Part III: Winter Base Training, California, and Travel

After my last Deschutes fly fishing trip and last break from cycling, I began to buckle down and train consistently. I also did some fun domestic travel with Allison.

Since I left my job, I had planned on spending my winter somewhere with a better climate than Seattle. I had been working with a coach, Bruce Hendler, out of the Sacramento area. I got in contact with him through a connection I made at the Nature Valley Pro Ride. After a lot of discussion, the Sacramento area seemed to make sense for both winter training and early season racing--I'd get good roads, good weather, and incredibly competitive local racing scene, and access to the majority of the early season stage races. I settled on Auburn, CA as it was very close to all the good roads and outside the hustle of Sacramento. With the help of Bruce, I was able to find a place to stay and moved in the middle of November.

I spent my first week in Auburn getting familiar with the roads, meeting some other cyclists, and getting a great block of training in. By the end of the week, I had a visitor! Allison and I spent a night checking out all the crazy night life in Auburn, made a trip to Nevada City for a great dinner, and did a cool hike down to the South Yuba near Nevada City. I also did my first group ride since the summer.

After a few days in Auburn, we made a trek down the California coast. We stopped in San Francisco to visit friends one night before making our way to Carmel for a night. I had a much needed day off in San Francisco before getting some great riding in out of Carmel. The scenery was incredible.

After Carmel, we battled Thanksgiving traffic down to Los Angeles. We spent the rest of Thanksgiving week with family and friends in Malibu and Santa Monica. I got to see some of the great riding in the Malibu hills and had an absolute blast with family and friends.

This marked my last rest week before Christmas week. I got in more 18-20 hour weeks in December. I spent a couple weeks in Auburn before making my way back to Seattle for two weeks of holiday goodness. One more post and we're up to real time! After the updates, I'll have a bit more thoughtful content rather than timelines. Might be a bit of a stretch though until racing begins in February.

Part II: A Transition and More Fun Than Should Be Allowed

I left ya'll last at the early part of September, where I was settling into a rhythm in Seattle. I continued the trend of fishing and cycling daily. I also began to date a wonderful young lady. This pattern of fishing, cycling, and a great personal life marked a ridiculously fun use of time without a job. I was crazy busy, and it was a blast.

In early September, I did the Mt. Baker hill climb, which ended with me getting caught with ~1.5mi to go in the final 8mi climb. It was great day with a beautiful view at the finish. Rocked out some camping after the race with Allison.

In mid-September I traveled down to the Sacramento area to spend some time with my coach, check out the area for a possible move, get some racing in, and then spend time in the Bay Area for Seth Berling's birthday. The racing was up and down, as I was a little rusty, but it was great to race again one last time before the season closed out. I got some great training in, and did my first performance testing. All-in-all, it was a fantastic week of cycling bidness. Then it was off for a nice little weekend retreat for Dr. Berling's 30th bday. It was also the reunion of Seth and I with our partner in soul, Gavin Grant. The three of us decided to make the 60 or so mile trek to Dillon Beach by bike. We'd meet about a dozen other friends there for a magical weekend of merriment.

After the Cali trip, I rallied back up to Seattle to get back to training before a Deschutes steelhead trip the second week of October. I also did an amazing fishless trip on the Wenatchee river with Allison. At this point, I'd settled into a rhythm with training. I was riding roughly 14-17 hours/week and doing a lot of aerobic base building through endurance and moderate endurance efforts. No real intensity. I got an early start, because I'm so new to the sport and wanted to work my way up to higher mileage come late winter.

The Deschutes trip was absolutely fantastic. Winter steelheading is probably my favorite form a fishing, but there's something so special about the annual week I do on the Deschutes with a rotating cast including: Seth B., Ryan, Parker, Seth D., Jeffrey Hickman, and this year a special time with Mike Duffy.

After the Deschutes trip, I settled back into training. That entailed more base building and working my way up in volume to consistently hitting high teens in hours/week.

At this point, we're in late Oct-early Nov. The next phase involves some amazing non-cycling trips, a move to Cali, and more training!

A Crazy Fall

I haven't felt like I've had too much to report on in a given day, but now that months have gone by, it seems like I have a long story to tell. I'll do a few blog entries in a row to bring ya'll up to speed.

It looks like my last post was when I still had a full time job. I've since begun the cycling bum life. I moved back to Seattle in August after a decent showing at the Cascade Classic. I was running on fumes, but pulled out a good day or two. I shut things down after that and drove across the country. I drove from Washington D.C. to Denver straight--28 hours or so of driving. It was a good chance to get a little weird. I then did more standard 10-12 hour driving days with a stop in Twin Bridges, MT to visit my buddy Joe Willauer. He is a fishing guide and good friend out of Twin Bridges. It was a great opportunity to enjoy trout fishing and have a great time with a great friend.

I arrived in Seattle just before Seafair and was met by my good friend Seth Berling of Pebble Pedalers fame. We had a good weekend at Seattle's premier Summer celebration. This marked the end of my ~2 weeks off the bike. I then began to hit it again with a trip to Sun valley, ID for some riding in the mountains with my father.

By the end of August, I had settled into a routine in Seattle: ride mid-day and fish a couple of my favorite steelhead runs on the Skykomish during the early evening magic hour. I also made my first trip to the summer/fall steelhead paradise that is the Deschutes River in Oregon.

That wraps up the first phase after leaving my job. The next phase involves a girlfriend, more fishing, amazing rides in amazing places, and investigating a southerly move. A lot more pictures for more recent phases!

Vive le Tour

After a much needed week off the bike, I’ve been back at it getting some good ol’ bicycle riding in. I’ve been a bit contemplative about training and racing lately after hitting a wall so to speak in the weeks leading up to and including Nature Valley. I’m still trying to understand the popular training philosophies in cycling and how they work for me. I have found that racing every weekend for months on end leads to fatigue. I’m starting to re-subscribe to the thought that little in the way of intensity is needed during the week when racing that much--at least for me right now. I’ll be working with a coach soon, so luckily I won’t have to think about this stuff as much. Regardless, I’ve had a good couple weeks of riding since my week off, and I’ve had a lot of fun on my bicycle.

This past weekend I went out to Harrisonburg, VA to get some climbing in. I did a good climb up Reddish Knob on Saturday and then jumped in the Tour de Burg road stage on Sunday. I had so much fun I ended up staying Monday and nearly Tuesday as well—thanks to Ryan, Kurt, and Jenn for allowing me to slum longer. Tour de Burg is an unsanctioned grassroots stage race that combines mountain and road stages over 6 days. People came from all over to participate in a quite righteous event. There was even a contingency from Texas.

Sunday was a 100 mile road stage. It was another day of solid climbing, and my legs started off a little sluggish, but I was rolling by the end. I had the pleasure of hanging on a super speedy Nick Waite's wheel up some big climbs. I enjoy riding with very good climbers, because I pick stuff up about pacing and asskickery. Monday was a mountain biking stage. I did some mountain biking when I was very young, but I’m pretty challenged at it these days. I got a loaner bike and shoes and threw myself into the mix. Turns out the mountain biking in VA knocks the socks off of a lot of the stuff out West. I had an absolute blast and didn’t die; yet, I was humbled by guys (and gals) who are wicked savvy on mountain bikes.

I arrived home from the weekend to find a shiny new Quarq power meter thanks to a spectacular shop in Maryland—Just Riding Along Bikes. They’ve been great supporters of the cyclocross team I’m on, and this is a big time toy. I’ve sworn off power meters until recently but decided it would be necessary to get the most out of working with a coach.

Lastly, I raced my last Bryan Park training race here in Richmond and got my first victory. This was the venue for my first race less than a year ago, and I hadn’t won the A or B race yet. It was nice to get off the front for a while and then come in solo, but I had a little help from my friends.

Racing this weekend in NC and then nothing until July 19th when the Cascade Classic kicks off. I’ll try to report on that. I’m very excited to do that race, as I’ve wanted to do it since I started racing last summer. Beautiful country and big climbs!

NVGP Thoughts and a Whole Lotta Awesome

Nature Valley was a blast. My teammates were great, and we had awesome support from mechanics, coaches, a massage therapist, hosts, etc. It was so relaxing to have folks taking care of all the things that create stress in races. In my first stage race, I realized how many details need to be worked out and learned a lot logistically for future races. Having a team at the big stage races looks to be critical.

As far as racing went, there were ups and downs. Namely one big down--Wed night's crit. I started the week with a respectable TT, placing around 62nd. That night we had a6-corner crit that exploded the field. It ended up being one of the more selective races for whatever reason. It was my worst race ever. I got a quick schooling in cornering. I was getting gapped every single corner and having to do standing sprints to grab wheels again. After about 10 laps of this, I started to fall apart. I was hanging on for the most part, but then I sent my bike into a curb. I was fine, but I quickly dropped off the back. I made the time cut at 50% of the race, but they slapped me with a HUGE 25min time gap. There was absolutely no uniformity in USAC's time assignments through the week, but I'll leave it at that. So, on my first day, my GC hopes were more or less shot.

I had some good races throughout the week with a placing in the 40s in the Cannon Falls RR and a 42nd finish in the infamous Stillwater Crit. I was pretty stoked to find that my legs still worked after 5 days of racing in my first stage race. My favorite race was probably Cannon Falls or Stillwater. The stage I was looking forward to, Menomonie RR, was kind of a dud after our team missed the major split that effectively ended the race for the field. Cannon Falls was a relatively short RR at 65mi that ended with ashort gravel section and a hellish concrete descent into downtown circuits. I got in some early moves that got shut down before they started, I climbed well, and I managed to actually pass people on the finishing circuits! Stillwater was nuts! The big climb popped me with 3 laps to go, but I recovered quickly and hung on to finish in 42nd <3min down from Sutherland. The hardest part of the race was that there was no recovery between the main climb and another little riser before the descent. It was brutal, but it was awesome. My dude Tim Rugg put in a huge dig about halfway through the race and hung on until 2 laps to go! He ripped it hard and got the most aggressive jersey for his efforts. We were all stoked for him.

I learned an absurd amount in the 5 days of racing. I need to work on cornering and being aggressive. In the past, I've been an aggressive racer, but those were local races where being aggressive simply means attacking and getting in moves. In NRC races, being aggressive also means simply bombing into corners and physically pushing your way to the front. I need to work on that aspect of things. I struggled to stay at the front of the race when it mattered.

My overall takeaway is that I feel like I belong, but I have some skills and tactics to work on. I also need to get more volume in during the off-season and get legitimate interval work in. I'm going to rest a bit before ramping up for the Cascade Classic. I'm incredibly excited for a race with big climbs and only one crit. It also happens to take place in a pretty spectacular location! I'll be packing up all my stuff in Richmond and moving back to Seattle in July as well. It's going to be a crazy few weeks, but I'm very excited for this new chapter where I can focus on riding my bike for a while!

Obligatory Update

The updates have turned to a chore at this point, after a horrible evening of racing last night. I started off NVGP with a decent time trial. My legs felt good. Our team director, Marion Clignet, said I left a lot out there and should have pounded the flat more before the finishing climb. I was pretty excited about the week and happy that my legs were turning on.

After the morning TT, we had a downtown twilight crit. This was my worst race in my short cycling career. It was the first race I've been pulled from. It cost me ~24minutes in the GC (General Classification), because they pulled us at lap 20 of 40 and gave us average lap times as the gap for those we missed. I believe that about 50 of 110 riders were pulled and given times based on remaining laps or dropped out. Pretty brutal considering I could have ridden 26-27mph by myself for the remaining 20 laps and been down a few minutes--that's bike racing I guess.

I knew it coming in, but I really need to work on cornering. It hadn't caught up to me in such a major way until last night. It was a 6 corner crit over mixed surface including brick, manhole covers, surface felt like a tennis court, etc. I was getting gapped in every corner, and we were getting up into 30-35mph in each straight. Apparently the place to pass folks was the corner, where I was getting gapped. After 10 laps of sprinting out of the saddle every corner, my legs were toast.

So, I'm fighting for stages at this point. We have a ~67 mile road race that finishes with 5 circuit/crit type laps. It may not be a very interesting race if United Health Care sits on the front at 30mph the whole time. We shall see...

First Couple Days of NVPR Camp

Nature Valley has put the Pro Ride qualifier athletes up in Amery, Wisconsin in a HUGE "farm house". It's really a mansion with a pool, hot tub, and 20 beds. Our team management has kept things incredibly relaxing and generally mad pleasant. We've had amazing food, fully supported rides through quiet country rides, and a full-on s'more roast. We've received awesome PRO tips on how to work with the team car to get bottles, what to do when flatted, and even how to pee in the race!

It's already been a great learning experience, and more importantly, an amazing opportunity to have a stress-free lead-up to a race. We'll have all the little things taken care of that minimize race day stress. We don't have to crush out real life work right before packing up to drive to a race. I'm incredibly thankful to have an opportunity like this, and I'm beyond excited to race.

I'll be posting as much as possible leading up to and during the race!