New Headquarters of Team Pura Vida

As you may have heard, Team Pura Vida will be moving to a new location. Here are a few pictures of the new place in Maricopa, Arizona.

I even rode my bike to work once, eventhough we haven't moved in yet.

Here we are, opening the door of our home for the first time. We have to save on everything to make this come true...color pictures had to go!
We also completed the common rituals. I hit Norma's knees on the doorway in the process.

The house is a three bedroom (one of them a den) two bathroom house, it even came with a kitchen...

Here we are in the middle of our living-room, sitting on our only piece of furniture there so far... a lawn chair. The front door is directly behind us and to the right is the door to the den.

The hallway takes you to the second bedroom and bathroom at the end, then the first right is the hallway to the master bedroom. The other door on the right goes to the two-car garage.

The backyard has enough room to build a BMX track, but that would require the addition of another bike to the estable.

As shown in the picture, Norma and I would welcome you with arms wide-open anytime your travel plans take you to the Phoenix area.

So now you know. Our plan is to move-in in the next few weeks, once my racing calendar allows for time to do so.

Take care!

Pura Vida!

Norma and Jeff

My Debut on the National Moutain Bike Series (NMBS)

It's been almost five years since I participated on my first mountain bike race at Afton Alps in Minnesota. Back then I raced three times as a Beginner, then moved up to the Sport category and a year later up to the Competitive level. The last couple of years I've been racing at the Expert level. However after more than 100 races, I had never had the opportunity to race at a National event until this past weekend when the National Mountain Bike Series had its season opener at the McDowell Mountain Park here just outside of Phoenix.

This year's training plan was set up in a way that allowed me to come into this event in top form and eventhough it was the first event of the year, there were many riders from all over the country, even those that are still enduring winter. To my surprise, everyone was in top form too.
This was a weekend-long of races. With a stage race format, we had three individual races, one each day, but all of them would be counted towars an overall competition too and everything started on Friday afternoon with an Individual Time Trial.

Individual Time Trial
Friday I got up early and drove up to McDowell, so I could start my volunteer shift right at 7:00 AM. My race wasn't until 2 PM, but by working a few hours as a volunteer at the registration table, I would be able to race for free. That saved me over $120.00 in registration, parking and food. Sweet deal!!!
By noon my shift was over and even though my legs were a little tired of standing up for the past few hours, I still had plenty of time to get them ready for the TT.
I got myself ready and started my warm-up in preparation for 7 painful miles. It doesn't sound as much, but when you are going all out for that long it feels like an eternity.
Anyway, the TT has the riders starting in 30-seconds intervals and covers a 7-mile course with ups and downs, a couple of technical sections and a long climb then ends back in the gravel parking lot where it started.
About 15 minutes before my scheduled start time I concluded my warm-up on the road and moved closer to the staging area. I kept riding just up and down the start/finish shute for what I thought were like 5 minutes, however when I got closer to the start line to see how much more I had to wait, one of the officials spotted my number and yelled "677 move you, you are up next." The other riders allow me to get through and by the time I put my front tire on the start line he said " you are going in 15 seconds." I grabbed a sip of water and seconds later I was cranking hard on the pedals to reach cruising speed. Half way throught the TT I noticed something odd and it dawn on me that I had forgotten to put my gloves on, so my sweaty palms were having a hard time grabbing the grips, but no time to put them on during the race. I caught my 30-second man at the beginning of the long climb and passed him, then I caught my 1-minute man before the top. By then I only had less than a mile left and I wanted to go faster but my legs and a horrible stomach cramp didn't allow it. I crossed the line at 23:21 which put me on 4th place in my category. To my surprise I was only 35 seconds down from 1st place, so the difference was still manageable.
That night I came home with a "semi-bronze" medal (since I finished 4th) because they awarded the top 5.

Super D
On Saturday I woke up all pumped up from the previous day's result. I cleaned the bike and got it ready for racing, had breakfast and headed over to the race site. The next race was a Super D. It's very similar to the Time Trial except that the interval between one rider and the other is only 20 seconds. In addition the majority of the course is supposed to be downhill.
I pre-rode the course the day before but much slower that race pace.
I got to the start line in time and with my gloves on this time. "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go" was the last thing I heard before I acceleraded down the hill at 25-30 MPH picking the best line through the turns and keeping the cadence high. A couple of miles down the trail I had my 20-second man on-sight. I had passed him before the half way point then came the hills. The course was all downhill at the beginning with lots of short, steep hills at the end. I struggled to finish the last climb and barely had energy left to cross the line at 18:36...more than a minute and a half down from the fastest rider, therefore in 23rd place...yikes!!!
I came home that night a little desappointed but I had high hopes for the last race.

Cross-Country
The cross-country was the main and last event of the weekend. It consisted of 3 laps to a loop of 10 miles, so there was plenty of time to make up the difference. Luckily after the horrible finish on the Super D, I was still on 4th place on the overall after two events.
At 8:06 AM we went out and once the start jitters went away and we all set onto a nice even pace, I was in the Top-10 group. I knew it was going to be a long race, so I focused on a good rythm without wasting energy. Slowly, racers from out of town, unfamiliar to desert racing started to make silly mistakes and I started to slowly move up through the field. By the end of the first lap I was in 6th. On the second lap, two other riders crashed right in front of me at two different times and I was already on 4th. Half-way through the 3rd and last lap I caugh up to the 3rd place rider then passed him and went on to chase 2nd place. I caught him too but he stuck to my wheel. I knew I only had one bullet left and I was planning to save it until an eventual sprint, so I rode at hight tempo making sure that he didn't have a chance to attack. We were also starting to catch up to traffic from other categories so everytime I passed someone, he did too. However about a mile before the finish I passed a female expert rider right before a sharp turn and by the time he tried to pass, she had blocked the trail, so he hit a bush and lost his momentum. I didn't even had to look back, I heard the noice and attacked with all I had. At the top of the next up hill I looked back and he was chasing hard but I had a 30 yard gap, the gap grew by the next short up hill to about 60 yards, then I didn't look back anymore as I was getting to the finish stretch, so I pushed it hard until I crossed the line and put 25 seconds on him.
Another medal, this time silver but on the overall I was only able to move up to third. As it turned out, the guy I had just beaten by 25 seconds, was 37 seconds ahead of me at the start of the race, so I got 12 seconds short of 2nd overal


In the end, a very successful weekend and very hard too.

I took Monday off. I didn't ride the bike. Instead I hung the medals on the kitchen's key holder, we had a couple of beers and I even had some birthday cake from a co-worker's party, along with an ice cream cone.

Tuesday, Norma and I went out for a ride of about 1 hour to stretch the legs and get them ready for the training towards the next big race.

Until next time....

Pura Vida!

Third Race of the Arizona State Championship

It's been a while since the last update, however I took some time today to recap what has happened over the last few days.

First, I spent all last week up in Minnesota. It was quite a change going from Arizona to Minneapolis. On Saturday, Norma and I went for a ride at McDowell and it was 97 degreees. The next day I landed in Minneapolis and it was 27....that's a 70 degree change in less than 24 hours for me.
Besides the cold weather, I also didn't bring the bike along, so I had to rely on the hotel's fitness center to keep form, but I only went twice.

I did get a chance to visit my family and some friends. I spent Sunday with my family at my uncle's place in Forest Lake.
It was good to see everyone, including my Godson, Andreas, who's grown a lot since I last saw him last fall.
Here he is, not too happy about getting ready to go to bed.

The rest of the week was busy. I met up with Roberto on Monday and gave him some information to get him started on his training plan for 2007. We even did a couple fitness test on him at the gym. Now it's just a matter of him getting on the bike.

The diet of that week wasn't the best. It's hard when all your meals are from restaurants. Besides, I think I drank way too much coffee during the week, so half way through my race on Saturday, after I had return to Phoenix I noticed how dehydrated I was. Not only that but my legs were heavy and slow and the scale had told me that I had brought back a couple extra pounds. All not good ingredients for a hilly race in the AZ Championship.

I am not looking for excuses, but the long flights, including a 3 hour wait in Dallas could have caused the heavy legs. Not to mention, that on the way to the race that morning, some of the roads were flooded...yes it rains from time to time down here and when it does , there are not many places for the water to go. Anyway, we had to find a detour and ended up getting to the race venue just 5 minutes before registration closed. Norma went to park and got the things ready while I registered, then I did a SuperMan clothes change and got less than 10 minutes for a quick warm up. An out and back on the entrance road was all I could manage before getting to the start line.

The start, as usual was really fast, but I did my best to stay with the lead group.

After the pace settled a bit, there were 6 of us in the lead group. I held the last wheel trying to conserve energy, however my lack of warm-up and the events of the week forced me to let the leaders go. I rode my pace for the first two laps and by the 3rd lap I regained a couple of spots. However on the 4th and last lap, my legs started to give up to the dehydration and started to cramp up. I took the pace down and two guys went by me. To my luck, they both had a couple mechanical issues before the finish, so I crossed the line in 4th. Not bad for a tough day on the bike.

Now it's time to put the Arizona State serious on pause and switch to bigger and more important things, such as NORBA Nationals. I hope my system is ready for this one, since it's going to be one of the most important races of the year as well as my first time racing at the National level.

The race itself consist of three races in one. Things start off with an Individual Time Trial on Friday. Saturday we have Super D race, which is similar to the TT but mostly Downhill, then Sunday it's the main event with the Cross Country race at McDowell Park in Fountain Hills.

I'll also get a chance to see some of the top pros including some of the fellow racers from Minnesota like Jeff Hall, so it should be an interesting weekend.

In preparation for the race I did one hard training ride on Tuesday under extremely windy conditions then Wednesday and today should be recovery rides.

Lastly, the secret weapon for this race passed last week's test with great performance during the White Tanks race. I am talking about the new Larsen TT tires from Maxxis. I installed them the night before going to Minneapolis and raced on them las week. However the real test will be this weekend, as the reason I picked them was because they should provide better cornering control on trails like McDowell.

Well see!

Here is how the Trek Fuel looks like with the new "shoes":

That's all for now, have a great weekend and until next time.

Pura Vida!

Jeff