Reflecting on a Season: Bike Racing 2010 (Part 1)

Ever since the end of my 2009 season (which was way too short due to way too many weddings and not enough free weekends for racing), I had been looking forward to the 2010 racing season. I had a new racing road bike and a new (to me) racing mountain bike, I had trained completely differently for this season (focusing on power and criterium skills instead of climbing) and I was ready to go.

My goals for the season were: 1) Upgrade to Category 3 by the end of the racing season 2) Top 10 at the Mt. Evans Hill Climb and 3) Win the CO state criterium championship race at Longmont. Yeah, a little ambitious, but why not?

My training objectives were: 1) Improve power 2) Improve criterium racing skills 3) Learn how to stage race 4) Improve sprinting technique 5) Quick recovery during races/rides.

With a little help from Joe Friel's The Cyclist's Training Bible and some great mentoring by Twin Peaks teammates, especially Dave Botchek and Karl Pelletier, I was confident that this could be a breakthrough season for me.

I had come off of the 2009 season with my first podium finish in a Cat 3/4 race, the Primal/Hart criterium, my first race on my new Pinarello. I got 3rd and it felt great. I had fallen in love with crits from my very first one, Twin Peaks' own race, the Longmont Criterium. I had been fearful of them prior to this and only entered because it was free, well, I ended up 5th, and was hopelessly hooked from that moment on. Hence my goals for 2010 being primarily criterium-focused: I was determined to get better at this fast, exciting, adrenaline-filled, and strategy-focused style of racing. I wasn't good at sprinting, but between Karl's coaching on sprint form, Dave's constant guidance on power training and pushing bigger gears, and some great power training workouts at Peak to Peak Training Systems indoor training studio, by the time March came around, it was game on.

Every race has a story- many stories actually, different for everyone. In an effort to learn from each and every race I did this season and progress myself as an athlete and a competitor, I took notes after every race with the goal of consolidating them at the end of the season so I had something concrete to look at. This is my story of 2010.

Race #1: 4/17: Haystack Time Trial
This race was a junkshow and a half. I made the mistake of drinking too much before over a rabid game of bowling (don't ask) and showed up to the race 20 minutes before my start time. I wasn't too stoked about this race anyways as I really dislike time trials, and my team time trial pretty much fell apart as one of my teammates was wavering over whether or not to race, then my other teammate got sick and couldn't make it up so I was going to jump on to the other team, then last minute the wavering teammate decided to do it, so there were going to be two of us, the whole thing was just a catastrophe anyways, so I decided, hell, why not have some beer?

I rushed up to registration to collect my number and the guy at reg says "you might wanna try showing up a little earlier next time." Yeah, ya think?? Then I jump on my bike and head to the start. Totally forgot to pump my tyres, and spent the whole race wondering why I felt like I was going backwards? I blamed it on the hangover and kept pushing through. Then after the race was over I realised my tyres were at 60 psi. D'oh.

Fast forward to the TTT in the afternoon. It had started raining... no, raining was an understatement. It was pouring, coming down in sheets. Emily and I headed to the starting line quite possibly wearing everything we had. Being as it was Emily's first race ever I started out pulling while poor Emily took a beating from all the shit coming off my tyres. Then it was her turn to pull and I got sandblasted with gravel, water, mud, and everything else. Mag chloride does not taste extremely good, I wouldn't recommend it.

Despite the rain, the race was fun, and we kept rubber to the road which is always important.

Lessons learned: 1) don't go out drinking the night before a race, 2) show up early, 3) pump your tyres. Ah, early season.


Emily and I making the best of the weather.

Race #2: 4/29: Subaru Spring Criterium

My first crit of the year! I was sooooo excited! Not to mention it would be my first race with my teammate/bestie Jen Moehring, who had just moved back to CO after spending a year living in Kentucky. She was one of the people who first got me interested in bike racing, we trained well together over the early spring, and we couldn't wait to finally race together as teammates.

Well, I had driven the course the day before and it was a relatively safe, easy course. Four corners, one downhill stretch, one uphill stretch. Nothing too sketchy at all save two potholes that could be easily avoided by picking the right line. So when I contemplated racing with my arm and leg warmers just in case I go down, I shrugged it off. It's a safe course, I'm confident in my handling skills, no way am I going down. Famous last words.

About halfway into the race Jen and I got into a breakaway with two girls from other teams. We had Deb blocking for us back in the pack, and we were soon working together like an efficient machine, taking short pulls and gaining time on the pack. I was pretty sure with Jen and me in the break together that we could attack with 2 or 3 laps to go and get one of us across the line first.

Then it happened. I had just taken a pull and rotated to the back. We were on the downhill stretch and a gusty wind had come up, buffeting us around a bit. For some reason that will remain unknown, the girl in front of Jen slammed on her brakes. Yes, the cardinal no-no of riding in a paceline. Jen had to brake to avoid her, and me being third in line had nowhere to go. I slammed into the back of Jen's bike and started fishtailing out of control. I was in the drops so I tried to throw my weight back as I felt my rear wheel coming up off the ground. For a second I thought I could save it. Then as my wheel came up over my head I gave in. I thought, I'm going down, but it's going to be ok. I wasn't scared, and I was loose and relaxed as I flew off my bike, landed on my chest, and scorpioned down the road at 30 mph.

I immediately got up and ran over to my bike as I knew there was only about a minute between us and the rest of the pack, and I didn't want to make anyone else go down. I grabbed my bike and hauled it off the road as I heard my friend Becky Serratoni at the front of the pack call out to see if I was ok. I think I said yes, and next thing I knew Jen was at my side. She had seen me go down out of the corner of her eye, apparently it looked pretty bad so she pulled out of the race to get me to an ambulance. She said "ARE YOU OK??" and the first thing out of my mouth was "I think I ripped my tit off!" My right nipple took the brunt of the crash and it burned like hellfire and damnation. After we had a good laugh I looked inside my jersey and confirmed that yes, my breast was intact. Whew.

Next thing was my bike... miraculously it looked ok. I think my adrenaline was still flowing like wine as Jen and I got back on our bikes and kept racing. Since I crashed just inside the free lap cutoff they wouldn't give us a free lap and so we were essentially out of the race, but we finished anyways. I looked like raw hamburger and was starting to feel really sore, but I got out lucky. No major damage to me or the bike. We would heal, and live to race another day. First major road crash, check.

Lessons learned: 1) probably not a good idea to draft 2 inches off the tyre in front of you in case someone slams their breaks you have more than half a second to react 2) never EVER hit your brakes in a pack... no I wasn't the one that did it, but it was a painful reminder and I have been way more aware of this since this happened 3) pay attention to pre-race premonitions?

Jen and I leading the charge on the breakaway, pre-crash.

The Invitation

This post is a bit of a cheater; as I didn't write it. But, lots of people write better than I do, and I have some favorites. This is one of them. I came across this when I was living in my car in New Zealand back in 2003, and it stuck with me. Enjoy.

The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals, or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, to be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,“Yes!”

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Say Yes to Crack

Aw hell. This thing looks intimidating.

I stand at the bottom looking up. I'm supposed to fit all my appendages into that thing and haul myself up to the top. Really??

The thing about climbing is that every type is so different. There's face climbing, overhangs, bulgy, crimpy, grippy, slabby... and then there's crack. The type of climbing that, for me, makes a 5.6 seem like a 5.11. Every time I think to myself it's not that different, it's just rock, and I'm just making my way up it like I do every other time. Then I get up there and get spanked. The balance and flow I feel when I climb slab that makes me feel like I'm dancing with the rock completely doesn't exist when I climb crack. Pretty much I feel like a beached whale.

Ok, who am I kidding? That whale is 500 times more graceful than me. Ah well.

So I sit here at the bottom watching Jamie go up. Jamie's pretty good at crack; actually, he's good at all types of climbing. Me, I'd rather ride bikes. But climbing's pretty fun, and I guess I like to suffer. So, after he effortlessly flies up the line placing cams and nuts as he goes, I put my game face on and shove my hands into the deep abyss.

And immediately fall off.

Aaack. Here we go again. I look up, studying the flares and constrictions of the deep weaving snake cutting a splitter line through the rock. There's not much to speak of for features on the rock, just the crack itself, leaving me no choice. If I'm going up, I'm going in. I pause for a photo, and at this point I apparently I still have a smile on my face. Little did I know...

About halfway up I can't extract a nut (out of the gutter, people!) so I have to hammer on my nut tool with my ATC. Awesome. I'm getting more frustrated by the minute for as soon as I release the nut I fall on my foot jam and it slides deep into the crack. I have a minor internal panic attack as I picture myself breaking my ankle and shooting my racing season in the foot (pun intended). Is this climbing thing really worth it? grrrrr. I just want to climb slab, I'm actually good at that. It sucks being so sucky at something. I want to come down, screw it. I beat myself up as it takes me nearly 5 minutes to wiggle my foot out of the constriction.

No, you don't want to come down. You know how to jam, just do it. Stop being a pussy!

I twist my foot out of its sucking chokehold and jam my fist above my head. Surprisingly, it sticks, and I haul myself a foot higher in the crack. I silently thank my lucky stars I brought my stiff trad shoes and not my soft, flexible sport shoes- my little foot bones would be crushed as I jam and twist, jam and twist. Ok, really now. Stop being so dramatic. Ok, they wouldn't be crushed, but it would hurt like hell. Yeah, I'm being whiny, so sue me.

After a few more jams, twists, pulling pieces, falling, and struggling back up, which felt like an eternity, I finally reached the top. Damn, what a relief. My hands are cut and bleeding from the sharp granite and pulling on my hand jams because I had no other option. I didn't think to make tape gloves for this one, guess I thought I could avoid the jams. Turns out, I couldn't. I clean the anchors off with shaky fingers and rappel down, defeated.

As I belayed Jamie up the next line, my head was full of negative thoughts that I couldn't push away. Here I am in Squamish, the climbing capital of North America, and I can't even climb the easiest cracks. I'd rather be on the bike, this is dumb, I want to quit. I'm not having even a tiny bit of fun up here. But wait- isn't this the very place you were enamored with just yesterday? look around, you're missing it! I don't care, I can't even see anything, there are rocks and trees all around. You love rocks and trees! Suck it. And so went my internal dialogue. I had decided that I was done, one was enough for me today, I'm calling it quits. I'll belay Jamie as long as he wants to climb and then I'm going for a run. But you're not a quitter. When have you ever quit at anything? Suck it, this is too hard!

As I was torturing myself below, Jamie happily finishes his line and I lower him down. "Your turn!" I go off belay, look at my hands, take a deep breath and make a decision: This will NOT beat me.

I tie in, stuff my fingers in the crack (smaller than the last one) and twist for all it's worth. It holds, and feet come next. Hand over hand, foot over foot, jamming my way up towards the sky. I reach a flake, rest on a lieback, and pull some cams. On a lieback, I can hold forever, and I gain confidence as I walk my feet up the opposing wall, hanging back on the flake. Near the top of the flake my foot slips and I squeal as I fly downward. The rope catches me, and damn, I'm back to where I started before the flake, damn stretchy dynamic rope. I'm so tired, I don't know if I can get back up there. I catch a breath and look up. I will not have a shitty attitude, or this thing is over before it began. I know how to do this, I have the skills, I just need to go.

I power back up the flake before I can wear out and shove my fingers and toes in the crack again. Trust the jam. It will hold you. My foot slips, my finger lock holds. Yes! I reach the top, laughing, glad I didn't give up. I static in and rest on my sling, feet dangling in the air, and take a look around. Howe Sound is sparkling in the distance, the high peaks towering above and reflecting off the crystal water. Squamish town sits in the center of the idyllic valley. At the other end stands Mt. Garibaldi, the mountain for another day. This one's for today.

I rap off, satisfied. It wasn't perfect, but I had conquered the crack, and conquered myself. I knew I still had a long way to go before my crack technique even came close to my slab technique, but I have to start somewhere and it might as well be here, in crack mecca. My ankles hurt like a sonofabitch and my hands were bleeding, but I was in a better place. There's only one way to get better, and that is to throw myself in headfirst- or fist first. From now on, I will be saying yes to crack.

Remembering Squamish: The Arrival

We hopped the bus out of the Vancouver airport for the drive up Hwy 99 to Squamish. As we drove away from busy Vancouver Island and Vancouver City (is there a difference? I'm not sure yet) we contoured around the sound- Howe Sound is its name, to the north. It reminded me of New Zealand, how the mountains jutted right out of the sound, with low clouds hovering beneath the snow-covered peaks. It felt like we had just traveled back in time about 3 months, as the temperatures (low 60's mid-day) and the snow on both the high peaks and the forested ridges looked more like early April than nearly July.

There were motor boats and sail boats on the sparkling blue water, with the occasional kayaker floating by, and I pictured my good friend Andy gliding along through this very place only a month ago on his journey up the Inside Passage to the north country. How amazing would it be to traverse this coastline by kayak heading north to Alaska? I had a brief feeling of the old but still familiar pull of the seductive nomadic lifestyle, the urge to explore unknown places that can never be satisfied for me, only fueled more when I get a little taste of the life that some inner part of me still craves. Even though I have long since joined the "real world" of a career, a mortgage, a marriage, and the never ending dead weight that is student loans, which have locked me forever into a lifelong struggle to repay the debt, it only takes a brief second to ignite the desire to venture past the boundaries of the life I've created, no matter how much it brings me happiness, and step into the vast expanse of nothing and everything that pulls at me like the moon pulls the tides. If only I could erase this debt...

We round the corner and the town of Squamish comes into sight. Towering over the town is the Chief, an enormous granite monolith whose size is apparently topped only by Yosemite's El Capitan. This is where we will play over the coming days. A look further up the valley reveals a glimpse of a serrated ridge still very much covered in snow, the steep narrow couloirs plunging earthward and disappearing into the cirque below, and for a minute I wish I had brought my skis. Clouds shroud the surrounding peaks but their presence is very much here in the valley, their energy echoing off the sound, I know they are there.

We walk down the main street of the downtown area, slowly meandering along as we check out the row of quirky shops: Grilled Fromage, the Frenchy/hippie sandwich shop specializing in sandwiches built around different French artisanal cheeses with a patio made of old bicycles; I like it instantly. Zephyr Cafe, a raw/organic food and coffee bar, with the smell of fresh bread emanating from the windows. Later, I tell myself. The town is filled with local organic food, coffee, and clothing shops; although it is small, it is easy to tell it's a climbers' town. They're everywhere, too, and easy to spot.

The town is pretty quiet on this Saturday. It's not yet high season, but the weather is perfect for the reasons we came. It's about 65 degrees, breezy, with an inviting mix of smells best identified as a combination of the sea, pine, the organic bread, with a hint of... paprika? Maybe. I breathe deeply, letting the flavor of the place infiltrate all the cells in my body, and giving me that familiar rush of happiness I know so well. I laugh out loud, feeling blessed to be alive.

We find the local brewpub and go in for a pint of suds, some food and a bit of world cup soccer. I indulged in some tasty morsels from the sea and ordered a medley of calamari, oysters, shrimp, and scallops garnished with fresh veggies. Ah, I have arrived!

It was nearly 9 pm when we walked out of the brewpub- and still very light outside, barely becoming dusk. At home it would be dark at this time. We turned up the main street towards our inn, and towards the back of the valley. Wow. The clouds had broken, and the evening alpenglow was shining over the glistening, snow-covered peaks whose presence I had felt earlier, and now they were unmistakeable. Mt. Garibaldi and Mt. Tantalus are the two highest, their imposing faces towering over the valley, terrifying and inviting all at the same time. For a moment I imagine myself on the top, clinging to the ridiculous summit in conditions I know so intimately I can feel the biting winds and the driving pellets of snow, as ferocious on the top as it appears calm from below. Someday, I muse, I should like to stand on top of that peak, the sweet taste of a successful summit mingled with the welling up of excited apprehension at knowing the summit is only half the battle- I still have to negotiate the descent. Just the thought of this sends shivers up my spine as I contemplate what it would be like to return in the spring, armed with the tools needed to undertake such an adventure: ice axes and crampons, skis, rope, a tough and impenetrable exterior, and a determined yet humbly receptive spirit. Even though I have never climbed this particular mountain, I know it as well as I have known others like it. Its energy permeates mine, challenging, inviting. I look up to its fluted spires and feel the familiar rush once again.

But that is for another time. Although it is fun to dream, on to the present adventures.

Tomorrow we climb.

2010?

Where have the years gone?? Oh yes, it's been awhile since I've been on the road. Way too long, actually. Thailand in November 2008 was the last time. Since then, I've been doing my best to make my way in the world... with a career, a mortgage, a marriage, the new and exciting world of bicycle racing which has consumed my existence, and unfortunately lots of student loan debt. (No kids or plans for kids, in case you're wondering.)

But it is that time, the unknown is calling, and I am on the road again. This time in British Columbia, Canada. Adventure seems to find me quite easily, and so it begins. I can't wait to enjoy the ride.