Team Mango

I decided at the last moment to enter my first mountain bike race in four years on Saturday. I’ve been doing some light training this winter and spring, so I thought this would be a nice race-as-training-ride event. It was the sixth race in the Westside MTB Series put on by BuDu Racing. And even though they don’t officially sanction their members for MTB races, this would be my first race wearing the ByrneInvent team kit.

As the 60 or so Sport class riders were gathering at the start line to be seeded by age group, a cyclist came speeding up the road behind us yelling “WE NEED A MEDIC!”. Some guy in the stunt jump area of the park where the BMX’ers hang out had apparently taken a hard fall and sustained a head injury. The race official called 911, and delayed our race for half an hour so that the emergency vehicles could get through. Within minutes, two fire trucks, the fire chief’s truck, an ambulance and 3 police squad cars sped past us and made their way to the jump area. I didn’t hear any details about the injury other than overhearing someone that watched the paramedics do their work say that they had to induce paralysis in order to insert a breathing tube. This sounded to me like a pretty extreme measure for paramedics to be taking in the field, but apparently it *is* done. I also heard someone ask another person who had witnessed the crash, “was it bad?”. The response was a wide-eyed and very solemn, “yeah, it’s really fucking bad.”

The 30 minute delay allowed me and others the opportunity to warm up some more and get familiar with the course. I’ve done many races at South Seatac Park, but the course is always different, owing to the maze of trails that can be cordoned off in countless ways. So a quick lap was just the thing to prep me for the race. Best of all, it allowed me to scout out the best opportunities for passing riders on what has always been an incredibly tight course.

The emergency crew cleared out of the park, and the starting gun went off about 45 minutes after our scheduled 11:00a start. There were 20 riders in my age group, and as we sped up the road before entering the singletrack, I found my usual place in the middle of the pack. A guy 3 riders ahead of me was already slowing me and some other riders down after 5 minutes. We waited until the trail crossed one of the park’s road and then all made a burst to get around. I wound up at the front of this small pack as we entered the singletrack again, which meant that *I* would now be holding up traffic if I didn’t keep the pace up. To my amazement, I began pulling away from those behind me, and began to edge up on another guy in front. Again, once I caught up to him, I waited for the wide spot in the trail, but powered past him. By the end of the first lap, I had passed 3 or 4 riders and not been passed myself. I hit the lap button on my heart rate monitor at 0:20:30.

Lap two was spent largely on my own, with no one in immediate sight of me, either in front or behind. So without other riders with which to gage my progress, I concentrated on keeping my pace up without setting myself up to bonk later on. My lap 2 time was 0:20:03.

On the third and final lap, I caught up to another rider. But just as I thought I was ready to pass, he would gain some ground on me. I caught up to him again only to have him pull away once more, and on and on like this through most of the lap. But my chance came on a steep climb, when he lost traction and had to put a foot down. I cranked up past him, and he gave me a good-spirited “nice job, man!”. He added, “we’ve almost got the guy in front of us”. Indeed, a few turns later and I saw my next target. I had almost caught up to him at the highest point on the course when it turns into a long, curving and very fast descent. I kept on his tail as best as I could and noted that he was a little wobbly on some of the tighter curves. And then the moment that I had been hoping for happened; he took a sliding fall on a turn right in front of me. I yelled out “rider down!” to alert the riders behind me, which also prompted him to jump out of my way as I sped through. This would be my last passing opportunity, so the rest of the race consisted of trying to outrun anyone behind me. In the last few turns of the course, I could hear a few riders closing in behind me, but I crossed the finish line before they got to me. Turns out I had slowed down on a bit on this lap; completing it in 0:20:40.

Results have me in 7th place out of 20 riders in the Sport 40+ group, which completely surpassed my expectations! The Indie Series MTB race are just starting up for the season, so I’ll definitely be getting back into the sport this year. Road racing can wait a few months…

BREAKING NEWS: Mango Johnny Methane single-handedly completes this year’s Flat Tire Festival, er uh, I mean the Inland Empire Century, without the use of pace lines, supplemental oxygen, or EPO. Read the full account HERE

Having languished all summer due to a nagging hip problem, I gave up mountain biking racing this year. I became sort of an armchair athlete, hearing the stories of my fellow Mangos — John T. competing in his second Ironman triathlon, John M. completing his second STP double-century ride, and Scott and Susana doing a three month bike tour of Europe. I maintained a limited training regimen, though, and started going to a physical therapist, which improved my hip’s range of motion greatly. I decided to try and get back into shape and picked a sprint triathlon (my second ever) as my goal — the Black Diamond Triathlon.

My road bike was out of commission until I could fix the seat post, so my core training consisted of (almost) daily bike commutes on my mountain bike with John M. He would ride his road bike, so I managed to build up a sort of competitive advantage trying to keep up with him on my heavier mountain bike with knobby tires (to John’s credit, 9 times out of 10 I would end up drafting him as he pulled me into downtown).

After arriving at Nolte State Park, I set up in the transition area, neatly organizing my gear for the various race legs. The race was to begin at 9:00a, so I got my wetsuit on 20 minutes beforehand and headed to the lake to warm up. “Warm up” turned out to be a figurative term, as the water was about 60 degrees. Even with the wetsuit, that was mighty brisk for a morning swim. The bulk of the racers were in the water awaiting the start, but the race official didn’t show up until much later. We all stood around in the water muttering about how freakin’ cold it was.

At 9:20, they finally counted down to the start, and we were off. I let the bulk of the swimmers by me before I leapt into the churning water. I kept my head up and did the breaststroke and sidestroke until the pack thinned out. As had happened at my first tri in 2003, I soon started hyperventilating. But unlike my panic that time, I knew that this might happen and was mentally prepared for it. I eased things way down as much as I could and stuck to the sidestroke and paddling on my back for the first 1/4 mile. I noticed that a fair number of other swimmers were doing the same thing, so I didn’t feel so bad.

Rounding the far buoy, I started to feel more at ease and started a slow crawl — lifting my head every 5th or 6th stroke to sight the next buoy. The shoreline never seemed to get closer, but sure enough I continued my barge-like swimming and reached terra firma. I had hoped to do the swim in 18:00 (factoring in the expected hyperventilation), but completed this leg in 19:21 (solidly in the mid-pack of 230 competitors).

From the shore, T1 consisted of a run up a steep hill to the transition area, where I stripped off my wetsuit, and donned my cycling shoes, shirt and helmet, and ran off with my bike. My T1 time was listed as 3:00 — curiously the exact same time as half of the others. I’m guessing that there was a problem with the timing chip reading at either the entry or exit of T1, so they gave everyone an average time until the problem was fixed. (In a follow-up conversation with the race organizer, they did in fact have a temporary malfunction with the timing equipment at the entry into T1, so they simply assigned an average time for T1 and then calculated swim times accordingly).

Having trained exclusively on my mountain bike, I felt quite nimble on my road bike. The bike course was an out-and-back on fairly flat county roads with a few short, rolling hills. I cranked it up to about 25mph and passed a huge number of riders throughout the 11-mile ride, and was only passed once. After flailing across the lake, it was refreshing to be on my no-name, steel road bike passing one of these. My bike time was 33:14 (the 26th fastest time out of the entire pack, or the top 10%!), meeting my goal to average 20mph.

T2 went slightly quicker, as I simply had to drop off my bike and helmet and change into running shoes (in 1:57).

The 2.8 mile run consisted of two laps of trail running around Deep Lake. It was mostly flat, but had a couple short ups and downs. Half a mile into the run, the need to urinate was overpowering. Since I’m not a seasoned enough triathlete, I opted not to piss myself, and simply picked the nearest tree on which to relieve myself. I must have been way over hydrated, as it seemed like I’d never stop peeing. I’m guessing I lost a good 45 second watering that tree. As I started running again, a woman ran up behind me and asked “are you 5 pounds lighter now?”. I kept up a respectable 8:45 pace for the run, completing it in 25:00 and turning in a finishing time of 1:22:33 — 2:30 short of my goal of 1:20:00.

Overall I placed 68th out of 230 (see results here) — almost the top quarter! But in my age group (35-40), I placed a pitiful 12th out of 15. Even given my recurring swim problems, I have to say that the sprint triathlon has become a favorite goal of mine — a nice departure from all of the biking I do. I’d like to work up to doing an Olympic-length tri sometime soon, but for now, it’s the start of cyclocross season!

road biker extraordinaire, johnny methane completes his second one-day STP ride in stellar fashion (especially compared to last year). read the latest HERE.

(the following includes photos i took of the race after mine just to give a flavor of what the races are like).

this past sunday i entered my first ever cyclocross race. although i had never done any cyclocross riding, per se, it wasn’t too distant from the mountain bike racing i’ve done in the past. a few weeks ago, milkshake and i had gone out to a cyclocross race near auburn to see first hand what they were like (neither of us had ever seen such a race in person). we were both instantly intrigued.

the first time my schedule cleared up, i decided to give it a shot. sunday’s race (the 7th race in an 8-race series) was out at south seatac park, where i had done several mountain bike races, so i knew the terrain quite well.

i haven’t gone out and spent a couple grand on a new cyclocross bike (yet), so i rode my mountain bike — which is allowed at the races as long as one removes the bar ends from the handlebars. i was definitely in the minority, but for my race category, about a third of the riders were on mountain bikes (even less so for the more advanced categories).

i raced in the men’s master C 35+ category, which is essentially the beginner category. there were 34 riders in my category. the riders who had been competing in the previous races in the series (about 20 of them) staged at the start line in order of their current point standings. the rest of us were virgins and relinquished to the back of the pack from the get-go.

at the gun, we all sprinted uphill on a paved road, then a long straight-away for about a quarter mile before entering into the singletrack. i was about mid-pack at this point. there had been a lot of rain the past week. it was sunny but still very cold, and the trail was still quite moist, with a lot of standing water. just after the start of the singletrack was the first hill. it was covered in deep sand and we all dismounted and hoofed up the short rise. the trail twisted around pretty tamely, with the occasional slippery patch of mud on a turn.

later there were two long flat patches of deep sand. most of the guys on cyclocross bikes with their skinny tires dismounted and ran through the sand. however, with the fat tires on my mountain bike, i was able to power through the sand and make some good progress (saving time by not having to dismount and then remount). i got to wondering if this was some sort of cyclocross faux pas, as these obstacles are purposely set up to force the riders to dismount.

halfway through the lap was another hill, this time about 20 feet up. the pack was still pretty dense, so the key was to avoiding being smacked by the guy next you when he picked up his bike and slung it over his shoulder. up we went, then curved around to a long descent back down.

at this point on the first lap, a rider was in front of me was slowing down a bit. i decided to make my move and pass him, so i stood up on the pedals to power past him. unbeknownst to me was the fact that the first set of plank barriers was just ahead. i saw a guy dismount just ahead, saw the barriers, and slammed on the brakes just in time to dismount and hop over. (i wonder if anyone ever misses these planks completely and barrels right through them?).

more twisting around, another gradual but sandy climb on the back side of the course, and within ten minutes was back at the start/finish line and ready to go through all the obstacles again. the race was three laps, so i was going to be doing this for about 30 minutes. this is (or should have been) a sprint for the entire race, but i am used to 1-1/2 to 2 hour mountain bike races that are based more on endurance. so, at my weenie mountain biker pace, i found that i was almost well-rested by the end of the race.

i placed 22 out of 34, and since my expectations were quite low for this my first race, i was pleased with the results. in the end, it was quite a lot of fun, very muddy, and i’ll definitely do it again. i need to work on getting comfortable revving my heart rate up sooner and pushing myself harder for the shorter time period, but i’ve got until next season to do that.