06.27.2012 | 9:56 am
Today’s post isn’t about me. At least, not very much. Today’s post is about The Hammer, and the day she had yesterday.
Because it was a pretty full day.
Event 1: Hiking a Mountain
The day started with a hike to the top of “Y” Mountain — a seven-mile hike with 3000 feet of climbing she’s done as a long-standing tradition each month with her eighty-year-old dad.
She texted me — as I sat at my desk, working — this from the top of the mountain:
So yeah, I was a little bit jealous of how her day started.
Event 2: Lunch With The Folks
After the hike, she drove her dad back to his home and had lunch with her mom and dad. After a quick shower there, she then drove over to a clinic, where she had an appoointment to have a basal cell carcinoma removed.
It was at that point that I stopped being jealous of how her day was going.
Event 3: Surgery
The way they remove the carcinoma is to cut out what they think is all of it, then have you sit around while the pathology lab verifies that they’ve got everything out. If so, they sew you up. If not, they cut more out and repeat.
The Hammer was lucky (or maybe it’s nicer to say that the doctor is skilled); they got everything on the first pass. I arrived at the clinic right as the doctor was sewing her up.
I did my absolute best to not look squeamish, but from the distance I was sitting I couldn’t see the thread for the stitches, and so it would look — from time to time — as if the side of her face was, of its own accord, suddenly stretching out into thin air.
That weirded me out. Meanwhile, the whole time, The Hammer chatted and joked.
They bandaged her up pretty thoroughly, but you couldn’t really see anything, thanks to a strategically concealing hairdo.
This photo is actually from today, with a bandaid in place instead of the massive pile of gauze and tape originally on her face. But you still get the idea.
Event 4: Store
I had come to the clinic to offer support and with the expectation that The Hammer would be in no shape to drive home, much less do anything else.
But as we headed home, The Hammer said, “This would be a good time for us to take care of some grocery shopping.”
So we did.
Event 5: House Cleaning
We then got home, and I encouraged The Hammer to go lay down and rest for a while, since that’s totally what I would have done. In fact, I would still be laying down right now.
The Hammer, however, said that this was her housecleaning day, and went to work on that while I headed into the basement to do my day job.
Event 6: The Ride
We made dinner together (Teriyaki salmon with dirty saffron rice and peas). The IT guy joined us, because after dinner — when the day had cooled down — we were planning on going on a mountain bike ride.
Yes, really.
“We’re just going to take it easy today, right?” I asked, thinking about the fact that The Hammer had already had one good workout that day, plus we had gone on a Strava QOM hunt for her the day before, netting her both a QOM / PR on the Hog Hollow climb (weirdly, no other woman has recorded a time on Hog Hollow; The Hammer has recorded dozens of times) and a QOM for the short-but-intense Brock’s uphill sprint.
Plus, of course, the day before that she had done a hard 96-mile road ride.
And in short, an easy ride seemed like the only sensible thing to do.
So — naturally — I was not at all surprised to see her sitting at the computer before we went. “I want to go after the Canyon Hollow – Brock’s climb.”
Have I mentioned that I have created a monster?
We started out, going relatively easy up Hog Hollow. Right from the beginning, though, The Hammer noted that her legs were tired.
“Gee, what a surprise,” I quipped. “I wonder why that could be.”
We then went down Rush, which is ordinarily one of my very favorite descents. But it’s a technical descent and not great to do as the sun gets low. Specifically, you will occasionally find yourself pretty high in the air before you even realize you just went off a jump.
I went on ahead, crashing one time, but managing to get myself and my bike together before anyone caught me.
As The Hammer and The IT Guy rolled down to the bottom of Rush, The Hammer remarked, “Blake critiqued my descending technique nonstop, the whole way down.”
You’d have to know The IT Guy a little to understand that this was likely not even a tiny bit of an exaggeration. I thought to myself, “Really, this was not the day for that.” But the Hammer / IT Guy dynamic is as unique as any mother / son relationship; I said nothing.
It was time for the main event: the two-mile, 696-foot climb from the bottom of Canyon Hollow to the Peak View trailhead.
The Hammer’s daily QOM Hunt was upon us.
Event 7: The Big Climb
The Canyon Hollow – Brock’s climb is two miles of really fantastic singletrack, climbing at a moderate 6.7% average grade (696 feet total of climbing). It’s one of my favorite ways to get to the Peak View trailhead in Corner Canyon, because it’s a mellower climb than Clark’s. Here’s what the elevation profile of this climb looks like:
Very even and steady. Get into your climbing groove and stay there. That said, when you climb at your limit, there’s no such thing as an easy climb.
My job during The Hammer’s QOM attempt was to stay about fifty feet or so ahead of her, where I served dual purposes:
- Be a rabbit she can chase
- Clear the path of slower riders by saying in a cheerful, loud voice as I approached them, “How’s it going?” This technique results in an almost 100% pull-over rate without me ever having to ask people to pull over to let us by.
I took on my job with relish, but The Hammer — whose job was to go as fast up the climb as she possibly could. And that “as fast as she possibly could” should ideally work out to be in under 16:45, the current QOM’s (Erika, not Erica) time — was not having fun.
Before we got even a third of the way up, she said to me, “I’m just pooped.”
“Just ride your best, don’t worry about whether you get the QOM today,” I said.
We came across Dug, who was riding the other direction with his son. Dug, immediately sensing what was going on, yelled at the top of his lungs, “Everyone clear the trail, she’s on a Strava!”
Dug’s a clown.
I plugged away, but could tell from the way she kept dropping back that The Hammer was tired. I checked my clock. It was going to be close.
Then she took a spill. She got up quickly and continued, but in my mind it was over; she wasn’t quite going to make it.
I pulled across the finish line, and then fifteen seconds later The Hammer came across, then immediately stopped and put her head on her handlebars.
“You’ve just done too much today,” I said.
“Don’t make excuses for me,” The Hammer replied, and started down Hog Hollow.
Completely exhausted, she went to bed as soon as she got home.
We didn’t even bother uploading the data from her GPS to Strava.
This Morning
The Hammer woke at 5:30 this morning, got ready for work as usual as I made her lunch (egg whites and avocados, of course). She was out the door by 6:15.
Then, after she left, I thought, “Well, I guess I’ll see how close she got,” and went to the garage to get The Hammer’s GPS.
Here’s what I saw:
She had done it. By fifteen seconds. Even after everything else — big hike, surgery, groceries, cleaning the house — she had still gotten her QOM fix.
And that is why she is The Hammer.
Comments (40)
06.26.2012 | 11:21 am
You know how after you do something really awesome for the first time (I’m talking about bike-related stuff, so just put any other “first time” related train of thoughts you were having right out of mind), you immediately start thinking, “I’ve got to go do that again?”
And then, after a while, you start wondering about whether you’ve managed to exaggerate the awesomeness of that thing. Maybe, you think, it’s going to be one of those things where the next time you try it, the novelty will have worn off, leaving you to question whether there’s any point in trying it the third time.
Then you go back for the second time. And sometimes it doesn’t live up to your recollection from the first time. And that’s disappointing.
Every once in a while, though, when you go back and try something a second time, it’s every bit as awesome. Maybe even better in some ways, because this time you notice details you missed the first time.
That’s how an event becomes a tradition.
And that is, in a nutshell, my experience with the 2012 LiveStrong Davis Challenge.
Here are a few highlights.
The Winner
First of all, you need to meet Ed P, the winner of an Ibis with top-end Shimano components, plus a trip out to Utah to get his bike custom-fitted for him by SLC Bicycles, then some riding with The Hammer and me.
Here’s what he had to say in his email upon finding out that he won:
This is awesome; I’m so pumped! I’ve been attempting to convince my wife it was time for a bike upgrade for over a year now. And, as I’m sure a lot of married mountain bikers (any biker for that matter) realizes, this is a difficult case to state. Especially when your wife believes your bike is “perfectly fine.”
I’m a big fan of your blog and think what you do, from raising money for LiveStrong to raising money to buy bikes for kids in Zambia, is great.
I must admit, there was a little selfishness in entering your contest, but I really didn’t think I’d win and knew the money being raised was for a great cause. I was just trying to help out any way I could.
You asked for a pic and I provided one. I probably should offer some explanation for the scars on my forehead and nose….I had Mohs surgery to remove Basal Cell Carcinoma from my nose in April, and plastic surgery to fix it up. Fortunately the doc said he got all of the cancer, but my advice to all is wear sunscreen!
I saw your recent Tweet about this type of skin cancer. The doc told me the same thing about this “being the best cancer you can get.” Best wishes to The Hammer on her treatment. [Note from Fatty: The Hammer is having a basal cell carcinoma removed today.]
I’m definitely a mountain biker, so I’m going with the Tranny or the Mojo (leaning toward the Tranny). But, I need to calm down and take a look at my options. I’m definitely looking forward to the trip to Utah. Once again, I’m going to have to re-read your past blogs and select where I want to go. This will be a tough decision, for sure.
Thanks again, not only for the great blog and contests, but for all that you do to make a difference!
Once Ed’s made up his mind, I’ll let you know what he’ll be riding, and where. And I’m sure a blog post or two or three will come out of this trip.
Congratulations, Ed!
The Dinner
OK, now on to the events of the Davis LiveStrong Challenge itself.
Like last year, Team Fatty gathered Friday night to hang out, as well as get a tour of the US Bicycling Hall of Fame.
There was a group of about 30 of us, which was about the same as last year. However, this year, David stepped things up about five notches by grilling bratwurst — using my recipe — on the patio.
And he did magnificently. I was happy to declare, in fact, that his brats were every bit as good as mine. And I proved my assertion by eating three. Which I felt entitled to do, because I’m sure at least one person in the group was a vegetarian and so probably didn’t eat any.
Here’s Greg Chapek. He’s happy about the bratwurst, too.
I’d go so far, in fact, as to say that he’s very happy indeed. Perhaps the reason he was so happy was that I had just revealed to him what I was thinking. Specifically, that the course was incredibly flat, and the weather was expected to be ideal — not especially windy, and not especially hot.
I was thinking, I told Greg — a very strong rider — that maybe a group of us should do our utmost to see if we could do our first sub-five-hour century.
Greg was intrigued (and also very very happy).
And of course, there was cake, provided generously by the true organizer of the whole Team Fatty in Davis experience, Angie G.
It may look like a Halloween cake, but it was actually incredibly delicious, and I’m proud to say that I ate two pieces.
I’m not as proud, however, to announce that I then ate another two pieces.
The Day Before
One of the things I love about the Davis event is that it’s mellow. You have time to relax. Plus, the packet pick-up spot is right by a terrific farmers’ market, which of course has expanded way beyond produce to pretty much anything you could want to eat.
The Hammer and I ate. A lot.
And right now I’m becoming uncomfortably aware that I have so far talked about nothing but eating for this entire post.
Oh well, you may as well get used to it.
We hung around, eating pastry and sandwiches and possibly even some produce.
Not to mention admiring the wide variety of t-shirts passersby had chosen to wear for the occasion:
Then the Hammer and I went on a little bike path tour of Davis, which has got to be the bike-friendliest town I have ever been in. Feel free to check out The Hammer’s Strava of the ride, which is interesting primarily in that it may be the only Strava upload she’s ever done that hasn’t netted her at least one QOM.
The Fundraising Award Dinner
The night before the big ride, LiveStrong always puts on a special dinner for its top fundraising teams and people.
And since Team Fatty has raised more than double the amount of the second-place team, that definitely included us.
Here I am, pretending to listen intently to someone about something. You can tell I’m intent because my arms are folded.
This photo is also notable because I believe it is the first time in about five years that I am wearing a button-up shirt, like the big kids wear.
Since we won three out of four awards (Team Fundraising Award, Individual Fundraising Award, Individual Messenger Award), I was supposed to get up and give a five-minute speech.
So I got up and talked for about fifteen minutes, rambling about any old thing that came into my head. Basically, it was like people got to see what this blog is like, except live and unedited, and with — unbelievably enough — even more typos.
The Ride
Eventually I stopped talking and everyone got to go to back to their hotels and get to bed. But then we had to come back early, because — as the top fundraising team — we needed to report to the starting line half an hour early to get our team photo at the starting line.
There was an event photographer taking those pictures for us, and I’m sure we’ll eventually see them, but for now, a few that we took ourselves will have to do.
This one’s my favorite. We had time to scrawl in chalk, nice and huge, the team motto:
It’s probably worth clicking on to see the larger version, because then you’ll get a better view of my magnificent quads, not to mention the strained look on my face as I’m sucking my gut in.
Once all the pictures were taken, the race ride began.
Before long, a good-sized group of Team Fatty coalesced into a paceline, stamping out 23mph miles one after the other. Jeremy. Greg. Matt. Mike. David. The Hammer. Me. And others.
The course was flat. The weather was beautiful: a mild wind that made southbound riding a little hard, but not bad (if you were in a paceline). We flew.
Occasionally, a rider would have to drop off. Matt, David, and Mike early on. Jeremy toward the very end. And occasionally, we would pick up a rider or two.
Elsewhere on the course, other groups from Team Fatty were picking up riders, too. Yesterday morning, I got an awesome email from Phil who got picked up by what I like to call The Big Orange Train:
Team Fatcyclist,
I just wanted to take a moment to thank you all for the wheel yesterday. I will try and be brief here; I have only been riding for two months, I am a stocky model with a bad knee. I lost contact with my team on on after the Steiger hill climb. I was alone, battling the Vacaville winds and using a lot of energy. This is when team fatcyclist came up to my left and the leader asked “how ya doing?”, My reply “old and getting tired!” in turn he said “Grab a wheel”. I joined the tail end of the pace line and we were off!! We caught my team mates in short order and they jumped into the line as well. I never counted how many of us were in the line, but it grew and grew as we passed other riders.
I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you to your team, the pull as well as all you doe for the LiveSTRONG foundation!
Have an awesome day!!
Phil
Our average dropped and it looked like we weren’t going to get that sub-five century after all. We were going to miss it by just a few minutes.
And then — right around mile 75 — we saw the “20 Miles to Go” sign.
Whaa?
So the course wasn’t going to be 100 miles. Which meant we still had a chance to finish in under five hours.
We stepped up the pace.
Greg — who had been pulling way more often than anyone else for the first 80 miles of the ride — was starting to tire. I was feeling great, though, thanks to the fact that I had been sucked along for most of the ride, doing hardly any work.
So for the final 15 miles, I pulled. Yep, for pretty much the whole thing. And I felt great doing it. We flew, passing groups that had passed us earlier.
Thoughts of imminent pie consumed me.
Then I saw Andrew — the fastest guy on Team Fatty. He had finished half an hour ago, and had turned around to come finish with more of us. Then, after he did that, I believe he went out a third time and finished with another group.
I would be that awesome if I had the legs for it. I swear.
In any case, we did it. The Hammer, Greg C, and I crossed the finish line in about 4:56. A sub-five.
Except, of course, it wasn’t 100 miles. But still, I think we can make a claim to being, at the very least, half-fast.
The Pie
Meanwhile, David — yes, the very same David who had awesomely done the brats for the Friday shindig — had arranged for pie to be waiting for us under the Team Fatty tent.
Lots and lots and lots of pie.
I may have had four pieces; I may have had five. I confess that my recollection of the events of the day become foggy and confused after the fourth, because I seem to remember a cyclist with a horse’s head mingling among us.
With such a nice day, a tent, lots of shade trees, and a nice breeze, there was no reason to not just hang around and relax for hour upon hour, talking at length with anyone from Team Fatty (and quite a few people who weren’t) who was willing to put up with me.
The Importance of Celebrating
The LiveStrong Challenge at Davis was a perfect weekend for me. A wonderful town, great friends, perfect weather, a fast ride, and an important cause.
It was, simply, incredibly fun. It wasn’t a serious, sad weekend. The seriousness had all happened before, when we had taken the step to fight cancer and raise money for a cause we believed in. Now we — and everyone there — had a chance to relax, have fun, and celebrate our success before taking a deep breath and diving back in.
I’m incredibly proud of what Team Fatty did for LiveStrong here. And I love the tradition we’ve gotten started here.
The tradition is set: we’ll be back next year: same place, same events. Same silliness, same serious reason.
If I were you, I’d start making plans to be a part of Team Fatty and joining us.
Comments (45)
06.20.2012 | 12:27 pm
This is Lisa Nelson, my wife:
Also, to her right, that’s my shoulder, but that’s not important right now.
What is important is that she’s beautiful. And really nice. And smart and fun and easygoing and patient and stuff.
She also likes riding bikes. Here she is, riding a bike:
See how happy she looks riding that bike?
But Lisa doesn’t just ride bikes, she also participates in races. Quite a few races, actually. And she does pretty darned well in them, too.
But Lisa says she’s not competitive. No.
Lisa says she just rides “for fun.” Or “to see how well I can do against the clock.” In no way whatsoever, she says, is she interested in racing to beat people.
With all due respect to my lovely, kind, patient and smart wife, I have always known that this is a complete load of horse crap.
And now I have proof. Oh mercy, do I have proof.
New Toy
A few months ago, my friends started using Strava a lot for their rides. (Strava is an online social network of people who upload their bike ride information from their GPSs, giving them the ability to compare how they’re doing against themselves and each other, as well as to comment on their friends’ rides. For more info, click here.)
Why? To compete against their own previous best times, sure, but also to compete against each other.
Ever a sheep, I also signed up. And got hooked pretty fast. So I told The IT Guy he ought to sign up, too. Which he did.
And then we both told Lisa that she ought to sign up. Honestly, though, neither of us expected her to sign up. Lisa doesn’t have a Facebook account. She doesn’t have a Twitter account. Lisa prefers, it seems, to live in the real world.
But she did sign up.
Why Lisa Is Called “The Hammer”
After Lisa signed up for Strava, I took her Garmin Edge 500 and uploaded pretty much the entire contents of her GPS to Strava.
The results were a little bit shocking.
She currently is the Queen of the Mountain (QOM) or Course Record (CR) holder for nine pages of riding segments (sections of road or trail people have marked as being worthy of having an ongoing competition to see who can do that section the fastest) in Strava.
By contrast, I have a grand total of 5 KOM / CR listings, and I think most of those segments were created by accident; I don’t even know where most of them are. (The sole exception being that I am very proud to be the current course record holder for the Utah Tour de Donut course.)
So Lisa started browsing her list. And within minutes, I was hearing her yell (because she was upstairs and I was downstairs) like:
- “Did you know I’m the QOM on the Mont du Chat in France?”
- “Hey, I’m also the QOM of the Col du Glandon! By more than twenty minutes!”
- Oh, I’m the fastest woman on the Mud Springs climb! And I guess I’m the only woman who does that climb, too!”
It went on like that. For quite a while.
Outrage and Vengeance
And then, of course, the inevitable happened. The Hammer (because calling her “Lisa” seems so out-of-place in this context) got an email from Strava, telling her that someone had just posted a faster time than her’s on one of the iconic climbs in a neighboring town.
The Hammer was no longer the QOM of Squaw Peak.
Then, to add insult to injury, The Hammer got another email: she was no longer the QOM of the climb from Provo Canyon to the Sundance Ski Resort.
Horrors!
So we made a plan. The next day (which is now yesterday), we would head out to Provo Canyon, where she would make an attempt to reclaim her QOM status on Squaw Peak. Then we would ride back down, ride up the Canyon to the Alpine Loop turnoff, and then ride, full-tilt up to Sundance.
My job would be to ride alongside her (we agreed that I would never give her a pull, since that would put an asterisk on her presumed victory), telling her how she was doing, giving her encouragement, and providing chitchat to distract her from the fact that she was riding out of her skull.
In order to ensure I remembered the times we had to beat, I wrote them on my leg:
We needed to be faster than 34 minutes climbing up Squaw Peak. And faster than 16:30 going up to Sundance.
First Climb
Squaw Peak has an elevation profile that looks like this:
4.3 miles, 6.9% average grade. It’s as consistent as it is difficult. Which, by the way, is “very.”
We rode alongside each other. She sweated and focused. I sweated and focused and talked, saying anything that came into my head.
“Hey, you’re riding strong,” I said.
She did not reply.
“Good day for an attempt at a PR. Nice and cool, and no wind,” I said.
She did not reply.
“Look at that house. It’s really big,” I said.
She did not reply.
“You’re halfway through the climb now and on track to beat the record,” I said.
And also I said many more things. Finally, she replied.
“Please stop talking.”
I stopped talking. Which I was happy to do, because it’s not like I was lollygagging and riding one handed while she rode at her limit.
As we got to the top, though, I did venture to say one more thing: “Don’t stop right when you get to the top. Keep going, because you can’t be sure where the Strava segment ends.”
So she blasted to the top of Squaw Peak, finishing in 32:46 and obliterating the previous QOM time of 34:27. (Sorry, Natalie!)
All hail The Hammer! The Queen of Squaw Peak!
Second Climb
We rode back down, where The Hammer — without really trying — set a women’s course record on the Squaw Peak Descent. (Sorry again, Natalie!)
Then we cruised, nice and mellow, ’til we hit the climb to the Sundance ski resort, which has an elevation profile like this:
“2.2 miles, 6.8% average grade” is accurate, but it’s the “average” part that makes this tricky, because the first mile is pretty easy. The second mile gets harder, with the second half of the second mile being absolutley ugly-brutal.
Once again, I talked (and talked), which goes to show that I am a slow learner.
And, with 0.4 miles to go — where we were well into the absolute hardest part of the climb, The Hammer said, “Shut up.”
I shutted up.
Except, as we got to the sign that says we were at Sundance, I said, “Keep rolling, you don’t know where the segment finishes.”
She passed the sign in fifteen minutes, beating the previous best by almost two minutes.
The Hammer kept pedaling, still rolling surprisingly fast. Demonstrating that after you’ve been going at your absolute limit, merely going hard feels easy.
So we kept climbing, going on up to the top of the Alpine Loop. She was no longer killing herself, but I could tell she was going fast, and had obviously given herself a good start by flying up that brutal first 2.2 miles.
And that’s how The Hammer became the QOM of the Alpine Loop (Sundance Side), beating the previous QOM time by twelve minutes. (Sorry, other Lisa!)
Oh, and on the way down, she set a CR for the descent, too (Sorry for the third time, Natalie!)
Disbelief and Confusion
So we got home and — even before taking showers or eating or anything — quickly uploaded her GPS data.
Here’s what Strava had to make of it:
Six QOM/CRs, along with some other awards. Not a bad day’s work.
But that’s not what The Hammer was focusing on.
“I didn’t get the QOM for Sundance!” she said. In fact, the Sundance climb — one of her two main objectives for the ride — didn’t even show up on yesterday’s ride at all. Even though she had slaughtered the previous women’s record.
Why not? Well, that’s the weird thing about Strava. The segment must have been defined so that in order for The Hammer to have completed that segment, she would have had to make a left turn into the resort parking lot, and maybe ridden ten or fifteen feet down it or something.
So Erin’s record lives to fight another day, although The Hammer has vowed to return next week.
Plans
So what’s next for The Hammer’s relentless quest to be the QOM of all the land? Well, believe it or not, she has made a list of target segments and times:
No, that’s not her handwriting. It’s mine. I’m The Queen’s official scribe now.
I am told that, today after work, one or more of these is going down.
Truly, The Hammer has become a Strava monster. And I have nobody but myself to blame.
PS: Full Disclosure: I have no relationship at all with Strava. In fact, about a month ago I contacted them by email and told them that I’m a bigshot blogger and that they should upgrade me to a Premium membership for free. They didn’t even reply.
PPS: An Evening Update: As of the QOM hunt we went on this afternoon, The Hammer is now QOM of Jacob’s Ladder, crushing the previous QOM’s time by about 2.5 minutes. Wow.
However, when The Hammer made an attempt on Clark’s — possibly the most popular MTB TT around — she didn’t quite nab the QOM, missing it by 19 seconds. So pro MTB racer Erica T keeps her QOM on this segment . . . for now.
PPPS: A Morning Update: Live by Strava, die by Strava. Late last night, The Hammer got email saying that someone had taken her QOMs for both Squaw Peak and the Alpine Loop climb. My guess is the timing of the upload of these rides (both rides are from a while ago) is not coincidence. The Hammer will be back to reclaim her throne sometime soonish.
PPPPS: A commenter noted that Erica Tingey — the pro MTB-er who holds the QOM for Clark’s — has recently got out of the hospital following a really bad accident. Get better soon, Erica! (But The Hammer’s still going to have another try at that QOM!)
Comments (65)
06.14.2012 | 8:23 am
A Note from Fatty About Today’s Post: This is part 4 (and, believe it or not, the final part) of my writeup of the 2012 Rockwell Relay. If you got to this part first for some reason, you might want to read part 1, part 2, and part 3 before continuing on.
Night Riders
I had finished my night leg; now it was The Hammer’s turn. But as I sent her off at the Exchange, I could see she had a problem:
She had dressed way too warmly. Unlike last year, when even the early night laps were very cold, it was still nice and warm as The Hammer took off.
I knew she’d be overheating, especially since this was yet another leg with a lot (3061 feet) of climbing.
And sure enough, the first time The Hammer pulled up alongside the van and I asked how she was doing, she replied, “Terrible. I’m burning up.”
So, like a NASCAR pit crew, we jumped out, got the reflective belt and the blinking red light off her, and stripped off the long sleeve jersey, leaving her in tights and a Smartwool baselayer t-shirt. Both black.
Then we got the reflective belt and the blinking light back on her and sent her off.
With the black helmet, black tights, black shirt, and the mostly-black bike, she looked like a ninja in the night.
Except for all the reflect-y and lit-up bits, I mean.
No Reason to Fear
The night legs of the Rockwell Relay are very surreal. It’s hard to see what’s coming up in the road ahead of you, and the bike lights don’t really illuminate that much to your side. As a result, you kind of feel not so much like you’re riding in place, but definitely not like you’re really going anywhere.
You’re not riding through (or to) anywhere. You’re just riding through time.
And meanwhile, the wind blew.
Each time I asked The Hammer how she was doing, I would ask it in fear. Worried she would say, “This sucks; I want to quit.”
But each time, she would instead answer, “I’m doing great,” or “I’m good,” or some variation on that.
Big smile. Strong legs. Incredible endurance.
Very proud husband.
A Terrifying Sound
The Hammer did not encounter a single rider as she rode this segment. Didn’t pass anyone, didn’t get passed by anyone.
But as she rode, she slowly reeled in a rider from another team (I don’t know which team), to the point that the other team and our van were pulling over in the same places.
I walked back toward the other team’s RV. The driver of the RV walked over toward me. And we just started talking.
And then the oddness of it — a couple of complete strangers, at around 2:00AM, chatting like old friends in the dead of night — struck me. “What a strange, interesting, amazing place to be right now,” I thought
And then, at that moment, from the other team’s RV, a horrible sound erupted. The loudest, wettest fart I have ever heard.
Audible, easily, from fifty feet away.
“Our next racer is suffering from a bit of a GI issue right now,” the other guy said, evenly.
Kenny Suffers, Suffers from Disbelief
The Hammer finished her night leg. Then Heather started her night leg, and got to enjoy the awesomeness of riding through the dawn of a desert sunrise. As we passed her, asking how things were going, she replied, “This is so beautiful.”
And she was right.
Then, finally, we were to our final legs of the race. Kenny’s — of course – was first, and it was pretty scary. 35.7 miles, with an astonishing 4160 feet of climbing.
Except those are the actual numbers, printed on the “Leg 9 – Alternate” page of the Race Bible (warning: large PDF). Kenny — bleary from lack of sleep — had instead previewed the original Leg 9 numbers, which were for a route we would not be riding.
And the numbers Kenny looked at made him think he’d be riding 29.4 miles, with 3530 feet of climbing.
To a guy who’s tired and is metering out his effort very carefully, that’s a big difference.
So when Kenny said, “Just a few miles left to climb!” and we corrected him, he looked at us in absolute and complete disbelief, waiting for us to say, “Just kidding!”
But we weren’t just kidding.
Kenny swore. Loud and long.
And then he resumed climbing. (But he didn’t stop swearing the whole rest of his ride.)
Twelve
I didn’t mention it before, because I wanted to sound as awesome as possible, but one of the major reasons I raced so hard in my previous leg was because I knew that my final leg of the race was going to be kinda . . . puny.
Which is to say, It started with a big thirteen-mile descent, followed by twelve miles of unispired flat riding.
The descent was fun.
The flat was . . . not.
Riding a frontage road parallel to the freeway, I was hardly moving at all. The headwind rose to an incredible level.
I was giving it everything I’ve got, but still could just barely go twelve miles per hour.
It was like riding through sand, while submerged in molasses. Upstream and uphill.
It took me a full hour to ride that scant 12 miles.
More Wind
The Hammer’s final leg was more of the same. Flat riding, some climbing. Lots of headwind. Lots of crosswind. The difference was, her leg went on for 47.4 miles.
Riding low only does you so much good when the wind is that bad.
And Heather’s was more of the same.
It was enough to make you want to quit. Except neither of the women ever even mentioned the possibility (by contrast, at least four other teams did quit during these two incredibly brutal legs).
They just pushed on, keeping us — as near as we could tell — in the lead for the Co-Ed division, and not ceding many (if any) places to any all-men division, either.
Meanwhile, Kenny noted that I was sleeping on the job (which was to hand bottles off to Heather whenever we pulled alongside her), and posted proof on his Facebook page:
What can I say? I was tired.
Surprise Finish
As Heather finished her final leg (and the last leg of the race), the rest of us got ready to celebrate by stopping at the famous Veyo Pie Shop, which was conveniently located along the race route, just a dozen or so miles from the finish line. We got a cheesecake with carmel topping, in case you were curious. And I know that you were.
Then we went and got changed back into riding jerseys, got on our bikes, and headed over to the road where we were to meet Heather, parading to the finish line as the two-time victors in the Co-ed division.
We were surprised, however, to find that Heather was not riding alone.
Far from it.
Instead, there were the riders from Team Control4.com. And riders from Team Haiti Sak Plen. They were clearly going to duke it out in a sprint for the finish line (and would in fact finish with identical times of 32:23:12).
But those were not the teams we were surprised by. Nosirree.
The team we were surprised by — indeed, the team that had our eyes popping out of our freaking skulls — was that there was yet another team headed for the finish line.
And there was a woman riding in that team.
We couldn’t believe it: A co-ed team was about to beat us, by a matter of seconds, right at the finish line.
Kenny and I stepped up the pace a bit, but didn’t exactly sprint for the finish. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; Heather’s time across the line was the one that mattered.
Then we crossed the line. First, somehow. Wondering why, exactly, this other team had held back. Wondering how we had never seen this team during the race.
Later, we’d find out. This team — like a lot of teams — had gotten to the point where they just didn’t have it in them to finish all the legs of the race anymore, so had moved over from “race” mode to “really incredibly exhausting bike tour mode,” and were now cherry-picking which legs of the race they were going to do. Just riding for fun, they still wanted to have the experience of riding into town and crossing the finish line.
So — in spite of our moment of panic — we had done it. Team Fatty is the two-time Rockwell Relay, Moab – St. George, with a time of 32:24:00. Here we are, very nearly looking like we’re not going to fall asleep on the spot, at our finish line photo pop:
One of the things I really like about the Rockwell Relay is the prizes for the finishers. Instead of a medal you will never wear, you get a cool Finisher’s Ring:
The inside of the ring is inscribed with the race name and year. It’s awesome.
And, as winners of the Co-ed division, we got awesome Rockwell Iron Rider Watches, which do pretty much everything (Altimeter, Compass, Barometer, Thermometer, Alarm, Data Tracking, Light, movable compass dial and Stop Watch):
Everyone else on the team is holding up their watches they just received. I was too tired and could no longer keep my arm raised to that level.
Best of all, we got to go back to Kenny and Heather’s house and eat cheesecake. Which we did, straight from the pie tin. Because getting out plates for everyone would have required that someone stand up and walk to a cupboard.
And that seemed like an unreasonably difficult task at the moment.
Wrapping Up
As a testament to exactly how amazing the women of Team Fatty are, we were one of only two co-ed teams — out of the ten that signed up — that actually finished the race as a race (i.e., didn’t skip legs or otherwise shortcut the race rules).
And to boot, we finished in the top third of all the teams, placing 20th overall. Sure, that’s about 4.5 hours slower than Brute Force, the three-time overall champion team of the race.
But we’ll take it.
And we’ll be back next year, defending our title dynasty.
PS: I’ve uploaded my first, second, and third legs of the race to Strava, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.
PPS: If you’re into stats, here are the race results (PDF format), along with Exchange point check-in times and whatnot.
Comments (37)
06.13.2012 | 12:04 pm
A Note from Fatty: This is part 3 in my writeup of this year’s Rockwell Relay: Moab to St. George, a 516-mile road bike relay race across the beautiful Southern Utah canyon lands and desert. Part 1 of the story is here. Part 2 of the story is here.
Before I continue with the telling of how our race went, I want to talk about a couple of things fundamental to any race: time and food.
The Oddness of Time
During this race, time seemed to progress so strangely. After each of my legs of the race, I always thought to myself, “Good, I have three legs of the race now — hours and hours — to recover.”
But then you’re busy crewing and spectating and cheering and in no time at all, it’s your turn again.
The second way time was odd had to do with how simultaneously short and long the race day was. We had been racing since 8:00 this morning, and had just finished going through one race rotation for our team. In a way, it still felt like it ought to be morning, like we had been racing for no time at all.
But it wasn’t morning; we were well into the afternoon. In fact, the sun would set and night would come on during Kenny’s next racing leg.
Simultaneously, as the race wore on, time seemed to stretch out. I’d lose track of how long we had been out there (is it Friday? Saturday? Something else?), as if we had never been doing anything but this race.
After a while, I got so I stopped even worrying about what day it was or what time it was. All that mattered was taking care of the person who was racing, and getting prepared for when it was my turn to race again.
It was both surreal and wonderful.
Food and Rest
In yesterday’s post’s comment section, Roan had a great question:
What do you guys do to recover a little on your idle legs? Sure I know you are crewing & driving too. But is there any slack time for the next rider? What diet? What are the fine points?
On our team, the person who just finished racing a leg was always given at least an hour or two without any race responsibilities. They just got to relax in the van, either sitting or climbing into the bed and sleeping.
And — more than anything else — getting caught up on eating and drinking. What we each ate and drank, though, really depended on the rider.
At about the halfway point for the current race leg, the person who would be racing next would trade places with the person who had just raced, and would have time to dress, eat, drink, and otherwise prepare for their next leg. (As I write this, it sounds like this was some kind of cleverly planned rotation strategy, but in reality it just naturally flowed and worked out this way.)
All of us, I know, would drink a ton of water after each of the day legs. There wasn’t any strategy behind this; it was just that our bodies craved it after being out there in the heat for so long (especially Lisa’s and Heather’s first laps, where they were riding 50+ miles in 100+-degree weather against a headwind).
Most (if not all) of us also loved having a Coke right after finishing a race leg. And salty food like chips.
For food, The Hammer and I had bought four footlong club sandwiches from a Subway sandwich store the night before the race began, having them hold the mayo and mustard (so the sandwiches wouldn’t get all soggy and salmonella-y). After each leg, I’d eat a third of one of these sandwiches.
Kenny and Heather had a similar strategy, except instead of Subway sandwiches, they had bought a couple of pizzas (from Paradox Pizza in Moab — great place to eat if you’re visiting Moab) the night before the race, and were eating that before and after their race legs.
During the race legs, all of us tended to drink a lot of water and sports drink, and eat Honey Stinger Waffles and Energy Chews. We’re all big fans of Honey Stinger (and in this case, we were eating ones I had purchased at REI just before the race, so it’s not like we like them just because I sometimes get them for free).
OK, let’s get back to the story.
Mad Scramble
I knew we’d be busy when we got to the Exchange after Heather’s first leg.
This Exchange point was at the Hollow Mountain gas station in Hanksville, and was important for several reasons:
- It was the last Exchange point we’d have in the light, so was a good time to set lights up on our bikes.
- It was a good place to buy ice and water, which was good because we were all out.
- There was a restaurant there, so we could buy a hot meal (to go, obviously).
As we waited for Heather to come in, I took care of setting up lights for The Hammer and me, while Kenny set up his bike and got ready to go.
The Hammer, meanwhile, went and bought ice and water to replenish our ice chests and water cooler, then went into the diner — Blondies — and ordered a burger and a chicken sandwich.
Then a few things happened all at once:
- Heather rolled in to the Exchange point, so it was time for Kenny to take off.
- Kenny discovered that he had forgotten to fill his bottles, so had nothing to drink — and it was still 90+ degrees outside.
- Lisa ran out of the diner, telling me I had to come inside; there were some people wanting to meet me.
I figured the people at the diner could wait; I needed to get Kenny a bottle. But Kenny took off, yelling over his shoulder, “Just bring me a bottle as soon as you can!”
My heart sank, because I knew that would be a while; I remembered from last year at this Exchange point that Blondies isn’t a place you go for fast service, and The Hammer had already ordered.
So — leaving Heather to fend for herself, post-race — I quickly finished setting up lights for The Hammer’s and my next race legs, loaded the bikes, and then went into the diner (the food had not yet arrived).
And met Barb — a longtime Friend of Fatty — and her entourage, all of whom were on a cool biking tour in Utah.
Once again, I am the shortest person in the photo.
As I enjoyed talking with these people, I was simultaneously wondering, “I wonder if Kenny’s died of thirst yet,” and “How long is this food going to take to arrive, anyway?”
Then — finally! — the food arrived, I said a quick “Gotta dash, we have a teammate who is probably dying on the side of the road of heat stroke right now,” and bolted out the door.
Joined at the Hip
Luckily for us, Kenny was still very much alive by the time we caught up to him, though he seemed exceptionally grateful to get a bottle of ice-cold water from us.
As it had turned out, it had actually been a fantastic race strategy for Heather to wait for Troy from Team Control4.com as she came in to the Exchange point (see the end of yesterday’s post if you don’t know what I’m talking about), because that meant Kenny — our fastest guy — and Team Control4.com’s fastest guy would start together and — just like in their first race leg — work together for the entire leg of the race.
And since this was a truly brutal leg with an extraordinarily harsh headwind, working together made them each much faster than if they had started out on their own.
Each time I got out of the van to cheer Kenny on, the wind would about knock me off my feet and I’d think to myself, “I am so glad I am not racing this leg.”
Then I thought ahead to my own race leg, coming up next, and wondered if — like the previous two legs of the race — I’d be trading pulls against a tough headwind with Team Control4.com.
It seemed probable.
My Second Leg
The sun set and the dark set in during Kenny’s second leg, which reminded us of how much the wind had affected our race this year; last year the sun hadn’t set until I was out on my second leg. We weren’t worrying about that, though; everyone else was being slowed by the wind, too.
We got to the Torrey Exchange, where I got out my bike, clipped a blinking red light to my jersey pocket, put on a reflective belt, and strapped on my helmet (with the battery in my jersey pocket), now sporting my beloved NiteRider Pro 1400 LED light setup.
The next rider from Control4.com and I stood at the Exchange point, waiting for our respective riders to come in. As we did, a local cyclist offered some valuable advice.
“You’re about to do the ride we all do as our big climbing ride,” he said. “The climbing goes up to mile marker 108.”
“Mile marker 108. Got it,” I said. “Thanks, that’s incredibly helpful information.”
Then Kenny came in and the racer from Team Control4.com (sorry I don’t know your name, other racer!) and I took off.
I figured I’d take the first pull and rode hard, trying to set a good fast tempo for us to do together, all the while keeping an eye out for the left turn I had blown by last year.
There were two markers for this turn this time (The day after the race, Dan — the race director — told me in fact that those were just for me), and I made the turn without trouble.
Yay me!
But I took the opportunity of this turn to look back, and the guy from Control4.com was nowhere to be found.
So I was on my own again.
How come nobody likes riding with me?
I am Very Snotty
I rode hard on this very climby section (39 miles, 3442 feet of climbing) of the race, and within a half hour or so of starting had caught and dropped another rider.
The night cooled down, and I pulled up my armwarmers.
I watched the mile markers as they went by, counting down toward 108. “Wow,” I thought to myself. “The climbing won’t last as long as I remember for this leg. I’ll be finished with the climbing by the time I’ve ridden sixteen miles.”
The climbing started in earnest. I stood up and started going as hard as I could up the mountain. It was cold out, but I was heating up.
Which caused a kind of interesting reaction.
Specifically, I was sweating hard, but my nose was running from the cold. This all mixed together to form what I like to call a “snotulum” — a dangling mucous rope — hanging from the tip of my nose.
Swinging, back and forth, in time to my pedal cadence. Growing longer and longer as I rode.
Six inches long! Now eight! When — if, indeed, ever — will it snap and fall to the ground?
When I could sit for a moment, I’d wipe the snotulum off onto my gloves. Until my gloves got soaked, at which point I’d wipe the snotulum off onto my armwarmers.
This fix, however, was the most temporary of all possible temporary fixes. A new snotulum would replace the wiped-off one within moments.
Passers-by stared, transfixed with horror.
Not the Top
I continued to count off the miles, pleased that within a few more minutes I’d be reaching the 108 mile marker, and therefore the summit.
And then the team rolled up alongside me for the first time since I had begun this leg (I had told them before to take their time loading the van at the Exchange; I wouldn’t need support for a while).
“I only have a few more miles to climb!” I shouted, ebulliently.
The Hammer, who was leaning out the passenger window, looked doubtful, but handed me a new bottle and some Energy Chews.
She probably also stared in revulsion at my snotulum. As would anyone.
A few moments later, they pulled alongside again. “You have eleven more miles of climbing!” The Hammer called.
“No, just three!” I called back. “The local guy I talked with said mile marker 108 is the summit!”
“He’s wrong,” The Hammer called back. “You don’t hit the summit ’til you’ve been riding 24 miles.”
Who should I trust in this situation: the local who gave me a very specific mile marker? Or my wife.
Duh.
“OK, eleven miles of climbing,” I called back, glad I had found this out and had a chance to mentally recalibrate before I hit mile marker 108.
And of course, The Hammer was right. Mile marker 108 actually was a place where a false summit happens. Maybe the local really thought that’s the summit and does turn around.
Or maybe he was having a little joke at my expense.
Either way, I now knew I’d be climbing ’til the true summit at mile marker 100.
Carrots and More Carrots
The next time the van pulled alongside me, I asked them to go on up ahead ’til they came across the next rider, then time how long it was ’til I got to that point. I wanted to know whether I had a shot at catching anyone else during this leg of the race.
Several minutes later, I saw them parked at the side of the road.
“You’re just two minutes behind the next racer,” The Hammer called, “and three minutes behind the one after that!”
Which was everything I needed to know.
It’s weird how you can be absolutely certain that you are going your very hardest, but then upon discovering there’s a chance you’ll catch another racer, find it within yourself to go much harder.
I don’t know how long it took me to catch my two-minute guy, but I did catch him. By which time I could see the red blinking light of my three-minute guy (a member of Ryan’s Life Time Fitness team), and I somehow found it within myself to catch him, too.
“Want to work together?” he asked.
“Just try to hang on,” I replied. Which probably sounds kind of arrogant, but I didn’t mean it that way.
OK, maybe I meant it that way a little. But I was feeling incredible pride. In spite of the fact that I’m riding heavy this year (still in the 170s for crying out loud), I passed four people on this leg of the race, putting more than half an hour into our frenemy team, Control4.com.
Oh Yes Indeed It’s Fun Time (Fun Time, Fun Time)
At mile 100 — just as The Hammer had said would happen — I hit the real summit of Boulder pass. My team quickly got me into a windbreaker for the fast descent ahead of me and I got rolling again.
The whole way down, I could not stop laughing. It was such a fun, fast, open descent. Big wide turns you don’t have to brake for. Nice road. The oddness of doing this in the dead of night. It was just a pleasure.
My NiteRider light setup was so powerful I had no trouble seeing everything around me, plus I had our team van ahead of me, just to make sure there weren’t any deer that might want to jump right in front of me at the last moment.
And a good thing, too, because they had to stop, honk and yell at one deer that looked like it was ready to make a kamikaze jump right into me.
The only downside to this technique was that I pulled into the Exchange only seconds after the rest of the Team did, so The Hammer had to unload her bike before she could take off. Since, however, she was otherwise dressed and ready to go, this was not exactly a big loss — a couple minutes, tops.
Once again, The Hammer had a huge ride ahead of her: 56.6 miles, and 3061 feet of climbing. Into a headwind that continued to grow worse and worse, through the very darkest part of night.
Which is where I’ll pick up (and maybe I’ll even finish?) the story tomorrow.
PS: Notice how the number of photos dropped off pretty drastically when the night legs began?
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