Author: kennettron

I did not do well this weekend. I took 58th in the road race and I did not finish the crit.

We arrived in Fort Collins Colorado Friday night at Luke’s uncle’s house. We got in at around 10:00 pm after picking up our race numbers and scouting (in the car) what we thought was the last 30 miles of the road race. After a good meal of pasta, we went to sleep as quickly as possible. Orion farted all night long and stank up the entire down stairs room.

The next morning, I warmed up for 45 minutes before the race, feeling fine. The wind was very strong, and I was borrowing David Wells’ Zipp wheels–a 404 and a 303. I was blown around a bit more than I am used to, but the wheels worked out just fine.

As individuals were called up to the line to start, dark clouds started building up in the north. To the east, the sky was calmer, mimicking the flat planes below. To the west, lay our destination: the beginning of the Rocky Mountains. The mountains rose straight up from the flat ground of Fort Collins. The roads there are steep and the switch-backs are painfull. It was a hilly course.

The start/finish area was held at the football stadium, and the planned course was 70 miles. We would climb up and passed the reservoir, continue climbing, and then do 4 laps of rolling hills. After those four laps, we would return the way we had come and then finish the race with 25 miles of 4 very hard climbs; this last section was the route we had driven the night before.

After all 170 of us were lined up and ready to go, shivering in the increasing cold wind, the race announcer told us that they were expecting snow, and therefore the course would be shortened to 60 miles and the last section would be taken out. I was upset with this, thinking that the hills would benefit me. Boy was I wrong.

The gun went off and we tore off into the cross wind. Immediately we were going 32 miles an hour. It felt like the start of a crit. Luckily, earlier when we were lining up for the start, I had cut in line and was in the top 20. I fought to keep my good position. We turned a corner and the full force of the wind hit us from the side. The peloton strung out across the road in a horizontal line as everyone tried to hide from the cross wind. A rider a couple bike lengths in front of me collided with another, and almost went down. The guy in front of me swerved to the right, where I was passing people to get closer to the front. We slammed into each other as I locked my breaks up and began skidding. No one went down.

The night before, when we had previewed the course, we had taken a route that was about 5 miles of flat that lead us out of town and then up a gradual climb of about 500 feet. That was not the course we took this morning.

After one mile, I saw that we were not destined for more flat ground. I was now about 40 riders back after my near crash and I looked up the road to see the pavement begin to rise up out of the ground to form a disgustingly painful climb. This is when I began to notice the lack of oxygen my red blood cells were able to utilize. The climb zig-zagged up the mountain. I don’t know how steep it was, but it hurt me enough to get passed by about 30 people as I wheezed my way up. David passed me and I struggled to stay within reach of him.

Here we are on the climb.  Already, the race was divided in half.

Finally, the climb crested the top and we began a screaming descent at 61 miles an hour. David helped pull me back up to a chase group of 20 riders. We barely made contact with them before the next climb, which was not nearly as steep or long, but I was toast by then anyways. David pushed me from behind and told me to get up there as the small group ahead of us pulled away. I told him I couldn’t do it. He pushed me again. And again. And again. Peter and a group of 10 other riders caught up to David and I and moved past us. I was finally able to grab a wheel I could hold and I went all out to the top, lungs struggling in the thin atmosphere. David and I passed Peter and we began another decent.

I could see the lead group of 40 riders up the road a little ways, and the our group of now 15 powered down the hill and up another one to catch up. On this third hill (or fourth, I can’t remember), I got dropped. Others were dropped too, but only one other guy stayed at my pace. For about 5 miles, the two of us worked together to pull ourselves back up with the chase group. It was not going to happen with just two of us.

After a couple miles of being dropped, we were on the loop section of the race. We turned a corner and the massive tail wind propelled us to 40+ miles an hour. I have never spent so much of a race going over the speed limit, or so much time in my biggest gear: 53×12, which was not big enough for the day.

We were caught by another group of 20-25 after a couple miles and we began hammering to get up to the lead group. We did not work well together, with just a few of us doing all the work and a bunch of idiots just sitting on our wheels and messing up the pace line. In the tailwind part of the loop, myself and other riders would pull to hard and drop everyone, then we would have to wait for them to catch back up. There was a lot of swearing involved in this section of the race.

Going the other direction up the false flat into the wind was easier for me than the tailwind section. We dropped riders each lap, but the pace line worked much better going into the wind.

I worked very hard for four laps, trying to catch the lead group. Finally, we caught them on the last headwind section of the last loop before we were to head back up to the reservoir. I finally got a good chance to rest as I sat in the group, which had just slowed down to a crawl after we caught them. Combined with my chase group and more riders who had caught back on after it slowed down, the pack was swelling with 80 or more riders. I moved to the front after I talked with David for a moment. Apparently there were 9 riders off the front. So we were competing for 10th place now. Earlier on in the race, I had just made it my goal to finish, but by now I had forgotten the pain involved with climbing, and I set my goal to getting 10th.

I knew I was in for some serious pain, remembering those long descents that would now be ascents. But I didn’t think I would be dropped again. I was dropped part way up the first serious climb, along with 30 or 40 others.

After reaching the top, I began powering down the hill after the pack, which was only about 10 or 15 seconds away. I was with 4 others and we hammered hard to try to catch them before the next hill. We did not.

4 or 5 other riders caught up to us as we began the next hill. We descended again and then climbed up another. We went down another hill, and rode across the reservoir dam. And then a wall appeared. At this point I recognized the hill as part of the course that had been cut off from the day’s course because of the threat of snow. It was part of the 25-30 miles we had driven last night. I turned to the guy next to me as we approached the hill, and asked, “since when are we doing this?” He replied, “since always.” It turned out that we had gone down this steep section earlier in the race (which I hadn’t realized) and we weren’t going to do the extra 30 miles of climbs. There was a turn that I didn’t know about that we were going to take, making the race only 4 miles back to the finish. But I thought we were in for another hour and a half of racing. My spirits dropped and I thought, “fuck it.” There was no way I could go at this pace for another 30 miles, especially when it was 30 miles of hills at 5,500 feet elevation.

We hit the steep climb and I thought of Nectar Way. I had no power in my though. My entire body felt weak and my lungs rattled as they gulped in the sparse air. I got dropped again. I saw Orion on the side of the road, cheering and yelling for me to go. There was nothing I could do in that atmosphere to go any harder. To give you an idea of what the altitude can do to an athlete’s performance, Orion was completely dropped on the first climb of the day and his race was basically over within a mile. Orion is one of the better climbers on the team too. Altitude affects everyone differently. I had thought, for some reason, that I would be immune.

The wind blasted me from the front as I struggled up the 18% grade. I was crushed as I saw 5 guys go off without me. I hated this damn race and this state. As the grade backed off, I grew angrier and angrier. There was still an uphill, but it was much less steep. I caught my second wind (more like 15th) and left it all out on the pavement. I powered back up to the 5 others, not caring that I was going to be dropped again on the next hill that we were quickly approaching. We started going downhill and 4 others caught us.

Then to my great surprise and happiness, we made a right turn going down hill instead of taking a left and going on with the 30 mile section. I realized that there were a couple miles of downhill and then a mile of flat before the finish. My spirits rose.

We tore down the hill and around some tight bends, one of which one guy almost hit the guard rail as he tried to pass me on the outside. He would have been screwed if he had gone over it, tumbling off the side of the cliff.

There were ten of us by the time we got to the bottom. It was obvious that there was going to be a sprint, even though it was for 60th place. I took off with 600 meters. I looked back and eased up as I saw the others chasing close behind. I jumped in behind a wheel after they passed. Immediately, another guy began to sprint. It was on. I began sprinting as well. It was the longest sprint ever, lasting for 400 meters. I took second, just a few feet behind the guy who started it. I took 58th overall.

I, and the rest of the team, spent the next 4 hours coughing up our lungs. I threw up in the shower later back at the host house, and we all laid around in agony. Orion was the worst, and is still coughing up mucus and phlegm two days later. Srew a new set of wheels, my next purchase is going to be an altitude tent.

The next day sucked. I was not in the mood to race and I felt terrible. Unlike the day of the road race, Sunday was warm and sunny with no wind. The course had wide roads and 8 clean corners. 130 starters. I should have been excited.

Like the day before, the announcers called up the conference champions from each region, then called up one rider from each team. One at a time. Because I went first the day before, I decided to go last this time. So I started out in the back, which is where I spent the entire day.

The crit was sketchy, with lots of bad crashes. One crash was bad enough that the race officials stopped everyone while an ambulance took away the injured rider. We started up again and immediately another group of riders went down.

After a half hour of racing, I just lost all motivation to ride and pulled off the course. I had been at the back the entire time and I was not having fun. I was mad and felt defeated, knowing that I would just be racing for 80th place at best. I was still pissed about yesterday and about the whole weekend in general. Orion, proceeded to make fun of me for dropping out for the rest of the day and during the 6 hour flight home. I made fun of him for DNFing the road race also.

The trip was fun and we all joked around a lot, but none of us were too pleased with the racing. I was and still am pissed at the road race. I hate the altitude now. Here are the team’s results.

Lisa: 12th road race, 20th crit
David: 45th road race, 62nd cirt
Takuya: 112th road race, 63rd crit
Peter: DNF road race
Orion: DNF road race, 12th crit
Kennett: 58th road race, DNF crit

You can see the hurt on my face here.

And here’s the explanation: a useless upper body.

Victory!! kind of.

Gilad, make my arms go AWAY!

Collegiate nationals are coming up this Saturday. Lisa, Orion, David K, Peter, Takuya, and myself are leaving on Friday afternoon and arriving in Fort Collins Colorado, elevation 5,000 feet. The elevation is going to be a disadvantage for us, but I’ve been looking at a picture of the Himalayas every night, which should help with my acclimatization.

We aren’t competing in the TTT, which runs on Friday, because we would not be competitive. Instead, our main focus is the road race. Peter won the road race a while back when he was at a different school, and it would be great to have someone from the team win this year. It is a real possibility, which is why I’m getting nervous. I guess I don’t get too nervous for big races that I don’t think I can win. But when there are expectations to be met and the chance of success actually exists, the pressure seems to be greater. I do well under pressure though, so bring it on. (Well actually there will be less pressure up there…crap).

I have been resting this week and my legs will be fresh on Saturday. This is the first race that I have tapered for this year. Just about every race preceding this one, I have either done a couple hundred miles in the days leading up to it, or my legs have been toasted from intervals earlier on in the week. It will be interesting to see what I can do with a rested body.

The course is rolling hills with a couple steep, medium length climbs, and the finish is a flat sprint. It should suit me well. Both lanes of the road will be given to us, and of course there will be no traffic. I have only had this experience once before (Sea Otter) and it was great. But there will be twice the riders there were at Sea Otter: 160. Hell yeah!

The downtown crit is the following day. It has 8 corners. It will not suit me well at all, but should be crazy exciting. My plan is to be in a breakaway on both days. It’s a pretty complicated plan, and I’m sure no one else has thought of it.

Here’s a link to the site.

–Kennett

This is what a college cyclist’s house looks like.

And we just cleaned too!

I found out what it’s like to be the weaker person in a breakaway today. I sucked Zach Winter’s Wheel (Guinness) up both the 2 mile climb and the 1K climb, each lap. I was hurting like…something that really hurts a lot. Apparently I lost some brain cells due to the extreme hurting, because I can’t think of a simile that works.

It all began at 11AM east of Medford. After driving down from Eugene with Karey and Mike, I got in a solid 40 minute warm up under the increasing heat of the sun. I rolled up to the start just in time to take a pee next to a car in the parking lot (on the bark-dust, don’t worry). I saw Chris Swan at the front and cut in line to the front of the pack to stand next to him. And we were off.

As the 30-40 riders rolled out of the school parking lot, I struck up a conversation with the guy next to me. He was from Redding, and was talking about the crappy weather we had during the Willamette stage race. I couldn’t pay attention because I was anxiously waiting for the neutral zone to end. In mid sentence, I rudely interrupted him to find out if he knew how long this damn neutral zone was. He was unsure, and continued talking about the weather.

I was anxious about the neutral zone, which seemed to go on forever, because my race plan was to attack immediately and solo the 73 miles to victory. Or blow up and get dead last, which I secretly thought was more likely (but didn’t tell myself). I know Gilad, my coach, thinks that it was an easy week, but I have been pretty tired the past few days. Last night I practically went into a comma after I ate dinner at 7:30. I would have fallen asleep right there on the food stained couch of my disgustingly dirty apartment, but I still had to get all my stuff ready for the race.

Back to the heat and wind of Table Rock:

Finally, our lead motorcycle took off, signifying the end of the neutral zone. I clicked up a few gears and was about to sprint, when Hutches (I forget exactly who) took off. I grabbed the second wheel–the guy who I had been talking to–and sat in for a bit as Hutches pulled, thinking the rest of the pack was right behind. Nick, also from Hutches, bridged up and we had a 4 man break. I was still unaware for a good minute or so. When I finally looked back after someone said, “come on guys let’s work together,” I realized that I was in a break away and I went up to take a pull.

I went hard for a minute, then took a short rest before taking another pull. By now, we were at the base of the long climb and 3 or 4 other guys had bridged up, with the pack partially broken up behind us. I hit the hill moderately hard and myself and another guy traded off pulls. We dropped a couple people, then more bridged up.

About half way up the hill, which isn’t very steep, Quinn (CMG) and two guys on his wheel flew past our break. I jumped on the train and looked back to see that I was the only one who had the legs to follow. Quinn slowed down a bit and when neither of the other 2 guys came around to take their pull, I attacked and got away by myself. I was feeling pretty good, and held a good pace to the top of the hill for about a mile.

I looked over my shoulder as I started to descend and saw the pack looming in on me, but a lone rider (Zach) was bridging up to me. I slowed down to let him catch me. From there to the end of the race, Zach and I nailed it and got around 4 minutes on the pack.

We took even pulls for the first lap, although I had to tell Zach to slow down on the hills. By the second lap, I was getting pretty tired and he was taking more than his fair share of pulls. I was worried that he’d try to drop me on the next long climb, so I told him I wouldn’t contest him at the end if he was willing to work together until the end. He agreed with that, saying, “Don’t worry, I need you too!” By the last lap, I could tell he was getting very tired because I no longer had to tell him to slow down on the long climb. I began to take more pulls, in fear of the pack magically appearing behind us on one of the course’s many corners. It did not appear, and we congratulated each other at the 1K mark. With 200M to go, Zach took off and I, for the first time of the day, switched into my small ring as my filthy tired legs staggered up the final 8% grade, which felt more like 20%.

It was one of the hardest races I have done. Going up that long hill took a lot of concentration for me. I kept telling myself “God damn it, just climb at least one more mile before you quit!” My head hung low, mouth gaping open, entire body encrusted in sticky maltodextrin, spit and sweat. I fixated on Zach’s bottom bracket, going into somewhat of a trance. By the end of the race, I was VERY happy with 2nd place.

–Kennett

Congratulations to my teammates David Heritage, who took 5th in the cat 4s and Chris Swan, who took 4th in the 1/2s. Chris and I may not technically be on the same team, but whatever. See Karey’s race report here once she gets around to it.

PS Karey, I farted the entire way home in your car and now the driver’s seat smells like ass. hahahaha

Yesterday, Will and I took off from Eugene for a 5 hour ride, armed with our pockets full of Snickers and bananas. The 5 hours ended up being 6, and would have been seven if it hadn’t been for a road closure due to snow.

We went down south to Cottage Grove, then east towards the mountains on Row River rd, which eventually turns into a one lane road that meanders through the Umpqua National forest. Giant pines laden with thick moss loomed above us, shading us from the overcast but bright sky. The road gets up to around 5,000 feet, which includes some great switch backs and fairly steep climbing. Unfortunately, after getting off our bikes about 10 times to hop over fallen trees lying across the road, we were unable to reach the top, due to snow. We headed down, following Brice Creek, which has some gnarly white water. We got back to civilization in Cottage grove a few hours later and hit up a dirt BMX track, then headed home.

Today I met Andrew, Mike, and Karey for a 70 mile ride. We went slower than Will and I went yesterday, but my legs were tired afterwards anyways.

I just replenished my maltodextrin supply at the local home brewery place. For those of you who don’t know, maltodextrin is the primary carbohydrate used in goos. It is derived from corn, and is a great source of calories for races. You can get it for around $5 a pound at brewery supply places, which is cheep compared to the price of goo. It mixes in clear with water and is almost tastelss. I mix in 400-500 calories a bottle and also put it in goo flasks. If anyone knows where to get it in bulk, let me know.

Tomorrow is the Table Rock RR.

All I could think about today during class was the pain I would soon be putting my body through on Nectar Way. I actually started obsessing about the workout yesterday afternoon. That is how intense Nectar Way is, if you didn’t get an idea of what it was like from my last post about it.

It was wet today, which meant that our back tires were spinning out while going up the 21% grade (David Heritage corrected me, the hill is actually 2 or 3% steeper than I said before). Another thing that slowed me down a bit was the rubbing of my wheel against my frame. I have my new power tap wheel on and I think it needs to be trued or something. When I put a lot of force on the left pedal, I hear a squeak coming from the rear wheel, which I’m associating with the sound of a rubber tire against the carbon frame.

Will and I did the workout together this afternoon. 15 times up for him, 20 for me. Our instructions were slightly different this time. Instead of going all out from the first one, Gilad wanted us to “ease” our way into the first 3 hills and try to keep a consistent speed throughout the workout. It worked. I still went hard every time, but I didn’t blow up like I did last week (I blew up multiple times last week, mind you). There was no weaving across the road this time, just a straight line up. Hard every time. I got a headache and was wheezing like an asthmatic, but my average speed up the hill was much higher than last week.

Number 14 and 15 were my last “fast” climbs, other than number 20. These were Will’s last two times up, and I wanted to push it in case he thought he had the legs to beat me. He did not. After these two times up, my legs had reached a new level of tiredness, and I could feel the earth’s evil gravity sucking my down. On hill repeat number 19, I became obsessed with a name that I had just thought up for my legs: Sir Lead Legs Bottom Bracket. I kept thinking about that damn name the entire way up, repeating it in my head over and over. This workout kicks ass. Nothing I have done compares with it. Going up 3 times all out is an intense workout in itself. I don’t know of many people that are willing to do something like this 20 times a week every week (and not half ass either). I am sure this damn hill will bring my fitness up a few notches.

I went for an easy 1.5 hours today along the fern ridge bike path, where I saw four adult nutria and 2 juvenile nutria.  That’s a total of 6 nutria! That’s a lot of nutria!  Other highlights of the ride included smelling some really tasty Mexican food coming from an apartment complex, and finding a small pocket knife in the street.  Tomorrow is pain.  aka Nectar hill.

Friday: easy hour spin in the morning. Tony and I took the bike path out to the crit course for a couple laps. On the way there and on the way back, we saw a nutria–a semi aquatic rodent the size of a very fat cat. I’m writing about nutria for a class, so we took a moment to observe the invasive species in its natural environment. We also saw a rabbit.

The trip over to Moscow Idaho took approximately between 9 and 29 hours. The cargo van, which Tony and I drove again this weekend, decided to stop in Hood River for a quick 30 minutes spin to freshen up our legs. The rest of the team didn’t want to stop, and headed on to Idaho without us. About 15 minutes into the ride, Tony’s brand new chain broke, foreshadowing the mechanicals of the race to come.

Saturday:

We all woke up the next morning to sun. The road race started at 9AM, and did three laps for a total of 70 miles. My legs, like they have been for every race the past two months, were trashed from training earlier in the week. We went up the first hill at what felt like a brutal pace. My quads were almost non existent and I feared that I might actually get dropped if this was to be the pace for the next 65 miles. I rode near the front nonetheless.

10 miles later, by the time I was feeling good, I flatted as we went over some rough train tracks. I pulled off the road, jumped off the bike, and ran to the wheel car (which had stopped about 50 feet behind me for some reason). I grabbed a wheel from the back of the car after sorting through the tangled mess of 9 speed and 10 speed wheels before finding one that I thought would work. I ran back to my bike and tried to insert it, but it wouldn’t fit. A re-occuring problem. haha. So I ran back and grabbed another wheel–all the while the clueless wheel guy just running around behind me, not doing anything helpful in particular. This second wheel went in ok and I sprinted off to catch the pack.

About 5 minutes later, I noticed that the wheel was rubbing on my chainstay and breaks. I got off the bike, re-inserted the wheel, and opened my breaks. It helped, but I could hear the wheel rubbing on my frame for the rest of the race. Poor cervelo R3. There there, the mean replacement wheel won’t hurt you anymore. It’s ok now. It’s ok.

By the time I got back on the bike, I had lost 3 or 4 minutes to the pack and was certain that my effort to catch back on would be hopeless. I began riding hard anyways. After slowing down momentarily , thinking I was lost and almost taking a wrong turn, I came around a slight bend to a long straight away and saw the peloton way up the road. I saw them for only and instant, but it gave me hope.

For the next 18 miles, I rode at my max. I made up a lot of time, but I wasn’t sure if I could close the final little bit of distance. In hindsight, I think I could have. With the gap at about 45 seconds or less, I saw Takuya driving a car. He had been dropped on the first lap and was now handing out water in the feed zone on the main climb. He offered me water, but I declined, saying “No thanks. But I could use a motor pace, though.” To my surprise, a minute later, he passed me slow enough so that I could hop in the draft. The first mile was pretty rough. He was too cautious and would pull ahead of me if I got within 15 feet of the car. But he got used to it during the second mile, and I got right up behind the car, about 3 feet away from the bumper. We closed the final gap at last and I made it back into what was left of the peloton. A six man break had gotten away from the field while I was gone and it now had multiple minutes on us.

With the first 6 places being taken, I decided to just attack as much as possible with the hope that the pack would get tired of chasing and let me go. And if that didn’t happen (which it didn’t) then at least I would get a good workout and make them all suffer in the process.

I took 6th in the pack sprint (12th overall) but was relegated to 20th place. The officials came over to talk to me and I thought I was in trouble for crossing the yellow line at the 1K mark. But the penalty was for motor pacing. “But I got a flat tire,” I jokingly argued. When that didn’t work I tried another one, “Well, I only motorpaced for 2 out of 20 miles.” They laughed.

David Kuhns took 6th in the race and Peter took 9th, so we weren’t out of the points by any means.

We ate at a pasta feed with all the teams after the RR. Later that evening was the TTT.

Our TTT was rough on Peter and Takuya, who didn’t have any TT bars. Takuya gave some good pulls before getting dropped, then it was up to David, Peter, and myself. David and I pulled the entire time as Peter, riding his 90 pound steel Surely winter training bike, suffered like a beaten dog.

Sunday:

It was sunny again on sunday. The crit was hard and fast, full of corners. The short course didn’t suit me well. Not that any crit does.

I couldn’t get off the back for the first 15 minutes of the crit, and the yo-yo effect just about killed me. David Heritage yelled at me from the crowd to “Move up move up move up Kennett!” I angrily replied, “I would if I fucking could!” Apparently the entire crowd all laughed at my frustration. During crits, my lungs and heart don’t give out, the problem lies in my legs. I just can’t see to sprint well unless everyone else is tired.

Luckily that happened 15 minutes into the race and I was able to finally get off the back. I attacked hard for the rest of the race but nothing stuck. I found myself a little too far back in the pack coming into the final lap. I moved up a few places on the 90 degree downhill corner, right as a Whitman rider’s wheel went out from under him. He went down HARD, from what I saw out of the corner of my eye. But the sound of him cracking against the pavement was the real sickening thing. But there was no time to think about that or his trip to the hospital, the finish was coming up in half a lap.

I took 8th, David took 9th, and Takuya surprised us all and sprinted to 5th.

Karey won her crit.

Check out Ivar’s report of the men’s B races once he posts, which should be soon.

We hung around for the awards ceremony afterwards and went to Zipp’s for some low budget burgers. Then the long drive commenced. I got into bed at 12:40 AM. Class the next morning. It was a great (hard) week of training and a fun race. I continually surprise myself by having legs to race well on the weekends after the intense training during the week. I’m eager to see what I can do when my legs feel good for once. (Gilad: that doesn’t mean I want an off week this week, damn it.)

Kennett

Ohhhhh, HI! My name a kennett and I very tired legs right now! I do 3 hours of TT and sprints this morning and thursday nighter later in day! 5 hours or riding. I only eat two sticks of celery and cup of noodle because I no want to be heavy. Good bye. hi.