Season Prep -
Karen and I recently took on the ‘Clean’ diet to help us shed some of those leftover holiday pounds and get a jump start on the season. I’ll admit that a three week program of only eating one meal a day with two smoothies was quite scary. I’m addicted to food and am proud to admit it! The first few days were brutal. I thought about eating my own fist at one point! But after those first few days it got quite easier. We were both amazed by how well we felt each day and how much more energy we actually had during the day. I didn’t find myself constantly yawning during the day. I wound up dropping almost 20 lbs!
Racing begins:
March
Spa City 6-hour – What an awesome race on some fantastic trails. 
Hot Springs, AR is a really cool town with a really nice mountain bike park just outside of the hold historic downtown area. My performance was horrible. The race started with me redlining myself like an EPO-induced pro! Yeah, that didn’t last long. The effects of not training this Winter hit me smack in the face. Steve, Pete, Dave, and Karen all did really well.
Leadbelt UFD – This race was pure training given it was the day after Spa City so I decided to race Cat-2/Sport class. My legs felt surprisingly well and wound up 4th in the 40-49 group. No way I could have raced Marathon though.
April
Ouachita – I love doing this race, but this year it didn’t like me. Fitness still wasn’t there for me. I struggled from the start. My finish time was 7:57, 75 minutes slower than last year!
AR vacation – Karen and I had planned on doing Syallmo 24 again this year. It’s the weekend after Ouchita so we were going to stay down in AR for the week. We both decided not to do Syallmo but wanted to stay down in AR to ride the great trails down there. Turns out after the Ouachita pre-race raffle we also wound up with a 3-day/2-night stay in an absolutely fantastic cabin at Mountain Harbor Resort. So we made Mountain Harbor home for a few days and rode all the trails around there. We each road about 3-5 hours per day. Plus, on our way home we rode 2-days at Syallmo. I was finally getting my base mileage up!
May
Greensfelder – This race was the weekend before Syallmo’s Revenge so I just wanted to get some saddle time in. Turned out the conditions were wet/sloppy due to an overnight rain. So I quit after two laps to avoid trashing myself and the bike any further.
Syallmo – I was really excited about this race
having never done it before. After seeing how the awesome the trails were when we were down there in April I couldn’t wait to race on them. My goal was to finish in under 6 hours. The conditions were a little wet as they usually are but the weather was awesome! But the race almost didn’t happen for me. 15 mins before the start of the race I realized I’d left my mtb shoes up at the cabin! Oh #$%#$%#$!!!! I hopped in the car and flew up to the cabin and back, had to drive through the racers lining up at the start, through a grass field, over a curb and back in to my parking spot where I layed my bike in hopes no one would take the spot. I made it to the starting line with 2 mins to spare but no warm-up… oh well, the upcoming 1 mile hill climb would solve that.
(My attitude before realizing I forgot my shoes!)
I was feeling strong 10 miles in, then 20, 30, then 40. I could really tell that the weight I’d lost was helping me. By about 45 miles I’d had no technical issues or flats and was eyeing a strong finish. Then, sure enough… flat! I got it changed pretty quickly and caught back up with some of the guys that passed me. Then, flat AGAIN!! This one took a little longer as I now had a slit in my tire that needed a boot. I’m not sure why but I don’t carry tire boots – but I will now. I used a Ziploc baggie I had on me and folded it over several times hoping it would provide enough protection for me to finish the final 4-5 miles.
Fortunately, the baggie tire boot worked but I don’t recommend it. I finished in 5:35 crushing my goal, even with my 2 flats. Karen did really well too and beat her individual goal.
Indian Camp Creek 3/6 Hour – I wouldn’t be racing this race since I was the co-race director along with John Peiffer. This was a true team effort. Mitch Johnson and Greg Ott put in a ton of time working on the trails. Karen helped out with a bunch of things including swag bag stuffing and scoring sheets with help from Loreen Mattson. The weather was really scaring the crap out of us leading up to the race, but by some magical powers that MashOr pulled out of his a$$ the trails were in perfect shape on race day and the race was on. What a fantastic day of racing with only a minor issue from Mother Nature at the end of the day. But I’ll write more about this event in a later post. The unfortunate part for me, was during the weeks leading up to and after this race I didn’t get a lot of riding in.
June
Family vacation put us all out on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Every 2 years my entire family: mom, stepdad, sisters, bro-in-laws, nieces, and nephews, all go on vacation together. We rented an amazing 4-story house right on the beach and had a blast for a whole week. Karen and I brought our road bikes along. She did more riding than I did as she was able to tolerate the flat, straight, windy roads much more easily than I – too boring! But I still got in two 2+ hour rides. But still my longest ride lately has been Syallmo nearly 4 weeks prior.
Then…. Sick – Picked up a bad chest cold. Up all night coughing, hacking up my lungs and not able to do any intensity w/o my lungs burning intensely!
Next up on my schedule are two local races: Castlewood and Brommelsiek, before the big Wausaw 24-hour race in Wisconsin at the end of July. I may not even attempt the full 24-hour race given my recent lack of training and illness but I’m really looking forward to the trip with Mitch and Todd Hecht. They both say it’s a pro race on a fantastic trail.
