The Dragon's Tale

I've been a little remiss in my blog updates, so here's a little somethin' before the onslaught of blog entries this summer.


I've always considered myself a great hiker...hell, I used to hike for a living, guiding troubled youth through various and sundry wilderness areas across this great country all the while carrying a backpack with over 100 lbs of gear. Rarely did that get the best of me.  But it was during the 37 mile Dragon's Tale mountain bike race, that I painfully realized I am no longer the hiker I used to be.  In fact, it was all I could do to just push my bike up the next to last "hill" of the tortorous race course, let alone pedal up the stupid thing.

The notion of racing the Dragon's Tale started in January of 2012 as I stared at the computer screen trolling for crazy adventures that would push me to the limits of my ability.  The Dragon's Tale looked to fit the bill perfectly and it was really early in the season for the length and amount of climbing.  The course involved 37 miles of racing, over 7,000 feet of elevation gain...half of which occurring in a 1.5 mile climb that racers would ascend twice.  This promised to be a tough one!

I was paid up, better-trained, and had the plans finalized to make my down to New Castle, VA to race this last April.  My mother's heart attack and immediate quadruple bypass had other plans for my weekend. I contacted Chris from Shenandoah Mountain Touring and let him know the situation and he generously offered me an entry into the 2013 edition of the Dragon's Tale to make up for my inability to race in 2012.

The Dragon would have to wait another year.

Fast forward 12 months.  I confirmed with Chris that his offer still stood and made plans to stay with my in-laws who live less than an hour away from the race venue.  I loaded the bike, helmet, shoes, team kit, food, hydration, and everything else I might need in the car and meandered my way down winding country roads and over two mountain ridges to fight the dragon.

I arrived in New Castle in plenty of time to confirm I was indeed on the list to race this year, grab my race packet and load the gallon-size ziploc bag with goodies that I would pick up an aid-station set up on the race course.  As the grassy field serving as a parking lot began to overflow with cars, bikes and people, it became abundantly clear that some racers were taking this very seriously, and by the looks of some of them, were there to win.  I was just hoping to finish.

I parked immediately across the field from the finish line so if necessary, I could crawl to the car after crossing the line.  I suited up, checked the bike over one last time, warmed up, then chatted with other racers at the starting line.  The start was uneventful.  I and the mass of other racers followed the lead truck through the sleepy town of New Castle, down several miles of paved road, and then as the lead truck pulled off at the start of the dirt forest service road, those truly there to race hammered it.

We cruised the dirt road for several more miles, until we came to the first of many stream crossings.  We all churned up the waters of the freezing mountain stream and carried on.  Some of the crossings were casual affairs that could be ridden through, while others where thigh-deep and required bikes to be carried as we forded across.  The stream crossing took a very quick toll on my left pedal.  I must have had a bad bearing seal and the water caused my pedal to seize up on the spindle.  I pulled to the side and watched at least 20 riders speed past.  The pedal wouldn't budge, so I grabbed the nearest stick and began wailing on the pedal to break it free so it would spin...success...not perfect, but success. 

Back to riding, I finally made it to the first checkpoint at mile 13, where the support trucks and volunteers were ready to fill water bottles, hand out sandwiches, bananas, cokes, and words of encouragement.  It was here the course left the dirt road, took a violent turn upward and began the 1,500 vertical feet ascent to the top of the dragon's tail.  It took over 25 minutes of relentless climbing to reach the crest where we turned right onto the ridge for a mile, then dropped off the ridge back down to the paved road.  The descent was almost as bad as the climb, with tight turns and steep dropoffs that made you wonder how far you would tumble before stopping if things went wrong.

The course stayed on the dirt road back to the first support station.  I stopped at this one, filled up my water bottle and hydration pack, ate 1/2 a pb&j samich, shotgunned a coke, then tried to oil my pedal so it would spin more freely, but no go.  The course repeated itself up the steep climb to the ridge once again, this time a tad slower and broke left at the top.  The local forest ranger was on hand to shout encouraging words and direct racers to the correct direction on the ridge.  This is where the misery began.  I'll take a gut-wrenching climb any day compared to what I was about to endure.  The rocky, steep, soul-stealing demon that lived on that forsaken ridge was out to play, and I was too naive to recognize the signs.

The ridge was the next mountain ridge north of the Appalachian Trail.  Sounds awesome doesn't it.  Well it wasn't...at least for me during the race.  I was already tired from the amount of climbing I'd already done, and I wasn't even to the half-way point yet.  The ridge from a distance looks relatively benign, but up close it reveals it's true nature.  The miles and miles and miles of ridge riding were interspersed with gargantuan rocks, steep downhills, steeper uphills, flowing knife-edge singletrack through stands of mature forest, and many naturally beautiful features inherent with anyone's picture of a wild forest.

In the beginning of the ridge I found myself enjoying the views and the riding.  The trail was rocky and often challenging, not from a fitness aspect, but from a "holy crap I hope I don't fall of off that ledge onto those pointy rocks" or "DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...DON'T CRASH...WHEW THAT WAS CLOSE!" aspect.  After 4-5 miles of this I was physically and mentally worn out.  There were so many spots I had to walk the bike that it became a chore.  It was on several of these sections I thought of my buddy Nate who raced this on his singlespeed bike the previous year and how impossible it would be for me to ride without my easy gears to fall back on.

Toward the end of the ridge, the climbs seemed to grow taller and steeper.  I began to crack on one of the last climbs, but as I began to whimper I caught sight of some other racers up ahead, so I found a small nugget of motivation to pick up the pace of my crawl to a slow walk as I pushed my bike up the rock ledges to catch up with the group.  When I caught them, we all agreed we were ready to get down off the ridge and to the finish, but I would soon realize that descending off a high ridge down a steep rocky trail at my current state of mental and physical acuity would prove the most difficult.  The descent seemed to take forever and I could feel my brakes lose power as the brake fluid heated up from the constant friction.  The descent spit racers out at the 2nd and last support station, where I shook out my forearms, which were pumped from squeezing brake levers for the last 15 minutes, filled up on water and fig newtons, topped off my water bottle and was off again.

I've learned that the longer I spend at support stations, the worse I feel when I get back on the bike, so I try to keep stops to under 2 minutes.  Just after the support station the course jumps back into the woods and I felt great for another few minutes as I hurled my bike up a low-grade climb, passing racers already walking their bikes.  In my mind, the race was nearly over and I was ready for it to be over, but the course had one last diabolical twist.  As I pedaled up the trail, I could see the images of racers well above me struggling up the 1 mile climb to the next ridge top.  I was warned of this climb by another racer, but I couldn't remember how big it was.  It turns out the climb is over a mile long and steep in many places.  I got to a point very early in the climb where my legs refused to pedal any further.  "FINE!", I said to myself, I'll just push my stupid bike up this last stupid hill and get this stupid race over with.  After all, I used to hike for a living and my bike is much lighter than a 100lb. backpack.

Walk, walk, walk, push, push, push, breathe, breathe, breathe, repeat!

At the time, I had no clue how long this climb was.  It felt I had already been walking forever.  I began to really crack at this point.  My legs were like rubber, my ankle hurt from walking in my bike shoes up the off-camber slope, and my back was tightening from being in a bent position for close to 5 hours at this point.

It was there, halfway up a climb in the middle of nowhere that I realized I was no longer a great hiker...not even mediocre...in fact I sucked at pushing a bike while walking and hated every miserable second of it.  I stopped, draped myself over the handlebars and prayed for a pack of coyotes, bear, mountain lion, or in my weakened state, even a surly chipmunk, to clamp it's fangs into my neck end my suffering.  Sadly, no killer chipmunk appeared and I was destined to push this bike up this hill for eternity.

But push I did and I caught up with another racer who was also pushing his bike.  He was on a rigid (no suspension) singlespeed and so had a good reason to be pushing.  We chatted up the remainder of the climb until the grade mellowed out enough to try pedaling again.  He was off first and I followed.  I passed him on a rocky section and made it a hundred yards up the trail when both legs seized up and sent me off the side of the trail in agony.

Normally, when cramps set in during a race, I have to keep pedaling to keep them away, but this was different.  I sat on the side of the trail figuring dehydration had finally taken it's toll and slammed 2 GU Roctane energy gels and drained my hydration pack of what remained of my GU Roctane drink and climbed back on the bike to finish this horrible race.

The singlespeeder had disappeared down the other side by now and I tried to keep the torque to the pedals to try to catch him.  Even though I was not a contender to win or place in this race, it was still a race, and I was racing the guy in front of me.

I really can't remember much of this part of the trail, only that it climbed over one more, albeit "smaller" ridge and descended back to the valley floor and began crossing this annoying little stream.  I caught back up to the singlespeeder at one of the numerous stream crossings and we chatted some more.  The trail finally flattened out and I hightailed it to the finish line.

I crossed the line in 5 hours 49 minutes, suffering through the 37 miles to 52nd place.  Oddly enough, I was extremely happy with my placing and my effort.  I don't think I could have ridden any faster or harder.  I was in one piece and so was my bike.  The awards for the top finishers had come and gone and the promoter was grilling hamburgers and had fresh kegs of beer on hand.  I stayed long enough to take a picture of my standing posted on the race results and left New Castle behind me.  I was proud of my effort and glad to have done the race, but I'm not sure I'll be back down, but the pain and suffering associated with hard races like this is soon forgotten, and new plans for tough races are always in the works.

CER Strikes Again...

This time on foot!

This weekend at the CONSOL Energy General Lightburn 5K, held at the Stonewall Resort in the heart of West Virginia, CER continued their obsessive pursuit of glory....and trophies....and podiums....and beer....wait, no, there was no beer.  But the other stuff, YES!

The weather was perfect, the surroundings were stunning and CER teammate Rob was on hand class up the joint with his high powered iPhone picture taking device!

Jason, Abigail and Mandy came out to represent CER and they did it very well.  Lined up with the field, they were looking sharp in their CER gear, most likely striking fear into the hearts of those around them (but really they were all checking out the old guy in silk, mid-nineties track get up that showed just enough butt-check....who could blame them? Not this guy)

Here is Abigail finishing up her comeback run!  Check out that jacket!  Abigail ran very well at the race  and we wish her a continued and speedy recovery.

Who is this sexy beast with luscious locks of flowing hair (on his legs)?  Oh, it's Jason running towards a second place finish in his age category...second only to the old guy mentioned above.  But what do you expect? Look at all the extra shorts on his shorts...the other guy pretty much ran naked, sooooooo......

This picture was hard to get! Mandy is a fast runner and that was made evident by her winning of the Women's Overall Category.  According to rumors, she even stopped at one point in the race to kick a small child off a bridge into the river below.  Don't believe me? Prove me wrong. 

  

This may look like a standard Team Photo, but that is not what it is.  This is a picture of the CER team looking for a secret map to find the location of drinkable water after the finish.  Their journey was fraught with danger, but in the end we had water and cookies.

And here it is folks.  The continuation of the CER streak! More victories, more trophies, more glory!  It may have taken 3 hours to get this trophy, but she got!  Unfortunately there is no photo of Jason with his spoils, before he had a chance to get his, he passed away of old age.  Or maybe he got bored and went for a bike ride.  I will let you decide which is true.

As always a big thanks to CONSOL Energy for the team sponsorship, and this time around, also for the event sponsorship!  

Until next time...watch your back

End of an Error

A razor sharp wind cut through my hoodie as I opened my door.   I let my bones fall out of my car onto the parking lot gravel and immediately shoved my hands as far into my pockets as they would go.   The cold tore at me as I crossed the paved road to the registration table, where the waivers were trying madly to escape into the forest, where time and decomposition might let them again be trees some day.  "Are you-ou-you-you p-p-p-preregistered?"  The race director was so cold that he was having trouble talking.  I nodded my affirmation.  I was too cold to lift my mouth up out of my collar.

An hour later I was lying flat on my stomach in the gritty mud at the base of the big staircase climb.  "Ouch!"  Are you OK?" said the volunteer with the camera.  I had noticed the camera a few seconds before and had tried to zip up the outermost of my five layers so CER would have a good picture for the blog.  A quick glance at my zipper and I was skidding into the lowest stair headfirst.  "Yeah, just peachy."

Two minutes later, I was flat on my stomach again.  "Damn!" "Are you OK?"  said a guy with a backwards hat and a sullen looking dog.  I have no idea what happened, but when I got back to my feet and started running,  the guy said "I think you're going the wrong way".  He was right.  I backtracked to the orange flags and plodded up the hill to get my bike.  "Yeah.  Awesome.  Peachy, in fact" I said as I stumbled on. 

Despite my pair of "octopus-falling-out-of-a-tree" impersonations, I entered the transition area in third place overall.  I changed shoes, put on my helmet and started cranking away on Roadside Trail.  When the first rider passed me a few miles in,  I said "good job, you're in third!"  When the next rider passed me, I said "good job, you're in fourth!" When the third guy tried to get around me,  I ran him into a greenbrier thicket.  Apparently, the knob on my sportsmanship amp only goes to 2.

Down the loose gravel hill, back up to the powerline and out Roadside Trail again to the transition area.  Lose the helmet, change shoes and back out onto the run course.  Half a mile from the finish line,  Joe catches up to me.  "Hey Stew", is probably what he said, but all I heard was "glug glug glug baaaarrrrrfff" as I imagined having to drink a Natty Daddy at the next race.  We were racing straight up, winner does the run leg at the Cranky Monkey relay, loser drinks 24 ounces of the aforementioned nastiness.  I managed to remain upright for the remainder of the race and finished a few seconds ahead of Joe for first in our age group.

And that was the end of the Mountain Duathlon, forever.  Participation has been dwindling for the past few years and the organizer is leaving his position at the university.  This race has always been my training carrot; my reason for running and riding in my garage throughout the winter off-season.  I will probably miss this race after I heal up, and I suppose I will have to find another carrot. 

I hear there is a 24 hour bike race in Florida next February.  Hello Carrot!   

  

Climb Time

Getting some early season training done in the Smokies

Last weekend, I packed up the Jeep and drove through the snow to get down to Tennessee for a skills training camp.  It was for days of riding in the mountains, working on cycling skills, making new friends and representing the CER team and our sponsors.  

The skills camp was hosted by Rob Grissom of Positive Performance Coaching out of our neighboring state of Kentucky.  Quick plug here, then I will move on.  If you are wanting to take your training to the next level by hiring a coach, or just have questions about cycling, nutrition or structured training plans, give these guys a look. I highly recommend them! (Can you say 28% increase in FTP over just a few months?)

Now back to your regularly scheduled program....

So I packed up my CER gear, strapped on my new Vittoria Rubino Pro Tech tires, and freshly wrapped my bars in some 3T bar taped. Yeah, I was looking good!  

I pulled up to a cabin on the side of a mountain in Townsend Tennessee and shook hands with some of the guys that have beat me there.  It was a beautiful day and we were all itching to get some saddle time.  Once we got into the cabin and started picking beds for ourselves we discovered that we were not alone in this quiet, mountain side chateau....some one...or some THING had claimed one of the beds, with what was either fun size Twix bars.....or something else. But that is a story for another day! Right. Bikes. That's what we are all here for.

The picture above was taken on our stop during the the kickoff/warmup ride.  Here we discussed pace lines, drafting and communication to get us all on the same page.

Nailed it!

 As you can see, pace line accomplished.  

This is the entire group (minus the amazing camera man) on our second day of cycling as we made our way through a national park. There was a little more climbing here than on the first day, but the real fun was yet to come.

The second day was another beautiful day for riding, with just a bit of wind and plenty of sunshine.  (For those of you in WV reading this, "sunshine" is a term used to describe light coming of of that bright thing in the sky that we saw for a couple days a few weeks back.  It is my understanding that it will return at some point.)

Have I mentioned how awesome our kits look? Well, they look awesome, and if you can peel your eyes away from my jersey, you will see a creek.  At times during this ride, that creek became a river with rapids.  This was the beginning of our fantastic 20+ mile climb to the top of Clingmans Dome!

The Clingmans Dome climb took us from 1480 feet to 6640 feet in just over 20 miles.  It was a heck of a climb!  But don't let those flat landers from Kentucky fool you!  Those guys can climb too! 

Here I am (in my aforementioned awesome kit) with a new friend of mine, Anthony Young.  This picture was taken about 7 miles from the top of the climb at a little scenic park that is situated right before the gate that closed the last part of the climb to vehicular traffic!  Seeing as how "almost the top" is not "THE TOP" a majority of us ducked the gate and continued our quest upward.

Some of the guys had some tire issues due to road salt and cinders on the ride, but not this guy!  Because I was sporting some fantastically tough tires...by Vittoria (insert jingle here).

Now this, my friends! This was THE TOP! At which point I threw my bike from the tower to protect it from the hippie seen here in the bottom left hand corner. 

Ok, so I didn't throw my bike, but I am still pretty sure that guy in the corner is a hippie.

So, that is my story, the PG version any way, and I am sticking to it! (Buy me a beer and I will tell you the uncensored version)

Long story short, I had a great time at this skills camp and I look forward to doing more.  I am honored to have had the opportunity to represent CER and our sponsors, and I am grateful to my coach for the lessons learned and the mountains climbed! Here is to a great season of racing for CER!

Same as it ever was...

The 2013 race season is starting out the same way 2012 ended; with CER on the podium!

CER racers competed in events in Pennsylvania and West Virginia over the weekend.  Scott House finished second in the CAT 5 division in the second ABRA training race, held in Fairchance, PA ( ABRA results).  Scott is riding well already this year and expects a strong start to mountain biking season. 

Mandy Anderson took third overall in the Grafton 5-Miler, held in Grafton, WV.  Mandy set a blistering 7:25 pace and was able to pass the eventual fourth-place finisher with a furious sprint less than 100 yards from the finish line. 

Mandy and friend showing off the hardware

Great job to both of our teammates! 

Southern Exposure

Rob Linger sporting the CER logo on a recent training ride in the Smokies.  Go get it!

Here We Go...

With one training race in the books (good work Rob and Scott), the official start to the 2013 season comes this weekend as Adam and Mandy Anderson compete in the Grafton 5-mile Run .  Not to put any extra pressure on them, but our string of consecutive podium-finishes is on the line.  The burden rests solely on their more-than-capable shoulders as the rest of the CER team will be getting started later this month at various events.  Hopefully the new running gear will bring some good mojo! 

Let’s get the season started right!  Good luck Mandy and Adam!