Morgan

I started writing a race report for last Saturday’s races, and I just haven’t found the time or the motivation to finish them. So I thought I’d just come up with something a little more generic, something I can re-use. Reduce. Recycle.

Family, work and training all came together this week and cycling lost out. I got most of my training done but I broke something on my bike and it was needing attention all week. I scrambled to get it fixed in time and had a stressful lead-up to the race. We managed to get the kids and gear and bikes and grownups on the road at an almost reasonable hour, and got to the race in time for both Mom and Dad to warmup, while the kids roamed around the race course and tents with other kids and dogs and had a good time. I am still feeling insecure about my place in this new, harder field so I have a hard time getting psyched up to race. This time I tried to start a little further up in the pack but didn’t get any call-ups so ended up towards the back anyway. I had a decent start, got caught behind one small fumble but otherwise had a clean race, just not enough speed. I’m happy with my result. After that I raced singlespeed. It was a complete mess, but fun.

Now I’m tired, but happy.

(If this were a real race report, there’d be all kind of specifics, and things might have gone better or worse or sideways. There might even have been pictures. I’d hopefully have something funny or pithy or meaningful to say, but probably not. But hey.)

I was pretty burnt out on training and racing. I was tired and sore. Just took it easy for a week, skipped the racing and went for a mellow, fun, beautiful ride with friends.

Panorama

I am feeling much better, and sleeping pretty good this week. I’m able to get my intervals work done, although I don’t relish doing them in the dark with a heavy pack on my back. Tonight I’m going to do a very short, cyclocross night ride tonight instead of the usual craziness. (I am wishing for more craziness soon, maybe next week.) I hope to do much better at the races Saturday night, get rid of the bad memories from two weeks ago and try to take Frank’s advice and do something with it. This weekend Sam has four soccer games, a final tournament. Lauren will get to defend her series lead - yeah! - at cccx on Sunday. I’ll be soccer dad on Sunday and maybe go for just a little bit of a crazy ride Sunday night on the trails.

Whenever I feel a little burnt out on one form of riding, I take a ‘vacation’ and do some other sort of bike ride. These vacations can be days or weeks or months or years. (I haven’t felt like racing road bikes in a long time.) I can almost always replenish myself by going for long, fun rides on dirt or road. I don’t know what it is, but that’s the well I go back to, when I’m dry. I may have to take another vacation soon. Our weekends are pretty booked with cx racing, but we’ll figure it out. I’m also looking forward to my training plan ending on 12/7 and training by feel again. I still hope to finish in the top half of a 35+ A race, but so far it’s not looking real good for this season. I need some good results to lift my spirits after Candlestick Point, and in the meantime I’m just pursuing happiness.

Looking back on the week, I could see signs that it wasn’t gonna go well. I felt good at Surf City, and but for the bike trouble, I think I could have done well. Monday night I ran an errand, had a great, long conversation but didn’t get to sleep until after 2AM. (Wake-up is always circa 6AM with the puppy.) I did three hard workouts (1 2 3) Tuesday and Wednesday, and before I started the second one on Wednesday (run + stairs repeats) I was sitting in my office, sunset coming and dreading / putting off going to the gym and then out for a run. I had that overtraining headache, now that I look back on it, and I was really sore from the previous two bike intervals sessions. I forced myself to do it. I am following a training plan, and it’s a hard call between being sufficiently mentally tough and acting appropriately when real fatigue gets in the way. I sent out the invite for the Thursday night ride, but come Thursday night I was feeling just wasted, like I might be getting sick, dizzy every time I stood up, headache, achy, scratchy throat. I got as much sleep as I could, barely rode Friday, still felt low. Saturday I did a short, mellow rain ride with Sam on my cx bike. (I hosed our bikes off afterwards, with a view toward overhauling mine later that afternoon.) Life gets in the way for a working dad and bike racer, and Saturday night was my first chance all week to get my “B” bike ready for Sunday’s race. I spent the afternoon and early evening driving kids around, visiting people and running errands, then cleaning the garage enough to get some work done, then finally around 8 or 9 I got to work on the bike itself. There is a rule that you should never make major changes to your bike the night before a race. Another rule is; get lots of sleep the night before a race. I should have learned these lessons by now.

My “B” bike gets ridden a lot, I train on it, to spare the “A” bike. I do crazy 100-mile races on it. I commute on it. It is the go-to bike come fall, sharing duty with the road bike (for wattage-based training) and my mtn bike (for fun-based fun). The cassette and chain on it were way past due for replacement, and I knew my race wheels’ cassette wouldn’t mesh with the chain. I could have just put the sloppy cassette on the race wheels, put some oil on the chain and made a date to overhaul it in the future when it wasn’t the night before a race, but I was stubborn and wanted a properly functioning bike the next day, so I dove into it. I thought I could deal with the lack of sleep.

By 1:30AM I had new cassette, chain, cable, housings, hoods, tape and some newer (from the “A” bike) bottom bracket cups, and I’d tensioned, trued and dished my rear race wheel. It was working and feeling good. I was in bed by 2AM, but then the cat was licking licking licking himself right by my head so I put him in the hallway and closed the door. Then the dog was awake and making noise in her crate. I think I fell asleep at 4AM, angry.

Monday morning was the usual packing / organizing mayhem. This time we got to the race without money and water. SOMEDAY we will pack the night before. I also couldn’t find my hr strap, tried using Lauren’s but I guess it’s out of batteries. (She never uses it.) We did get there early so Sam could race, but this time he just did not want to do it once we’d gotten there. I gave him a bit of a push but no dice. He’s in between the kiddie race age and the juniors age, and is very casual about riding. He’s a kid. His buddy Nate did the juniors race, and I think Sam might try it next time. It’s his call. I hung out while others got ready to race, then finally suited up and got a lap of the course and a “warmup” in. dfL Brad showed me a cool section along the coast line, and I just rode around. I did not feel like riding my bike. I did not feel like warming up, getting my heart rate elevated, spinning or sprinting or riding on a trainer. (Didn’t bring one, either.) I lined up at the very back. So far I’ve been treating all my races this season as experience, paying attention to results and trying to move up from DFL, but I’ve had low confidence and didn’t want to get in other people’s way.

At the start I usually am able to move up a few spots, then start chasing people. Yesterday I could not do it. I had nothing! Guys I can usually ride with and get in front of were dropping me like a bad habit. All I could do was pedal hard and watch the entire field ride away from me. Then the 45s caught me and they passed me too. It was awful! People were cheering for me and I wanted to stop and apologize to them for sucking so bad. I felt like I was letting everyone down, myself included, and I wondered again about my decision to race in the A’s. Luckily I was getting bottle feeds from my teammate Mark, and even though I was just sucking in the 35+ A race, I still intended to do the singlespeed race. What doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger. I knew something was wrong with me, but figured I’d still see benefit from the singlespeed race.

Amazingly, I wasn’t DFL.

By the way the course rocked. The rains of the day and night before had made it greasy and fun, the mud went from liquid to peanut butter to tacky, and the grass was really fun. The course should have suited me, being mostly flat and requiring a lot of power, but nonetheless it was a really good course.

After the first race I had a little window to down the rest of the bottle, make a new one, find a new person to feed me and change numbers. Thanks, Team Oakland, for helping me with those items. I lined up at the back again, and when the gun went off I rolled out. I was still feeling like crap, and couldn’t hold onto friends who were chatting with me as they dropped me. Good bye! The first half was a sufferfest. At one point an A racer was coming up on me, about to lap me. I was close to a transition from asphalt to mud and I took a sketchy line to let him go by, and I went down, tearing my skinsuit, my elbow and taking him down too! Lesson learnt: Never take a sketchy line to let someone pass, ride the good line until they can pass safely. I really couldn’t see out of my riding (prescription) glasses, just too much sweat & salt on them. Finally at 30 minutes in I took them off as I went by the Team Oakland tent, handed them to someone (”Give these to Team Oakland?”) and got back to it. Immediately I felt better, I could see! The course was getting more fun, or I was getting more comfortable with it. Jon and his crew were heckling me, which was funny and lifted my mood. Wait, isn’t that backwards? At one point he yelled something about punishing myself or self-hatred or something like that, and it put a big smile on my face. People continued to lap me, I was going so slow, but I was enjoying myself, taking wider lines and powering up the little climbs. The SS bike still has the same monstrous gear on it that it came with - I haven’t even counted the teeth yet - so that even if I’d had the legs to do it, riding the big run-up was out of the question, but that’s OK. I nailed the one-leg-clipped-in coast-up, step, step, step technique. I have to say that the Kenda Small Block 8 700×35 clincher tires at 45/40 rear/front were awesome, maybe better than the Challenge Grifo 700×34 tubulars at 32/36 on my geared bike, on this course. I got a beer feed (Newcastle in a can) from my teammate Tom late in the race, had a couple tasty pulls, then passed it to another SS racer in a Freewheel kit. I think he got the empty can back to Tom when we looped back around to where he was. The finish was sweet. I briefly saw Lauren after I finished my race, before she started hers. She looked good, and she was smiling.

Here’s another one for you, Marian: Two wrongs don’t make a right. That about sums up yesterday.

The rest of the day was a friendly social blur, except for one moment of clarity. Towards the end of the day I was riding over to the parking lot to bring the Land Crusher back for loading. Frank stopped me. We both just made the jump this year from the old-guy B’s to the old-guy A’s. He told me to believe in myself. He’d seen that lack of belief at the start line, and he’d caught me and passed me, then had chain troubles, then caught and passed me again. He knew I’d had a bad day, but he also saw self-doubt. He wanted me to know that he believed I could do better, and I should believe it and race like I mean it, and try to do a better start and not consign myself to DFL. He was right. This stands out. Thanks, Frank.

Another bright moment; Paul gave me back my “A” bike’s frame, repaired and painted, just seven days after I’d handed it to him. Wow! Thank you, Paul. I love my Rock Lobster frames. He told me if it broke again he’d replace the stays, but it might be a while before he can get them. In the meantime I’ll build it back up as fresh as I can build it, and race it for the rest of the season. Hopefully it makes it to 2009, when it can take a refresher at the Rock Lobster spa.

I was dreading writing this, seeing results, hearing from friends how their races went. I feel bad about this weekend. Yesterday after the race I was truly laid out. It’s time for a break and some rest. Time to heal up the road rash on both forearms too! (The other arm got torn up Wednesday morning, riding to work on rain-slicked roads.)

I was really tempted to go to Portland for the  Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships. I have friends going and I know it would be a blast, but money’s tight and we have a raft of social obligations next weekend, plus four soccer games. And I really need a break after 11 races this season! (I only did 19 total last season.) My bike will go at least, with Mikey. Next weekend I’m going to go for some pleasurable mountain bike rides. We’ll be back at it Saturday 11/15 at Sierra Point. We also have double weekends of soccer games 11/8 & 11/9 and 11/15 & 11/16. I love my kids but I can’t wait until soccer season’s over. (I wonder if they’ve formed the same corresponding thought about us and cyclocross, yet?)

Results
Motionbased: M35+A and Single Speed
Calendar

Today I went for a fun rain ride with the boy and the dog.

Rain ride with Sam and Libby from Morgan Fletcher on Vimeo.

I usually write about how tired and unprepared I am before a race. Well, I was tired and unprepared Sunday morning at 6:30AM. Some coffee and kind words from the love of my life and I sprang into action. All four of us and our bikes and whatnot arrived at Soquel High School at about 9:30 Sunday morning, an hour before my 10:30 start. Not bad. Getting better.

I did a couple laps of the course with some friends, it was good, a nice reinterpretation of the classic Surf City course. One noticeable difference; no barriers! There were run-ups to get us off our bikes, some ride-able. It was gonna be a bike race! The flow was better than in previous years. There were still plenty of interruptions, but the course really let us rip. It also had almost no places for recovery, ensuring a consistent high speed. Thanks Michael & Sabine & Jeff & Velo Bellas. I especially liked the downhill snaking transition to dirt after the square loop around the high school buildings. I rode that faster and faster each lap, using less brake and more go.

There was no Team Oakland tent, so we parked our pile of stuff and kids with our friends at PenVelo. (Where kid buddies Nate and Lauren and Malcolm and Nate were to be found.) Thanks, Ken and Tom and Jenny. I cheered quite a few Kaiser Permanente / Team Oakland teammates in the B race. I lined up at the back of my race as usual, starting to think that I can hold my position in the middle of these races, and since start position is often fated to be finish position (if I can hold my it) I might try getting a better start next time. Anyway, had some good words and handshakes with friends at the start, then we were off.

This course suits me, because it rewards wattage and doesn’t have a lot of hills, and I can kind of handle my bike. I was able to move up until I was just behind the Altezza 40 armada; Lander, Dave, Geoff. There was another Altezza I hadn’t met, too. I got onto Geoff’s rear wheel at some point and thought “Aha! Today might be my breakthrough day, I might get to race against Geoff!” He’s been finishing within striking distance of me, but still a good ten spots or so ahead. Beating Geoff is a lofty goal, but it would get me close to my main goal of the season; a top-half result. Three laps into the race, after about 20 minutes of racing, I’d just ridden the steep up and down by the tennis courts when my rear tire started rubbing and making “funny noises”. I stopped, spun the wheel, loosened and tightened my rear skewer and spun it again. While I was doing this, five or ten or fifteen riders flew past me. Some made those sounds like “Oh no” and “What happened?” Whenever this happens to me, I imagine hands, silvery coins falling down a drain, wishing the coins back into the hands. Or silvery fishes swimming free from a net. Seconds flying out of a clock. Stuff like that. Letting all those riders charge past while I fiddle with a mechanical is emblematic of lost opportunity! I couldn’t figure out the problem so I hopped back on. Still bad, worse. What? I looked down and then I saw it, my drive-side rear chainstay had snapped at the weld, by the rear drop-out. I slowly made it up the run-up, up the driveway to the school, onto the grass, around the in-and-out spiral and to the pit. There were spectators in the pit, and people trying to get wheels and helpers and shouting. I did my share of shouting, trying to get out after getting my “B” bike, the steel Rock Lobster.

After getting back out on the course, it was now about trying to reclaim a few spots. I saw Tim, Hans and a Giant Strawberry rider. I was able to get in front of them, and then I battled back-and-forth with a Morgan Stanley rider. Tim was able to get past me on the final run-up and hold me off to the line. Good for him! The battle continues. Geoff, Frank, Dave, Steve and the other guys I’ve been battling lately finished well ahead of me. Amazingly I wasn’t DFL.

Immediately after my race, I took my bike to the Rock Lobster tent to show Paul. He took a quick look and said “That’s the big guy break.” He said he could fix it, I should strip it and give it to him on the spot. I did, took it back to my tool bag, still in my skinsuit and helmet and tore it down, leaving only the headset and fork in it. I borrowed a chain tool from Mike Evans and thought I’d lost it, but found it and put it back in his toolbox. Thanks, Mike. I guess I’ll be racing my “B” bike for a while. It’s been needing some maintenance love and now’s my excuse. *sigh* The scandium Rock Lobster was built last year, and hopefully this repair will get it through the season. Paul said he would be able to rebuild it with stronger stays next year, so I think I’ll go with that when he’s got the parts. It’s pretty cool to be able to count on seeing the frame builder at every race!

Lauren had a good race. I haven’t seen her results yet but she told me “I felt like dropping out, then I really felt like dropping out, then I didn’t think I could do two more laps.” Sounds like she held a nice, high level. Now if only I could get her to use her garmin… It was nice to see Liza and Mike, brother and sister come out for their second cx races (3rd for Mike?) I am hoping they’re hooked. They brought their buddy Tyler for his first race, and Clark Natwick and I briefly talked about putting together a cx clinic with him for Team Oakland. Need to get those kids on the team too.

We’ll be at the next race, Pilarcitos @ Candlestick, next Sunday. After that I don’t know, maybe SSCX Worlds in Portland? I told Geoff he’s my target. He raced M35+A and SS yesterday, I didn’t bring my SS bike because we’d promised we’d get home early so Lulu could see “High School Musical III” with Lauren, but Geoff and I agreed we’d do a two-stage cx race next Sunday, M35+A and SS. I was amazed to see that this was my 9th cyclocross race of the ‘08 / ‘09 season.

The kids had a great time at the race. All their little kid buddies were there, including a new favorite puppy, I think John Blackwell’s, called “Taco Sauce” or just “Taco.” I think Taco is some sort of long-haired chihuahua puppy, she’s super cute. Sam told me that he’d do the “boy race” (juniors) next Sunday if Nate Gallardo and Malcolm Feix did it with him. Ken and Tom, let’s make this happen next Sunday!

Friday night started off the weekend with a big night ride that went until 2AM. Saturday was groggy for me, and soccer and playdates for the kids and four hours spent working on my car as darkness fell, undoing the damage done by car-battery thieves. Sunday we were at the race all day and Sunday afternoon & evening Lulu and Lauren saw their movie and Sam and I took Liberty for a fun mountain bike ride, didn’t quite tire her out. She and Sam both did great going down Cinderella. Sam and I ate dinner at our favorite restaurant, Juan’s Place. I even got him to try something new, chicken enchiladas in molé sauce. He liked it. It was a good weekend. I finally felt like there was almost enough time between 6PM Friday and 9AM Monday.

Surf City CX blog: http://surfcitycxnews.blogspot.com/

Results & Pics: http://surfcitycxresults.blogspot.com/

Motionbased: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7048561

Wassap!

Morgan getting rad air, photo courtesy Jon Suzuki

Morgan in the dunk tank

Saturday was the school carnival. I’m in charge of it. It’s a huge amount of work, eased by good planning, delegation and attention to detail. Since I don’t have or do any of those things, it was a huge whammy and hurt me bad. I felt so beat Saturday night, after working the night before and all day and having huge adrenaline swings and answering 15 questions at once and doing two chilly shifts taunting people in the dunk tank and dealing with every exigency I didn’t but should have planned for… (deep breath) It was hard. I was tired. I didn’t even feel like unloading the cotton candy machine, tub full of extension cords, two giant plastic tubs, shade umbrella, boom box or the numerous other carnival-related items in the way-back of the Land Cruiser. I just parked it and drank a beer and went into a stupor that somehow led to bed.

The next morning I felt like death. My wife said, unprompted, “We don’t have to go.” My son, getting over a cold said, “I don’t want to go.” Later that day my daughter - who didn’t have her usual girl-buddies to play with at the race - said “I hate cyclocross races.”

Up too early Sunday, I coffeed myself into a slow process that became a mad scramble to get all the bikes, gear, clothes, shoes, kids, food, tools packed. Somewhere in there I dosed my flat front Grifo tire with Stans. I love Stans sealant. Of course we were late. Of course we still had to pick up the girl from a sleepover campout, from which she wouldn’t want to leave (and wouldn’t be ready to leave). Added bonus; she got sick during the sleepover! Stoke.

Rolling toward San Francisco, we had 1.5 hours before my race. Normal modus operandi, check. This venue is crowded, there’s no parking, you compete with soccer players and lots of other San Francisco park people for the space, and you have to hump all your stuff about 1/4 mile from a parking spot (if you’re lucky to find one) to the venue. Luckily Team Oakland already had a tent up. I was rude in my haste to be ready and dropped my stuff and started my mad scramble to get new skinsuit on, bathroomed, registered, chain oiled, tires pumped, (Don’t you love my intricate bike prep sequence? It’s so pro.) numbers pinned, etc. I got in a chilly 30-minute warmup, including one lap of the course.

I was feeling rough, wasn’t stoked about the course and so lined up at the back, ready for the suffer fest. If I’m complaining too much, let me tell you this; deep down I was happy. No matter how bad I felt, the carnival was over for another year, I was at a cross race about to do atonement for all my many sins. It was good.

The course was bumpy, featured lots of tech, climbs, a monstrous loose run-up, a hop-able log that I was too chicken to hop, some really rough descents that tested just how much you trusted your carbon forks, and I think it exemplified a really tough but proper cyclocross course. It had a good variety of terrain and allowed the race to progress well, although it did deny a lot of people a finish or a good finish. I saw a lot of broken chains and flat tires. I enjoyed the first two laps, in fact I felt good on the steep asphalt climb and was able to briefly get in front of my new target competitor, Geoff. I thought “Damn, I might actually be able to race against Geoff today!” Then my expiration came up and I went *pop*! All that fatigue from the day before hit me, right after I slid out and down on one of the descents. (Riding glasses were super fogged and still dirty from the days before, and I wasn’t paying enough attention.) Suddenly Geoff and the five guys behind him were well in front of me, not to be caught again. I was battling it out with Brad, one of my favorite guys at any cyclocross race. He was showing me just how much time could be saved by hopping the log. I was so chicken that I’d give up the ten seconds I’d gained on him on the preceding climb, each lap, until finally he put me behind him for good as well. This went on for a while. Jon shot nerf bullets at me, that was fun. I was heckled, that was fun. Just got it over with. Amazingly I wasn’t DFL. Sometimes I wish I was dfL tho.

So I had this crazy plan of doing a double race, and I did it. I’d registered for M35+A and Single Speed, had both numbers pinned. Sam had been feeding me some energy drink during the first race so I wouldn’t explode in the second race. I downed the rest of it, lost the top-most number, got on my (new-to-me ebay-special) single speed and lined up again. The start was 13 minutes after the finish of the first race. The bike - which I hadn’t even ridden since pulling out of the box and assembling - had a HUGE gear. I was grrrinding up the climb at maybe 25-35rpm each time, just wrestling it. I sorta raced with the guys at the way back of the SS race, got lapped twice by the leaders in the A race (and tried to stay out of their way) and got my second race in for training. Amazingly I wasn’t DFL. I did get compliments on being a “hard man” and an idiot, both of which made me feel good. If you can’t do well once, do poorly twice. Damn, that’s bad advice. Don’t use that.

Results and motionbased and stuff:

http://pilarcitos.com/results/CrossResults/2008/McLarenPark.html
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7009149
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/7009148
http://www.flickr.com/photos/71073602@N00/sets/72157608190371012/

What I was supposed to do:

Lets get back to it! WU: 15 minutes easy with a bit of a ramp at the end to get the heart going. MS: 5 Minute effort at VO2 start a bit easy and Blow by the end- watts should be at 110-130%. Get the legs ready to work. 2-3 by 15 minutes. Ride just below threshold 90% and do big gear effort every 2 minutes for 30 seconds at 200% . 10 Minutes rest between each. Finish off with 3 by 1 minute from almost a track stand. Find a gear that gets you off the line fast. 5 min rest between each. CD: 15 minutes easy and do 30-50 ROWs with your bike.

What I did:

66°F
SRM Powercontrol V

I forgot to check/set my zero-offset. My FTP is 344w, but I haven’t re-tested since mid-summer.

Did these on Old Tunnel. Did the 5 minute VO2 effort on the top of Broadway, and had to finish it on the overpass and beginning of Tunnel, so it has a valley. Did the 15-minute repeats from the Fire Memorial on Old Tunnel to the Grizzly Peak intersection, which were almost exactly 15 minutes, just a little bit more. Had a hard time holding threshold - 90% (310w) between the big gear intervals, and I had a hard time holding 200% threshold (688w) during the 30s big gear intervals. I think the low rpms on the climb plus the big gear make it hard to produce big wattage, yeah, that’s the ticket. Felt awful on #2, but did #3. The three one-minute efforts hurt a lot, finished in the dark, 5 minutes after my last one-minute effort. Need a light! New chain and raced-once cassette were skipping, dunno if the one cx race on the cassette pooched it somehow? Maybe I need new chainrings? My CAAD9 and RD-220 wheels felt flexy as spaghetti during the big-gear intervals. Need to put stouter wheels back on.

You can download the data from here, if you care.

Screen shots, one scrolled up and one scrolled down. (Wish the zoom was more granular in WKO+.)

scrolled up

scrolled down

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/09/us/politics/09voting.html?_r=1&em&oref=slogin

In Georgia, the Justice Department is considering legal action against the state because officials in Cobb and Cherokee Counties sent letters to hundreds of voters stating that their voter registrations had been flagged and telling them they cannot vote until they clear up the discrepancy.

On Monday, the Ohio Republican Party filed a motion in federal court against the secretary of state to get the list of all names that have been flagged by the Social Security database since Jan. 1. The motion seeks to require that any voter who does not clear up a discrepancy be required to vote using a provisional ballot.

Republicans said in the motion that it is central to American democracy that nonqualified voters be forbidden from voting.

The Ohio secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, said in court papers that she believes the Republicans are seeking grounds to challenge voters and get them removed from the rolls.

Considering that in the past year the state received nearly 290,000 nonmatches, such a plan could have significant impact at the polls.

Read it, be outraged, write your congress man or woman.

Par for the course; we got to Laguna Seca after two hours’ driving at 10AM, which gave me an hour to register, get ready, warm up before my race. The course was right by the track, just west on an inclined piece of land between two service roads. There wasn’t much flat to it. There was one big asphalt climb that was VO2 max all the way up, a bunch of techie stuff following the contour line higher up with lots of technical, loose turns, then a bomber downhill featuring some ruts and a nice high-side chicane on the up-hill side to slow you down before the right onto asphalt and the uphill start / finish. It was a loose course with lots of sand and gravel and asphalt/dirt transitions that would definitely slap you down to the ground if you pushed it too fast or weren’t paying enough attention. The hill made this course very binary; you’d kill it on the climb, then do a double-barrier before the top, try to recover in the techie back-and-forth stuff, then keep it upright and not get passed on the fast downhill. Unlike cross races where you pin it for 45 minutes straight, this one was on/off. Poor bike handling was punished.

heart rate

Dave and Phillip and Jon and I got two laps in, trying to stay out of people’s way and cheering on / heckling teammates in the B race. I know where I belong and rolled to the back of the 35+ A group before the start of our race. Every race in this new category is still a learning experience for me, and I don’t want to get in anyone’s way, which is just what I did at the start. Up the hill and onto the flat traverse to the first barriers I passed a few people, and then began hearing a dreadful sound: kink! Then again kink! Soon it was staccato and my bars were beginning to move around in my stem. The stem’s faceplate had come loose. I had made the mistake of not riding my race bike the day before, and didn’t find this new weakness in my bike. It was fine for the last race, and I’d tightened it recently, but now it was loose. I was in people’s way, people I’d passed, and I let them go by while I made my way around the course, either hoping to get a quick allen wrench or switch bikes for my steel / clinchers bike at the start / finish. I saw Ryan at the Rock Lobster tent and as I entered the chicane before going by his tent I shouted “Ryan, can I use an allen wrench?” What a hero. He wrenches for Rock Lobster, I’m not on that team, he has riders to support in my race (doing much better than me!) but he ran over with a pair of allen wrench sets and between us we tightened the two 4mm allens in parallel, finding a nice torque and I was on my way, bars rotated a bit too “up” but not moving anymore. It looks like I lost about a minute on the first lap:

lap times

Two weeks ago I’d had a first lap mechanical and then drilled it, only to blow before the race ended. I know I’m not gonna win it, so I just settled in and tried to reel in those guys I normally battle with. My radar showed several of the usual suspects, and my game plan was to reel them in and keep them behind me! Devil take the hindmost.

Even though I am way too big and overweight, I was able to pass a lot of guys on the steep asphalt climb. I guess it was just short and steep enough that my muscle mass was an advantage. I’m sure I was still climbing WAY slower than guys at the front like Murray, but I was able to pass other guys like me at the back. But… these same guys would pass me back in the tech stuff, on the corners. My front tire was going soft, slowly, and I was washing a bit. I didn’t rail the transitions nearly as fast as guys like Steve and Lander were riding them. I was fine over the barriers, on the descent, and on the climb. Maybe being over 200lbs makes me slower in soft corners? We all need excuses. For the middle of the race I’d trade with Steve, Lander and Frank. I benefited from some people going down in the dust. I managed to stay upright, and it seemed that the time I lost from conservative cornering, I made up in not being on my side. On the last lap I resolved to pass Frank and keep him behind me, and try to catch Steve and Lander, and to ride the tech better and not give up my position due to poor handling. I went hard on the climb, put Frank and Lander behind me, rode the tech better but again I heard Lander’s voice behind me say “inside corner again Morgan”. He’s very polite. I didn’t exactly move over but he passed me on a turn and we only had the finishing descent to the finish line. Then he was down! Dust and bike and rider were in front of me, I said “Bummer, Lander!” and finished strong, keeping who I thought was Frank behind me, but it was really Mark, who I’d passed and not seen since early in the race. Mark is strong, has won a lot of the races in the B’s (well ahead of me) and is a very good bike handler. I felt good for holding him off.

I finished 27th / 37. That was my best result in three M35+ A races, and I managed to finish in front of a lot of the guys that beat me, the last two races. I feel really good about that result. There’s a whole other race going on in front of me. I don’t even know about it until I look at the pictures later on. Maybe someday I can be in that race. For now I’m very happy battling with the other back-markers. This is a very deep field! I think I’m getting better at cyclocross racing, in a way I wouldn’t have if I’d stayed in the B’s. I’m glad I made the upgrade.

After my race I went around the course once with the kid race, trying to catch and then shepherd Malcolm. He won, man that kid was hard to catch! Sam didn’t want me to ride with him, but Jennie asked me to ride with her boy Malcolm, in case he had trouble. Malcolm’s dad Tom rode with his little brother Nate. Tom had started one minute behind me in the M45+ A’s and finished one minute in front of me, taking 5th in his field. I try to learn from him. He’s a good friend and a cyclocross mentor. I hope our kids race together in the juniors.

After the kids race I transported Sam’s strawberries, my two bikes and a water bottle slowly to the car, opened and handed out some beers, chit-chatted, changed, grabbed some food and Lauren’s spare wheels and got back to the course in time to spray water on some Lauren and Jennie - Lauren wouldn’t take the water bottle - and then get to Lauren after her race in time to get her the last beer. She got third in the master 35+ women, which meant another box of strawberries. (Which was good, since Sam, Nate and Malcolm ate the first box on the spot!)

Since I didn’t race Saturday, I’d thought about bringing my new-to-me single-speed cyclocross bike to the race and doing two races. I just didn’t have time to build it, so didn’t bring it. I kind of wished I’d had, but it was not a single-speed-friendly course. Next weekend.

We watched the beginning of the men’s A race. It was a doozy! There was a relatively unknown pro roadie from Giant Strawberry KILLING IT off the front, Mark Santurbane. Ned Overend was there, racing in the top ten! At one point Scott Chapin was off the front, in his celeste & gold skateboard helmet! Josh Snead was drilling it, and he wasn’t off the front! Ben Jacques-Maynes - in a Bissel skinsuit, on Serotta cross bikes with SRAM stuff - was chasing down Santurbane. It was really exciting. We had to leave before the halfway point of the race. I thought it would be Ben, and it was, but he won it in a sprint finish, Santurbane second, Snead third and Chapin fourth, one second behind Josh! Dang.