24 hours of Spokane

I've been thinking about this race for exactly 1 year. One year ago I did this race solo. I had a good race but I had some knee pain for the last half of the race. Thinking it was just the time on the bike I ignored it and paid the price. Once I sat down after the race I was done. Took 6 weeks before I could touch a bike. I've been rebuilding my fitness slowly over the year while working on protecting my knees. After both raising my saddle and adjusting my cleats I am able to ride 99% pain free and if there is a bit of pain it clears quickly. But my injury is permanent and has a medical name of Chrondomalacia. So I got back in shape in time for Cyclocross season which is intense but short races. We had a crappy winter so I mostly did mountain bike rides and had a decent Budu early season series. But, I'm way behind on long distance rides. Combine that and my fear of re-injury and I opted to do a team relay this year. I wanted to have a PedalMasher team but their wasn't enough interest so I bailed on the race this year. Then I got an email from one of my PedalMasher teammates who was putting together a team with his wife. I joined in as the 5th. Then two bailed on us and the search began to fill in the slots. I was teased a few times with being told that we might have a pro join our ranks. But that failed to materialize. I asked a few of our super fast open racers and didn't get any bites. As people heard about me looking for people I got a hit from Rich from Second Ascent racing. He wanted to race and it worked out well since his wife was racing on another team. I then spent a week asking a lot of people to join. No luck. Then on the ferry ride back from the last race I got talking with Jason from Veloce Velo cycling and he was very excited but needed to check with his wife. She wanted to go since she knew some people that were going to be there. Woo Hoo, we finally have a full squad. I spent a lot of time organizing the stuff we'd need to bring and getting everything loaded into my wife's truck and horse trailer. You say...Horse Trailer....Yeah, but this thing is 32 feet of awesomeness! 1/3 is where the horses can live and it's perfect for putting all the crap we needed. The front 2/3 is living quarters and I mean a full bathroom with toilet and shower. A kitchen area with microwave and gas stove. It has a queen size bed with a flatscreen TV. Very nice....oh, and did I mention the air conditioner. It was needed as the temps were in the 80s. NICE! Since I've done this race like 7 times I decided not to pre-ride on Friday, but Molly and a bunch of others went out for a look. I spent time getting the camp setup which included pulling out the awning, setting up the two team tents, chairs, table, bike repair stand, tools, carpet. We all chilled that night and awaited the madness that the next 24 hours would bring. Dan wanted to go first as he's a rock star runner and the race starts with a 600 yard le-mans trail run. He did awesome and was in the lead group to get back to the bike. Once I got done watching his start I headed back to camp to change. I was second in the line-up. Dan did a really fast loop and we had a great handoff and out I went. 15.something miles and 900 ft of climbing. I was pushing it hard and had a decent 58 minute loop. I did the handoff to Kari and she was gone like lightening. Normally getting "chicked" bothers me but I know Kari is an amazing rider and was happy knowing that she'd probably have the fastest laps of us all. Good stuff. The handoff's continued and we were doing well with no mechanicals and all of our times were fairly close together. Now comes my first night lap. Normally I can do about the same speed in the day or night but tonight was different. First I was hurting. The heat must have done me in, but the second thing was the dust. All that dust with our lights hitting it blinded you to the trail. Disapponted I finished and proceeded to make sure the next lap would be good by getting some good food and lots of drinks in me. 1 1/2 sleep and I was up and waiting to go again. Better time! Nice. A check of the board shows us in 3rd place but only by a bit. The whole team hammers hard and we pass 2nd and gain to 17 minutes. They rally and pull the time to 8 minutes. We hammer again and pull ahead to the point where we are going to be able to get one more lap than 3rd. Success! 2nd place! We're all happy but it's almost hard to tell. We are all spent! during the last bit of the race Molly has finally crawled in bed after being up for more than 24 hours as our manager making sure we had everything we needed and were up and about for our laps. As awards are about to start Molly wanders in and gets some pictures of us on the podium and I run back to load everything up. Molly is a trooper and drives the 6 hours home while I nap and or annoy her with lack of sleep based conversation.
I'm starting to think that doing the relay with those super fast laps and then a few hours to get stiff may be harder than the solo I did last year. I really hope that my knees get to the point where I can check my theory out.
Now it's time to think about next year and what crazyness I'll get myself into this time!

Indie Race #2 @ South Seatac Park

The weather had been showing another dreary day for the 2nd race in the Indie Series.  The newly named 'Tucker Classic'.  Just so you know...Tucker was Wicks dog.  Wick is the promoter for this race and also a huge part of the Seattle cycling scene.  Tucker was a golden lab who just loved everyone and spent a lot of time hanging out with Wick at South Seatac.  Tucker passed this last winter and he will be missed.  So I'm glad we are able to commemorate this great friend and companion with a super race.  Well, I put all my gear together on Saturday night with just about every option for any weather conditions but had heavily leaned towards cold and wet.  I woke up fairly early on Sunday even though my race wasn't till 3pm and went straight to my office and cruised around on the Internet when Molly woke and said...have you looked outside....It's beautiful!...WHAT!  I look outside thinking she's messing with me and have to quickly pull out short finger gloves to add to the collection.  We head out of the house around 9:30 so we can get to the race to pre-ride and support the mens sport racers on our team.  I walk around in the warm sun and B.S. with my friends, then take pictures of the mens sport race.  I watch some of the women's race then get suited up and jump on the course, making sure I don't get in the way of any of the ladies who are racing.  I do eventually catch a few of the women and cruise along behind them until the course is wide enough that I can shoot by and not let them draft.  Wow, the course is really cool in it's layout and almost completely dry...buff actually.  The loop is 4 3/4 miles long.  When we gather for the start we find out that we'll be doing 6 1/2 laps.  Oh crap, that's 31 miles.  This will be the longest XC race I've ever done.  This is going to hurt as the course is super fast and there isn't any place to rest.  Gonna be full on for over 2 hours.  The race starts on the road and after about 100 yards it turns into singletrack.  Everything grinds to a halt as we filter 1 by 1 into the narrow trail.  Once we are in there we crank it up.  I hang in to the pack for the first couple laps but the pace is just too high.  I need to start racing my own race.  I get passed by a few people but as the race goes on I start catching people who are blowing up and cramping.  I'm on the verge myself but I control it.  Things are going well and I'm feeling good with how I'm rolling thru the twisty course.  As I start lap 6 I notice a bit of control loss and I look down and realize my front tire is really low.  Damn these specialized tubeless tires!  I've had nothing but trouble with them.  I've done everything correctly with the prep and use of Specialized own sealant but they just leak and leak.  Sometimes I can get it to stop by spending hours shaking the tires and slowly spinning them while on their side but AGAIN they are failing at the wrong time.  They are super low weight but they blow air through the sidewalls like crazy.  It seems to be the Sauserwinds only and in talking to others they have experienced the same thing.  Back to tubes on these tires and time to start looking for tires from someone else that are fairly light but will hold air and work in our multiple conditions ranging from water, mud, paste, buff to powder dry.  Well, back to the race.  I'm now trying to decide whether I want to stop and pump air into the tire or just keep going and hope I don't have an issue with it rolling. off the rim.  I choose the latter and go very slowly around every corner and turn but hammer on the straight aways.  I finish up the last lap and no one has caught me so I'm only irritated instead of pissed.  The PBR offered to me post race makes me forget the problems and I get cleaned up and put everything away.  Chat again with some folks and then just as we get in the car it starts to drizzle.  Perfect timing.  As we drive home, we drive into a clearing and unloading the bikes and gear yields not a single drop of rain.  Great Day!  I'm finding out quickly that the expert racers in the indie series are much more capable than those who race in Budu.  I had a great race and felt good but still got my butt kicked.  Good times!