Test of Mettle...I mean Metal

So this story starts with me sitting in front of my computer hitting the refresh key over and over at 1 minute to the opening of the Test of Metal lottery. I'm hoping to be one of the lucky ones, and then wham I am....I fill out the form and submit and it says I've made it and will receive an email confirmation. I don't. Then I try again and the website is down. Then within a few minutes the website says that there is a problem and the lottery is closed. Oh man...that's a bummer. I check the next day and they are going to re-open the lottery the next day. Trying again. The last 400 spots sell out in 10 minutes and I'm one of the lucky ones. I get my hotel booked. Setup a vacation day. Pray for good weather! Now months go by and it's time to roll. I've been to Squamish once before but it was like 8 years ago and ALL the trails scared me back then. Now I'm doing a 42 mile mountain bike race with 5000 ft of climbing, in the heart of the North Shore. I talk to friends and find some who've done the race and give me the lowdown on the course. Now I'm more scared than ever. I keep hearing about the need to go really fast at the start on the road until it enters the singletrack. I hear about the long 9 mile climb which is immediately followed by The Powerhouse Plunge which is suppose to be a very long and technical descent that non-Canadians fear. I do also. then it's suppose to just get better, you head into the steep climb of Crumpit Woods...AKA Cramp-it woods.
Now to add my personal experience.
Molly and I drive to Squamish on Friday and the rain showers hit off and on. The weather is mild and will be nice if it stays like this. We go to registration and I'm one of the first to get my packet so it goes quickly. We head into town and walk through the T.O.M. party and hit a local place for dinner. It's slow but the food is great. We retire back to the hotel and I get everything in order for the race. I'm nervous and sleep as such. I get up at 7am and leave the hotel by 7:30 and drive to the race course to place my bike. At the Test of Metal it's first come first serve behind the pro's. Signs mark your estimated time you think you'll finish for lining it up. But there is no one there. The start area isn't setup. I'm embarrassed at my eagerness and we head off to breakfast. We roll back in around 8:30 and there are some people there but the start isn't set up yet. I find out that you can't place your bike till 9:30 anyway. Guess I could have slept a little longer. I get to hang out with some Washingtonians and Canuks. Then I see people setting bikes and cruise up to the 3-3 1/2 hour mark to place my bike. I want to hammer hard at the beginning of the race and get into the singletrack early. Over the next hour hundreds and hundreds of bike line up. All wheels up to make room. At a few minutes to 11 there are a little over 1000 racers standing and ready to roll. We hear a speech, some native dance and the Canadian Anthem and instantly we are off. The pace cranks up on the road to 25 mph and then we come around a corner and climb and climb and climb. Pace is still fast and I'm maxed out but I'm not being passed. We finally reach the dirt after 4 1/2 miles of this blast. The entry is tight with a fence on the left, a post in the middle and a tree on the right. Basically enough for two riders at a time to come in. But some idiot tried to be number 3 on my left. A gentle extension of my elbow put him into the fence at 15 miles per hour and the thud was quite loud. I felt bad for a second but realized that if he had pushed in I would have hit the metal post at 15 mph. OK, I feel righteous now and I'm going full on. Now to cut this short nothing too crazy happens for the next 20 miles. I am still pegged and hoping that I'll have enough gas to complete the race. At mile 20 we come into the "feed zone" for the first time. WOW! Hundreds of people lining the course, cheering, handing out food and drinks. A stage with a band. It's crazy and I am lucky to spot Molly holding a bottle and food. I do the exchange a cruise through the zone and hear at the end "your 1 1/2 hours in....great job!". We now hit 9 mile climb. Oh, I was hoping it was a mistake and it would be 9 kilometer climb. No luck. This things just goes and goes. I'm in my last gear and dying. Not getting passed much and holding my own but this hurts. My eyes are burning from all the sweat pouring down my face. The climb goes from fire road to singletrack and hurts even more as it's steep and a bit rocky. Once we hit the top we immediately hit a big ring descent for a few miles and then hit the very scary Powerhouse Plunge. I roll in and ride a big of it and I'm feeling scared yet thrilled to be surviving and then it happens. I hit a descent and a big rock deflects me and I'm off. Sliding across the rocks and my bike on top of me. I jump up to make sure I'm not blocking anyone and twang both hamstrings cramp. I try to run a bit and it's killing me. I jump on and start pedaling and no pain or cramping. MUST RIDE ALL I CAN. But then I come upon a group of cheering people and drop down another section and crash again. Cramps return. I run and ignore the pain and then jump back on. I figure out that where ever people are standing around and cheering I should jump off my bike and run. Those are the crazy sections. Every time I get off it hurts bad. But I finally exit the plunge and head into the feed zone again. It's a slight climb into it and now my inner thighs cramp and cramp bad. I can't pedal. But this happens just as I come up on Molly. I grab a pocket full of Endurolytes and Lava Salts and suck them down with a half bottle of ZipFizz. Molly pushes me up the feed zone and I eat some Sharkies. Within 5 minutes the cramps are gone and that's a good thing as we now go into some seriously steep singletrack. I pass a lot of people here. I realize it's Crumpit woods...AKA Cramp IT woods...I'm now feeling great with all the caffeine from the ZipFizz. We finally drop out of this section and we are on the gravel road that heads to the start finish line. A guy jumps around me and I chase. We are going hard and the guy that was holding my wheel explodes and pops off. I can't catch this guy. Glad he's in his 20's so I can use my age as the excuse. I finally come into the finish line. We line up in the order of finish and they take our number tag. I walk into the exit zone and drop my bike. I don't dare sit down. I walk around and quickly find Molly and grab some food and drink. We walk around and I run into Justin who kicked my butt. We wait and watch others come in that we know. I continue to walk around and eat and drink. It's almost 90 minutes before I can sit without fear of cramping. I actually feel pretty good. Results only show the top 15 people in each category and that's not me. We head back to the hotel, clean up and join the crew at the Shady Tree Tavern. Food and a beer go down easy. We talk about the day and realize that it didn't rain on us. Our bikes are mostly clean. Virtually no puddles. Temp was the upper 50's to low 60's. NICE! So for the first 15 minutes of finishing I'd decided I didn't ever want to do this again. My mind changed after another 15 minutes. I'm coming back. I'm going to ride more of the plunge. I need the challenge to make me learn to ride that more technical stuff. So now for the technical stuff; I took 3:27 to finish the race. The winner did it in 2:30. I was 237th out of 1009 starters. I am happy with the results. Can I do better....yeah....but only 10 minutes at the most and that's if I can ride the Powerhouse plunge. I was as fast as I've ever been on the rest of the race. They really did a great job on this event. Well organized and supported. Damn Canadians are nice people! They can also ride some sick lines. I'm not worthy but I'm going to try to be. See you next time!

Flying Wheels

Decisions, decisions, decisions. Flying Wheels or the RAMROD training ride? Both a good ride. RAMROD training was 75 miles with 4200 ft of climbing. Flying Wheels is a century with 3400 ft of climbing. Do I want to climb or get distance? Well, the decision was made when I was invited to ride Flying Wheels with a bunch of fast guys. My secret goal...do a sub 5 hour century. I arrive at Marymoor at the scheduled time and find out that the main group was leaving at 8, not meeting at 8 so the person who invited me, another member of his team and I head out at 8:15. We do a pretty good pace, working well together, skipping the first few rest stops. We finally catch the group at mile 55 at the Monroe rest stop. We averaged 20.4 mph during this leg. Now the fun begins. We are in a large group of 30+ riders and sitting in and rolling at 25 mph feels like nothing. Well that is until you take your turn at the front. But you have plenty of time to recover in such a large group. The pace goes up a bit and the hills begin and the group weeds down to about 8 by the top is the big climb. We roll along to the last rest stop and spend a bit too much time there. When we roll out I feel like lead has been put in my legs, saddle pack, frame and wheels. After a few miles they warm up again and we hit the lake road and roll in a small group back to the park. 4:41 for 98 miles. 20.9 mph avg pace. Goal achieved...Mostly. 2 darn miles short of the century. So being the uber nerd I extrapolate our average pace for the last 2 miles we should have gotten and come up with 4:47 for a century. My previous fastest century was flying wheels 2 years ago. It was a 5:10. That was Flying Wheels also. I'm super happy to pull 19 minutes off my previous Flying Wheels. At this rate by the time I'm 60 I'll be fast enough to go pro! :-)

DARWIN 2009

Well, no DARWIN award for me....I survived the DARrington to WINthrop ride. This is an annual ride put together by Jeff Scott. He brings together a small group of 20 or so riders to make the trek over Highway 20 each June. This year we were graced by mild and dry weather, unlike many of the past DARWINs. We rolled out of the Squire Creek Park around 9:15am and as a group did a nice pace line to Marblemount and stopped for our first food/water stop at 31 miles. We averaged 21.8 mph for this leg. After this we broke into two speed groups and pace lined to Newhalem which is 15 miles down the road with an average of 20.6 mph. This leg has a very mild upward grade. At Newhalem we all got rid of jackets, arm warmers, knee warmers and long finger gloves. It was time to climb! While DARWIN isn't a race, there is a tradition of "racing" to the viewpoint at the top of Diablo Lake. A few people started rolling out so I jumped on my bike and cranked it up. I quickly caught and passed a few of the people but had to stop and press the button to warn cars that bikes were in the tunnel. I cranked back up but Jeff Scott caught me. We battled a bit on the flat and then there is a descent. Well, I weigh 132 lbs so I don't go down hill that fast. Jeff is much taller than me but very slender but that does equal more weight so he flew past me. I jumped in his slip stream and got sucked right up to his wheel and enjoyed the coast but then we crossed the bridge at the base and headed up. Jeff jumped behind me and held on. I went as hard as I could but couldn't shake him. I swear he was holding onto my seatpost! I started to put in a gap but then we'd come around a corner and get nailed with massive winds and I'd have to drop a gear and he'd get back on. This happened over and over so in the end we cruised into the Diablo overlook side by side and did a nice fist bump celebrating a 11.1 mile climb with 1680 feet of ascent in 41:29 minutes. We refilled out bellies and water and headed out on the LONG climb to rainy pass. I connected with Dan Byrne, of the Bryne Invent Cycling Team, and his significant other Laura and had a solid ride to Rainy Pass. This climb is a bit over 26 miles long with 3675 ft of climbing. We did it in 1:49. At this point I drank a water bottle full of Zip Fizz and headed out on my own to see what I could do on the climb to Washington Pass. I hit the descent off rainy and about the start of the climb the shakes hit from the caffene in that drink at I floated up Washington Pass. This run from Rainy to Washington is only 4.75 miles long with 3.3 miles of climbing and a gain of 915 ft. I did the 4.75 miles in 24:12. I waited at the top for Dan and Laura, we put on jackets for the long descent into Eastern Washington. We cruised down 14 miles of the main descent and then formed up to ride towards Winthrop. We made a pit stop in Mazama for water and a fruit bar and then rolled the last 15 miles into Winthrop. We held a great pace and averaged 25.2 mph for the 33 mile ride from Washington Pass to Winthrop. At this point we split with me heading to the farm house we rented and Dan and Laura heading to see some friend in town. I arrived at the farm house and no one was there. Darn! I'm hungry! I wait for about 20 minutes and no one arrives so I ride back into town and wait at the main intersection to cheer arriving riders and see if I can bum some money....mine was in the sag wagon which hasn't arrived yet. After another 20 minutes I don't see anyone so I decide to look for Dan and Laura and borrow some money to get lunch. I happen to find their bikes parked outside a local restaurant and join them with my plead. They were generous and bought me lunch. After some great conversation and much needed calories we cruised back to the farm house to find most of the folks had arrived. Whew, I could use a shower. I get cleaned up and have a second dinner and a beer! We all tell the stories of our adventure and then a group of us head into town for another beer and to watch the locals in their natural environment. After the show we work our way back and I get to crawl into a very comfortable bed for a restful nights sleep. Not everyone reserved a bed so many slept on the floor. I also brought my travel kit which includes an eye mask and ear plugs. I think I slept better than just about anyone. The light came in early and woke everyone up...except me. We had our usual amazing breakfast and then cheered the few who do the WINDAR which is riding from Winthrop to the top of Washington Pass. After they leave we head into town to get some water and snacks. I get a double scoop of Ice Cream! Then we roll in the vans up toward the pass. We see our riders and pull over to cheer and take some pictures. We leapfrog and then wait at the summit. The weather goes from mid 70's to 55 degrees in about 10 minutes while we wait and then the rain comes which turns to hail. Oh those poor riders. They eventually make it up to us and we get them changed into dry clothes quickly and then hit the road again. One more stop for snacks in Newhalem and then we arrive back at our cars in Darrington. Hugs and handshakes all around and we go our own ways. Another year with a great ride with super people that I generally see only once a year. Too bad as they are all great people. Hopefully I can get some of them out for the Thrilla as many of them have mountain bikes.

Full stat's for this year are as follows;
Average speed 19.0 mph
Distance 120.5 miles
6:22:04 rolling time
6880 ft of climbing
147 average heart rate
83 average cadence

I'm very happy with my performance this year. Looking back at 2006 my average was 16.9 mph and in 2007 it was 16.5, but with really bad weather. Increasing my average to 19 mph was beyond my expectations. Especially since I truly did a large share of the pulling on most sections.

To add to the perspective, I hurt my knees last year at the 24 hour race in May 2008. I was off the bike for a long time and just got my fitness back for cyclocross. Cross is intense but short. I've been scared to do long rides along with the weather not really allowing it but I finally did a century ride last weekend. Before this my longest ride was 76 miles which was about a month ago. I was worried about the intensity and distance on my knees. My right knee did hurt a bit on this ride but in a different place than my injury. I think it was either fatigue or I pulled something a bit. Feels pretty good now.

That's enough rambling for now. Time for a bit more rest. Until next time!