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Ahhhh…what a difference a week makes. Well, a week and a boat load of carbohydrate, anyway. Yeah, as you know, last week's stage race effort sucked hugely and thoughts of hanging up the bike to do something else briefly plagued my thoughts. If you've been following this then you know some of my theories about why the implosion happened. Further discussion with Mark Twight at Gym Jones reinforced my feeling that diet was the culprit. His experience with athletes playing with gluten-free or gluten-reducing diets reveals that these experiments can insidiously devolve into low-carbohydrate diets. For an endurance athlete, this usually yields competitive suicide. 

Another friend who races bicycles at the elite level confirmed these same sentiments. His team endorses an anti-inflammatory, gluten-free diet. He said that a couple of riders on the team truly flourished under this eating regime but that most of the guys cratered. When the team initially jumped on this bandwagon, my friend tried to stay true to it. But eventually, he found himself sneaking away to various bakeries and Hoovering down cinnamon rolls after dinner. He felt that if he didn't do this there was no way he could maintain the volume and rigor of the two week training camps he had to attend each winter. Mention "gluten-free" to him now and I just get a, "Bah! It's a bunch of crap for most people.!" I might be joining him in that sentiment.

Now, I'm not going to go jumping to conclusions, although, I admit, it sounds like exactly that. I will say that this past weekend's stage race performance at the Dead Dog Classic in Laramie, Wyoming was light years different than last week's. Performing well has a way of molding strong opinions. On the other hand, I know that these kinds of lapses in performance quality are often due to multiple factors. The only thing I changed this week is the type and quantity of food I ate. There was certainly little I could do in five days to radically alter my fitness. But diet can be easily manipulated in a matter of days. So, that's what I did. I spoke to my wife while I was at work last Monday and she mentioned that she was helping my legs out by baking a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Nice! Now that's a treat I have deprived myself of for many weeks. They were gone by Thursday and each one was downed with the optimistic intension of the sick taking medicine. They tasted way better than, say, chemotherapy, of course!

There was also plenty of brown rice down the hatch, a bagel, some additional bread, some tortillas, several portions of legumes, muesli at breakfast and lots of fresh melons which are coming into high season right now. I may have even downed a little ice cream (gasp!) If I was more obsessive about logging this kind of thing I could tell you exactly how many more grams of carbohydrate I ate but I don't so I can't. But suffice it to say, it was a lot more. I tried to get better sleep and my healing ribs allowed for some of that. Thursday was busy in the operating room so I stood for 11 hours, not something known to promote "good" legs. To counter that, I gave myself a couple a couple of leg rubs. Training last week consisted mostly of easy riding. I made Wednesday the one hard day, doing a bunch of high intensity hill efforts, the longest being about 20 minutes. In general, the legs felt recovered and I approached the weekend's stage race with guarded optimism.

Time to race

So, what did all this translate to this past weekend? An encouraging performance. There were no revelatory moments where I suddenly could go uphill with the climbers or time trial with those heavy-legged monsters that rule the discipline. Nope, nothing like that. But what I did get was confirmation that my season was not dead in the water and that I could still race my bike with the best of my peers. The first stage was an out and back heavy climbing stage, 54 miles long with lots of wind going and coming from the climb. Nothing happened on the way out with a screaming tail wind descent from the start line through 10 miles of rollers that would prove decisive on the return into the head wind a couple of hours later.

We turned onto the highway and headed up into the Snowy Range for the main serving of pain for the day. The head wind beat the desire to attack out of any would be protagonists. We creeped along waiting for the road to turn upwards. No attacks would be needed to weed out the weak or incapable. Once on the climb, the relentless grade coupled with the high altitude (we topped out over 10,000 feet) would take care of things nicely. I lasted about a third of the way up with the lead group of about 20. Dropped again. I could see them for most of the climb but they were always moving slowly away. I glanced behind me a couple of times and saw that everyone else was long gone. We started with 50 guys in our pack so I was not the worst of them at least. Still, I was a little demoralized not being able to keep up again. A couple of guys came up behind me with a few miles to go to the turn around and we absorbed a couple of others who were shed from the lead pack ahead. 

It was an agreeable group of guys with whom I suffered those last few, painful miles to the top. I hit the cone in the lead and immediately walked through my block and into the 11 cog to start the all-out 55 mph descent. Honestly, given the at least 2 minute gap the lead pack enjoyed at the turn around I did not harbor delusions of actually bridging to them. But I wanted to race my bike and I had a handful of guys around me with whom to do it. Time to rodeo! And rodeo we did shedding 3 of the guys in the opening mile of the descent. I think it was a combination of them pulling long and hard on their bottles after they made the turn, causing them to miss the acceleration to 50 mph and some fairly aggressive riding through a few switch backs early on. What materialized was a trio of motivated, equally-skilled riders willing to do the work needed to keep things rolling once on the flats. It was awesome rotating with those guys at 50 kph in the howling tailwind. Gotta be one of my favorite things in cycling.

Our efforts started yielding dropped riders from other categories. We hit the junction in full flight, taking the tight turn into the headwind for the final rolling 12 miles to the finish. All of our thoughts were on simply getting to the finish knowing that we were contending for nothing. A couple of our tag alongs started missing pulls and irritated one my trio members. He was having none of that bullshit! Enacting one of my favorite tactics for dealing with this kind of lame riding, he started gapping these guys off the back and I obliged by accelerating at the front. The effect was a one-two gut punch to these guys who struggled back on the first few times. I thought it was going to take an effort on one of the rollers to shed them but instead only took two of us rotating out of the saddle two pulls each and they were gone. Yes, cycling is a pugilistic sport. Back to our happy trio.

As we continued, a large group of riders soon appeared and we were closing quickly. We figured it was a bunch of dropped riders from another category. As we reached them with 3 miles to go, it became obvious that it was our lead group! Are you shitting me?, I thought. They were creeping, simply waiting for the final 1000 meter hill at the end, no one willing to do anything aggressive in the 25 mph head wind. Suddenly, I was back in the race and had to reassess my strategy. I might have to ride that final time trial after all. I mean, I was going to get at least "same time" on this stage. The thing about approaching a sprint so easily is that everyone is fresh going in. This was going to be a two-minute, uphill drag race to the line. I was undecided about the "big ring vs. small ring" issue but feared the head wind and tired legs might get the better of me half way up and I would stall. 

So, I rolled into the hill in the small ring positioned in the middle of the pack. At first, I stayed seated and little changed with everyone holding the leaders' pace. But 30 seconds into it, lactate started to work it's magic and guys started dropping off. Earlier one of the trio pointed out his pick for the win and told me to get his wheel if I had designs on finishing well. With 200 meters to go and the steepest part of the climb at hand he went by me and I jumped on his wheel. At this point my breathing was ragged but with riders going backwards in front of me there was no chance I was letting up. As the line neared several of us were shoulder to shoulder and I continued to ask more from my burning quads. Funny, I knew that going so hard was going to REALLY suck when I stopped. This thought actually occurred to me in the closing meters. But charge ahead I did, digging deeper than I have in awhile and crossed the line third.

Stage 2 Criterium

Now, that was kind of crazy, to get dropped so bad on the climb only to get back on miles later when all was presumed lost and actually contend for the win. My fellow trio members and I laughed at our good fortune. My efforts yielded a 10 second time bonus heading into the next morning's criterium. I would need every extra second I could get my hands on for the time trial. I was not anticipating and major changes in that part of my game, no matter how good my legs were. And my legs were good in the morning. I warmed up well for the start and went off the front hard on the second lap. Not really sure why but it opened things up nicely for me. The pack responded quickly and I settled back in. I never dropped back behind 10th wheel or so and went off with a few break attempts. Nothing stuck until a time bonus prime with 4 laps to go. Three guys contested it and I hesitated not wanting to punch any fun tickets so close to the end. Besides, with the effort those three put in the sprint I figured they would be quickly caught and we could reset for the finale. 

That's one of the gambles we take in criteriums, not going with moves like those. I watched carefully from about 4 wheels back waiting for some impatient hammer to rip up the road and get things back to where I wanted them. I was itching to jump on the first wheel that surged pass. Admittedly, I was racing negatively but I wanted someone else to jump on the grenade. I guess everyone else had the same thought because with 2 laps to go the break had 10 seconds and it looked to be over for the rest of us. Nonsense! There is a little chicane on the back side of the course and I jumped hard there. The quick turns in succession allowed me the gap I needed and I committed to the effort knowing that if I was caught from behind there would be no glory. I also toyed with the fact that if I actually bridged I would be too gassed to do anything but roll in for fourth. But there was glory in getting across instead of conceding defeat so on I pushed. 

Heaving heavily, I grabbed the back of the three with half a lap to go. I was hurting but they were not going too hard, starting to play the cat and mouse game before the sprint. It was just what I needed. A glance back confirmed that we had time. To my delight, I recovered just enough so that when the sprint opened I was able to follow his wheel through the last corner. We accelerated quickly down the tail wind-aided 5 block straight. The guy I followed was quickly catching the guy who jumped first. Five blocks is just too far for most riders at full gas. My incomplete recovery was obvious as I tied up a bit and lost the wheel of the eventual winner but still managed enough juice for second! That felt good. Another 20 second time bonus was my reward plus we had 10 seconds on the field.

Time trialling for survival

Now for the event I dreaded, even more so since my dismal showing last weekend. I've never done that well in flat time trials. Just don't seem to have the ability for sustained power output. Sprint? Yes. TT? Not so much. But, hey, my legs are good and my GC position is at stake. Who knows? The course was hard with lots of undulations and varying strong winds and a starting altitude of 8,800 feet. Ouch! I felt good going out, getting to the turn around sooner than I expected. Seemed to be gaining on the guy in front of me and was not getting passed…yet. Soon, the GC leader was by me, eventually taking 1:45 out of me in 10 miles. Definitely no revelations today. But this guy beats everyone in the country and even has a masters world championship to his name, as the stripes on his jersey sleeves would suggest. I looked further down the results list to see how I really did against guys who are actually peers. I was satisfied with what I saw, finishing 12th in the TT and 6th overall.

I can see the end of the season from here but my enthusiasm is renewed. I guess I'm a little fragile that way. But, you know, I've been doing this a long time and just don't have the desire to play if it really sucks. There's too much other fun stuff to do. Next weekend there are a couple of criteriums in Hailey, Idaho. I won one those last year and with this weekend's performance, I'm going in with high expectations. I will focus on my snap and holding the top end this week in training. I think another massage is in order. I'm going to hit the weight room, too, having missed it last week trying to nurse my legs back to life. Mission accomplished. - Brian