MTB Nationals fitness preview or accidentally taking an easy week.

In the build up to the Michigan Tech MTB race I was really just focused on school and work, I was super busy, but a little bit of poor planning led me to just being so overloaded. I got most of my work done, but missed one assignment. I need to do better than that in the future. With such an awesome weekend at Chequamegon, I was excited to get back on the trails. After riding recovery on Monday, and some longer intervals on Tuesday, I decided that I had enough on my plate and took an impromptu rest week. With exactly one month until MTB nationals from this next Purdue weekend, I figured that I could take a week off and then hit the training really hard for 3 weeks and then get one week of rest in to feel in top condition. It was also a good opportunity to let my body rest and get an idea how it would react to having some time off.

I rested the rest of the week, and worked like a dog getting HW done and making sure that things were set up for the weekend. We left Friday around 3:30 for Milwaukee to drop off my sister. Another huge thanks for her coming to madison to drop off the car. I know it’s a pain, but I’d like to think she enjoys it, because it’s always fun. We made it up to Houghton and the host house around 12:30 their time. We passed out immediately, we were all pretty tired. Woke up in the morning and there was some dude on the couch with Skip. He was pretty close to cuddling with him, but it took a few minutes to notice him. When we did, the kid ran out the door. That was odd, but hilarious. It still makes me chuckle.

The racing wasn’t too bad, in fact it was awesome. The XC race was on the copper harbor trails which were about an hour’s drive north from Houghton. We got there and watched Sam, my roommate and teammate destroy the C’s field. Then we kitted up and Skip and I lined up for the start. I had a decent start. I had a little trouble hitting my pedals, but was able to keep the power on while I found them. Skip and I went 1-2 into the woods. I think the other riders allowed me to get the hole short. I know that last time that happened I was beat by Eric of Ripon College, but not sure he realized that I also had a mechanical. Either was we still didn’t find out who is faster on a fair playing field because he had 2 flats that day. I’d still like to beat him without the flats, but I need to remember that that’s part of the game. I knew to run my pressure where it needed to be. It also helped I had tubeless too, but I don’t think I bottomed once. I got a small gap which grew to about 2-3 minutes after the first lap and held it there even after 2 hard crashes on lap 3. Final gap ended up around 5 minutes to a quick as hell Mich Tech guy, solid day.

Had a few drinks that night and enjoyed the company of my teammates and the hosts. Got some sleep and got ready for the next day at the short track race. Skipped breakfast that morning, not sure that was the best idea because I was a little hungry during the race. I suppose the better way to describe it is that my stomach wasn’t perfect and I felt flat. Could have been the beers, could have been tired from the day before, could have been the lack of food, or it could have been the junk I was eating that morning cause I was hungry. Either way I was a little flat, but still was fast. I just lacked the aggression and full on power from the day before. Eric got out in from and due to a crash in front of me, he got a small gap. I burned a few matches closing that down, but on the plus side it made it a two man race as third place got really tangled. I chased Eric, but he opened a gap which grew to about 20 seconds by the half-way point. I toned it down to stay out of the complete red and save something for the last few laps, hoping he might blowup completely. He actually ended up crashing and having another mechanical. I was able to hold off the guy behind me, the mich tech guy again and bring home another win.

Despite getting the win in the STXC from a crash, which again I think was partly a tactical mistake on his part for continuing to push the limits, I still feel amazing about the XC result. I was head and shoulders above the rest and was in complete control of the race from start to finish. I know that to have a solid performance at nationals, I need to be dominating the MWCC field. I don’t think I’m there yet, but I’m getting close. Hopefully the next few weeks of training will get me there. I know that I will probably be lacking some firepower in these races, but if I can still compete at a high level while under heavy fatigue, I know that with some rest I’ll be really fast. Arg, that also reminds me I need to start getting money and arrangements together for Nats. Well, if you need me I’ll working on homework or whoring myself out for money to pay for the trip, one of the two for sure.

ChequamegonLand: A special place in my heart

Yep, it’s that time of year again, Chequamegon! For those of you who don’t know, Chequamegon is a big MTB race held in the north woods of Wisconsin in the Chequamegon national forest. It’s a 40 mile epic of a race which takes the racers from downtown Hayward to Telemark mountain near Cable. It’s a national caliber race, so it’s important to show good form.

Having said that, I really wasn’t training specifically for this race this year, which is different from other years. To really understand, I think having a little background is helpful. I started going up to the race at a very young age. Although my dad is not a serious racer, Chequamegon is his chance to work towards a goal and push his limits. He would always take the whole family, and we made a trip out of it usually taking the whole week off. At 12 years old, I wasn’t a serious racer yet, but as a rite of passage I began to race the short and fat. This is the race for the less intense racers, or those under 18. I raced that until age 20, when I did my first 40, placing 99^th. That was last year, but the real point here is that since a young age, if you are looking for me in the second week of September, I’m up north. This race holds a special place in my heart, as it is my dad’s one big race of the year. It is also my one big chance to show him that I respect his accomplishment of now having raced 19 Chequamegon Fat Tire races. Needless to say, regardless of its popularity nationally, Chequamegon is special to me for its own personal reasons.

Coming off a somewhat disappointing weekend at LWC, I hit the roads hard in training to improve my game for collegiate. After Monday off, I did hill repeats on Observatory, getting 8 in before I had to call it a night because of sunset. An easier ride on Wednesday and Short Track practice on Thursday made it a hard week of training with races as bookends. I honestly didn’t think about Chequamegon until Thursday when I started packing. I was treating it like just another race. But it’s not, and I was getting nervous. I’d like to say I don’t know what it is about that race, but I do. I explained it above. The race is special to me, my family is there, it’s a big race, and one that is important to my dad, my mom, and I’d like to think my sister even cares a little. So I get nervous, every time.

After leaving late on Friday, as is customary, my sister and I drove up to Hayward to meet my parents at the hotel. I got my number that night, and went back to get some sleep. I woke up feeling alright, but not amazing. My legs felt good, but I was tired. I hoped it was just being groggy. I grabbed some food with my dad and kitted up. Knee warmers, arm warmers, base layer, and a vest, I was dressed for a colder race. I got a little crap from my teammates at the start, but I ended up being dressed perfectly. Speaking of teammates, I had a whole bunch of them up there. Dave, Brian, Tim, Kevin, and Andrew. We had a solid squad there ready to do battle, which we certainly did. But it was nice to have people on the start to calm me down. Again, I was pretty nervous. But having them there made it just like any other race, and I forgot that some of the best cyclist in the Midwest, nay the world were standing in front of me at the line. My teammates were not nearly as nervous as I was, so it helped a lot. Also, thanks to my sister for the help at the line. She took my warm up jacket and gave me some food and water at the line. Made me feel super pro, THANKS SIS!

With a 4 or 5 row start, I was in a decent position to stay up front for that start. I made a point of keeping an eye on the leader on the roll out. My plan was simple, stay with the fastest rides you can at the start and then hang on for dear life. I went into Rosie’s field in the top 20 or 30, and moved up in the section to top 20 for sure. I put a lot of effort into that first section and rode the first half to OO in the second or third group on the trail. Around OO, I got popped and fell off the pace. I rode alone for a while until I was slowly joined by a few riders at a time until the group swelled to 20 or so. The group had Brian in it. Tim had made his way up into the group that I fell off of. This group worked well with each other, until we approached Fire Tower. In the miles before the climb, the cooperation broke down, and myself and Brian ended up pulling way too much. When we stopped pulling the group broke down and attacks started flying. We ended up getting to the climb in a smaller group of about 5 where Brian had been dropped. Things kind of broke again and a few people were dropped as a younger rider from the Ripon collegiate team, who also rides for the Vision/Wheel and Sprocket team, Ben went off the front. He had an amazing race, and I never saw him again until the finish. This smaller group continued and we started picking up riders from 8 miles to go on until we hit the last few climbs. We caught my teammate Tim, and his group. This group hit the last big climb hard and we dropped the rest of my group. We came into the bowl with a group of 5 or 6, I was riding last wheel. Coming down the hill and into the corner I was resting my legs, and I attacked like a mad man on the climb to the finish. I passed Tim and got the rest of the group in a tight sprint. I need to get the picture up when I can; it is bound to be awesome.

After all the racing, I didn’t have a great idea how I placed. I didn’t feel too good at the beginning, but the legs came around after a while, and I suffered home at a good pace. But my expectations weren’t high. I was all the more astonished when I saw I placed 39^th! This was well beyond my goal of top 50, and way better than I thought I had done. It blew my mind! To celebrate I went home and showed before heading back to party with the rest of my team and some friends. My dad tagged along and had a good ole time. We drank a few beers, and had some brats; perfect Wisconsin night. I got some sleep after in prep for some Sunday Funday Action the next day. To be continued…

Looking back a bit: Lindsey Wilson MTB weekend

The past two weeks have been a lot of fun. Two weekends ago was the first race of the Collegiate MTB series for the MWCCC. One of my teammates Skip and I made the 10 hour drive down to Kentucky for the Lindsey Wilson college weekend. The drive was a blast! We talked the entire way down and had a sweet rental car with some real balls, if you know what I mean. We finally made it down around midnight or so. We both passed out immediately.

The short track race was on Saturday, which is backwards from what I’m used to, but still cool. It rained the day before so the course was really wet. It was all grass, and basically went up a hill, then down. Overall the course didn’t play to my strength, it wasn’t technical enough. I had a decent start, but missed my pedal a little and was pushed back to 6^th or so. I spent the rest of the race pulling people in an fighting for every last spot. The roadies were just too much though, they tore up the climb and without a technical section to help me I was in the pain cave. I ended up with a 5^th place, a little far back for what I was hoping. I figured I need to train for the short distance more. Hopefully this will give me more speed in the XC too.

Skip and I headed back to hotel and cleaned up, grabbed some food and went back to watch some dual slalom racing. We watched the qualifiers and decided that was good enough because it was hot as balls. We packed up and headed over to the XC course and got a pre-ride in. The course was pretty extreme, having a few really steep downhills and uphills, nothing like anything I’d ever seen. Pre-riding was good though as I had a solid plan for the next day. I decided that being a roadie course with so many open sections that things would stay together. So I decided to eliminate as many people as possible on the uncharacteristically technical open section of single track. Then try to just beat anyone who stayed with me. We went back and made a failed attempt to have a few drinks in a dry county. After driving around looking for a liquor store for an hour or 2, we called it a night and got some sleep.

We woke up on Sunday morning to a light to heavy drizzle outside. God damn it. My heart sank as soon as I saw the conditions. After a light breakfast and packing the car we headed to the XC course about 45 minutes away. The course wasn’t too bad, despite the rain because it was pretty sandy. Skip and I took a quick ride along the opening section to get a feel for it. It was still fast, but a little more technical than before. One the starting line I was pretty focused on getting a good start in and putting the pain in early. Things just clicked, literally. I hit my pedal on the first go, no fuss with instant engagement. I hit it hard, making sure I was first into the woods. It was time to play my cards and try my strategy out. I ripped the first few corners and continued to go hard for the first half mile, and I got a huge gap! The only one able to follow was Eric from Ripon who was struggling to get my wheel. I had some bad luck and dropped my chain, which got stuck so bad I had to dismount. I got off and fixed it, but lost the lead to Eric who went past. To my surprise though, no one else was there. I had opened up a huge gap. I got back on and pushed it to rejoin Eric, trying to keep the gap up, so break the chasers mentally. Eric and I rode the first two laps together. He was way more confident on the descents, and I was stronger on the climbs, we were well matched on the flats, although I had no problem letting him pull. We actually worked together well, and I would imagine stretched the gap more. One the end of the second lap he got a gap on my on a downhill and I was unable to close it right away. The cracks were starting to show, and unfortunately for me, I was breaking quicker than he was. I got back on, but was struggling to hold his wheel. He continued to hold a solid pace and just was so much smoother in the tech sections than I was. I learned later that he was a downhill rider, so it made sense. But on the same hill he got another gap and I pushed to close it, knowing I could beat him in the sprint at the end. But I just couldn’t close it, he rode about 20 seconds in front of me for the last few miles, and it turned into about 30 seconds by the time we finished. I was a little disappointed in myself because I felt like I gave in a little too easy. I was going hard, but I just didn’t push it as deep as I know I can go. I suppose lessoned learned, and another second place for me.

We finished up; Skip was able to pull a win out in the B’s field and got his upgrade. I’m looking forward to having a teammate in the next race. Overall not a bad weekend though as I turned my attention to my yearly family expedition to Hayward, WI for the Fat Tire Festival. Thanks for reading!