06.27.2013 | 10:35 am
A Note from Fatty: I know, this is getting ridiculous. Still, this is part eight of my 2013 Rockwell Relay race report. If you’re not caught up, you should read parts one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven first.
I want to start this installment of my race report by talking a little bit about Team 91 — Lifetime’s Beauty and the Beasts.
For one thing, they were an incredibly strong team, one that never ever let us rest easy and say to ourselves, “Hey, all we have to do now is get to the finish line.” Thanks to them, Team Fatty was energized and focused, enjoying the most dramatic and hard-fought Rockwell Relay, ever.
Next, I want to say what those of you who read the comments have already noticed: they’re an incredibly friendly team. I got a chance to hang out with Tommy for a few minutes before stage 5 and again before stage 11 (I haven’t talked about that yet), and he’s been actively commenting (while being very cool about not spoiling anything) during the telling of this story. In every instance, he’s been a remarkably positive and friendly guy (who can also clean my clock on the bike). I haven’t really had as much of an interaction with the rest of Team 91, but you kind of get a sense from the comments they’ve left that all of them are fierce on the bike, and friendly off it. Which is just how I like it.
And finally, I want to point out that while all three of the men on Team 91 were obviously extremely strong and seasoned riders, the woman (whose name I’m afraid I don’t know), while clearly a fit athlete (a runner, I think), was actually very new to racing the bike. In fact, she had started riding and training only very shortly before the Rockwell Relay. So the fact that she finished — and in fact raced — all three of her stages is a major testament to her.
There’s something about doing a big full-day-plus race like this: you get to know a little bit about the character of the few teams you’re jockeying with. In every case, I found myself liking and respecting the racers in the vans and cars and trucks and RVs around me more and more as the day went by, even as I openly wanted to beat them on the road.
It’s a pretty cool feeling to have.
OK, now back to the story.
Dark Passing
I can’t help myself: whenever I talk about Heather’s stages of the race, I get this urge to dial her up and apologize. Her first stage was the absolute hottest, windiest, most miserable ride it could possibly have been: a physical and psychological beatdown if there ever was one.
And now it was 3:12 in the morning, the absolutely most difficult hour there can be for someone to get on your bike and race. The hour when when it’s coldest and darkest and loneliest. And your body just wants to go to bed.
And yet, Heather happily bundled up (but not heavily; it never got really cold this year), got on her bike, and set off racing the eighth stage of the race, which has an elevation profile that looks like this:
It’s not a super-long stage — 36 miles — but from mile four to fourteen, you’re doing nothing but climbing.
Luckily for us, Heather is an awesome climber. And while I admire the woman from Team 91’s spirit, during the race I was really glad that Heather has a lot of endurance riding experience, including experience riding in the dead of night, with lights.
Because Heather was having fun. With her bike working properly and much better weather conditions (no crazy wind, mildly cool temperatures), there was no comparison to her first stage.
It made a big difference.
Before long, Heather ate up the three-minute advantage Team 91 had, and — for the first time since my ill-advised solo breakaway in the first stage of the race — we were the lead coed team.
Strategy
Kenny and I had a conference (The Hammer, meanwhile, absolutely cooked from her monster effort, half-slept in the back of the van).
“At this rate,” I said, “Heather’s going to finish this stage with a fifteen minute advantage on Team 91.”
“Yeah, but we don’t know if this is going to hold,” Kenny cautioned, but I knew he didn’t mean it. “The question is, will the other racers put enough time into us that they can erase Heather’s advantage?”
“Well, Tommy’s been faster than me by a few minutes in the first two stages,” I said. “He’ll be probably be faster than me in the last.”
“The guy I’m racing against was a couple minutes faster than me in our first leg,” Kenny said, “but slower in the second. Let’s figure that he and I are a wash.”
“And the guy racing against Lisa put a ton of time (seventeen minutes) on her in their first leg, but hardly any time at all on her (one minute) on their second stage. So let’s figure he’s stronger in the flats. Their last stage is pretty flat, so he’s going to put time on her again.”
“And figure that Heather can beat their woman in the next stage, since Heather has the endurance edge.”
“So,” I figured, “If The Hammer and I can limit our combined losses to be less than Heather’s gain on this leg, we should start the final stage of this race either ahead of or only slightly behind Team 91 when Heather starts her final leg of the race. If we can do that, we’ve got it.”
We were both seeing, for the first time in hours and hours, a path to a Team Fatty win.
“Hey Heather,” I called out the window, “No pressure, but the whole race is going to come down to you.”
“Doesn’t it always?” Heather replied.
Bad Clams
With the excitement of this pass — and I think there might have been another one, but I’m not sure because, well, it was 4:00am and at this point I had been up and either riding my bike or crewing for others as they rode their bikes for 23 hours — we settled into our routine.
Kenny was driving, I was crewing, The Hammer was temporarily incapacitated, lying in the back of the van, groaning softly.
We were playing the now-familiar game of leapfrog support, and most of it is a blur to me.
But I do remember one handoff in particular.
Kenny had suggested that Heather, at some point, might like a Starbucks Doubleshot Espresso. The combination of caffeine and calories in a non-sweet, easy-to-drink little can make it a popular alternative to yet-another energy bar (just so long as you don’t drink too many at once).
I offered her one. She turned it down, saying, “Maybe later.”
In a few minutes, Kenny said, “Offer her one again.”
This time, she accepted it. I popped the top and handed it to her. She took one sip, made a face, and handed it back. “It tastes weird.”
Thinking that her taste buds had just been overloaded on sweet gels, I took a sip.
And promptly spat it out.
It didn’t taste “weird,” it was full-on curdled. As in, it would hardly pour out of the can.
I’m not sure how, but I really want to somehow pin this on Heather’s misuse of The Secret. I’ll get back to you once I figure out how.
Output
Heather climbed through the night, her pace steady as a metronome. Meanwhile, I started eating again and changing into my riding gear — shorts, a long-sleeve jersey over a short-sleeve jersey, making it easy for me to peel and discard layers after the sun came up. I’d be starting in the dark, but would be riding during sunup and beyond.
And I started getting nervous. This would be my last stage of the race — a very climby one at that — and if I was not fast, I could put our team in a bad position. I could, in fact, guarantee a loss.
I knew I’d lose some time to Tommy. But I just couldn’t let it be much. I needed this to be the fastest, strongest ride of my life. I needed to race like I was being chased.
Which, in fact, I would be.
I needed to poop.
Luckily, I knew there was a bathroom in the school across the street from the exchange point, and that the school was kept unlocked for this purpose.
My thoughts increasingly turned to this school as we left Heather and drove to the exchange point.
Once we got there, I yelled to Kenny, “Get my bike out, OK?” and I rushed to the school.
Which…was locked.
I went to the guy at the Exchange point and he said, “They were supposed to unlock it… but they didn’t.”
“Kenny!” I yelled. For some reason, whenever there’s trouble, everyone on our team yelled at Kenny. ”Drive me to the nearest gas station, now!”
Luckily, that was just down the road, and Kenny needed to fill the tank of the van anyway.
I took care of my business as quickly as I could. Which was not quick enough for Kenny, who said, “We gotta hurry. I don’t want to have Heather pull into this exchange without any of us there, like we did in 2011.”
I agreed.
We got back to the exchange point, I put on my helmet, reflector vest and blinky light (it would still be dark for another half hour or so, and — within moments of my being ready to go — Heather pulled up. 5:29 am, for a total time of 2:16. This was the fastest Heather had ever raced the leg, by eight minutes (she had done this leg in 2:24 in both 2011 and 2012).
I took off, racing at my limit. I didn’t know how much time I had in front of Tommy.
I just knew I was going to do my absolute best to not let him catch me.
Comments (31)
06.25.2013 | 8:07 am
A Note from Fatty: This is part six of my 2013 Rockwell Relay shaggy dog story race report. In case you haven’t already read them, you might want to read parts one, two, three, four, and five before reading this one.
“Let’s hurry up,” Heather said, as I loaded my bike into the van. “I reminded Kenny to look out for that left turn that comes just a couple miles into his ride, but I want to be absolutely sure he made it.”
I was glad Heather had reminded Kenny of that turn, since — in our first racing of the Rockwell Relay, back in 2011 — I had blown right by it, and had kept going ’til another team’s vehicle caught up with me and told me to turn around.
We made the turn, drove another couple miles, and — to our relief — there was Kenny, the blinky light clipped to his reflective vest rapidly bobbing up and down.
Kenny was turning an incredibly fast cadence, and flying up the steep incline of Boulder mountain.
Did he need anything? Nope. Want anything? Nope. He just had a focused look and the big smile of a guy who loves racing and is very, very good at it (plus, an open-mouthed smile is good for breathing).
I suspect that if we had kept tally, probably each of of us needed something out of the van maybe five percent of the time. That didn’t mean, though, that we didn’t appreciate having the van pull up and check those other nineteen-out-of-twenty times.
We rode on up ahead — and in just a few minutes, we passed a racer. We pulled over and started the timer.
“Just three minutes!” we yelled as Kenny went by.
“Just three?” he yelled back, and he stepped it up and went even faster. Which I would not have previously thought possible.
A carrot is a powerful force, and within the next fifteen minutes, Kenny caught the racer. There was never any question of whether the other guy would be able to hang; Kenny simply went by him.
And then Kenny hit the summit, after which it was all downhill in this shortish leg of the race:
He bombed down in the dead of night, his lights on full bright. Meanwhile, Heather drove ahead of him — at a speed I wouldn’t call “reckless,” but it was perhaps on the threshold of reckless. She was just trying to stay ahead, so if anything hit a deer, it would be the van, not Kenny.
And a good thing, too. At one point we did in fact startle a deer out of the road. Kenny maybe would have missed it, but it’s hard to say.
One Final Message
Once we got past the twisty-curvy stuff, our plan had been to shoot ahead of Kenny, leaving him to finish. But after driving for just a couple minutes, we saw a rider from another team, not far ahead.
His race plate said Team 91. The coed team we thought was definitely going to beat us, that we thought was out of range, suddenly…wasn’t.
So we pulled over.
As Kenny went by, we shouted, “Team 91 is three minutes up!”
Kenny found another gear. We shot forward, parked, and got the Hammer ready in record time. We stood and watched as Team 91 pulled in; their rider took off.
Then, just two minutes later, Kenny rolled up. It was exactly midnight, and The Hammer rode off like a bat out of hell.
“You’re two minutes behind the lead coed team!” shouted the exchange point official, as she pulled away.
The Hammer looked over her shoulder and said, “Not for long.”
What Happened
As Kenny stood at the transition line, catching his breath, I said, “You just put twenty-five minutes into Team 91. That, my friend, is some serious gap reduction.”
At which point the racer from Team 91 said, “I missed a turn.”
Ah. The notorious left turn (you didn’t really think I referred to it at the beginning of this post without a good reason, right?). How much of the 25 minutes did that account for? In the absence of someone from Team 91 making a Strava segment of the off-course section he rode, we’ll never know (but I’m going to guess 10-15 minutes).
It’s amazing how anything can — and most likely will happen in a 500+ mile race. And you just don’t know who’s going to win — ’til someone crosses the finish line.
In any case, we were now halfway through the race (in terms of number of stages in the Rockwell Relay, not necessarily in mileage) and were separated by our closest competition by no more than two minutes.
This was going to be a race.
Comments (24)
06.23.2013 | 6:30 am
I was very excited to get my chance to complete this ride. Even more excited was my wife. She normally drives SAG and comes to rescue my tail when I have breakdowns (snapped spokes, chain stays, etc). SAG this time would consist of putting her head out the door every once in a while to see if I needed anything.
I read through previous years MONs from other riders and their potential thoughts for this year. I’m a road only rider and wanted to stay within the spirit of “no-where” and figured that going around the block would fulfill that requirement. It’s .3 of a mile and has about a 12’ rise. I knew that outside of brain draining boredom getting a solid rhythm with 90 degree turn every 15 seconds was going to make that a challenge.
Also adding to the fun; I was sick for about a week prior to the ride and had less than 50 miles riding over the last two weeks. Conversations about my pooping habits aside, I came into this event further behind than I wanted. I didn’t expect to ever be super-fast, but I was very worried about losing the “Crazy dads in Everett” category now.
The morning of the ride I had thought to be on the bike by 6 and instead took a little extra sleep. At precisely 6:50am I clipped in and I was off! At precisely 6:51 I finished my first lap, still drinking my coffee and settled in for a long day (not Elden-long, just long for me).
My bike computer and phone were at war with each other, showing small discrepancies on feet ascended and distance travelled, but taking an average after the first 10 laps, I figured that I had about another 325 in front of me.
Pedal –turn-pedal-turn-pedal-coast/turn-pedal.
Mile 66
In my neighborhood, I viewed as that “weird guy who rides a bike” and didn’t think my neighbors would think much of it. No one said anything, but I did get some looks. At one point I had a nice little peloton with me. Two neighbor kids and my middle son all riding around with me; I would do a lap at their pace and then keep going as best as I could.
My cheering squad
The hardest part was the lure of the house and the want to get that one thing (it’ll only take a second). So I created a schedule (I had lots of time). I would only stop every 25 miles and only as long as I didn’t impede myself on my imposed 6 hour time limit. This tactic worked well and I finish in 5 hours 59 minutes and 34 seconds – yes I cut it close.
Even better, I was off the bike for only about half an hour. With potties, water, snacks and all the rest of the amenities the house offered I could have easily spent an hour mucking around.
The last ten miles of any century are hard for me. I can see the end and I’m tired and figure to just sit up and coast the last bit. Normally I get over that by pushing hard for the end. That works when there is varying terrain, but didn’t work in this case, I suspect because I had already covered the terrain 300 times, so my last 10 miles are probably my slowest.
I had checking on by my SAG and cheering selection and while it was a close race I not only took a new KOM (1 of 1 rider), set second and third personal bests but I believe I also podiumed in the “Crazy dads in Everett” category.
Thanks for the opportunity to do the 100 MON and all of the great sponsors (Honey Stingers, new food on bike), now all I have to do is figure out where I’m riding next year!
Comments (9)
06.22.2013 | 12:17 pm
How the heck can you possibly DNF something that doesn’t actually go anywhere?
Originally, we were going to do 100 miles along the Main River from where we live near Frankfurt to Würzburg in Bavaria. It would have been a very nice ride for my wife and I, and while breaking the basic tenet of MON, would have resulted in some beautiful photos and a welcome break for her from being a triathlon widow as things get serious before Ironman Frankfurt this summer.
Unfortunately, several things happened to prevent this. The first is that by Saturday I already had two 80 mile rides in during the week, needed to run several hours and basically had an Ironman-induced panic attack. The second is that it was raining. Not just light summer rain, either. Really raining. Half of Germany is underwater ( http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/flooding-worsening-in-parts-of-germany-6-dead-in-europe-so-far-a-903396.html ). Here are some pictures of the trails we’d intended to take:
This is the trail along the river Main. Flooded as far as I could see. I checked all the entrances to it for quite a ways and all were flooded out on Sunday and Monday. The water is going down today, though.
This was part of last year’s MON route. Also flooded out. That’s my city bike, which is what I use instead of a car these days.
So, to recap: Germany is flooded. I’m freaking out and have to stick to the TRAINING PLAN. Which calls for three hours of hard intervals on Saturday. There are no arks available. There is but one option for the Saturday ride. The dreaded trainer.
Which makes this MON a MON in the most traditional sense. I put the tri bike on the trainer, loaded up a movie and started pedaling. I intended to do 50 miles and call it good enough. (And it would have been good enough to win the Ex-Pat Lesbian Wife Good Enough division.)
Sadly, we don’t have any pictures of me on the trainer on Saturday. Have a picture of the cat using the bikes in our living room bike parking area as his own jungle gym. The one in the front is the bike I was on the trainer for 3:06 on Saturday.
Here is a list of movies that are not a good choice for watching while pedaling hard on the bike trainer:
1) Schindler’s List
It is long enough and it is a good movie. Oscar winner and all. But by the time the credits were rolling, I was bawling, and I was done. I didn’t have the last three miles in me. So, in fact, I was DQ’d from my division for cutting the course and only managing 47 miles on the trainer. I think the movie hit me especially hard because I live in Germany now. (Note that I do intend to remedy the DNF and actually get a good 100 Miles of Nowhere in when Nowhere is no longer flooded later this summer.)
So, being alone on the bike for three hours with Oskar Schindler and his efforts led to a lot of very thinky thoughts about history, being the other, and how awful people can be to each other. Germany has welcomed me when my own country doesn’t want me. You see, I’m part of a bi-national same-sex committed couple (that means that me and my wife are both women) and because of DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), I couldn’t apply for a fiancé visa for my wife. She would never have been able to live with me in the US with fear of deportation. So we made the hard decision and I left my job (which was the better of the two) and moved to a country where I didn’t speak more than two words of the language (Whereas we both speak English fluently). It was a bit of a blow when protection for us was cut from the Immigration Bill ( http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324659404578499592128446394.html ) So to everyone reading this who has been following the Immigration Bill, the Supreme Court cases, seeing the images of demonstrations from France, and who thinks that it doesn’t matter to you or anyone you know, it does. You know someone it affects now. You know me. And my wife. We have cats, we love bicycles; we have 7 between us. I had to leave my mountain bike behind along with 3 other when I moved because I only had enough space for two in the shipping container I could afford, but I’ve added a few since. I’m a decent cook, she works in the main offices for an American firm here in Germany. We’ve both run a marathon, We like to sleep in on the weekends. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen on our wedding day. In short, we are no different than anyone else. Remember us. If you’re ever in Frankfurt, look us up and I’ll take you out for beer and sausages and on some of my favorite rides in the area. You can even borrow my good road bike if you want. I’m trying not to be overly political here because that’s not my goal. I’m not asking you to donate anything, sign anything, change your Facebook icon, nothing. Just the next time you’re reminded of the marriage equality debate, you can think of me. Someone you know. You can say, “Oh yeah. I know Lorraine and her wife. She does Miles of Nowhere, they bike a lot together, they’ve got cats, and they’re good people, just like us.”
Here’s us at our wedding reception, exactly two years ago today (June 4). If you’re wondering why there’s a parrot in the background, we had a pirate themed wedding and my brother had it on the shoulder of his suit the whole night, including here where he gave us his blessing. Another thing of note, see the mark on my wife’s (she’s in green, I’m in blue) right arm? Left over road rash from a crash a few days before. She’s got matching bruises down one leg in glorious Technicolor, but luckily the dress was floor length.
Comments (12)
06.21.2013 | 8:40 am
I started reading this blog around the time of last year’s 100 MoN. I thought to myself, those people are nuts. But, as I started riding more and learned more about why this event came to be, I decided that this was something I had to do. Having never ridden 100 miles to anywhere, I figured that riding 100 miles to nowhere was as good a place to start as any.
The Plan
My original plan was a triathlon to nowhere, but I’m not cool enough to know anyone with an Endless Pool, so I settled on a duathlon—95 miles of riding on a trainer with 5 miles of running on a treadmill. I thought it would be nice to get off the bike occasionally, so I would ride 19 miles and run a mile. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat and done. With low resistance on the trainer and high gear on my bike, the day should be downright delightful. The best laid plans…
And….Go!
I wasn’t able to ride on the official race date, so I started riding the morning of Sat. May 25th. I was caffeinated and ready.
(What more do you need?)
(Gaining inspiration from those who have gone before)
This was a terrible idea
Somewhere around mile 21 or so, I realized, I’m not in running shape, which left my legs tired. So, I quickly went from smiling…
To seriously reconsidering life choices…
Settling in
Because I told several people I was doing this have immense willpower and resolve, quitting was not an option. At some point, I settled into a rhythm of bike, transition and run.
(Shoes still clipped in…I hear it’s a thing.)
Done!
I finished 100 miles in 8:46:00, winning my division and setting a new course record. The winning time included the unsanctioned and unofficial 3 rd event of sitting on the couch complaining. I daresay it was my strongest event.
(It’s important to refuel after a strenuous effort.)
What I learned
- I only hate running when I’m doing it. Sitting here at my computer, a run sounds pretty good
- You can only drink so much orange Gatorade
- Running in bike shorts is awkward, at best
- Anyone who would participate in such an event is the best kind of crazy
- I will never do this event again…indoors
Thank you to Fatty for putting on this event year after year and to all the swag-givers for giving swag. This was an awesome experience…I can’t wait for next year!
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