Michigan Massacre Part D

With the season coming to an end the Michigan was the last chance to improve the team’s ranking before regionals. 11 points ahead of 6th and 44 points behind 4th meant it every race, every result, was going to matter.

Since my background is mountain biking I was excited to race on some dirt. Upon seeing it wasn’t single track, wasn’t a fire road, but a wide smooth road dashed by enthusiasm. I decided to stick to my standard habit and stick to the front, launch one attack to see how everyone attacks and see if I can cause pain. Nothing much seemed to be happening so I relaxed expecting a large field sprint. But as I relaxed going into the last lap, the pace picked up, I was gaped. Looking behind I realized there was no one. I hadn’t just been gaped but flat out dropped. It was time to dig deep and redeem myself. Gradually I brought myself forward, jumping from wheel to wheel as Tommy dropped them from his little group. It’s painful to see the peloton ahead and know that it’s just out of reach and then to see two more of your teammates fall off is heartbreaking. But you make the best of what you’re given. Tommy and I collected Nate and Taylor along with an IIT guy who was sticking with us. I tried to get an echelon going but IIT was refusing to work with it so I said screw it and jumped to try and drop him but sadly we only dropped Tommy. Taylor made sure I was awake as he nearly misses the last turn. IIT and I ride to the line together where I out “sprinted” him. Looking back, with 4 on 1, we should have just boxed him in at the line. My mental game is what I learned needed improvement.

My mental game was what I wanted to focus on Sunday at the crit but warming up it all felt wrong. The weather was cold, my legs were sore and the team needed every point I could earn. I decided to go for the prems and get as many points as I could before falling off the back. However something strange happened, after winning the first prem I felt great. I hadn’t felt so good in a race in a long time (never mind how long it had been since my last race). It was time to sit in and come up with a plan to win. Our team had 7 people in the race but there was no formal strategy, simply a goal to ride together. Going into the second to last lap 6 sets of polka dots appeared on the front. 6 teammates all together in total control. You could feel the panic from all the other schools stuck behind. I shouted for an attack and began a surge of my own. In front with Brad we built a small gap from the field as I pulled him through the lap. Unfortunately Brad didn’t have the strength to pull through the bell lap and we were caught but the rest of the team was still in good position. A counter attack saw a group of five get ahead, including Tommy. It was time for me to be defensive and just mark. A Serotta began to chase and I sat on his wheel. Looking up I could see Tommy sprinting, clearly winning, so it was time for me to sprint too and make up a few places. Surprise surprise 4th, and only about half a wheel from 3rd! Northwestern D men finished with 3 in the top 5, 5 in the 10 ten!

Best personal results of the season and best D team results of the season was the perfect way to cap off a fun weekend with 21 fantastic people. Setting up for a strong show at Purdue Regionals.

"It's not really a nice feeling..."

So, one might ask, what the hell happened to me?

First, for an appropriate analogy, more or less, watch this video:

http://www.cervelo.com/en_us/testteam/video-documentary/

Basically, I echo all of Haussler's sentiments.

For those unaware, I have injured my IT band and haven't been able to race since the DePauw race weekend four weeks ago. I originally agitated my leg at the Lindsey Wilson road race. Even though I was able to win the time trial; that effort, combined with nearly 80 miles in the hills, was simply more than my legs, being only accustomed to the flats of Evanston up to that point, could take. I made the break in the next day's crit, but my leg was already beginning to act up, even then. I tried to ride early in that week, but my knee hurt, so I rested and stretched, and assumed I would be good to go at the Depauw road race. I wasn't, and the 50 mile race in 40 degree rain really did my leg in, and I was in a lot of pain after the race. I skipped the next day's crit and took that week off the bike. In the meantime, I saw the doctor, who gave me some stretching and strengthening exercises.

The next week was our spring break trip, and I wasn't going to let anything stop me from riding. Sadly, I wasn't able to kill it with Scott and Ian, but instead was resigned to riding by myself or with Axie and Hannah, who were also injured at the time. When we returned to campus to start the spring term, my leg was better, but still not ready for any hard efforts, so I again took a whole week off. Since that time, I have been riding, but only as hard as my leg will allow. I was upset to have to miss Marian and then again miss racing at Hillsboro/ OSU this weekend.

My leg is improving, but it is taking much longer than I would have liked. It is a pretty frustrating injury, on many levels. When I ride, I can spin lightly, but the pain starts up if I really try to hammer down with my left leg. I keep hoping that I will get on the bike and be able to ride as I usually would, pounding on the pedals and going (somewhat) fast, but this hasn't happened yet. In addition, after so much time off, even if I am able to come back, my goal of performing well at collegiate nationals has been derailed, as I don't think it is possible for me to regain nearly the form I would need by then. And lastly, as Heinrich says, "I miss being out there, with the guys..." It's not fun to miss racing with a team that I take ownership in, having seen almost all of our riders start out as complete beginners, and progress to the point that they are at now. I miss watching them race, and hanging out with everybody before and after the races. I also miss racing, and riding hard and fast, and just partaking in the friendly banter of the Men's A field.

I know when we are at races every weekend, we often wonder why we do it. When we wake up at 5 A.M. to go sit in the cold rain, we think, why don't we just stop racing, and just become normal? Sleep in on the weekends, and not punish ourselves with this crazy bike racing stuff?

Well, having done that for two weeks, I can safely say that I don't like the "normal life". When I woke up at 9 AM today and got a text telling me that Tommy won the Men's D race (!), I was super stoked for Tommy, and the team, and also extremely upset that I wasn't there to be a part of it.

Anyways, I hope to be back out racing as soon as possible, and I'm trying everything in my power to get better. If anyone has any tips or suggestions with how to deal with this injury, please let me know. After all of this time off, I just want to get healthy and fast again.

I will end with a Haussler quote:

"I just wanna come back next year and absolutely kill 'em, and that's what I'm gonna do."

My Season So Far, Part 1

Well, I figured I should post up some bloggification on my race season so far. I'll devide it into two parts, to make it easier to read.

Murray State, er, Hayward, WI

While most of the team traveled a long ways South to Kentucky, I instead held out for the last bits of winter, and headed North. Hayward, WI is home to the American Birkebeiner, the largest cross country ski race in North America with over 7,500 participants. I got up there midday Thursday, and had a couple of days to actually get back to the feel of skiing on snow before the race.

The race itself is a 50K, which is a bit more than a standard running marathon. With no ski specific training to speak of for two months leading up to the event, I was mainly hoping to finish coherent enough to enjoy some brats (the greatest part of Wisconsin) after the race.

Starting off flat, the race soon kicks uphill with a 5K climbing section known as The Powerlines. I was mainly trying not to blow up at this point, but in looking down at my watch at the 10K point, I saw I was on pace for 3 hours, which would be a great result. The next 30K were kind of a blur, and at 40K I was still roughly on pace. However, my legs decided to be a bit uncooperative, and the last 10K were a grind, with 7K of climbing (including an infamous hill full of hecklers) and 2K across a lake into a headwind.

The best part of the race is that it finishes on the streets of Downtown Hayward. Everyone comes out to cheer, and it really gives you a boost of energy (that, along with the shot of Jager I grabbed from a spectator at the beginning of the lake). I finished in a respectable time, got my stuff, and went to find some brats. Fortunately, an enterprising group had set up a brat stand directly across from the changing area, so I didn't have to wait long.

But I didn't forget about the team, and rocked the whole way in my purple polka dots:

I even got a few "Go Northwestern!"s, which I think was more due to my hat.

Lindsey Wilson

So after my journey to the Northwoods, I was excited to get back on my bike and actually get out bike racing. The next race was Lindsey Wilson, and with the Blue Raider Omnium competition, I was hoping for a good result.

Saturday started off with a 10K TT, which I was confident in. However, my race was basically over before it began, as I was unable to get my left foot clipped in at the start. Since I was fumbling with this, rather than making sure I was in the proper gear, I lost even more time trying to push a large gear from the start. I did get my right foot clipped in, but still couldn't get my left. Given a choice of spending a lot of time getting it in or continuing on without full use of my power, I opted for the later, hoping that the time penalties would be less severe.

Will and Scott, on there aero machines, eventually passed me, which was expected. At this point, I was cursing USAC for there incredibly stupid ban on aero equipment for non-A riders. At least let us have clip on aero bars! They are cheap, and make it a heck of a lot safer when trying to get into an aero position on a road bike [/rant].

I wound up 10/18, which I was upset with. Upset mainly at myself, for not properly lubing my Speedplay cleats and causing myself to lose time. Let that be a lesson kids: Always do the routine bike maintenance!

The road race was next, and cautious of another cleat episode, I made sure I was clipped on on the left well before the start. However, as overzealous as the D's pack was to get going, we nearly forgot to let the Women's A follow car through. This resulted in my being towards the back of the pack at the start, definitely not a good place to be. I had to wait until the first big climb to work my way to the main pack, which I was only able to catch the back of thanks to the yellow line rule. Fortunately, the pack wasn't accelerating too much, so I didn't have to do a lot of needless yo-yoing.

Things were looking good, until a small rise before the final climb. In a moment of inattentiveness, I came off the back of the pack, and watched as a 5m gap turned into 10m, which turned into 20. I knew my chances of winning were done, but I still wanted to do a good final climb, which I managed to, even passing the Women's A follow car ahead of me. At the top of the climb, I saw what I thought were two NU riders just ahead of me (it turned out to be Taylor and a Butler rider), and I went into attack mode to try and catch them before the line.

Ka-chunk!

Rats, my gears jammed up upon doing this. Fortunately, I was able to right my wrong before anyone else caught me, but I ended up having to solo in to the finish.

Now throughly out of the omnium, I wanted to use the Sunday crit as a training ride, mainly since I hate crits. The course suited me fairly well, with its one short steep climb. However, I didn't quite have the gusto to stay with the main group, but Red Beard and I got together just behind them, eating up anyone shot out of the back of the pack like a pair of hungry alligators. I would pass RB on the climb, and lead through the next 2 corners, where he would take over on the backstretch. I thought I had him in the final sprint, until I looked and saw him on my wheel. I let up, letting him place ahead of me due to all the hard work he had done.

Overall, a good weekend was had at the Dreamland Motel. I think I'm finally over the incredible smallness of the rooms.

Look for Part 2 coming soon!

Southern Illinois University Team Time Trial

We had fun. Bottom line. Will was happy that his dream for the past four years was finally coming true. He wanted to have a big team with dedicated riders who were putting team aspirations over personal priorities. He wanted a team of good friends who had fun. We had fun making ourselves look funny, and not taking anything too seriously. I wanted to wear my KONA jersey for the TTT, but I had to take it off, and deal with just riding on my mountain bike.

Wait, mountain bike?! TTT? What was I thinking?! Lets backtrack a little. Last Tuesday on spring break, before our morning ride, Nick noticed a crack in my seat stay on my road bike. A crack, that upon further examination, enlarged when flexed. I decided that even though I had probably ridden it for at least the day before, I didn't want to ride it that day. Just the day before, I had put my mountain bike together, enhancing the flat pedals with some longer 2mm pegs for better traction, and a new super heavy-duty rear tire. So, I decided to put the road bike away, and ride the mountain bike. I put in 45 miles on the mountain bike that day, keeping pace with some of my teammates. I rode Wednesday and Thursday on my mountain bike as well, and then we got some slicks to put on for the races on the weekend. But I put my bike on the back of a car with hot unfiltered exhaust, and the front tire had a melted hole straight through the tire and tube when we pulled into the hotel on Friday night. I had to throw out the melted front tire, and then swap out the rear slick to the front wheel, and then mount up my least knobby mountain bike tire for the rear. UGH.

So, Saturday morning, I was riding around on my mountain bike, with my Carhartts and Kona jersey on, looking like I was just having fun, but really getting used to the new feel of my mountain bike. When we lined up for the TTT, people asked us if I was really riding it in the race. I was. We weren't going for the win. We were going for fun, and for points.

Will, Tommy and I lined up for the start, and watched our other A team and our Womens A ride off. A Lindenwood team rode off, we waited a minute, and then rolled out slowly. Will led us most of the way for our 14 mile time trial, and the team behind us didn't catch us til a mile and half. The Marian team caught us a little later. We had a nice time, going along around 15mph or so, went up the long hill, and then around the turn around, where we noticed another Lindenwood A team on our tail. They passed us at the top of the hill, but we kept pace with them on the downhill and the flat following the bottom of the hill. I was spinning really fast, with my 44:12 gearing. According to Tommmy, we hit 36.5; much faster than I expected. We had some nice conversation on the return trip, slowed for a flatted-out Lindenwood rider, who was fine, and kept on for the finish. We rode across the finish three abreast, which was fun, and although we were last, it had only been about 45 mins, which was faster than we had thought it might have been.

"That was what I wanted us to be like. And thats what we were like. It was awesome. " ~ Will Nowak, President