Bellevue Philharmonic

Mina's 1st grade teacher plays violin in the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra. At our school auction, my friend, Lesleigh (fellow Masters swimmer/carpool/neighbor/friend and Canadian) and I bid on tickets together. We took Mina and her son to the show. Mina was rather delighted by this event. We had a great view of M’s teacher and the kids loved getting her attention. The kiddos did rather well sitting through two stretches of five songs.  To top it off, their teacher, took them out for ice-cream afterwards! It was a very sweet afternoon.

Rich again/Independence Valley Road Race Report

Once again, Saturday morning came around, and it was time to hit the road for another road race. This time, a buddy (Ethan) and I signed up to race the Independence Valley Road Race, in Rochester, just south of Olympia. The drive was 90 minutes South on I5. We arrived to a super-packed parking lot at Swede-hall (yes, a hall for Swedish people), and a little more tight on time than I would like, but still enough to have a bit of a warm-up ride.

The course is ~ 20 miles, which we CAT5ers did twice for a total of 41 miles. About 2 miles in, there is a nice climb. At about 15 miles, there is another smaller climb. Neither of the climbs presented a great challenge, although we certainly all had to change up for them. Most folks stood on their pedals for much of the climbs. The course is pictured below.

The max field size for CAT5 is 50, and it looked like we were pretty much at that, as we waited. Just before we took off, we were given a speech about safety. Apparently, the CAT3 Men’s race that had just ended required 3 ambulances due to a poorly orchestrated last 200m sprint. Ouch! They told us to “race during the race … don’t leave it all until the end.” The car pulled us out, and then we were off. The pace was pretty comfortable. The weather was super nice; I was worried about overheating, actually. Read on for more on my heat management tactics (or really, antics) coming later. Apparently, there was snow on the course last year. Ouch.

We greeted the first climb. This was my first ever race-climb, so I was again covering new ground in what was my 3^rd race of my racing career. Guys around me were having trouble with the climb, so I decided to make up some ground on the uphill. I could see Ethan ahead of me, and wanted to stay as close as possible. This decision turned out to be my best one of the race. We eventually crested the hill, and it was immediately obvious that the race was unfolding in real-time.

A group of about 15 guys was breaking from the main pack, which was mostly still climbing. I was in-between the two packs. I hammered on my crank to catch the lead pack. This was dig-deep time, since the lead pack was already into drafting mode. Another guy was doing the same thing, passed me and yelled “come on, you can do it … I hope”. The “I hope” part landed strangely with me at first, but then I got what he meant. He placed himself right in front of my wheel and pulled me for about 45s. He then yelled back “I’m done. Your turn.” Those 45s had given me ample time to recover. I hammered on my crank again and caught up with the lead pack. I’m not actually sure if my new-found buddy kept up with me, or if he dropped back. In any case, I made it into the lead pack and was able to recover there. You really have to put as much as you can into getting back with a pack. It is literally “do or die”. If you don’t catch up, you’re dead. In this case, I would have fallen back to the main pack, but I didn’t want that option very much.

Unfortunately, our race started right at noon, which didn’t give a lot of opportunity for a proper lunch. This time around, I opted for calories in a bottle. Just as we passed the finish line, the first time through, I made sure to empty my calorie bottle, providing the best opportunity for a strong 2^nd half. I still had > 50% of a bottle of nuun to get me through the 2^nd lap, so hydration wasn’t going to be a problem.

Not much super-interesting happened for the next while. We passed by a bunch of CAT4s, who apparently fell of the back of their races. I stayed with the lead pack, generally staying in the back 50% of the pack, often on the very back. I didn’t see much need to inject myself into the front 50% of the pack, not wanting to repeat any of the pulling that I did last week in Sequim. In retrospect, as you’ll see, I probably erred a little bit on this, but that’s OK. It may have been a bit of a cop-out, but I decided that even last-place finish for the lead pack was still ~ top 15, so why not just go with that.

Fast forward to the last climb of the day, which was the 2^nd climb of the second lap. This time, the climb did hurt a little more. I was starting to feel it. I was both probably tired and needing a few more calories in my system. Anyway, I stayed with the back of the pack to the crest of the climb and was OK. No-one was going too fast up the hill, actually a fair bit slower than I expected. I was expecting to get dropped on the ascent. The descent then took place. Everyone transitioned to their most aerodynamic positions as possible. Looking at my speed data, I was travelling >45 mph at the peak of this descent. The others were going faster.

During the descent, I started to feel this funny feeling on my chest. I had unzipped my shirt a little during the race to help with heat management. Although there was likely a minor aerodynamic cost to this, it kept me cool and fresh. I realized that the wind, as I was careening down the hill, was causing my shirt to unzip all the way. This turned out to be REALLY bad. The zipper stopped at the very end and held. This created a hell of a parachute, which filled up with air and created a fairly massive drag. There was nothing I could do. I was travelling at over 40mph, and wasn’t about to start futzing with my zipper. I knew then that I wasn’t going to catch up with the pack. Damn. I’m definitely not wearing a shirt with a zipper that goes all the way to bottom again.

I unzipped my zipper all the way (fastest thing to do; only required one hand) and started hammering away. At this point, I was very likely doing more work than the main pack. I was doing all the work of pulling, for just myself. There was 1 guy about 50m in front of me and then a group of about 4 guys after that. The 1 guy was getting slowly closer, and I just pushed and pushed. I eventually caught up to him and got some rest on his wheel.  I then did him a favor and pulled for him. We never did catch up to those 4 guys, but continued to draft off one another. With about a mile left to go, it was obvious (to me) that I had more gas left. I pulled for most of the rest of the way. He then came beside me. I wanted the next slot at the finish, pulled ahead and gave it most of what I had left, and took that slot.

He (his name was Randy) was riding a Tarmac too, so I made the comment as he caught back up with me, after we both crossed the finish, “nice one for Team Tarmac”. I told him my story about my shirt opening up. He said “Oh, I thought that you were going Euro on us”. Nice!

Here is a pic of me racing, second from left: http://reedkj.smugmug.com/Cycling/Independence-Valley-RR-2010/11659630_WoFKH#822362861_7xEVz-A-LB

After we got back to Swede hall, we checked the results. I managed to squeak into 16^th place. There were 41 finishers. Awesome! After more nuanced races (including a crash) the last two times, I’m feeling pretty darn good with that.

Here is the Garmin view of the race. The ascents and descents are pretty obvious. I have no idea why the second climb is so much taller the second time through. The general idea is still there.

Here’s another couple accounts of the day:

· http://olyrunner.blogspot.com/2010/03/race-within-race.html

· http://bradhaley.blogspot.com/2010/03/ivrr-2010.html

Tour de Dung (Sequim) Race #2

So part of me likes the idea of bike races and triathlon just for the road trip side of it. I love road trips. Sequim was our first real road trip of the season. We even got to take a ferry.

We stayed at a place with a pool. Extra fun.

At the start. Miles is taking notes for his future races.

Waiting in between laps. I was thankful for a grassy field.

Post-race with Papa and watching the Cat 1-2 races. They were REALLY fast.

Another race report from my guy…

Wow. This race was a lot of fun. If you read my Mason Lake #1 report, you’ll note that I and a lot of other folks had a lot of challenges in that race (first of the season). At Sequim, there were no crashes, no ambulances, no broken hands and no accordion effect. It was just a great race, with great cyclists.

Boring and Silly Pre-Amble

As always with these things, there is a back story. I didn’t share my back story with the earlier race since it was too damn embarrassing, and this one is bad enough. The race was at 11:45AM on Saturday, which meant that we could travel morning-of, but decided not to. I left work at 5pm (AKA early) Friday to start the journey. Unfortunately, my back tire flatted out between B42 and B86 going to a meeting earlier in the day, which meant I had to bus it home. Grrr. I’d also left my flat kit at home, which is very atypical for me. We were also in the process of having work done on our car, so I actually took the bus to the dealership, and picked up the car. Anyway, I arrived home, had a quick supper with the fam, did some last-minute packing, and then we all took off for the ferry. Unfortunately, we had to pick up my bike back in B42, which didn’t speed up the process. I rarely ride my race bike to work, but wanted to give it a once over ride on Friday to validate that it was in good working order after the Mason Lake crash. I don’t think that I’d ridden it since the last race, just my Jake for commuting.

On Saturday (race morning), we woke up in the hotel and headed downstairs for the free breakfast. Not sure that I can handle that again. I practically get an allergic reaction to bread and waffles made with cheap refined white flour. Give me some wheat-germ, man! After breakfast, I’d started to have this uneasy feeling. Did I bring my bike shoes? Did they get forgotten due to not biking home on Friday? After a check in the car, my feeling was validated. Damn! I fired up Bing Maps 4 iPhone and found the one bike shop in Sequim: Mike’s Bikes. We checked out, and booted off to Mike’s Bikes. Turns out that they only sell MTB shoes. Ahhh! I make it clear that I’m in a real crunch with a race in just over 60mins. One of the guys pulls out his well-loved and mean-looking MTB shoes out of a drawer and happens to have the right cleats, which he attaches for me. They push me out the door, don’t even ask me for any ID, and I’m off to the races (literally). My wife always tells me that I was born with a horse-shoe in my back pocket, and I continue not to disappoint in that regard! Here are the shoes, below. Contrary to what you might think, no endangered species were harmed in the making of these shoes. Also, under those tongues are some pretty manly laces. That all being said, in jest, I’m super thankful to the guys at Mike’s Bikes. Thanks Mike! I patronized them with a sale, on returning the shoes after the race, and won’t hesitate to do that again, when we’re back in Sequim. You also now know where to go for gear in Sequim!

Race Strategy

I was racing with 2 buddies (B1 and B2), and they strangely arrived at the exact same time (they came morning of via the Narrows Bridge), so we parked side-by-side. Nice. One of the 2 buddies won CAT5 last week in Sequim, so we hatched a plan on how we could make that happen again.  The basic plan was that I would attack the breaks on lap 1, B1 would attack the breaks on lap 2, we would break early in lap 3, lead well away from the peloton, and then B2 would win the race (again) with a late sprint. And all that should be just the first leg of a day of exercise for three super-fit tri guys, right? Right.

The Race

Like last week (although I wasn’t there), they broke CAT5 into two races, separated by ten mins. The evens would go first, and the odds second. The nice thing about being a newbie and renting numbers, is that a small unattached team of 3 can all request even numbers (in order to race together). This trick won’t last long though, as I’m soon going to buy some numbers.

After a 10min delay, the race started. And they are off! That’s me w/o a kit, on the Specialized bike. Note the fine shoes again ;)

B1 and B2 sped past me, and I quickly found myself half-way back. I’m thinking to myself that I’m in a pretty poor position to make good on the race strategy, which has me attacking breaks in lap1. I learned a lot of basics in Mason Lake #1, and also saw how the pack moves, so time to make good on my new-found-knowledge. I was able to quickly move to the outside (yellow-line side), and make my way to the front. A guy had already broken from the pack by a couple bike lengths. Having never done anything like this before, I hesitated for a second, but then just thought “OK … do it”. I then pulled in front of the leader, just 4 or 5 bike-lengths (or so it felt) behind the lead car. Adrenaline is pumping through my body at this point. I then pulled pretty strongly in front for the next few kms. We came to the first turn, and my job was over. The first guy passed me looks over to me and says “nice pull”! B1 passed me and took over the lead. My legs were tired, so I fell to the back. I then had one of those “oh shit” moments, as the pack pulled away. I then hammered away and caught back into the restful draft of the pack and hung out for a bit while I caught my breath.

Again, I reminded myself that I had a job to do. I realized by now that our strategy was a little flawed. We had just 3 guys and most of the other (actual) teams were much larger. There was no way that we were going to be able to do so much work over 36 miles. I decided that I was going to continue with our strategy. It is still super early in the season and I’d rather blow up doing what I agreed to at the start of the race than adopt a different plan unilaterally. So, I moved up to the front of the pack again, and took over for B1. I then led again for a bit, until I couldn’t any longer. B1 then took over again. Suffice to say that this pattern repeated itself a 5 or 6 times during the race. Each time, I would end up a little more exhausted, falling off the end of the peloton and would have to work a little harder to get back in. I knew that it was nuts, but I wanted to make good on our plan. In addition, I was having a lot of fun. I was also learning a whole new set of lessons relative to Mason Lake #1.

Below, you can see us completing lap 2 and starting into lap 3. I’ve marked myself with an arrow.

Fast forward to the 3^rd lap … B1 ended up having a mechanical early on in lap 3, so that left B2 and me. Crap. I looked at my Garmin (attached to my bars), and could see that the race was almost over. After 3 laps, I was pretty familiar with the coursescape and knew where we were. I knew that we had about 2-3km left. So, what the hell … let’s give B2 a chance to win again. With about 2km left, I pulled in front again. B2 was in the number 2 spot behind me. I pulled for about 1km. B2 then passed me (as per plan), but so did a ton of other guys. Once again, one of the first guys to pass me looked over at me and said “nice pull”. Nice guys, eh? I was fully done at that point. The pack then passed me, and I had no mental or physical ability to re-attach myself to the peloton. I gave it all I had left solo, and came in 4 or 5 spots from last (modulo DNFs). Even with my hard work, B2 wasn’t able to win again, but still did pretty darn well. Great!!

Closing

Crossing the finish line, I felt incredibly happy and proud. My spot was nothing to write home about (and worse than Mason#1 even w/the crash), but my performance according to our plan was great. I worked hard throughout the race and was able to compete with the pack in a pretty favorable way. Obviously, I need to adopt a fairly different approach next week with way less early work and avoid blowing up at the end. Also, I realized that I didn’t have a nutrition strategy (no nutrition during race); I probably need to take a look at that one. All in all, this race was 100% different than Mason #1. I really enjoyed it and am now hooked on the sport.

For the data geeks, here is what the Garmin thought that my race looked like. I didn’t wear a HR monitor or have my cadence meter attached to my bike. This view certainly tells an interesting tale of its own. That last speed spike, just after 30 miles is where I took the lead one last time to help out B2. You can see that I really was done at that point. The final drop there, just before mile 35, was the end of the race. The race was 36 miles, but I didn’t start my Garmin right away, hence being short by just over a mile.

Here is the spit, post-race. We spent some time there with the kids. It was windy, as per usual on the spit, but fun as usual too.

Adventures in Cat 5 Road Racing

Since starting to ride a road bike, I’ve been debating road racing. It looks like my definition of fun and i know that i’ll try it one day when my bravery, the calendar and life converge. But back in March, i suggested we drive out to one of the first local races so that i could watch and get a sense for it all. The night before Rich decided that if we were going to drive out there to watch, that he might as well race it. Yes, this highlights our differences in personality. I admire his willingness to jump right in. Especially when jumping right in involves riding with a whole bunch of eager and inexperienced male bike riders!

You can follow his racing here: Rich’s blog

But i’ll also post some of it…

Mason Lake Road Race #1

Being game to try many things insane, I decided to enter my first road race (on the bike), earlier today. Annie was originally planning on doing it, but she did a metric century on the bike yesterday, so was a little on the tired side. So, given the opening, I decided to step in.

http://static.wsbaracing.com/flyers/2010/MasonFlyer2010.pdf

We got up at 5AM this morning (March 7th), in order to make a 8:30AM registration cut-off. The race was day-of registration only. Anyway, we got there at 7:45, after driving for 1:15mins, and were one of the first to get registered. I had to pay for the race, plus buy a one-day racing license and rent a number. We parked the car, and generally got our bearings about us. We decided to hit the washrooms first. The washrooms were very interesting. The stalls had walls but no fronts. Great way to make quick friends!

We meandered back to the car, and I pulled out our trainer so I could spin my legs and warm up. That’s what most other people were doing. It is mostly required to do this, if you want to have max power from the start of the race and avoid injury. Some people do this for up to an hour before the race. Here is a pic that Annie took from behind (of my behind). There was a woman beside me doing the same thing. You can see that she is wearing a “kit”, which is the uniform for a team. Her team is this rather large woman’s-only team in the area. I was one of the only unattached riders, actually.

Here is the other angle:

The CAT 4 men left first. 5mins later, the CAT5 men left, with me in the bunch. We had ~ 60 riders, I would guess. The race was quite different than I expected. It wasn’t particularly fast, and the speed was quite variable, a lot of stop and go. CAT5 is where all the inexperienced riders are. There is no CAT6. CAT1 is the best, and then you go Pro. You don’t need to “qualify” to get into CAT5, just pay the entrance. All the higher categories (lower number) require that you do certain things to get into them, so the riders there and the way they ride are quite different. Here is the start (leaving from a driveway to a park), with me on the left, in my non-kit gear.

We did 3 loops of Lake Mason. It was quite pretty. We could see mountains, the lake and a pile of trees. The road was generally good, although it was a bit bumpy in parts. I hit a couple pot-holes, which popped my handlebars into my hands. I had this thought each time of “sure glad I’m holding on”. It was ‘interesting’ taking drinks from my water bottle. I only did that 3 or 4 times, since it mostly was never appropriate to do that. You have to keep your wits about you when you are in a pack, with 3-4 abreast. It would be like driving on highway 401 with only a vague sense of lanes and 2 or 3 centimeters between cars. If the cars hit, your wheels fall off, and the next set of cars crash into you. And that analogy turns out to be a great segue into the rest of my story.

Most of the way through the first loop, we all heard this loud explosion. It was obvious what it was. A tire had exploded, which meant that a cyclist and his bike was down, which also meant that others would be down too. We all slowed, rode around the 5 or 6 guys, and kept on going. On the next lap, another guy provided the entertainment. He touched his front wheel to the back of mine, and went down. I turned and saw the whole thing. He landed on top of his bike, and it appeared like the side of his face hit the road. Ouch! It wasn’t really my fault, so I and everyone else kept on riding. I think 4 other guys fell on top of the guy too.

Here is the bulk of the riders in the CAT5 race, to give you a sense. The race mostly stayed together.

On the last loop, things were looking good. I was still in the main pack, and was starting to think about getting closer to the front. All of a sudden, a guy in front of me crashed. I started breaking, but didn’t have time to do much. I hit another bike and was down. It all happened so quickly, so I don’t quite know what exactly transpired. However, I was on the ground and my bike was on top of me. Interesting. There were 5 or so other guys down. I was the first to get up, and I asked the others if they were OK. They said they were, so I took off. The first few strokes of the pedals were a little rough, but I got back into it. There was only ~5km left of the race, so I had no chance of catching back up. I haven’t seen the results yet, but I will have placed near the last as a result. That’s OK. It could have been a fair bit worse. One of the guys in my crash (as I was getting off the ground) said “I don’t think that I have a bike left.” Ouch!

As the subject line would suggest, I do have a fair bit of road rash. My knee was badly bruised and I had a good sized cut on one of my legs. All in all, I got off pretty easy. And my bike looks unharmed.

I bought a fancy new bike in late December. It was really nice to ride it in this kind of environment. I noticed a number of other folks with the same bike, and most were at the same (high) quality level. It really felt like the bike wasn’t holding me back, and was more than happy to run with anything that I could throw at it. It is always nice, in pretty much any pursuit, having gear that takes the best of what you can do, and doesn’t inhibit you in any way. This bike is just like that.

Here is me and the kids just after I cross the finish line.

Here is a monster that we ran into. Very scary! After a short chat, we decided that the monster was nice, and opted to take her home with us.

Annie says that she is looking forward to giving it a go this coming weekend! Who wouldn’t?

Hope this story provides you with some entertainment ;)

rich

Post-race late lunch near Mason Lake. Mexican food. Next year i think that we’ll bring a picnic or something.

A Little Too Busy…Part Two

What is the quotation about life is what happens when you are busy making plans… Life has been rather fun and full lately, and i apologize for not taking time to share more of it here.

More highlights…

Spring Blooms and Showers

Mina and her tree.

 

 

Yes, there is a sheet of drywall in the background of this photograph.

Is There Anything Sweeter Than Sleeping Children?

A Papa and Miles Afternoon in Seattle

Mina had a birthday party in Seattle. I was on a bike ride. The boys hit the beach.

 

Since the fall, Miles has been wearing boots constantly. Day in, day out. Sometimes on the right feet, sometimes backwards. This is his second pair, which are firefighter boots.

Beautiful homegrown eggs

We’ve been enjoying a steady stream of eggs. Our big yellow Buffs laid pretty much daily all winter. The Ameraucanas took a break for the bulk of the winter months starting up again in late winter.

The chickens eating some clover from the student garden.

Celebrating a year of chickens, we’ve been stopping in at the Grange to greet this year’s batch of chicks. We were able to do this without bringing anyone home even!

Mr. Home Renovation

For the last year plus, Rich has been working away on our house. Working on house projects has become a little too consuming but the results has been rather awesome to enjoy!

We look forward to wrapping up some of this hopefully before summer.

This spring, our stove died a few months ahead of schedule.

But that wasn’t so bad.

The new stove and new cork floor. Thankfully when doing our floor we had already put down a gas line, so we made the upgrade to gas. The unit is rather sweet and the lower drawer is actually a full oven going up to 450! Love it. Now, the old cabinets… Ignore them please. I try to.

So house projects… We’ve come to really appreciated how one thing can led to another, and how sometimes you might want to take pause before adding in a little side project. But oh well. In this case, the perk was that we now have NEW WINDOWS  in our living space. It has been a fun little experiment having people over, especially those under ten, and watching their reaction to a house without a kitchen floor, ceilings or proper walls. But all fun experiments must come to an end one day. Yes, that is one ugly fireplace. I agree.

Mama paints the fireplace and i paint a mural.

 

Science

 

Visits from the Kelowna Crew

We have a bay window in our house that has become the lego window. This is an instant hit with friends and cousins alike!

A February visit was a fun chance to celebrate the birthday of my niece and nephew. Rich had whipped up a chocolate cake that included beets! We served it with homemade vanilla ice cream and it was yummy!

I’m enjoying using our new island as a serving area.

We took the kids to Kids Quest and Ryan was rather delighted by the big truck!

Papa’s Bday

Rich turned the Big 34 and we celebrated with a trip to Fry’s!  He’d never been there and opted for as the birthday event. That’s my guy! Actually the main goal was to update the TV situation to enjoy the Olympics a little better. :)

 

The Vancouver Olympics!

We watched as much as we could. The kids were cheering for a mix of Canadian and American athletes. It was very exciting. We also enjoyed keeping up with the adorable little mascots. Phil and Leanne gave the kids a great book about the mascots which has become a household favourite.

 

Sweet Mina on a sleepy morning…

Olympic Gear and Cheer!

Right before the Olympics, Jenny was in Vancouver and picked up some gear for our family. Thank you! It has been fun showing our pride. Phil and Leanne also gave us the cool mittens at Christmas and the kids were tickled when they saw all the others wearing them on TV at the Olympics!