xXx Relay Cross

This past Sunday marked the first official unofficial kick-off to the Cyclocross season in Chicago with the second running of xXx's Relay Cross race. Relay Cross has a unique race format where teams of two take turns racing laps. The race also has a "Le Mans" style start where the racers start off without their bikes and run a couple hundred meters to the transition area where their partners are standing waiting to give them their bikes. I raced in the Cat. 4 race with my teammate Dan and the Co-ed race with Melissa, a new Iowan friend that just started racing 'cross with Rhythm's sponsor, Iron Cycles. My training had been going well and I was excited to try out my legs on the grass.

I woke up Sunday hungover and not too excited to race. Since the race was at Jackson Park on the South side of Chicago, and the behemoth Chicago triathalon was taking up just about the entire city between my apartment and Jackson Park, I decided to ride down the race. I met up with Dan and we took a nice leisurely roll through the South side to the race. The ride to the race was a great easy warm up for the legs and got rid of the hangover.

We decided Dan would race the first leg since he could run faster. For those that aren't aware, Dan is a freaking gazelle, at least compared to the other Cat 4's. After a nearly flawless bike exchange, Dan left the transition area in the Top 10. After his lap, we were still Top 10, so there was a little pressure for me. With that, I embarked on my first race-pace cross riding of the season.

Right off the bat, my cornering skills were definitely a bit rusty but my legs felt awesome. I got passed by a couple people that were cornering better than I, but stayed close to them. As we came around to the three-barrier section, I noticed everyone taking the right side of the barriers, so I went left. Someone on the right had trouble and I ended up passing about five people through the barriers. I jumped back on my bike elated and quickly realized I was redlining. This is cross though and that's the point. Plus, my lap was going to be over soon. I kept the legs moving and held my position through the rest of the lap into the transition area. After tagging Dan, I looked down. Max heart-rate for the season. What a great start to cross!


The rest of the race went by without too much excitement. Both Dan and I faded a little bit and we ended up 18th. We were happy with the result though with it being Dan's first time on the cross bike this season and my first time riding my cross bike in earnest.

The coed race was quite the experience. Melissa insisted that I take the start, so I lined up a little nervous to see what my running skills were like, especially in cycling shoes. A lot of people had trouble with traction and I made it in and out of the transition area Top 20. Pretty good for a fat guy! After the race, someone told me "you have impressive running form. I didn't expect you to be so smooth!"

I was pretty tired after already having races once, but I still had a great time. The coed race format was interesting because there were so many people of different abilities out on the course that it felt like I was racing with different people every lap, getting a lot of chances to pass and be passed. In the end, Melissa and I got lapped by the leaders so I lucked out and didn't have to race the last lap. Even better, the officials scored us as if we hadn't been lapped, so we took home a "Top 10" finish in 8th place!

Overall, Relay Cross was a terrific start to what I hope will be an awesome cross season.

Melon City Criterium 2010

We finished off a great weekend of racing in Iowa with the Melon City Criterium in Muscatine's Weed Park. The race takes place in a somewhat secluded park in Muscatine and is a mile long closed course. Melon City, besides being the filler between Snake Alley and the "Cage Match", is known for it's "speed bump". To explain, the course is fairly simple: slight uphill start, gradual turn, 90 degree turn, slightly left turning descent, SPEED BUMP, climb, 90 degree turn, chicane (Janette's term, I'm not sure I know what "chicane" means) and downhill finish. Hitting a speed bump on a road bike at 40 mph sounds utterly terrifying to me...which is why, as I suspected, it's not what I consider a speed bump but more of a speed "hump". The speed bump was fairly gradual and was more of a ramp than anything else.

EDIT: My teammate Zens did some awesome camera work documenting the speed bump with his flipcam. After watching the video, my only reaction is "holy s*$%!". I guess adrenaline helps in situations like this.

I woke up Sunday morning mentally fried from the day before. My body felt fine but I had no excitement whatsoever. To be perfectly honest, I carried this attitude until around lap 4 of the actual race. I had decided that my embarrassing performance at the Snake was due to being overheated on the start line (among the other obvious factors). On Saturday I think that I had warmed up my legs enough, but my body temperature too much. On Sunday I opted for a quick 15 minute spin with a cold water bottle over the head and a relaxing walk up to the start line.

Our race was about 40 minutes behind schedule which gave me even more time to cool off and wallow in my indifference. When it was finally our turn, I lined up in the first row and our race was off. Right off the start line, some guy attacked. I am pretty sure he was the eventual winner, but I am not positive. I followed because he wasn't going very fast anyways. Being the biggest rider in the race, I of course took the descent faster than everyone else and ended up first on the climb. (The speed bump ended up having no bearing whatsoever on my race. I don't think I took it "correctly" until Lap 7, but it didn't have any effect on me or the race.) I had decided pre-race to take the climb in the big ring and had was undecided on standing vs. sitting. I was feeling fast coming off the descent so I took it standing...in WAY too big of a gear. I killed my rhythm and ended up doing way to much work to maintain a top 10 position going into lap 2. I got to the top of the climb and was red lining...kind of ridiculous for the first lap of an 8 lap crit.

Lap 2 things settled down. The climb had whittled the lead group a bit, down to about 20 riders. The second lap I found my rhythm on the climb and maintained position. Lap 3, I saw some Cat 5 hilarity as a rider launched himself head first over the curb...while trying to take a drink! Unreal. He apparently had not read Luke's Tip #15.

By Lap 4, the lead group was down to 12 riders. On the climb, a rider attacked off the front and two other riders followed. I was sitting second wheel after the attack left and I had no intentions or the adequate energy to chase down the attack...neither did anyone else. I was left in a group of nine that would not grow or shrink at all before the final climb.

I realized during the race that I was saving a lot of energy compared to other riders because of my fat-man descending skills. I did not have to pedal to maintain position until 300 meters or so after the other riders began pedaling up the climb. I hoped that I would be able to use this during the final laps. I decided to try to move up to the front on Lap 7, hit the descent in the front in the final lap from which I thought I could easily take 4th.

We hit the climb in Lap 7 and I was not the only rider that had planned to attack the climb. The pace increased uncomfortably and I found myself at the top in the same position (mid-pack) but with much less oxygen than I would have preferred. The went as hard as I could the final lap. I picked off 3 riders on the final climb but there was no sprint to be had for anyone. I came in 9th, my best result yet. I was extremely happy that I was able to hang in that hilly of a crit. My days as a 5 are quickly coming to an end, but this crit gave me hope that I will have the fitness to be competitive in the next category.

If you don't love it, leave it!

As I am sure you are all aware, my Iowa Hawkeyes won their first ever BCS bowl last night when they defeated the Georgia Tech Bees 24-14 in the FedEx Orange Bowl. While I greatly enjoyed watching the game at John Barleycorn, surrounded by hundreds of my fellow Iowans, the best moment occurred after the game.

After Adrian Claybourn was awarded the MVP award, Fox Analyst Chris Myers moved on to interview Ricky Stanzi. Myers managed to rattle off one of the more bizarre questions I have ever heard asked of an athlete after a seminal win:

"I know you're from Middle America, and sometimes you feel like you're representing more than just a school or a conference, maybe an entire group of American citizens out there."

No question mark? Yeah, there was no change in inflection either making it an even more bizarre "question". Regardless, Stanzi, who rears from Mentor, OH (from what I can tell, a suburb of Cleveland) and thus is a certified "Middle American", came back with a gem of a response, "punking" Myers in the process.

"Of course. I mean, there's nothing better than being American. So, I mean, this is the greatest feeling. If you don't love it, leave it! USA, number one!"

You can't really ask for much more from your quarterback. Here's the video:

More Rap Music from Iowa?!

After my last post, I really didn't think that another YouTube video of such quality (about Iowa) could ever emerge. Well folks, lightening struck twice. This video is even more entertaining, more inappropriate and...I ran out of words. Here is the video. Amazing.