In the last installment, I had just passed the two riders
I had been riding with on the KOM climb. You can see them at the
following links: http://www.lucidimagesutshop.com/2014-Races/LOTOJA-Classic/Salt-River-Pass-12001230pm/i-QkMZHtr
I was just starting down the descent to chase down a
rider in a red jersey who can be seen at the following link: http://www.lucidimagesutshop.com/2014-Races/LOTOJA-Classic/Salt-River-Pass-12001230pm/i-pNZ4cTw
The 50 mile segment from the top of Salt River Pass to
Alpine is mostly downhill. After the
initial descent from Salt River Pass, which is steep and fast, the grade levels
out to a 1 to 2% downhill grade. It feels similar to riding from South Prairie
to Orting on the Orting Trail.
Because of my hesitation at the top of Salt River Pass and
my initial decision to coast, I didn’t maximize my speed on this downhill. Last year I reach over 51 MPH. This year my top speed was only 48 MPH. I easily caught the rider in the red jersey
(he was coasting). I waited until the
main part of the downhill leveled out and then I sat up and drank some of my water
and ate some food.
LOTOJA has an early registration on the Thursday before
LOTOJA at a bike store in Kaysville, Utah.
You can also register on Friday in Logan, Utah. Rex and I like to pick our packets up on
Thursday at the bike store. This gives
us plenty of time on Friday to put our race number on our bikes and
jersey. We also like looking at the bike
store. The bike store always has deals
and specials going on. Undoubtedly, the
day of LOTOJA packet pickup has to be one of their better sales day of the year.
While in the store, a vender introduced me to a relatively
new product by GU. It is an electrolyte
capsule called Roctane. What caught my
attention is that the capsule contains some ginger. I was just reading a few days before I was at
the bike store that ginger can help settle an upset stomach. I was intrigued because I did get an upset
stomach the first year I road LOTOJA. It
was no fun so I thought having some ginger was a good idea.
I purchased a few of these capsules. I usually get my electrolytes from my scratch
drink mix. However, I knew that I was
going to take some water hand ups, which would not have any electrolytes. As a result, I thought that having some
capsule electrolytes were a good thing so that I could take them with my water
and hopefully stave off going negative in that department. I knew this was a risk. One of the number one rules for endurance
riding is not to eat or drink anything you have not practiced eating and
drinking before race day. I thought that
this was basically a salt tablet with a few other ingredients. So, I didn’t think it could hurt me very much.
I have found that it is easier for me to take capsules on
the bike if I use a pill bottle. I
create my own pill bottle by using a plastic tube that comes with gum or candy,
like m&ms. I was carrying two
plastic tubes, one for the electrolytes and one for ibuprofen.
As I sat up to eat and drink, I took a couple of the Roctane
electrolyte capsules. As I did so, I
glanced back behind me to see the rider in red working hard to catch me. I sat up and waited for him. We exchange brief pleasantries then got down
to business.
The red jersey rider was from the Masters 45+ group. He had lost contact with the leaders of his
group before the king of the mountain climb.
He was a nice guy, and we started working well together. We would trade pulls, and I felt myself
getting stronger with each pull. I was
able to maintain 30 MPH through this section with the help of a slight downhill. I was feeling really good. I was working hard, but not too hard. It was a comfortable hard pace.
The two of us worked well together and were able to maintain
our pace. I noticed the rider in the red
jersey was riding in his large chain ring and had his chain on the smallest cog
in the back. He was using a low cadence
to keep the pace. I on the other hand
was spinning a higher cadence. I think
the rider in the red jersey was happy to draft behind me. Most people enjoy it because I create a large
draft.
I am not sure what it was, but my legs were feeling really
good. It might have been that I was
under fueled and fueling up right before the climb was kicking in. Perhaps it was the Roctane caplets. Or maybe, my body was just happy to not be
peddling uphill anymore. I kept feeling
stronger and stronger.
It is 17 miles from the top of Salt River Pass to the next
feed zone, which is Afton, Wyoming. My
brother lives in Afton and it was his family that was supporting Rex and
I. In addition, my mother and sister
happened to be visiting my brother so they also agreed to help us. They all took their Saturday to support Rex
and I. I was excited to get to Afton to have a mini
family reunion (well a 30 second one anyway).
I also was excited to get a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich. Last year, my sister-in-law
had these great peanut butter and jelly sandwiches waiting for Rex and I at the
Afton stop. In my food instructions
taped to the top of our food container that my nephews picked up in Montpelier
were instructions to have another peanut butter and jelly sandwich ready. It tasted so good last year after 120
miles. I was anxiously looking forward
to that sandwich.
I kept expecting our pace to slow down a bit, but it
didn’t. We were flying and it was a lot
of fun. The miles just were melting by
us as we rode along. I am not very smart
at times, so it took me a little while to figure what was happening. I kept thinking that it was too easy. Star Valley is known for usually having a
cross wind or a head wind. The success
to riding in Star Valley is finding a group that will keep a strong pace. It is usually too taxing to ride it on your
own because of the wind. As I thought
about this, it finally dawned on me. We
had a tailwind! I don’t think it was a
huge tailwind, but any tailwind is better than a headwind in Star Valley. Having a tailwind through Star Valley is a
rare occurrence.
At that moment, I had a clarity about LOTOJA that I had
never thought about before. It is not
about whether you are going to have a headwind or a tailwind. It is about where is the headwind going to be
and where is the tailwind going to be. The
course is so long that there are headwinds and tailwinds all over depending
upon where you are and what time of day you are riding. The slow Preston ride made more sense to me
at that moment because we surely had a headwind. Later that night my brother-in-law who also
lives in the area confirmed that the wind was blowing from a direction it does
not normally blow.
The knowledge of a tailwind may a huge difference to
me. As I mentioned in the last post, you
have to average about 25 miles per hour through the valley to have a decent
time. I knew with a tailwind, I could
likely maintain 25 miles per hour on my own.
I did not have to depend on anyone else.
This meant I could ride my race and not worry about getting caught alone
without a group.
As the red jersey rider and I continued to motor along, I
kept getting more and more excited about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich
that was getting closer with each passing mile.
This is a good time to talk about nutrition and LOTOJA.
I have mentioned before how important nutrition is. If you don’t keep your body fueled property,
you will likely run out of gas later in the race. As you know, your body can only absorb so
many calories and carbohydrates in an hour.
The harder you work the less absorbs ion your body can handle.
I try and calculate about how many calories my body can
handle in an hour. Because I lose my mind
and am not very good at tracking this on the bike, I try to take the work out
of it. I calculate how many bottles of
drink mix I will drink an hour. Because
of the mild temperatures, I calculated I would need about a bottle and a half
an hour. I then figure out how many
calories that will be. I then calculate
how much of the remaining calories I need to eat in food. I put food with those calories in a little
sandwich bag. This way all I have to
remember is to drink a bottle and a half and eat the contents of the sandwich
bag each hour.
I had calculated about the time I thought it would take me
to reach Afton, and had 5 sandwich bags of food, one for each hour. I also added two more bags. One was just an extra in case I dropped a
bag, and the other was a second back-up in case I had miscalculated and my body
was telling me I needed more food.
As you reach Afton, the road gets really fast. The past year or so they have been repaving
the road. The asphalt becomes
smooth. It is always a fun 10 mile
section or so riding on this new pavement.
We came into to Afton still keeping a blazing pace. When we hit the newly paved asphalt, my
expectations were not disappointed. It
was really fast. I also was excited
because I knew the feed zone was just up a head and so was my peanut butter and
jelly sandwich.
As I explained before, when you pull into the feed zone,
there are numbered sections on the side of the road just like pit stops. Each rider tells his or her support team what
number to wait at for him or her. This
helps them find each other easier. Afton
is the first time when the racers and cyclosportive groups share a feed
zone. Most riders have a few family
members helping them, so there are a lot of people at these feed zones. It is often difficult to find your support.
In riding LOTOJA fast, your support team is very
important. They need to be ready to give
you your liquids and food so you can be on your way. As I explained before, many of the racers
don’t even stop. They grab musette bags and
keep riding. If your support does not go
well, it could ruin your whole day.
Just think for a minute.
Most people have family members who have committed to help them. They give up the whole Saturday for
this. They sit around at the feed station
waiting for their rider to come. They
don’t know exactly when he or she will get there. Finally they arrive and are there for less
than 30 seconds and then are gone.
My brother was laughing about an experience that was really
funny. There was a lady waiting at the
feed station. As she waited, she was
talking on her cell phone rather loudly.
He said a rider pulled up and was riding up and down the row yelling
Alice, Alice, Alice. The lady on the
phone finally realized it was her rider.
And this is what is great about LOTOJA.
It was funny to my brother but that delay could have cost the rider
several places or the race. Just think
about that for a second. The rider
trained so hard and a mistake by his support crew could have been very
costly. It is really not the support
crew’s fault. Many of them are just
trying to help and really don’t understand the importance of all of this to the
rider.
I pulled ahead of the rider in the red jersey as we hit
Afton. My support crew was waiting in
number 9, which was the last numbered stop.
When I pulled up, I couldn’t see my crew at first. Then I saw my sister, sister-in-law, mother,
and nieces all ready to help. My nieces
gave me the scratch mix water bottles that I had given my brother a week
before. They gave me three of them, and
they were cold. I was looking at the
others and looking for my peanut butter and Jelly sandwich. They were talking to me but I really wasn’t
listening to what they were telling me.
Instead of a sandwich my sister gave me a number of energy bars. I still didn’t comprehend what my family was
telling me because I was so focused on finding the sandwich. It is funny how your mind works in athletic
events sometimes.
Finally, I started to really listen to what they were telling
me. Because Rex and I got separated, I
got a head start on my nephews who were our support in Montpelier. You may remember that Rex and I had all of
our food in a cooler in their vehicle with the instructions taped to the top of
the cooler. Because of my head start and
traffic, my nephews did not make it to Afton before I did. Accordingly, my support team had none of my
prepared food to give me. After the
realization of this hit me, there was nothing I could do but to ride on. I knew Alpine was only about 25 miles away,
which was the next feed zone. I was
hoping my food would catch up to me there.
As I mentioned earlier, I had packed a few extra packets of
food just in case. I also hadn’t eaten
all that I had taken with me. I was
grateful that I was smart enough to have given the drink mix to my brother
ahead of time. My drink mix was by far
the most important.
What could have been a disaster for me, actually turned out
fine. The biggest disadvantage is that I
get a little tired of eating my cinnamon rolls after 100 miles. I had a few Panini sandwiches and some boiled
potatoes that I was looking forward to eating for a change, but I was fairly
confident I had enough of my food left to get me to Alpine.
To see what the ride from the Afton feed zone to Alpine
looks like watch the following video from 6:01 to 8:19 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQW5GyJwxT4
Sometimes when things go wrong you learn new things. My buddy Chris Allen that many of you know,
introduced me to some type of shot blocks.
I had placed some of these in with my cinnamon rolls. As I would eat the
cinnamon rolls I would also eat them with a block or two. The blocks provided a different flavor so I
did not tire of eating the cinnamon rolls.
This discovery will help me on future rides.
The confusion with my food caused me to stop a little longer
than I had intended. The rider with the
red jersey had left before me. I left at
the same time as the leaders of the next race group, the Masters 35+ groups was
leaving. The lead group had about seven
riders in it. I started riding off the
back of this group. There were a number
of riders who belonged to the Red Burrow Racing club out of Las Vegas. From past experience, I know all of the guys
from that club seem to be really strong riders.
I rode on the back of this group for a mile or so as we went
through Afton. Because it was the lead
group of the race, there is a race Marshall who rides along with the lead
group. The race Marshall rides on a
motorcycle. The race Marshall pulled up
to me and kicked me off the back of the group.
He told me I couldn’t ride with them.
I had the let the group go.
I kept pace with them for a while but with them working together they
slowly pulled away from me. For the next
five or six miles I could still see them up the road from me.
I wasn’t happy about not being able to ride with the
group. However, I understand the
rules. They are racing it and because I
am not part of their race, it is not fair for me to interfere with it.
I road by myself for a a bit when I came across the rider in the red
jersey. He had hooked up with another
rider from his race group and they were working together. They did not want me to ride with them because
they were still trying to race it. All
of this means, coming out of Afton I had no one to work with and I had to ride
alone.
Somewhat surprising to me, I kept a solid pace by
myself. I was able to maintain 25 MPH or
so. Both of the previous groups were
able to go a little faster, but I was still surprised they didn’t outdistance
me by much. I likely could have kept
their pace, but I was fearful of blowing up, so I just road a solid pace even
though it was not as fast as the groups.
After several miles, both groups had put enough distance on me that they
were just out of view. My guess is that
they were less than a mile ahead of me, but with the turns in the road, I could
not always see them.
I rode by myself for about 7 to 10 miles. Although I was not riding as fast as I could
have if I was with a group, I was still keeping a strong pace. I happened to glance back and saw a loan
rider in the distance trying to catch me.
I thought it would be better for both of us if I let him catch me and we
would work together. I sat up and waited
for him. His name was Curtis. He is a 55 year old that was riding in the
Masters 35+ group, the group that I got kicked off of. On the Salt River Pass, he was the third one
up the climb but his legs started cramping and so he got dropped. He had been trying to catch the group ever
since.
I sat up and let him catch me, and we started working
together. I could tell he was suffering
a bit because he was working by himself to catch his group. I suppose it is the rebel in me. Although I understand it, I was still a
little miffed I got kicked off the back of the group. So, I set a little goal. I really wanted to help Curtis catch back up
to his group.
Having a person to trade off pulls really helps me. I was able to pick my pace up and the little
breathers drafting for a minute behind Curtis was all that I needed to maintain
a higher speed. We kept this up for
several miles and we passed the guy in the red Jersey and his buddy. I then knew that Curtis’ group wasn’t too far
ahead. I started taking longer pulls on
the front, which kept our pace faster and gave Curtis more of a break. I had the feeling we were gaining on the race
group.
As we passed through another small town before Alpine,
Curtis caught a huge break. We passed
several riders from his group changing a flat on the side of the road. I instantly told Curtis that he was going to
catch his group. He said what do you
mean. I said when those guys finish
fixing the flat, you can latch on to them as they come by and you will catch
back on to the group. He recognized I
was right and got really happy.
I got on the front and really started working hard. I was taking really long pulls. In reality, the situation was even better for
Curtis than we had thought. The rest of
the group had sat up and were soft peddling waiting for the guys to fix the flat
out of racing courtsey. As we approached
the group, I let Curtis take the lead and I acted like he was passing me so
that he didn’t get in trouble with the race Marshall. Curtis caught up with the group. I passed the group and went on by.
It wasn’t long when the group had reformed and in earnest
went by me. Again, I kept a good pace
but could not match their pace without blowing up. For a second time, I had to watch this group
slowly pull away from me. Once again, I
was riding alone.
After several miles of riding by myself, I came up to a
member of the group that had just pulled away from me. The group had picked up their pace due to the
flat tire. This rider just couldn’t keep
the pace. His name was Jonathan and he
was a member of the Red Burrow racing team.
The Red Burrow racing team is out
of Las Vegas. It has been my experience
that all of the guys from that team are fast.
There were several members in the group that had pulled away from me.
He told me it was just not his day and he was struggling to
keep their pace. We started taking 40
second pulls and working together. He
taught me to wiggle my left elbow when I was on the front to signal I was
allowing him to ride on the front. We
worked together for several miles as we came into Alpine.
Again, we were able to keep a strong pace even though it was
just the two of us. I started taking
some longer pulls on the front because I was a little stronger at that point in
the ride. I need to make a little disclaimer
at this point. I was riding very strong
through the valley. I was stronger at
this point in the race than many of these riders I was riding with. However, I should remind everyone that these
guys had ridden to this point in the race a lot faster than I had. They had worked harder in the first part of
the race.
Jonathan is an incredibly fast rider. And, it really wasn’t his day. Last year in LOTOJA he was on the podium for
his group and it looks like he had the fifth fastest time in all of
LOTOJA. I don’t want anyone to think
that I think I am in the same class as these guys I was riding with. I undoubtedly had fresher legs because I
hadn’t worked as hard in the first half of the ride.
As we approached Alpine, Jonathan told me I was much
stronger than him, and that I should go on ahead. I told him I enjoyed riding with him and I
was alright staying with him. Frankly, I
was tired of riding alone. We both
talked about getting together after the Alpine feed zone. The following link is a picture of Jonathon and me coming into Alpine http://www.lucidimagesutshop.com/2014-Races/LOTOJA-Classic/Alpine-Area-131200pm/i-3ZxhcmD
You ride all the way through Alpine, which is not a big
town. You cross a bridge that goes over
the Snake River and then make a right hand turn at the only stop light in
town. LOTOJA had the right lane blocked
out for the riders so we didn’t have to wait at the light. As soon as you make the right hand turn, the
feed zone is along the road that takes us through the canyon to Jackson. As I made the turn, I felt we would have a
head wind in the canyon.
As it turns out, I had the fastest time of the cyclosportive
group through Star Valley at just under 1 hour and 56 minutes. As a comparison, the fastest racers finished
this segment in 1 hour and 41 minutes.
The 35+ Masters group I chased most of the way through Star Valley did
it in 1 hour and 50 minutes. I felt good
about my time given that I didn’t have a group to ride with and rode many miles
of this on my own or with just one other rider.
If you compare my time with all of those who raced it, I would have been
168th out of 779.
My strong ride through Star Valley had put me back on track to meet my goal of finishing in under 10 hours. With 46 miles or so to go to the finish, I had given myself a chance at meeting my goal--to be continued.
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