Racing in the Southwest, Part 1

I’m sitting here in the back of an SUV, next to my bikes and bags, getting ready for bed. It’s at the end of a long road trip and it’s got me thinking what the heck am I doing here? Tonight, and for the next 4 nights I’ll cuddling up with carbon, as I sleep in the back of a car, to save some cash. I wouldn’t say it’s ideal, but there is something about it that gives me a sense of commitment to my goals.

At the end of long training blocks, or long racing trips, or anytime that I’m specifically tired, I get very thoughtful. Sometimes it’s with a big grin on my face, thinking, “how in the hell did I manage to have such an awesome trip”. Sometimes it’s a little less enthusiastic, “how did I mess that up so bad?” This time it’s somewhere in between, fitting, because I’m somewhere between where I was and where I’m trying to get to.

It all began about a month ago, back home in Pullman. Although home is hardly a proper term since I moved to Pullman only about 5 weeks prior. But it was long enough to start to feel comfortable. As my training was starting to come around (more on this later), I was gearing up for the first bout of races in the south west. I had 4 US Cup races on my calendar, some back to back weekends, some with time in between. I was left wondering how I was going to hit them all. Races 1 and 2 were, obvious, drive down, race, and stay with an uncle in LA. But then there were 2 weeks off, so I decided I’d take a buddy up on his offer to come stay with him up in Pinetop, AZ at 7000 ft. I thought of it as being a little altitude training camp. Then came round 3, so back to LA. But the final round is Sea Otter up in Monterey. I wasn’t too sure on how to handle that, so I kind of said I’d wing it. All told, it would be a long time on the road, 6+ weeks and lots of time in the car.

The only good part of the drive down, Idaho

The drive from Pullman to LA, was awful. I’ll admit that the first few hours were beautiful as I drove through Idaho and the mountains and canyons that came with it. But as I hit Nevada, it got flatter and more boring. I ended up driving on what I now know is called the loneliest road in America. It lives up to it’s name. After a full day of driving and some sleep, I made it to LA and pre rode the course at Bonelli. If you had a chance to check out the coverage, you might have seen how difficult the course is, but in either case, here’s my take. The Bonelli course is difficult because of all the accelerating. Not just out of corners, but up hills. There is lots of climbing, and it’s all the kind of climbing that I’m awful at, very steep, very slow, and loose. I’m just a little too heavy still, and just don’t quiet have the skill or strength to make it up those types of climbs gracefully. After pre riding on Friday, I knew it would be a hard race.

The logs at bonelli. Kind of dumb, but very challenging.

Not from the course, but a picture from the top of
Bonelli Park, overlooking San Dimas

And it was. I was pulled after 4 laps, with a similar feeling in my body that I had last year. I didn’t have the top end, and I didn’t have the power to weight to excel at that course. You truly have to attack every single corner, hill, or obstacle to be successful there. You have to be on, and I wasn’t on yet. Plain and simple I wasn’t good enough. So what did I need to do better? I think a large part of it was training. Both my training just wasn’t there yet, and I’m just not strong enough period to be able to fake it, if that’s even possible at Bonelli. When I say my training wasn’t there yet I mean that my training hadn’t gotten to the intensity early enough. This is partly by design, it’s a long season, and I need to pace myself, but I also dealt with injury in late January and February, so I was set back there as well. But what else? Focus. My focus was a little off. Part of this is feeling unprepared, and then not caring as much. But that doesn’t mean I can take the race off. I need to still prepare like it’s game time, because it is. This contributed to me holding back a lot too. I wasn’t aggressive, and I was trying to conserve. XCO is just too short to hold back very much.

So I learned some lessons from Bonelli, but I feel that I both had a better race, and learned biger lessons from the next race, Fontana. Fontana is an awesome course, very old school with a longer technical climb and then one long downhill full of big hit technical corners and high speeds. Thursday, I got out to the course to pre ride, but to practice going fast and hard on course, something I hadn’t done at Bonelli. I did 4 laps. The first 2 were solid, but more for learning the course. The second 2 were all out, as hard as I could. I took my laps times from those laps, as well as HR and Power data and tried to understand what type of pace I could hold for the entire race time. I figured out that I maintain 17:30 laps, by staying within myself. So I set myself a goal, be consistent, and do 6 17 minute laps.

In Between Bonelli and Fontana I did some riding on the back bone trail
and on the roads in Malibu

Friday, I chilled at home, and did my openers on the road near my uncles place, something I would regret later. Saturday, the call up procedure was a little screwy, made worse by what I learned that if you didn’t check in Friday, you lost your call up spot and got put to the back, damn. So I was near the back and got caught up in a crash on the first straight of the race just past the start line. Some dude crossed in front of me and took out my front wheel.  I went down quick, but I was back up and riding even quicker. The race starts out down a series of long flat straights before hitting some single track and finally up a long road climb. I was dealing with traffic and trying to move up the whole time, and once I got to the single track I was standing still, finally we made it through and up the climb, but again I was waiting for riders in front of me. But out of all this, what had me the most worried, was at the end of lap 1, after all those issues, I still turned a 17 minute lap. Meaning I probably went out too hard. So I did my best to stay within myself, but I was pulled out another 17 minute lap, then another, and another. I knew I couldn’t keep it up, but I was too invested to stop now. On lap 5, about 45 minutes in, I stated to pay for my efforts and pulled a 19 minute lap, and was pulled. For my troubles, I did finish in the top 60, better than bonelli, and was happy with my race in general.

I feel like I raced very well, I paced myself ok, but the legs just didn’t have the top end yet, the intensity just wasn’t there yet. I am learning to feel the legs better and better and in some ways that’s incredible, but in some ways that’s not. It’s good to understand the body and know where you are, because that means you can get to where you want to be. But allowing yourself to use that as a crutch, feeling that your legs are not 100%, and then you allow yourself to go a little bit easier. It’s tough to do, but you really have to give it your all every time you race. I feel that this is a major difference between racing on the road and racing off road. The trend to shorter and more technical courses has made the races harder, but in a different way. It doesn’t matter how hard you go, you just can’t get as tired racing for 90 minutes as you can racing for 3 or 4. This means that there is never any reason to hold back. I’ve noticed that those who attack every ride or race are the ones who excel.

Next time, I’ll continue talking about my trip, and the training I did up at 7000+ feet, thanks for reading!