First Ever "Riley Races"
I got Troy to finally show me around the Coto Valley Loop about a week ago, and in the middle of doing the ride we came across Riley Wilderness Park. I knew there was a GeoLadders route for 9 points in Riley, so we ended up cruising around for a few minutes so I could cross it off my list of trails to do. The total time was probably around 15 minutes.
After I finished the ride I thought, "Man ... it would be fun to race that and see who could get the fastest time."
Well this past Saturday (3/31/07), Matt, Andrew and I did just that. We did the Coto Valley Loop (which Matt and Andrew hadn't done) and then did three laps at Riley. The Riley loop is only 2 miles, so three laps is nothing.
I'm going to break this post up into two parts at this point. The first part is "The Race" and the second part is "The Drop".
THE RACE:
Those that know me know that I'm pretty competitive. I don't like to lose and I don't like to not even come close to people I'd competiting with. So much so that I used to not compete with people if I knew I was going to lose.
When I did Counting Coup, Matt and Andrew beat my time by about 30 minutes. I could come up with a laundry list of excuses why I'm 30 minutes slower, but none of them hold any weight. I would say I weigh more than Matt, but Andrew weighs more than me and he still destroyed me. I would say my bike weighs a lot, but Andrew's bike weighs more. I would say I eat like crap, but so does Andrew. Hahaha. My excuses all worked before I met Andrew! Haha.
Anyways the plan on Saturday was to race Riley and see who was the fastest. I honestly thought I had a shot at getting the best time because I can push myself pretty hard. I have no problem pushing until my heart explodes or my legs fall off. I'll ride till my head gets dizzy or my legs flood with lactate acid. I was hoping Matt and Andrew wouldn't match my tolerance for pain and I could win based on gutting it out.
I took Matt and Andrew through Riley for a pre-ride so they could know the course. It took us 13:54 to ride through at a casual pace.
Matt went first for the race and both Andrew and I were shocked at how fast he went out. I was thinking it would be amazing to see a time under 10 minutes and Matt didn't disappoint. Matt finished with a time of 9:20. I remember looking at the stopwatch and laughing because I just couldn't believe how fast he did the course.
Andrew was up next and he didn't really want to compete. Hahaha. Maybe he was trying to set the expectations really low. I tried to talk him up for racing and he finally gave in and took off. Once again I remember thinking that Andrew had started pretty fast.
While Andrew was out racing the course I tried to pick Matt's brain on how to race the loop. Matt said he did the entire thing in his middle ring, but I didn't think I was going to be able to do that. He also said he locked out his rear suspension for the entire loop, which he thought might have hurt him.
Andrew came in at 9:15, which was pretty amazing. Matt looked like he was going to puke after his lap and Andrew was shaking like a leaf. Haha. It didn't bother me though. I knew I'd suffer, but I mean come on ... it's only 9-10 minutes of pain, right?
My plan was to push, push and push some more. We were only going to race one lap (originally I thought we could do 2-3 and improve our times gradually) and I wanted to make it count. I wanted to manage my heart rate though so that I wouldn't push too hard and have to stop totally in the middle of the course.
I went out pretty slow in retrospect. Both Andrew and Matt said they went out really fast and regretted it and I think I took that advice and it made me go pretty slow at the start. I also rode "pro-pedal" style for the whole first climb. Next time I'll ride the entire course locked out for sure.
The first thing that went wrong was my breathing. I was taken back in time to running the mile as a kid. I remember running and having my breathing freak out. I always had asthma as a kid, but I'm not sure if my heavy breathing was from the asthma or something else.
Anyways my breathing was screwed up. I was breathing really, really hard and I would point to that as the limiting factor for the entire race. My legs were strong. My arms and upper body were strong. My lungs were weak.
As a side note - halfway up the first climb I heard a rattlesnake in the bushes.
On the way to the second climb I was trying hard to do two things. I wanted to recover (get my heart rate down) and I wanted to gear up to maximize the downhill sections. Unfortunately I geared up way too high for a little uphill section and ended up practically doing a trackstand as I tried to pedal and get the bike moving again.
Once I got to the second climb I was still breathing heavy, but felt a bit better. Again I think I took the first part of the second climb too easy. I was pacing myself and not giving it all I had.
I hammered as best I could up to the top of the second climb, geared up as fast as I could and flew down to the finish line.
10:30. That's right. 10:30. Over one minute slower than Matt and Andrew.
Ugh.
I'm not sure what I need to do to close that gap, but I need to do something. My average heart rate for the race lap was 185 beats per minute, with a high of 219 beats per minute. 219 is insanely high for me. I rarely hit 190 on a ride, and my max is supposed to be roughly 193. Hahaha.
I think my short term solution is to ride more and ride harder. I need to break my leg muscles down a bit more to get them built up stronger. Also I need to do more "sprinting" on the bike to get my breathing and heart rate under control. I've never been a good sprinter, so I need to work on that.
THE DROP:
I'm going to try and keep this short since the race took a bit longer to type up than I thought.
"The Drop":
Somewhere around Chiquita Ridge, near Tijeras Creek, there is a singletrack that goes up on a ridge that parallels the fire road. It's pretty fun and then it ends abruptly in what I keep calling "The Drop".
I've walked down this section twice on previous rides always wondering if Matt or Andrew would ride it. I remember riding with Troy and he walked it, so I knew it wasn't anything trivial.
Anyways we finally got to the drop on Saturday and Matt - true to form - rode down it like it was nothing. Andrew got a little psyched out because I had made a big deal out of it, but eventually he rode down it like it was nothing as well.
It was a lot harder for me. Hahaha. I have been to this section twice already and both times felt like it was over my head. I ended up approaching and stopping 3-4 times before hiking down and telling Matt and Andrew I wasn't up for it.
On the ride back Andrew quoted from my blog. Hahaha. He said that he remembered reading somewhere that "I should go for more downhill stuff since I have medical insurance". It took me a second to realize that I had written that. Once it hit me that he was quoting _me_, I turned around and did the drop.
I had to drop my seat and it took me 4-5 approaches, but I finally did it. It felt pretty sketchy at the beginning, but the rest was cake. It's just a bad feeling to go from almost totally flat to a steep down angle. It feels very odd and unnatural.
Overall it was a pretty fun day. My legs felt great after since we only rode about 20 miles. Next weekend we'll have to put in more mileage for sure.
One final note ... the previous best time for the Riley loop was 12 minutes, which was held by Troy. Hahaha. TAKE IT TROY! Even I beat that time! Ha.
Me finally doing "the drop":
After I finished the ride I thought, "Man ... it would be fun to race that and see who could get the fastest time."
Well this past Saturday (3/31/07), Matt, Andrew and I did just that. We did the Coto Valley Loop (which Matt and Andrew hadn't done) and then did three laps at Riley. The Riley loop is only 2 miles, so three laps is nothing.
I'm going to break this post up into two parts at this point. The first part is "The Race" and the second part is "The Drop".
THE RACE:
Those that know me know that I'm pretty competitive. I don't like to lose and I don't like to not even come close to people I'd competiting with. So much so that I used to not compete with people if I knew I was going to lose.
When I did Counting Coup, Matt and Andrew beat my time by about 30 minutes. I could come up with a laundry list of excuses why I'm 30 minutes slower, but none of them hold any weight. I would say I weigh more than Matt, but Andrew weighs more than me and he still destroyed me. I would say my bike weighs a lot, but Andrew's bike weighs more. I would say I eat like crap, but so does Andrew. Hahaha. My excuses all worked before I met Andrew! Haha.
Anyways the plan on Saturday was to race Riley and see who was the fastest. I honestly thought I had a shot at getting the best time because I can push myself pretty hard. I have no problem pushing until my heart explodes or my legs fall off. I'll ride till my head gets dizzy or my legs flood with lactate acid. I was hoping Matt and Andrew wouldn't match my tolerance for pain and I could win based on gutting it out.
I took Matt and Andrew through Riley for a pre-ride so they could know the course. It took us 13:54 to ride through at a casual pace.
Matt went first for the race and both Andrew and I were shocked at how fast he went out. I was thinking it would be amazing to see a time under 10 minutes and Matt didn't disappoint. Matt finished with a time of 9:20. I remember looking at the stopwatch and laughing because I just couldn't believe how fast he did the course.
Andrew was up next and he didn't really want to compete. Hahaha. Maybe he was trying to set the expectations really low. I tried to talk him up for racing and he finally gave in and took off. Once again I remember thinking that Andrew had started pretty fast.
While Andrew was out racing the course I tried to pick Matt's brain on how to race the loop. Matt said he did the entire thing in his middle ring, but I didn't think I was going to be able to do that. He also said he locked out his rear suspension for the entire loop, which he thought might have hurt him.
Andrew came in at 9:15, which was pretty amazing. Matt looked like he was going to puke after his lap and Andrew was shaking like a leaf. Haha. It didn't bother me though. I knew I'd suffer, but I mean come on ... it's only 9-10 minutes of pain, right?
My plan was to push, push and push some more. We were only going to race one lap (originally I thought we could do 2-3 and improve our times gradually) and I wanted to make it count. I wanted to manage my heart rate though so that I wouldn't push too hard and have to stop totally in the middle of the course.
I went out pretty slow in retrospect. Both Andrew and Matt said they went out really fast and regretted it and I think I took that advice and it made me go pretty slow at the start. I also rode "pro-pedal" style for the whole first climb. Next time I'll ride the entire course locked out for sure.
The first thing that went wrong was my breathing. I was taken back in time to running the mile as a kid. I remember running and having my breathing freak out. I always had asthma as a kid, but I'm not sure if my heavy breathing was from the asthma or something else.
Anyways my breathing was screwed up. I was breathing really, really hard and I would point to that as the limiting factor for the entire race. My legs were strong. My arms and upper body were strong. My lungs were weak.
As a side note - halfway up the first climb I heard a rattlesnake in the bushes.
On the way to the second climb I was trying hard to do two things. I wanted to recover (get my heart rate down) and I wanted to gear up to maximize the downhill sections. Unfortunately I geared up way too high for a little uphill section and ended up practically doing a trackstand as I tried to pedal and get the bike moving again.
Once I got to the second climb I was still breathing heavy, but felt a bit better. Again I think I took the first part of the second climb too easy. I was pacing myself and not giving it all I had.
I hammered as best I could up to the top of the second climb, geared up as fast as I could and flew down to the finish line.
10:30. That's right. 10:30. Over one minute slower than Matt and Andrew.
Ugh.
I'm not sure what I need to do to close that gap, but I need to do something. My average heart rate for the race lap was 185 beats per minute, with a high of 219 beats per minute. 219 is insanely high for me. I rarely hit 190 on a ride, and my max is supposed to be roughly 193. Hahaha.
I think my short term solution is to ride more and ride harder. I need to break my leg muscles down a bit more to get them built up stronger. Also I need to do more "sprinting" on the bike to get my breathing and heart rate under control. I've never been a good sprinter, so I need to work on that.
THE DROP:
I'm going to try and keep this short since the race took a bit longer to type up than I thought.
"The Drop":
Somewhere around Chiquita Ridge, near Tijeras Creek, there is a singletrack that goes up on a ridge that parallels the fire road. It's pretty fun and then it ends abruptly in what I keep calling "The Drop".
I've walked down this section twice on previous rides always wondering if Matt or Andrew would ride it. I remember riding with Troy and he walked it, so I knew it wasn't anything trivial.
Anyways we finally got to the drop on Saturday and Matt - true to form - rode down it like it was nothing. Andrew got a little psyched out because I had made a big deal out of it, but eventually he rode down it like it was nothing as well.
It was a lot harder for me. Hahaha. I have been to this section twice already and both times felt like it was over my head. I ended up approaching and stopping 3-4 times before hiking down and telling Matt and Andrew I wasn't up for it.
On the ride back Andrew quoted from my blog. Hahaha. He said that he remembered reading somewhere that "I should go for more downhill stuff since I have medical insurance". It took me a second to realize that I had written that. Once it hit me that he was quoting _me_, I turned around and did the drop.
I had to drop my seat and it took me 4-5 approaches, but I finally did it. It felt pretty sketchy at the beginning, but the rest was cake. It's just a bad feeling to go from almost totally flat to a steep down angle. It feels very odd and unnatural.
Overall it was a pretty fun day. My legs felt great after since we only rode about 20 miles. Next weekend we'll have to put in more mileage for sure.
One final note ... the previous best time for the Riley loop was 12 minutes, which was held by Troy. Hahaha. TAKE IT TROY! Even I beat that time! Ha.
Me finally doing "the drop":
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