It's Starting to Look Like a Season

After a long, weird warm winter, spring is now solidly here and my brevet and ultra race season is beginning to take shape.  I had to postpone my first official brevet due to a work conflict, but my next event is almost here. I had planned to kick off brevet season with the classic Princeton (NJ) 200, but rode a local 200K permanent on the same day to cut out the excess transportation time that would have made me late to the school's annual action benefit.  So next weekend's Princeton 300K will be my first time riding with a crowd this year.

I plan to follow this over Memorial Day weekend with the flat NJ 400K that takes in large swaths of NJ Pine Barrens that transports me back to high school camping trips with friends in the 1980s. A month later I'll take in the Westfield (MA) 600K that rolls over familiar roads in MA, CT, NY and VT. I'll need to fit an ACP 200K in somewhere along the way to round out the official Super Randonneur award, but that could happen as late as next September. In addition to these brevets, I'm lined up to compete in the Saratoga 12-hour race again on the first weekend in July. This old favorite will be great fun. I'm quite eager to see what kind of speed and endurance I can muster over the next two months. It will be a great measure of my post-accident recovery against my past times on the event. Later this summer, I'll also be riding the D2R2 in Western MA.

• May 12 - Princeton 300K
• May 26 - Heightstown 400K [Change of plans - family conflict]
• June 9 - Central/Western NY 400K
• June 23/24 - Westfield 600K
• July 7 - Saratoga 12-hour race [Change of plans - family conflict]
• August 18 - D2R2
• September 8 - NYC 200K

Up next: the BikeNY Five Borough Bike Tour on Sunday. A father-son tradition continues. Stay tuned.

Finally! Goals for 2012

It's about time you must be saying. It's February already for Pete's sake! What are your goals already? So there are no great surprises here. In 2012, I plan to do the following things:

1. Achieve the elusive R12 Award. I began in July and will need only four more months after this weekend.
2. Complete a full SR series. Speed is less important to me now than it's been in recent years, but I would like to finish these brevets STRONG.
3. Compete in the Saratoga 12hr race in July. I'd love to finish in the top 1/3 of the field.
4. Perhaps complete the Endless Mountains 1000K.
5. Get my speed and endurance back and finish in the top 1/3 of the field in each event I enter.

Well, that's it for now. This is the Big Five. I'll have to leave tactics and strategy to future posts. Right now it's time to announce the "whats." Soon I'll share information on the "hows."

The Saratoga 300K: Just under the wire.

This past Sunday I rode in the Saratoga 300K, my second formal brevet of the year. With gentle rollers, this event looked like a good 300K to finish in under 12 hours to satisfy one of the requirements of the Cyclos Montagnard R60 Challenge. The nine (yes nine!) controls would make it tricky, though. At five minutes per control this would add 45 minutes to the ride. My goal: 1-2 minutes per control, except when I needed water and I would take the full 5. I rode with all of the calories I would need on the bike in the form of Perpetuem, Hammer Gel and a few solid bars. As Sunday approached, the forecast grew more ominous with predictions of rain growing from 20 to 30 to 80%. I came prepared with the full complement of fenders and raingear, so naturally we didn’t get a drop all day. 

On Saturday night, I pulled into Schyulerville and checked into the Old Saratoga Motor Inn. I’ve grown quite fond of this quaint town near the headwaters of the Hudson River over the years through John Ceceri’s brevets and ultra races. This was my first time in this particular motel and, let me tell you, it is a randonneur’s dream. The proprietors not only welcome bikes into the rooms, but check-out time is “whenever you’re done” at which point riders are invited to come back and “take a shower, take a nap, whatever you need.” And if that weren’t enough, at check-in the owner made sure we took his cell number just in case we broke down or needed any help along the way. “Just call me,” he said, “and I’ll just come up and get you in my truck.”

There was a small field of eight riders this time around that included several local Hudson Valley cyclists. Don and I shared a room and Andrey and Gene were there with their velorfred.com mobile. Have you visited Velofred lately? They sell great rando equipment of all shapes and sizes. Our pal Stuart from Woodstock also showed up as did a rider from Boston and one from Syracuse in addition to our organizer John.

The ride started at 4:00 am and in my great haste to get under way, I actually missed the first two cues on the sheet. The first elicited a few groans and the second caused me to add two bonus miles and one bonus hill into the route. Angry with my own carelessness, I hammered through the next ten miles to meet up with the field by the first control. After muttering something like “we shall not speak of this again” and getting my card stamped, Don and I rode off together for the next 60 miles or so trading pulls and catching up on life. At about mile 70, he pulled over and urged me on and so for the next 120 miles I rode solo.

The day was beautiful with spring in its full glory all around us. Flowering trees and light green buds adorned the trees. I saw a variety of signs and portents along the way: a small red fox (alive) and a pileated woodpecker (alive) and a porcupine (dead). I also came across the most dramatic chicken tree-house I’ve ever seen, with a three story spiral staircase encased in chicken wire. I also saw an eerie white “ghost bike” monument to indicate the location on a quiet back road where a cyclist lost his life to a car.

The wind was calm all day except for the 21 miles around the Great Sacandaga Lake (where it seemed to blow off the lake in all directions from the epicenter) and the final 10 miles along the Hudson. This last stretch is also the final 10 miles on the Saratoga 12/24 race course, so I was very familiar with those headwinds as well as the final climb up into town.

Fighting the clock, I dug deep into my reserves in the second half of the ride and finished at 3:53 (11h 53m), a mere 7 minutes before hitting my self-imposed 12 hour limit. I knew that every second counted throughout the entire 190 miles. It’s critical to spend time wisely and luckily I didn’t run into any mechanical trouble along the way. John’s wife Kathy was there at the finish with sandwiches and salad. We caught up as I enjoyed one of several dinners I ate that day.

With two events down, I have two more to go in my quest for the R60 honor. The Boston 400K (in under 16:12 hours) and the Cranbury 600K (in under 24 hours) both loom large on the horizon. Next up: a father-son ride this weekend in NYC on the Five Boro Bike Ride. I hope it’s a bit drier than last year, but we’re prepared either way.

Looking forward: Goals 2010

Today is that magical day when time seems to stand still. Day One, 2010; a time to look forward and not back. I have found (both in my own life and in my work with teachers and students) that we are most likely to reach goals that are specific and concrete. I’m done with goals of the “this-year-I’m-going-to-be-a-better-person” variety.

In 2010, my top four goals are to:

1. Ride a full SR series (Princeton 200, Saratoga 300, Boston 400, Westfield 600). The dates are already on the calendar, having been carefully chosen to avoid work and family conflicts. These rides will help me train for PBP in 2011 as well as provide me with results to qualify for early PBP registration.
2. Achieve a top-10 finish in Quadzilla: a 400-mile odyssey through the Finger Lakes region of New York State. While not technically a race, this ultra event with an advertised 28,000 feet of climbing promises to draw a large field of strong ultra riders.
   
3. Achieve the Cyclos Montagnards' “R60” designation. The R60 is awarded to cyclists who complete a full ACP SR series within 60% of the maximum time allowance. Business guru Jim Coillins urges organizations and leaders to develop “big hairy audacious goals” (BHAGs). These are outrageous, seemingly impossible goals that will set a standard for excellence. The R60 is my BHAG. The CM also acknowledge R70 and R80 performance. Details can be found on the CM website.
4. Achieve a podium finish in the Saratoga: 12-hour race to avenge my fourth place finish in 2009.

In addition, I plan to:

• Be one of the top 10 riders in the 2010 UMCA Indoor challenge.
• Log at least 4000 miles in the UMCA Year-Rounder competition.
• Take yoga on a weekly basis to build core strength and encourage healthy alignment.
• Utilize my new GPS effectively for mapping, downloading routes and riding in events.
• Map and submit two additional Hudson Valley permanent routes to RUSA.
• Save $ for PBP 2011.

While simply enjoying a safe and healthy season of riding is reward in itself, these goals will give shape and form to my year.

The Saratoga 12-hr Race: A Podium Finish (Almost)

It had been a full year since I last rode in Saratoga at the 24-hour race last July, but the roads were still fresh in my mind. With L-E-L two weeks away, though, I decided that the 12-hour race was more in line with my general training plan. It would provide me with a final long ride, some speed work and a great day of fun out on the road. The other truly exciting part of the plan was that I brought along my first ever crew for support. I may not be cycling in the Tour de France, but with Eli, Izzy and Jessie mixing my drinks and passing me bottles, I felt like a rider on the ProTour (minus the EPO). What a difference a support crew can make. In this case, I was able to stop only twice for a total of maybe 7 minutes off the bike in 12 hours. I also feel like I showed up to the race in good form, having followed UMCA Director John Hughes' advice on tapering to the letter by really keeping the miles down over the past week with a few intense days of intervals to sharpen my speed and keep my legs fresh.

The Saratoga 12/24 is held on a lovely 32-mile course with gentle rolling hills, smooth, well-paved, low-traffic roads, and only one little nasty climb and a few miles of open fields and river which seem to naturally generate headwind. This year, the weather forecast wasn't too promising. It looked pretty definite that rain and thunderstorms would hit by late afternoon. As it turned out, the rain held off until around 6:30, so I only faced a downpour on the final lap. The nasty lightning even held off until the drive home. The headwinds were vicious, though, thoughout the day on the "back 9" side of the course with gusts up to 30 mph.

In all, this was a very successful race for me. I got out in front early and held onto third position for most of the day. Throughout three or four laps, RAAM veteran Rob Morlock and I rode at an acceptable distance away from one another in this non-drafting race, leapfrogging each other from time to time and chatting a little bit as we passed. Rob is an awfully nice guy who rode with the support of a crew that leapfrogged him at various spots along the route. It was a pleasure to watch their well-oiled machine in progress and I definitely learned a few things about racing from the experience. Later in the day, when the rider in first position dropped out, it seemed like I had third place sewn up. It wasn't until the final lap that I was passed in earnest by a rider on his fixed gear bike who went on to take third place overall and first in the fixed gear category.

I always learn something about training and racing with every event. What I learned from this race was:

1. Tapering is very good.

2. Regular speed and hill work are good.

3. Long base miles ridden during the winter seem to pay dividends.

4. Carrying more than two bottles on board the bike should be considered if and when I race without a crew.

5. Racing with a crew that leapfrogs and passes off nutrition and such through pedestrian hand-offs is the next horozon.

6. The race isn't over until its over.

It was such an honor and a pleasure to have my family along for the adventure. I'm sure I enjoyed it much more than they did, but I'm so glad that they have this little window into why I love being an endurance cyclist. I hope to include them in more interesting ways in the future. More immediately, though, I look forward to adding this result to my UMCA UltraCup standings, which have been languishing a bit since my last ultra race in April. With luck, I will finish strong in London and hope to ride at least two of the four laps at the ADK540 in September.

Next year's goal: to qualify for RAAM at one of the 500-mile races with a full crew.