Deer Trail Road Race, June 21, 2014

The Deer Trail Road Race was scheduled for April 27.  Unfortunately, as the date neared, the weather started taking a turn for the worse.  Finally, with really nasty weather on the horizon, they postponed the race indefinitely.  I assumed it was just going to be canceled and we'd never hear about it again.  That seems to be what happens.  Sometimes you check the race calendar, and something is just canceled without warning, and the promoters say to stay tuned for an update, and that's it.  Which is too bad, because there aren't a ton of road races out here, so every cancellation hurts.  With various races all over the state happening nearly every weekend, there isn't a whole lot of room to reschedule without overlapping someone else's race.

But then something fortuitous happened.  The Tour of Westcliffe on June 21 was supposed to be the Jr. and Sr. Road Race State Championships.  But then it was suddenly canceled.  Sounds like some sponsors backed out or something.  Canceling a random race is one thing, but you can't just cancel the state championships.  Luckily, the Deer Trail promoters were still trying to find an open weekend when they could have their race, and now a date just opened up.  The Junior Road Race Championship had already been rescheduled to a different race, so the Deer Trail Road Race was rescheduled to June 21 and became the Senior Road Race Championship.  Since I'm an old fart, this didn't really matter to me.  I'm in the Masters category now.  So this was just another road race for me.

The race was about 42 miles, in an L-shape along two roads.  At the north end and east end of the course, you actually do a 180-degree u-turn around a cone, and head back the other way.  Kind of crazy, so I was interested to see how it played out.  The course was somewhat narrow rolling country roads out in the farmland east of Denver.  Parking was at the local rodeo grounds, advertising that they hosted the World's First Rodeo.

We had a neutral start right in the town of Deer Trail, quickly heading under the highway and out onto the open roads.  For some reason, the race seemed to be moving pretty slowly for a while.  I was anywhere from the middle to the back of the pack as we leisurely made our way down the road.  The pace picked up a bit as we closed in on the first u-turn.  Stuck at the back of the pack, I could only watch as the leaders eased around the cone and took off again, while the rest of us came to a near dead-stop at the traffic jam.  Eventually, we were all around the cone, and catching back up to the leaders.

After about another 15 miles or so, we closed in on the next u-turn.  Not wanting to get left behind again, I sprinted up the inside, making my way to the front of the pack.  I was probably 3rd or 4th around the cone, and in a good position.  One rider started to make his way off the front of the pack, but nothing to worry about.  But then one of his teammates took off, joining him off the front.  It was only a 2-man breakaway, but with two members of the same team.  I don't know a ton about racing, but I know that a breakaway with two team members can be dangerous, so I decided to chase them down.  I didn't have any grand designs on winning this race, so I figured I could expend a little energy.  I got out of the saddle and pulled up behind the breakaway.  We ended up riding like that for a couple minutes, before the guys gave up and the pack came up around us.  I don't know that I actually did anything, but it felt like I did, so I was happy.

After killing myself to catch the break, I was running out of gas, and the main field slowly passed me until I was hanging on the back.  I relaxed a bit and ate a gel to try to make sure I had fuel for the end of the race.  We turned to head east again, and I was still hanging off the back, slowly getting dropped.  At that point, I joined one other racer to try to get back in the race.  After a bit of effort, we were back on the tail end of the pack.

At some point, we had to weave around a mysterious piece of junk in the road.  We didn't see what it was, but it was right in the middle of the pack.  A few minutes later, we found out what is was, when we saw a guy riding without his saddle.  Talking to him later, he said it was loose while he was sitting on it, so he stood up to mess with it a little bit, and it fell right off.  He ended up riding the last 10 miles or so without a saddle, standing for most of it and occasionally gingerly sitting on the top of his seatpost.  It didn't sound like a lot of fun, but he finished.  A pretty ingenious way to shave a few ounces off his bike, too.

Anyway, after expending that much energy catching back up to the group, I just barely had enough left to hang on the back.  As we made our way around the last cone of the race, I was on the back again, and was stuck in traffic.  The leaders took off, and the rest of us struggled to try to stay with them.  But they were long gone.  In the end, I finished about 90 seconds behind the winners, in 29th place out of 56 racers.  But my teammate Keith ended up sprinting for the win, so it was a good result nonetheless.  Chalk up another win for Psimet Zilla Racing.

And that looks like my last race for a while.  There are a couple races in July, but nothing I'm particularly interested in.  I may do a crit on July 13, but not sure yet.  There's a 3-day race in Salida, but I'm not planning to do that.  And I'm going to be on vacation for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb, so I'll have to skip that, too.  There are a couple races in August, but not many.  But the season is really winding down.

Keith Collins on the top of the podium.  Sorry for the blurry picture.  Not sure why they did the podiums in a dark barn instead of outside in the sun.

Team ride, lots of climbing - June 14, 2014

Racing season is starting to slow down.  Most of the road races are done for the year, and crits are becoming few and far between.  We're running into weekends when there are no races, or maybe it's a hill-climb or a time trial.  On the weekend of June 14, there were two races.  The Best on Hess time trial, which was actually my only race last year, and helped me decide I wanted to join a team, and the Sunshine Hill Climb on Sunday.  Although I liked the Best on Hess TT, I just wasn't really in the mood for it this year.  And I could have done Sunshine, but wasn't sure I wanted to pay for a race just to come in last place.  Apparently, many people on my team felt the same, and instead of racing we pulled together a really nice team ride.

We rode a bunch of roads I'd never ridden before, starting in Morrison, Colorado and heading south and west from there, up into the foothills.  From Morrison, we headed south through some beautiful foothills neighborhoods and a lot of houses I'll never be able to afford, until we got to Deer Creek Canyon.  Until this point, the ride was pleasantly rolling, but once we hit Deer Creek, it was just "up".  Then, instead of continuing on Deer Creek Canyon, we headed up High Grade and Pleasant Park Road, which involved a lot more climbing.  But there was a nice bonus, because at the top of the climb on Pleasant Park Road, you find the Pleasant Park School, built in 1894 and now on the Colorado State Register of Historic Properties.  Currently operated by the Pleasant Park Grange, they offer a great rest stop for cyclists, with coolers full of cookies, water and Gatorade, and asking for donations.  It was a nice little pit stop after all that climbing.  We rested for a few minutes and fueled up before moving on.

Robert and Scott enjoying a break at the Pleasant Park School.

The Pleasant Park School was the highest point of the ride, so it was generally downhill from here, although we still had a little bit of climbing to do.  We did a little climb through a neighborhood, and then a whole lot of downhill, heading down to Turkey Creek Road and past Tiny Town, which I had heard of but never seen before.   Then we had to do a quick ride on US 285, which was interesting.  It's essentially riding on the highway, which was a little nerve-wracking.  From there, we took a left and headed up the last climb of the day, up Parmalee Gulch.  After another downhill, we ended up at Bear Creek Road, which takes you back down into Morrison.  A few of the group took another turn and headed up Kerr Gulch for some more climbing, but the rest of us, including me, just headed back downhill into Morrison and our waiting cars.

Peg and Troy

Robert

I'm still trying to get some confirmation, but the people that climbed up Kerr Gulch seemed to have ridding on I-70 as a part of their route, which seems insane.  I haven't seen any of those guys since then, so I am still waiting to find out.

All in all, a fun day of riding.  It's nice to get out into some new territory once in a while.

Sonic Boom Criterium - June 8, 2014

On June 8, the day after my 5k with my kids, I raced in the Sonic Boom Criterium in Louisville, Colorado.  Basically over many of the same streets as the 5k the day before.  This is a cool crit that actually uses downtown city streets, so it has a whole different atmosphere than some of the other ones.

This was also the state Master's criterium championship, so I hoped to do well.  I got there early in the morning and started warming up.  My family showed up a little later, just before my race.  I would be racing in the Cat 4 35+ race again.

A number of races occurred before mine, so I got to see some of them.  It was a little crazy.  Everyone was crashing on the final turn before the finish.  And some of the crashes looked pretty bad.  It was a fast turn, with a couple bumps in the road.  The medics were very busy.

Peg

Craig, who ended up getting 3rd in the Cat 5 40+ race.

After the race before mine was completed, I was able to take a practice lap.  There was a long straight uphill on one side of the course, and the rest seemed flat or downhill for the most part.  It seemed pretty easy, and given how I felt at the City Park Crit the weekend before, I figured I could expect the same type of race.  I was wrong.  This race was just plain hard.  It was very fast, and the racers seemed a lot tougher than City Park.  Maybe it was because this was the state championship, it brought out a higher caliber of racer.

It was a 40-minute crit, and I think I hung with the group for about 20 minutes or so.  Then, I got blown off the back during the uphill section of one lap.  I tried to catch back up, but just didn't have the legs for it.  After that, I was on my own for quite a while.  There were a few other stragglers I could see in front of me and behind me.  But we were all kind of in no-man's land.

After about 10-15 minutes of riding alone, I could hear the lead motorcycle coming up behind me.  The guy pulled up and told me I could keep racing but had to stay to the right to let the group pass me.  I'm happy they didn't pull me.  That would have been really disappointing.  So, over the next minute or so, the field passed me, and I just let them go.  And I watched them disappear again, for the second time in the race.  As I got the bell for the last lap, I ended up meeting up with one of the other stragglers, and we rode the last lap together.

Coming up on the final turn, a bunch of people were out on the course, waving for me to slow down.  A crash.  Again.  I slowed for the turn, and saw a couple riders crashed into the barrier, receiving treatment.  I couldn't believe it.  The amount of crashes in this race was insane.  I crossed the line, said hi to my family on the sidewalk, and took a cool-down lap.  Coming around the last turn on my cool-down lap, the medics were there putting someone onto a backboard and getting ready to load them into the ambulance.

After resting for a bit, we got ready for my son to ride in the kid's race.  I like that they do these at the crits.  Most crits give the officials a lunch break, and let little kids do a lap of the course.  This one was supposed to be age 8 and under, so my daughter didn't race this one.  But I got my son ready and lined up, and he headed out for his lap.  He was rockin'.  At that point, it was pouring down rain, but he was a trooper.  A watched the start, ran up a side street to see him come around the other side of the course, and then sprinted back to the finish to see him cross the line.  Unfortunately, I didn't run fast enough, and missed his finish.  But my wife and daughter were there cheering him on.

Braving the rain in the kid's race.

A pretty disappointing day, race-wise.  But doing a 5k and a crit was fun, and as a bonus, we got to have lunch in Louisville:  Lucky Pie Pizza followed by Sweet Cow ice cream.  Awesome.  After pizza and ice cream, we headed back to the car to go home.  But as we were walking, we heard the ambulance once again.  Getting close to the car, we saw the ambulance pulling onto the course, heading to that final turn.  There were racers sprawled out everywhere.  Once again, the medics were loading people into an ambulance.  I saw a couple teammates on the sidewalk not too far away, so I went over to see what was going on.  Turns out, a former Psimet Zilla racer, Lloyd, was involved in that accident.  He was sitting on a bench, looking disappointed and annoyed.  Sounds like someone took a turn poorly and fell into him.  I found out later that Lloyd ended up in surgery that night with a broken hip.  We'll see if he changes his mind, but he's currently saying he's done racing.  At age 55, you just don't heal like you used to.

I'm not sure what it was about that course that caused so many crashes, but it kind of scared me off crits for a while.  I've had a pretty good season so far, and would hate to ruin it with a nasty crash in a crit.

My end result wasn't very good.  32nd out of 44.  After 33rd place, they gave everyone else a DNF, so I was pretty much right at the end.  Definitely a difference between the Cat 5s and Cat 4s.  Oh well.  Nothing I can do but get ready for the next race.

Taste of Louisville 5k - June 7, 2014

On June 14, I ran the Taste of Louisville 5k with my kiddos.  Last year, I ran this with my daughter, and she did great.  I looked at the calendar this year, and I didn't have any races going on, so we decided to do it again.  My 8-year-old son has recently decided this was something he would want to do, too, so I signed up the three of us.  We were all supposed to do the Home Run for the Homeless 5k back in May, but it was snowing and miserable, so we didn't end up doing that.  We decided this would make up for it.

Due to the massive flooding in the Boulder area last September, the route changed quite a bit.  The couldn't even do the half-marathon this year.  They ended up doing a 12k instead.  And the 5k route was completely different from last year.  It started right in downtown Louisville, running past people setting up their tents for the Taste of Louisville going on that day, and then headed around the outskirts of the town on some trails in their open space system.  It was actually very nice.  A beautiful area, and some beautiful homes along the route.

Because my 9-year-old daughter had run this distance before, and was used to doing this type of event, I decided she could just go ahead and run her own race while I ran with my son.  This was his first time running this far, and I knew it would be slow going.  And my daughter is very comfortable on her own, so I told her to do her best and she could just wait for us at the finish.

Everything went perfectly.  My daughter took off right at the start, and we didn't see her again.  My son and I jogged along at the back of the group.  We slowed down to walk once in a while, but never actually stopped.  He was pretty beat by the end, but we made a big push for the finish, where my daughter was there cheering us on.  It was a lot of fun.

Here's the photo of my son and I crossing the finish.  I'm too cheap to actually pay for the picture, which is why it's covered in watermarks.

Not sure if we're going to be doing any more of these running events this year.  They are really expensive, especially when you get a bunch of us going.  I'm more than happy to run around the neighborhood for free, though.

Boulder Time Trial - June 4, 2014

When I volunteered to work at the Superior Morgul Criterium a few weeks before, I earned a free race with that promoter, Without Limits Productions.  Looking at their remaining races for the year, it looked like getting a free entry into the June 4 time trial in Boulder.  This is a monthly series throughout the summer, on Wednesday evenings.

The route is 12 miles from Lyons to Boulder on US 36.  It's a tough route, with a couple decent hills.  Time trials aren't my specialty, but I kind of like them.  I think if I had true time trial equipment, I could do a lot better.  I seem to have pretty good leg strength for this sort of thing, but I really can't compete against people with a full set of aero equipment.

We had a few people from the team heading to this race, and we all met in Boulder near the finish line, then used the 12-mile ride to the start line as our warmup.  We got to the start, helped each other pin on our numbers, went to the bathroom, and were ready to go.

I ended up placing 4th out of 7 in the MM Cat 4 35+ category.  Not great, but I was fine with it.  Like I said, I don't have a time trial bike and other aero equipment like others in the race.  I do have some clip-on aero bars, which helps, but that's it.  No aero helmet, shoe covers, skin suit, etc.  Truthfully, if I want to do better in time trials without dropping a lot of cash, the best thing I could do is just lose some weight.  Which I'm working on...

Elephant Rock 2014

On June 1, I decided to recover from the City Park Crit by riding in the annual Elephant Rock Ride down in Douglas County.  If you remember from last year, I was scheduled to do the 62-mile ride with a bunch of people from work, but had broken my arm about 3 weeks before.  Since I was still recovering, I wasn't able to do a big ride, so did the 8-mile family ride with my wife and kids instead.    This year, I was in good health, and was looking forward to doing the 62-mile route.

Last year, this was a big event with my office, and we had about 15 people participate.  We have put a lot more effort into our "Davis Active" activities this year, and anticipated another big turnout.  But we only had a few people this year.  I think there were a few reasons:  1) It's expensive.  2) The mountain-bike route isn't very exciting.  Just a dirt road.

We tried to entice employees with an after-ride party at someone's house nearby, but that didn't work either.  So, we only had about 5 or 6 people show up, and not everyone showed up for the party afterwards.  Pretty disappointing.

The ride is nice, though.  It's a beautiful area down there.  Lots of rolling hills and expansive views.  I spent the day riding with Keith, another architect from my office.

Keith, with Pikes Peak in the background.

I had a good time.  It was a nice break from my usual races.

City Park Criterium

On May 31, I raced in the City Park Criterium.  After my Superior Morgul races a few weeks before, I moved up from a Cat 5 to a Cat 4 racer.  So this was my first race as a Cat 4.

This criterium is a series of .6 mile laps in City Park in Denver, CO.  It is essentially flat, with three turns per lap.  Kind of a triangle course.  My MM Cat 4 35+ race was scheduled for 40 minutes.  I was going to be the last race of the day, but we got there really early so my kids could ride in the kids race at lunchtime.

After the kids race, I started to get my stuff together to do my race.  I walked back to the car to get ready, and ride the trainer for a bit.  Then rode back to the start line to pick up my bib number and get in a final warm up.

On my way up to the line, a couple team members started yelling for me, and it turns out my number wasn't pinned on very well.  While they fixed it, I ended up losing a good spot at the start line, and started close to the back.  Not a good place to start, especially in this race.

The race started, and we rode fast.  Checking times at the end, the average speed was about 25 mph.  It was a pretty big field, so we had a lot of racers on the course, on narrow roads.  And the turns came up really quick, so it was hard to make any kind of moves.  As I said, I started near the back, and with the crowded roads, I had a tough time moving up.

It was a pretty hectic race, with a lot of very close riding.  This was definitely a 'bumping elbows and shoulders' kind of race, but there was only one crash, I think.  I felt pretty good about my finish.  Not too far behind the leader, in the main pack for the whole race.  I wasn't too tired when I was done, so I had a lot of gas left in the tank, but couldn't maneuver around people to actually use it.  Oh well.  Better luck next time, I suppose.

Final finish:  26th out of 62.  6 seconds behind the winner.