08.12.2012 | 5:48 am
Updates all this week are going to be short. Full stories will be coming next week. And there should be a lot of stories to tell.
Yesterday was an amazing Leadville 100 Race for The Hammer and me:
- The Hammer finished in 9:28, knocking 11 minutes off her previous personal best, and getting third in her age group. This is her first time on the Leadville Podium!
- I finished in 8:50, my fourth try at doing the LT100 on a single speed, and my first time at finishing it under nine hours, netting me my second big buckle for this race, and my first for doing it on a single speed — a longtime goal reached! Ordinarily, this would not be fast enough to get me on the podium, but some fast guys didn’t show up, and other fast guys (i.e., Kenny) didn’t have a great day. As a result, I took first in the single speed division.
So both The Hammer and I got on the podium — but won’t be there for the awards ceremony, because we had to hotfoot it out of Leadville right after the race and get ourselves set up for the Breck Epic!
Today is the first stage: about 40 miles in distance, with about 5400 feet of climbing.
Our objective is to simply get through this stage. Our legs are sooooo cooked.
PS: Be sure to tune into Leverage on TNT this evening! Check your listings here for the when. If I am not too tired (or still out on the course), I plan to liveblog it at 6:00pm MT tonight.
Comments (21)
08.11.2012 | 5:15 am
A quick note before I head out to the start line. If you’d like to follow my race (or The Hammer’s or The IT Guy’s), go to this page, scroll down past the picture, and enter our respective race numbers, which are:
- The Hammer (Lisa Nelson): 781
- The IT Guy (Blake Rollins): 3177
- Me (Fatty / Elden Nelson): 372
Thanks! And wish us luck.
Comments (18)
08.10.2012 | 7:35 am
A Note from Fatty: The important part of today’s poem is that I will be on Leverage this Sunday. By all means, please check your listings to see what time, and then do your best to open read along as I liveblog seeing it at 8:00pm ET / 6:00pm MT this Sunday.
My head will not quiet
My thoughts are
Too many
Too much
Is it any wonder
I did not sleep?
Tomorrow I race
A race I have done
fifteen times before
Or perhaps 14.2
Would be
More accurate
In any case
A lot
So why am I anxious?
Why does my head churn?
Why do I find myself
betimes bolting
For the nearest bathroom?
It’s a stupid question
(For really, the above are all the same question,
Differently phrased.)
Because I don’t know
How fit I am
How fast I am
How prepared I am
Or what I have forgotten
Which is completely
Utterly
Totally
Necessary
And that’s just for starters
I am in pain
And not just the anxious
Hand-wringing kind
My pain isn’t just metaphorical
To wit
Several days ago
My right calf became majorly bruised
And it still hurts
And yesterday
When innocently lifting a suitcase
Something went “spung” in my back
This has not happened before!
And now my back hurts
A lot
Which could be a problem
When riding my singlespeed
And standing
And climbing
And basically using my back
To race one hundred miles
Tomorrow
My brain roils
My stomach queases
(For now, let us treat “quease” as the verbal form of “queasy.”)
And then!
After this race
Tomorrow
I start another race
The Breck Epic
Which goes for six days
That is
By my count
Seven straight days
Of mountain biking
Which is quite a bit
My stomach churns
And is that all?
No!
No it is not all
For Sunday
This very Sunday
I will be on television
I will be playing a (very) bit role
In the hit television series
Leverage
On TNT
So check your listings
And if you’re watching it
when it plays 6pm Mountain Time
Which is 8pm Eastern Time
Maybe read my blog
While you watch this show
For I intend to Liveblog it
And now I must dash
For the restroom
Yet again
Thank you.
Comments (15)
08.8.2012 | 10:10 am
A Note from Fatty: I wanted to update you on where things stand with Cigna and my son. A couple weeks ago, I wrote that they had declined coverage on the program he’s attending to help him overcome the debilitating depression he’s been fighting ever since Susan’s cancer came back.
Well, we escalated it through all the appeal levels there are available. Cigna said “no.” Each time.
So last week, my HR Representative at work asked for an independent review. Those take a little while, during which I continued to send my son to this program. I figured I’d pay for this, somehow. He’s improving; the program’s worth it.
On Friday, I was actually visiting with a counsellor at this program when the finance guy burst in.
“I have ridiculously good news,” he said. “The independent review sided with us. Cigna has to pay for the treatment, up to today. And that decision is final and binding.”
I was so relieved. But of course, that meant that the battle was just going to start again, starting the next workday.
And then, yesterday, I heard that Cigna had approved — this time without the reviews and appeals — another week of this program.
I’m sure that at some point — sooner than later, I’d guess — I’ll have to ramp up the battle again. And no matter what, this is going to be expensive for me; even with Cigna covering, my portion of the program still comes out to be about the same as an extra house payment each month.
But it’s still true: for now, we’re covered. Which is really great news.
So I’d like to give a big shout-out to someone I’m almost certain doesn’t read my blog: Keisha S, the incredible HR Rep at Gartner, where I work. She doesn’t know me (or didn’t ’til now), but took on my problem as if I were her brother.
I tell you. So many people have gone out of their way to do good things for me. I am a fortunate person.
Today, I am packing.
I am piling up pretty much every cycling-related item I own, and putting it in a truck. Tomorrow I’m driving to Leadville, getting ready for my sixteenth annual racing of the Leadville Trail 100 (Here’s last year’s race report, in case you’ve somehow missed my 1.5-decade-long obsession with this race).
I love this race. I dread this race. The course. The effort. The tradition. The annual wrestling match with my demons. The people.
More than anything, the people.
It’s the people who make any cycling event good. And somehow, it seems like big races and events bring out the best in everyone. As if during the course of the ride, by pushing all your anger and aggression into your pedals, you end the ride with nothing but the good parts.
Facing the Unknown
As the race gets closer, I’ll be nervous. I’ll lose sleep. I’ll fret and second-guess myself. I’ll ask myself, a thousand times, whether I’m in good enough shape to finish the Leadville 100 on a singlespeed in under nine hours.
But I’m not worried about whether I’ll finish. Sure, something could happen: I could crash out (it’s happened). I could have a catastrophic mechanical (it’s nearly happened). But I know my fitness and the course well enough that I am pretty sure I’ll get across the finish line before the twelve-hour gun goes off.
But not everyone knows that about themselves.
There are people who, right now, know the cutoff times are at the various aid stations, and are worrying about those times much, much more than I’m worrying about that magical nine hour mark.
There are people who are thinking about the twelve-hour official finishing time. There are people who are thinking about the thirteen-hour semi-official finishing time, after which officials begin sweeping the course.
Those people are a lot more stressed about this race than I am.
But they’re still showing up. And they’re contesting this race. Even though they don’t know whether they can finish it, they are still going to give it everything they have, in a bid to stretch themselves and find out what they can do.
There’s a remarkable, admirable courage in that.
Suffering
In any big race, everyone suffers. And there’s a certain temptation to see egalitarianism in the suffering: everyone’s suffering over the same distance.
But that’s deceptive.
You don’t suffer over distance. You suffer over time, multiplied by effort. And everyone’s trying hard.
So by my math, the folks in the back are suffering more. Way more.
But they’re doing it. They’re accepting that they have to work harder and pay a greater price to get across the finish line. And they do.
As far as I’m concerned: the greater the battle, the more heroic the return. I love watching racers come in across the finish line — totally ruined, but simultaneously totally triumphant.
The Nature of the Course
Leadville is an out-and-back course. You ride out 51 miles, and then ride back 52. Or something like that.
What this means is that as you get near the turnaround point — which is also the highest point in the course (12,600 feet) — you get to see the people ahead of you coming back down the trail.
When I first started racing the Leadville 100 — back when just a few hundred raced it — there was an awesome tradition in place. Those returning from the turnaround would cheer for those still marching up to the turnaround.
As the race has gotten bigger, not as many people do it anymore. That’s too bad. If I can — if I have the lungs and am not in mortal peril because I’m going faster than I should — I’m going to yell for the folks marching up as I come down.
Because they deserve it, for one thing. And because I love it whenever I get a cheer from a stranger. It makes a difference.
Breck
I’m pointing all this out not just because I want to give kudos to the guys in the back — although that’s part of it. I’m also writing this to myself.
Because the day after I completely give everything I’ve got trying to get under nine hours in Leadville, The Hammer and I will be starting the Breck Epic — six days of mountain bike racing.
And honestly, it’s going to be a stretch to get across the finish line in time.
I’m going to be one of the guys at the back. I’m going to be one of the guys who’s suffering more than the people who finished hours earlier. I’m going to be one of the guys who is going to be happy just to get across the finish line.
And I have a suspicion that if I can do it, I’m going to be incredibly proud to be one of those guys.
Comments (40)
08.7.2012 | 12:24 pm
I am not a very competitive person. Not really. Oh, sure, I like to participate in the occasional race. And when I do, I can’t sleep for about three weeks before that race. And I tend to get obsessed with that race.
And then I look for every possible advantage I can get in the race.
And on race day, I pretty much kill myself trying to attack and destroy every person I can in the race.
But other than that, I’m not really a very competitive person.
Which leads us to the Life Time Fitness Leadman Tri I’ll be racing in as part of a relay this September. Yeah, that’s the one where I have an open bet with anyone who thinks they can beat my time on the bike section of the race (click here for more details on how you can enter). And if you do, you get this t-shirt:
Sure, in a way that’s like getting a t-shirt that says “Taller than Hervé Villechaize,” but still: they’re cool-looking t-shirts.
And I really don’t want very many people to own them.
So I contacted Chris at Specialized, and told him all about the poem I wrote about my Stumpy SS, and how I love that bike so much, and how I was going to be doing the bike part of this triathlon soon and that the only non-mountain bike I have is a straight-up regular road bike, and how I really didn’t want to give away a whole bunch of t-shirts.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Chris said.
And so yesterday, I got this box:
And inside that box was this bike:
(Tomatoes and zucchini not included)
Yes, I am now in possession of one Specialized Shiv Expert, a Tri-specific (as in, it totally gives the bird to the UCI and its rules) aerodynamic freak of engineering.
How excited am I? Oh, I’d rate it up there in the “stratospherically ridiculously excited” zone, I think.
So excited, in fact, that I ignored the fact that I have a ton of things I need to do right now and built up the bike (that makes it sound like I actually assembled the bike, but really all I had to do was put the wheels on, attach the bars, put some pedals on and plug in the seatpost). Then I ignored that I’m supposed to be tapering right now and got on the bike, riding thirty hard miles.
On a type of bike I’ve never ridden before, in a brand-new position.
Hey, it’s a new bike. You would have done the exact same thing.
What It’s Like to Ride the Shiv
I admit, I was afraid to ride this bike for the first time. You see, I love watch how incredibly fast an accomplished cyclist can be on a purpose-built machine like this. Love it.
And I knew, deep within my heart — and head — that I would not look or ride like one of those fast guys. Not on my first ride.
I knew, basically, that I was deeply unworthy of this bike. It is built for the expert- and pro-level rider who’s needing to eek out a couple of extra seconds to get on the podium. Whereas I am a complete and utter novice with no form and no idea what I’m doing.
But that certainly wasn’t going to stop me from trying.
The first thing I noticed when riding the Shiv is that nothing is where I expected it to be, and how disconcerting that can be at first. I really hadn’t considered how reflexive the motions to shift and brake are. Or how my hands want to go to the — now nonexistent — hoods.
I’ll learn all of that again. Eventually.
The next thing that I noticed was that as I dropped into the TT position, how awesome it immediately felt.
Honestly, I was sure it was going to feel swervy and out of control and ridiculous. But it wasn’t like that. Instead, I found that when I got into that tuck (not as low as I wanted; I’ll be tweaking the bar height down quite a bit), I just wanted to go.
When I needed to shift, I just flipped the index shifters.
When I needed a drink, I just grabbed the tube (which is otherwise connected to my bar extensions with a magnet) that goes into the drinking system that’s actually integrated into the down tube.
For those of you who geek out the way I do over stuff like this, here’s the bladder that gets stuffed into the down tube:
It’s called the “Fuelselage” system. Clever.
And in general, I’m just hauling, and feeling really fast, knowing that I shouldn’t be going this hard so soon before a race, but you know that this isn’t a bike for dawdling. And so I keep hammering away, my back as low and flat as I can make it be without my knees crushing into my stomach.
In my mind, I am a bolt of lightning.
And since I had the foresight to not bring a bike computer, there’s no way this sense can be disproved. Yet.
This feeling of unstoppable speed continued . . . ’til I needed to slow down.
And that’s when I had my moment of terror. I needed to slow down! Now! But there were no brakes! WHY DOESN’T THIS BIKE HAVE ANY BRAKES?
Oh. There they are. Everything’s OK now. But how do I shift?
Clearly, I still have some acclimating to do.
Which, unfortunately, is going to have to wait ’til I get back from the Leadville 100 and Breck Epic. Which I should probably start packing for, since I’m leaving tomorrow.
But first I think I’ll go take the Shiv out for one more ride.
PS: There were actually two boxes that arrived yesterday. This is what came in the other one:
I think I’ll wear it during the Leadville 100. It’ll go awesome with my skinsuit.
Comments (39)
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