What was I thinking?

Wimping out, I skipped racing Green Mountain this weekend. My reasons were many. Mostly though, I've never managed to maintain good form for the Labor Day weekend stage races, meaning this one and the beast before it in years past, Killington. August is always tough for me. The days get shorter and my training wanes. Road season started early this year, and for me it felt like it came to an abrupt, premature end after Bow. But there are a few races still left. Skipping the GMSR allows me to retain a few extra dollars for entries and travel, so now I need to start making decisions about the whats, wheres, and whens of competing this fall.

I'm heavy on conflict the next month or two. Everyone knows that cyclocross season has been shifting earlier, encroaching on the territory of traditional end of season road races. I want to race some cross this year, but I'm not as devoted as most of you, so there's no problem skipping the piddly early races. But now we have some of the biggest and best New England events (which happen to have fast dry courses which suit me) early up in the first two weeks of October. Pretty hard to be competitive at Gloucester if you don't do a few tuneup races beforehand, meaning we're almost forced into racing Septembercross. That sucksmo.

Then there is unfinished business from last year, when my focus was not on cross, but instead split between doing well at the Pinnacle Challenge double duathlon and hunting for PRs in 5k, 5 mile, and 10k running races. This year I'm inclined to skip the Pinnacle, as last year it became evident that my equipment, eyesight, and lack of MTB practice relegated me to hopeless shit-bum status in the critical mountain bike leg, putting me completely out of contention for the overall. None of that has changed this year. Running, on the other hand, or other foot, was going pretty well last year. After nearly PRing at the Lexington 5k though, I was hobbled by a mysterious foot malady that cut my competitive season short. After a few cortisone injections and a ton of snow-and-ice-aided rest time, things returned to normal, but by then it was bike season and I ran only sporadically this spring, completing just one 5-mile race in June before hanging up the shoes for the summer. A few weeks ago I began my fall running campaign with a twenty minute trot around the 'hood. This fall I'd like to resume running for winter training and I hope to ramp up early in order to be ready for some of the good local races that pack the autumn calendar.

So here we are. Other than GMSR, Labor Day weekend was empty of bike races. The Walpole 10k though, that was on Monday. I'd never made it to this race, despite it being just a few towns away, because if I wasn't racing Green Mountain, I'd inevitably waste my legs doing training rides on Saturday and Sunday. But this year, my work gym training partner T-Vo, who has been training hard for an upcoming marathon, coaxed me into considering it. I've only run seven times, for a total of 3.5 hours so far this season (which began with my first run August 19). Still, there was a 5k option, so on Thursday I told Tom I'd be there "unless I totally trashed my legs riding on Saturday and Sunday."

Friday I was telecommuting and thus got in double rides totaling 2.5 hours. I'd run five miles on Thursday, my longest so far this year, and did not feel too bad. In between all this, I tried to line up some group rides for the weekend. My team mates though, how can I put this diplomatically -- they turned out to be a bunch of FUCKING PUSSIES. No offense to all the women and children in the audience, but when the alleged hardmen of the peloton choose to do their big weekend rides with them instead of me, there is something wrong. This left me with no choice but to look to rival teams for support. Saturday I headed up to Dover and rode with a few guys from the evil empire, CCB. This was fairly relaxed, and we stayed local, but I racked up just over eighty miles and four hours, a nice start to the weekend. For Sunday, I'd hoped to put together some sort of challenging adventure ride of epic proportions. Surely this would put my running race plans for Monday in jeopardy, but I had to try. Zencycle offered a ray of hope, but email negotiations with him eventually broke down. Honestly, I felt like Harold trying to get a straight answer out of Kumar. Must be harvest season or something. However, the confusing one did manage to tip me off about a ride his team had planned out in western MA Sunday. One hundred miles including Mt Greylock, the highest point in the commonwealth. As a lifelong resident who has never been up there, this was a no-brainer. Contacted the leader of the bad boys of New England cycling, and it was game on.

The ride assembled in the teeming metropolis of Becket Center. At least the start time was a civilized 9 am, as the drive out was purported by googlemaps to be 2.5 hours. In reality, not quite, but after leaving the Pike in Westfield, I traced the old Westfield Road Race route up route 20, past the most decrepit state police barracks (or public building for that matter) in existence, and up through a bunch of towns I'd never heard of. Arriving at the Becket town hall almost thirty minutes later, I was greeted by no less than seventeen other riders, and also learned the ride would have a support vehicle with food, water, clothing etc! Score.

Bob and George from Cyclonauts were the ride leaders. They are both a few years older than me, but I'd been warned that George was a bit of a climber. Despite wearing a thick coat of facial hair (this guy is a bike racer? doesn't he know the law?), both of these two had lean and chiseled legs, in stark contrast to the Pillsbury Doughmen on my team. There were a bunch of riders who looked like non-racers, but Public Enemy #1 Mike was there with clipons on his bike, and Dougie M was there too, although back on the bike for just his third time after a six week rehab of a broken hip pointer. I always suspected he was a little nuts...

Bob made some announcements and we rolled out at 9 am sharp. I was a little worried about the size and makeup of the group, as keeping it together was going to be tough. We went fast up Route 8 right out of the blocks though. But then we stopped after just 45 minutes. Uh-oh. It was a lengthy delay too, for unknown reasons. I resigned myself to a long day, but it did not turn out so bad. The route wasn't very imaginative, straight up into Dalton and Pittsfield. I guess with such a big group they wanted to keep on roads with wide shoulders. We crossed over to Route 7 and met eight more riders at the base of the Brodie Mountain Road ascent. On the connecting road there was a pretty big climb, and I moved up to Bob's wheel as he gapped the group. His pace was pretty firm, but I was holding on OK. Then I hear a phone ringing, and he pulls his cell out of his back pocket. But he does not slow down. I'm still on his wheel, just below threshold, we're riding away from the group, and he's riding one-handed holding on a conversation. He's in the 55+ age group too. Clearly this is not a Team BOB ride...

After we picked up the others we continued most of the way around the Jiminy Peak race route before heading straight into Williamstown on Route 43, then along a short stretch of Route 2. From there we turned on Lucie Road and began climbing. We took a few turns, all climbing, and me and George separated from the group, hitting the Mt Greylock access road gate alone. Here the climbing began in earnest. I only had a 34x23 on my bike, and not knowing the climb at all, tried to ride a conservative pace. George dropped me right away. Bob had said something at the bottom about there being 3000 feet of climbing to do. I was skeptical, but I set my (uncalibrated) Polar to altitude and it said 650m. Doing some math in my head, I estimated the thing would would be reading at least 1400, and if Bob was correct, 1600 by the time we reached the top. So at least I had some indicator of progress. There were no mileage signs for distance to the summit, and I'd forgot to ask how long the climb was. You might think I'd have done some research, but all I remembered from Doug's blog was that the average grade was not that steep, something like 5%. Well, turns out it's five miles at 8-10% followed by four miles at 2-3%. After riding alone for half an hour in what Reuter calls "hurty land" I rounded a bend and saw in the distance the monument marking the summit. Between me and there the road traversed a saddle at a gentle grade. I even put it in the big ring, but that did not stop Bob from bridging up to me from behind and riding right through me. Now I had two old guys shaming me.

Nearer the top, on a flatter section I jumped in with a group of passing Harleys to catch a nice draft and make a run at Bob. They weren't too happy about it either, especially when the T-intersection stop sign for the summit road caught me by surprise and I had to lock it up and skid between them. From there to the top it was crazy traffic. There were about fifty parasails and hang gliders flying around, and it was standing room only at the park on top. Luckily our support driver found a parking space and she was making sandwiches, filling bottles, and serving cookies. Sweet. The riders trickled in. Norton was fifth man up, all 225 pounds of him, just two riders behind me. Impressive. I knew the stop up there would be long so I had a bite to eat and found a quiet spot to lie down in the sun for a while.

Sure enough we were up there about 40 minutes. Whatever. Before leaving, Bob said we would descend the south road back to Route 7, then retrace our route back to Becket. Unimaginative, but I was psyched because this meant I could hammer and not worry about losing the group. One of the locals started the descent first and I went with him. On the way up I'd heard him telling a story of a horrific crash a few weeks prior putting some dude in the hospital, and not knowing the road, I was a little concerned. At first we were stuck behind some cars and crotch rockets, so it was fine as they'd light up the tailights before the hairpins. But this guy blew by them all on the inside, leaving me with no choice but to follow suit. Then it was WFO for a few miles. I pissed myself a couple of times but then he got stuck behind a few more cars and I caught back up. The cars got spooked by us tailgating and pulled over, and it was back to white knuckling. I'm not the best descender but I kept him in sight. We hit 50 mph a couple of times. There are some pretty tight turns near the bottom too. This guy was in the group of eight that had started from here so he pulled off into the base parking area and I continued alone. Eventually I U-turned and went back up the Summer Road climb to re-integrate with the group.

We cleared Pittsfield, where I nearly got taken out by two bluehairs at an intersection, and then Dalton, beginning the 40k of rollers up Route 8. Becket, where we were parked, sits on the high ground, so this would be a mostly uphill grind. I wanted to get my money's worth out of this ride, so I sat on the front and turned up the power. The group split but about eight of them stayed with me. I was dying on one long rise, but in that case it's sometimes better to stay on the front and keep them behind you rather than drift back and risk someone else upping the pace and shelling you out. After a town line sprint (we're nearly five hours into this now) some of them sat up but I kept the pressure on and only Mike came with me. With just fifteen miles to go it was two-man TTT time. Amazingly, Mike stayed with me on all the rises. On the many gradual pedal downhills, he took the front on his aerobars and I glided along in his massive wake. With about five miles to go I was bonking/cracking and even having trouble staying on Mike's wheel uphill. If it were anyone else I'd have let him go but I'd never live down getting dropped on a climb by a 100 kg sprinter, so I hung on for dear life. We finished exactly 100 miles in 5:30 ride time, 6:30 total time. Not bad considering the terrain.

Remember 5000 words ago when I told T-Vo I'd be at the running race so long as my legs weren't trashed from riding? Well, my legs were T-R-A-S-H-E-D. 180 miles and 7500 feet of climbing in two days will do that. But I'm committed to doing better in the running races this year, right? And I haven't run since Thursday. Need to keep it up. Running on my own at home Monday, not going to happen. I got up early, rolled around on the foam roll, massaged with the stick, felt like death warmed over, but grabbed my running stuff and headed to Walpole High. The 5k option sounded awfully tempting, but I wasn't going to pay $22 just to run three miles. Beyond that, my training plan calls for three runs a week, with a goal of twenty miles/week by the end of September (4 + 6 + 10). That means adding one mile per week to my "long" run, so with five last week, doing a 10k this week was perfect. I even warmed up and cooled down for five minutes each, so now I'm a week ahead with seven miles in. But back to the race.

This event was bigger than I expected. There were hundreds of people there, and a mini-festival going on. The weather was perfect. Almost 400 runners went off on the 5k, then we lined up with around 250 for the 10k. I found Tom at the start. This was going to be strictly a training run for me, as during warmup I could barely move my legs and merely finishing would be a challenge. I lined up way back in order to save me from myself and not go out too fast. Off we went. I did not feel as bad as I did during warmup. There were shitloads of people ahead of me, some way ahead of me. Cool. I know the area but did not know the course. I ride here all the time and it seems flat. You don't notice short hills on the bike. You feel them running though. The first mile was slightly uphill. It was marked, and I crossed in 7:19. This is faster than I've been running in training, but a full 90 seconds slower than I usually run the first mile of a race in. My HR was only 129. Probably depressed from all the riding yesterday, but still good. Maybe I can not fall apart and actually negative split this thing. But I'm doubtful. My only real goal was to not have this be my slowest 10k ever. That would be 48 something.

The second mile was downhill. I was actually passing people. Then the course went up some more. There was a "2" painted on the road but I think this was from a prior version of the course so I discounted this one. The third mile was downhill again, and I passed more people. Downhills used to be my weakness but last year I learned the proper technique. It probably contributed to my foot injury, but it's a hell of a lot easier than going anaerobic trying to make time on the uphills. Mile 3 had an official marker and the spotter called out 20:59 as I passed. Could I hang on? Mile 4 was convoluted with some ups and downs and a tight loop around a residential side street. My split was 7:02 but I'll blame that on the terrain. By now my HR was around 150, so still some breathing room. My legs were OK. The course ran passed the start/finish before turning right and down another hill. With less than two miles to go this meant we'd have some climbing before the end. Mile 5 was marked and I had a 6:41 split. But that was downhill. I could not place where the elevation would be gained back. Running through Walpole center was gradual uphill and I started to empty the tank. Turning back onto the finish road, I could see some cops and spectators up ahead. Is that the school? I buried myself. Oh no. There is one of those short, but nasty hills that you don't notice on the bike between me and the finish. I'm anaerobic now, so this is going to hurt. They even have a mile 6 marker, and my split is 6:43. Nice. Over the crest and into the chute and I actually get in under 43, with an official time of 42:50. My slowest 10k in the past four years, but definitely my best training run so far this year. In the chute the woman ahead of me is greeted by Mary the Ironmatron who had just run the 5k with her eight year old daughter Jordan, who finished well ahead of a lot of much older kids. I said hello. She (Mary) really is tiny in real life. T-Vo was already there, having run sub-forty despite banging out 35 training miles (the running kind) in the past two days. We headed out and did a little cool down and then with the crowds I never did find Mary again. Read her last post before the Walpole one. Sounds like a prime candidate for a Nega-Coach Scholarship.

So what was I thinking? Actually it wasn't so bad. My calves are sore, but I can walk today. Now lots of decisions to be made. Registration for Gloucester and Providence CX opens today, and it may be necessary to sign up now to ensure a spot in either. Next week there are more choices, as well as the weeks after that. There are epic rides planned by some of my associates (but not my team mates...). I'd like to do those. I have to do some more running though. And cyclocross. But there are also a last few more criteriums I'd like to support. Nice problem to have, I guess. More thinking. Thanks for reading.