I’m here in Breckenridge, Colorado to race the Firecracker 50 tomorrow.  I left Big Bear on Monday, stopped overnight in Boulder City, hung out with the BC crew, drove through the 115 degree desert - with my air conditioner not working, stayed over night in St. George with Coach Lynda, and pushed on through to Eagle yesterday and Breckenridge today.  Whew.  Lynda and I had never actually met in person so that was really cool.  We went riding with Dave in the morning and he took some pictures.  I’ve stolen them.

Me, about to drop down a steep little, techy pitch.

                           Lynda and I on a trail called Stucki.

I went for a short spin when I got here to Breckenridge and nearly blew myself up doing some opener intervals.  Good times.  Welcome to 9000′.  Tomorrow is going to be a practice in oxygen debt

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Check this out…my baby brother!  What an animal!

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It’s been a pretty big volume training block for me and I’m beat. Lots of long rides. Some good. Some…less good.

On one long ride last week, I think the heat absolutely zapped me. I kept telling myself that I was being a wuss and that it wasn’t really that hot but…well…I think it was. I was trying to stack up a few long climbs and around here that means fireroads. So…really hot. I was dying. I rode up Radford and I took off my jersey and just rode in my sports bra with my camelback - sweet sunburn. I f-i-n-a-l-l-y made it to the top and I was ready to lie down and die. I nearly bailed on the rest of the ride but I talked myself into thinking that I was okay and I could finish it out. Another long climb? Clark’s it is. The whole half an hour descent down Clark’s I knew I was asking for trouble and that I was going to be hating myself the whole way up. And I was. It took about 10 minutes of climbing before I was really suffering again. And the climb is, um, a little longer than 10 minutes. I was dying for some caffeine or something to pick me up but I didn’t have any with me. Then I saw some full discarded cans of coke on the side of the road.

“OHMYGOD,” I thought - “CAFFEINE!” I went to pick it up (read: pick up the garbage left on the side of the road and drink it) and realized it was caffeine free. Dammit! Okay, even the garbage on the side of the road was thwarting me at this point. I did manage to make it to the top - a dizzy and whimpering mess. I rode directly down Plantation and Mill Creek to the shop, planted myself on the couch and downed a recovery drink in stunned silence. Not good times. Bad times.

A few more long rides in the following days - all went much better. One of those rides, I rode 25 miles of uninterrupted singletrack. OH. MY. GOD. Are you kidding?!! Nope. Of course I should probably mention, it was all highly illegal Pacific Crest Trail. Mmmmyeah. I rode the road over to the north shore, headed up Cougar Crest and hopped on the PCT, all the way to Onyx Summit. Yes dude.

I didn’t see a single person on the PCT until the final half mile. Of course…24.5 miles…no one. .5 miles to the end…go figure. And let’s just say, this guy wasn’t very happy to see me. When he saw me coming he visibly scowled and stood in the middle of the trail (titanium walking sticks in hand and protruding belly adding to his blockade of the trail).

I knew as soon as I saw him that he was going to give me a hard time. “This isn’t a biking trail, you know,” he said. “I’m almost done here,” I mumbled back as I awkwardly wiggled around him on the trail (and held myself back from shoulder checking him. Or punching him in the neck). “That don’t make it right,” he shouted after me.

Okay. I know he’s right. The trail is totally closed to bikes and I was poaching it. And I know there may be people who hate me for doing that…I’m giving mountain bikers a bad name; now this guy thinks all mountain bikers are law-breakers and ride closed trails. Well, you know what? Sitting around a not riding closed trails isn’t opening them up either. And I can’t help it. That’s it. That’s my excuse. I cannot not ride that trail knowing that it’s there. And for the record, it’s dry hardpack. I wasn’t damaging anything.

Okay, rant over. It just happens that I had 15 miles to ride back on the road to fume and seethe about it so it left me, well…fuming and seething. The ride was sick. I’ve never ridden that much uninterrupted singletrack. Really good singletrack. Amazing.

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Jeff, Joey, Drew and Mark - the All Mountain crew plus one descended on Big Bear this weekend.  Oh. My. God.  They’re like a rolling hurricaine of craziness, debauchery and general mayhem.  They rolled in late Saturday night and I put them all to bed on the livingroom floor.  Sunday morning I did a local XC race at Rim Nordic so I had to abandon them to ride by themselves.  By all accounts, they had an awesome day on the mountain, finally culminating in Mark jamming his thumb in a freak encounter with a post at the bottom of 1E01 and the rest of the crew getting lost on an epic hike-a-bike above Montrail.

I had a fun day too, at Rim Nordic.  Carolyn and I were the only Pro women at the line but we took off with the Expert women as well.  I was training right through this race and fully expected to be way off the back.  Carolyn has been really sick though and this race was really just a chance for her to test the waters and see where she’s at.  Off the line, I was out in front, which doesn’t happen much these days.  Carolyn was on my wheel and after a few minutes I looked back and we had dropped the Expert women.  We rode that first lap together at a comfortable pace - all I could think was that Carolyn was either still super sick or she was just biding her time and waiting to drop me like a rock.  Turns out she was feeling okay for that first lap and then got hit hard by whatever nasty sickness she’s fighting on the second lap when she fell back and then dropped out at the end of that one.  So I went on to a glorious win by default.  The race ended up just being a hard training ride really - the first lap was quick but comfortable and after that I had a hard time motivating myself to really suffer, without any competition out there to make me work.  I did manage to crash on a false flat fireroad climb - I am not making that up - and I have some nasty road rash to show for it.

The next day I got to ride with the AMC crew.  We managed to hit the trails at the crack of noon and met up with Carolyn and her friend Lisa who was in town visiting.  We rode the lifts all afternoon and strung together some really fun loops but I made them pedal pretty far over on 2N10 so we could ride Penny Pine.  I wanted to make them pedal out there again to ride Plantation and Wet Dream too.  Although in retrospect, it may have been better that they didn’t get to hit Wet Dream - I’m sure that would have inspired more than enough inappropriate jokes and, frankly, I think I was already at my limit.

On Tuesday we drove down to Running Springs to shuttle Exploration Trail.  I had never ridden this one before so it was new for all of us.  And it kicked A$$.  That was awesome.  Here are the boys at the trailhead before we took off. 

Unfortunately, it ended in minor disaster when Mark - who was absolutely killing it - went down and gashed open his elbow, requiring stitches. 

Luckily, Joey is on the ball and had a first aid kit and since he’s going to school to be a paramedic, he also had a clue as to what we should do to get Mark fixed up.

I think we all would have ridden that trail a few more times but unfortunately the resulting trip to the hospital prevented that.  Poor Mark…the thumb and the elbow gash in the same weekend.  And he cracked a rib a couple of months back.  At least this was the third peice of bad luck so he should be all clear now.  Heal up!

And that was it…they rolled back to one million degree heat in Boulder City and left me shell-shocked and looking around in stunned silence trying to figure out what tornado had just rolled through!  I cannot maintain that level of getting into trouble, staying up late and drinking heavily (who me?) for more than a couple of days.

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Here are some photos from the 12hr race last weekend. Thanks to Kim for a couple and to Mario for a couple others I shamelessly stole.

Early laps of both Jason and I.

Right after I finished my last lap, just in time.

Jason and I above and the top three coed duo teams below. Yay

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I raced the 12 Hours of Temecula on Saturday as part of a duo co-ed team. I’ve never done a 12 or 24hr as anything other than a solo so this was new and it felt really different to think that if I messed it up, I wasn’t just going to let myself down but someone else too. Jason was my teammate and I knew he’d be super fast. But he isn’t really an endurance racer so the only question mark with him was whether he could sustain that pace all day. I, on the other hand, knew I could be pretty steady but I don’t have much speed so I didn’t know whether I could turn any fast laps at all.
We knew our biggest competition was going to be Mario Correa and Heidi Volpe. They’ve won a few of these duo co-eds together and Mario has won a bunch more, including the 24hr National last year. He and I actually share the same secret weapon. Also registered was Chritina Betz and her partner. Christina raced at the 12 Hours of Bootleg as a solo and she’s really strong.

Jason did our first lap and came in a couple minutes behind Mario. I took off in chase mode and headed up the Dam(n) Climb but I couldn’t see Heidi. Then, just after the top, she came flying past me. WTF?!?! I asked her what happened and she told me she’d taken a wrong turn. Great. Nothing makes you feel super slow like thinking you’re chasing someone and then having them come flying past you after taking a wrong turn. And then dropping you again. She was faster than me on the climbs and on the technical sections…I think she was faster than me everywhere! I finished that lap about 30 seconds behind her. The next lap, Jason and Mario came in together. “Oh god,” I thought, now Heidi and I really have to race each other. We took off and I gapped her at the start. She passed me on the climb but I was able to stay pretty close. I spent the rest of the lap pulling myself back up to her, finally passing her near the end of the lap. I managed to come in about 30 seconds ahead of her but I had really pushed myself to do it. The day was heating up and the next lap, Jason was a couple minutes behind Mario. I was feeling the effects of my earlier effort and the heat too and on my next lap I lost another minute or so to Heidi. The next lap, Jason really suffered in the heat and that lap was a bit slower. I was suffering too and without a really close target, I think we both struggled to chase really hard. We were very comfortably ahead of third place at that point but Mario and Heidi continued to turn really consistent laps. Jason came around when the heat subsided a bit and got super fast again. The way this race works, you need to finish your last lap by 9pm for it to count. By 7pm, we had each done five laps when Jason headed out on his sixth. At that point, I was turning just over one hour lap times so if he turned a fast lap, I would go out again but if he didn’t, we’d be done. If we did 12 laps, our place wouldn’t change (barring a major mechanical for Heidi on her last lap) but we’d have the same total as the winners, which it turned out we both really wanted. Well, Jason turned a 55 minute lap that time. I had practically resigned myself to being done and was barely even ready to go when he got back but I hopped on my bike and took off. He had given me the exact amount of time of my last couple of laps so I had to push it. Besides which, half of that lap was going to be in the dark so I would be slower on the descents and techy stuff…meaning I’d actually need to be faster on the climbs and pedally stuff. I was killing myself and checking my watch and I knew it was going to be really close. Jason Ranoa, the race director had driven his dirt bike out on the course and when I came flying around a corner he was shouting, “It’s 8:49 Sarah!” “Oh shit!,” I yelled back. I was killing myself and just hoping I could make it. I think I was the last person on the course. I came down the last steep, techy drop near the end and I could hear people yelling that someone was coming. I was about 30 seconds away when I heard Jason R on the loudspeaker counting down from 10 - NOOOO! Then I heard him say, “Ha ha just kidding, Sarah, you’ll be fine.” I made it with a minute and twenty seconds to spare. High drama. I’ve never cut it that close at a race before - it was awesome! There was a big crowd to see the end when I came racing in, Jason gave me a huge hug (I don’t think either of us realized, when you race as a duo, you don’t ever actually see your partner!) - it was an awesome end to the race. Way cool. We took second with twelve laps. Even the top two duo male teams finished with 12 laps so we were really happy.

A couple highlights from the day… My first two laps were 57 and 58 minutes - I was really happy to have a couple sub one-hour laps so I could convince myself I was a little fast… Okay, I felt fast until my friend Casey Williams (who I’ve mentioned before and who is, um, 14 years old) caught me at the end of a lap. The course doubles back on itself a few times so when I was about 15-20 minutes out, I could see him a little behind me and I knew I was going to have drill it to hold him off. This was my second to last lap and I was pretty beat. I turned it on though and I was working as hard as I could at that point. Casey was gaining on me though and at one point he shouted, “Don’t let me catch you Sarah.” “You better not catch me Casey!” I shouted back. I was still ahead of him when I got to the top of the Marine Corps climb (which I didn’t clean. Once.) so I thought I could hold him off. (Turns out Casey cleaned Marine Corps. The only other people I’ve seen clean that were pro men. Warrants mentioning). I headed down the final descent, through the little techy drop and into the final stretch. I was looking back and he was gaining on me. He caught me right at the end, having just turned a 53 minute lap. Unreal. The fastest time of the day was 47 something, put down by a pro man. Unbelievable. Casey’s 4-man team, all of whom were under 16, took second in the 4-man open category. Pretty cool. His brothers Cameron and Evan were also super fast and consistent on their junior team. It’s just a matter of time before I can’t outrun the two of them either! And thanks so much to their parents Kim and Roger and our friend Darren of Ay Up Lights who took awesome care of Jason and I all day…food, water, ice, timing checks…everything - thanks!

All in all it was super fun day - a totally new experience, completely different from solo racing. Really hard but really fun! Thanks so much to the Ranoas and their whole crew. They did an amazing job putting on the race (they always do) - the course was killer, wicked fun vibe, killer competition, well-organized…everything.

Thanks also to my partner Jason - we were an awesome team and you killed it!

Thanks to Roaring Mouse, Titus, BR Lights, Infinit, elete, Magura, Ergon, Genuine Innovations, Stan’s, Kenda, BetterRide, WTB, Crankbrothers, High Sierra Cycles and Sport Legs.

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I mentioned last week that I did a bike fit with Mike McKovich of Max Performance Bike Fit. I’ve never had a professional bike fit so when the opportunity arose I was interested. I know how important proper fit is. At the same time, I was pretty certain that I had found the only position that would work for me as far as minimizing pain. I’m really picky about the position of stuff on my bike and I was convinced that the way I had it set up was the only way that I would be able to avoid unbearable pain. But by the time Mike was done with me, he had completely changed the way I understood bike fit. Essentially Mike not only changed the fit of my bike, he also changed the way I sit on and pedal my bike…he changed the way I fit to my bike. A possibility I had not considered.

The way Mike performs a fit, he sets up his computrainer and you pedal your bike on a simulated course - a one mile ride with a half mile flat and a half mile of increasing grade climb. It’s not supposed to be very difficult, just a moderate effort and one that you can easily repeat. Mike goes over the power and heartrate results. Of course, he’s been watching you ride your bike, examining your current setup, position and pedalling style. The computrainer also gives results with respect to pedalling efficiency, dominant leg and a display showing any dead spots in your pedal stroke. Lets just say I had a pretty big dead spot. And as I mentioned before, approximately 40% pedalling efficiency.

Here was Mike getting setup (notice I managed to cut off his head in the photo).

After I did my first test, Mike made some adjustments to my bike and to my position sitting on the bike. He moved my seat up and back and I immediately objected, claiming that it would be too high and that my hips would be rocking all over the place. Au contraire. Mike told me to roll my hips out a bit, straightening my back and, voila, the new seat height was not too high and all of a sudden my glutes (read: the strongest muscle in our bodies) was being used much more. Mike also moved my cleats a little. Then we did the same controlled test on the computrainer again. With the new position, my average power was slightly higher, my speed was slightly greater and my heartrate was slightly lower. Not huge differences but this was a one mile course. That kind of stuff can add up…you know over, say, 24 hours or so.

Here is Karen doing her test on the computrainer.

Next, after seeing me ride and looking at the pedalling display on the computrainer, Mike made some suggestions to help my pedalling efficiency and minimize the enormous dead-spot in my pedalling stroke. He showed me how much I pedal on my toes and told me to keep my heels down. What was really interesting to me was that the two major things that Mike changed about the way I sat on and pedalled my bike where things I had heard before but the way Mike articulated them made it a million times easier to apply. Let me explain… I’ve heard before that you should keep your back straight. But what Mike told me was to roll my hips out. This worked much better than me just trying to think about straightening my back and it also had the effect of increased muscle recruitment from my glutes. I have also always tried to keep a smooth, even pedal stroke and power all the way around. Of course, seeing the display on the computrainer made it pretty clear I was failing miserably at this. But when Mike told me to keep my heels down, all of a sudden I was pedalling through the entire rotation and again had increased muscle recruitment, now from my calves and hamstrings.

Mike also did an additional test for me and we did the same computrainer comparison between my 150mm cranks and a pair of 165s. Turns out I do indeed have more power at a lower heartrate with the shorter cranks. Warrants mentioning.

The first couple days after the fit days it took a lot of concentration for me to pedal the new way and I was a little sore at first because some muscles were being worked way more than they were used to. But I am feeling stronger and I’ve noticed a huge improvement in technical, loose climbing, now that I can power through the entire pedal stroke. It still takes some concentration when I am riding hard to keep pedalling correctly; I seem to forget and revert back to my old habits when I am concentrating on working hard. But it doesn’t take long for me to remember as that way just doesn’t feel efficient anymore. The new position has also eliminated the chronic lower back pain I’ve had. Huge.

All in all, this was an amazing learning experience and I’m sure will be a huge boost to my riding. It completely changed my perception of bike fit. And to be honest, I’m sure this was just the tip of the iceberg. I had about an hour and a half of Mike’s time…I know there is heaps more information there. Of course the only assessments I can make now are subjective (beyond the immediate display on the computrainer, of course) but I am certain this is going to make great improvements in my riding. Can’t wait! Thanks Mike.

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Finally. Luckily Carolyn was doing lots of recovery rides too, so at least I had good company for all those easy spins. On Thursday she took me on this network of fireroads on the other side of Sugarloaf. It was like an alternate Ranch Only universe. Seriously, it looks nothing like any of the other neighborhoods in the area. It’s all ranches, all the time. Weird. We wandered around for a while halfheartedly looking for a trail she had been on once last year. We never found it and instead decided to hop on a brief section of the Pacific Crest Trail (OHMYGOD, I know, it’s illegal. We’re crazy…but around these parts, it’s known as the Perfect Cycling Trail). It was beautiful. I hadn’t been on that section before and it opened up in a spot where you could see all the way down into Lucerne Valley, which is like over 4000′ feet below us. It was awesome. Of course, I didn’t have my camera with me. I swear, I carry that thing around all the time when there aren’t any good photos to take and then there is something amazing and it’s the one time I didn’t take it. Go figure. Trust me, it was awesome. We obviously were paying more attention to the view because we missed our turn to get off the PCT and ended up taking a random singletrack we saw that was going in the right direction. That led to a rocky, gnarly, steep descent down a washed out used-to-be-a-fireroad that deposited us directly in someone’s backyard with a huge ‘NO TRESPASSING’ sign and right across a fence from the most vicious looking dog that was practically foaming at the mouth to sink its teeth into us. We bushwacked as fast as we could out of there.

The recovery was officially over after that as I climbed Radford both of the next two days. On Sunday, I went to Temecula to run the Infinit booth at a Cal Multisport event put on by my roommates Karen and Paul of Team Sole. It was really fun; my friend Tessa won the womens’ event - she’s a monster! And everyone loved Infinit. Naturally. Congratulations also to Sully, who won the Men’s, and to everyone out there - great work!

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After I insisted that I wouldn’t take time off for being sick…well that’s exactly what I did.  I honestly think this is the first time I’ve rested when I was sick (well, except when I had the flu and was literally bedridden).  It’s been….Really. Frustrating.  At Coach Lynda’s advice, since Saturday I’ve only been doing easy spin rides.  Borrrring.  But at least I still get to ride my bike.  I guess.

My last long ride on Friday was a loop over the ridge behind the house here, down a fireroad called Clark’s to the Santa Ana River Trail along the valley below.  I may have mentioned how radical this trail is.  Then…the climb back, up Radford.  For reference, the descent down Clark’s takes 30 minutes.  The climb up Radford is steeper than Clark’s so it is the quicker of the two climbs.  Still it’s a steep, loose fireroad and it’s a b*tch.  There was lots of cursing every time I lost traction and had to put a foot down.  It took me over an hour to climb it.

Today I did a Max Performance Bike Fit with Mike McKovich.  It was reeeeeally interesting.  Based on his Computrainer, he told me I was pedalling with 40% efficiency.  For reference, he said average and respectable is using 60% efficiency.  He gave me some really simple pointers though that resulted in some drastic changes in the way I sit on and pedal my bicycle.  More to come on Mike and the whole fit process…

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…Because that’s how I sound when I talk.  Getting overtired, riding two hard days in the snow, rain and cold last week and I’ve been reduced to a snot-nosed, teary-eyed mess.  (Seriously, when I was riding yesterday, fluid was leaking from every facial orifice; water from my eyes, snot from my nose and drool from my mouth.  Good times.  And…you’re welcome). 

This was the road to the Santa Ana River Trail when I rode Clark’s/Radford on Saturday. 

I thought about taking some time off the bike but according to Jason, if you’re just sick in the head (okay, I mean a head-cold, get your mind out of the gutter) then it’s okay to keep training, as long as you don’t do hard efforts.  So, train on, it is.  (And it’s a good thing, too because I would have kept training anyway).  I actually thought it out logically, too…  At this point the anxiety I have from not training would be worse than my current level of sickness so the obvious conclusion is to keep training.  But I do not have OCD, got it?

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