Lessons from Racing

Yesterday I raced in Fontana for my second Cal State Series race of the year. I ended up coming in 6th out of 10 riders in my class. It was a tough race for me, but I feel like I learned a lot on how to race and more importantly how not to race.

Lesson 1

The biggest lesson I learned was not to chase faster riders. This flies in the face of my pride, but I think it's a wise thing to do.

The first place guy in my class beat my time by 9 minutes. That means he was doing 40 minute laps while I was doing 45 minute laps. Not really a gap that I can close by guts and determination.

So the first lesson is to not chase what you cannot catch.

In the future I need to let the top guys go and burn themselves out and try to stick to the "race your own race" mentality more. The problem on Sunday was that I wanted to stay up with the leaders for as long as possible and I just ended up putting myself in a hole that I couldn't get out of.


Lesson 2

Reverse your experience. All this means is that the first lap should be the easy and comfortable lap and the second lap should be the pain and suffering lap.

I reversed this on Sunday and had a miserable and torture filled first lap and a more accomodating second lap. It really amazes me that my lap times were almost identical and yet the experiences were very different.

Lap one saw me barely able to turn the cranks in spots and lap two found me standing and hammering at the end.

If the time on each lap was the same then what was the difference? Being warmed up? More on this later.


Lesson 3

This goes with the previous two lessons I suppose, but I learned that I want to finish strong. I was passed by at least one person in my class on the second lap. He took fifth place away from me. Why? Because he finished strong and didn't push too hard for the first lap.

It is so tempting to try and spend all your energy in races. It's like being a kid and you're sent into Toys'R'us at night by yourself with 100 dollars. Instead of walking around the entire store and weighing what the best purchase might be, you grab all the toys you see at the front of the store and checkout.

I just can't seem to wait or spin during these races on the first lap. I want to go all out all the time.


Conclusions

Ok so for the next race (Hurkey Creek) I need to pace myself on the first lap. The reality is that I do have a ceiling with my ability. My diet, my training, my bike, how I'm feeling, what I ate yesterday ... all these variables coming together perfectly only make me so fast. I'm not going to exceed a certain threshold of performance.

So I do want to push and ride hard, but I have to learn where the line is for pushing too hard.

Pacing is key.

I also need to be patient. At Bonelli I let a few guys just go ahead of me and didn't worry about them. I thought they would stay in front for the entire race. As it turns out they went out too hard and I swallowed several of them up before the race was over. Patience is so very hard during these races since people disappear for miles at a time. I just need to remember that more than likely if I pace myself at first and finish strong that they will start appearing in front of me gassed and ready to be passed. (Hey, that's a catchy phrase)

The last conclusion is that I need to budget my energy better. I've been turning this over in my mind quite a bit.

Imagine I go at a 90% rate of exertion for the entire race. In other words I'm pushing at 90% capacity at all times. Every climb, every descent, every flat. Eventually I will blow up. I can't sustain this.

Now imagine that I go 90% on the flats and descents, but go down to 70% on the climbs. Or maybe I pick a few climbs to attack and cruise up other climbs. This "peaks and valleys" approach allows for recovery and doesn't let me get buried.

I'm starting to think that the varied approach is better for me.

The last note I'll make is that I'm starting to wonder what the advantage is to pushing higher gears. If I'm riding up a short steep climb in 2-2 and it hurts like crazy and makes my heart rate shoot up, why not climb up in 2-1? What amazes me is that from experience I've noticed that the time difference many times is ZERO.

In other words I can spin up a climb in the same time as I mash up it. I will be just as fast, but the spinning approach saves energy and doesn't hurt as bad and affect me later on.

So much to learn. I'm hoping the 24 hour race at Hurkey Creek helps me refine my two lap racing strategy for later in the season.

P.S. Hopefully I'll have some pics to post from Sunday later this week.

Odd and Ends

Troy keeps the pictures pouring in.

Climbing San Juan getting ready for Vision Quest:



Trying to fix my Trek hardtail:



Last night I had a personal best of 52 minutes gate to gate up to Beeks. Pretty excited about that. Not sure what happened though. I felt pretty good when I got to the top and I wish I could figure out why things went so well. Who knows. Maybe just a perfect storm of things coming together.

Then again almost everyone set a personal best last night so maybe it was just everyone working together as a group to push each other. Either way it was very satisfying.

Link to San Juan Super Loop 1A gallery:

San Juan Super Loop 1A

Easter on Pinos

Somewhere on San Juan:



This past Easter Sunday I was blessed and happy to be able to get out and ride Los Pinos. I wanted to ride it once before summer when the heat makes the trail pretty much impossible to ride.

I got up at about 5:50AM to go to church and then came home and rested a bit before hitting the trailhead with Matt, Troy and Brian.

I was a bit nervous about riding Los Pinos because I hadn't been on it in about a year and I haven't been feeling very confident in my technical skills lately. I was worried that I would bite off more than I could chew on some difficult section and crash hard.

On the way up San Juan I was feeling good and was clearing most of the switchbacks. Then I fell over the side of the hill. Haha. I'm still not really sure what happened. I was on the trail one minute and then when I tried to ride down into a rut I simply tipped over the wrong side of the trail and fell down a slope.

I ended up landing on a bush and straddled it to prevent further falling. I ended up scraping up my inner thighs pretty bad due to the awkward position. It was like I was riding a horse, but instead it was a big bush with angry branches. Ha.

Brian and Matt helped me back up onto the trail and we kept going. The trip to Cocktail wasn't bad and I was trying hard to save my energy for the descent down Pinos. Somewhere on the trip up Troy told me he had cleared the entire trail without putting a foot down from the parking lot to Cocktail. I am so jealous. I'd love to be able to do that one day.

We picked up another rider when we left Cocktail because he said he had always wanted to ride up San Juan and then down Pinos. He told us he had gone down Pinos before, but after riding with him for a bit I think he was either lying or just way out of shape. Either way we politely suggested he take New San Juan back down instead of continuing on with us.

The final push to Blue Jay was pretty uneventful.



From Blue Jay we actually took a shortcut. There is a singletrack off the side of the paved road going towards Trabuco and it leads up to the fire road right before "The Wall." It was steep in a few spots, but I guess it saves time? I love exploring new trails but I wasn't in the mood for it on Sunday because I didn't want to waste energy on a new trail that I would need later for Pinos.

Climbing The Wall:



At the top of Trabuco we took a quick break and Troy popped open a water container that was stashed in the bushes. We all took some water from it and proceeded down Pinos.

At Pinos Peak:



The trip to Pinos Peak wasn't too tough. Had to hike a few sections, but it wasn't bad. I decided to change my hiking approach for this ride. Instead of hiking by pushing my bike with my arms fully stretched out, I decided to push the bike with my arms kind of tucked into my chest. The idea is that I need to save the energy in my arms for braking and bike control later. I get really tired by having my arms out straight and sort of locked because most of the energy comes from my arms instead of my legs when hiking.

Los Pinos:



The rest of the trip down Pinos was pretty fun. I lowered my seat at the peak and actually really enjoyed myself on several sections. The hiking wasn't nearly as bad as I remember it. Maybe that's because I've been training for Vision Quest and have become fairly used to hiking on rides.

The trail was steep and loose, but for some reason it didn't bother me as much as I thought it might. Lowering the seat and leaning way back made me feel fairly comfortable. The only thing that was bothering me was the power of my brakes (not quite enough) and the noise my brakes were making (SCREEEEEEEEECH).

I did have one pretty good crash at around the mid point of the ride down. I came around a corner and saw a long, steep descent in front of me. For some reason I stopped and went to walk it because it seemed a bit too much for me. Then I decided that I should try to ride it, so I walked back a bit and prepared to go for it. Bad idea.

I went maybe 5 yards before my front tire stuck and I went flying over the handlebars. The bike literally launched me and I flew forward and landed on my butt. Not sure how that happened, but it was better than going face first. I ended up with a few bruises and scrapes, but nothing too bad. I have an orange sized bruise that looks pretty gnarly on my butt and it hurts to sit sometimes, but it's all part of the experience I suppose.

Taking a quick break:



The last few miles saw me walking quite a bit. I came up to a few sections that had some big ruts down the middle so I just walked them instead of risking crashing again. Most of them weren't that long. I'd really love to practice more and ride some of those sections in the future.

The very bottom was rough, but it was a lot more rideable than I had remembered. There were only a few short rock gardens that I had to walk down. Otherwise the trail was very easy to ride and didn't present too many challenges.

Final example of a typical Pinos descent:



I am very, very happy to have finished the ride with a decent riding time (meaning not including breaks) and to have finished strong. I didn't cramp and I didn't bonk. I was able to avoid muscle failure in my forearms from excessive braking and I felt more confident than I thought I would on everything I ended up riding.

Only sour note at the end was that I ripped ANOTHER pair of Pearl Izumi shorts on the nose of my saddle. I mean come on. It's not a knife or anything. Why do shorts keep ripping? So stupid.

Everyone else survived with Troy being the only one not to crash. Matt had an endo and another crash on the lower rock garden section and Brian rode into the side of the trail four or five times. Overall it was a fantastic way to spend Easter though.

Easter on Pinos

When Good Docents Go Bad

This last Saturday I went on a docent led ride in Limestone Canyon. It's always nice to be able to go out and ride in an area that is closed to the public. Limestone has amazing wildflowers, some natural history (Indians grinding grain in rocks?) and "the sinks", which are pretty unique rock formations.

The problem with these rides though is that they are slow. Not just a little slow though. Painfully slow. We had five flats on the ride and the overall ability level was pretty low. It took about three hours to go 12 miles, which starts to become very frustrating.

I was happy to ride the entire trail in my middle ring (and higher when needed) because there were a few steep climbs. I'm trying to ride in higher gears more and more to gain some strength and to get used to resistance and pain.

The entire ride however for me was a little tainted by one of the volunteer docents. The dude shows up with his downhill bike (Intense) and it was obvious from the start that he had something to prove. I hate riding with guys like that. Guys that feel the need to always be in front and have to take every downhill as fast as they can and try to jump off everything they see.

This punk actually clipped Jason's handlebars on a downhill which is totally uncalled for. I mean he was a docent! He decided to go in between two people riding side by side down a fire road and in the process almost took Jason out. Are you kidding me?

Even worse was that he didn't apologize for it when Jason pointed it out to him.

Later in the ride he kept bragging about his riding exploits and it gave me some serious satisfaction to see him eat it later in the ride trying to jump on a tame singletrack. He went down pretty hard. I don't want to see anyone get hurt, but it felt good to see his ego take a hit. He was scraped up a bit, but nothing serious.

Unless the future docent rides are in new places for me I think I'm going to start passing on them. I just don't have the patience for rides where the time spent standing around exceeds the time spent riding. I don't want to ride for 5 minutes and wait for 15.

I'm tempted to write the Irvine Ranch people about this docent because he was not needed and a danger to other riders.

Scheduling Conflicts

This year is going to be pretty crazy for riding and I'm trying to put together my schedule for the rest of the year.

So far all I have is a list of events I might do:

03/29/08 (Saturday): SoCal State #2, Fontana, CA
04/26/08 (Saturday): 24 Hours of Adrenalin
05/17/08 (Saturday): Warrior's Society, The Traverse
05/17/08 (Saturday): SoCal State #3, Santa Ynez Valley
06/01/08 (Sunday): SoCal State #4, Big Bear, CA
06/07/08 (Saturday): Warrior's Society, Toad Festival
06/07/08 (Saturday): SoCal State #5, Santa Barbara, CA
06/14/08 (Saturday): 12 Hours of Temecula, #2
07/27/08 (Sunday): SoCal State #6, Rim Nordic, CA
09/19/08 (Friday): 24 Hours of Adrenalin
09/28/08 (Sunday): SoCal State #7, Santa Barbara, CA
10/12/08 (Sunday): SoCal State #8, Big Bear, CA
11/15/08 (Saturday): 12 Hours of Temecula, #3

I put the events I might want to do in italics.

I've already signed up for and paid for The Traverse and the Toad Festival. Only problem is that each of those events falls on the same day as a state series race.

I definitely want to do at least one 12 or 24 hour event with a team, so it's just a matter of deciding which one. At least that decision will be easy.

I need to take some time to consider how important the state series is and what races I should do and which ones I can skip.

Crazy how things work out. Last few years have been riding for fun only and now I'm scheduling races and events months in advance. Haha.

Yeager Mesa

Bridge on Yeager Mesa:


We all rode across it ...


This last Saturday I was able to ride a new trail. Over the last few years the ability to ride new trails has become more and more rare. I don't always have the time to drive to trails outside of Orange County and sometimes I feel like I've done everything there is to do.

Yeager Mesa is part of the upcoming Ultra Quest ride on March 29th and I was excited on Saturday to check out the new trail as well as seeing what the first part of Ultra Quest would be like. This was important because I was trying to decide between racing Fontana and doing Ultra Quest.

The ride started at Trabuco Creek Road and Matt, Troy, Jason and I quickly split off from the fire road to start tracing the Ultra Quest course that Troy had downloaded on to his Garmin. (P.S. Mark and Scott also showed up but they did a trip up to Holy Jim instead)

The entrance to the Ultra Quest course was kind of a joke. We rode off to the right on Trabuco Creek and hiked up a super steep singletrack which eventually took us to Bell View. I had no idea Bell View went out that far. There are some really nice and scenic areas on the plateau above Trabuco Creek.

After riding up Bell View we finally got to the end of Bell Ridge. Nothing much to say about this part of the ride ... err I mean hike. We hiked up Bell Ridge for a while before getting to the Yeager Mesa trailhead. It is incredibly subtle to say the least. If you are going down Bell Ridge the turnoff to Yeager Mesa is a little before the "Can't See Bottom" descent.

Yeager Mesa was really steep and loose and I probably rode maybe 5% of the trail. I lowered my seat and tried to get into a groove on certain sections but it was just impossible.

Example of how steep Yeager is:


After spending several hours pushing and carrying my bike up Bell I was having two major problems:

1. My arms were tired. I didn't feel confident in my upper body strength on the steeper sections of Yeager.

2. I wasn't warmed up. Often times I need a good 10-15 minutes of grooving downhill before things start to click. I was never able to get into a good downhill flow and so that hurt my confidence as well.

One of the cool parts of Yeager however was a rather large meadow that we hit about halfway down.

Some hiker in the meadow:


There was even a campsite:


The end of Yeager was insanely steep and it took the four of us quite a while to hike down. I would have to wait for the person in front of me to finish getting down because when I came down I would cause a mini avalanche with rocks and debris flying down as I slid down the slope.

The final part was interesting because Yeager actually ends up feeding into Trabuco. Even if I was looking for Yeager on Trabuco I don't think I would ever be able to find it without already knowing where it is. It spit out on Trabuco about halfway between the end of Trabuco Creek Road and the bottom of West Horsetheif.

After getting to the bottom Jason and I decided to call it quits and ride back to the cars. Troy and Matt continued on to go up Trabuco and then back down Bell.

I'm still getting over my cold (it's been a week, ugh) but it was good to get out and do some exploring - even if I did get a bunch of blisters and scrapes.

(Oh, and I decided on Fontana. Hahaha.)

Spiritual Matters

When I first started mountain biking seriously in 2006 I made a promise to myself that it would never consume my entire life. I can remember the first big group ride I went on with a bunch of GeoLadders guys. We drove up and did SART and went to get pizza after the ride in some town on the way back home.

I remember one of the guys was divorced with a few kids. My friend and I were talking to him and he said that mountain biking ranked at least as high as his family and kids as far as what he considered important in life.

I swore I would never turn into that guy. I have never wanted mountain biking to be all consuming or to interfere with other important areas of my life.

For the most part I've kept my personal faith out of this blog, but I can't help but bring it up now for two reasons:

1. Spiritual matters are apart of every ride for me
2. I feel like biking is becoming too big as of late

I do my best to remember to pray for my safety and the safety of the guys I'm riding with on every ride. I also find myself praying for various things when I'm climbing for hours and hours on end. Finally when rides get very tough or when I get injured I always find myself singing praise songs to God. This is a part of my ride reports that I always neglect and I figured for once I'd include what is going on in my mind from a spiritual perspective.

The final note however is something I'm still struggling with. I have set Sunday's aside for years as a day for the Lord. Missing church is not a sin. Sunday morning church attendance is not mandatory from a biblical perspective either. However fellowship with my fellow Christians is important to me. So I have always wanted to make that a priority. Hanging out with other Christians has to take priority in general over things like bike riding.

The conflict for me is the racing schedule for this upcoming year. Several of the races are on Sunday mornings and this bothers me. I want to race, but I also want to go to church and I find myself with conflicting interests. I can easily go to a different church on Sunday nights as I did with Bonelli, but I don't want it to turn into a habit.

I take bike riding seriously and invest a lot in it, but I would like to think my faith is more important and that I put considerably more time into that.

So for the time being I'm open to racing this year on Sunday mornings, but I can't let it become a habit. For example there is an STR ride on Easter Sunday in San Diego. There is just no way I could ever miss such an important Sunday just to ride at Noble Canyon. Priorities are priorities.

I feel sorry for any rider that puts riding above everything else in their life. Thank God I don't personally know anyone like this, but when you go to some of these races you can tell that some people worship bikes and everything bike related.

Biking should always be fun and biking should never make me a slave.

Special Needs

From Bonelli XC #1

I imagine a wife turning to her husband when this picture was taken and saying, "Ah, how cute. Look honey. See the third place finisher? They let his retarded brother pretend to be a winner too. They even gave him a medal."

Well as it turns out the retarded brother is me.

What is even better is that the fifth place guy didn't show up so it looks like I crashed the party. Hahaha. This is one of those moments where you'd love to glory in a podium picture but instead you're humbled.

(Note: Because there were 13 guys in our class I guess they call the top 5 up to the podium. Better than nothing right? Haha. Also I like how Matt and I are making fists while the other two guys have their hands open.)

Bonelli XC Race

For the longest time I've wondered what it would be like to race in a shorter format. The only races I had ever done prior to Sunday were endurance races. Counting Coup, Vision Quest, The Traverse and 12 Hours of Temecula were all endurance oriented races.

I found out there is a HUGE difference in riding style between short track races and longer rides.

I raced on Sunday in the 25-29 age Sport class. Doug House, Matt and I drove up together to pre-ride the course and Jake also drove up to join us for the race. I had never been to Bonelli so it was good that we were able to tour the course before the race.

It ended up being around 9 miles long and our class would do two laps at racing speed. The pre-ride was good because it let me figure out which sections would be tough and what gears I'd want to use in different spots.

After finishing the pre-ride I determined that the entire course could be done in the middle ring minus one brief steep technical climb. I also thought that the entire race would be decided in the aforementioned steep section as well as a big climb towards the end of each lap. If I could do well on these two sections I would probably be able to finish well in my group.



You can see from the picture above that the race started out kind of crazy. When Matt and I lined up in our group we realized it would be tough. Last year only three people raced in our division and this year thirteen people raced. Everyone looked fairly fast and it was intimidating from the start.

The actual start was pretty rough. I fell back in the pack right away and I think after the first 100 yards or so I was second to last. I've never experienced this before, but my mouth was instantly dry. No spit at all. Totally dry in the entire mouth. I was really nervous, freaked out and excited all at the same time.

In the first 10 minutes or so I was able to keep pace with the group and ended up passing maybe half of the people on a few of the early climbs. All the training and the ability to stand and hammer when climbing made a huge difference.

I don't remember much about the rest of the first lap other than it was hard. Really hard. I found myself struggling to catch my breath and drooling uncontrollably at different times.

Jake and Chris Messina started after I did, but both passed me right before the technical climb. I really wanted to clear the climb but I had to stop because there was a long, long train of riders walking their bikes instead of riding them in front of me. I had no choice but to dismount and hike. Except this is a race! Forget walking and hiking! I actually ran the bike up the section and in the process passed one or two guys.

The rest of the first lap found me struggling to keep the middle ring action going, but I was able to tough it out.

At the start of the second lap I realized I had a guy from my class hanging on my wheel. He got a little ahead of me and as we came in to start the second lap I saw him get some great support from his team. He had people on the side of the course handing him fresh water bottles and pouring cool water over his head. I was pretty jealous.

This leads me to another noteworthy aspect to the race. Everyone in our division had numbers on their calves to mark their groups.



This way I could always know who I needed to chase and who I could let go. I was in group "19".

Back to the second lap ...

I ended up chasing down the guy in front of me (again I knew he was trouble because he had a "19" on his calf), but it didn't last. He held my wheel for maybe 3-4 miles after I passed him and eventually he passed me on a flat section. It was so frustrating to be carrying this guy and having him pace me for so long. I just couldn't seem to shake him.

He was out of sight when I hit the technical climb again and this time I cleared it. No stops and I was able to ride around a few people that were hiking it - including my nemesis who had passed me earlier.

He turned out to be a super cool guy because as I rode past him he encouraged me by saying "Keep going dude!" Mountain biking is the best. So many guys are just plain cool. Even though I was passing him in a race he made it a point to encourage me.

That was the last I saw of him as I tried to turn up the pace a little for the last climbing section.

I ended up finishing it all in the middle ring - which hurt like crazy. I almost cramped in my right quad and calf, but managed to keep it under control.

I was chasing Matt at the end of the second lap but just couldn't seem to catch up. He was maybe 50 yards ahead of me at the top of the last climb and I didn't see him until the end of the race after that.

I came to the end of the second lap and got a little confused. I thought I was going to be turning right into the park but instead was told to climb a little more and then turn right into the park. It sucked to have to climb more at the end - especially since I wasn't expecting it. Haha.

Standings from the race:

1 435 POYTRESS ADAM M 28 SANTA BARBARA 1:32:59.46
2 526 HERNANDEZ RYAN M 28 WALNUT 1:33:51.78
3 425 VAUGHAN MATT M 26 IRVINE 1:39:23.83
4 411 MEYER RYAN M 29 FOOTHILL RANCH 1:39:57.66
5 454 CHOI DREW M 26 UPLAND 1:41:25.98
6 472 BURNDUM ADAM M 27 SANTA ANA 1:42:08.23
7 485 CRUZ MICHAEL M 25 LA MIRADA 1:42:09.24
8 565 LUCAS LEONARD M 26 PASADENA 1:47:54.53
9 412 PEREZ ROEL M 27 SAN DIMAS 1:52:26.23
10 510 ROBMAN SEAN M 27 PASADENA 1:58:35.14
11 544 NAVA ABELARDO M 27 PACOIMA 2:04:40.37
12 553 BARRETT JOHN M 29 CHERRY VALLEY 2:11:04.70
999 437 MILLER GRAHAM M 27 LA VERNE DNF

You can see I finished about 30 seconds behind Matt and fourth overall.



I can't believe the top guys finished _six minutes_ faster than Matt and I. We weren't even close to them.

I'll post a podium picture later when I get it along with some other notes from the race.

Big question now is whether or not I continue in the series and race for an entire year or if I call it quits after one race.

Healing Power of Middle Ring Mania

Ok so my last post was pretty negative. Probably the most negative thing I've written in the history of this blog. Now that almost a week has gone by since Vision Quest I am starting to relax a bit about my effort and the frustration is leaving me. I'm pretty sure in a month or two I won't care much at all in regards to how I did.

One of the reasons I've started to feel better is Middle Ring Mania. This week I did two night rides that turned out to be pretty fast and I felt pretty good on each ride.

Both rides were in the Coto/West Ridge/Chiquita area and both rides found me riding in gears a little higher than I might normally ride. I'm trying to never drop into my small ring in the front and I'm finding that I can actually climb most anything in my middle ring.

This makes me pretty happy because it allows for consistency in the ride (no crazy shifting before a climb) and it makes me stronger and a tiny bit faster.

All in all I've been greatly encouraged this week with two strong rides and it comes just in time for the race on Sunday at Bonelli.

A good showing at Bonelli will surely cover up any residual bad feelings about Vision Quest. Also I'm hoping to get out and do Los Pinos in March, so I'm sure that will also make me feel better in general.

It's time for some FUN rides!

Vision Quest Analysis

I want to be honest with this post. I'm not going to write the typical positive spin on something that I'm disappointed with. Am I proud to have finished? Yes. Am I happy with my time? No way. Am I happy with my performance? Absolutely not.

So to sum it up, I'm angry. Angry that things did not come together the way I had hoped. Angry that my plans failed. Angry that the preparation didn't do enough. It's frustrating to invest so much mental time and physical effort to have things not go your way.

A short list of things that have upset me:

1. Getting sick all week before Vision Quest. I don't know how much this affected me, but I missed 2.5 days of work the week before the race trying to recover. I could not seem to kick whatever I had no matter how much sleep I got and how much food I ate.

2. Not sleeping before race day. "But you just said you sleep a lot the week prior?" I rode the Thursday before Vision Quest and ate some Sport Beans with caffeine. As a result I didn't get to bed until 2AM Thursday night.

3. Feeling bad on race day. I woke up feeling bad. Feeling weak and feeling tired. My legs were sore just walking around my house. This wasn't supposed to happen.

4. Feeling sick during the race. Was it the Heed? The Sport Beans? The flavor of Clif Bars? Some strange chemical reaction caused by the combination of these things? I don't know, but I was sick to my stomach almost the entire ride.

5. Cramps. Enough said. I have worked _very_ hard to prevent cramping on the rides I've done in the last 2-3 months. The one ride I cramp on in the last 2-3 months just happens to be the most important one of the year for me. Not just any cramping either. Hands down the worst case of cramps I've ever had on the bike.

6. Slower riders hanging in there with me. I don't want this to come off as arrogant. The reality is that the longer you ride and the more you work the faster you get. I know who is faster than me and who is not. When I'm out there riding and I see someone from GeoLadders or STR that I know I am faster than I get mad.

In other words on some other day I'd be way out in front of person XYZ, but for some reason either I choked or they stepped it WAY up. (Again I don't want this to sound cocky. There were a few people I saw on the way up to Beek's that made me mad. I should have been 10 minutes in front of them and instead I passed them late in the ride. I am NOT talking about anyone I train with.)

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I'd love to rest on excuses, but the reality is that excuses are stupid. Some things I can control and some things I cannot. Getting sick was out of my control. Getting a flat was out of my control. Cramping was probably within my control. I'm mad I took it for granted that I hadn't been cramping on longer rides.

Also what I ate was well within my control. I screwed this up big time. Caffeine has always upset my stomach but for some reason I thought it would be ok by eating _SEVEN_ bags of Sport Beans, which equated to 350mg of caffeine, or about 7 cups of coffee. I had used these jelly beans before on shorter rides and hadn't had problems with them.

I still am recovering from that mistake. I was sick all weekend and have lost my appetite. I lost about 5 pounds from being in the bathroom all night after the race. I haven't been that sick in my guts in a while.

Even worse is that I haven't been able to sleep. I stayed up until 4AM after the race and then to midnight on Sunday night. Usually I go to bed at about 10PM.

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So my analysis is this: I am mad about my performance and will take it out on Sunday at Bonelli. I also plan to take it out on The Traverse. I don't want to forget how mad I am right now about failing to live up to my potential during an important race.

I learned a lot about how to rest before a race and how to eat on a ride and what to bring on long rides etc.

Just like last year I plan to use my average performance on Counting Coup/Vision Quest to refine my riding approach so that I can do well later in the year.

I plan to use my frustration as fuel to push myself harder. We'll see how long it lasts. Hahaha.

Vision Quest 2008

Somewhere in the universe there must be a library of morons. Inside are volumes upon volumes of stories, quotes and biographies about moronic people. I would be found under "Moronic Quotes - Volume XVI" with this gem:

"I'm not worried about finishing Vision Quest, I'm just worried how fast I can finish."

So Vision Quest 2008 is over and I have a lot to say about it. This first post is going to be a blow by blow recollection of the ride. It's going to be pretty verbose, but I'll try to break it up.


PREPARATION

I felt like crap when I woke up at 4:10AM. I suppose I should feel blessed that I live so close to the course and could afford to sleep a little longer than most people. My legs felt tired and weak when I woke up and I had a cramp that took maybe 30 minutes to ditch. I ate some toast and cereal to get going but it was not the best start.


RACE START

It was nice to line up with Doug, Matt and Jason at the start of the race. The best part was that I was going to get to leech off of Doug and Jason because they both brought small lights. The ride started at 5:30AM and it was dark until maybe 5:45AM. All the night rides on Blackstar really paid off because I felt perfectly fine riding in the dark without a light.


TO BEEK'S!

I have to get this off my chest. I was a little pissed that I got stuck in the back of the pack at the start. I had to fight to keep up with Doug and company because they kept passing people and leaving me in the dark. That didn't bother me as much as the other rides did. Haha.

On the way up to Beek's I ran into a lot of traffic. On one of the sections at the bottom with "speed bumps" a singlespeed rider tried to clear them and failed causing everyone behind him to get off and walk.

That turned out to be a theme. Lots of riders riding slow and not being aware of their surroundings. It was eerily similar to driving on the freeway. Ever been driving where two cars are going super slow side by side and won't let anyone pass? There was lots of that on the way to Beek's for me.

By the time I got to Hidden Valley things had spread out enough to where I could ride at my own pace and not worry about people in front of me.

I will say I was amazed at how hard some people were working to get up to Beek's. So many riders around me were panting and breathing as if they had already been riding for 6 hours.

Estimated time to Beek's: 1:01


TO THE MOTORWAY!

My time up Beek's was not very good. I was hoping for something a bit better, but oh well. I passed quite a few people on the way to the Motorway and I don't remember anyone passing me. That was to be a theme for the day. If I was on the bike and climbing, I was doing well.

The problem with the run to the Motorway for me came in the form of Sport Beans. At least I think this was the problem. I started to feel jittery and restless in my chest. It was uncomfortable and not a familiar feeling. My guess at this point was that the caffeine from the beans was giving me trouble.

I will say that I was pleased with my performance to the top of the Motorway. Despite being slow to Beek's I felt like I picked up the pace a bit to get to the top of the Motorway.

Estimated time to Motorway: 2:08


DOWN THE MOTORWAY!

When I got to the Motorway I saw a few dirt mounds that I figured I would hike over. No big deal. It was at this time that I got a massive dose of frustration and disappointment. I got off my bike, put my right foot on the ground and my right quad instantly locked up. I had no idea it was tender before putting my foot down.

All I could think was "This isn't happening. How can this be happening?!?" I hadn't struggled with cramps on a ride for months. I could see getting them at the 5 or 6 hour mark, but 2 hours into the ride?

As if this wasn't bad enough, I had to watch rider after rider that I had passed go by me as I tried to rub out the cramps. I ended up developing a new technique to get quad cramps out. It's a combination of squatting and kicking my legs behind myself. I would pull my foot slowly to my butt but if I do that my hamstrings cramp as well.

I must have lost at least 5-10 minutes at the top of the Motorway due to cramps.

About halfway down the Motorway I decided to let some guys behind me pass and when I stopped to let them by I cramped again. Another few minutes spent waiting for the muscles to relax so I could keep going. I have this habit also of gripping my brakes super hard when the muscles go to help squeeze out the pain. Haha.

The rest of the trip down wasn't bad at all. I felt fine and in control. I was able to reel in a few guys that had passed me and that made me feel marginally better.

At the very bottom of the Motorway was probably my worst moment of the entire race. A new rail had been installed to prevent vehicles from going up the Motorway and it was maybe knee high. I went to carry my bike over the rail but couldn't do it. I was cramping too much and had to have two Warrior's Society guys carry the bike over for me. I could barely get over myself WITHOUT the bike.

Estimated time to Aid Station #1: 2:30


TO FOUR CORNERS!

"Manny just reached Four Corners." What a discouraging transmission. That's what I heard as I prepared to leave the first aid station. I ended up spending a few minutes at the aid station filling my camelback and my water bottle. I had prepared my own mix of drink stuff prior so I just poured out the powder from the baggies and tried to get going.

Even though I had been cramping I figured I still had time to recover from them. I thought I could drink my way out of them. It sort of worked. As long as I was on the bike and pedaling I was ok. I ended up passing a ton of people on the way to Four Corners. I felt great on the pavement and pretty good on the dirt section as well.

Thinking back I can't remember one single person riding past me on the entire way up to Four Corners which makes me proud. I ended up eating a bit on the trip up but it was very tough. I started feeling sick to my stomach on the way up and felt like I wanted to puke. I even puked a tiny bit in my mouth at one point.

I'm not sure what it was but I had a difficult time with my guts and my stomach for almost the entire ride. I need to check my food better for the next big ride.

The trip to Four Corners ended by riding in behind Gene from STR by about 20 seconds. That made me feel good because Gene is a pretty solid rider. I figured maybe I wasn't doing as bad as I thought even though I knew my split to Four Corners sucked.

I would guess my total time was about 1:15 up Maple Springs which is pretty good for me. Much like my trip from Beek's to the Motorway I am pretty proud of that time.

Estimated time to Four Corners: 3:50


TO THE PEAK!

I kept reeling in riders from Four Corners to the saddle between Modjeska and Saddleback. The trip up to Modjeska has always been a strong point for me. I always find extra energy and am able to power through the rocky and loose sections. My hands had been going numb on me and it was bothering me, but I kept trying to squeeze them to get blood flowing. It becomes hard to shift when you can't feel your thumbs. Haha.

I ended up stopping at the saddle to pee and take a quick break. This was probably a mistake because it cost me another 5 minutes and I didn't really have to pee at all. The only thing I could barely squeeze out though was dark orange, which was a very bad sign. I was not nearly hydrated enough so I stepped up my fluid consumption the rest of the ride.

It was not the best feeling to get back on the bike after trying to pee and eating a little. I had several rides pass me and I've always hated the last push to the peak. I managed to zone out though and geared up a bit and cranked it out. It felt great to catch Zippy from GeoLadders right before the peak. I let him get ahead of me for the downhill though because I thought he might be faster going down Upper Holy Jim.

The trip down to UHJ was easy and I took it quite a bit faster than I normally would. That section has never bothered me and I always feel confident on it. Always amazes me how some riders are just better suited to certain parts of a trail.

Estimated time to Peak: 4:30?


UPPER HOLY HELL!

What a disaster. I tried to let a guy behind me go in front on Upper Holy Jim, but he said he was also going to be going slow and let me go first. The first quarter of UHJ is pure bliss. It's rolling and easy and just plain fun. I have no problem with it at all. It's when the left handed technical switchbacks start appearing that I have trouble.

Even when I am fresh these left handed nightmares give me trouble. I've rolled maybe half of them only once out of all the times I've been down UHJ. When you're several hours into a ride that you don't want to crash on and you're tired, even the smallest obstacles become very big. I ended up hiking down quite a bit of UHJ and in the process got passed by everyone I had put away on the climbs.

This is an area I need to improve on. I probably lost a good 10 minutes in my time on this section alone.

Estimated time down UHJ: 4:50


TO AID STATION 2!

After hiking down the mouth of Holy Jim from Main Divide I let a few guys go ahead of me before descending. I'm sitting here thinking ... if I was better on the downhill I could have stayed in front of maybe 20 guys. So frustrating.

Anyways the trip down Holy Jim was uneventful. I saw some hikers, some riders and some racers. I rolled one technical section that I've never tried which made me feel good. I hit quite a few switchbacks succesfully on the way down and felt not so bad in general.

I did end up going into the bushes on one of the lower switchbacks trying to execute a right turn. Haha. Unfortunately three hikers witnessed it. Oh well!

The bottom of Holy Jim consisted of me stomping through creeks and flying down every rideable section. I always love going down the very bottom of Holy Jim. The best part is having casual hikers watch in awe as you storm down rocky sections and ride through creeks like it's nothing. Ego stroke 101.

I got my picture taken right before exiting the official Holy Jim trail and the guy that took the picture of me laughed and said "That pretty much says it all." Haha.

Estimated time down Holy Jim: 5:30




TO WEST HORSETHIEF!

So I was pretty disappointed with my time to the last aid station. I had roughly the same time last year when I did Counting Coup. It's a very discouraging feeling to think I've worked so hard all year to get faster and stronger and on race day I'm only 5 minutes faster. I refuse to believe that I have only grown by 5-10 minutes in a year over the same course. My analysis of what went wrong will come in a later post though.

The second aid station was quick. I popped some more Sport Beans and filled my water bottle with water and took off. This race has made me a firm believer in the "just ride and never stop" philosophy. I realized I can function on a lot less food and water than I normally take in. It makes it more painful and a bit tougher, but it still works.

The trip to Trabuco was rough. My legs went into self destruct mode on the fire road. I never stopped pedaling but I had quite a few full locks in the legs. When I say "full locks", I mean the muscles seize and will not relax. I've learned to pedal through these though as long as they aren't in the major muscle groups. The feeling of a knife stabbing my inner thighs only lasted 5-10 minutes before I got to Trabuco.

Even when I'm fresh I find riding up Trabuco to be tough. I can usually ride 90-95% of it, but on Saturday I was having trouble in several spots. Add to that the fact that other racers were coming _DOWN_ Trabuco and I had to spend a lot of time walking the bike. I will say that most of the guys coming down were cool, but some of them were kind of lame. Oh well. It's a tight trail in spots and I know they're racing and I'm not.

I would write more about this section but to be honest instinct took over and I just zoned out and kept walking and riding - anything to just constantly move forward.

Estimated time to WHT: 6:15


UP WEST HORSETHIEF!

I was actually looking forward to WHT by the time I got to it. I was 45 minutes under the cut off and in retrospect I did really well on this section. I didn't ride any of it (minus the very top), but I was very consistent with the hiking. I'm pretty sure I did the entire trip up in about 45 minutes. I passed a couple of guys and managed to constantly put one foot in front of the other over and over and over despite the fatigue and cramping.

One of the craziest things of the entire ride happened on one of the switchbacks going up ... I was taking a short break on a switchback with another racer when this goddess of a trail runner came down and passed us. She was running downhill by herself and she was just ... really, really, really attractive. I looked at the guy resting with me and we both said, "WOW!"

The burger stand at the top of Horsetheif was cool but at this point I just did not feel like eating a burger. I was still sick to my stomach and the thought of eating was not attractive at all. The volunteers were super nice though and helped me drink a little water before I took off.

Estimated time up WHT: 7:00


TO TRABUCO!

The trip to Trabuco was not bad at all. I geared up for it and managed to bang it out in decent time. On the way I hit a rock the size of my fist and it slammed into my right shin causing a small gash and a lot of swelling. Blood dripped down my shin and all I could do was grin. It didn't hurt that bad and it made me look like a rock star. Haha.

Estimated time to Trabuco: 7:15


DOWN TRABUCO!

Trip down Trabuco was pretty uneventful. I offered to let a singlespeed guy go down ahead of me but he was riding rigid and said I should go first. During The Traverse I had the same situation happen and the guy on the rigid bike torched me down Trabuco. On Saturday I was the one that was able to stay ahead and bomb down Trabuco. I didn't see anyone on the way down and no one passed me. Pretty uneventful.

The only noteworthy thing that happened was that I got a flat at the very bottom right before the creek where Horsetheif starts. I hit the bottom and heard "PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH" from my rear tire.

It was frustrating to have to stop and change the flat but there was nothing I could do. I knew it would kill my already mediocre total time, but there was no point in getting upset about it. It could have been worse. Right about the time I was repairing the flat a lady rode up to Horsetheif and had to be turned around because she had missed the cutoff. She seemed pretty upset.

A funny moment happened as I was finally riding out after fixing the flat ... the lady that had been turned around had stopped on the side of the trail to pee and I rode up on her right after she had finished. She was pulling her shorts up as I came around the corner and she let out an "OH MY!" as I went by. Haha.

Estimated time down Trabuco: 7:40 (plus a flat, add 10?)


TO THE FINISH!

The ride to the end was pretty fun. It felt great to be finishing a tough course and I felt pretty strong and my mind was starting to get clear as I rode the remaining part of Trabuco and the fire road out.

I love finishing rides on Trabuco Creek Road to be honest. It feels good to hammer out the last few miles in your big ring while you're passing cars. It's also fun to pass the casual hikers and people on the side of the road while you splash through creek crossings with mud all over your face and body.



My total time ended up being 8:08 with a ride time of 7:29. I'll write a bit more about how I feel overall with my performance in a different post.