Challenge

I wasn't planning on doing another long drive/overnight trip especially on a holiday weekend, but Paul wanted to go up and volunteered to drive and K was busy with finishing up a bridal gown, so I was good to go.  

We drove up to Oroville on Friday night and after a few wrong turns made it to Challenge in plenty of time.  

I really love this course, it's got a little bit of everything, small climbs, big climbs, medium climbs, fast descents and no flat sections.  Due to a combination of a long drive and lots of vertical, the fields for this race have been very small and we only had 13 for the 35+ 1,2,3, but there were a few strong guys there so this wasn't going to be easy.  Scott Cole attacked on the first climb and stayed off the front for about half of the first of 2 33 mile laps.  Shortly after we caught him, the pace on the climbs had cut our pack down to 6 with Cole, Bryant, Fonseca, Levine, Foy and myself.  With the t-shirt group decided, no one really pushed the climbs on the first half of the 2nd lap and we even stopped at the top of the climb so we could all get neutral water from Nate Parks who was manning the unmanned water station. (Thanks Nate!)

Bryant was asking me why I hadn't attacked yet and I told him that there was plenty more climbing to go.  As we got to the end of the climbs, Foy fell back a bit then, just as we started the long fast descent on Marysville road (2 miles at -8% grade), I threw in a little surge and went into a tuck and managed to roll away from the group.

I can never understand the physics when that happens since I was definitely the lightest guy there by at least 10 pounds, but as the road flattened out I took a look back and had a good gap on the 4 remaining chasers.  We only had about 15 miles left to go so I decided to give it all I had.  I couldn't tell exactly, but I think I had about 10-20 seconds for the rest of the descent and on the small rollers, but Bryant was on the front and the group was closing in.  I figured I'd be safe from all but Bryant if I could just make it to the base of the long climb before the feed zone.  As I started climbing I could tell that I didn't have a lot of fuel left in the tank and Bryant had shed the other 3 and was gaining on me.  I thought it was inevitable that he would catch me since he had come by me in the last mile or less of more races than I care to remember, but I kept pressing.  Near the top of the climb I took a look back and he shouted something about working together, but I thought my chances would be better if I just kept pressing.

Dan was getting close as I made the right turn onto New York House about 4 miles from the finish and I got caught behind a slow moving SUV on the short fast descent. I was able to get around him, but I later found out that Dan actually ran into the back/side of the SUV when he unexpectedly hit the brakes, but thankfully didn't go down.  I don't know how much that slowed him down, but he never caught me, so I finally got a win over him.

After Dan, Cole beat out Fonseca for 3rd with Levine 5th and Foy 6th.

I was too wiped out to get up at 5 to go to Dunnigan today, but I can sleep in and ride to the Giro tomorrow.  Yea, no gas money!

Sorry folks, the park's closed.

Well, that gigantor concert event in GG Park really messed things up for the usual Tuesday group ride, but that was OK.  As they continued the cleanup, we decided to go do some hill repeats on the secret hill behind UCSF instead.   But.....

Luckily we have many other hills in the neighborhood to climb.  I took the group to one of my favorites, the Secretary of State climb.

I gotta get me one of those signs.

Training Week August 18 - 24, 2008

Monday – Off

Tuesday – Mt. Tam ride with Zteam. Rode to Stinson (1:45), then Tam Course (moderate - 46:30 with Lyman), back to Corte Madera. (30). 3:00 total.

Wednesday – off

Thursday – 45 min spin class - after work went to see Bullitt at the Legion of Honor with K, pretty cool to see that one on a big screen.

Friday – Easy 30 min park ride

Saturday – Ride with Craig to Muir Woods & back. Checked out SF twilight crit course – too bad it doesn’t go up one more block to Green street. 3:00 ride

Sunday – University RR – I decided to sleep in and skip P/1/2 race and just do the 35+/45+ race (It was a crazy idea to even consider doing both). The race was a lot of fun (though most people may argue with that description). Hutch was in a break for most of the first half of the race. As soon as he was caught I attacked and got away solo with 7 laps to go. I thought it was probably too early to go solo, but once I was away gave it 100% and this time it worked. 1:00 warm-up, 1:44 race, not much of a cool down.
After the race I stayed to watch the women’s and Cat 4/5 races and hand out neutral water. It was getting real hot and most racers were taking a bottle every lap or 2. Good thing VeloPromo had plenty of bottle for everyone.

Weekly total: 10 hours.

Training Week August 11 - 17, 2008

Monday – Easy 30 min lunch spin on crappy upright bike at YMCA. At least it had a display of watts and I was able to watch some Olympic stuff.

Tuesday – Off

Wednesday – 30 min easy spin at lunch, 1:45 ride on polo field track with a few sprints and intervals.

Thursday – M2 spin class. After warm up did intervals of 10 min (326 watts for 1st 4 min, then 346 for 1 min, 330 for 4 min, 420 for 1 minute), then 3 x 3 minutes – 359W, 350W, 366W, then a bunch of 30 sec on, 30 sec off intervals.
1:15 total. For a guy who never trains with power, it was great to do a workout with some concrete numbers.

Friday – Easy 30 min spin.

Saturday – Bike Forums Alpine Dam ride – fun group, but lots of stopping and waiting. Ride that normally takes 4 hours took nearly 6. (4 hours riding)

Sunday – Rapha ride from Palo Alto Bicycles. Really cool ride, large group of about 60-70 riders. Rode Page Mill over Skyline, down Alpine, up Haskins, had to turn around at the top due to road closure (motorcyclist had gone over the edge on descent – haven’t heard anything about his condition), back down 84 to Stage, stopped at San Gregorio market for lunch, then hard effort up Tunitas and back down via Kings Mtn, Woodside, Whiskey Hill and Sand Hill. Total ride of about 4 hours. Ride was followed by food and showing of the new Paris Roubaix movie by the fine folks at Palo Alto Bicycles.

Weekly total. 12.5 hours.

Training Week August 4-10, 2008

Monday - off

Tuesday - GG Park Sprints - 1:45 total ride.

Wednesday - 45 min spin class

Thursday - Easy GG Park ride 1:15 total.

Friday - 45 min spin class

Saturday - Patterson Pass RR - 35+ - 69 miles.  Laps were about 1:03, 1:05 and 1:02.  Colin won with me 2nd.  Great to get a team 1-2.

3:30 total ride.  

Sunday - Slept about 12 hours - I guess I needed it.  Easy GG park ride with a few sprints at the polo field - 60 min total.

Weekly Total: 9 Hours

NBC 11 Totally Sucks!

I'm not even a huge swim fan, but I would like to see Michael Phelps 400M IM Final live (it's going on right now).   But what is my local NBC affiliate showing?  Access Hollywood!?

I hear that NBC is showing the Olympics live on the east coast, but as usual we get the 3 hour tape delayed version.

That totally sucks!

I've already sent an e-mail complaint to the station.

Training Week July 28 - August 3

Monday – Off
Tuesday – GG Park Sprints – 90 min
Wednesday – Easy 45 min Spin
Thursday – GG Park easy ride – 75 min
Friday – Spin Class at Y – 45 min esay
Saturday – District RR – 105 miles is a long way. My riding time was about 4:40 – (about 5 hrs with w/u and ride back to start) Easy at first with some really really hard parts until I got popped around 90 miles, then easy for 15 miles and finished . Reaney won for the 2nd week in a row, way to go for the semi-old guys!
I finished 27th. I thought I was DFL, but there were a couple finishers behind me in the results – and I was with Peabody & Sherman in the Wayback Machine
Sunday – Easy GG Park Ride – 90 min.

Weekly Total: 10:45