Saturday, September 6, 2008

Race Reports: 1st of 4 - Ore to Shore Hard Rock


Rather than try to recall (now, weeks later) how the race played out I've cut & pasted the race report I gave my coach Josh Powers.

Great front row lineup –Kate said to me -- "that would be the closest to Marko I’d be all race long (ouch! Doesn’t that truth hurt?)"

Hard start after the roll out. I was in 30-35th place but when the front guys hit the hammer, dang it was it fast. Generally I can still pick up spots even when the pace is high but when the high gears kicked in at around 2miles in, everyone was just giving it.

Mile 4-7: somewhere in there after some hard bumps & sharp gravel rocks I had a soft squishy back tire float around. Pull over and hand pumped all the while feeling the repeated freight train of riders go by. How many? Psff? I have no idea probably 50, it felt like 100 (I suck at even doing the most minor repairs under pressure). It was a puncture, in my 7 day old Bontrager Revolts, that took alittle time to get plugged up by the Stans No Tubes Sealant.

Got back on -- wasn’t sure what too expect. No sure if any “target” racers had passed or not (assumably they had). So many thoughts pass thru your mind. Have I screwed the entire race? What should my new focus or goal be in light of this? Etc, etc. I got back to a bit of slow start, passing some slower riders but not going balls to the wall. It felt like in some places I’d get going other times I’d be slower.

As time ticked away, my gains would be steady, especially in any of the more difficult terrain, hills, whoop-di-do sections. There’d be what I’d like to call “pile-ups” – you’d go a good distance without seeing anyone and then “blam!” there’s bunch of people negotiating some tougher stuff.

Mile 19-20: Feeling pretty good as the previous 3 miles I passed a lot of people probably 20 maybe 30 and then Wala! I see this monster hill in the distance and all these people walking up it. Even better on that hill I see a number of racers I recognize, including some of the local guys that are exactly slackers when it comes to riding the big knobby tires. This is good! So I ride up as much as I can & similarly dismount and quickly begin trekking up the hill so I can catch on to this group of 6 or more before they hop on their bikes again. I later found out from Kate after the race that by the first water stop at the 12miles point most of these guys had 2 & 3 minutes on me so I was able to make up that 2+ minutes ground in 7-8miles.

Mile 21-29: Having caught this group of 6, the catching of additional racers gets slower as the point of attrition in the race where catching additional riders gets tougher and tougher as the racers are better and better. But I’m now in a pretty decent group and need to assess what to do next. Well, that was pretty much taken care of for me as a great guy out of the Twin Cities, Matt Muyres, which I was shocked to see in this group (as he can ride like a mother on fire.) Gets on the front in the open stretches and freakin’ pounds it. I mean pounds it. Shellin’ people, it was freakin’ awesome! (Now if he would have ended up dropping me, maybe it wouldn’t have been) One of the local guys was unfortunately dropped in the process. Fortunately Matt’s riding suited my training and style of high paced open road riding so I didn’t really mind. I got to front a few times for some pulls to see if we could drop anyone else. But it was also to tell Matt to save some as I knew I was going to want him around later so I didn’t need him to burn up into a crispy critter.

Mile 29-35: Open blacktop section with longer climbs. I knew this was going to be a 2:45-3hr race so fuel intake was imperative. I was steady on it with water & gels so I was hoping it would be enough to keep me from going over the edge. Two incidents in this area.
--That group of 6 was now down to myself & 3 others and Matt was chasing down yet another group of probably 8. As we were getting closer & closer to making contact I found myself of the biggest pricks in all of MTB racing I’d ever come across. Out of nowhere this guy behind me yells at me in an angry voice, “stay on his wheel & quit surging!” What!! Did I really hear that? I couldn’t believe it! Shocked, I quote back: “Why don’t you shut the #$%! up and quit your crying. Get your #$s up here if you don’t like it.” Not satisfied that I’d said enough. I furthered “You’re drafting you *&%#ing idiot! You don’t have one say in how the guy pulling your ass rides”. I was frickin’ steamed. I could not believe the audacity. In a road race, sure, I come to expect less than cordial participants. But this is mano-a-mano MTB race. Wild.
--Next we make contact with that group of 8, so it’s now a nice sized group and it’s approximately 35th thru 47th place. Next up in the line of sight was the other really good rider from my area about a qtr mile in the distance. This is probably the peak point of the race for me. Steadily, steadily the distance is getting cut but at the same time hitting the climbs I’m getting lead legs. The “oh-crud I can’t pound this hill and not have some serious leg burn going on”. It’s that breaking point you get to in a race where trouble is brewing underneath. I’d love to say what happens in the next mile is the reason I finished the way I did but it’d be a stretch.

Mile 36: Back on the bouncy double track was enough to re-open the puncture in the rear tire and after sliding around for 100 yards I had to pull over and re-pump as the 12 person train went on without me. My first attempt to pump and get back on was horrible. Only a few guys went by but it wasn’t another 100 yards before it was nearly completely flat & I needed to get off a second time and really pump it up. I’d probably got it up to 25lbs but not before getting passed me up again by a good share of riders we’d previously dropped.

Mile 37-48: I think it’s now probably 2 hrs 15 min into the race and given what’s just happened -- the evidence of fatigue, the flats. It’s here you hit the optimistically hopeful state of mind. You go like hell as best as you can and at the same time you know everyone else is hurting too. The thought is maybe, they’ll hurt more than you and they still can be caught. Once back on and knowing there was 10-11 miles to go I was able to go decent for another 4-5 miles. Not losing any spots, holding off some people behind me but also not catching anyone that I recall. But eventually it keep going downhill (and I don’t mean the topographically direction of the course) for me. I got passed up another 15+ spots by the time I rolled into the finish at 3:01:04 ending up 72 overall on the day out of 500 racers.

RACE NOTES:--My back tire had about 12lbs of pressure in it at the finish line. I’m not sure how long it was that way.
--I stood up a lot throughout this entire race, because of the problematic rear tire. Something I don’t normally do as I stay seated almost 99% of the time when racing.
--Felt really good the morning of the race, relaxed, energetic and my back was feeling decent. It was as good as I’ve felt going into any race in the past 2 yrs.
--Most positive aspect of race: The Chase Back – It didn’t feel overly taxing and for what it’s worth was the fun part. I’ve never previously ever been able to race back into my original position after losing it. So that brought about a level of satisfaction.

OVERALL:
With a pretty lengthy detailed honest recap above, you’ve got a decent scoop on what went down. This was a big race for me. I’m left with some disappointed and questions. The first being the mechanical issue – how would I have done without the flat and not having to chase back? How would that have played into energy output & conservation? Now I could fall back on the flat tire excuse but what bothers me more is that essentially I was cracking already on mile 35 and by mile 45 I wasn’t crawling but I wasn’t going to be able to hold anyone off. Even without the flat would I have been able to pull it off?

So, although going in I can always take a mechanical “excuse” or issue in stride and not be upset because it’s out of one’s control. But personal performance, essentially what is me, is very, very difficult for to deal with. I have these goals and personal beliefs of what I should be capable of. And time and time again, I keep coming up short. And to me, how I measure it, I’ve not even been close to knocking out any of these goals. I can’t begin to describe the intensity of frustration that it creates within me. You’ve warned me about, told me about, and even so, unfortunately it doesn’t make it any easier. Putting in so much effort and dedication I just don’t know what else to do at this point or what I should even be doing.

I’m just saying I’m in a tough spot right now. I don’t like how things are going. It’s not one race, it’s not the Ore to Shore, it’s the collection of things so far this year and last year. I like this journey because it provides plenty of opportunities to succeed but something has to happen and come through. Understand all of this is on me. You’ve done everything you know (and you do know a hell of a lot), I just don’t know how to pull it together any more than I already have.

Lastly, with all the 29er talk of what a great bike it is, of which I’m not taking anything away, how about the fact that a 69er is the bike that took home the big prize at Ore to Shore.

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