HHH Crit

When I went to sign up for the HHH cat 5 crit I sadly discovered that it was full. No racing for me. I left. Then I got to thinking - maybe I could convince them to let me race in the Cat 4 race! I found out that Bonnie was the head referee and she would be the one that would make all these kinds of decisions. But, I couldn't talk to her 'cause she was in a meeting with the other referees. So I had to wait.

And wait.

And wait - John and Peter were getting rather impatient with me. (We'd already missed dinner at the Remington with Sabeard.)

Finally, at 9:30 Bonnie showed up. I presented my case. She asked me what races I'd already raced - my mind went blank. Finally I started to remember the names of some of them and rattled them off. She asked a few more general questions and then asked to see my UCI license - and then gave me the okay! I was in. Oh oh. I was kinda hoping she'd say no. Then I find out it's 60 minutes plus 5 - now I really wish she'd said no...

Night before the crit Johnny decides to help me out - breakes out the B12 and gives me a shot. Then breakes out his little pharmaceutical bag... my own little doctor working on me.

Day of the crit. We show up to the race about 1 hour early - lots of time for me to warm-up and get a feel for things. I start my warm up and realize immediately that the legs aren't feeling good. This is not good news, as I know this race is going to be fast. I start ramping up my heart rate and after a few hard sprints I realize that I can't even get my heart rate up! oh oh.

Cat 5's finish. Cat 4's now take to the course to warm-up. After a few laps and taking some of the corners at speed I know now that I'm really in trouble - this course is safe, yes - but it's FAST! There will be no slowing down in the corners.



They call us to the line. It's time. I'm in the third row - a little further back than I'd like, but I'm on the outside so I should have a fast line to the first corner. I hear my name called, look over and there's one of my BJ friends taking my pic - then I hear my name again and it's someone else doing the same thing! Hey, this is pretty cool. Instructions are almost over - we're good to go.

BANG! - okay, it was a whistle, but how do you make a whistle sound? tweet?

Before we hit the first corner, a left-hand 90 degree turn we're up to 37km/hr - and we're still accelerating around it - my HR is already starting to climb - that's actually good news to me 'cause I know that it's going to take a high HR to be able to stick with this crowd! A slight down-hill to turn 2, a hard 90 followed by a sweeping left into torn 3, then a hard 90 into turn 4. Another left 90 into turn 5. Turn 6, another 90- watch out here, there's broken pavement in the middle of the turn. Now into the headwind for a couple of blocks. Turn 7 is another 90 for a block, turn 8 is another 90 taking you onto the finishing straight.

I am right in the middle of things and know that this is not going to last - I'm hoping that the pace will ease up a bit if I can just hang with 'em long enough!

Lap two is faster - we never drop below 40km/hr on a single corner. Because the corners are being taken at such speed there's no slowing down for recovery - it's just flat out. I fight through the inside on a couple of corners and move up a couple of spots. (Amazing how far you can lean a bike over when you're riding 165 cranks with speedplays!) But then I lose a couple of spots 'cause I picked the wrong line on the next corner - it's back and forth.

Guys are getting spit out the back like crazy. I'm still hanging, but just barely. On lap 4 the guy 3 wheels up from loses contact. Nobody else can close it and before I know it I'm 30 feet off the back. Oh oh - this is really gonna hurt to try and get back on! I sprint hard, and almost make it, but the peleton kicks it up another notch and I"m blown out the back.



Over the next couple of laps I manage to keep them in sight and every time I go by another dropped rider I encourage him to jump on with me and fight to get back on. It seems every time I pick someone up we lose the guy that got on just before. I'm hurting. I look down on lap 12 and see that my HR is at 188 (my max is 192) - and suddenly the dizzy feeling I'm having is explained a little. I ease up slightly to bring my HR back to 184. Holy cow this hurts!

I know my time is getting short - in fact - it turns out that I'm down to one lap left before I get pulled.

Everytime I've gone around I've heard friends calling my name and encouraging me - it helps, but I'm completely outclassed. Soon I see 'ol Bonnie standing in the middle of the road waving me in - I"m done. As I go around my last lap the pace car blows by me and I get myself out of the way as I know these guys aren't far from me.

I stop. I can't breathe. I stop in front of Tall163, Sabeard, and JohnnyE - I can't even hardly hold my bike up. I'm cooked. We say our goodbye's, and John makes me run for the van so that we can make our flight. I don't run so good, but I do make it.

Wasn't much of a strategic race for me - more of a "agggghhhhhh this hurts!" kind of a day. I averaged 179HR - I covered 18.15km at an average speed of 38.5 - I really started to slow down the last lap as I was completely blown. I didn't make it half-way, but I wasn't the first guy pulled off, so I wasn't the worst!

HHH Ride

Wow, where to start. JohnnyE and I left Cardston at 3am to make our 7am flight in Calgary. As usual, JohnnyE got all the breaks. As we checked in I had to pay almost $100 to get my bike on - JohnnyE paid nothing. I got to sit in THE BACK of the plane - JohnnyE got upgraded to a bulkhead seat... you get the idea.

Once we got to Wichita Falls and got our rental car we were off to find our hotel... sort of. I can't believe how turned-around John and I got - and that seemed to stay with John for the rest of the weekend. If John thought it was a right turn, it was really left. We finally found our way over to the hotel and unpacked. There I found that my good friends at American Airlines who had charged me $100 to fly my bike had decided that unclicking the buckles on my bag to take a look inside was too much like work and that a knife was much faster. Brand new bike bag - guess I'll be shopping for a way to repair that!

John and I got settled in and had an early night.

Friday was spent wandering around the MPEC - we stopped by the campsite a couple of times, but didn't see anybody that we knew there. SABEARD stopped me in the MPEC and we chatted for awhile. We decided to meet for supper at the Remington. We did eventualy get there - but SABEARD was long gone. Sorry about that!

My purchase of the weekend turned out to be a new set of bib shorts - bought some Sugino bibs, and all I can say is WoW! They are the most comfortable thing I've ever put on.

Finally, Saturday arrives and John and I are up and ready to go. Peter (HiGuy) met us at our hotel and we zipped down to the MPEC and parked by where we'd camped last year. AS we were getting geared up who comes up behind us but Kincannondale! We had a great reunion and worked our way together over to the start. While waiting, along came Talimena Tammy! She'd gotten in the night before. Her, myself, and John headed up another block closer to the start.

The ride itself was the usual hassle at the beginning. I really think that they should encourage people who are expecting slower times to start further back and let faster people move closer to the front. This could be done with different streets functioning as starting lines for expected finishing times. It would sure make it a lot safer. Fortunately we never had any problems.

The only problem I found was that John was feeling a whole lot stronger than I was - my legs just didn't seem to have the jump in them that I expected. One of the things that really had me laughing was the number of times I had to put the brakes on while going UPHILL! (And we're not talking about real hills here, just little bumps.)

We zipped through to rest stop #3. There I ran into Texas Bike Lady while waiting for the bathroom - a 30 minute wait! Unfortunately this was a theme repeated at future stops - the stops did not seem to be as well organized this year as last.

We ran into stops that had NO ICE, others that had run out of water - and ALL of them had half hour plus lines for the bathroom.

Tammy and I had let John go on ahead and were just keeping a comfortable pace - nothing too hard, but we were still averaging over 32km/hr of riding time. At the 50 mile stop Tammy had to make a bathroom break - it turned into a 45 minute wait in line.

We were staying well within ourselves, and well hydrated. Yes, the temperatures were climbing, but we were in good shape, and on track to get to Hell's Gate an hour and a half before it was supposed to close.

We got to RS #6, filled our bottles quickly and were pulling out when a gentleman informed us that Hell's Gate had just closed. 90 minutes early. We went by a couple of minutes later and I was MAD! I travelled 2700km to ride 100 miles and I was getting robbed of it. This was going to be my last chance to get in a century in August - so after 31 straight months of a century a month, I wasn't gonna make it. I thought about just doing an extra 20 miles or so after the end of the ride, but I knew once I crossed the finish line and went through the finishing line there would be no motivation to keep going.

I pulled alot into the headwind back to Wichita Falls. We did have one nice stop in that the cut-off route took us through the base and around some jets. We stopped for a few pics, and then continued on our way. I pusposely didn't push the pace hard at this point 'cause it just didn't matter and I didn't want to burn any more matches that I'd need for the Crit race the next day.

Finally we crossed the line, and they announced my name at the line. We finished with a 31km/hr average - even fighting the headwinds. However, it was only 120km instead of 162. I was disappointed and mad.

After everybody else had gotten in we agreed to meet for dinner at 5pm - and went to the Bar L Joint for some Texas BBQ - food was really good, the after-dinner entertainement was even better! I've never laughed so hard. We were welcomed by the Wichita Falls ambassodor (or so he called himself.) Good times were had by all, and before we knew it, it was time to say farewell.

I understand the officials closed the gate early - I'm mad 'cause had the stops been better organized this year with more bathrooms there wouldn't have been the long waits and we'd have easily made the early closure of Hells Gate. Had they told people down the road that an early closure was possible we could have made a decision to "hold things in" until after we were passed Hell's Gate - or we could have found a tree someplace. I don't know that I'll be going back to HHH. I know of one friend who has already said he's not going back. It's disappointing to be blocked from finishing a ride when it wasn't a case of not being able to physically do it. It wasn't a missed strategy. To the best of our knowledge we were riding the way we should, being careful, etc. Had they let us through Hell's Gate we'd have been done by about 2pm - that's still 2 and a half hours earlier than some were finishing up the 100km ride. I'm still very disappointed about it. Maybe I'll change my mind by next year, but as it stands now, I probably won't be going back.

Dealing with Idiots

Okay - before anybody gets too carried away, let me say up front that I am the biggest idiot of all for putting myself in this position.

Above my office building I have a small apartment that I rent. I also own the building next door with an apartment above it. I have a partner in that building. I let him choose the tenant - he chose a shirt-tail relative and I said okay without checking it out - big mistake.

Unknown to me, she had a couple of cats - and a dog. That wasn't too bad. But, over time she was getting a little behind in her rent - and being the nice guy that I am, I let it slide for a couple of months. Then she gave her notice that she was moving. Said she'd gotten married. Then she left with a promise she'd be back before the end of the month to get her stuff out and catch up on the back rent.

Just before the end of the month she calls my partner and tells him that her husband's ex-wife had run her down and she was in the hospital. She wouldn't be able to make it for a couple of more days, but she'd make up the rent.

Two weeks later and she was going to be late for some other reason. On and on it goes.

THEN I find out that she's left TWO cats up there alone the whole time. Yeah, she's had a friend stop in to feed them. Great. I called my lawyer (enough of me being an idiot) and found out what I needed to do to evict her.

Now I have a storage place full of her stuff and hundreds of dollars worth of damage that I've gotta fix. (You wouldn't believe how bad cats can smell!)

Introduction

Well, I've finally done it. I've created a blog. It's pretty simple, as I really don't know what I'm doing yet. I have no idea if this is the way I want to go, or if I'm going to go back to my old web-page. Maybe I'll end up doing both, but for now, this is the way I'm gonna post.

I spent the last couple of hours reading other blogs (I really haven't done much of that) and trying to figure out exactly what I want to say. I still have no idea.

One of the blogs I read was of a good friend - Talimena Tammy. She's one of my heros. The way she's been able to handle the adversity thrown at her with humour and grace is really inspirational. My wife and I sat-down together to read some of her entries. If ya happen to find me here, Tammy - thanx!

Tomorrow is the beginning of the next stage for me. I'm developing my exercise / eating plan tonight, and begin tomorrow with a nice "leisurely" ride with Bart out to Mountain View (about 50km). It's a great ride, and if I remember I'll take my camera with me and snap some pics.

On the eating side - my problem is definitely on the portion control side of things. I've been looking at a couple of options to help out with that. I really found Tammy's RestauRANT funny just because of that very issue.