This is the End, My Only Friend the End

The last race of the series!  This weekend in Helen Ga.  I go into it tied in points for first in my class, The Kid sits solidly in second in his class.  The season's been a mixed bag with two wet races at my two favorite trails.  It wasn't as much fun as the last two seasons.  Looking back I probably should have gone a little harder earlier in the OMTP but that's hindsight.  I didn't get sick or injured during the past 26 weeks and for the most part I enjoyed the work.  I am however, looking forward to not following any regimented plan as far as my riding goes.

Another Day on the Clay

"It'll only be about 2 hours".  I swear I heard that sometime Friday evening when we were making plans for a clay road ride for the next morning.  I know I heard "This will be hard" so I was prepared for some suffering.  What it all meant was that we would be going hard for 2 hours, plus a 1.5 hour warm up and cool down. 

The three big dogs dropped me at the first set of rollers, leaving me and Dirt Hippie to find our way by ourselves.  Now Dirt Hippie is faster and stronger (and much younger) than I am but he's got that "love your brother, kumby ya" thing going on so he hung back to ride with me.  I thought he knew the route, he thought I did, we figured out we were lost when we saw the Thomasville Highway.  We were supposed to be going south, we had been going northwest.  Well that took the fight out of us pretty quick.  We were on a scenic cruise after that.

Anyhoo, we ended up at Momos for beer and pizza afterwards.  I love days like that.  I went home and took a nap.

Not About the Bike

I don't talk much on here about the other side of my life.  Here in Beautiful Downtown Havana we can't afford all the things you big city folks have.  Like full time paid fire departments.  So, we have the all volunteer deal here, of which I happen to be the assistant chief.  I've been on the department for 17 years and in that time I've seen a little bit of everything.

When people call us they are usually having a pretty bad day so it's nice when things turn out with a happy ending.  Last week we were toned out for a house fire, when we got there smoke was pouring from all sides of the wood frame home.  The first thing the homeowner said was "Can you find my dog in there?"  Now we have very limited manpower on these things so we have to make the decision quickly, do we do a search first, or attack the fire.  We did the search and were able to locate the dog in a bedroom.  He was in bad shape, the smoke was so thick we only found him by hearing his breathing, we got him out and a bystander took him to the local vet.

We saved the house (most of it anyway) and the dog lived.  The homeowner was thrilled we took the time and the risk to save the dog.  When I ask myself why I do this (and I ask myself that a lot) I just think about calls like this one, and I remember.

The Silk Curse is Lifted

 

My coach had instructed me to restart the OMTP the Monday after father's day weekend so I was excited to be able to ride what, where, and as hard (or easy) as I wanted.  I was off the leash!  I started hunting rides for Saturday morning on Friday afternoon.

The first offer was fast guys at 8:00 am 45 minutes from my house.  The fast guy part sounded good but the early start time had me looking for other options.  Skinny Jim hurled texting insults when I turned him down (he is, after all, one of the fast guys), I don't like Skinny Jim sometimes.

I ended up negotiating another ride with only a 30 minute later start time but with 15 minutes less of a drive.  Dirt Hippie promised to give me a proper thrashing on the north side trails for a couple of hours.  I told him he could lead and complain all he wanted to.  He did thrash me and it seemed to make him happy.



Can you believe this guy can school me?

The Bait

It really started on Saturday evening.  There had been rumors of a Silk led CX ride sometime over the weekend.  The Kid and I have had, let's say, questionable success at these.  Silk tends to under estimate mileage and over estimate ground conditions.  So as I sat at Oscar's in Beautiful Downtown Havana Saturday evening, drinking an adult beverage, and listening to live music, a text came in from Zac.  It had an attachment with a proposed route for Sunday which, to my slightly muddled mind, looked to be about 50 miles of mostly paved with a little bit of clay road.


Since it was going to be fathers day I kinda wanted to do something with The Kid so I asked him if he wanted to go.  When he found out it was a Silk ride he said he was out.  I told him it looked like less than 50 miles and should be an easy pace.  That, along with Zac's prodding, plus the idea that it was fathers day, made him sign on.

Fathers Day

Another 8 am start time at Food Lion.  We met Silk, Dirt Hippie, and Zac, then rolled out through the north side neighborhoods.  The pace was mellow but when we were about 40 miles from my truck I began to realize the ride was going to go longer than I had anticipated.  I think by this time The Kid had figured it out also.  Seems I had misread the attachment the night before and the mileage was started from a different point.

Anyhoo, we ended up with a little over 60 miles.  We had a good solid ride.  The Kid easily kept pace.  I however, was a little gassed by the time we finished.  As we all parted Silk yelled "the curse is lifted!" and in a way I guess he was right. After all, we didn't get lost, nor did we get caught in a monsoon, and we didn't need to pull anybody in.

Typical Silk ride from last year

I felt better after I sucked down a smoothie on the way home.  I spent the rest of the day in the AC under the ceiling fan watching movies. 

Now that I think about it I'm pretty fortunate to be able to participate with my Kid in things he enjoys doing, and I'm lucky he likes to do some of the things that I like to do.  Between moto and now cycling we have spent many a day together on two wheels.  I hope he remembers them fondly, I know I will.

"Don't Worry About It"

That's how Big Jim answered me when I asked how far ahead of me first place was.  It was the second of three laps last weekend at the Flat Rock Park, Columbus Ga.  Round 5 of the Georgia State Series by Gone Riding.

"Really?  I'm that far behind?" I thought.  Yep, I was, and getting further behind.  Jim, was standing there, beer in hand, wearing a kilt (which he lifted just as I went by), when he gave me that encouraging cheer.

"Yea, I won, and I'm wearing a skirt!"

I was having an off day to put it mildly.  This was supposed to by my "A" race but I felt worse coming into the weekend than I have at any other event.

Short Track

Saturday evening was the short track, which was as many laps as we could do of a special course in a certain amount of time.  They start the whole group together, kids and all.  Makes for an entertaining ride as you lap them on single track.  I finished second in my class but The Kid beat me bad.  My legs felt weak and my heart rate was through the roof, still I had hopes that the XC race the next day would be better.

Race Day

The morning started out cloudy and muggy.  Radar showed rain just to the south of the trail, moving our way.  Right as the first wave started the rain came down.  My mood (and I'm sure everybody else's) went sour.  But it stopped pretty quick, it had rained just enough to make the trail slimy, plus increase the muggy factor by 10.

I just didn't feel up to the task at hand.  I hoped that when the whistle blew and the adrenaline started pumping I'd feel better.  So all six of us old guys lined up.

I got a poor jump at the start, went into the first turn 4th, and started to panic just a little.  There was a rider in our class who had not been riding the series and he was between me and the front.  I didn't want to lose any more points than I already had so I slipped around 3rd and got on Mr. New Guys wheel.  My HR was in zone 6 (no kidding, that's what my Garmin said) but I couldn't let them get away.

 Flat Rock is weird, it has open pasture type trails which lead to very tight snotty single track, then back to the open stuff.  Add in the rock garden and the place just wasn't flowing for me.

I moved around 3rd before we got into the slick, tight single track and managed to bottle everybody up behind me as I tiptoed through the trees, trying to recover just a bit.  As we emerged from the last tight section before the loooooong straight by the feed zone I heard Mr. New Guy say "damn I flatted, go get em!", which was music to my ears.

I couldn't see 3rd behind me, nor could I see 1st.  It's hard to chase what you can't see but I tried to focus ahead.  There was a short but steep climb right before the rock garden, and as I hit the bottom and looked up I saw a spectator with a dog on a leash standing right in the line I was committed to.  I had to back off to let him get out of the way.  As I dropped into the first rock section the rider behind me (not in my class) says "rider back", to which I reply "just as soon as we get through this" (it's a very short section), so naturally he goes inside me on the sharp downhill turn, falls, and takes me down with him.  I said some bad words.  Rocks hurt when you fall on them.

I rode the rest of the race pretty much alone until I heard "Dad!", The Kid was catching me.  This was unprecedented!  Fortunately he was on his last lap and I still had one more to go so he didn't get the pleasure of passing me.

 

 

At times I felt like I wanted to puke.  I was working hard but not moving.  Anyhoo, I ended up second, so did The Kid.  As it stands now I'm tied for first going into the final at Helen Ga.  Not where I was hoping to be.  The Kid should finish second in his class, he's getting faster, just in time for the last race.

 

 

#3 just didn't make it in time

Oh well, it be's what it be's.  I'll just take Jim's advice and not worry about it.

24 Weeks

That's how long I've been on the two versions of the OMTP.  When this is over I won't know what to do with my afternoons and weekends.  I admit I have enjoyed the structure, whether it has helped me improve to the level I'd hoped remains to be seen.

This past week the plan had me doing short efforts on the bike and I am skeptical of doing that much pedaling right before a race.  Chris tried to explain the metaphysical benefits of doing these "openers" but they just make me feel tired.

I cleaned the New Toy last night while it flooded outside.  The rain chance for the race this Sunday keeps going up.  That does not make me happy.

The race this weekend is at the Flat Rock trail system in Columbus Ga.  It's not a combination sanction with the U. S. Cup so it will only be the Georgia Series participants.  For some reason the promoter has scheduled a short track on Saturday evening.  I don't find these to be fun.  A time trial is a better format but hey, they don't ask me.

Anyhoo, it will be nice not to have to drive through the sewer that is Atlanta to get home. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back in the Day

I should be more excited about the race, not that I'm not looking forward to racing, but I've raced some kind of series either moto or bicycle since 1982.  I just can't seem to stay away.  I can remember in the mid 80's meeting my friend Glenn on Saturday around noon at the local motorcycle shop, climbing into his brown Ford van (which always smelled like gas and two stroke oil), stopping at Wendy's (he would always eat a double cheeseburger), and then heading downstate to one enduro or another in the Florida Trail Rider Series.

On race day, I would get so nervous on the line waiting for my minute to come up, I would almost pee my pants.  It always seemed to be hot.  This was back before they had Camel Backs so at the check points there would be a garbage can (lined) with water, and Dixie cups.  Unfortunately if you had a late minute the only thing in the can would be spit by the time you got there.  I drank it anyway.  I remember drowning out (when the bike sucks water into the engine) at Daytona one year and having to wait for 3 hours till the sweep truck came by.  No water, 95 degrees.  I was sooo tempted to start drinking swamp water.

Not me, but I had that bike

Ok, sorry about that trip back in time.  I'll do a race report next week.