Visions of Racing

I've become so attached again to cycling and mountain biking that I actually dreamed about being in a world cup race last night (2nd best dream, ever).

The dream was obviously facilitated by my somewhat over indulgence of watching all the races  from last year's season on youtube and now this season just kicked off with the first race in Albstadt, Germany yesterday (5:48am my time...) and was live on Redbull TV (and I've watched the on demand version twice more since then, so roughly six hours of watching some of the most elite athletes in the world ride courses that would make most guys I know sell their bikes on Craigslist and go hide behind their mommies' skirts.  The skill level and physical ability is just plain amazing.  It makes even the very top levels of ultrarunning look like a turkey chase at a backwoods carnival.  Which brings up the topic of the evolution of ultra and trail running - a topic we'll discuss on Elevation Trail's FM Show this week.

My technical ability since I stopped racing mountain bikes in 2006 has gotten rusty (and that's being kind).  I think the crash in January at the Temecula race, and subsequent broken ribs and hand played a part in my tentative riding ability.  The obvious solution in my mind was to:  1. Ride more (a difficult prospect with the shitty spring we've had here in CO at least in terms of using technical trails)  2. Practice maneuvers in the way of drills (steep up and especially downhill tight switchbacks make my palms sweat and drop offs don't make me feel very calm either).  3. And, finally, race a lot.  I miss racing.  I currently race Cat (category, duh) 2 and would like to move up to Cat 1 by next summer (I've always raced in the next highest level that I may not be quite ready for.  Some people like to sandbag and linger in a category for a while to dominate every time they race.  No thanks, I say.  That's douchey and is akin to cherry picking a small ultra race or racing the undercard event with little to no competition (i.e. the 50k at an event featuring a 50 mile distance).  I don't mind, and actually enjoy, getting pummeled in races.  As a Cat 1 in MTB, I'll even occasionally get to line up with pros and get demolished!  Better than beating a bunch of pudgy 40 year olds who are just there racing to get away from the kids for the day.

Two good things on the MTB for me:  I love to climb and I love speed.  So, during the relearning process, as I pick my way through super technical things, I can make up for it on the ups and downs (one side goal is to hit >65mph on the bike this summer!  I haven't had a bike I trust beyond 50mph in a long time, so now's the time).  The tech riding takes a balance of natural coordination, courage, and skill.  I have the coordination (can stay in a track stand for an hour if needed) but the courage is dented and the skill rusty (like most cars I've owned).  It'll get there.

So, another race (or two or three) is on the schedule this weekend.  Saturday is the Half Growler 32 mile race and Sunday is the Full Growler 64 mile race, both in Gunnison, CO on technical courses.  I'm AMPED UP for these and both have been sold out for a while at 350 riders each.  If I live through them, then I get to enjoy the Sage Burner 50k trail run on the third day in a row (Monday).  I ran the Sage Burner in 2009 with a semi-mediocre run and finished 7th in 4:48 (I've got "4:30" as my goal time on my elaborate custom 2013 training program - yeah, we'll see how that works out...).  After the Growler races it'll be interesting to see how I do (or if I can even line up to start the 50k!).

BIG congratulations to my buddy and resident sociologist at Elevation Trail (and my pacer for the Leadville 100 coming up), Gary David who rocked the American Zofingen Duathlon (5 mile trail run / 84 mile road bike / 15 mile trail run) in 8:19 and 6th place overall!!!  In conditions of icy cold rain (anyone who's raced a bike on the road in cold rainy conditions can appreciate this; it's pure misery), he paced and fueled like a champ and it paid off.  He put in some solid training, including FOUR HOUR sessions on the indoor bike trainer when the weather in New England forbade human existence outdoors.  Super happy for him!

Decent couple of weeks training - 37,000+ ft climb (run/mtb combined) over two weeks and good work on the MTB, including a good ride at Centennial Cone Park on Saturday.  Thankfully, my GoPro froze up before I reached the more technical sections of rock step drops and climbs, so the following video is of the tame single track sections.

VFuel and New Racing Kit

It's like xmas up here in the mountain boonies.  Got out for a solid ~4 hr run with a ton of climb with my buddy Stephen on the heels of a solid ride with 5k climbing yesterday and a full weekend of training ahead of me.  Like the beautiful weather, my training has turned the corner to reroute itself towards goals.

Harvey says, "STFUP, yo."

Adding to the good day, was a photo I received of Harvey (from Vermont) showing his colors in the Elevation Trail hat.  Go on, get it, Harvey!  Lookin' good.

Anyone who received an ET hat and would like his/her photo on the Elevation Trail site, just email it to me.  Anyone who hasn't ordered an ET hat (shame on your bare head self), may get more info HERE.

I'll have another kick ass guest on Elevation Trail next week.  Don't miss the hot-ness.

While dizzily hobbling around after my run today, a light rap on my rickety screen door got me excited like Norman Bates.  That excitement was doubled when the awesome UPS dude handed me a box from VFuel with my new uniforms.  A few sweet Pearl Izumi cycling jerseys and a couple running tops, along with a badass Headsweat hat embroidered with the baby-sweet new VFuel logo.  I'll be putting these threads (threads?  what are you, a stand in for "Good Times"?) to good use this next weekend in Gunnison and at the Leadville scene(s).

A small example of the awesomeness.

Thank God I love the VFuel gels so much because I'd have a tough time parting with these guys.  First rate, top quality ingredients in both the gels and the guys at the company.  Thanks for your continued support VFuel.  I truly appreciate it.

Score! And New Podcast with Dylan Bowman

Drove by this pile of junk someone cleaned out of their house and sort of just dumped next to this big pine tree. I was just looking for something to use, other than the garbage bags I've used for over five years to put my clothes in. Digging around I see a rear road bike wheel, immediately assuming K-mart crap. I pulled all the junk, heating vent ducts, bed headboard, etc. that was piled over it off and it's a pretty nice road bike. Pulling it out I see that it's a 1981 SR (Ross - made in PA) with high end Shimano 600 arabesque full groupo, including hubs and Araya wheels - all original down to the leather toe clip straps on the quill pedals. Holy crap. by the wear on the cassette and chainrings (none) and the original brake pads, the thing has barely been ridden. Like I had found a $100 bill, I hurriedly carried over and jammed it in the back of my Audi (along with a neat foot locker looking cabinet I also found) and hustled the couple blocks home.

I'll pull it out of my car today, pump up the tires and assess the thing. At the moment it looks as though it just needs some new handlebars (they look narrow, like 40cm at most and a little bent). Otherwise, the thing is in amazing condition and my size ~55cm. I'll either strip all the sweet parts off it and get a nice(r) frame or just clean this one up as-is and sell or ride it. Frankly, I don't have anywhere to put it in my litle 250 square foot place; I've even had to keep Pudge outside with a tarp over him because I already have a 1989 cyclocross bike, my MTB, and extra set of MTB race wheels in my kitchen/office/recording studio/bike repair garage/weight lifting room.

Here's what it looks like, almost exactly, even same color.

So, now, my stable of two wheelers includes:
2013 Diamondback Sortie "Hope"
1989 Bianchi Tangent Cyclocross -yet to be named
1987 Peugeot Alpine Express (mtb) "Pudge"
1981 SR Semi Pro Road Bike -yet to be named

Recorded a fun show with Dylan Bowman and it's up and live at http://elevationtrail.wordpress.com/2013/05/15/footfeathers-show-with-guest-dylan-bowman/

Leadman Goals

So, I've been thinking a lot about Leadman and going over possible scenarios.  It's so difficult to project what you can do there.  The distances are long for three of the events (four in my case since I'm doing both the Silver Rush 50mi MTB and run the following day).  Last year's weather was perfect for each race (I've learned not to discount weather...).  Mechanicals with the bike are common.  It's rare to have no flats, no wipe outs, no chain sucked up in the derailleur, etc.

Aside from all that stuff, I just can't wrap my potential times around even coming close to the record.  I'm older and just not on the same level with Lucho or Troy in terms of ability.  I've been thinking about it for a few weeks and feel a bit of relief coming to terms with it.  What I can do is race every event as solidly as possible and mitigating potential problems - eating right, having the bike in perfect shape, carrying stuff to fix the most common bike problems (flats), being trained, sleeping well.  My gut feeling is that if I can go into the 100 run within an hour of the leader (maybe even 90-120 mins), I can run a solid 100.  I know I can run 19 hrs there.  Just have to execute it.  If whoever is in the Leadman lead before the 100 run can manage a good race, then more power to him.  Anything can happen in a 100.  I at least have the experience at that distance and feel confident in my performance there.

Of course, I have to make it through each event one at a time and not concern myself with events until I edge my La Sportiva toe (or Hope's tire) up to the start line for each of them.

Hills, Magic Sun, and New FM Show on ET.

New FM Show on Elevation Trail today...

Funny how the weather has a definite effect on me. A few days ago I had to reluctantly drag myself out the door to do any half hearted training and now that it's warm and sunny all I want to do is ride and run. The week recovery from last week's race in Fruita turned out ok. It started off slowly with the previously mentioned lack of desire to even go outside but then I realized I don't have much more time to get tuned up for Leadman (and the races in Gunnison in 2 weeks), so I gave myself a kick in the ass (turns out I'm my own best coach, since I can be fairly honest and objective with what I'm doing for training - though I still wouldn't mind checking out a good mountain bike coach...).  Saturday was a 3 hour run with good climb done in a fully fasted state (didn't eat for 20+ hrs beforehand) and without water.  Not fun after a couple hours but serves some good purpose.

Dory Hill Rd was the very first ride I did when I moved here and hadn't been on it in quite a while, due to snow mainly. So, after watching an embarrassing amount of World Cup MTB racing on Youtube, I popped the set of training wheels on the bike, donned my new Scott MTB shoes to try out and headed over to Dory Hill via the shitty town of Black Hawk. I drop down from my shack (8,625 ft) to Black Hawk at 8,000 then start the climb to 9,350 ft to the top of Dory Hill. Do some repeats there and you have some excellent training for the Columbine climb in the Leadville MTB 100 miler.

Oh, and received this last night as part of a long email from an athlete I created a training plan for to run his first 50 miler, the Quicksilver 50 - made my day!

"I would like to thank you sincerely for developing the training plan for me. It did get me to where I wanted to go and opened my eyes quite a bit about structured training. 

Looking back now, because I wasn't a serious runner, I definitely had a lofty goal by attempting a 50 mile run. I don't believe I could've done it without your training plan or at least as comfortably anyway."

-Phil B.  

Wrestling the Motivation Octopus

Fruita ROCKS.  Last Saturday. 70 miles into the race after riding all night.

130 miles into the race.  $35 to purchase one photo?  No thanks.

Between this shit weather (been on Craigslist daily looking for a new place to live - one more snowflake here and Fruita or Grand Junction will have one more pair of La Sportiva shod feet plodding around the trails), and self imposed highs and lows of fairly serious racing chunks (100 mi run, short and very long MTB) over the last three weeks, and looming Leadman agenda (that riddles my otherwise unwavering nerves), I've been bogged down a bit in wanting to get out to train.  Yeah, I realize I needed a couple days to recover from the Fruita race on Saturday (took two days off) and shouldn't be too bent out of shape with a softer week this week but I have this nagging (irrational) feeling that these little gaps in my otherwise five months of solid training will hinder not only my performance at the Leadville Marathon but my overall fitness needed by late June.  Once Leadman starts, there's not much I can change in terms of preparation; it'll be a balance of recovery and maintenance through August 17th.

Currently, the thought of going out for a three hour run makes me want to crawl back in bed with the shades drawn.  I can't pinpoint why, exactly.  I know it's bad to rely on outside factors for motivation but I feel that a 70 degree sunny day would be more palatable and energizing than the "chance of snow" this evening (it's May 10th, fyi).  Monday is supposed to be more normal with the exact aforementioned weather conditions.  Hopefully, it'll stick this time.

Thankfully (or insanely), I have a big race weekend coming up in two weeks (127 technical trail miles with over 17,000 ft climb at avg 8,200 ft elevation over three days).  So, at the very least, I know that will be some good training in itself.  Aside from that, I need to get in roughly five long runs and at least five workouts specific to the Leadville Marathon.  Focus, Tim.

As for the big daddy race of the Leadman Series, the 100 mile run, resident Elevation Trail sociologist, Gary David, will be flying out from Massachusetts to pace with me from Twin Lakes to the finish (not sure he knows it'll be that long -40 miles- but I guess he does now).  He's super fit and super fast and will likely be loving the research factor of watching me be miserable for 8 hours on the trail.

I still don't have a crew for the 100 MTB or 100 run if anyone is interested in it.  I can guarantee entertainment, thin air, and beers.

So, with that and this self indulgent post, I guess I'll head out the door to see what sort of run I can muster today - iPod day for sure.

Maybe it's time I employ a coach myself.

New Coaching Slots Open

I have a couple of coaching slots opened up.  Anyone interested in working with me to reach your  running goals may get more info on my coaching page or contact me directly tim [AT] footfeathers [DOT] com.