2013 Race Season Wrap-Up

2013 was a long season full of ups and downs. I started off a bit slow in the TMBRA series as I was focusing my training more on the Ouachita Challenge, finishing decently mid-pack at Waco, Comfort and Mellow Johnny's.

Mellow Johnny's Classic

Next up was Double Lake, my local race where I knew I could do very well. I had a great race, riding in 2nd early with the leader in sight. He got a small gap on a group of 4 of us, and we stayed together the rest of the race. I was feeling good and hoping to make a move on the last singletrack section, but an upset stomach just 2 miles from the finish took me out of the group. I was able to hang on for 5th place. I was happy with my race, and feeling good heading into the Ouachita Challenge.

Patrick and Richard went with me to OC this year, following the usual schedule of driving up Saturday for registration and a little spin, then race Sunday morning. My race went great, I finally broke the 6hr barrier which has been my goal for the past few years. My stomach stayed stable and I was strong throughout the race. I had a minor flat early on but it only cost me a few minutes as Stan's sealed up my Schwalbe Rocket Ron up quickly.

Unfortunately, later in April I broke my hand in a head-on collision at a local trail. I had to get a cast and all that, but thankfully no surgery. I was out of the cast in 4 weeks, but it took a good bit longer than that for it to get comfortable riding and gripping the bars for any length of time. I tried to stay on the bike a bit while in the cast, just doing some short road rides locally. The worst part was that I had to miss the last few spring races, just when I was coming into some good fitness. This was definitely a step back for my season but I had to take it in stride and keep going.

I still drove up to Dallas with Richard to support him racing there. Warda was next, and since Sugar Cycles was title sponsor I went to help out. We worked the feedzone and wherever needed. It was tough being there as that's usually another good course for me but I still enjoyed being out at the race.

Fall started back up with the Camp Eagle Classic. This is a HARD race and even harder when you don't have any fitness! It was a great family trip though, Tate went with us and we all hung out in the river Sunday afternoon after the race.

We took a vacation to Crested Butte in early September where I had a great week of riding. There are some fantastic MTB trails there and I feel like there were a lot more I didn't get to see. The biggest ride I did was up Gunsight Pass, to over 12,000 ft. The trip will require a separate post, I'll get that up soon.

Top of Gunsight Pass

Next up was Ruston, historically my best course as this is where I learned to MTB and I know the trail like few others. It rained Saturday night and Sunday morning, but I was a bit excited for a wet race as this would play well to my skills. I was leading the race early and pulling away, but I crashed on a wet bridge and hit my head pretty hard. I chased back to 2nd but eventually the headache got the best of me and I had to back off finishing in 3rd. I felt like I was getting some fitness from the trip to CO, but a small mistake eliminated my chance for a win.

The last race of the season was at Tyler, we drove up Saturday and arrived just in time for a massive thunderstorm that soaked the park. Looked like it was gonna be another wet race, but the course was actually about as perfect as it could have been Sunday morning. I had a decent race, and while I had the speed to run at the front, I just didn't have the top end fitness to sustain it and finished in 4th.

A little wet at Tyler

I feel like I was strong the whole race though, a good sign going into the marathon season which is going to be my real focus this next year. I'm signed up for the Breck Epic next August, a 6 day stage race in Breckenridge so long training will be my plan.

My BMC was flawless all year after the small incident at Comfort, and was the best bike I could've been on as it's fast, light, and fits my style well. I've learned a lot more about the different suspension settings and where/when to use them to go fast and smooth. The X0 components have been very solid, my favorite part has been the clutch derailleur and how quiet it keeps everything no matter how rough the trail is. As it proved at the OC it's going to be a great marathon bike for the upcoming season.

Wild Azalea 100k

Since the Miles of DisComfort race I've fallen off the training a little bit due to weather and busy-ness at home, but I still think I'm on a good track for the Ouachita Challenge. This past weekend I helped a friend of mine map a course for a marathon MTB race on the Wild Azalea Trail (hereafter referred to as WAT) near Alexandria, LA. The WAT is a designated National Recreation Trail that is 24 miles end-to-end. Being from LA it took me way too long to ride this trail, but I'm glad I finally did. It is very remote and full of amazing natural beauty the whole way. The course incorporates the full length of the trail(out and back on the first 7 miles), a couple of other trails that connect to it, and a few roads to break up the singletrack sections and tie the out and back loop together.

Early doubletrack climb on the WAT

Leafy trail, but easy to follow

 I had a great day on the bike and loved the loop. The LA woods are pretty special to me and this ride was full of them. It had everything from tough climbs, to fast downhills, flowy singletrack, doubletrack, rough sections and a few hike a bike climbs. My new BMC was great, climbing well and riding smooth. My stomach also held up very well for the whole ride. I ate a Skratch Labs rice cake every hour, a Clif Shot Blok or two between them, and a banana at about 3.5 hours. I drank mostly water from my Camelbak, but I did have one bottle of Skratch drink mix that I sipped throughout the day. I think I needed more Skratch mix but that's all I had, so next long ride I'll be better prepared. "Gut rot" has usually been my undoing on rides over about 3 hours, but I seem to be figuring it out, finally.

At the trailhead after the ride

Besides several stops to check the map and the wrong turns we took, Lynn was also having trouble with his chain coming off his chainring all day, so we had to stop a lot to fix that. I didn't mind, it's just worth noting in our elapsed time.

Here's a recap of the route, if you're interested and for my own reference:

We started at the Valentine Lake Recreation Area trailhead and rode east on the WAT. This section is generally fast & wide singletrack with a little doubletrack mixed in and a few rolling climbs. About 7 miles in we intercepted the Kincaid Loop trail that circles the Kincaid Lake Recreation Area and rode that loop clockwise. This loop follows the lake shore, and has some small ups and downs but is generally fast and smooth. We got a little mixed up at the end of this loop, but finally found our way onto the Lamotte Loop which took us east along the lake, then we made our way back down to the WAT away from the lake and continued east. There is a parking area on Messina Rd. where the trail crosses which will make a great aid-station/checkpoint for the race. We crossed Messina and continued east on the WAT until the next parking area at Messina Rd. and State Route 488/Twin Bridges Rd. Here we went east on 488 for a little under a mile and then turned right onto Forest Route 287/Castor Plunge Rd. I believe the race course will head south from this intersection down Messina Rd., take a left on Hamp Smith Rd. then continue south on 287 as we did (this will be a lot better as 488 has no shoulder and does have a bit of traffic). After about 4 miles on 287, we intersected the WAT and turned onto it headed southeast towards the Woodworth trailhead. This section was pretty fun with some nice flow and good climbs. The Woodworth trailhead is right on 287, which we took back to the north to intercept the trail again. We missed the intersection so we had to turn around to find it, adding about 3 miles to our ride. We turned off 287 and headed west on the WAT. This section started with a fast, really fun downhill, but then turned out to be the toughest section of the day. There was some slow going through here with lots of time spent in bottoms that were a bit wet, but still mostly rideable. There were also a few technical root sections that required finesse and crawling along. This section was 8 miles long and did have some really fun sections in addition to the tough stuff. This brought us back to the Messina/488 intersection and we headed north on Messina. This took us to the Kincaid Lake East Boat Launch, where there is a trailhead that heads south towards the WAT. This trail is about 6 miles long and is a LOT of fun and a great payoff for all the hard work to get there. It has some short, steep and tough climbs but flows very well overall. It ends at a big wooden bridge over the lake, which we crossed and then turned left to head south and intersect the WAT. When we got back to the WAT we turned right headed west and continued all the way back to the Valentine Lake Trailhead the way we had started.

Our total mileage was 64.9 miles, negating our extra mileage from missing turns would have been 60.75 miles. This will make a great marathon race course, I can't wait to see the event come together.

Having gotten some good long rides in now I feel like it's time to start some XC racing to start sharpening my top-end speed and fitness. I think that will start with Waco this weekend, back to Comfort next weekend, and then a full weekend of fun at Mellow Johnny's. Then I'll go back to a build phase getting a few more long rides in before the Double Lake race, and finally taper down to hopefully have a great Ouachita Challenge race!

Miles of DisComfort-1st race of 2013

This past weekend the Neilson DEVO team and I traveled to Flat Rock Ranch in Comfort, TX for the Miles of DisComfort marathon race. We were rolling heavy Friday morning to get in a little preride and camp out that night.

Rolling 4 deep

This was to be my first race on my new BMC, and I was excited to get it into some tough trails with big climbs to see how it would do.

New bike, not at Comfort

We had a good preride, checking out the rocks and climbs that are completely foreign to us as Houstonians. It was Patrick and Justin's first experience riding this terrain, so it was great to let them get a taste of it before the race. We had a flat tire and a small issue with a brake line retainer coming off a fork, it was also good to get those sorted out the day before instead of during the race. Richard fell on a rock and hurt his hand, but was able to ride back. We had already set up camp so we got back and cooked up dinner. We ate very well by any standards and relaxed by the fire for the rest of the evening, except for Richard who drove in to the hospital to get his hand X-rayed. They said everything was ok so he went ahead and raced to a top five finish the next day with a bruised and swollen hand.

Friday camp dinner

 

Concerning the race, I had a good day with a bit of bad luck mixed in. There was a heavy mist in the air all morning, enough to get your bike wet sitting around and give concerns about the rocks being wet. I got to the line late like I always do so I was lined up in the very back. From the gun I went harder than I would've liked up the hill but I knew I had to get towards the middle of the group before the singletrack. I did but there was still a lot of stop and go for the first rocky sections. Once we got spread out I felt like I was riding well, making a few passes here and there. About an hour in I started hearing a clanking from the BB area and I thought it was chainsuck, which there was no reason for, but very quickly my cranks locked up and wouldn't turn at all. I pulled over and started trying to figure out the problem. It took me a few minutes to find it, but one of the pivot bolts near the BB had come loose and backed itself out into my crankset, and the head of the bolt was wedged in between 2 teeth of my small chainring! Luckily all the pieces were still there and appeared ok, I just had to figure out how to get them back together. I couldn't get to the bolt through the crankset, so I decided to take the cranks off. Luckily I had a large enough allen on my multitool and was able to get enough torque out of it to get them off. Then I tightened the pivot back up, put the cranks back on and was rolling again. I was stopped for 15mins, which was a bummer but I was glad I could continue. I got back on the gas pretty good for the rest of the first lap and rode well except for letting my front wheel get too low on the hilltop rock garden on the upper loop, my front end slipped down and my stem twisted so I had to stop and fix that also. The rest of the race I just tried to stay steady, I got a little slow at the beginning of the 2nd lap but a rice cake pepped me back up. I took it easy on the climbs, and then rallied the last downhill to finish in 4:58, which was 11 minutes faster than my time last year. I was very pleased with this considering the long (and short) stop I had to make. I had lots of PRs even better than the half-distance XC race I did there in 2011, and several 2nd and 3rd best efforts for the day.



Best part was that I didn't have any stomach issues, I think this is the first long race I've ever done that it wasn't a problem. I ate a few Clif shot bloks, 3 Skratch Labs bacon and egg rice cakes and drank Skratch Labs drink mix. I also didn't feel completely trashed at the end of the race. Considering this I might could've gone a little harder, but I did have some cramps towards the end that might've come on earlier if I'd done so. I had to keep pedaling or keep both legs straight to stop them, but they eventually went away when I got to the mostly downhill off the upper loop. The new bike RIPPED out there, climbed like a goat and gobbled the rocks going down. Zero trouble with my tires, I ran Schwalbe Rocket Ron/Racing Ralph Snakeskins and I threw myself into rock gardens with no concern for my own well being. The Roval carbon hoops took a beating but are still straight and true. Coming down Jimmy's Joy on lap 2 I messed up the entry and centerpunched one of the trees on the runout, HARD. It made a scary sound so I pulled over and checked everything out, it all looked good so I continued to thrash it and it held up just fine.

I'm excited to be way better off at this point than last year, looking forward to some TMBRA XC and the Ouachita Challenge coming up soon.