Breck Epic - I ain't done yet.

Obeekaybee, two full stages and the prologue in and I'm only down about 3 hours on GC. I'm kinda having a Murphys Law style race out here. Certainly I wasn't prepared for it (like, uhhh, probably would have been a good idea to put on a triple for a race claiming 40,000 ft of total elevation gain, at uhhh, elevation, derrrrrrrrr), but its not been super smooth on the bod either which has been a bummer. The thing is, its still pretty great.

Easy to see why, no?

The first two "real" stages were tough and Wednesday's "Queen Stage" is going to be brutal - we're going high enough to ride through a snow field. Today was a little better than yesterday for me, but I'm still barely moving out here. I'm holding out hope that I'll get healthier and adjust a little more before the end of the race. You want to make sure you don't go into the first week of the stage race peaking. You have to time it for week three... I'm just lulling everyone into a false sense of security.

We're going way up there tomorrow.

It is hard to tell by the pic, but up where the snow is there are no trees. There are no trees because the climate is too freakin' harsh. Sounds like a great place to "race" a bike. Who is the genius who came up with this? Who is the bigger genius that bought the ticket?

That'd be me -- on a break and a little sample of the Colorado Trail.

Besides the killer riding, we're enjoying the stay out here too. Though not quite as easy to get to race HQ as billed - making the family friendliness a little difficult to work through - we're in a nice joint.

Roughing it at the condo contemplating the peaks
(and getting in some product placement all at the same time.)

Braden checkin' out the ladies at the pool.

So that's it for now as it is already past bedtime with what's on the radar for tomorrow. Here's to hoping I drift off easily even with visions of my large ass ascending 12,000 ft peaks. 'night kids.

Holy (don't let the kids see this) Fuck

Those are happy clouds. You should see the mean ones.


Sorry if I offend. If you are offended you'd best not read more. Still reading? It is on you then.

I'm in deep shit out here. We did the uphill ITT today. 5.5 miles or so. It took me almost an entire fucking hour to get up the hill. Guys who started a 15 minutes after me came by. I don't think I've ever suffered like that - I can't go at all. Holy shitballs batman. I definitely should have trained for this. And while having properly functioning lungs would probably help, they wouldn't be helping enough. I tweeted about needing a lung. Screw that, someone send me a vat of EPO.

About an hour before my start time today the sky let loose with just this side of wrath of god rain and hail. Lucky for us that's likely going to be a daily occurance. Here's to hoping I'm back before it happens most days. I'm going to pack with the expectation I won't be since we're looking at 6,000-10,000 ft of climbing daily from here on out. 40 miles tomorrow with a profile showing 7,000 feet of up.

I had good notice that this might be bad when trying to fall asleep at 7:45 last night. Yep, after less than 3 hours of sleep Friday night before the travel on Sat due to the illness setting in (Kris is sick too and suffering the same) we were in bed way early last night. Not like the clues the Hardly boys get, my clue came in form of suffocation. Okay, not complete suffocation but the pattern was like this: take 10-15 deep breaths trying to feel normal, settle into a bit of a rythm, drift off, awake with a start because I wasn't getting enough fucking air. It went on for like an hour. Awesome.

I meant to grab a shot from the top of the TT since going that slow should certainly equate to good race shots of guys like Harlan and Garth coming by. My air starved brain forgot. Instead, here are some shots from our first day in town; traveling out; Braden figuring out crawling; and from the final clean up at the farm after last weekend.



Helping grandpa get things cleaned up.

Note placement of team logo.

Gotta start 'em young.


Braden on the move. Looking for mom.


She's right behind you!!

Found her!


Breck with kid in Deuter pack (yep, more gratuitous product placement).


Braden sending you off from the Rasta Pasta man (he recommends the one with the pinapple curry sauce, yummy).

Ready or Not, Here I....go?

Breck. Starts in two days. I was going to start training today, but I caught a cold instead. I'll have to try to start training tomorrow now. Awesome. 6 days of hard mountain biking. This was supposed to be the carrot. The motivator that got me back on the bike. The year was going great through Feb, since then...not so much. Instead I've done less riding than I have in at least a decade and probably longer. Not feeling super confident about this, but what the hell it'll be great riding in a great place and I'm told the time cuts are "generous." By best hope now is that this just takes me down a notch - in my belt. Then I need to keep the ball rolling and stay on the bike. More than twice a week would be a big improvement on the recent past. 'Course this is also a good opportunity to spread the love about our Trans-Sylvania Epic with some folks into that sort of thing.

Jr. started crawling today. Well, he figured out that he is able to crawl today and that crawling gets him places. He had the scooting around a little thing happening for a week or so but it was just short little bursts and it was never very far. This morning he crawled across a room to get to Mr. Bear. Something musta clicked. It wasn't immediate, but by this afternoon he was doing laps of the house and Kris and I were putting in the miles trying to track him down. Gates went up on the stairs and the cat food went up on the table and out of reach. The joy on his face and in his laugh was pretty great. He moves and then squeels for no other reason than he's moving. Tomorrow we're supposed to spend a bunch of hours on a plane. Today Braden learned that he can crawl. We're a little concerned about tomorrow.

Uh oh, spadoodios

More from Breck as I at least use it as motivation to blog again.

Great Expectations

So the visitPA.com Festival is wrapped. A great time had by all. I'm sure those of you who didn't show are already quite sorry you missed it so I won't rub in just how great the weather was and how sweet the trails rode and how stellar the prizes were and how good the band was and how much fun everyone had. I'll just let you wallow in your own self loathing wondering what might have been had you been there.

Already thinking I want more partying next year so its probably shorter rassin on Sat and more fun after. Plus we're doing individual and team points next year so those of you who measure your manhood by the number of MASS points accumulated in a year actually get some satisfaction from the event - since rippin' it around one hell of a fun course and all the other good stuff apparently doesn't do it for you.

The Race in #s
6 days to put the race course together
3 days to race it
2 days to tear it down
40+ volunteers
40,000+ feet of tape
500 stakes
$3400.00 in cash payout
$2000.00+ in merch in the raffle
$7500.00 in prize merchandise
150 rassers
12 light up flying discs
8 portajohns
4 sets by the band
5 laps by me
2 brand new trails
43:18 by Rob L.
1 big announcement about a new ride in central PA next Memorial Day
1 exhausted promoter and crew
1 hell of a good time

Breck Epic next week. I've done less riding this year than I have at any time in the last, oh I dunno, decade or two. So my plan to be well rested should work out. More on my preparation horrorshow later.

Those of you who came out - thanks. Those of you who didn't - put it on the schedule for next year. It just gets better and better.

Later

Come play with me!!

If you check that MASS homepage much or have visited the Cadence site lately hopefully you've picked up on a fun few days of good endurance training I'm leading in mid-June. If not, check this out:

"The Mid-Atlantic Super Series is proud to announce as part of our sponsorship with Cadence Multisport The Cadence Endurance MTB Racing Camp. This camp will be lead by Mike Kuhn, the Director of Coaching at Cadence and major MASS race and event promoter. As a veteran road and mountain bike racer including the Ultra Endurance 100 milers Mike is an expert in the correct preparation for endurance events of any type. As a special offer the price of the camp includes your entrance fee into either the Wilderness 101 or the Shenendoah 100. Only 20 spots available so reserve now."

How sweet is that? You get three days of great training, entry into either the W101 or Shenandoah and to hear me babble on endlessly about how to prepare and ride an endurance mtb race, which happens to be my passion in this sport (even if I don't get to do many of them these days...I know pitty party). The plan is for one or two of my visitPA.com buds to join us for some of camp too so at least that will give you some respite from hearing my voice as the boys chime in on the best lines and best endurance race prep.

The camp goes the three days following the Stoopid 50. Yes, that will increase the difficulty of the three days. Camps are supposed to be hard. The idea is that you go into it with a little rest - which you should be planning if you're coming out for Stoopid anyway - and then spend a few days really pushing yourself. You push yourself much more than you would regularly because the only things you need to do are ride, eat, sleep, and recover --- and have fun! It's like being a pro for a few days - only you don't have the pressure of knowing that if you don't win your next race its ramen instead of steak again this week!

My plan is to ride the Stoopid as hard as I can on Sunday and then hang out in State College overnight. Monday mid-day we'll meet in Coburn, the start of the Wilderness 101, and do an easier ride on dirt roads to check out the early parts and late parts of the race - these are key in figuring out how to ride this thing. Tue and Wed will see us start the rides in other locations in the Rothrock State Forest that will allow us to access different parts of the 101 and over the three days ride almost all, if not completely all, of the 101 course. It will be stellar training and a course preview all in one!

I promise that you are going to come out of the camp far better prepared and far more confident in your ability in endurance mtb events and you'll be ready for your best ever race!

Catch up with me through work - Cadence Cycling and Multisport - 215-508-4300 - if you have any questions or to sign up for this great new camp!

Yummy Yum Yums Ladies Man & RB's Gremlins

So RB was fun this past weekend until a little mechanical put paid to my ride on Sat with some tough guys who showed up to take on the course I'd laid out for the race. I made sure they all kept going so my little snafu didn't take away from their fun, but combined with everything else it sure seemed like there we evil forces at work trying to keep me from riding RB this year! That will not be the end of the story though so stay tuned here for more...

In an effort to be a slightly less chauvinistic piggy I listened to some ladies - and not like I "listen" to Kris either - and we're going to have a little ladies only competition at the festival this year too. With a little Tweist to it, we're gonna do a Women's Duo/Trio competition with teams of two or three women entered into the same race. The goal is to allow us a big enough field for women to do some good racing and allow women who are more experienced to double up while those with a little less experience or need to destroy themselves over the course of the day to go three person. Look for that to go live soon on the race site.

Lastly, you're getting food this year with the Festival entry fee too - yep dinner Friday night, breakfast Sat morning and dinner Sat evening are all part of the deal. You're on your own Sat through the day and on Sunday, but all the good grub you've come to expect will be there courtesy of The Hammakers again this year. Bonnie and Mark and the rest of the family will be manning the stoves and Kyle will be banging together pots and pans for you.

Spaghetti Dindin on Friday evening - as much as you can stuff in your face
Pancakes and Sausage Breakfast on Saturday morning- all you can eat again!!
Picnic dinner face stuffing post race on Saturday - BBQ, mac and cheese, baked beans, and whatever else Bonnie whips up.

What's goin' on? What's goin' on? What's goin' on? What's goin' on?

Well, since you asked...

Braden is doing well. Teeth poppin' through in all the right spots. Threatening to crawl. Baby proofin' is high on the list.

Getting ready for Rocktober. Trying to get the word out and get some more folks signed up before this weekend so I'm sure it's worth doing. I burn a lot of human capital to pull this thing off with course marshals and motos and trail work and reg volunteers and results and checkpoint workers and gophers and racoons and deers and other small woodland creatures and it needs to be worth it to put all those folks to work especially since its not right next door.

Of course, the fact that its not right next door is part of what makes the place as good a place as it is for mountain biking since it isn't overused and beat to death but with some absolutely unbelievable trails. There isn't much else going on that weekend and nothing else is going to have the riding this place does so even if you're not racing you ought to come out and ride since the trails will be marked. It doesn't cost you anything to just ride, just don't go eating racer food! All the latest info is up on BikeReg since my Dreamweavin' computer ate poopy a few weeks and I can't keep up with all this media stuff anyway.

Gotta pull the Festival Weekend together too. That's almost ready to go on BikeReg, but I keep refining and I probably just need to put it out there so yinzers can get your teams together and get signed up.

If you didn't hear yet, the Festival is changing from the stage race format. We're moving to a 12 hour relay/9 hour solo on Sat and bookending it with a Night Team Time Trial Friday evening and an STXC on Sunday morning. Of course we'll be doing up all the fun stuff too just trying to get some more folks to come out and find out how freakin' cool the place is for the weekend. A little different this year is that everything is included in the entry fee - all the races and the camping and all the fun stuff - the only thing you don't get included is food, but the Hammakers will be cooking up a storm all weekend long.

Lupine is coming back as the lead sponsor for the Night Team Time Trial on Friday and will have some demo lights available for those that do not own lights and need one to take part in the festivities. We'll have a sign up on BikeReg for 'em or maybe on Lupine's site.

So, look for that stuff soon and check back for shots of Braden. He's just so damn cute, how can you resist?

Okay, off to FaceBook this stuff then back to BikeReg to update the Festival then I'll email it to some people and blog it here and on the Team blog and maybe make a video of me Twittering it to put on YouTube before finally LinkedIning though no one pays attention to that anyway...or perhaps I'm just not professional enough to get that one.

Actually, off to ride first since I've done that 4 times in three weeks...at least this weekend is the Allegripis Trails opening at Raystown where I'm leading some rides so I'll get in a little something!!