Momma Turkey at Wilderness Park

Everynow and then something absolutely crazy happens when your out riding your bike. Today was a new experience to add to the list. In Grand Island, the wind had picked up to probably 10mph and I really didn't feel like going out on the roadbike, or more likely I was just looking for an excuse to go mountainbiking, so I decided I had time to drive to Lincoln and ride my "home town" trail Wilderness Park.
Wilderness Park is where I learned to mountain bike, granted it's flat, but it embraces flowing singletrack like no other trail system I know of, the point is really not argueable with me anyway, this my "home field" and always will be, when riding at Wilderness the whole world disappears and I am transported back in time. It's not until the end of the ride that I realize I'm not in college anymore and instead of riding back to the dorm I have to go back to my car only to drive home and then go to work the next day...
So about halfway through the ride I am zipping along and I come to a small hill that I just can't quite see over, as soon as I can see over it I see there is something in the trail and flurry of chaos is exploding right in front of me, I'm on the brakes hard and basically come to a stop right in front of the scene. It was one of those times when everything was in slow motion, as I stopped I saw baby turkeys scattering and rolling, as I processed what was happening I realized the mom and her babies must have been taking a nap or feeding right in the middle of the trail. When the mom saw me she jumped up which either flung her babies off to the side or they went running too. Thankfully I did not hit any of the babies and as the last one ran into the grass I immediately realized I had a critical decision to make, the momma turkey was about 4 feet to my left and she was staring at me, I needed to proceed forward so I made the decision to make a run for it and keep on going. To pass her I had to get slightly closer to her than I was at the moment, I really didn't know how agressive turkeys could be but as I ran by (carrying the bike) I thought about the fact that they could fly and had claws. My run quickly turned into a sprint as the momma turkey was not happy and was now in hot pursuit, you can only imagine my surprise that she really was following me! Besides running faster several things crossed my mind, the first was maybe I could fend her off with my bike, so I tried to keep it behind me to block her eventual attack, next I wondered how fast she could really run, my guess was that she could probably out run me without even trying, so then I thought well I'll bet she just trying to scare me away from the babies, because if she can run faster than me I bet she would have already caught me by now. That was a comforting thought, but as I looked back again she was still chaing me, really I didn't need to look back because I could still hear her chirping at me. By now I had sprinted at least 50 feet and she was not losing anyground, and I was really starting to wonder what it was going to feel like when she started beating me with her wings, pecking, and clawing, it seemed inevitable... Despite all the training I'm doing, I don't have any endurance for sprinting and I was already getting tired, I took another look back and yep she is still chasing me, my only thought was keep on running maybe once she feels I'm far enough away she'll let me go. Thankfully that is what happened, the next time I looked back she had stopped and was just chirping at me. My heart rate didn't slow down for another mile, by far that is the craziest thing that has ever happened to me in the trails, I was just glad I didn't run a baby over or something terrible like that.

Click here to see my data on Garmin Connect
If you do happen to follow this link and look at the data, check out the HR, there is a huge spike where I encountered momma turkey, it's really obvious, and its right at the 50 minute mark.

Lewis & Clarke Kanesville Krusher

There was no marathon category for this race so I decided to enter the Cat 2 Open class, this is the old Sport class that I used to race in many years ago, despite being old enough I refused to enter the 35+ category. I didn't really have enough time to preride the course so I just checked out the beginning to see what it was going to be like at the start. This was somewhat scary as there was a pavement section that was going to rocket speeds above 30mph and then a hard right into the trails. If that wasn't bad enough, the trails kept going down until you ended up at probably the lowest part of the park, and there was some tricky logs that would not be play very nice as a crowd of riders came screaming over them...

A lot of this turned out to be a non issue as the race was started on a gravel road with a big uphill climb, this sorted out the pack quite well, it's also where I was smacked in the face with the reality of my low power and high weight, I watched the pack speed away and found myself near the back of the 20 riders in the open class and sadly there was nothing I could do about it. None the less I was right about the chaos that was going on in the trails, even though I was probably 30 seconds behind there were several guys that had bit it on those logs/roots and were just picking themselves up as I came by.

The first lap was painful, I was actually probably in 8th place at one point, and the pace was killing me, finally when I could bear it no longer I looked down at my HR monitor and quickly discovered why it hurt so much; my HR was at 191. Good in the sense that my conditioning is coming along well, but bad for this race because there was no way I could sustain that pace...
At this point I just started letting riders by, the worst part was that there was guy with a Tshirt racing and he was in front of me, only a beginner races in cotton. Still battling the mental defeat of the 12hr race, I found myself mentally weak in this race again, I had no plan of quitting, but the thought did cross my mind.

The second lap was an interesting one, it still hurt, and since the race was being ran "backward" on the trails it felt like the whole thing was uphill, there just didn't seem to be any spots to rest and if it did go downhill for awhile it didn't feel like it. On one of the uphills, I noticed a $10 bill on the ground, I was already going so slow anyway I stopped and grabbed it without even noticing I slowed down. This seemed like a good find until I thought about the fact that I paid $20 to suffer like this... The next thing I noticed was that riding this far back (I actually had no idea what place I was in by now - I assumed last) most of the guys I was riding with had minimal trial skills, not smooth at all, but it really didn't matter because as soon as we started climbing they just walked away from me and one guy literally was walking away, he was getting off his bike, and hopefully running, faster than I was riding. After noting the terrible handling skills of all the other riders, I decided to join the crowd by tackling a tree, this is first time ever I have hit a tree so hard, thank goodness is was only 3 or 4 inches in diameter, being so small it moved when I hit it and therefore probably saved me from breaking my shoulder on it. The funny part was that the guy behind me was following my lines exactly and he ran right into the tree also, I guess that will teach him for following me.

Lap 3 was really rather uneventful and the race was finally over, my time was somewhere around 1 hr 20 min, which if I were to have guessed I would have said each lap was 40 min long, I remember thinking on the first lap it was going to be a 3 hour race...

I actually finished 13th out of the 21 guys that started, better than I expected, but not the result I was hoping for.

Click Here for Garmin Connect Data - Lewis & Clarke

My day didn't end there, next I was off to Swanson park to get some more riding in, I put in another 2 hours there, grabbed a bite to eat and then went over to Tranquility for another hour before I ran out of daylight, and drove home exhausted.

Click Here for Garmin Connect Data - Swanson

Click Here for Garmin Connect Data - Tranquility

Potter's Pasture

Mountain biking in central Nebraska. I know what your thinking: "gravel road ride, or just riding a mountain bike around town". That's normally what I would have said mountainbiking in central Nebraska is, but now there is Potter's Pasture about 6 miles South of the Brady Exit off I-80.
I'm not going to say this place is perfect and is a haven of blissful singletrack, because well it's not, but it could be. This place has so much potential it's just screaming for attention, and that's really all it needs. So here's my summary of my first trip to Potter's Pasture and my review of it's current condition and thought's on future potential.

Click here to my 705 Data on Garmin Connect



This is an overlay of where I rode on top of the trail map.

3D view (using Google Earth) with labels of trouble spots
This first picture is a nice blissful view from the top of one of the hills, my point being is that its not flat around here and there are lots of trees!
This picture shows some single track, edging along the side of a hill.
This picture is the taken from campground/parking lot/trailhead alley.
Check out this big guy! I was really hoping it would be a rattler when I saw him on the road, but no such luck, still pretty cool. Notice I took the picture from behind him, that way I figured I could get closer without the risk of getting bit

Garmin Connect

A few weeks ago I bought a Garmin 705, it's a GPS receiver and cycling data logger, it saves all info from the bike, like speed, cadence, and power. Very cool training toy for sure! Best of all the data is available for public viewing on Garmin Connect. Garmin Connect is ran by Motion Based or they are the same thing, really not sure how that works, but either way it allows everyon to go see my data, I added a picture and a link for the 12 hour kryptonite race and the Platte river battle royale race (in the blog posts) so scroll down and check them out. Also, I'll be posting links in all future articles when there is applicable data.

KRYPTONITE

Earlier this week I was convinced that the 12 Hours of Branched Oak race was going to be one of my most triumphant landmarks this summer while training for Leadville. I didn't expect to win, and I really didn't figure I would place much better than the 8 or 10 range I have been in for the Psycowpath marathon races so far this year... I did however plan to ride strong for 12 hours and demonstrate a new level of fitness achievement.This race certainly was a showcase, but it was an Anti-showcase, instead of displaying all my achievements, it showed every weakness until I was reduced to nothing and wondering if finishing Leadville is even possible. As the race started, I found myself riding harder than I should but not at a damaging pace, mostly I was unfamiliar with the trail and was struggling to conserve energy and ride smoothly. Just coming off of a recovery week I also knew it was going to take some time for the legs to get warmed up and not feel lathargic as they always seem to feel after a rest week. That was pretty much how lap 1 went, the weather was a nice 67 degrees and as laps 2 and 3 progressed I fell into a nice rhythm. Several miles of new trails had been "mowed" for this race, and when I say mowed that's literally how they were built, they were in an open field of praire like grass and a swervy path was mowed through them. It was done nicely, but they were rough, I was really thankful I had chosen the full suspension now, these trails were already making my lower back hurt by lap 3 and can't imagine having to ride them on a hardtail. In the middle of lap 3 I realized that the temperature was dropping, which I knew it was going to so I took a quick break, grabbed some food, more water, and put on my second layer of clothes. With an expected low of 36 degrees I knew I would need more clothes later on, but thought I would be fine for the time being. Lap 4 and 5 were ok, one noteable thing on lap 5 was that this is when I was passed by the leaders, they were rolling like a freight train through these trails. I decided to chat with them for awhile and rode their pace for about a half a lap with them. This was a good experience, my bike handling skills were immediately improved as I followed their lines and relearned old skills I had forgotten. Also, I realized they weren't riding at a pace that was that far out of reach for me. At best I could have only maintained that pace for maybe another 2 hours, certainly not 12, but after a half lap with them I let them go and went back to the pace I had chosen that I did feel I could do for 12 hours. Lap 6 was when every thing started to go bad, primarily my feet got cold and amazingly felt numb. Not beleiving this was possible I ignored this reality, but did decide to stop and put on another layer of socks and my winter shoes. As I jammed my feet into the winter shoes I realized they really were numb, but figured they would warm up in those shoes. About halfway through lap 7, I hit one final bump as I came out of the singlestrack and then heard and felt a massive crack right under my rear. Something in the seatpost had moved and the seat now angled up, it was still rideable so I figured I would stop after this lap and fix it at my basecamp where I had all my tools. It took probably 20 minutes to get the seat figured out and back to the right angle. So one problem fixed. Next I needed to figure out what was going on with my right foot, my left foot did actually warm upon the last lap, but my right big toe was numb and felt like your tongue after a novacane shot. I ended up burying it in my sleeping bag and rubbing it to get it warmed back up, finally it was pretty much back to normal, I mustered up all the mental strength I had left, put on more layers and got back on the bike. This whole ordeal took at least and hour probably more... It was somewhere shortly after midnight now and headed out for lap 8. Now I experienced an opposite problem, I had put on too many layers, it's a strange thing being hot from too many layers, it's worse than 100 degrees of sun. With my toe warmed up, I had put on everything I owned for foot protection. 2 layers of socks, winter shoes, and IP shoe covers. This lap was miserable, my feet felt almost warm enough and the rest of me was too hot, my back was starting to kill me. One strategy I had maintained this whole race so far was to use a high cadence, this was not only very efficient at conserving power, it also was much easier on my lower back, and other than the rough trails had worked well so far. On lap 8 I did realize I was out of power to keep this method up, (while still in the middle chainring), so I did have to drop down to the granny gear for climbing, I was hoping to make it much later into the night before this would be necessary. After checking in after lap 8 I made my final mistake of looking at the overall race standings, my 8 laps was pathetic, and I was probably in 40th out of maybe 50 riders. This was the final blow, despite losing all the time to fix the seat and the foot incident, I didn't expect to be so far behind.. It really was obvious why I was so far behind; of the 6.5 hours than had passed, I had only been on the bike for 4.5 of them and at 6 miles per lap, I hadn't even done 50 miles yet, and this terrain was by far easier thanwhat will be encountered in leadville... I was tired, cold, my back hurt, and I was mentally drained. It was a devastating blow to quit, but I did it. I packed up, drove home, and was in bed before the race was over. So I figured I better end this summary with a few positive thoughts as this whole experience has been rather depressing to say the least:


Click Here to see the Data at Garmin Connect

This whole time I thought this comeback was about training, losing weight, and updating bikes and gear, the last thing I had considered was the mental strength that I never realized I had lost. The upside to this whole thing is that I have never done well in the cold, and I don't expect I ever will, depsite everything that happened this night, my legs and conditioning weren't the weak link, yes they were getting tired but they would have made it to hour 12. Also, 48 miles in 4.5 hours does get me to the finish line at leadville, maybe not in 9 hours but certainly the 12 hour finish is possible. Fortunately the race isn't next week, and hopefully this day is as low as I'm going to get on this rollercoaster ride, that I'm calling a comeback.

Platte River Crash

This sort of sums up the day at Platte River, In my previous race summary write-up, I neglected to mention that I crashed on the last lap of the race. Mostly because it wasn't that note worthy of a crash because neither the bike or I got hurt, but as I was searching the web looking for photos this is all I've found so far... That's me taking a dive. The guy beside me is the reason I crashed, he was walking his bike through the rocks, I figured I could just ride around him, but when I got to where he was at I realized he was standing in the line and when I looked for an alternate path I couldn't find one quick enough.

Psycowpath #2 - Platte River Battle Royale

47 degrees is what the temperature gauge of my 4Runner read as I arrived at the race. It had already been a long morning as I really didn’t feel like getting out of bed at 5:30am, now I was at the race and it was cold. I thought about turning around or possibly just parking somewhere else and taking a nap in the car, but instead I walked over to registration and paid the entry fee, after all I was here to race. I was certainly not as excited about it as last week, but mostly I was still exhausted from that race last weekend. I didn’t even warm up, I just made my way to the starting line and decided I would follow the pack into the trails and warm up on the fly. It was interesting that this was the first time I have ever went into the single track so far behind, of the 20 guys in this race I must have been in near last. It actually took some effort to not get carried away passing guys on the first climb, not that I really felt that good it’s just that they were going so slow, especially for the first lap. The first half of the race was worse than any other race I have ever done; I was physically tired and mentally fried. This is a bad combination, nearly every 5 minutes I was thinking I would just call it a day after this lap and throw everything in the car and drive home. I never did of course, but I really wanted to… For lap 1 I wore all the clothes I had with me, I knew they would be too hot for the race, but it was just too cold standing at the starting line to take them off, so I stopped for a few minutes after the first lap and shed the extra layers. For the second lap I then cold, but by lap 3 it finally warmed up to be a nice day. I really thought I must have been in last place by now as my performance seemed terrible, besides the mental issues I felt terrible on the bike, I had no power, and was navigating the trails like I had all the skills of a beginner. Speaking of first times, I did have my new Top Fuel 9.8 under me. Extremely nice ride, the sizing felt good, and I was even using the lockouts on the climb.

Click Here to see my race data at Garmin Connect

Lap 4 is when the race took a turn for the better, this is when all the Sport and Expert riders started. The experts were already gone, but the Sport guys were just starting so I waited for most of them to get into the trails before I rounded the turn back in. At first it was nice to have people to follow and chat with, but I quickly realized they were slowing me down, so I had to start passing. Most of the guys I was passing were in the 40+ Sport category, and every time I passed a guy there was a new rabbit just ahead, this made the last two laps more fun and I rode them much faster. Where the energy came from I really don’t know, I still didn’t feel powerful, but at least I was riding at a reasonable pace.

It took forever for the results to be posted, but when they finally were I noticed that my last lap was missing… I talked to the judges and evidently it was cleanly missed, but they were gracious enough to give me a 5th lap time based on my 4th lap, and when I checked my Garmin with my lap times that was really close to what I actually did. So instead of being in 16th place I ended up 8th, which really seems a lot better than how I felt I rode.

So that was it for training race #2, now I definitely need to start resting and getting mentally prepared for the 12 hours of Branched Oak race next weekend.

Psycowpath Swanson Rivercity Shootout - 2 May 2009

Turned out to be a great day for a race; it warmed up, the sun came out, and the trails were very fast!
Approximately 20 of us started this race (see photo below), I didn't go into the trails too early as I knew I wasn't in that good of shape, so as it worked out, I went into the singletrack in 6th place, which seemed reasonable based on how everyone was riding, it turned out I had one over motivated idiot in front of me who had no trail skills and couldn't hold the pace. He dropped back pretty quick, but I lost maybe 500 feet on the leaders. About halfway through the first lap, another couple guys passed me, so I was somewhere around 8th place, the leaders were long gone and there was a guy not too far off my tail. This first lap was brutal. The term marathon really does not describe this class, it makes it sound slow and long, when in actually I quickly decided this race was going to be more like watching an olympic caliber 1 mile runner (it's a long sprint) and besides that 3 hours really isn't that long of a time anymore in today's endurance/adventure racing scene...

First lap was completed in less than 30min and already I could see the 3 hours going by rather quickly. I quickly realized there was no strategy for this race other than go as hard as possible until it's over. On the second lap I was glad I decided to go with the full suspension bike as my lower back was sore already. That pain was irrelevant compared to how my legs were feeling. I forgot about my love-hate relationship with Swanson; I love the trails, fast, lots of twists, and steep rollers, very smooth, just a great place to ride, but I hate the homefield advantage everyone in Omaha has, I have never done well at Swanson and I always decide the homefield advantage is the biggest reason, midway through the second lap I realized I was using the brakes too much, being too timid around unknown corners, and having to power out of the turn to keep speed -it was rapidly breaking me down!
I tried to focus on smoother turns, and less brakes, but this isn't a skill you develop in an hour. I really just need more seat time on the bike, and it would help if I had some new tires under me that trusted.

In case I didn't mention it; I'm riding my 2000 Trek Fuel, as the guys at the shop didn't want me to break in the new Top Fuel 9.8 in a race, (which is very smart, race conditions are too extreme for break in and if something goes wrong I could potentially damage something really expensive on the bike).
By lap 3 I was settled into a decent pace, the only thing I didn't like was that I was "running" the whole time or being chased, I had a guy about 1000 ft back that was not losing ground on me, normally not a problem other than I knew I was gettings slower due the power loss issue, mentally this was very taxing, but it kept me riding hard as I didn't want this guy catching me. On lap 5 I noticed I was putting time on him, so I thought he would soon be out of sight and out of mind, but then on lap 6 he had some great comeback and was all the sudden 500 ft behind me (or I was slowing down). Everything would have been fine if the race had ended on lap 6, but the way the rules worked as long as you crossed the finish line befoe the 3 hour mark you could ride another lap, it was 8 minutes before 3 hrs so I was on to lap 7, my final lap. What happened I really can't say for sure, but I was not only caught by the guy behind me, but about 2 more riders, and I had no answer to hold them off or even try to keep up. The only couple notable incidences on this lap was a hamstring cramp due to stopping for the Experts to go around and stick in the cassette, neither one cost me much time, so I can only assume my power was just depleted and I was in survival mode to make it to the finish line. I ended up finishing around 12th out of 20.
However I look at it, it was a great day, I have to keep in mind this was a training race, and that is was, my mtb skills are better, I found some new aerobic capicity, which is evident by my smoker's cough, and I got to hang out with some good friends I hadn't seen in awhile.
Sadly, I was so tired after the race I didn't have energy to take the new bike out into the trails for a maiden voyage...

2009 Race Schedule

Here's my planned race dates for 2009:

May
May 2nd, Psycowpath #2, River City Shootout, Bellevue (3 hr marathon category)
May 9th, Psycowpath #3, Battle Royale, Platte River (3 hr marathon category)
May 16th, 12 Hours at Branched Oak
May 30th, Psycowpath #4, Lewis and Clarke Kanesville Krusher

June
June 6 Norfolk Classic, Road Race
June 7 Norfolk State Championship Criterium
June 14, Psycowpath #1, Maskentine, Norfolk (3 hr marathon category)
June 20, Psycowpath - Poncas Revenge
June 26-27, CTS Leadville Camp

July
July 4 - Firecracker 50, Breckenridge, CO
July 11-12, Papillion Twilight Criterium, Dave Babcook Memorial Road Race, Omaha
July 25, Silver Rush 50, Leadville, CO

August
Aug 15th Leadville MTB 100

September
Sept 12, Psycowpath XC #7: Branched Oak Capitol City MTB Challenge
Sept 26, Psycowpath XC #8 & Finale: Manawa Mountain Bike Mayhem