Learning as I Go-Sundance Spin

Training is a great concept. Seriously, when else is it okay to try new things, new equipment, new strategies new anything to see how it will affect your performance? I just had a week/race like that and always marvel at how much more I learn from the experiments and resulting mini-disasters than from when things all are hunky-dorey.

I've had a great stint of hard training at home the past few weeks, which also meant it was time for house/yard chores. I spent my rest day on Thursday pounding in fencepost and rebar, rolling out chicken wire and planting seedlings in the garden. No way are the deer getting to our garden this year.

Pre-chicken wire-protected garden. Also, pre-Amanda's hands are
absolutely mangled because she didn't wear gloves rolling out the chicken wire...

On Friday I made the drive to Provo for the Intermountain Cup Sundance Spin. (Because I am racing Leadville, I am skipping the 2 east coast Pro XCT races. I won't be in the running for any overall series result, so it didn't make any sense for me to go to the BumpandGrind in Alabama) Traffic and construction left me in the car for 6 hours and by the time I got to Sundance I was boiling over with pent up energy and stuck-in-the-car frustration. So, I got out and rode 3 laps on the course. Yup, 22 miles the evening before a 9:30am start the next day. I wanted to get in some good miles and make the next day's race as hard as possible. But, before you label me incompetent, let me explain...

Training is all about figuring out what works for you and what doesn't. Eric and I have been fiddling with my prerace routine all year to figure out what works best for me and we have been slowly realizing that perhaps I have been backing off too much before big races, leaving me stale for race day. So, I'm tinkering with longer, harder prerides. Well, I think I tinkered a wee-bit too much Friday night. The I-didn't-sleep-a-wink the night before could have come from a number of factors: finishing my ride at 7:30pm? eating dinner at 9:30? The text messages coming in from intoxicated friends at the bar at midnight dinging in my ear?

I woke up race morning feeling like I had been hit by a Uhaul but was still excited to race. The singletrack at Sundance is absolutely killer and I had so much fun pre-riding the night before I knew it was going to be fun. However, for some inane reason, they started the Pro Women behind all of the Pro, Expert AND Sport men. We had the pleasure of having to start behind roughly 75+ men on a course that was about 90% singletrack.

So, the race was a lesson in patience, controlling frustration and deciding when and where to exert energy to pass a bunch of egos who wouldn't let you by without a battle. I spent the entire first 2 laps tailing men who wouldn't yield, as I am sure the rest of the Pro Women did, too. Awesome. Then, by the time we hit the 3rd lap and traffic had cleared (Sport men did 2 laps only) I bent my front derailer on a shift (the bolt had loosened and shifted its position on my frame) leaving me with a combination of 4 gears for the entire last lap and pedaling with that terrible grinding noise that makes you worry your chain is going to snap off. To add to it, I also crashed hard on a downhill switchback while I was stupidly staring at my mechanical, trying to figure out why I couldn't pedal, sending my waterbottle flying into the woods and me deep into the bushes looking for it.

Call me crazy, but I really appreciate these types of series of events because it is how I learn best. Don't get me wrong, it sure does blow when it is all happening. But managing to keep it together enough for the win anyway was for me, a victory in and of itself. And really, I am not trying to be facetious here...try it sometime: go ahead and blow your pre ride and race routine. Spend your recovery day doing physical labor. Get dehydrated. Start behind all the slow guys. End your warmup 40min before the race. You'll likely learn more from how that experience affects you than from a day where everything goes right. The extra suffering that it brings may just give you the ammo to be more disciplined in the future.

I leave you with a shot of Nate getting jiggy with the bobcat building the new dirtjumps in our yard. We have 3 down hill neighbors who are cool with a slopeside dirtjump trail, so construction has begun!

My Coach is a Star!

Back in college, I traveled to Mexico's Copper Canyon with some pals for spring break. We spent a few nights in the tiny town of Creel on the canyon's edge (keep in mind that Copper Canyon is 4x's the size of the Grand Canyon). One day, we went looking for some hot springs rumored to be at the bottom of the canyon. We ended up hiring a 8-year old Tarahumara boy to lead us down the rugged terrain to the springs. We of course were worried about what we were getting ourselves into when we saw that he was wearing tattered flip flops with a flimsy heel strap-we were a pretty darn fit group of youngsters. Well, this kid hiked the living tar out of us! The thing I remember most about him was how he walked; he literally floated up and downhill. There was really no other way to describe it.

So, when I found out that Christopher McDougall's book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen" was recently published, I was intrigued. Not just because I have been to the region but because my coach, Eric Orton, trained McDougall to prepare him for the unique 50-mile ultra race with the Tarahumara in Mexico's Copper Canyon described in the book. Heck, he also went down there and ran with McDougall. The adventure was first written up in Men's Health magazine (scroll down the press page for the link) and is now detailed extensively in this book:

From Amazon.com: Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong....About the training: Eric’s specialty is tearing endurance sports down to their basic components and looking for transferable skills. He studies rock climbing to find shoulder techniques for kayakers, and applies Nordic skiing’s smooth propulsion to mountain biking. What he’s looking for are basic engineering principles, because he’s convinced that the next big leap forward in fitness won’t come from strength or technology, but plain, simple durability. With some 70% of all runners getting hurt every year, the athlete who can stay healthy and avoid injury will leave the competition behind.

Anyone who has ever witnessed my regular core strength workouts knows that Eric is onto something unique and different. They are always changing, always keeping my body guessing, and therefore making me stronger. Even though I am not a runner I'm sure there's lots of info in the book that I can transfer to my ultra-endurance mountain biking. Maybe the Tarahumara know something that'll help get me through Leadville???

Front Range 50

I woke up Friday morning fully intending on racing the Battle of the Bear, a 30 mile xc race. I spent the morning feeding and playing with my nephew and leisurely packing up the car to make the beautiful drive down US40 through Granby, Winter Park and Berthoud Pass to get to the race venue. I had to leave my bike at Green Mountain Sports in Lakewood for the afternoon (thanks for fitting me in guys!!) for some brake work, so that gave me ample time to hang out and think....I returned to the shop at 4pm to register for the race and pick up my bike. I don't know what got into me, but I decided I was in the mood for a longer sufferfest than usual and ended up signing up for the Front Range 50 instead of the xc race. Perhaps it was the cool organic cotton t-shirt only given to the 50-mile riders that hooked me or the okay from Coach Eric that made me pull the trigger. But, considering that the Leadville 100 is my A priority race this summer, I figured if nothing else this would be good training, a great lesson in pacing and a good way to measure my current endurance fitness.

Pre-ride shot of a section of the 10-mile loop.

Almost 100% single track. Now that's a good racecourse!

I knew there were more than a few women signed up who could give me a good run, so I went in expecting a hard day on the bike. After a good warmup I rolled to the start at 8:30am with a pretty risky strategy: ride as hard as you can for as long as you can and see what happens. I knew this could have worked out one of 2 ways: a spectacular implosion 2 or 3 laps in or a pleasant surprise of how long I could ride at my xc pace.

I went out hard and ended up in a tough battle with Eszter for the first 3 laps. She was riding a lot harder than I wanted to, but I figured my best bet was to stay with her and let her set the pace. After a few back and forth trades for the first 3 laps, I was finally able to pull away during the middle of the 3rd lap. I kept it steady and strong for the final 2 laps and tried my hardest to stay disciplined enough to stay on the gas the entire time. I ended up 1st overall, about 5 minutes up on the next gal, in 3hrs 32 min. I averaged 14mph...that's a smokin' fast racecourse!

The most challenging part of the race was negotiating the passing. It was really hard to pass on this course and there was SO much traffic out there. Plus, most of the passing lanes were littered with cactus and goatheads. It turned out to be a great day of interval training though. Trying to repeatedly pass 1-4 men at a time was pretty exhausting and a test in my ability to attack and recover.

The thing that gave me the most anxiety about the race was getting my nutrition dialed. Seeing as I hadn't planned on a 50-mile race, I didn't bring any of the typical products I use for longer races. Plus, I was doing it self-supported. I had to stop each lap (about 42 min. each) and grab a water bottle out of a cooler I had placed at the feed zone. Having to think about stopping and grabbing what you need while you have "race brain" is not something I'm used to because I typically have hand-ups from our mechanic or super-hubby Nate. But it worked out just fine. I did loose a little time in those transitions, but I guess it just made me race harder in the end. Plus, it was pretty fun to cruise into the feed zone cyclocross style with one foot on the left pedal, skidding wildly and doing running mounts to get going again. It made me hungry for 'cross season.

I was super pleased with my performance. Considering I had a tough week of training and had not prepared mentally or physically for a 50 mile race, this was a great day on the bike. Hats off to Warrior's Cycling. These guys and gals sure do know how to put on a great race-lots of good schwag, free beer and food and a generally rockin' good race vibe.

One highlight of my day was meeting and chatting with John Bliss, the Board Chairman of IMBA. Not only does he chair one of the best non-profits in the nation, (which by the way if you are a mountain biker and are not a member get your karma back in check and join now!) he also got 3rd in his age group. I got to reminisce about my days as the development director of a cycling advocacy organization and then marvel at how much my personal life has changed in the last year...but that's a tale for another day!

These are the results if you're curious.

On the Road Again

It was only a matter of time before the terrible weather, lack of dry trails and riding the trainer sent me packing my bags. Nate and I were home from CA for only 3 days when I started feeling restless and a wee-bit frustrated with the mid-40s and rainy/snowy conditions at home. Training in the wet cold and wind was sucking the life out of me and my legs.

My parents came to visit this past weekend and showed us pictures and movies of my 8-month old nephew, the real motivator for another road trip. Plus, I stumbled upon a race in Denver this Saturday, the Battle of the Bear, that promises a good kick in the pants as the pre-reg. list consists of Katie Compton, Heather Irmiger and Georgia Gould. I figure a good beat-down will be a great addition to my tough month of training I have planned for May.

Conveniently, my sister and brother-in-law live in a place where it's 70deg., dry as a bone and I can ride trails out the back door. So here I am in Kremmling getting ready to head out for a ride in the sunshine, so appreciative of the fact that I do not have to spend an extra 15min. layering up like a scuba diver to brave the elements. On the way down yesterday I stopped in Steamboat for a nice, long and easy road ride. I saw lots and lots of happy smiling roadies and everyone waved back at me. Shocking! I guess that's what nice weather can do to a person. But really, here's the reason I am here:

I am already training Asher to open my cooler so he can grow up to be good feed-station support!