2014 Lotoja Report Part I

Another Lotoja has come and gone and I have to say the overwhelming feeling I have right now is that of relief. I'm so glad that it's over, for now at least.  In fact, throughout the race my only thought was how relieved I'll be once the agony is over.  That thought kept me going through the dark times.  And a great relief it was.  More so than in past years, and I'm still trying to figure out why.  My only conclusion so far is that it just hurt much more due to the hard pace and lack of stopping.

My main goal this year was, as always, to beat my personal best from the year before which was 10 hrs 9 mins.  But beyond that I secretly had the goal of time in the 9 hrs 30 mins range.  I trained hard, though I wished I had a chance to race a bit more throughout the season.  I still had quite a bit of miles and climbing in my legs and I felt as ready as I could be.  I was also 4 pounds lighter at race time than I was last year so I figured that would help as well.  I was thrilled when I finished this year in 9 hrs 38 mins. but looking back there is still much that could have gone better.

Packet Pick-up

Those who have done this race know that there is much thought and preparation that goes into everything in order for be ready just logistically let alone the training.  Hotels, travel, bike prep, kids watched, food planned, etc. it becomes a little overwhelming at times.  I admit that I sometimes got bugged that so much work had to go into just this one race.

But race day came at last and once your on the starting line there isn't any more you can do to prepare, so that in a way is already a relief.  My start time was early, 6:15 a.m. while it was still dark, just like last year. I raced in the Masters 35+ A's category, again, just like last year and the pace was steady out of Logan all the way into the outskirts of Preston.  As we began the rollers approaching Strawberry Pass I hear someone next to me that we were exactly 3 seconds ahead of last years pace.

I still look asleep.

My support was amazing, once again.

Ready or not.

As we approached the steeper sections of Strawberry I felt pretty good.  I was with the lead group and the climbing felt comfortable to me.  I had already stayed with the lead group for longer this year than I had last year so I felt that was already a win for me.  I could see others being shelled out the back and I still felt good.  But that lasted only so long.  I could feel the lead pack pace pick up and I had a hard time keeping up.  I pushed a little harder into the red but that only lasted so long as well.  Soon I was slowly losing contact.  I began to establish my own rhythm at that point and climbed the rest of the way up to the false flat.  As I hit the flat I began to with I had others around me to help battle the wind but there wasn't anybody in sight.  I let up a bit and found myself with a couple of teammates on the final portion of the climb.  I was glad to have them there.

Once over the top I grabbed a bottle from the had outs and began hitting the decent with my teammates.  We were joined by others and soon we were in Montpelier.

2014 Ultimate Challenge Report

Just finishing up Little Cottonwood.  I felt as good as I look. (terrible.)
Photo by Leon Huntsman

This year's ride made me nervous. I know it's a ride and not a race but the fact that you invest so much time into training, planning and logistics, etc. it puts the pressure on. Plus, I'd never climbed that much in one ride before. It made me nervous but at the same time the prospect of not finishing made it kind of exciting too. Well, it was surely hard, but I did finish and overall, it went as well as I could have hoped.  (no mechanicals, or flats.) You can see my stats here.

The great thing we decided to do this year vs. years past it that we stayed up at Snowbird for the weekend after the ride.  This made for lovely relaxation time that night after the ride and a fun filled day with the family the next day.  We will definitely do that again next time.

As for the report on how the ride went, I'll give a brief summary:  I begged Jen to drive me to the starting line early in the morning in Salt Lake.  That meant leaving our house at 5:00 a.m. in order to make the 6:00 a.m. start.  She finally agreed, which I am grateful for.  It's dark at that hour and the closer we got to Rice Eccles stadium the more cyclist we saw darting in and our of traffic.  I found the Infinite Team at the starting line and we departed together.  I thought it was going to be cold but actually found the temps to be just right.  We began climbing right off the bat up Emigration Canyon.  Just as we were starting the climb there was a serious crash right in front of our group where several riders went down hard narrowly missing us.  That was a bit scary.  No sure what happened.  I'm guessing a touch of wheels or something.

The sun rose just as we crested Big Mountain but because we were high it made for a cold decent.  I'd never descended that side of the mountain before so I took it pretty cautious.  We then rode in various packs until hitting Henefer's feed station where we all regrouped as a team.  From there we pretty much all rode as a team, up East Canyon, through Coalville, up Brown's Canyon and finally into Park City.  It made for fun, fast riding being able to stick together like that.  I had my doubts that we'd stay together that long but it worked out great.

After Park City the real climbing began and it was more every man for himself type of thing.  Guardman's Pass was crazy hard, just as I remembered it, but being the second time climbing it I found it bearable.  The long decent down Big Cottonwood was uneventful except for one corner near the top that I took way too fast and almost overcooked.  I knew I'd overdone it going in the turn and just prayed as I locked up my back wheel and barley made it around.  That was pretty stupid of me.

I actually felt pretty good all the way up to the mouth of the canyon where I was met by the Infinite Team tent.  They had cold water with ice packs.  This gave me a needed boost for the final climb up Little Cottonwood.  About halfway up I began to feel myself get hungry.  Really hungry and I didn't have much on me to eat anymore.  I also knew that I probably missed my window to eat so I just told myself to pull through to the finish.  But then my energy began to wain.  I started to hit my wall.  It was slow going the rest of way for me.  Embarrassingly slow.  Still, I made it to crest of the hill at Entrance 2 of Snowbird and that was a good feeling.

It was great seeing several of my teammates who didn't do the ride along the road cheering me on.  It really makes a difference mentally.  That, and knowing my family was at the finish counting on me to get there so they could start their weekend away at Snowbird.

As for now, I will focus on Lotoja.  I've felt pretty good the days following Ultimate Challenge and I hope to recover well from it.  I'm counting on a couple of good weeks of training and I'll be ready.  I'll be working on my nutrition plan.

And Summer is Quickly Coming to an End.....

Took the Boy to his first Baseball game.  He was so excited.  That was fun.  Well, as fun as baseball gets I guess.  That's him in the orange shirt waiting for a ball to come his way.

July is the worst.  I love all of the seasons in Utah, but the month of July is my least favorite.  It just gets too hot in the valley where I live.  Wildfires burn like crazy throughout the west which almost always means we see smoke and have to breath it.  Plus, fireworks aren't my favorite either.  I know, I'm un-american.  Our solution for July has always been, and was again this year, to get out of the valley somehow.  Either in the local canyons or our week long vacation to Bear Lake.  This solution makes July tolerable.  And now it's almost over.  In fact, today is the last day and to tell the truth it really wasn't that bad.  I got to ride my bike like crazy and that's never a bad thing.

Now that July is over I'm beginning to freak out over the upcoming plans for Ultimate Challenge and Lotoja.  Especially Ultimate Challenge.  It's in about a week so there is nothing I can do now more than I've already done.  One thing that has been bothering me is my position on the bike.  I switch things up earlier this year to a more aggressive position thinking that I could figure it out with a little experimenting.  I trained and experimented for nearly 2 months before reverting to my old position midway through our Bear Lake trip.  I just got tired of the numbness in my hands.  Everything feels good again but I haven't trained all summer in my old position so I'm a bit worried about that.   I think I'll get another bike fit beginning next year with the hopes of figuring a better aggressive position for me in the future.

So, Ultimate Challenge.  It's crazy this year.  I thought I was going to die last year when I did it and now they've made it even harder with more climbing.  Almost 13,000 ft.  That's a lot in one ride.  And the climbs are very steep at the end.  And everyone knows, climbing at the end of a ride is much more difficult than at the beginning of a ride.  I'm excited at the same time.   It's always a crazy fun ride.  And it's fairly relaxed being that it's not a race.   Lotoja is different in that respect.  You can feel the tenseness in air at the start of Lotoja.  With the nerves building for Ultimate Challenge I have to remind myself that it's just a fun ride and I can just consider it great training for Lotoja.  But at the same time, I would be mortified if I didn't finish.  One way or another, I will finish.  And before the pro's too.

On another note, we bought our season passes to Snowbird earlier last week.  We have to buy them early in order to get the best deal.  Whenever we buy them I get excited for skiing, even if it's 100 degrees outside.  I think we'll try to pick-up our passes this weekend.  Pray for a big snow year.  We are due.

Up the climb near Bear Lake.

Cool little Tabernacle (not a church) I found on my ride into Paris, Idaho.

Looking down Butterfield Canyon.  I've been climbing her a lot lately.

Summer is here!

Tibble Fork 6-7-14 (credit: Braden Burrup)

Again, it's been a while since I last posted.  The snow is mostly gone and the warm riding weather is here.  Racing season is in full swing as well.  I've done the UVU classic, Antelope Island and the B4K stage race so far this year, with mixed results.  Mostly just middle of the pack finishes for me but comparing times with last year I am happy to see improvement.  For the month of May I've put in more miles and time on the bike vs. last May.  I plan to continue this trend as I build for my main goal of Lotoja at the end of the year.  (I did get in again this year.)  My plan is to build gradually over the summer but without overdoing it.  I'm excited as things are coming into full swing.

I don't have much time today to go into great detail but I had the opportunity to be on the radio this morning talking about cycling and my experiences as a cyclist.  Click here to listen.

I'm naturally a pretty private person but with cycling I've tried to be as vocal as possible.  I've love it and so I've tried to share that love with family and friends and anyone else who will listen.  Hence the blog.  I wouldn't normally agree to be on the radio but when it comes to this topic, I'll concede.  Below are some pictures of some recent rides/races.

B4K Crit Race (credit: Dixie Pix Photography)

Antelope Island Classic 2014 Starting Line (credit: Dixie Pix Photography)

B4K Crit Rac (credit: Dixie Pix Photography

Another Powder Day With the Kids (And some other stuff.)

Over the weekend we had a storm cycle that put some nice totals at the resorts.  I say resorts but I think it's just Snowbird and Alta still open at this point.  Jen had a work service project on Saturday so I took the kids to enjoy some late season snow.  The snow was deep but pretty heavy which made for some smooth buttery turns.  It's snowing now in the valley so I won't say the end has arrived yet.  Hopefully Jen and I can get up there again before it's all done.

The Girl getting ready to drop in for the first run of the day.  As you can see, we were the only ones there.  

The boy getting in some nice turns on the smooth snow.

Taking a break in the trees.

Selfy on the lift.  You see how wet and heavy the snow was.

The girl helping the boy with his skis.

The clouds made things feel a bit eerie.

Love these mountains.  That's the Boy skiing at the bottom.  Again, we just about had the resort to ourselves in the morning.  One of the things I love about skiing in April.

Meanwhile, I've been riding my bike.  I raced for the first time this season a couple of weeks ago at the UVU Classic.  I had a cold coming on so I was a bit worried and at first it didn't seem to affect me but as we made the climb up to the town of Eureka I could feel my energy slip.  Soon I was off the back and later I was dropped by some of my teammates.  I worked with another teammate up the climb and then again on the flats back to Benjamin just to be dropped again, riding the last 10 miles solo to the finish.  It rained and hailed on me toward the end and there was even a bit of lighting so it made things somewhat miserable but overall I'd say it was fun.  I was disappointed in my performance but looking at the time between this years and lasts I did the race about 10 minutes faster so that was somewhat satisfying.  I wish I could have stayed with my teammates but it wasn't in the cards. I have my second race this Saturday at the Antelope Island Classic.  No doing extra laps by mistake for me this year.  Hopefully, I'll be completely over my cold by then as well.  Yeah, my cold has lasted the past 2 weeks.  They always seem to last forever for me.  It actually hit Jen much worse than anyone.  I hope she'll be feeling better soon.

True Powder Day....with the Kids.

As the spring storms lined up this week I could tell the Wednesday was going to be one of those truly great powder days so I cleared up my schedule to go.  I invited to Jen to go with me but her work schedule wouldn't allow.  But she proceeded to suggest that I take the kids with me as they are off track from school.  As anyone who skis with young kids knows there is a difference skiing with and without them.  Especially on a powder day.  The more Jen thought about it the more she became convinced that I needed to take them.  I think she was just jealous that there was powder to be had and she couldn't come.  Reluctantly I agreed to pack their stuff and bring them along.  

Amazingly they did really well.  The snow was deep but not really light so I was a little worried about how they would get along.  My daughter was the most excited for the deep stuff and she lead the way on our first run through the trees where it got really good.  My son thought it was way cool up to point where he fell the first time and he had a hard time getting up.  Still, he was having fun again a few minutes later and we were able to hit Gad II and Mineral Basin before lunch.  They had just opened Mineral when we got there and it was DEEP!  I was worried as we went down the cat track to Powder Paradise because there were lots of slides across the traverse making it tricky but the kids didn't even seem to notice.  They went first down the steep slope as I watched from the top and they rocked it all the way down.  That left me for a full on, high speed powder run which I really enjoyed.  The Boy fell a few times on the lower part of Mineral and I think that sapped some of his energy so we left him in the warming hut while the Girl and I had refills on powder.  

After Lunch, we hit the trees around Wilbere and later the terrain park which we all enjoyed.  This week is the last for ski school for the season and it's suppose to storm again.  After that, a warm up in the weather so I plan to ride my bike as much as I can.  Always something to look forward to.

The Girl and Boy riding together up Wilbere.  I thought it was so cute I had to take a picture.  They insisted riding together for every run on this lift.  

  

It's Been a While....

I've been meaning to post for the past couple of weeks but somehow each time something comes up and I've been delayed.  Now it seems everything is old news.  But, just to recap the last month or so...It's been a relatively warm February and I've been able to get a week or two of good rides in.  I ended my training block last week as planned but I wasn't able to end it with the high milage that I had hoped.  We were to take another trip to St. George and ride in it's beautiful warm weather to end the training block but bad weather moved in and it was forecasted to be rainy and cold both at home and down south.  We decided it wasn't worth it to drive all that way for bad weather.  It would defeat most of the purpose of the trip.  Needless to say, our kids were not happy.

Infinite Cycles had their team camp this past weekend and the weather was much improved for them but sadly my schedule didn't allow us to go.  From all the pictures and reports it looked like it was a good time and hopefully next year my schedule will allow me to go.  Still, the Girl and Boy had ski school on Saturday and it was a gorgeous day on the mountain.   Fate wasn't kind to us again as the Boy came down with a fever friday night and didn't have the strength to ski the next day so Jen stayed home with him while I took the Girl up alone.  But it was such a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, warm temps and zero wind.  The snow was in great shape too.  It was a little slushy at the bottom but up top powder stashes could be found.

 I recorded some of my ski day on my cell phone using strava but it ate up my battery pretty quickly and died at about 2 p.m.  Still, I find it pretty cool to recount some of my favorite runs looking at the recorded map.  Click here to see it.

Birthday and a Quick Ride Down South....

For my birthday I wanted to take the family to St. George for some warm weather and riding. Sadley, as the planned weekend approached the weather didn't look promising. In fact, the mountains locally and in St. George were to get plastered with snow making for great skiing. At first I wanted to cancel and ski instead but after telling my kids, the looks on their faces made me change my mind. So we went despite highs all weekend only in the upper 40's.

I'm getting old.

We planned to arrive Thursday night but the freeway got shut down due to a high speed chase and shooting, closing the road until the next morning. So that delayed us a day.  Then, while driving there I began to feel sick. I got the chills and my whole body ached. I began to think the weekend was doomed all around. Luckily, I felt better the next day and I was able to go on a short ride and hike with the kids.

Beautiful scenery for the ride.

Zions is still amazing even with snow.

The view on our hike to see the indian art.

Kids loved the Anasazi art.   

Playing on the red rocks above St. George. 

We enjoyed it, and we want to go again in a few weeks with hopefully warmer weather, and more riding.

Cold Weather Training...

I've been able to get outside a couple of times for some cold outdoor training.  The problem with the weather during this time of year is that usually if it's decent enough to get outside there's usually a layer of smog in the valley due to inversion.  It makes you wonder if it does more harm than good being out there breathing so hard that your lungs burn.  But I can't help myself.  I hate training inside.  The whole point of riding your bike is to get outside and enjoy the world.  Well, it may not be the whole point but its a main point for me.  I will risk the lungs just to get outside.



One cause of concern I've had lately has been my right hip.  In an earlier post I described taking a spill on a saturday group ride.  That was 7 weeks ago.  I've ridden ever since without pain but since riding outside I've noticed that every time I ride out of the saddle I feel a continuous "popping" in my hip just the side that I fell on.  It doesn't necessarily hurt but it does bug me.  Just the fact that I notice it is a distraction that I don't want.  I can't figure out why it's doing it either.  At the end of my outdoor rides I also notice that the hip is a bit tender.  Maybe it just needs more time to heal but I thought it would be completely healed by now.  It wasn't like I feel that hard on it in the first place.  I guess I'll just continue to monitor the situation.



I'm excited to go to St. George in a couple of weeks for my birthday to get in a weekend of riding in hopefully warm weather.  When I say warm, we're talking mid-50's.  That is warm when compared to Salt Lake temps.  Weather in St. George can be very unpredictable this time of year so I'll have to keep an eye on it.  If it's no good for riding then I will cancel and we'll ski instead.  Not a bad alternative I think.

Band Basement Gig....

Recently our band added a new drummer and with this addition has come a lot of renewed energy and optimism about our sound.  Unfortunately, it also came at a time when our frontman and lead guitarist made plans to move to L.A. as part of his video editing career.   As moving day for him approached we decided to do an impromptu show in the place where we practice, my cold basement.  We invited a few friends and family, set up some lighting, and served hot chocolate and donuts while we played our new album and a few other sweet tunes.  It went well enough and it served as a good excuse to rock out one more time with Col.  (At least until he comes back. After, of course, making it big in L.A.)

The good news is, I think we'll plan on keeping the music going with the remaining members and maybe even adding more.  It's a fun outlet for me so I hope it works.

A few short clips from the show.  The sound from the iphone is not the best but you get the idea.

Oh, and you can get our album here (shameless plug):

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/aligned/id763762612?ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Christmas and the New Year.....

Christmas was lovely as usual.  We skied Christmas Eve with the kids and stayed late to catch the fireworks and torch parade.  This has become a tradition for us but we missed last year due to a snowstorm that canceled our plans.  It's a fun atmosphere for the holiday up there.  Sip'n hot chocolate while watching the festivities is a beautiful thing.

The Boy and Jen riding through the tunnel to Mineral Basin on Christmas Eve.

The Boy killing time before the fireworks.

My new clock I got for Christmas made from recycled bike parts.

New Years was a fun night as well as we ate dinner at my wife's parents and then partied at my sister's later.  My sister did a french theme to her party and decorated accordingly.  She did a great job and my kids (especially the boy) were blown away at the ambiance.  The food was great too.

My brother standing in front of the Eiffel Tower.

My family.

Jen and myself.  (I'm clearly enjoying the food.)

The food.

Speaking of food, I fell off the healthy wagon over the holidays and ate like crap (as the above picture of me suggests), but I'm back on the wagon today.  I gained about 2 lbs which isn't terrible but not good either, especially given how hard I have to work to take it off.  My "race weight" goal weight is 165 lbs and right now I'm at 170 lbs.   I'm confident that I can make that by March.

I've been indoors the past month riding the rollers but I was able to get out the past two days riding outside.  Tuesday was cold but bearable, but yesterday was downright pleasant.  It was so nice to get out both days just to be out.  My legs felt sluggish and the smog didn't feel great breathing but I was just glad to be out of my basement.  I need to make more of an effort to get outside.   I met up with some infinite team members yesterday so that was nice.  It's always more fun and more challenging to ride with others.  Plus, the more I've got to know the infinite team the more I've realized they're just a good group of people who love to bike like I do.