Treasure Valley Rally 2011

The Treasure Valley Rally is the finale in the EFTA race series and is organized by the bike team to which I belong, Team Bums.  This year the race was slated to take place on 8/28/11.  Irene, however, had other ideas.  She tore through New England, striking down on us with great vengeance and furious anger.  The race was postponed a day or two before it was supposed to happen.  On the bright side, we had the pleasure of learning what it was like to live without electricity for a week, so it was a fair trade.

After some frantic message board conversations, it was decided the race would be rescheduled to 10/16.  Almost unbelievably, this was the next available weekend that didn't step on the toes of an integral player or go head to head with a competing race.

Brett Russ, the race director, spends countless hours getting this thing ready.  He oversees trail maintenance, organizes with the scouts (Treasure Valley is a scout reservation), works to have shirts made (big nod to Scott Nelson, artist extraordinaire), lines up sponsors for prizes, etc, etc, etc.  I met Brett the day before the race this year to help set up for a few hours.

I helped stake out the starting area and then we headed up to a stream crossing where a bridge had washed out with the storms and built a new bridge, put it in and gapped the shortage with rocks. 



Luke Luck might like lakes but Brett builds bombproof bridges



Wheel-ready!



Once the bridge was built and in, we headed down to the field to stake and tape an area of crossing traffic.  From there I grabbed a leaf blower and blew the section of trail back down to the start, ate a delicious Italian grinder (thanks Brett!) and then leaf blew the section back up to the same field (in the rain - ugh!).  That was the end of my trail work day.  Back home to rest up for the race the following day.

I got to bed early following some carb-laden American chop suey (thanks Cori!) and was up early the next day and headed back up to Treasure Valley with Cori and Harry.  I helped stake out the staging area and finishing chute before getting myself race ready.  My race was slated to start shortly after 11 am.  I did a little pre-riding and then saw Harry's race go off at 10 am.  He moved up from the kids race to the youth race, which was two miles replete with double bridgeless stream crossings and a few tough climbs.  He did great!!!

Listen up!  I want to see a fair fight.  No nunchucks, no knives. Now kick some butt!

Nearing the finish!

After the youth race, we had our racers meeting.  Despite Brett seemingly having hit puberty while giving his big speech, we all got the point and were ready to roll!

Racers' Meeting

I had cracked the support between my chain stays on my Fisher (new rear triangle expected this week - a big thanks to Ben at Bicycle Concepts!).  I called Mike Tonry three days before the race and he answered the phone, "You need a bike?"  Before the day was out I had a beautifully equipped Niner Jet 9 in my possession (THANKS MIKE TONRY!!!!!). 

One Fish, Two Fish, Cracked Fish, Blue Fish

Nothing could be finer than to be on Tonry's Niner in the moooornin'

The Elites went off followed by the Experts, then my Sport group and finally the Novices, with all but the Elites in waves grouped by age.  My age group in Sport was the largest wave in the entire race.  There were 27 racers in it including me and it's pretty competitive.  As usual, I did a bad job queuing up and ended up in the second to last row with maybe two or three rows in front of me.  I did score an outside position, so I was lined up to do some passing on the right side of the pack.  

They only gave the 30 - 39 year old group in front of us a one minute lead before they sent us off, so when we started, I had a good stretch of passing going on for probably the first quarter of the first of two laps.  The course crossed the same two stream crossings that Harry went across.  I got across both pedaling all the way through.  Not everyone was so lucky.

Dirty mountain biker takes bath!

About to clean the second stream crossing

I break the course up into four sections in my head  

1. the climb up to the top of the Sampson's Pebble
2. the gnarly descent down to the lake
3. the torturous cart road climb back up to the Pebble
4. the what must be downhill but seems like more uphill back to the start

Sampson's Pebble

Things thinned out pretty well by the time I made the first climb up to the Pebble.  Mike Tonry was up there offering words of encouragement to everyone who rode by, although I suspect he was really there to check up on his Niner.  

Next was the downhill to the lake.  That was great.  If you race mountain bikes, you know that a lot of the stuff you don't clean is because the riders in front of you got hung up on it.  When you're on your own, you own everything, be it victory or defeat.  I was riding pretty well.  I got to the bottom and began the climb back up to the Pebble.  It's an unforgiving beast of a climb.  I made it up, said hi to Mike again and started down the Midstate.  

I soon figured out that the Novice groups who went out before us had skipped the down to the lake and climb back up to the Pebble and were now in front of me.  Man, oh man, passing on the Midstate is a task and a half.  I got down to the start to hit lap two.  I didn't really know what place I was in and couldn't hear the announcer through all the hubbub down there.  

Went back out and had a solid second lap.  Legs started cramping toward the end, but I was able to ride through it.  A quick brush with fame as I saw a blur fly by that was Mike Broderick, the 166th best mountain biker in the world.  I crashed into something on my way down on the last lap, but all in all it went really well.

I finished pretty strong.  Fifth of the 27 starters in my group and only seven minutes out of first.  Not bad for 19.5 grueling miles.  Total time 2:29:16.  

My hand was a little bashed up from whatever I crashed into.  The ambulance guys looked bored, so I let them clean it up and give me a band aid. 

Ouch.

 

Cori was at the finish line working with Beckie Beaupre to help with the time keeping.

For a good time...!

Hung around afterwards and watched the awards while having a pulled pork sandwich from the scouts' barbecue.   

Elite Men: Matt Boobar (3rd), Mike Broderick (1st), Paul Simoes (2nd) with race director Brett Russ

Karen Potter, 2nd Place Elite Female

Potter's pooch, Bruschi

 Really great showing from lots of my riding friends.  And a spectacular job by all the volunteers at the race.  And especially Brett.  Great race!

Columbus Day Weekend

What a winner of a weekend we had this past Columbus Day Weekend.  Anytime you can get three days of perfect sunny blue skies with temperatures in the 80's with beautiful fall foliage, you should get the heck outside and enjoy it!  Soak it up, because it won't last!

And soak it up, we did!  On Saturday, Rob played in a disc golf tournament with some friends.  Harry and I went to the local Little League fields to watch his friend play a game.  Afterwards, I set up the laptop on the back deck to watch the Ironman World Championships in Kona.  I was glued to it all day and still can't believe that Chrissy pulled off a win just two weeks after a major bike crash in Colorado.  She is amazing.

Sunday, Rob was out for two more rounds of tournament disc golf.  Harry and I spent the morning at a Creamery Brook Bison Farm.  It was great.  They had a small petting zoo with crazy emus, peacocks, bison, cows and donkeys.  You should've seen these emus chasing each other around the pen.  I thought that they were going to bust right out of the pen and come at us!  After checking out the petting zoo, we went up to the gates of the bison pastures.  The bison were far away, so the farmer started banging on the gate while yelling out and poured some feed down.  All of a sudden 50-60 bison just started charging toward us.  They were running super fast straight at us with only a thin electric fence between us.  It was sketchy.  But that farmer knows what he is doing and all was safe.  We finished our bison tour with a cup of bison chili.  Delicious!

After our walk with the bison, Harry and I headed home.  He hung out with his buddy outside while I went for a road ride with my friends.  I rode down to the dam to meet everyone and we did a familiar 15 mile loop.  At some point, we decided to add on a different road and went over a set of railroad tracks.  Bad news for one of our riders.  Flat tire that was beyond repair.  After three attempts at getting a new tube in, he decided to call it quits.  We then headed back to the dam and I rode on home.  I ended with 18.1 miles for the day.  We decided to close out the day with a bonfire.

But there's more.  Monday morning, Rob and Harry headed down to Candlewood Lake to help take out the dock.  While they were lakin', I went to work for a few hours.  We all got home around 2:30 and couldn't believe temperatures were still in the 80's.  And so we decided to do family mountain bike ride.  Rob brought us over to the back side of Douglas (BSOD, for those in the know) and we headed out.  First off, I have to say that riding MY mountain bike (with no fancy shocks or anything) is like riding a jack hammer.  My arms took a beating!  Secondly, mosquitos love this weather as much as we do.  They were out in full force, making it nearly impossible to stop and rest at any point.  So it was a fast 4.5 miles for us. 

All in all, it was a glorious fall weekend.  Hope you and yours were able to get out and enjoy it!  Next up:  Treasure Valley Rally.  Rob and Harry are both racing this weekend.  Happy pedaling!!

Race Review - The Pinnacle Challenge

October 2nd was the Pinnacle Challenge in Newport, NH.  I learned about this race at the 2010 Pinnacle mountain bike race at the same venue.  I had overheard a couple of guys talking after that race about another race that involved running and biking.  That pricked up my ears.  When they kept talking for another minute or so without mentioning swimming, I was very interested.  If god wanted us to swim competitively, he would have made silly little rubber caps and big thick neoprene suits for us to dress in while we did it.  Anyhow, I did the Pinnacle Challenge in October 2010 and had a great time, so went back for more this year.

The race is four events.  Last year's order was a 4.8 mile road run followed by a 13.75 mile road ride followed by a 5.5 mile mountain bike ride followed by a 3.65 mile trail run.  This year they mixed it up a little and swapped the bike rides.  The runs were done in the same order though.


I've been running and biking plenty throughout the past several months, but not together.  I forget how tricky it is switching modes.  I did a bunch of rides with runs on the tail end of them to prep for the race.  I think it paid off pretty well.

Leading up to the race we had a good weekend weather report as of midweek, but it deteriorated quickly as we drew closer.  We woke up in Sunapee Saturday morning to the steady thrum of rain on the motel windows.  The weather forecast for Sunday (race day) looked downright dismal.  But I was pre-regged and we were in NH already.  We made the best of the day (see Cori's blog) and went to bed still expecting heavy rain in the morning.

We woke up Sunday and were pleasantly surprised to see it wasn't raining yet.  I had packed up my stuff for each transition in plastic bags the night before so it would at least start off dry.  We packed up the car and headed over to the venue.  We were there about an hour before the race.  Plenty of time to get set up.  I picked up my number and super-sweet wicking shirt.

I changed up into my bibs and Fisher jersey.  I wasn't sure about what to wear, but thought I'd be happiest with a lightweight chamois for the biking portions.  Not perfect for running, but probably my best option.

I found my friend and co-worker, Glenn Converse, before the race and after the racers meeting we headed over to the start for the run.  Still no rain.

We were hanging out at the start and caught up in a conversation about movies when out of nowhere, we hear the gun.  Oh geesh.  Go!  I hit the start on my stopwatch and got my feet going.  I think it also happened last year that I wasn't quite ready for the starting gun. 

I was definitely toward the back of the starting pack, but moved up pretty quickly.

The course is a fairly flat for the first mile or so before it goes through a covered bridge and starts heading up a couple of small hills.  It's an out and back.  I was probably two to three minutes from the turnaround when the leader was coming at me and he was flying.  I like the out and back because I like seeing all of the other racers, whether they are before or after me.  Great way to gauge your position.  I made it up to the turnaround and started heading back.  Pretty uneventful.  I held my position for the last half.  I finished in 33:44, just a hair over 7 minute miles.  Still not raining!

Into transition.  I had to change shoes, put on my helmet and gloves and grab a quick snack.  Somehow I managed to do this slower than everyone else.  Literally everyone.  Out of the 26 solo entrants in the race, I came in 26th, spending 3:29 in the transition.  Hmm.  I'm doing something wrong.

Headed out on the mountain bike.  Within the first mile you have to shoulder your bike and climb a ridiculous flight of stairs that lead up to a ski jump.

This is the shot we took the day before.

I'd picked up my mountain bike from Bicycle Concepts in Putnam three days before with a whole new drivetrain.  It had been raining ever since and I literally hadn't taken a single pedal stroke on the new drivetrain before I started the race.  The course was pretty muddy, but not in as bad of shape as I would have expected given the amount of rain there had been recently.  The drivetrain held up well and I was able to gain quite a few spots on the ride.

The course has a lot of steady climbing to the top (or Pinnacle) before it starts heading down.  Both were pretty hard in their own way.  The down was s-k-e-t-c-h-y.  Rocks and off camber roots that were really slick.  I didn't trust anything and was probably more tentative than I should have been through most of that stuff.  On the bright side, this was my fourth race at this venue, so I'm getting to know the trails pretty well.  That definitely helped with pacing myself.  I finished the 5.5 mile mountain bike course up the side of the mountain and back down in 40:56 for an 8.06 mph average and 9th of 26 on that stage.


I made it down to the bottom and headed back toward transition.  I had been at a triathlon a couple of weeks before and was pretty impressed with the fluid motion of getting off the bike and running into transition.  I unclipped my right foot and swung it over the saddle so I was just on my clipped left foot as I hit the transition mat.  I was looking super smooth.  And then I couldn't get my left foot unclipped and became a bumbling mess.  Fortunately, I didn't fall.  I made it into transition and did much better this time.  6th out of transition in 41 seconds.

Out on the road bike. And you know what?  STILL NOT RAINING!!!!  That was huge as I expected rain during the road ride to turn things treacherous. 

The road course is a solid 10 miles of FLAT riding along the river before taking a left and heading up a 3/4 mile hill and lollipopping around to finish on the same flat road.   The flat section was really nice and I was probably averaging between 19.5 and 21.0 mph.  Just cranking along.  I made myself rehydrate here because it was the easiest event to rehydrate on.  Just keep pushing the big ring.  The hill was almost comical.  As I turned on to it I saw about 20 riders strung out all over it.  It was truly a monster.  There were actually people riding the hill going back and forth traversing the road on the way up.  People in front of me, who I would have to guess must be pretty strong.

I made it up and then started the descent to get back to the flat road.  The descent was really nice with a couple of small rollers in it.  I was a little worried when I got toward the bottom and there was a church letting out.  The race had a dedicated traffic director there though and I was able to fly by the church at 31 mph without dying.

I lost a couple of spots to guys on pretty serious bikes on the return flat section.  They just had bigger engines.  I wasn't too worried though as most of them had ankle chips on, meaning that they were competing as a relay team, not solo.  I made it back to the transition area and, after my mountain bike dismounting fiasco, got off the road bike slowly and cleanly.  I finished the 13.75 mile road ride in 43:30, averaging 19 mph.  10th out of the 26 solo competitors.



My bike to run transition was slow again.  I took 2:20 to park the bike and gear up for running again.  That was 21st out of 26.

The last leg is the 3.65 mile trail run.  I came out of transition without any legs at all.  I had the form of running, but a 76 year old grandmother with a bad hip and a cane would probably have outpaced me.  I got to the (stupid) stairs again and had to walk up them.  No one else was running them either though.  I started to catch my stride a little, but was still not going fast enough for my liking.  I passed a couple of people, but heard a few others coming up on me.  Every once in a while you can see glimpses of those behind you through the woods.  I was definitely losing ground to what looked to be a pack.  As I was climbing the final ride to the highest point in the trail run, I looked back.  Unlike Orpheus, the woman I saw when I looked back did not fade back to Hades.  Instead she kept coming harder and stronger.    And with some guy on her heels.  They were like a freight train barreling through the woods.  That worried me.  How could they be running so fast?  I tried to make my legs move faster and they did something surprising.  They responded.  Nonetheless the girl blew by me a couple of minutes later.  I jumped on her coat tails and started down the hill with her.  I wasn't fast enough though.  I probably hung on a quarter mile, but then she started pulling away and the guy who had been following her ran past me as well and out of sight.  While I never saw them again, they were great for me.  I managed to keep my legs for the whole rest of the downhill and  finished the race strong.  My 3.65 mile trail run clocked in at 32:57 for a 9:01 pace and 10th of 26.
 
So my results in all the events were 9th and 10th places with some dismal transitions, but I still managed to snag 9th overall of the 26 solos and 4th in my age group.  Very pleased with the results.  Great awards ceremony in theNewport High School cafeteria afterwards while scarfing down a Newport Rotary Club BBQ.

And still not raining...

Great race.  Already looking forward to next year!

Rained Out

Rob asked Harry and I if we would like to go to New Hampshire to cheer him on at the Pinnacle Challenge this past weekend.  We agreed, with one stipulation:  we would only go if the weather looked good.  And so the stalking of various weather sites began.  By Wednesday we were pretty confident that it was going to be a great weekend.  We researched the Lake Sunapee region and found great things for us to explore and a cozy little motel with a view of the lake.  We bit the bullet and made reservations.

We planned on riding the Sugar River Recreational Path, which promised scenic bridge crossings, foliage and plenty of wildlife sightings.  We also planned on taking in some great views on the skyride at Mount Sunapee.  It promised to be a very full day followed by a day of spectating at the Pinnacle Challenge.

Alas, Mother Nature had other plans for us.  By Friday, we knew the entire weekend was going to be a washout.  We (and by we, I mean Rob) continued to stalk the weather sites.  It looked grim and was getting worse by the hour.  But we already had reservations.  We decided to brave the weather and hope the predictions were wrong.  They've been wrong before.  Maybe they'd be wrong again.  So to New Hampshire we went.

Saturday morning, we woke up to pouring rain.  Torrential downpours.  We lounged in bed and watched the Princess Bride.  We braved the weather for a late breakfast.  While we were out, it started raining harder.  Rob started frantically researching indoor options.  It was slim pickings.  Movie theater had no good offerings.  There was a boat tour on the lake that looked okay, but it was expensive.  Back to the room to regroup.  And then we noticed that the rain was letting up a bit.  It was now just a heavy mist.  We made a quick decision to go hike the mountain bike course for Rob's race.

That was the best decision we could've made.  It starts off with this incredible staircase that brings you up a steep hill that is actually the landing spot for a ski jump.  We couldn't believe that Rob and the other racers would have to carry their bikes up this thing.  There were raging streams everywhere.  And do you know what you find on wet trails?  Salamanders.  Lots of salamanders.  And do you know who is very happy to find salamanders?  Eleven year old boys.  He collected 6 or 7 of them, named them, made little houses out of rocks and tree bark for them.  It started raining again, but we didn't care.  This was a great hike that totally saved the day!

Harry on the stairs. 

Hard to believe he has to carry his mountain bike up this set of stairs!

Harry and his salamanders.

Self portrait by Harry.

We may have dragged our bikes up to New Hampshire just to be rained out.  But we were still able to get out on the trails and enjoy the day as a family.  Isn't that what it is all about?  Stay tuned for Rob's race report!  It's coming soon.

Take care!
~Cori

Recycling: Our September Stats

September brought an increase in road miles for Rob and Cori while training for races.  It also brought a decrease in mountain bike miles for Rob due to mechanical problems.  Harry was too busy getting back into the swing of the school schedule to log any miles.  

Our Mileage:  225.54

1. Rob rode 84.3 miles in the woods and 77.34 miles on the road.
2. Cori rode 63.9 miles on the road.
3. Harry rode around the driveway but nothing really measurable.

Random Stats:

# of races done:  2 (Rob did the Landmine Classic and Cori did the Buzzards Bay Tri)
# of states ridden in:  2 (we stuck close to home this month riding in CT and MA)
# of bike commutes:  4 (saving about 5 gallons of gas by leaving the Element at home)
# of tires changed:  3 (All Rob!)


Coming in October:

Rob is racing the Pinnacle Challenge on 10/2/11 which consists of  a 5 mile road run, a 5.5 mile mountain bike, an 13.75 mile road ride and ending with a 3.65 mile trail run.  He is also racing the Treasure Valley Rally later in the month, which had been rescheduled due to Hurricane Irene.

Take care,
~Cori