The Bike

The Bike:

Now that the brunt of the training has passed I thought I would post a little blurb on my bike and the configuration I’ve chosen for IMAZ.

I’ve spend the last few years getting this bike just the way I want it. The bike was originally purchased for IMFL in ’04 but that race just never happened. Life sometimes gets in the way of the best laid plans. This will be IM number three for the bike, that is assuming I finish! (knock on wood). Over the years the bike has been almost entirely rebuilt with the only original equipment being the headset, brakes/levers, and shifters.

The bike is a 2004 Quintana Roo Caliente, Tangerine with flames, I think it’s one of the best looking paint schemes to come out. The only other person I know in New Mexico that has the same bike is my friend and fellow Outlaw “the Pocket Assassin”.

So, I thought I would list the components on the bike and give some details about why I chose the particular component.

The bike frame:
49 cm Quintana Roo Caliente, 50 cm top tube length. You’ll notice on the picture that the set tube extends way past the top tube. This is a horrible design for adjustability, effectively this makes the frame a 52 cm frame, which isn’t a good thing I really liked this frame because it has a combination of carbon stays, carbon fork and carbon steerer tube. It has barrel adjusters for on the fly tuning, and it came in my size with 650 wheels. Finding a small bike is pretty challenging, especially 4 years ago, and I really lucked out finding a bike that I liked.

From the bottom up:

Tires: Michelin 650 Pro2 race Clinchers – Great tires, light, rolls well, lots of grip and pretty puncture resistant. I’m also running two ounces of Stans in each wheel to fend off those nasty goatheads. The Stans add weight but in the scheme of things I don’t really think it matters much.

Wheel set: 2006 Zip 404, 650 Clinchers. Light, stiff, aero, versatile, Overall great wheel set, Oh and I got them for $400, with only about 200 miles on them.

Chain: SRAM PC 9speed Hollow-pin – Light, easy to maintain, and shifts great.

Crank Set/Bottom Bracket: Dura-Ace 10 sp Double, Length 167.5 mm, 39x53 This is a strange size but my short legs seem to like the 167.5 crank arm length. The first time I used this crankset I felt awesome! The former crankset was heavy and had an odd gearing of 41x52, but combined with the 650 wheelset I had reasonable climbing power but would always spin out on the decent. The new gear ratio gives me a few more gears on the assent and a little bit more speed on the decent. Overall a great choice, but the Q-factor seems to be a bit smaller that the old crank set which limits my crossover gears, Oh well, life is tough when you ride a small bike.

Pedals: Speed Play X2, Light easy to get in and out of, lots of float.

Rear Derailleur: Dura-Ace, short cage, Smooth shifting, light.

Rear Cassette, Dura-Ace 11-23, I’m leaning toward this gear selection because IMAZ only has a few small hills (Other than the b-line) My other choice is the gear that I’ve been riding for the training rides it’s an SRAM, 12-26. The SRAM is a great Cassette and an overall good gearing, light and much cheaper than the DA.

Skewers: Zipp Titanium shafts – 85 grams for the pair, light, strong and they match the Zipp wheels!

Graphics: “Bones”, From Speedy sign, it cost’s all of 5 bucks, and, I think, is pretty cool.
Front Derailleur, Ultegra, Stock – Couldn’t justify upgrading this.

Waterbottle cage: Arundel Carbon, what can I say, carbon is cool.

Brakes: Ultegra, Stock. These are good brakes, why change them out?

Headset: Stock, I’ve never had and issue with it.

Seat Post: Easton EC90 Carbon. I needed a straight seat post because of the extended seat tube. The Easton is light, straight and was on sale! Yeah, thats right, there's only about half and inch of post showing!

Seat: Wow, This has been an ongoing quest but I think I’ve finally found the right seat! It’s a Blackwell Flow, It’s much narrower than I’m used to riding but things seem to be supported quite well, no numbing issues, no back pain and no chafing. If you notice the sides of the saddle come down past the rails which make the nose a bit wide, but that’s not a deal breaker. For me, this has been the best Tri saddle I have ever ridden.

Hydration: X-lab carbon wing. This back of the seat hydration pack is much lighter than it’s predecessor and it sits back off the tail end of the seat a bit more. With my old wing I was constantly breaking bottle cages. The new one is light strong and has many more ways to attach gear. On the bottle side of the wing I’m using a specialized rib cage, which keeps me from ejecting bottles.

Cycle computer: Catyeye Dual wireless. This really cleans up the bike while giving me everything I could ask for in a computer. Nice easy to read display, cadence and it works flawlessly.

Spacers: Carbon no-name – Yeah, Carbon is good.

Stem: F99, 80 mm, Very Light, stiff and reasonably inexpensive.

BaseBar: Syntace Stratos, Small 39cm. For some reason this bike came with a 41cm basebar – who knows why?

AeroBars: Profile carbon Stryke. These bars are about the most adjustable bar I have every come across. You can tweak them endlessly. Light good vibration dampening. I changed out the stock Profile arm pads with the Syntace pads which actually have padding.

Shifters: Dura Ace, Not many other options.

Brake levers: Provile Quick Stop 2 - Good solid levers – no reason to change out.

There you have it, 4 years of component evolution.

Soma

Soma:

I feel like an athlete by association, is that the way it should be? Does that mean I haven’t been racing enough or does it mean that I’ve lost whatever drive it takes for me to consider myself an athlete? The ironic thing about this whole feeling is that I’m in the final big weeks of training for IMAZ. I think working Soma and the Elephant man and watching everyone compete has made me feel kind of like an outsider. Obviously I’m not but it’s really a strange feeling to shake.

But on to more fun things:

Helping official at the Soma Triathlon was great! Across the board everyone was thankful there were enough Refs on the course to break up any packs that might have formed and hopefully we succeeded. The folks I talked to at the airport didn’t report any large packs or any other problems and everyone seemed to have a good time.

This was my first large race that I was an official at and it was pretty interesting. You really do have the best seat in the house to watch the race. Unfortunately I only got to go out on the motorcycle towards the end of the Half Iron so I missed the burnt of the action. However, I did get to monitor the bike mount/dismount area. There were several athletes that tried getting on the bike without buckling their helmets and fortunately the volunteers did a great job of reminding folks about their helmet straps. Some of the athletes had an amazing dismount process, several came in way to hot and crashed at the dismount line, a couple lost shoes and one guy even unbuckled his helmet before starting to do his flying dismount, right in front of me. That’s focus, and I have to give him credit for an incredible act of agility, however it is against the rules. We will just leave it at that.

I moseyed over to the street next to the mount/dismount area to watch the race and make sure there weren’t any blatantly large packs. Now this is the interesting part. It took about 15 seconds for most riders to go from the top curve, down the hill and into the next curve. This is a long way when you are doing 18-30 mph and I don’t think most of the athletes realized that they could legally draft through that section. I made myself pretty obvious by standing in the middle median, it was pretty hard to miss that bright red shirt. Folks would have outstanding manners while I was around. They would complete passes “just like they intended on doing”, pull to the right and let people pass. Very courteous and rule following while I was there, as soon as I made myself less visible people became much more aggressive and more willing to draft. It was pretty funny because this was all in a little 15 second strip of the course, where I couldn’t really ding them anyway. It has really changed my perspective on how to get the most out of those little sections.

There was one athlete on the dismount zone that was a little ticked off at one of the volunteers trying to get him to slow down, he started to yell something until he spotted me, we made eye contact and he just bit his lip. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been there, and I wonder how that athlete was treating the other volunteers.

I kind of felt like that frustrated cop on the freeway, you know the one that is stuck in traffic doing exactly 65 mph, Cars in front, cars in back, cars to each side but strangely enough, no cars 200 yards beyond or behind him. Everyone “acts” good when they think they might get dinged. Which is fine, I was just hoping just to be visible enough to let some of the less scrupulous folks know that there were officials around.

And really, I just noticed the folks breaking or really pushing the rules everyone else, the vast majority, of the almost 1800 athletes were great and I hope they had a good safe, experience.

Congratulations to all the folks that raced! Special congratulations to DP, who finally raced and completed the race!!

Duke City Marathon

Ahhh, Iron fitness,

It’s kind of funny how your perspective changes as you get more and more into endurance sports. Yesterday Miguel and I ran the Duke CityMarathon as a training run for Ironman Arizona, yes, a training run. We ran at a goal pace of 9:30 minute miles, which is, for me, a very aerobic hr of 130ish, that translated to about a 4:17 marathon.

I was a bit nervous about running marathon because I haven’t really been training for a standalone marathon with my longest run of the year being18 miles and that was last week! I was hoping my IM fitness would carry me through and it did with flying colors! I’m only a little sore today and expect a speedy recovery.

A few years ago the thought of doing a marathon on less than 45 running miles per week sounded absurd, this marathon was done on less than 25 miles per week. Granted I have been very consistent in my long runs of 14ish miles over the course of the spring and summer and I have been training for an Ironman, but I’m still amazed at how good I felt during the event. Maybe not doing a 100 mile bike ride the day before a long run helps, who would have thunk?

We did the marathon at a pretty slow pace, far off any personal records but the goal wasn’t to set a new PR, it was to get a good long run under out belts, get our legs and feet use to taking a pounding, working on our nutrition, and have a good time doing it. All of which we accomplished. One more check on the IM prep schedule.

It was great seeing all the fellow Outlaws and friends out on the course. It was an absolutely perfect day for a marathon, nice and brisk in the morning and warming up towards the end of the run, with a slight breeze on the way back to keep you cool.

When I look at the course profile it’s interesting how much of an elevation change the course actually has. According to Mr Garmin, there’s 2801 feet of change. Very interesting.

I have changed my opinion of the Duke City Marathon. The last time I did the marathon the aid stations were few and far between, they pretty much ran out of water/Gatorade/cups and they just didn’t have any porta-potties set up on the course. All that has changed! They had plenty of aid stations, lots of water/Gatorade, porta-potties setup at various places, lots of volunteers, they even had little four wheeler cruising between the aid stations. The timing was done via some sort of RFID tags with timing stations setup throughout the course and the staff was great to work with. Overall it was a great experience! My opinion of the DCM has really changed! Well worth the $65 entry fee.

Ironman dues

Some days you wonder if you should even be riding.

Ironman Arizona is now less than 50 days away and the weekend long rides are at 100 miles, or at least they should be. This weekends 100 mile ride didn't go quite as scheduled.

For some reason I couldn't sleep in the morning of the ride, maybe I was a little apprehensive because I knew the ride was a big one and the next days run was also going to be pretty long. So while I was wondering around the house I decided to check the tires on my bike and air them up for the ride. Well wouldn't you know it I had a half inch slice in the rear tire and the Stans was oozing and bubbling out. Darn it. I took the tire off patched the TIRE, put a new tube in, filled it with Stans and called it good. Maybe this was an omen that I completely missed?

We finally meet up at Defined fitness and SWTRIGAL suggests changing our route because of the bad weather, She wants to head north for 20 miles then turn south for 40 miles, then turn back north to get the benefit of a tail wind on the way home. I really wanted to get some hill training in so we decided to play it by ear. As it turns out playing it by ear doesn't work so well

We head north to our traditional breaking point, or should I say our traditional porta-potty point. Most folks are fairly well hydrated and need one final relief before kicking the ride into high gear.

It's all going well until we leave the parking lot, I manage to get myself wedged between two riders at the parking lot exit, not good since the exit has a very solid wood post right in the middle of the exit. Darn, my left foot won't unclip and my track stand just wasn't going well, down I went. Okay, this is going to be a rough ride. At least I get a lot of sympathy from the lady outlaws, the guys were more concerned about the delay I was causing by trying to get back on my feet! Oh well, guess it's better to fall over and embarrass yourself in front of your friends, right?

The next 30ish miles of the ride out to San Ysidro was uneventful, except for the 25-29 mph that a really generous tail wind provided. We knew it was going to be rough going back, but boy, we didn't count on mother nature getting really pissed at us and throwing everything she had at us.

Brian and Paul agreed to pull the group back and most folks lined up behind them, at this point we had about a 20 mph head wind. I hung off the back, out of the draft zone so I could get a good workout in and maybe help pull any wayward riders back up to the pack.

Completely The winds were pretty outrageous and it felt like we were going to be blown over any number of times. About 65 miles into the ride the sand and gravel that was blowing into our faces was replaced by a light rain, not so bad, Then the hail started and that hurt, we made it to a gas station to regroup we discussed stopping at the local Flying star and having folks pick us up but decided to carry on, the weather looked like it was clearing up. I borrowed a jacket from Michi, who wisely decided she had had enough fun in the great outdoors for one day and called for MG to pick her up. On our way back the weather calmed down for a good few miles and the head wind picked back up. We all regrouped back at the Defined Fitness parking lot and looked at the storm front moving in. I decided to hightail it home before the storm hit. Well....While I was at the light crossing the only major street that separated my from a nice warm shower the rain hit. Now, I don't mind riding in the rain, after all I had a nice jacket that Michi lent me. No problem, Another quarter mile up the hill to my house and the hail started. Ouch, It was hailing so hard I couldn't see where I was going, The almost marble sized pellets really stung, luckily the storm was moving quickly and I was only in the hail for four or five minutes. By the time I got home I was completely soaked.

While I getting ready to take a shower I was summing up the bruises and scrapes from my little fall when I noticed all the little welts all over my back arms and legs. Those darn little hail pellets left their impression. It took several hours before they went away but at least most of them didn't bruise.

All in all, It was one of those rides that will live on in our memories. "Remember that ride we did getting ready for IMAZ back in the fall of '08?" . Yep, it was one rough ride, and I didn't even get in my 100 miles! Now, SWTriGal assures me that riding 80 miles on those conditions is equal to 100 miles of normal riding. I think we have all paid some of our Iron dues this weekend! Guess we will find out around November 23rd!

Offically an offical

Do these kakis make my butt look big? I joked to my daughter. She just rolled her eyes in typical 13 year old girl fashion and walked away. It’s every Dads duty to try and embarrass his daughter in public and I do a fine job of it. My shopping spree was brought on by the eminent threat of being a first time USAT official at the local Elephant man Olympic distance triathlon, in Elephant butte NM. Or as it seems to have become know, the Elf butt. Thus my joke about my butt looking big, humor totally wasted on my daughter. Oh well, I found it amusing.

I needed some non-work kaki colored pants to wear as part of the USAT official dress code. Yes, I’m now a certified USAT Category 4 official. Which means I’m not the lowest of the low (as far as officials go) but pretty low on the ladder of officialdom. But still, I have the uniform, and you know how women love guys in uniform! Haha, yeah that was the big joke, I was going to use my new found power to lure the girls into my evil grasp!

It was a whole different perspective looking at the race as an official and it was lot of fun. The hardest part for me was not getting caught up in the competition, I wanted to talk about strategy, get ready for the race, layout my gear and talk smack. Oh well, there will be plenty of time for that at IMAZ. The coolest part is I got to look at/inspect everyone’s bike and nobody batted an eye. Oh, was I supposed to be looking for safety issues? Yeah that’s what I was supposed to be doing. But it was more like, wow that is an incredible looking bike how does it ride? Or, do you have any problems riding the 808’s in the wind. Yeah safety, that’s why I was looking at the bikes… All joking aside, I was actually pretty serious about looking for safety issues, but there was just so much bike porn!

From a personal perspective I really liked the whole venue. Kori is a fantastic race director, she kept people informed, organized, had plenty of volunteers, the course seemed well marked, and everyone had a super friendly attitude.

The race has just about everything you could want in an Olympic distance race, Medical tent, massage, food, lots of volunteers, A challenging course, open water swim, sand and the best Outlaw aid station money can buy.

Speaking about the aid station, Many thanks to Jane & her people, Misty, Steven, Courtney, Orlando and Connor (who, I think built rock piles?). You guys rocked!

The bike course seems especially challenging. While I haven’t ridden the course I did traverse it multiple times on the motorcycle and I have to say it looks like a lot of fun to ride. The rolling hills, turns, and that climb out of the canyon that looks like it will never end seems like a lot of fun. The run course looked like it had about 2 miles of sand (out and then the same section back) and loose pack which looks like it would really be tough to run.

If you are looking for a good local challenge this might be the race you are looking for. Between the multiple wave swim starts and hills there were virtually no packs of riders or congestion on the bike course. It seems like this race is one of the up and coming must do races for the series.

Colorado Relay

It was a dark and stormy night, and morning and afternoon. That just about describes the beginning of the 11th annual Colorado Relay. Arriving the night before the race in Georgetown CO, the start of the relay, we were greeted with rain, rain and more rain. And guess what, it was still raining the next morning, obviously we weren’t in New Mexico any longer. Ahhh, but we did get a reprieve from the rain, that is, after running up the side of the mountain to about 12000 feet, the rain turned to snow. Yep lots of snow. We had the pleasure of starting in the worst conditions in the history of the race, lucky us. Now that we are veterans of the race we will be able to reminisce about the fall of ’08 when the conditions were the worst in the history of the race! It’s funny how Jane and Dave’s absurdly long packing list didn’t seem quite so absurd when the realization of our situation finally settled in. Jane said to plan for the worst and sure enough, we got it!

I’ll let other folks describe the legs of their runs. I do want to say what an impressive bunch of athletes and genuinely great people were on the team. Everyone had a great attitude and we really got to know each other.

My leg started at the top of Guanella pass at 11,669 feet. When I started out running my heart rate immediately jumped to 160, when it should have been at a comfortable 120-130, guess the altitude makes the ticker work a bit harder. My leg was a decent of about 2,050 for a distance of 8 miles. After about 2 miles my calves and quads were really hurting and I decided to stop and look around. The view up the mountain was just as spectacular as the view down the mountain. wow what an incredible run, even though my feet were soaked and my sunglasses were covered in snow and totally useless it was a fantastic run. Quick exchange of the bracelet and Debi was on her way.

I really tried to run as fast as I thought I could but I still had two more legs ahead of me so I didn’t want to push that hard on the first leg. My time was right at one hour with an AVERAGE hr of 157. I’m not sure how the difficulty of the legs was figured but the overall rating of my legs at 7 out of 10, with the first run rated as very hard. I think the folks running uphill had a much harder legs but for a shorter distance.

After picking up Debi we had a few hours to kill so we found a recreation center at and just kind of hung out and ate lunch. We also did a little shopping for some gloves for Margaret and a rain jacket for DP.

My next leg was at night. I’ve kind of lost track of time but I think it was around 10:00 PM or so. The leg was downhill again and my legs were doing their share of protesting, luckily I got to run with one of the Rubber chicken team members and we had a great little chat as the frost was visibly falling through our headlight beams and our breath obscured our vision. The run was great but not the most scenic since it was at night along some type of frontage road. I can’t remember the time for the leg, I think sleep deprivation had starting setting in and it was way past my bed time!

We made our way to the next exchange point and met up with the other van. It was really interesting to learn what our fellow team mates were up to. Between doing laundry and eating at fancy Italian restaurants I’m surprised they even had time to race :)

Our down time was spend in a hotel lobby trying to get some sleep (3:00 AM) , it didn’t work for me but DP sure didn’t seem to mind crashing anywhere. Man I was jealous!

(Some outlaws just hanging out around - 12:00 the next day - don't they have someplace to run or something? From left to right, Brian, Mike, Jimmy, Jane, Margaret)

The third run was gorgeous (about 7:00 AM), It was along the bike path below the Pearl Harbor memorial highway. The river was on the right and it was in this beautiful valley, at times the roaring of the river over the rapids overpowered everything and at other times all you could hear were your footsteps and breathing. My time for this slight downhill leg was 32-33 minutes for a 4.7 mile run, not to bad for running on beat up legs.

Post race was a nice soak in the Glenwood hotsprings, yeah I know, it’s probably the worst thing you can do for recovery, but hey, it was there and it felt so great!! Then on to the condos, pizza, another hot tub and a whole bunch of catching up with the other Van.

Is it still an adventure race if you have all sorts of technology assisting you? In each van we had two way radios and a hand held radios for the times when you were out of the van. Yep just like the cops have! In our van alone we had no fewer than 5 GPS units, one mounted to the windshield, we used the “real” GPS extensively to plot a course to the next exchange point and to find places to hang out. Our clothes were no less high-tech with everyone sporting water resistant, wicking, thin and warm materials we didn’t suffer much from the elements. Oh, don’t forget the 25 thousand dollar van we rented and we had all the sugary snacks that make the dentist’s ears perk up. Yep we were roughing it, after all it was an adventure race.

The race was an incredible experience and I can’t believe that I waited so long to do something like this. If you get the chance, definitely go for it! Oh and don’t worry about the sleep deprivation, 30+ hours without sleep just makes things more interesting!

Special thanks to the Dread Pirate, who did all the leg work, organized all the meetings, kept us on track and planed the whole race.

Very special thanks to Damon, the driver of the “B” van and van mother. He brought the two way radios, GPS units, planned the routes, make sure folks were on time for their runs, not to mention volunteering 4 days of his time to drive a van full of crazy triathletes all over Colorado.



Yep, we are all finished for now. 29 hours and 26 minutes. Not bad for a team that just want's to have fun. Wonder what next year will bring?

Colorado Relay

The Colorado relay is looming! Here’s the scoop: 11 of us are heading to Colorado tomorrow morning to run 170 miles across Colorado, in something like 24-28 hours, non-stop. Yep through rain or snow and dark of night we will be running, that’ll be us, yep, sounds like fun….I keep telling myself that.

The logistics of this race have been kind of a pain but fortunately our fearless leader the Dread Pirate has pulled it all together and it looks like everything is a go. Lots of kudos to her!

There are 10 runners, mostly Outlaws, and one driver and two vans. Even the most staunch of athletes succumbs to scheduling problems so our two backup runners are now full members of the team. And we are short a driver, it looks like we will be taking turns at the wheel. Hopefully the Dread Pirate won’t lash us if we make a wrong turn or something!

I get to run leg 4, 14 and 24 which translates to a run in the morning, a run in the late evening around 8:00 pm and another run in the early morning.

This should be an adventure!