not that far behind now. I see them on the tight overlapping corners. I come into the most unpleasant section of the course and botch my remount, smashing my nuts, missing my pedals and bogging down in sand. Some dude named Nick catches up to me and urges that we keep rolling "cause they're gaining on us". And off we go. I let him pull, and he enters the barrier section with one foot too many still clipped into a pedal, and goes down in a heap. I pass him and keep charging to the 3 to go sign.

At two to go a cat 2 roadie kid named Max (and self proclaimed sandbagger) catches and attacks me on the flat section, bringing Nick along with him. I keep them in sight...Max isn't a great bike handler and maybe he'll crash or something, or I can reel them in on the last lap. I don't know.

One lap left and I'm 4th. I head into the first two dirt corners and go down hard in the second off-camber right. It was like I hit ice or something. I hit my head hard enough to ding my helmet. It takes a few seconds to gather my senses and some guy passes me shortly thereafter. Shaken but still assembled I finished 5th.

Top 5 out of 55 or 60 riders at Pilarcitos SuperPrestige. Not bad, not bad. Especially with Interbike factoring. Among the riders finishing well behind me are the Sacramento crew of Jim, Eric, Ryan and Jordi, and just two places behind me is Robert Mau, and the whole Ritchey LaPierre team. It's a ride I'm proud of, but I can't help but feel that 2nd place was there for me, but I just couldn't keep it together. But now, my season goals already met, my SuperPrestige overall points campaign suddenly very intriguing and my overall confidence soaring, I can attack the rest of the season with a newfound ferocity.

Interbike.

Not sure, but I think this is my 11th or 12th attendance. First was in Anaheim, back in my bike shop days. So different back then, as a shop guy. It was the world’s biggest candy store and I freaked out like a kid in Toy’s R Us on his birthday. Horded stickers, catalogs, T-Shirts, you name it. Dreamworld.

Little did I know then that I’d return a few years later while working for the same shop, and then a few years later still as an Editor of the mighty Bicycling Magazine, no less. Again, the experience was amazing and entirely different than my bike shop days. I found the edit side to be a) more work, and b) potentially more lucrative, as companies give editor types all kinds of free stuff. That was quite nice. Five years well spent, if not a bit hard on the feet.

For the past three years it’s been with Blackburn. And once again the experience is different. Now it’s more booth work and less floor walking, hand shaking and product ogling. The work aspect was up and down but overall very good, and the rare moments when I escaped the booth, I saw the most amazing bikes my Pegoretti (someday I’ll buy one, I swear) and Easton’s new cross fork, which will be on my Rock Lobster team bike, which I’ll get soon.

By far, one of the best aspects of the show was telling friends and acquaintances that I’d won back-to-back cross races the weekend before.

I did a bad thing upon arrival Monday…stayed up late with coworkers, gambled in the room with dice and drank unspecified quantities of vodka. Woke up next morning with $140 extra in my pocket, and enough vodka in my bloodstream that I might have still been drunk.

Apart from that, every night I was in bed relatively early. Still worried about keeping the legs fresh, walking/standing all day, no rides, and a big race the day after my return.

Welcome to my blog. Here you can read about my current cyclocross season, and I’ll probably also bitch and moan about work and other unrelated things now and then. But for now, I’ll bring things up to date since I’ve started this a few weeks into my season.

Race: Sacramento Series #1

I had trouble sleeping the whole week leading up to this race. Nerves. Stomach trouble. I’m all freaked out, with almost a year of hard training and preparation behind me I have no idea what would happen but my expectations were very high.

On race day, I got a great start and stayed in the top 3 for the whole race. Excellent. I think I had the win in my legs, but unfortunately I threw my chain repeatedly on one rough, clumsy barrier/run-up section and had to stop several times and put the chain back on. I took the lead about halfway through when Jim McD flatted. A lap later and I flatted, and I guess two riders (Jim and Dixon) passed me. Finished 3rd overall and 2nd in the 30+ group.

Good result but bittersweet.

Race: Sacramento Series #2

A week later, and I’m still a little nervous. Familiar course, Negro Bar I think, with a stairway run-up which I really like. Ballistic at the start and I had to jump on the backstretch to reach the lead group. Then a little into the first lap the lead group slowed down on this grassy false flat, so I attacked like hell and shattered the field. I led for several laps but four riders (Eric, Jim McD and some unknown) worked together a bit and sat in on me, and then later attacked me. I didn’t have a response and I finished 4th overall. Or so I thought.

Turns out one of the three in front of me was an A’s or a junior or something, so I was 3rd overall and 2nd in age group. Another solid finish but I was a little down on myself, starting to worry that I wouldn’t win a race this year.

Race: Sac Series #3

Second race of the weekend. It helps a ton to stay at Kate and Roby’s house in Sac. Less driving, more relaxing. Without that I doubt I’d be able to do as many Sac races as I’m planning.

First news of the day, turns out I won yesterday. 3rd overall but both Jim and Eric are under 30, so that’s me with my first win! A little pressure is off now, which helps. I’m also now tied for the overall 30+ lead with Dan D.

This race is epic. Familiar course, and I simply rode away from the field, start to finish. I don’t think I was out of the lead for more than a few seconds at the start. Flawless race, no crashes, tossed chains, flats, nothing. Paced myself well, keeping pressure on. Jim and Eric were super cool (they didn’t race,(fried from previous day, their clubs are running these races) but they gave me encouragement and updates on the chasers. I was mostly keeping an eye on Dan D, my biggest overall threat. With three to go, he snapped and I had a comfortable gap. I eased up for a lap, trying to save a little energy and not risk a crash, but then with 1.5 laps to go I see someone gaining on me. A junior? A lapped rider? No, he’s coming up too strong. With one lap to go he’s suddenly within striking distance, but I made critical hard efforts on the climbs, especially the 2nd paved hill, to keep him at bay.

I can hear his pedal strokes. Pressure is on but he doesn’t have much room to catch/pass me and I didn’t let up. I’m thinking…don’t crash…don’t flat…don’t blow up…and I didn’t. I won alone, by a handful of seconds to spare, somewhere between 8 and 17. More than enough. The feeling is like nothing I can explain.

Turns out the guy is Ryan F. Strong and I’m sure I’ll tangle with him again, but he’s under 30 as well. I now have the overall lead.