2nd Race of the Arizona State Series

They say a picture is worth more than a thousand words...in that case the following picture should tell you how this past weekend's race went.

Yup, that's me coming in just a few feet behind first place in the Expert category.

What really bites is that if the finish line had been 30 yards closer, I would've won the race.

I lead the last lap and a half, however when we got to the finish, I got confused and hesitated for a second to figure out where the finish line was and the rider on second place took advantage of that and took away the win.

At least I am hoping to get this as a lesson to always familiarize myself with the finish line before the race.

Even though I finished 2dn, it was a positive experience. The race was tough. The picture above shows us a the beginning of the race. There were to other Procon riders in my group, Rob (#27 at my right) and Art (at my left). Rob had finished 2nd in the previous race at McDowell, the one I couldn't make it to because of the accident, so the plan was to stick to his wheel and see how long I could last.

I made things hard for me from the start by choosing a wrong place at the start. I got stuck behind some slower starters, so before we hit the single-track I was 20 places back. It took me nearly 20 minutes of hard work to catch up to the leaders. Once I joined the leader group, I had very little time to recover because soon the attacks started and the group of 6 got reduced to 5 about 30 minutes into the race, then to 4 and by the time we reach the half-way point of the first lap, there were only three of us. I sat in third for the rest of the lap while keeping the two leaders within visual distance, unfortunately a small crash with a Semi-pro rider that had a mechanical problem slowed me a little and gave me a few scratches on my elbow, however I didn't loose any places and was able to get back and shorten the difference to the leaders on the last climb.

After going through the feed zone and getting a new bottle from Norma, I decided to bridge up to them, which I did half way through the second lap. In the lead was fellow Procon rider Rob Shaver and Zach a rider for SanTan Racing. Rob had a mechanical and yield 2nd place to me, then Zach went off the trail for a second and that's when I got to 1st place.

The rest of the lap, I rode in the front followed by Zach and Rob, then Rob had a flat and a crash right before the end of the lap.

On the third lap, Zach just sat on my wheel all the way to the finish. I knew his only option was to attack me on the last climb, so I tried to shake him off a couple of times but could only get a small gap, so several times I had to back down. Then I decided to just conserve energy for the last part. As expected he tried passing me on the last climb, but we had some traffic ahead and I also had increased the pace to I got to the top of the final downhill first and we flew down while he tried to pass me where ever he though there was a chance. I blocked all his attempts then on the last 30 yards decided to slow down to make a right turn onto the finish, just to find out that the finish was straight ahead. By the time I realized that, Zach had noticed and got the inside line then it was impossible for me to beat him to the line.

After all, a very exciting race. I got second while Rob came back from a mechanical and a crash and secured 4th, so two Proconers in the Expert podium.

The next race is at White Tanks park in about a month, then we head up to McDowell on March 30 for the first NORBA National of 2007, so March is going to be a month of a lot of training.

Thanks to all and have a great week!

Pura Vida!

Jeff

The 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo

So this past weekend I ventured south for the first race post-accident and what a better way to test the fitness than doing a race around the clock. After all, I have to say that I am very impressed with the recovery and felt pretty good on the bike.

For those of you not interested in the details, I'll give you the meat and potatoes up front then, I'll go through the small stuff.

Rode a total of 13 laps with each lap being 15.5 miles long, so if you do the math, I rode over 200 miles. Finished 16th place out of about 85 Solo Male participants (with gears). There was another category with almost as many riders but for singlespeeders.

Anyway the winner of my category was the never aging Tinker Juarez. He rode 18 laps, but he was done by 9:30 am. One interesting thing about me and Tinker is that he lapped me TWICE in CONSECUTIVE laps. He was riding strong but I also had two flats on the same lap. Thankfully I got a chance to catch up to him after the end of the race for a photo op.

The Details

For this race I headed out to Tucson on Friday by myself because Norma had to work. So I loaded as much stuff as possible in the Matrix and left around 10 am. I could have easily have made this into a commercial for Toyota. This is some of the stuff I got into my car:

Large square cooler

Large water cooler

Huge fire-pit

8-person tent

2-person tent

8x10 foot gazebo

Long plastic table

Folding wooden table

Four lawn chairs

Two tool boxes

A bike stand

Three sleeping bags

Three plastic storage totes

A boombox

Two propane lamps

A propane stove

20 pounds of fire wood

4 fire-logs

2 bags with clothes

And three bikes...so that's the reason my car looks so low.

I finally made to the race site by noon. It took me a while to find a camping spot that was not too far from the trail. In the end I found a spot about 200 yards from the trail but really far for the Start/Finish area. There were already over 1800 people when I got there so there wasn't much to choose from.

I got all the campsite set up in about two hours and then went to pick up my number. Later that Friday I got a chance to do one lap of the course before dark. It took me 1;15 to do one lap at about the same effort I was planning for the race.

Once the sun went down the temperature drop a little so I made a fire and sat by it while gazing at the sky lit by stars. After some dinner, it was time to go to bed, however the wind started to pick up and it made it a little hard to sleep. Around 3 am I got up to discover that the gazebo had been blown away and was not resting on top of my car. It was too early to fix it, so I anchored it down and left it there.

In the morning I fixed the gazebo then Norma and her mom got there with her two nephews.

We had breakfast and soon it was time to head to the start.

Shortly before noon I got signed in and placed my bike at the start line.

Then it was time to head to the official start line about 400 yards before here, from where we would run to our bikes and officially start the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo.

At about 1:20 PM on Saturday, I was completing my first lap. We kept the pit stop to refuel within 5 minutes then it was time for another lap. Laps 2, 3 and 4 were about the same. Lap 5 was not so good tough. We had planned for me to take the Giant for a lap while Norma was going to get the Trek ready for a few more laps, but less than half way into the lap I had already had two flats. I only had one tube with me so, a kind soul gave me one so I could barely finish that lap. I didn't ride the Giant for any other laps.

The night laps were just a tad longer than the day ones and by midnight I had already logged 8 laps. Then I stop to have some food and sit down for a few minutes. My stomach was not feeling 100% and I was having a hard time staying warm. This pit stop turned out to be quite long. From falling sleep on a chair, I went to taking a "short" 1.5 hour nap inside the tent.

I don't know how, but I manage to get up and get going again after 3 am and it took me a while to get warm but the rest helped. I rode two more laps until the sun came up, then with the sun I recharged batteries. I even told Norma that I am like most calculators. We have a back up battery but we work best with solar energy.

Anyway, I completed my last three laps during the rest of the morning by keeping my laps within 1:25. Not to bad for more than 20 hours of riding. My last lap was pretty interesting because I knew there was someone ahead of me with the same number of laps, however I didn't know he had left only 17 minutes ahead of my. I tried to keep a pretty high pace and pretty much used up all the energy left to power through the wind that affected us all day. On the last climb of the lap I started to feel light-headed and nauseas. I could barely turn the cranks but I knew I was less than 1/4 of a mile from the top.

Once I reach the top, I took the downhill to the finish while Norma, Michael and Scott were waiting for me at different points to take pictures.

I never caugh up to the other guy but the results show he finished less than a minute ahead of me. Oh well, I could have moved to 15th, but 16th is just as well.

The support couldn't have been better. Norma was up all night getting me gels, food and Accelarade. She also recharged the batteries for my lights and lubed my bike. Kept track of my fluid and calorie intake and even had time to entertain her mother and nephews. Early on Sunday morning she had to surrender and sleep for a few hours but had left everything ready for me to refuel. I couldn't have done it without her.

The post race was a little off-plan. We spend a while looking for one of her nephews in the crowd of over 10000 people, just to find out he wasn't missing then it took us a while to get the campsite torn-down.

After a quick stop at Arby's for some greasy food to calm my hunger, we drove home and were in bed by 11 pm.

Definetely a fun race and a great come back from injury. I wish the course wasn't that windy, at times I was barely pushing 8 MPH on the flats while facing the wind.

Not sure if I am doing it again next year. I kind of want to get a 4 person team instead but we'll see. In a few days I'll probably be planning on riding solo, so who knows.

Check out the complete results at EpicRides.com. Look for me in the Male Solo category.

That's all for now, thanks for reading.

Pura Vida!

Jeff

I got back on the bike today...

...a stationary bike that is, but it felt good to ride for a little while.

Wednesday and Thursday were pretty busy days, with doctor's appointments, scheduling new appointments and talking to people over the phone. Yes I can finally talk over the phone. At first it was hard because my mouth muscles were not responding the way they usually do, but slowly I am getting to the normal pattern.

I also went to see my co-workers and drop off some papers at HR. It was good to get out of the house and drive to places by myself, although I got long stares from people anywhere I went. The worst was probably while waiting in line at the bank, I don't know if people were looking at my scars or they were wondering if I was going to rob the bank, since I was wearing a beanie cap to protect my bald head from the cold rain (yes it did rain again in Phoenix and it got cooler than normal).

As far as what the doctor said at the appointment, well he didn't give us chance to ask much. Plastic Surgeons must be really busy because he rushed us out of the office after spending 5 minutes taking pictures of my face and half minute removing my stiches. Anyway, we have an follow up appointment for next month. The stiches on the nose and tongue stayed and should disolve themselves in the next few days.

Dr. Huang at Chandler Dental was able to move my dentist appointment to Friday morning, early morning (7 am). He is going to try to do the root canal work this week and do the rest sometime next week. I have mixed feelings about this. I am happy because it's going to get rid of the pain but it's going to hurt a lot since most of my mouth is barely recuperating. I'll let you know how it goes.

Tonight I walked across the street to the gym room at the apartment complex and worked out on the recumbent stationary bike. It took me a little while to warm up but once I got going all the muscles and tendons starting to fire in the proper order. The heart and the lungs felt fine and my knee didn't bother me at all. I rode for a little over an hour at recovery pace (aprox. 138 BPM). Obviusly gym bikes are not the best because the pedals are further apart that they are on a regular bike. Also the saddles are always way too wide for me, so more than an hour it's a little uncomfortable.

On a high note, I've been able to eat more lately, so I am hoping to recover my all time low weight record of 132 pounds soon. I've even spent some time in the kitchen making some of my favorites. On Wednesday I made some Costa Rican Rice Pudding (I don't know what makes it Costa Rican but it sounds cool). I put some coconut and condensed milk on it as well as some cinnamon and cloves to give it some flavor. I had like three helpings that afternoon, then later I night before bed, I tried it with a few swirls of caramel topping...it was delicious. Let me know if anyone is interested on the "family secret recipe." Unfortunately the sugar rush kept me up until past 2:30 am.

That's all for now, I hope everyone is doing fine and enjoy the weekend.
It's late on Friday eve (according to Leah T), so I am going to bed.

Pura Vida!

Jeff