Panoche Road Race

Panoche was quite an experience!  It started hot, and then got hotter.  Word is that it ranged anywhere from 100 to 107 on the pavement.  Totally insane. 

Greg Bloom announced before the race, “We have a follow car.  One of you is going to crack today.  When that happens we can pick you up.  Do not push yourself into heat exhaustion.  Pull over and as a reward you get to ride in air conditioned car!”  Great announcement, and definitely true.

I rode the race in the E3s.  We did the 67 mile race.  That means 3.5 hours in the heat.  (Perfect for barbequing ribs.  That long, and the meat just falls off the bone.)

Normally the crosswind section is where the race shatters.  Today though, there was little wind, so it wasn’t hard.  Since in the E3s everyone is closely matched, we had the entire field still present at the turnaround.  I decided to make a move.  This was probably my only good chance. There was one guy off the front about 100 yards.  This guy was a hammer, so I decided to bridge to him on the climb just past the turnaround.  I made it across, but so did 10 others.  This is where I started to feel the first indications of falling apart.  Nothing serious; just a slight shortness of breath, and a general feeling of weakness.  My real concern was that this was happening with 33 miles left to ride.  

The 12 of us started pacelining to keep the field broken apart.  After about 5 minutes I couldn’t help out.  I was hyperventilating and could feel my heart pounding.  What the hell is happening?!  I dumped water on my head and shoulders and drank some more.  (I had been doing this all day, but needed it again.)  I sat in.  15 minutes later, I had a runner’s cramp (you know that stitch in your side).  I couldn’t do anything to deal with any attacks.  I was just trying to hang on the back and make it home.  Then the attacks started in earnest.

The spirit was willing to chase, but the flesh was weak.  This is something I had never experienced before.  Normally when I crack, my mind makes me WANT to quit.  This time I wanted to ride, but just couldn’t.  Every time I put power down, my lungs felt shallow, I would have this overwhelming sense of “stop pedaling!” and sometimes I actually did!  This is totally out of character for me, but I simply could do nothing more than ride tempo.  Within a few attacks 5 guys got away: one off the front, and four chasers.

The remaining 7 guys completely fell apart.  One by one people were packing it in.  I ended up a solo chaser of the group of four away.  They remained about 100 meters in front of me.  I kept telling myself, “Just catch them, and you get a free ride home.  If you don’t catch them, then you have to ride it all solo.”   This was great motivation because by this point I didn’t care that I was going to get a top 10.  All I wanted to do was get home.

At the last feed zone, I was within 50 meters of them.  Then, one guy looked back and saw me.  Just what I didn’t want.  The four chatted, decided to work together better, and in no time they were gone.   I continued.  I had to change my self-talk to keep the legs moving.   Luckily, I was eventually caught by two guys.  Keith Jordon and Dave Parrish.  We were just riding to finish without being caught by anyone else.  Dave fell apart and dropped off.  Keith and I reluctantly continued.  We caught one of four chasers and went by so fast he couldn’t get on.  It was just Keith and I going for 5th and 6th.

Keith ran out of water. I had 2 swallows left. We figured we were only a few miles from the finish, so he took one, and I the other.   A mile or two later we see the 10k sign.  F#@k! F!, F!, F!, F!, F!  We both were just hating life at this point, and the last thing we wanted to see was that we had another six miles to go.   Six miles might not seem like much, but it felt like the straw that broke the camel’s back.  When we finally rolled across the finish Keith gave me 5th (what a guy!) and I rode right to the water station!

I drank water, but was feeling sick to my stomach.  I drank slowly and went to the car for some much needed air conditioning.  I went back to the feed station for a snack and started feeling woozy and a little dizzy.  I was in a bad spot.  I sat in the shade and recovered to a manageable condition within 15 minutes.   Once my faculties returned I noticed that the consensus of the racers was that today was definitely the hardest race this year.

A day that didn't suck

It seems that every few weeks I do a day trip down to LA for meetings ‘n’ stuff.  I don’t particularly like travelling. Let’s be honest; it’s not the most efficient use of time. (Quick show of hands: Who likes to cut out 14 hours of their life for 8 hours of work?  Nobody?  Now, who does 8 hours of work in an 8 hour meeting?  Nobody.)  But during my last trip I did make a potentially life changing discovery.  This simple event turned an unenjoyable waste of time into a day that didn’t suck.

Perusing through the Sky Mall magazine, you know the freebee mail order catalog that has sells everything from portable workout equipment to use while you are sitting idle in your hotel room, to jewelry to send your wife while apologizing for never being home, I came across a most interesting find.  This, I thought, would be the turning point of my cycling career.  It could transform me from a guy who thinks he is pretty good to a guy who is pretty good. 

It is… (before reading further, cup your hands around your mouth and read aloud in an ominous God-like voice) …”The Gravity Defyer!”  Just look at all the many benefits.  I just buy it and I’ll have less fatigue, be more active, perform better, be instantly comfortable...and have that Gravity Defying feeling! (which has got to be good) 

Of course looking like a million dollars, being 2” taller, and not having foot odor are kind of nice too.

I scrambled to find a price and phone number to call.  I searched found it buried elsewhere on the page.  “Only $129.99,” I thought, “I guess that does not include installation.”  

In the end though I am glad it was only a day trip.  When I got home, Laura talked me out of buying it.  “You already look like a million dollars.”  How sweet is that?

How to become a cycling god.

I have a whole week off for Christmas.  With this new found freedom from work, I have been struggling these last few days on deciding what to do.  Well, this morning I awoke to an epiphany.   Let me preface this with a little background on myself. 

I have been riding and racing bicycles for the last ten years and have had a good time doing it.  Ever since I started riding, a goal of mine was simply to become a cycling god.  Needless to say, this didn’t happen.  This is the type of goal that is easier said than done.  I am not claiming that it is impossible, just that it is not as easy to attain as simply saying it.  Actually, it took me about six months of riding to realize that a less ambitious goal was needed.  I gave up my dreams of the tour, and instead focused on winning local group ride sprints to city limit signs.  But why?  Maybe what was limiting me was not my physical prowess, but my lack of a single-minded focus on attaining my goal.  Or maybe it was my college physiology classes and study of kinesiology (note the fancy word, which shows I am really smart) that lead me down the same path to nowhere that all the traditionalists are headed.  

I have spent a number of years researching physiology, sports psychology, and race tactics, but still have yet to honored with the badge of “mutant” or “genetic freak.”  I am thought of as a racer, but I want more than that.  I want other riders to lament even lining up to race when I pull up to the line.  I want people to secretly wonder if my mother was a cheetah and my father a gorilla.  I want Mothers to hold on to their children when I ride by for fear of them being blown over from my wake.  It seems that I’ll never get there unless I re-think my approach.  

Now, to the epiphany: Why not spend this week fully focused on attaining my long held goal?  “What is different today than yesterday,” you ask?  Let me tell you.  Instead of trying to doing what everyone else does, I will outside the box.  Why rely on the perspective of someone that builds upon the unstable foundation established long ago, when maybe it is a fresh look that is needed.  Heck, if the fundamental training and racing principles established in years past are holding us back, let’s build a new foundation - one which can support the weight of the cycling gods of the future? (myself included, of course) 

Where to start?  At the beginning, of course. 

Einstein is generally regarded as a smart guy.  And from my research, I see that he was an avid cyclist.  (Well, at least I found this picture of him riding a bike.  He seems happy enough, which tells me he must really enjoy it, and hence trains a lot.) Anyway, Einstein is quoted as saying that if he had one hour to save the world, he would put 55 minutes to defining the problem and only 5 minutes to solving the problem.  Now, that is a fresh look.  That is thinking outside the box!Of course, I am not trying to save the world, so I probably don’t need to spend that much time defining the problem.  How complicated can riding a bike fast be when compared with the problem of saving the world?  In perspective, riding fast is easy.  I probably just need to shift into a big gear and turn it over really fast.  At this point you are probably thinking, “It’s not that easy!”

Of course it’s not.  Becoming a cycling god certainly takes more than that.   There are problems with the press, dealing with all the time zone changes from my many international ventures, even the continuous autograph sessions can get to be tedious after a few weeks. But I got it under control. 

You see, I have substantially more time than the hour Einstein was worried about.  Heck, with Christmas vacation, I can devote the rest of the week figuring out what I need to do to reach god-hood and then maybe the weekend to executing it.  I’ll then take a little time off, and then by New Years plan on hiring a press agent and Manager.

Marty McFly once said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”  Hey, if McFly said it, it must be true.  Of course he had a time machine, which made things a little easier.