Vanderkittens Cause for Paws Crit

Yesterday my teammate Josh and I went out to the Cause for Paws crit. There was no Cat 3 field so we raced the Cat 123 field. It was a hot one so I was trying to keep hydrated as much as possible. We lined up and were ready to go. We were racing for 60 mins. The race started pretty steady with attacks starting from the gun. Josh went with one with a Fat Frogs guy. They stayed out for a couple laps before they were brought back in. I went with a couple attacks but nothing really stuck. I did bridge a couple gaps and chase down a couple breakaways. Josh went for a prime and won it. He was riding very strong. Then with about 5 laps to go teams were starting to get organized to set up there sprinters. I was riding in great position. I had a few guys that I was watching. The last lap guys were ramping it up some I was still in great position. I held on the wheel in front of me and sprinted around for a 5th place finish. I was sprinting but not like I should have since I thought there was still a couple riders away. But I'm very pleased with my result in the Cat 123.

Wintergreen Ascent

The family and I went up to Wintergreen Ascent Hill Climb this year. We drove up on Friday, scoped out the course and went to Afton Mountain Winery. Saturday morning we drove up to the top of the mountain. The warm up went well, go some good intervals in. The next thing I know it is time to head down to the bottom via the shuttle. Made it to the bottom of the mountain at the start line. Rolled around keeping the legs loose. Got to the start line with about 5mins before I was to go off. Started the race feeling good. Not trying to go to hard but keep the power right below my threshold. I was feeling good but knew that this was the easiest part of the race.(first 3miles) Then the turn into Wintergreen. Right at the guard shack it was pretty nasty and then the heart rate was up and never came back down. Then the legs were still feeling pretty good. But they just did not want to turn over the pedals. Then the last turn up on to Devils Knob. How sick of a climb that last mile was 15% grade. Over all I finished the race. I was hoping to be in the 40's but ended up with a 50:47 for the 6.75 miles and average of 9%grade. I was happy to be at the finish. Next year I will be in the 40's!

Rest Week

After 7 weeks of some good threshold training here is a well deserved rest week. I was off the bike all weekend due to a work related class out of town all weekend. Today was spent working around the house and hitting an easy ride late this afternoon. Legs and lungs felt pretty good today. Hoping to have some good strong legs this coming up Saturday for the Wintergreen Ascent. I'm shooting for the lower 40's.

Thursday I will be heading up to Yorktown to get in a ride with Todd Helmick and Dan Gibson. Hope to get some pictures while we are out.

2010

Well this year was off to a slow start due to a broken hand. I crashed at Bryan Park CX race last Oct. Did not know it was broke. I started a 7 day hike from Front Royal to Waynesboro. That was when we got blown off the trail due to the nor' easter, mad rain and cold temps was not fun. So in the day before Thanksgiving I had surgery(3pins put in my left hand). So it was not a productive winter on the bike.

The first two Snowball Crits went OK. I tested my legs and lungs and had no success with it. The second crit I attacked and could not get back on. Went to Greenville,NC for a crit and was destroyed again. Smithfield Hammer Fest was the same way but I was gaped and could not close the gap with 3 bike lengths. After the previous crits I was like wow is this how my season is going to go. Had a pretty good Langley Crit. We did not win but the team rode really aggressive and strong, just not strong enough.

So I figured that I really need to improve my threshold. So for the past 7 weeks that is what I have been doing. Hopefully it will kick start the engine and keep me going for the rest of the season.

I did have my personal best at the Conquer Canal TT earlier this month. My time was 29:47 was was a min faster then last year. I had pretty good numbers my average power was 276. Not bad since I am only weighing in at 157lbs. I just need to work on my aero position and hopefully move up in the results.

Mount Washington NH

Last week James Goyet, Mike Tamayo went up to New Hampshire to climb Mount Washington. Probley on of the most difficult climbs due to the weather changes that can occur. After flying into Manchester, NH with no problems. We got our rental car and drove up to North Conway. Pretty killer town with 3 ski resorts almost on top of each other. We must have spent 3 hours in Eastern Mountain Sports just checking everything out. Well with an early rise on Wed we got in the car and dove about 25 mins to the mountain. On the way there it was pretty nice outside with temps in the low 30s and little wind. We got all dressed and signed in and hit the trail up to the summit. The snow was pretty packed down for the most part on the first trail. With in about 15 mins we had to stop and start shedding layers. I was down to a dry fit tee shirt and opened the zippers on the legs of my pants to let some cool air in so I would not overheat. We made it up to Lions Head trail head in about 45 mins. Pretty good time. That is when we put our crampons on and long sleeves back on since we were not going to be moving as fast up Lions Head trail. It was my first time using crampons so it took a little getting use to them. Some parts of the trail were almost vertical. It was crazy to use the ice ax's and crampons to climb up the trail. Now were are getting above the tree line. The winds started picking up and gusting pretty good. We trekked up to this big rock pile and used it for a wind block. Ate a little and readjusted our boots and crampons. At this time we could see a front coming in but we could still see the summit. So we started up to the summit. While trekking up the side of the mountain we were almost being blown over with 70mph+ gust winds and temps down -10. The winds were steady about 60+. So the summit we were. Not bad we made it up in 3 hours. 4miles with 4000 feet elevation change. Then it was gore tex pants and jackets put on. James showed us how to glaciade (slide down on your butt) down the mountain. So we started sliding down. Parts of the mountain that took us like 25 mins to climb only took like 20 seconds to slide down. So we did that when we could. It got pretty crazy when we were doing that in the tree areas. I got a little nervous then. A awesome trip if you like hiking this is a mountain to climb.

Williamsburg Ride

Sunday 3 of us from our team and James friend Drag went out to ride the old Williamsburg Road Race course. We parked at Wallers Mill Park and went on our journey. I have rode most of the roads with XXX Todd back a few years ago but could not rember all the turns. Luckly we had maps and people that could read them. It was nice to get out and ride some different roads. We ended up with 57 miles. We hit a few small climbs nothing really big. The car wash climb was the worse but still not to bad we all powered up it with no problem. We slowed down once we reached William and Mary's campus. We were flat free all day til about 1mile from Wallers Mill Park. James picked up some glass from a broken 40 oz bottle that was on the road. Over all a great day for riding in Williamsburg. Great temps as well.

Thanks for the picture Josh.

Fuji SL-1

Well I finally got around to building up my new bike frame that I got from our sponsor All About Bikes. I built it up the other day. The bike is built with Sram Red drive train. This bike is super light and really responsive. This bike is ready to hit the mountains for some good climbing with my new 11-28 cassette. I switched saddles to the Bontrager RL. WOW what a nice saddle. After a decent time in the saddle with my old Specialized saddle my butt would begin to get sore not with this new Bontrager saddle. I wish I would have made the switch a long time ago. If anyone is looking for a '06 Specialized S-Works Tarmac in a 56cm let me know I have one in the garage that will soon be on eBay.