261 Photos from the Grinder.

A few photo's from last week. Me picking up a necklace and a wool jersey. Nice Swag.

Luke Henry and his brother's Girlfriend

Gail Henry

Marc Driver, Gail and Luke talking about what the Whit Henry Memorial race means to them.

Having a some food and a beverage.

My ass is huge.

Skinny

Erich spent 2 or so hours making a pool in the river. It was a very popular place after the race. Shannon and Erich cooling off.

258 I actually won a race.

Sort of. I was the only person entered in the 40 to 49 beginner class. I actually did fairly well though. There were 10 people entered in the beginner class from ages 10 to mid 50's. I finished in third place in the group. I was happy with that and I beat someone who works with my wife. It was nice actually having a couple of people to race with. At most of the races I have done this year I am out there by myself because I cannot keep up with anyone. The course suited me fairly well. The course was fairly short up hill climbs then down hill. Just enough time to recover before the next climb. The Solitude course helped me in this race. The Galena Grinder was steep then technical on the down hill side. There were several log piles you had to ride over and a lot of sketchy loose trail. Had it not been for the down hill side of the course I would have finished a couple of more places back. There was one person who would pass me every time the course went up hill then I would pass him back shortly after it would head back down hill. Thankfully the end of the race had about a mile of mostly down hill with a couple of short up hill climbs and I put a minutes or so gap on him.

Erich had a more rough ride. He had to move up to the 15 to 18 sport class. They rode 18 miles and he broke a pedal half way through. I looked at the pedal and the spring broke so I hope I can get a new set of egg beaters on warranty. Erich was doing fairly well until the pedal broke and one of the kids who placed said he passed him when he was walking up a hill.

Shannon and Jen showed up for the race. Shannon finished second in the pro marathon class and was top 5 overall. There were some amazingly fast experts who did the marathon course. 45 miles and about 3000 feet of elevation change per lap. Major props to those guys. That course was tough and I think I probably could do one lap but no way I could have done 2 laps. They were flying at just over 2 hours per lap.

259. Grumpy

So my day was not going well and I was in a shitty mood. I am surprised no one told me that I was a jerk. I know if I had opened my mouth one more time it was probably going to happen. How did I fix my crappy mood? I went to the Wednesday Solitude race. I was still in a crappy mood when I got there. I tried my best to hide it but I was doing a pretty poor job. Once the race started the bad mood was gone. I entered the pain cave, which by the way has teeth, and did not crawl out for 75 minutes. They changed the course and had us go up the paved road and then ride the course backwards. The climb hurt the flats hurt and the down hill hurt. At one point I started hearing things. I kept hearing phantom racers who were not there coming up on me fast. At one point I thought I saw a racer in the shadows about to pass me. I managed to finish but the last mile was fairly sketchy. I went off the trail twice and nearly crashed about a hundred times. On my second lap while going up the paved road someone asked me why we do this. I told him I must hate myself. The race hurt but at least I am not grumpy anymore. Tired and beat yes. Grumpy no.

Tomorrow Erich and I are off to do the Galena Grinder. It is the memorial race for my friend's son. It will be good to see Mark and Gail. I am sure the race will be interesting. From what I know it is very similar to Solitude. High altitude, rocky and rooted. Still it should be fun. I will take a few photos. I just hope the pain cave does not bite my butt too hard.

268. Sufferfest

I have had kind of a long week and I have more miles on my saddle than in any previous 7 day period all year. Saturday I rode 100 miles in the MS. 100 miles that looks like 13 minutes on my Garmin because somehow I must have bumped the on/off button while traveling and the battery was dead. There is nothing like riding a century and not knowing how fast you are going or how many miles you have gone. Oh ya and to the douche who said to me "How would I know" when I asked how many miles we had to go.. Look at your F ing cycle computer you dick. With stops and lunch I finished in 6 hours 30 minutes. I had planned on riding with some guys from work or hooking up with the Revo group but that plan was shattered when our Corporate affairs person saw me going to the line and grabbed me to be in a photo. Great 270 pounds stuffed into a 200 lb Lycra bag which will now be on display for my everyone in my company to see. Not a good image. Anyhow the group I planned on riding with went off at 7 am and I was left to fend for myself. I found someone who I have ridden with in past years so I thought this will work out. Just before we leave his wife says something like. Hey I will be in the hotel room if you want to cut the ride short. Hmm guess what happened? Cannot blame the guy Hotel alone no kids. So I rode 70 miles trying to jump on any train of riders I could hang on with. It seemed like every time I got in on the right group going the my pace they would pull into a rest stop. After a while I gave up and rode it alone.


Saturday night I found an old friend from College and we decided to ride together Sunday. We rode 40 miles. I had nothing. I averaged 17 mph including the rest stops but every time the road went up hill even slightly I had nothing. I would have done the 75 mile route but Karl wanted to get home early and when we hit the canyon we had a 20 mph head wind and that pretty much made my decision.


So Monday my legs feel like someone has just dropped a bowling ball on the top of each thigh. After work I decide to just go out and take Mookie for a ride to the holding pond at the bottom of Corner canyon. When we get there it is empty. Mookie proceeds to drink my whole watter bottle but we spin around for 30 minutes and I generally feel much better.

Tuesday I pull Erich out of retirement. And get him to ride with me. We rode up Clarks and around Corner Canyon. Nice ride nothing too hard except Clark's which is always hard for me. Erich crashes which is nothing new. His elbow, Knee and shoulder are scraped up. The kid always has scabs on his knees and elbows from riding. Or should I say crashing. Susan wants to wrap him in foam.


Wednesday rolls around and we have decided to do the rest of the Solitude series. Long story short I Dnf'ed. I have never been so happy to get a flat tire. Last night I had assumed my rightful place in the universe. DFL in the sport class. I was climbing the single track (crawling in the granny gear) towards the roundhouse and psssst. I hopped off the bike and Stan's was blowing out of the puncture like crazy. I think OK great here we go. Flip the bike over and try to get the tire inflated. Somehow I bought threaded CO2 cartridges. This is something that is a big mistake when you cannot see straight and no longer remember your kids names because you have no oxygen left in your body. My inflator will actually work with a threaded cartridge but this took some thinking and clearly I could no longer think. After about 3 minutes of trying to get the inflator to work it occurs to me that the cartridge is threaded and I see the head has threads and I can just screw it into the head. Now the thing works. I have watched all the Fast guys pass me and offer encouragement. I am thinking unpleasant thoughts about the skinny fast guys and how they would all look if they were thrown in the river. ( I really harbor no ill feelings toward the skinny fast people other than evny) The tire inflates but immediately blows sealant allover and goes flat again. So at this point I know I am going to DNF because there is no way I want to push the bike across and down the mountain. So I use my last cartridge, jump on the bike and immediately head down the paved road to the base. I can hear the hiss every revolution of the wheel and I just know it will be flat any second. Amazingly it finally seals and I coast down with about 5 lbs pressure in my wheel. This is my first ever DNF. Well at least the only one I can remember. I always finish so I felt just a little bit guilty because I did have a tube and I could have gone that route. But to be completely honest I was not feeling it unless it was misery.

I guess there is always next week.

266 Son of a.. Miserable scale.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong. I am watching what I eat and keeping my calories under control and still slowly gaining weight. My cycling has been a bit interrupted in the past week but I still had 2 hours Saturday 3 hours Sunday and then the sprinklers blew up again and my Daughter had a birthday so I missed 2 days of riding but I should not gain weight. I told Drew about my gains yesterday and he was very nice and said muscle is heavy and you are building muscle. If only that were true. The only muscle I am building is table muscle and it looks like I have a keg for a midsection.

Last night I did the Round Valley Race. Since I had no idea where I was going I entered with the beginners. After the first lap I just could not finish the race and wanted to do the second lap which is the same as the Sport class. Anyhow when I finished I told them to change my category and that I did the 2 laps. I am slow and I apologize to any of you that I slowed down but I think I was able to ride on the right and step out of the way fairly quickly. I do not think I hindered anyone too much. My lap times were a bit slow at 25 minutes per lap and I finished in just under an hour by my computer. I am sure I will be a bit faster next week. Erich skipped this one because he has been sick for about 10 days now. He hates going to the Doctor but he really has no choice and he is going today. He tells me he wants to do the PC Point Point race in September. He has not ridden hardly at all this year so he needs to get better and get in some miles.