Straight Outta Compton

Once again I found myself at the Compton criterium course. It is pretty sad that I know my way around the streets of Compton and Long Beach now. My three-month streak of heading up to this course is hopefully over after this Sunday. I will have the upgrade points I need after next weekend. This non-USAC Sanctioned race has fields packed up to 125 riders and simultaneous races that become a huge clustered mess in the end when they eventually overlap. The race directors there leave much to be desired.

My packed race of 125 kept me fighting for the front most of the race. The corners were tight, but I felt more comfortable than in the past leaning into them at 30 mph two inches from riders on either side. Thank God the roads were dry. I saw a bunch of crazy stuff in this race from people punching each other to people leaning into each other in the corners. I still have a little ways to go before I am gunning it through the turns. The couple of times I pulled to the front, I was passed as soon as we hit the turns. I think I wound up finishing somewhere in the top 1/4 of the field, and surprisingly there were no crashes.

Julie raced her first crit about 45 minutes after me. The women from Moment looked great out there. Julie was strong on the bike, and it was cool to see her racing. Unfortunately for the women's 4, the Cat 1-3 race caught up to them 1 lap before the finish and totally jacked up their finishing race tactics. Once again, poor race directors are to blame.

Heading out to Callville this next weekend for my first three-day stage race. Oh yes, once again with rain in the forecast.

Comments

An Excited Heart

It’s no big secret that I was not feeling super great heading into my last race. It was the perfect storm in many ways. I had a stressful week at work two weeks prior working on a massive deadline followed by a heavy training volume week where I nearly doubled my weekly mileage and then fell behind in sleep the week leading into Quad Rock. I was super stressed out heading into Quad Rock due to the distance and vertical gain. I felt comfortably trained up to the 35 mile distance, but I had failed to put in the back-to-back days in training that would have given me confidence to make the jump to 50. The night leading into my race I had some significant arrhythmia while I was lying in bed. The feeling was not new to me. 10-years ago I was diagnosed with benign PVC’s. The condition takes place when nodes in the ventricles fire off signals that interfere with the main SA pace-making node in the heart. The result is a feeling of a skipped heartbeat followed by a hard thud in your chest ...

Tall Trees and Tough Trails. The 2024 Cascade Crest 100

Welcome to Easton! The welcome sign that we stopped to take a picture of just about summed up our experience here. On the hour or so drive up from Seattle, Julie and I couldn't stop taking about the amazing trees and dense forest that lined the highway. The trees were so tall that you couldn't even catch a view of the entire towns that laid just behind them. Definitely a contrast to Colorado where the main attraction are the 14ers that line our skylines. I'm so happy that Cascade Crest 100 found me. The idea to travel to Washington for a 100 mile race started when I looked into doing a race close to a good college friend of mine that moved to Washington several years ago. I hadn't seen him or his family in years, and it would be an excuse to both see them and have an epic adventure at the same time. I had heard about the Cascade Crest 100 from a couple of friends that had raced it previously. As a Hard Rock 100 Qualifier, the race had a reputation of both difficul...

Quad Rock 25

For some reason every time I know I have to wake up early the next day, I can’t sleep. I set my alarm the night before for 4:45 AM and went to bed around 10. I woke up just about every hour on the nose and looked at the clock. By the time 4:15AM rolled around, I just laid in bed and waited for my iPhone to tell me it was time to get up. Buzz….It was time to get up. My pre-race plan I rolled out of bed virtually exhausted and put on my battle armor for the day -- shorts, socks, compression, t-shirt, jacket, and my signature trucker hat. I had loaded up my car the night before with all my gear and nutrition so I was good to go. I kissed Julie on the forehead, she wished me luck as I left to go grab some coffee, pick up Chris and carpool to the race. We made it up to Horsetooth about an hour before the race start. Since we carpooled, we were able to park about 100 feet from the start line. This was clutch because outside it was 37 degrees, raining and windy. View close...

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