Strava: http://www.strava.com/activities/107362879
I think it was around October when we started talking about wanting to do the Stagecoach Team Time Trial again. While last year's event isn't exactly something we reflect upon fondly, it was the idea that we could do so much better that got us wanting to give it another shot. Doing the race no longer became a matter of winning or losing anymore because there are just too many things that can happen outside of our control. However, what IS within our control is to do what we all knew we could do and that was beat our best time. I knew we were faster this year, especially on the TT bikes, so it was time to prove it. Galen even stepped up and picked up a Cervelo TT bike just so he can contribute more, so with all of us on TT bikes, we were definitely going to go out there and give it our best shot.
Now as early as we decided to do the race again, you'd think we'd have had plenty of time to get a lot of team training in. Unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way. This isn't an excuse of any sorts but more of the reality in the lives of recreational racers. We all did what we could to prepare ourselves for the race, and although there was a lapse of almost a month of being able to train together, the training ride we had the week before the race seemed like we've been riding all along.
For this event, Shannon set up a cabin for us to rent in Pine Valley that ended up being ideal in so many ways. It was closer to the race, we all got to hang out under one roof, we stayed the whole weekend costing less than what we would have paid at a hotel, and it was a really nice place. Galen, Todd, Shannon, Adrian, Mitchell, Vin and me stayed comfortably where we all had our own beds, and we had the use of two bathrooms, a full kitchen where Shannon was able to use his culinary skills the night after the race, and where there was just plenty of space to move around. It was perfect. Good job, Shannon.
I drove down Friday afternoon with Todd, Galen and Adrian after having lunch near my house, and we expected to be at the cabin early enough to settle in, relax, and go to dinner together. However, none of us ever bothered to look at the final rider instructions, which to this day I still couldn't find in my e-mail inbox. After driving all the way down to Mission Valley to the Double Tree hotel, which at least we got the hotel name right, we realized that the host hotel was actually a Double Tree in Del Mar/Carmel Valley! So much for tradition and believing that a host hotel was going to be somewhat close to the event. After all was said and done, we spent almost 3 hours on the road where all we could do was go straight to dinner in Alpine after we picked up the packets. Even that came with a little confusion. We were suppose to meet Shannon at the same restaurant we've been to for the last 2 years, but my navigators ended up giving him the wrong restaurant name. Oh boy. It's a wonder we even found the cabin.
Okay, so enough of the prelims, let's talk about the race....
First of all, I don't think we could have asked for more ideal conditions than what we had. The temperatures were in the low 50s at the start, and it never really got too warm for us despite the threat of it reaching the 80s according to the forecast. Sure there was some headwind here and there, but it wasn't anything too crazy. We all rode free of a base layer, arm warmers or leg warmers, so the black BRCM kit was all we wore. I brought a trainer believing I had to warm up before the race anticipating cold weather, but just 5 minutes on it to get my HR up was all I needed. I probably could have skipped it, but hey, I didn't want to think I brought it for nothing. HA
After a few pre-ride picture taking, some last minute BIO breaks, the team was lined up behind the timing mat ready to go. I saw only one team start off before us (the Descenders B team according to the announcement), so we were anxious to go knowing that there wouldn't be too many cyclists on the road to work around. Once we were given the signal to go, we got in our line in the following order: me, Todd, Shannon and Galen. This would be the order that we would use for most of the ride, but there was a slight change some time on the way back where Galen and Shannon exchanged places. I'm not really sure why, but it was equally effective.
Our plan was to rotate every 90 seconds as best as we could and manage our pace according to our power output rather than speed. This proved to be very effective on our training rides, so we decided to stick to this plan. We started off putting down a little more power than I expected, but I figured since it was a race, I would just go with it. I just hoped it wouldn't be something any of us would pay for later on. There were also some surges of speed on occasion due to the excitement of racing, but the necessary corrections were eventually made and it ended up being pretty smooth after. All of us had corrections to be made, so you know you have a good team when everyone would be receptive to doing what it takes to get it done right.
Everything was going good on the way out where we stayed pretty tight and everyone was pulling strong. After we got to the 78 and onto San Felipe Road headed toward the turnaround point, Galen had been rubbing his left leg some and Shannon mentioned how he thought his legs were starting to tighten up. I ended up pushing to the front to relieve Todd and give them both an extra bit of rest thinking that maybe Todd and I could rotate a little to give them some reprieve until they can recover enough to continue at pace. When I was prepared to rotate back in after rolling out, I received confirmation from both Shannon and Galen that they were okay and reluctantly rolled all the way to the back again allowing them back in the rotation. Without even skipping a beat, they jumped back into the rotation as though nothing was ever bothering them. What's more amazing was that they continued to do so even all the way back without ever bringing up any problems again. That's not to say they weren't feeling anything, but the epitome of BAM is rule #5 and they definitely did that. Shannon was even thinking of getting some water at the turnaround point, but because their set up wasn't where it was feasible to do so quickly, he just turned around with us and we were off for the last 50.
Wanna hear more about BAM? How about if I tell you how despite the pain these guys were feeling heading toward the 50 mile mark, we broke all sorts of personal records heading back. After talking about the race after, there wasn't one of us who didn't doubt ourselves as to whether we could keep up with the others. You wouldn't think it though by looking at any one of us since everyone had their game face on. Shannon had even asked me at one point during the ride how I felt, and I told him I felt good. However, had he asked me if I thought I was going to be able to keep up the whole time, I'm not sure how I would have answered that question. All I knew was I was going to deal with it one pull at a time, one mile at a time, and one minute at a time. I did zone out at several points though and think to myself how amazing these guys were and that I would do everything within my power to not let them down all the way to the end of the race.
25 miles out, Shannon called out to change the rotation times to 60 seconds and I knew then that that would be the game changer where power management wasn't as important as heart management. And when I say heart management, I'm not talking heart rate either. I'm talking about how much heart do we have to go on beyond our means. The shorter rotation times meant pushing harder for shorter pulls and ultimately shorter rest times. It was ON! While this was never discussed as being a part of our plan, everyone conformed immediately and we picked it up more.
When we got to the Sweeney Pass climb, I think we all wondered whether we would be able to keep up with one another. Shannon got his usual jump on this climb while Galen, Todd and I just stuck with one another pretty much riding side by side for a good portion of the climb. We were able to get up to Shannon close to the top and crested perfectly with all of us lined up together ready to blow it out for the rest of the way back.
We definitely picked it up knowing that the rest of the way back was mostly downhill, but it wasn't until we saw this familiar tall figure on the side of the road taking pictures of us and cheering us on. It was S-Gary!!! Once we realized who he was, you would have thought that everyone was injected with pure adrenalin as it got absolutely ridiculous after that. After passing Gary, he would get back in his car, go past us, and get setup and take more pictures down the road. It was such a big boost every time we'd see him (probably a total of 4x or so) that we kept going faster and faster. After all was said and done, we KOM'd the last ~9 miles averaging 29 mph! Thanks, Gary! Driving out to do what he did was BAM through and through, and if you need proof he has a sense of humor, here you go:
Now arriving at the finish, we couldn't wait to hear what our official time was but we knew based on our Garmin data that we definitely crushed our old time. We just wanted to know what our official time was based on the time chip. At first, we were told our time was 4:37 where we definitely beat last year's best time easily. This was a little surprising to us given that we were showing 22 mph averages on our Garmin with an elapsed time of 4:31. Ultimately, our official time was adjusted to 4:33, which again still befuddles us given all of our Garmins were way under this. Despite this, we were all very happy with our results and know that Strava tells no lies where 4:31 is truly what we did. This beat our best record by over 8 minutes! We also took down last year's team record by a good 7 minutes as well, so we couldn't ask for more.
While it would have been icing on the cake to have taken it all for the day, the best team time put in was by a new team from San Diego who did it in 4:19. The team was definitely legit and consisted of members who have resumes consisting of winning Breathless Agony (twice), having Strava KOMs in endless number of pages, and ride 200-300 miles a week average for starters. Hell, even the wife of one of the racers puts in more miles per week than me, so talk about legit. Kudos to them for sure for showing us what racers of their caliber can do. We shared a beer with them to congratulate them for their outstanding effort. Skinny G, what he goes by on Strava, was under 21 though, so he rightfully declined.
The after party continued from the parking lot back to the cabin, and truly this is what we all look forward to in these events. It was truly an epic beerfest and one that had me tapping out early. I'm pretty sure some pictures may surface involving fruit while I was passed out on a chair, but we'll just have to let them speak for themselves when they do.
Thanks to Vin, Mitchell and Adrian for coming out and joining us as their support was equally appreciated. They had a good ride also and came in not too long after we did working together as a team. Adrian's comment for the weekend was wondering whether Obamacare paid for taint reconstruction, which Todd requested make it on the blog, so there you go....
Shannon, Todd, Galen - I can't thank you guys enough for the race. I know I can be a pain in the ass with some things, so your tolerance of me is as equally appreciated as your amazing efforts during the race. I never doubted for a moment that you wouldn't reveal the BAM in you, and I just hope I was able to enough to help in the race as well. If you guys ever want to do this again, all I can say is...find someone else! HA HA. Love you guys!
Editorial note: Looks like the official times were corrected and reflect what our Garmins told us all along. Thanks, Jim!
Pictures courtesy of S-Gary: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35824599@N05/sets/72157640167275704/
I think it was around October when we started talking about wanting to do the Stagecoach Team Time Trial again. While last year's event isn't exactly something we reflect upon fondly, it was the idea that we could do so much better that got us wanting to give it another shot. Doing the race no longer became a matter of winning or losing anymore because there are just too many things that can happen outside of our control. However, what IS within our control is to do what we all knew we could do and that was beat our best time. I knew we were faster this year, especially on the TT bikes, so it was time to prove it. Galen even stepped up and picked up a Cervelo TT bike just so he can contribute more, so with all of us on TT bikes, we were definitely going to go out there and give it our best shot.
Now as early as we decided to do the race again, you'd think we'd have had plenty of time to get a lot of team training in. Unfortunately, life sometimes gets in the way. This isn't an excuse of any sorts but more of the reality in the lives of recreational racers. We all did what we could to prepare ourselves for the race, and although there was a lapse of almost a month of being able to train together, the training ride we had the week before the race seemed like we've been riding all along.
For this event, Shannon set up a cabin for us to rent in Pine Valley that ended up being ideal in so many ways. It was closer to the race, we all got to hang out under one roof, we stayed the whole weekend costing less than what we would have paid at a hotel, and it was a really nice place. Galen, Todd, Shannon, Adrian, Mitchell, Vin and me stayed comfortably where we all had our own beds, and we had the use of two bathrooms, a full kitchen where Shannon was able to use his culinary skills the night after the race, and where there was just plenty of space to move around. It was perfect. Good job, Shannon.
I drove down Friday afternoon with Todd, Galen and Adrian after having lunch near my house, and we expected to be at the cabin early enough to settle in, relax, and go to dinner together. However, none of us ever bothered to look at the final rider instructions, which to this day I still couldn't find in my e-mail inbox. After driving all the way down to Mission Valley to the Double Tree hotel, which at least we got the hotel name right, we realized that the host hotel was actually a Double Tree in Del Mar/Carmel Valley! So much for tradition and believing that a host hotel was going to be somewhat close to the event. After all was said and done, we spent almost 3 hours on the road where all we could do was go straight to dinner in Alpine after we picked up the packets. Even that came with a little confusion. We were suppose to meet Shannon at the same restaurant we've been to for the last 2 years, but my navigators ended up giving him the wrong restaurant name. Oh boy. It's a wonder we even found the cabin.
Okay, so enough of the prelims, let's talk about the race....
First of all, I don't think we could have asked for more ideal conditions than what we had. The temperatures were in the low 50s at the start, and it never really got too warm for us despite the threat of it reaching the 80s according to the forecast. Sure there was some headwind here and there, but it wasn't anything too crazy. We all rode free of a base layer, arm warmers or leg warmers, so the black BRCM kit was all we wore. I brought a trainer believing I had to warm up before the race anticipating cold weather, but just 5 minutes on it to get my HR up was all I needed. I probably could have skipped it, but hey, I didn't want to think I brought it for nothing. HA
After a few pre-ride picture taking, some last minute BIO breaks, the team was lined up behind the timing mat ready to go. I saw only one team start off before us (the Descenders B team according to the announcement), so we were anxious to go knowing that there wouldn't be too many cyclists on the road to work around. Once we were given the signal to go, we got in our line in the following order: me, Todd, Shannon and Galen. This would be the order that we would use for most of the ride, but there was a slight change some time on the way back where Galen and Shannon exchanged places. I'm not really sure why, but it was equally effective.
Our plan was to rotate every 90 seconds as best as we could and manage our pace according to our power output rather than speed. This proved to be very effective on our training rides, so we decided to stick to this plan. We started off putting down a little more power than I expected, but I figured since it was a race, I would just go with it. I just hoped it wouldn't be something any of us would pay for later on. There were also some surges of speed on occasion due to the excitement of racing, but the necessary corrections were eventually made and it ended up being pretty smooth after. All of us had corrections to be made, so you know you have a good team when everyone would be receptive to doing what it takes to get it done right.
Everything was going good on the way out where we stayed pretty tight and everyone was pulling strong. After we got to the 78 and onto San Felipe Road headed toward the turnaround point, Galen had been rubbing his left leg some and Shannon mentioned how he thought his legs were starting to tighten up. I ended up pushing to the front to relieve Todd and give them both an extra bit of rest thinking that maybe Todd and I could rotate a little to give them some reprieve until they can recover enough to continue at pace. When I was prepared to rotate back in after rolling out, I received confirmation from both Shannon and Galen that they were okay and reluctantly rolled all the way to the back again allowing them back in the rotation. Without even skipping a beat, they jumped back into the rotation as though nothing was ever bothering them. What's more amazing was that they continued to do so even all the way back without ever bringing up any problems again. That's not to say they weren't feeling anything, but the epitome of BAM is rule #5 and they definitely did that. Shannon was even thinking of getting some water at the turnaround point, but because their set up wasn't where it was feasible to do so quickly, he just turned around with us and we were off for the last 50.
Wanna hear more about BAM? How about if I tell you how despite the pain these guys were feeling heading toward the 50 mile mark, we broke all sorts of personal records heading back. After talking about the race after, there wasn't one of us who didn't doubt ourselves as to whether we could keep up with the others. You wouldn't think it though by looking at any one of us since everyone had their game face on. Shannon had even asked me at one point during the ride how I felt, and I told him I felt good. However, had he asked me if I thought I was going to be able to keep up the whole time, I'm not sure how I would have answered that question. All I knew was I was going to deal with it one pull at a time, one mile at a time, and one minute at a time. I did zone out at several points though and think to myself how amazing these guys were and that I would do everything within my power to not let them down all the way to the end of the race.
25 miles out, Shannon called out to change the rotation times to 60 seconds and I knew then that that would be the game changer where power management wasn't as important as heart management. And when I say heart management, I'm not talking heart rate either. I'm talking about how much heart do we have to go on beyond our means. The shorter rotation times meant pushing harder for shorter pulls and ultimately shorter rest times. It was ON! While this was never discussed as being a part of our plan, everyone conformed immediately and we picked it up more.
When we got to the Sweeney Pass climb, I think we all wondered whether we would be able to keep up with one another. Shannon got his usual jump on this climb while Galen, Todd and I just stuck with one another pretty much riding side by side for a good portion of the climb. We were able to get up to Shannon close to the top and crested perfectly with all of us lined up together ready to blow it out for the rest of the way back.
We definitely picked it up knowing that the rest of the way back was mostly downhill, but it wasn't until we saw this familiar tall figure on the side of the road taking pictures of us and cheering us on. It was S-Gary!!! Once we realized who he was, you would have thought that everyone was injected with pure adrenalin as it got absolutely ridiculous after that. After passing Gary, he would get back in his car, go past us, and get setup and take more pictures down the road. It was such a big boost every time we'd see him (probably a total of 4x or so) that we kept going faster and faster. After all was said and done, we KOM'd the last ~9 miles averaging 29 mph! Thanks, Gary! Driving out to do what he did was BAM through and through, and if you need proof he has a sense of humor, here you go:
 |
| Very funny! |
Now arriving at the finish, we couldn't wait to hear what our official time was but we knew based on our Garmin data that we definitely crushed our old time. We just wanted to know what our official time was based on the time chip. At first, we were told our time was 4:37 where we definitely beat last year's best time easily. This was a little surprising to us given that we were showing 22 mph averages on our Garmin with an elapsed time of 4:31. Ultimately, our official time was adjusted to 4:33, which again still befuddles us given all of our Garmins were way under this. Despite this, we were all very happy with our results and know that Strava tells no lies where 4:31 is truly what we did. This beat our best record by over 8 minutes! We also took down last year's team record by a good 7 minutes as well, so we couldn't ask for more.
While it would have been icing on the cake to have taken it all for the day, the best team time put in was by a new team from San Diego who did it in 4:19. The team was definitely legit and consisted of members who have resumes consisting of winning Breathless Agony (twice), having Strava KOMs in endless number of pages, and ride 200-300 miles a week average for starters. Hell, even the wife of one of the racers puts in more miles per week than me, so talk about legit. Kudos to them for sure for showing us what racers of their caliber can do. We shared a beer with them to congratulate them for their outstanding effort. Skinny G, what he goes by on Strava, was under 21 though, so he rightfully declined.
The after party continued from the parking lot back to the cabin, and truly this is what we all look forward to in these events. It was truly an epic beerfest and one that had me tapping out early. I'm pretty sure some pictures may surface involving fruit while I was passed out on a chair, but we'll just have to let them speak for themselves when they do.
Thanks to Vin, Mitchell and Adrian for coming out and joining us as their support was equally appreciated. They had a good ride also and came in not too long after we did working together as a team. Adrian's comment for the weekend was wondering whether Obamacare paid for taint reconstruction, which Todd requested make it on the blog, so there you go....
Shannon, Todd, Galen - I can't thank you guys enough for the race. I know I can be a pain in the ass with some things, so your tolerance of me is as equally appreciated as your amazing efforts during the race. I never doubted for a moment that you wouldn't reveal the BAM in you, and I just hope I was able to enough to help in the race as well. If you guys ever want to do this again, all I can say is...find someone else! HA HA. Love you guys!
Editorial note: Looks like the official times were corrected and reflect what our Garmins told us all along. Thanks, Jim!
Pictures courtesy of S-Gary: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35824599@N05/sets/72157640167275704/
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