After Work Century

On Memorial Day the weather was pretty crappy...40's and rain all day. So I ended up spending an hour and a half on the trainer. I really don't like riding a trainer at all.

Tuesday I had a rest day planned, but ended up riding about two hours, but mostly just riding around town doing errands.

Last night I left work at 4:30 and rode to Nenana and back. That's a great ride. It's a little over 100 miles with really good pavement and shoulders, not much traffic on weeknights, and a lot of long'ish hills. Last night was pretty windy and (of course) it rained several times. But the ride took just under 6 hours and I felt pretty good and fresh the whole time.

Not much to take pictures of on my last two rides so I'm posting a couple of my favorites from this years Iditarod Trail Invitational.

This is Rocky with a bottle of vodka we found on the trail between Nicolai and McGrath. It had been about -40 F, but was probably closer to -20 F when the picture was taken. But the Vodka is still almost completely frozen.

This is my favorite picture from the 2007 race. We are on the South Fork of the Kuskokwim River, maybe 5 or 7 miles from the Rohn checkpoint. It was probably -10F and the wind was absolutely screaming. We'd been going straight into it for the last 25 or so miles. We were being pelted with snow and sand from the exposed gravel bars. We couldn't ever seem to stay on the trail for more than about a quarter mile, and were constantly hitting open leads and "new" ice that is not that much fun to cross. It was brutal. When the picture was taken Rocky was trying to shelter himself from the wind enough to eat...and it just wasn't working.

Memorial Day Weekend - lots o' pics

After a ridiculously light week of riding I was ready to ramp back up over the three day weekend. Our friends Luke & Emily and Bob had planned to ride their mountain bikes across the Denali Highway over the long weekend. Its a beautiful 130 mile dirt road through the Alaska Range. Heather wanted to do that ride too, so we figured that I could ride from Fairbanks to Paxson (about 190 miles), meet them there, help shuttle cars and do some camping and fishing while they rode their mtn bikes, and then I could ride back to Fairbanks from Cantwell on Monday.

There are a lot of things that I really like about having Rocky & Gail as our neighbors. Rocky is probably the most insane-hardcore athlete around here and Gail is about the same, except that she's a lot more sane...and that even when she's skiing the Iditarod Trail, or something like that, she'd probably rather be working in her garden. One of the best things about having them as neighbors is that no matter what ride I ask Rocky if he wants to do his answer is going to be either "Sure" or "Let me talk to Gail about it". So Rocky was up for the weekend trip too.

We left Fairbanks at 6:30am on Saturday morning. It was 54 degrees, warm for that time of day, and mostly sunny with a little wind out of the south. Because it was so warm already we didn't take a lot of extra clothing. I took a lightweight windbreaker and rocky had arm warmers and a lightweight windbreaker too.

Captain Bianchi taking a break

About 40 miles out of Fairbanks we rode through a smoky area. The first significant fire of the year was burning in the Tanana Flats south of the Richardson Highway. The ride the rest of the way to Delta Junction (mile 100) was pretty easy and uneventful. We had a slight crosswind and averaged about 20 mph.

Rocky riding along the Tanana River near Shaw Creek

Me crossing the Tanana River at Big Delta w/ pipeline in the background

In Delta we stopped at the IGA (grocery store) for some food and drink. A family was sitting at a table eating and the father started ask us where we rode from, where we were going, how much we rode, how much our bikes cost, all that stuff. He was really nice and super enthusiastic and eventually he asked us "If we could race in the Tour De France?" We laughed and said "no", and tried to explain how much faster those guys are than we are, but I'm guessing that he didn't really get it. Its hard to understand how fast professional cyclist are (in this country let alone in Europe, which is a step above the domestic level) without actually seeing it in person and trying to race with them. But the family was really nice and its always fun to have a real interaction with a non-cyclist that doesn't involve getting honked at and yelled at.

Rocky climbing towards the Alaska Range into a nasty headwind

We left Delta heading south into a strong headwind. Our easy riding was over. For the next 60 miles we bucked a big wind, probably averaging 15 mph. On top of that, there is no place to get food or drink in the 90 miles between Delta and Paxson, so I had to start rationing my fluids which is something that I really don't like to do.

By the time we were in the heart of the Alaska Range I had run out of cytomax and gummy bears, the wind was even stronger and it was very obviously about to start raining. Oh yeah, and the temperature had dropped from 70 degrees to 45 degrees. Once it started raining we knew we were going to have trouble making it to Paxson, which was still about 30 miles away. It was just too cold for the clothing we had with us.

Putting on my only piece of spare clothing...rookie mistake

Riding near Phelan Creek with the pipeline in the background again

Summit Lake is a 10 mile long lake that runs north and south at the head of the Gulkana River. Its at about 3300 ft elevation and is still completely covered with ice. When we got to Summit Lake we were riding in a 45 degree (steady) rain along the exposed lake shore into a ridiculous headwind (coming across the ice covered lake)...it was seriously cold. We knew we were about 10 miles from Paxson and a lodge/gas station/restaurant, but weren't sure we wanted to do the final descent in those conditions...my hands were already starting to get dysfunctional. We stopped briefly so that Rocky could put a plastic trash bag he found on the side of the road inside of his jersey to block the wind a little better and talked about the descent into Paxson and how much it was going to suck. Rocky said that he saw a light on in a cabin a quarter mile back. We knew that meant somebody was there because there is no electricity in that area. It took us about 5 seconds to decide to go back and see if they'd mind us warming up in there cabin.

The owner, Dan from Fairbanks, met us on the porch and welcomed us in. He said he'd saw us ride by and thought we must be "hardcore". We told him we were just a bit stuck in the weather without the proper gear. Dan was there with his son, Shane. They came down for the weekend to do some target shooting and have some some fun. Dan fixed us some coffee and hot chocolate and we warmed up quite a bit before we saw Heather drive down there road an hour later (we had propped our bike by the side of the road so she would see us).

When she got there we loaded up the bikes and hopped in the car and drove to the Tangle River Lodge for dinner. By the time we finished dinner it was 41 degrees and raining harder. The forecast for Sunday was for more of the same weather. Heather knew she wouldn't want to ride a dirt road in those conditions and we decided rather than camp in the rain we'd just head back to FBKS so that we could enjoy the nice weather there on Sunday.

Our ride was 180 miles in about 10.5 hours of ride time.

Technical Mtn Biking in Alaska

Not much to report. I've been riding an hour or so a day. Wednesday I did an hour and a half. Bigger plans for the upcoming weekend.

I've also been told to get more pictures up, so I'll try to do that soon.

Here is a story about mountain biking in Alaska you guys should read...

http://newsminer.com/2007/05/24/7155

The Hard Part

This is the part of training that I hate and have really blown in the past, but not usually before big races. I hate trying to taper to get the rest my body needs. I know that I need the rest and time off the bike to recover and get to near-peak condition for the start. But mentally its hard for me to go from riding 4-11 hours every day to riding 1 hour a day, without feeling like I'm not doing enough. I get bored. I really like riding and I almost always want to ride more, not less. It sucks.

I've ridden 4.5 hours in the last 4 days (including a race) and feel like I haven't ridden in about a week...

On the plus side my sleep patterns, which were getting pretty bad as I got closer to being "over trained", have gotten a lot better.

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I checked the RAAM roster and saw that both Wolfgang Fasching and Jure Robic are now signed up for the race. I'd heard that Wolgang was going to be there but that Jure would not be. That'll be exciting. They are probably the two most accomplished ultracyclists in the world and have a slew of RAAM wins and top 2 or 3 finished between them. That puts three previous RAAM winners (Daniel Wyss, who won last years race, and is on the same level as Wolfgang and Jure) in the race this year. This years roster might lack the marque names (Tinker Jaurez and Jock Boyer) that were in last years race, but will have as much or more strength at the front.

RAAM Lead-up

So I'm trying to keep what seem like logically separate things in different posts to make this thing more user friendly than a bunch or random thoughts...we'll see if it helps.

My RAAM training is pretty much over at this point. I just need to recover and feel fresh and motivated when I get to Oceanside in early June...barely over two weeks away. I'll still be riding, but my hours will be cut way back, especially this coming week. I probably won't ride more than an hour a day all week. Next weekend I'll probably do one ride in the 150-200 mile range. I'll do a few more short rides with a little intensity, probably in the form of some steep climbs, in the days leading up to my departure. Cutting back the hours works well because I've got a lot of off-the-bike things to get ready before we leave and I'll probably be working quite a bit too.

I'll also try to do a couple 1-2 hour rides on my trainer in our shop with the heaters running to get a taste of extreme heat. I think I can get the shop up to about 95 or 100 degrees. Riding in that with no wind will be oppressive...Other than that it should be a pretty low-key couple weeks.

Skiers Win

I took two more days off completely after I got back to Alaska and then did a race today. It was a pretty interesting new road race called the Three Hill Race. Its really just one hill done three times on three different roads. Each climb has at least one section of +10%. They all climb about 700 ft. In 9 miles there is about 2000 feet of climbing (and 1400 feet of descending). The finish is at the top.

Tyson Flaherty, a phenomenal X-country skier and super strong cyclist, easily won the race. There isn't anybody around here that can come close to Tyson, especially when it comes to climbing. Reese Henneman came in second. Reese is about 17 years old, and another strong cross country skier, he's got huge potential on the bike too. He's starting to figure out how strong he is. Rocky finished third a dozen seconds behind Reese and about a minute in front of me. I felt a lot better than I did in Colorado, making me think that at least part of my problem there was elevation. But I wouldn't say that I felt fresh yet. I'll get some more rest this week and see how I feel next weekend.

Its really good to be back in Alaska. I'm a bit tired of traveling right now. I won't mind the next trip though.

Colorado Wrap Up

After the rides out of Ft Collins I spent most of my time between my brother's house in Big Elk Meadows and my friend Whitney's house in Boulder. I did one ride from Boulder up Lefthand Canyon to Ward, along the Peak-to-Peak Highway to Nederland, and then down Boulder Canyon back to Boulder. This is a really great ride...one of the better mid-distance rides in the area...lots of climbing to start; 4000 ft in the first 16 miles. Then a pretty scenic ride on the Peak-to-Peak, and Boulder canyon is one of the better descents around the front range. So its a fun ride, but the first time I did it (Monday, 7/14) my legs still felt really heavy.

I took a day off and then did the same loop again and felt a bit better. When I returned to Boulder on this ride I met Kraig and we did a ride back up Lefthand to Jamestown and then back over Lee Hill back to Boulder. We mostly rode easy and talked. I think this was close to 80 miles and probably a little under 8000 ft of climbing.

My last ride was out of Lakewood, CO with my friend Doug Bittle. We left his house at 8:30 am and rode up Lookout mountain, connected to Highway 40 along Highway 70, and then came back through Red Rocks into Lakewood. This is a really nice ride, especially considering that its right on the edge of such a major metro area. There is very little traffic on the lookout climb and its not super steep or hard, but still goes up over 2000 ft. We rode really easy, got passed by about everybody, and had a good ride.

In the end I got about 8-10 hours less than I had hoped the first week of the trip. Mostly because I made the trip from CO to IA a lot faster than I expected, so no complaints about that. The second week I was too tired to get the hours in I had hoped to. At least I was smart enough to cut the hours and try to rest more. There were times in the past when I buried myself trying to stick to a too-ambitious training plan. Other than it was a good trip, although I would really have liked to have gotten into some really hot weather...