Loveland Lake 2 Lake 2006

Saturday June 24 was Lake to Lake. Another TnT race. By Charley’s count RMTC and TnT members were right around 50. Out of 532 finishers we made up 9%. One out of every 11 racers out there. We only managed to get two of us into the top 3. Joe McNabb got 2nd and Jordan Jones, running in stolen shoes, got first overall. ! only missed winning by 43:16. Watch out guys. !’m coming after you. Our own dear, sweet Luke only managed 42nd overall. Less that 10 minutes faster than ! did last year. He should have been on the podium too. ! gave him a big hug before the race. No more credit for him. It’s clear that college is just a huge waste of time. Luke fast. Luke get edumacated. Luke get slow. Learn from this tragedy. Stay away from school kids. Luke was wearing the D3 outfit. ! mentioned that to Denny who called him a “commie”. Denny’s not so politically astute, but his rage was justified.

! didn’t realize there was a 3:30 am on Saturdays. The clock radio came on. The alarms started bleating and the coffee maker was gurgling. For some reason ! crawled out of bed and had breakfast. ! was on the road only 10 minutes later than planned and driving fast. In the dark. No one was out except a couple vampires staggering out of Bonfils. Oh wait, cars with race bikes on them. ! set up transition and got checked in. No time for a warm-up after chatting. As the 2nd wave was starting it dawned on me to get in the water to acclimate at least. Lucky for me it was much warmer than Boulder Res.

Off we went. ! made the turn at the 1st yellow buoy and thought to myself “!’m really not taking this race seriously”. That attitude needed to be fixed. ! started focusing on really stretching out my stroke. ! think it helped some. ! hit the beach about 5 seconds behind Becky and she’s really fast. Don’t read the next sentence. She started in the wave 5 minutes behind me. ! passed a half dozen guys running through the water before the beach. Still ! was 2 minutes faster than last year. Lake 2 Lake is about the distance we run from the beach to T1.

In T1 Deb was waiting for Jamie. They were doing a Masters relay. Since there were only 2 of them they got to add the oldest age twice to the other age to try to hit 120. Deb is 29. Double that and add another 29 for Jamie and you have 121. Deb has been a mom for so long that she has forgotten all but 2 expletives. She hurled both of them at me. Her twins are learning to drive so she really needs to learn some more.

On the bike it was time to catch those fast fish. It seemed slow at first since it was slightly uphill. Must keep pushing. Going 1 mph faster will save more time going up than it will coming down. About 10 miles out two really fast girls (my favorite kind) came by and started hitting on me. ! guess the carbon fiber wheels make me sexy. Soon we passed Yon the Aussie trying to avoid his parole officer. Had to get away. The first descent was right there. ! hit 43 mph. Then another long climb. Some guy was on my wheel now. We had been going back and forth for a while until ! spotted Tessa. She used to be Special Forces. Normally you need to weigh somewhere over 75 lbs to get accepted, but she is such a lethal killing machine they begged her to join up. ! never saw that guy again. The swim took her 34 minutes. She had to stop to plant explosives on the buoys.

More descending and then the really strange climb. It really looked like we were going uphill. ! was doing 24 mph the whole climb. Odd. Then one more screaming downhill. Last year the bike course was scary. This year not so much. Now we were onto the flat to rolling section with 12 miles to go. It was windy. Marshals were out breaking up packs. At that point ! was passing everyone so they didn’t bother me. There was a gaggle about 10 seconds back. ! heard there were some penalties handed out.

About mile 20 was the second aid station. This is one of the two complaints ! have about the race. Bottle hand-ups were at the bottom of a long fast hill. ! needed a bottle so ! slowed from over 30 to about 15 mph. Some people didn’t. At high speeds it’s hard to grab a bottle and, in fact, ! did miss the first attempt. One lane, dozens of bikes going really fast and other dozens braking hard then starting the climb without momentum while trying to secure a bottle. Add to that full bottles lying in the road and you have a bad crash waiting to happen. Even Lance has crashed in a feed zone and he’s got a team to protect him. Feed zones need to be well planned. Barely 1/10 of a mile up the road was the top of the climb and flat road ahead with a nice wide shoulder. The fast guys were hitting the top of the hill at a much better speed to refuel. The other complaint is about the high school. No doors on the stalls really made the outhouses look good. Do high school kids really need the govt. to humiliate them more. They already have acne, silly facial hair and parents who hug and kiss them in front of their friends. What could they possibly be getting away with behind a door?

The bike was lengthened this year. Advertised as 30 miles, my GPS shows 31.3 up from 29 last year when it was supposed to be 25. No problem. ! probably made up a couple places overall by extending my best leg.

T2 went well. Denny didn’t endo again. The longest run !’ve done since busting my foot 7 weeks ago was 5k. Half this run. The first part was on grass and slightly downhill to the road. The gal right in front of me was really impressed with my belch. Once on the road it was totally flat. ! saw some of the leaders coming back in. It was an out and back course with a slight divergence at the end. About 1.5 miles Mary Carey was sitting on the sidewalk motivating TnT and RMTC. It was after her that ! saw Luke limping along at a 6:27 pace. 29 guys ran faster. He showed flashes of brilliance last season. Just imagine what he could have done if only he’d dropped out of high school. 2.5 miles Katrin came by me and we saw Jeff on his way back in. He told me Denny was just 100 yds ahead. Time to hunt. There he was just coming out of the turn-around zone. ! calculated the pace he had to do to beat me and told him. ! couldn’t run that fast. He had to get back most of his 5 minute head start. Lots of hand slapping with the TnTs and RMTCs over the next couple miles. There was Mary again still sitting on the sidewalk. ! walked the last aid station so ! could drink the gatorade and pour some water over my head. Just past the T2 exit we headed to the lake shore for the last section. Last year the run was another mile around the pond to the finish. This year it was in the same spot but we went straight in. It was less demoralizing. The finish was hidden until about 30 yards out. Someone told me when ! was 100 yards out so ! could start my sprint. ! went a bit too hard since ! couldn’t see it to judge my effort. By the time ! was in the chute ! was trashed and couldn’t think well enough to figure out where the line was. Keep pushing until someone asks for your chip. Poor Denny was still breathing hard when ! got there. Weeze and drink. Weeze and drink. Find one of the Popsicle girls and sit down. A few minutes to recover then off to sprint line to cheer people in. They gave us lots of food. The girls were frightened by my plate. Girls eat so little. Ya gotta train for it.

It was a beautiful day. Not too warm. ! beat 337 people and 194 beat me. Overall time was 3:00:30. Makes me wish ! had skipped that last drink. ! got a big blister on my foot and to think ! considered doing the run without socks. Len, Sybil, Michael, John, Katie and Jonathan Nixon were all so afraid to race me that they did IronMan Coeur d’Alene this weekend. 11:03-15:20 for their finish times. That rocks. Lets see which one is fastest with a race report. !’m hoping to get that last head injury to qualify me for an IM.

5430 Sprint

This is a big race. 1,200 and it sold out. http://www.5430sports.com/5430sprint.htm Boulder Res. sees a lot of events. All 3 races in this series. A couple ‘cross races each season. Boulder Backroads Marathon. My traditional 1st open-water swim each year on January 1. Kinetics etc., etc. This one was mostly flat and that means fast. Not fast getting into transition to set up though. That was just like airport security. Long lines to get questioned about who you are and then partial disrobing on the orders of folks who don’t have a college education. Perky high school kids who are volunteering is the big difference here. They did a good job and had probably been there 2 hours by the time ! dragged my sleepy ass into the lot. Remember to thank them when you see them. ! thought ! was pretty early. ! wasn’t. ! had to hunt for a rack. The only one ! could find had the line to the outhouses right through it. Kinda like the emergency exit on airplanes. When there isn’t an emergency going on you get lots of room. During the emergency it can be pretty hectic, but @ least you can cut in line. Charley set up the RMTC tent over a picnic table for us. Wandering thru the expo area some cute chick in the green volunteer shirts grabbed my butt and ran away giggling. She looked like a lawyer. You know you can’t tackle lawyers. This was a TnT race so there were a bunch of them. Pre-race ! wandered in to get used to the water. Brrrrr. ! thought ! had spent enough time @ Hormone-suppression depth until ! saw an Athena in a pink bikini. No wetsuit for her. It’s back-ordered. Wave 6 was all guys in red caps. ! used to dig red-heads. This may have turned me away. We were off. ! wore the Garmin so ! could see if the buoys were set up straight. Still having some problems getting it to work in the water. 17:11 for the swim and long run to T1. There was the volunteer chick again. She didn’t like me rinsing my feet off. Clearly she likes her boys dirty. Pretty quick in T1. The bike had one tough hill right outside the Res. going in and out. The climbs were gradual and barely noticeable. A few fast descents got my average speed up to 22.1 mph. Like ! said, it was fast. @ mile 10 ! saw Denny having a discussion w/ his tire on the side of the road. He had a couple of those chats. The TnT kids were all evenly spaced on the bike. Every 5 minutes ! would go by the purple. Of them ! heard of 2 crashes and one DNF. The crashers both got up and finished. The DNF surprised me. !’ve ridden w/ him. He’s freakin’ fast and he can run too. The swim was the problem. He finished too after being pulled out of the water and having his chip removed. ! didn’t talk to him after, but ! suspect he hadn’t spent enough time in the water beforehand to acclimate. Going out too fast in shockingly cold water will leave you gasping for air. !’ve been there more than once. Even ! could have been one of those crashers. On a fast section in the back, just after passing the yellow Kestrel chick again a bunny hopped across my path. Bunny-hopping bunnies isn’t an option on the aero bars. ! did get some air on the speed bump before T2. Wouldn’t be that scary except that my front wheel was loose. ! had no idea until ! got ready to load her into the Monster truck hours later. T2 also went well. The busted foot was taped up tight and pretty much healed. !’ll have to find another excuse next year. First mile of the run went fast…for me. The second mile was slower. That was because we had to slalom the cones @ the turn-around. ! saw lots of TnTs and RMTCs on the out and back course. Talking to all of them made me feel popular. Or @ least what ! imagine popularity would be like. Mary Carey was hangin’ @ the end of the dam road. “All downhill to the beer” Jeff told me there was a hott chick up ahead. Jeff, she waited for me @ the finish. Just about everyone who outran me was there to cheer me home. None were as annoying as the guy yelling before the last corner. !’m surprised he didn’t get beaten up. The beer flowed. He started getting hoarse, but he kept yelling. Food crossed his mind and he followed that thought. Bagels and chocolate chip pancakes. There was a nice downhill before the last bit then around the corner w/ 50 yards to go. Over the line gasping. It was a hot day. Right in front of me was a trough of icy water. Only one sensible thing to do. ! was sitting on the edge starting to lean back when the volunteer girl ! spoke of earlier chastised me. None of that would be allowed on her watch. She obviously has hygiene issues and ! would have been way too clean after a bath. She did allow me to fish a bottle of water out and ironically, ! nearly fell in accidentally. Our Jocelyn got 2nd in her age group. Jordan got 2nd in his age group and Tanner was 2nd Clydesdale. The other guy only beat him because he was pulling the bud “lite” beer wagon. !’m still trying to convince Shelby to sue those bud guys. They use rice in their “beer”. The guy on the high-wheeler got to race. ! got 1:33:34. Slower than what ! was telling everyone by 2 minutes. That was good for 317th overall out of 1,067 and 42nd of 85 in the red-head group. Post race hanging out ! learned that Sarah actually became a princess @ 11. All princesses have a pony and that is when the parents made the pet upgrade. She had been petitioning for a few years by then. Meghan expounded on a comment. All you girls should go to Bike Works for repairs. Meghan says ALL the guys there are super HOTT. On and on she went. Seems they only wear thongs and use a projector to display test-ride releases on their chests. She always signs them legibly. !’m not sure why she told me that unless she thinks there’s a bad reason ! don’t have a girlfriend. As you know, other than on Colfax, being a girlfriend is a voluntary position. Once girls get over, like 8 they are no longer that gullible. Here’s who was there that ! saw. Me, Doug, Roberta who crashed in a bike race yesterday, Michael who’s “tapering” for Coeur d’Alene (8th), Yon, Becky, Kim, Jamie, Holly, Jeff, Sarah (5th), Amy, Nina, Tanner (2nd Clydesdale), Jocelyn (10th girl, 2nd age group), Jordan (5th overall, 2nd age group, fastest 5k of the day), Meghan, Denny, Matt, Mary S. (10th), Rick, Wilmer, Jen, Tom, Julie, Starla, Jayci, Sarah, Leah, Shauna, Janey AND TNTrs Patty, Meaghan, Deb who is also RMTC and has twins learning how to drive so stay off the roads in Golden, Leon, Nicole, Bonnie (crash), Justin, Kelly, Brandon (fastest TnT run), Patrick (Beat his wife Sharron in the swim and bike, but she came back strong in T2 and the run), Sharron, Peter, Scott (2 pre-race flats), Rachael, Elizabeth (fastest TnT swim), Missy (mother of fastest TnT swimmer), Shannon, Stefanie, Beverly, Sheri (fastest TnT overall 1:36 and fastest TnT bike 20.7 mph) She’s going to be trouble, Tanya, Jennifer, David, Jamie, Heidi. That’s 25 TnTs each collecting @ least $X,000 for Leukemia and Lymphoma research. That’s a whole lot of money (25$X,000 to be exact) to kick cancer’s butt. Some of the treatments this research will come up w/ may be useful for treating other types of cancers too, so it really is a great benefit to a huge number of people. Maybe even someone you know. Great job guys and Thanks. Good thing Charley was taking names instead of kickin’ ass out there.

Big Sky Duathlon 2006

www.racingunderground.com This was my 1st race since ! jacked up my foot on 5.6.6. The foot has been taped up and !’ve been eating calcium tablets all that time. Calcium helps with cramping like sodium and potassium. ! had been cramping some on training runs and perhaps it was partially due to insufficient calcium. So, after 33 days (4 on crutches) ! took a test run Friday night. ! went 1 mile wearing the trail runners and a lot of tape on the foot. ! was thinking that most of the discomfort ! was having was from the tape restricting movement, but ! really didn’t know if that was correct or just wishful thinking. A month should be enough to fix a minor chip or it could be “just about there” and running on it could snap it. One mile took me 8:31. It felt odd at first then got to be less odd. ! hit 1 mile and walked the last 2 blocks home. The calves were cramping. ! got on the couch and put my foot up. It seems to be ok. Just lack of training. ! loaded the monster truck and set the alarm so ! could be out in Bennett about 7am. My DNF (Did Not Finish) was packed and ready to go. Any disturbing pain etc. and Tommy and Emma get another race T. It’s a long drive out there and ! wasn’t quite in the race mood. If ! snapped it, another month of rehab would cost me 5430 Sprint, Loveland Lake-to-Lake and USAT Nationals not to mention any chance at a halfway decent finish in two ½ Ims this year. It’s a big risk. Most of the people ! knew were racing the Elite class. One led the men into T1 and 2 of the women led into T1 @ Barkin’ Dog. Elites went off first then 30 seconds ‘til the 2nd wave. ! was in the 3rd wave that started 9:30 later and then wave D, 12 minutes behind me. ! was unsure if ! could even run 2.5 miles w/out cramping up. ! started and felt ok. No warm-up. Not far into the run we hit the dirt path section. It’s about 2 blocks long and non-technical. Still it was worrisome since turning an ankle could be worse than normal. ! stayed on the smoothest part both laps. It was tough. Steve Lynn managed to get past me about 1k in. He didn’t open a gap very fast until my pace started slowing. High 9 minute pace. ! crossed the line into T1 and walked/limped to my bike. ! could see Steve already out on the main road and nearly up to full speed. Other than the walking, transition went fairly well. Once across the bike mount line ! struggled to clip in. ! just couldn’t find my pedals. In the midst of that a girl called me by name to encourage me. ! glanced up just enough to see some pink T-Mobile kit, but was too focused on getting clipped in to recognize her. ! had no idea who would be out there not racing who would know me. ! got in and started the ride. It felt like a tail wind and ! was only managing about 20 mph. !’ve detrained a lot in the last month. 20 mph is fairly fast. ! managed 70th overall on the ride leg out of over 200. ! wasn’t far out when ! saw the lead motorcycle coming back. ! had hoped to be a little closer than that. The fastest ride averaged almost 30 mph. That’s part of the reason !’m not in the Elite group. ! started seeing the people ! knew. They are mostly runners and IronMen so the bike wouldn’t be their best leg. The miles just weren’t passing quickly enough. ! couldn’t seem to get power. Part of that was due to my attitude coming into the race. ! got to the turnaround and headed back. The tailwind had actually been a bit of a headwind so ! really managed to pick up the pace. Still, ! only managed to catch the slowpokes on hybrids and mountain bikes and not even all of them. Back into T2 and the legs were on the verge of cramping again. The foot was feeling not so good. Still ! put my shoes on and hit the course. 2 more laps. My pace was slower than before, but ! wanted to run the whole course. Coming onto the dirt section Al passed by. He started in my wave and was on his 2nd lap over a mile ahead of me. And he’s old. Sunny Gilbert was hanging out by the water table already done. She’s a coach for a team of beginners and was cheering for them. Second lap ! saw her doing a cool down run and then Jocelyn and her boyfriend. There was one guy 30 feet ahead of me as we turned off to the last 3 blocks to the finish. One block, ! wasn’t gaining. Two blocks, his gap was the same. One to go and it was on dirt with a sharp turn before the last straight. ! lengthened my strides and picked up the pace. He wasn’t going to beat me w/out a fight. He must hear my breathing. !’m gaining rapidly now. 150 yards to go, 5 yards to the loose corner. !’m past him. Will he answer? Will ! be able to hang on? Will ! make the turn w/out falling? No answer. It’s too close to the finish to slow down. If he attacked there would be no time to respond so ! kept up the charge. He never changed his pace. Must have thought ! was on of the fast guys from the wave behind him and he had no chance. Why do people just give up like that? He still had a shot. When ! accelerated the foot pain went away. One would expect it to have gotten worse w/ the increased pounding, but it didn’t. ! finished in the usual way. Gasping for breath. ! need to learn to push that intensity for the whole race instead of just the end. After a couple minutes ! could breathe again and Darin was posting results so far. 95th overall. That kind of sucked. ! have been getting used to top 20-30% and this wasn’t anywhere near that out of 200 racers. Wait, it gets worse. Remember wave D started 12 minutes after me. By the time ! saw the final results it seems that entire wave finished in the next 10 minutes. ! slipped to 113th overall. 1:28:23 was my worst time ever in this race. Four minutes slower than my 1st attempt back in y2k. 11:33 slower than my best time in 2004 about a month prior to breaking my leg. My best time would have gotten me 46th overall and 7th in my age group this year. Y2k 1:24:23. ‘2 1:23:10. ‘3 1:19:17. ‘4 1:16:50. ‘5 1:19:24. Pretty disappointing w/ all the running ! had been doing all winter and spring. Not @ all what ! had hoped to manage this year. Maybe next year !’ll put it all together finally.

E-Rock century 2006

Here it comes. Everything you wanted to know about E-Rock. It was an E-Rockin’ good time. First off ! want to thank Frank for hooking me and Michael up with entries. Jenna and Mary S. insist that you start changing in nirvana when you swim @ Rude. Hope your knee gets better. Look @ the bright side. You and Charley are running and riding @ the same speed now. Apres ride ! was having my quads Compexed (http://www.compextech.com/compexusa/) and being flirted w/ by a 13 yr old (somewhat disturbing) and the chick who used to work for Enron (also disturbing). Even though she had only done the 10 miler, the magic of Enron accounting let her report a metric century. ! could see Mary S. (never saw Mary C.) prepping for a massage. ! made the mistake of looking @ her bare feet. DON’T! The toenails that were there weren’t painted. She says it’s marathons and skiing. ! think she’s been playing rugby w/ no shoes on. ! left about 6:20 and caught up w/ Michael, Jenna and Will @ the first rest area. ! rode w/ Michael for a while since this was his last training ride before Coeur d’Alene in 19 day and ! pace myself based on impulse. He’ll be spending that time on the couch w/ his feet up while his wife massages his legs. ! don’t know who’s going to massage John and Katie’s legs. They were both there. ! saw John and ! saw pink bikes, but none that pink. Jenna held back to make sure she survived. It is the wise cyclist who never forgets to respect the century. Even though my century experience is in the high 20’s including a double and have yet to DNF, ! never consider finishing a sure thing. Will, who ! had never met before, was mostly interested in seeing hot girls. He spent most of the ride in Jenna’s vicinity. Jenna announced that she had found some girls to ride w/. Will and ! perked up (! Think we’ll get along ok) until we found out one of them was married to Tanner and it was the one ! have already met. Christine. She has the French sounding last name that translates loosely to “I want to have lots of children” or something like that. ! haven’t talked to him about it since us guys don’t talk about that kind of stuff until it becomes a problem. ! can’t say if he’s taken protective actions such as changing his saddle or if he’s hoping riding a lot will be enough. By this time he had already blown by our gang and was probably getting ready to start his 2nd lap. He’d have never made that big climb w/out me coaching him up it though. The other girl had made an attack on that same climb and !, of course, counseled her to leave all those sissies she had just dropped to die. Sybil was out there too on her new rig. W/ all that Ti and carbon fiber she didn’t even have to pedal to haul ass. She did squeeze the brake levers long enough to let me talk to her. Then her charitable mood wore off and off she went. If Charley asks, she only did the 65 mile ride (wink wink). Will, Jenna and ! made sure to stop @ every food stop. Free food and ! have a bond that goes way back. @ around 45 miles on Meridian Rd. the max. speed descent appeared. ! hit 40.79 mph as ! churned past Jenna @ 174 RPM. ! sure am glad ! put the brake on the track bike. Jeff also got his top speed there and he only beat my by about 1 mph. coasting on his aero bars. No matter what anyone says, !’m going to claim that’s where he made up the time to beat me by less than 2 minutes total ride time. @ the end of that stretch we turned West into the friendliest wind of the day. It certainly made us stronger as we battled to the midway rest stop. That’s where we ran into John who couldn’t be missed melting away in his RMTC jacket and Mary S. who had forgone all the other rest stops and now needed to pee. ! needed to pee also as did the 7,000 other riders excluding Jenna and Will who took off. ! had one of the roving water boys fill my bottle in line so ! would really be ready to go when my turn came. Mary and ! left w/ tummies full of fig newtons. A scant 52 miles remained and almost all of it was rolling hills. Those long climbs really increase your value. The longer you ride the less each hour costs. Mary and ! would see Jenna and Will leaving each stop as we arrived. That was ok since there were other people to talk to. Like Val who no one had seen for months. She was taking an easy day instead of running the century. And the Courtesy Patrol who really helped me out. Use the silverware starting from the outside and working in. They gave me all that info even though ! only asked which was the salad fork. This was working out pretty well. Then @ the 78 mile aid station we found Jeff and Sarah. We compared top speeds. Will announced that Jenna was bonking. ! ordered her off to chug some strawberry/kiwi energy drink. Mary muttered something about beating Kiwis in the alley. Will and ! were too busy feigning concern for Jenna to care about Mary’s arrest record. During interrogation we concluded that the “bonk” was just a scam. Jenna had had a discussion w/ a squirrel. The squirrel had taken umbrage @ her cackling w/ glee whilst burning ants w/ the clear inserts on her fork. Jenna, being a doctor didn’t appreciate her “experiment” being questioned especially outside of a peer-reviewed journal and ripped him a new one as they say. Look for the paper to be published in JAMA soon. The Courtesy Patrol arrived and suggested she stop cursing and the State Patrol concurred while blushing. Jenna was concerned about being sued by the squirrel and having her future malpractice premiums jump so she blamed the bonk. After a couple bottles she was smiling again and ready to go. Will and ! had looked @ all the girls there and were also ready to go. One more rest area before Wolfensburger Hill ! chatted w/ the girl from the 2005 Coeur d’Alene group. Those 3 will be doing it again this year Our gang will take them apart. The frontage road was pretty flat and then one final climb to attack in town to the finish. ! changed clothes, fed and bought a beer. ! only got the beer because it was for charity. ! don’t think it had any alcohol in it. ! can say that for the rest of the day ! didn’t get arrested.
101.6 miles in 6:14:57 ride time. 16.26 mph avg. and a max speed of 40.79 mph. That’s on a track bike w/ a 78.8” gear (48x16). ! pedaled the whole way ‘cause !’m a stud. Average heart rate 132 and max HR 192. Total climbing was 7,488‘ and total descending was 8,735’. Oddly enough we ended up right where we started. Someone must be high. AND ! burned off 6,383 calories which reminds me that ! have pizza that needs to be eaten. G’day.