...With a Little Help From My Friends

The weekend's activities conjured up so many titles for this blog entry in my head, it was hard to decide. In the end, the biggest effects were produced by a friend's ideas and decisions, so I went with the title above. It was a long weekend, and this is a long post. Grab a cup of Joe and read on.

The Empire State Games (http://www.empirestategames.org/) is a great event. In 1978, New York State held the first ESGs, bringing together athletes from around the state to compete. The annual games are basically like the Olympics, yet at a single state level, rather than on the world scene. There are levels for scholastic, open, masters, and senior games. Teams and individuals in many, many sports attend from each region of the state (Western, Central, Adirondack, Hudson Valley, New York City, and Long Island). The site for the games moves around the state, and it's a fantastic experience to spend several days competing in your chosen sport, all the while being around athletes competing in so many other sports.

For cycling, the ESGs run an individual time trial, a road race, a criterium, and finally a team time trial. Ten men and three women are chosen from each region at the region's qualifiers, and they go on to represent their region in late July. I attended the games last year and had a blast, especially in the team time trial. I'd hoped to make the team again this year since it might be my last shot at it for a while. The qualifiers would consist of a 2.8-mile uphill time trial, followed by a 20-lap circuit race. The circuit has a little hill up to the finish in it, and is about 2 miles long. Points would be awarded to the top four finishers of every fourth lap, and then double, deeper points would be awarded on the final lap finish. My friend Ano suggested earlier in the week that we should try a break early in the race when everyone is still tired from the time trial to try and get ourselves the points on the first points lap. I'm not confident in my ability to stay away, so I thought the plan was a fine idea in theory, but in practice would probably be fruitless.

I awoke Saturday to the sound of steady rain on the roof. The forecast had been for 54 degrees and raining at race time, and it was spot on. I rushed through breakfast, a big mug of coffee, and loaded up the car with my gear.

As I headed south on the highway, the rain increased and the temperature dropped. I hate racing in the rain. I hate racing in the cold. Combine the two, and I might as well stay home. My legs lock up, I freeze, my toes and feet go numb, and a DNF almost always results.

I had Dave Matthews playing on the stereo, and one of my favorite up-tempo songs came on. I started jamming out, singing at the top of my lungs, tapping my feet, and wagging my head. My thoughts somehow turned away from the cold and wet misery that awaited me and towards using the conditions to help myself. I really don't know what happened; it's never happened before. I forced myself to ignore the rain. When I arrived at the race site, I saw people huddled under tents. One guy walked past with a blanket over his head. I put the amber lenses in my glasses, which always help a rainy day look sunny. I hopped out of the car, putting on my cap but leaving my hood down, ignoring the rain and cold. I approached Ano and said, "It's a good day to ride off the front, eh?"

"What a stupid sport!" came his reply. I said something about the plan to break away, and he indicated it wasn't very likely in this weather.

I registered and suited up. My only nod to the pouring rain was getting my base layer on inside the car with the heater running. After that, I got out the trainer and started spinning away. In my mind, it was sunny and warm, and the rivers dripping from my nose were all made of sweat. Whenever anyone made a comment about the cold or rain, I ignored them or lied to them and myself and said how much I was looking forward to the race.

I got soaked almost immediately on the way to the time trial course with road spray. I rode partway up the climb to continue the warmup. A couple teammates were talking about how their muscles seized up in the cold and wet. I ignored them and ignored similar signals from my own legs. A little piece of my consciousness realized that fooling myself into enjoying the weather was actually working.

The uphill time trial was hard as always, but I rode conservatively to avoid blowing up near the top like I did last year. My time was actually better this year, despite my worse fitness and the horrid weather. I scored 13th. I would absolutely have to get at least a few points in the circuit race to have any hope of being near the top ten places.

We gathered around the start line of the circuit race. We'd had long enough to wait for results from the time trial that we were getting cold. Again, I forced myself to ignore it. I literally kept telling myself that I was comfortable, and the chill in my hands, feet, and legs melted away. I could see others shivering. My thoughts turned to Ano's idea of an early breakaway. Theoretically, it should work even better in this weather, since the peloton would have even less desire to ride hard early in the race. With several teammates in the pack who would likely not chase, even though strictly speaking the qualifiers should not be a team event, my chances might be better yet.

We completed one lap, taking the finishing hill at a fairly easy pace. There is another short rise after the finishing hill, then a downhill. "Okay," I told myself, "Nothing to lose." I rolled off the front. Not wanting to trigger a reflex chase from the group, I didn't sprint hard. I just rolled off. Over the crest, I got as aero as I could and started pushing hard, but not too hard. I would have to complete nearly three full laps by myself to make this stick, and then I still needed enough gas in the tank to stick with the group if they caught me.

The gap grew a little at first. Up over the hill on the next lap, the gap was longer. Downhill around the bend, they were out of sight. I still could not see them as I climbed the hill again to complete the third lap. I heard the bell ringing. One more lap and I'd have some points. I upped the tempo a bit. Over the hill, down the hill, around the bend. I looked back. One rider was coming pretty fast, with the peloton a bit of a ways behind him. It was Dan, a cat 2. He grabbed my wheel and sat there briefly, then pulled through on my waggle of the elbow. The pack continued to approach, and it felt to me like we'd slowed down. I pulled around and pulled again for a while. He pulled again as we approached the hill, then took off. I glanced back to see the pack lining up for the sprint. Geez, this would be close. I upped my tempo as best I could after being off the front by myself and sighed in relief as my front wheel crossed the line in second. About one second later, a few riders came flying past. I'd made it in for three points.

The rest of the race was peppered with attacks from various people, and the whole while I sat near the back of the pack just trying to hold on. I would get gapped on the sprint laps, then catch back on as the pace lessened between them. In the end, I had saved enough for a reasonable sprint, and along with my three points from early in the race, placed ninth.

With some shuffling of places among other riders, I ended up back in 13th place overall. Two finishers ahead of me withdrew their positions - why you'd come out and race in this weather if you didn't plan on attending the Games, I'll never know. Then Ano asked to be signed up as an "alternate", to be called upon if anyone else withdrew before the Games. He cited family time that the training would require as the reason. Whatever the reason, it put me in the 10th and last qualifying spot. With his help from his breakaway plans and his forfeiting of a spot on the team, Ano had given me the last spot on the team and a chance to have one more year of ESG experience. Thank you, Ano.

Sunday brought more rain to Central New York, and also the Syracuse Biathalon club's summer event. It would be five 1.4K laps via mountain bike around a very muddy, hilly trail. After each lap, competitors would stop and shoot five rounds at five targets. Ten shots prone, ten shots standing. For every target you miss, you get 30 seconds added to your race time. I'd never done anything like this before.

My nephew, my friend Bill, and I were the only true beginners for the afternoon mountain bike division, so we took the mandatory training class and ten practice shots. The sights on the rifles were concentric circles, unlike the square open sights I've always used before, and they took some getting used to. (I'm not meaning to imply I'm used to them now - I am most definitely not.) In practice I hit 4 of 5 targets prone, and felt pretty confident. Standing, I was lucky to hit the hillside behind the targets. I hit 1 of 5 standing. This would not be an easy thing after a hard lap in the mud.

We lined up to start, three people at a time. My friend and clubmate, Kate lined up to my left. She's also a speed skater and apparently at the start line on the ice, they often give the person next to them a friendly push on the shoulder to claim their space. As the timer called out "fifteen seconds", Kate reached out and gave me a little push on the shoulder. It was just enough. My surprise immediately turned to a little panic as I tipped right. My right foot was securely clipped in, and it wasn't coming out. I went crashing over into the mud. Howls of laughter filled the air, my own adding to it. I scrambled up with Kate apologizing, and then we were off, leaving the laughing behind us. Kate caught plenty of ribbing throughout the remainder of the day for being one ruthless racer, pushing her competition over at the start line.

The course was plenty tough, and got worse throughout the race as the mud got deeper and deeper. The shooting stops were very hard. The end of the barrel wandered around and around as I tried to control my breathing. Try racing as hard as you can for a few minutes, then try holding your breath long enough to get a good sight on an itty bitty target half a football field away.

In the end, I had seven minutes of penalty time, having missed five of ten targets prone, and nine of ten targets standing. I left with a silver medal among the six of us in the beginner category, and a very healthy respect for those athletes who ski or run or bike or whatever, then succeed at putting a little .22 slug onto a quarter-sized circle from so far away. What an odd and tough combination of strength and skill!

The weather finally broke as the sun went down Sunday, and I spent about five minutes in the yard playing with our new battery-powered weed whacker. I hope to report on some more house projects soon. We're looking at replacement windows, paint for the master bath and bedroom, plus a bunch of other little things. The replanted strawberries are doing pretty nicely, but we just found out we have a family of five (count 'em, five) woodchucks living underneath our barn so those strawberries, and just about everything else in the garden, will likely disappear in short order. The honeybees in the attic wall are doing well. You can hear the buzzing from the hive. It's a bit intimidating.

There is a lot to be done, both on the house and on the bike. I will be spending quite a bit of time training in the next couple months leading up to the Owasco Stage Race and the Empire State Games, and we can talk about it all here in the Attic.

See you on the road.