Racing - Oct 26, 2013 CCNS Donut Derby

"Racing" is a bit of a misnomer but I'll call it that since, well, we got a number to pin on our kits. For me it was more of a chance to hang out and say hi and such. The Missus came along for the same reason, to hang out with people that she'd met at other races, and Junior, well, getting him out is always a good thing.

The Donut Derby is a fun race meant to raise money for the CCAP. Basically riders do a 3 mile loop, seven laps. You can eat donuts to reduce your time - a donut is worth 3 minutes. The idea is to balance the donuts and the riding so you ride fast and eat lots. Although I wasn't keen on blowing up my diet I figured I'd have at least one donut, and I knew that it'd be hard so I didn't worry much beyond that.

It didn't help that I was really sore because of a kind of ridiculous reason. Thursday I did a total of 16 seconds of high rpm work. Friday I felt pretty sore and it got worse as the day went on. Saturday morning, the day of the Donut Derby, I could barely walk down the stairs.

Because the Donut Derby is more of a fun thing, probably the closest you can get in a road based event to a 'cross race in terms of attitude, I packed my bike as is, meaning with the regular clinchers, no changes to anything.

Since I happened to gather my winter gear for a future post on, well, winter wear, my gear bag was totally stocked.

Crucially I left the gearing intact - 53/44 up front and an 11-23 in the back. I vaguely remembered some talk about a short steep hill, and I pictured a 100m hill at 18%. Easy peasy.

We headed out to the race, the Missus, Junior, and myself. I did make a tactical decision concerning breakfast. Since we'd be heading out around breakfast time I decided to skip breakfast. This would give me more "donut capacity" and give me an excuse to eat more than one. I had half a cup of coffee and then we headed out.

We arrived and it was bitterly cold, 31 degrees F by the car thermometer. In my winter gear photoshoot I did the tights last - apparently I left them sitting next to the gear bag because they weren't in it. I also never located my winter jacket (it's in the Expedition somewhere, in our storage bay) so I didn't have that either.

I looked at my long sleeve jersey - suddenly it seemed much lighter weight than I remembered. Luckily I had two base layers and all my other stuff.

I kitted up - base layer (wicking), base layer (insulating), LS jersey, thermal vest, and wind vest. Bib knickers. Booties. Winter gloves.

I rolled out and it didn't seem bad. I was glad I had knickers, the tights would have been too warm.

Due to some parking logistics I was back at the car, a mile away from the start, at 10:02 AM. The race was supposed to start at 10.

I rode pretty hard to the start and found that I hadn't missed the start.

When I got to the start.

Aidan, leader of CCNS and the driving force behind CCAP, was making some final announcements. Later I learned I missed something about "straws", but more on that later.

We started off and I though, wow, if road races started like this I'd do a lot more of them. We casually pedaled up the minor grade leading away from the start/finish area. I admit I was surprised at how slowly we started off but within a few hundred yards the reason hit me pretty hard - this sucker got steep!

After the ride I told the Missus that it was a really hard hill, maybe a third of a mile long, and it just seemed to go on forever.

At any rate I shifting into a mid-range gear and realized that, okay, I need to shift down. I moved the lever.

Nothing happened.

I looked down.

My "mid-range" gear was my bottom gear, a 44x23. A bit of worry crossed my mind when I remembered that the cassette on my training wheel was just an 11-23, not an 11-25.

I was pushing a chainring bigger than the big ring on my mountain bike.

Ugh.

Everyone quickly dropped me, including a rider that stopped to walk, remounted, and passed me while giving me encouragement.

We dropped down a descent but I couldn't enjoy it much because we got stuck behind a car. I didn't want to pass it so I waited until it went straight and we all went left.

(I should point out that when I looked at my stats later I was fastest when "held up" behind the car, at 45+ mph. Apparently sitting in its slipstream made things seem slow.)

I got back to the start/finish area and felt relieved that it wasn't all packed up and gone. I'd gone so slowly that I half expected to see leaves blowing across the road and not much more.

First lap, the donut stop on the right.

The Missus with Junior in his Carpe Diem Racing blanket.

The immense effort on the hill, combined with my mini time trial to the start, had warmed me up nicely. I didn't feel like giving some of that away by stopping to eat a donut so I rode through the feed zone, waving hi to the Missus and a confused Junior (he puzzles when he sees a lot of cyclists and one of them says hi back to him).

I hit the hill and realized that, wow, this thing was steep.

The dirt part of the hill, complete with skeletal cheering person.

A brave soul or two made the trek partway up the hill to cheer on their riders. They cheered on the others as well, like me.

I was going so slow they could have read the chainring size stamped on the side of the chainring, that's how slow I was moving.

I got pretty hot making this all out effort, trying not to fall over, and I decided that I should get rid of the thermal vest. My arms were fine but my torso started getting hot.

On the next lap I pulled in for a pit stop, opposite the donuts, where the Missus stood with Junior.

The Missus, at the end of lap two, during my pit stop.

After I ditched the vest I watched a couple groups lap me and then I set off again. I struggled mightily up the hill as rider after ride rode by me like I was standing still.

Well, since I was doing all I could not to fall over I wasn't going much faster than "standing still" so that makes sense.

As I went over the top a couple riders went by, including Devil Gear's Jeff W. He's given me help in the past so I decided that I'd try and give him a hand here. After I recovered a touch I pulled through and upped the pace.

Jeff W just before I pulled through.

With no cars in the way, with a couple practice laps, we flew down the descent. He backed off a touch but was immediately back on as the road straightened out. Although he eased as we hit the hard left he went blowing by shortly after. I didn't see him again until he rode by me again.

The Missus moved to the sunny bridge for lap 3.

Slowly I made my way back to the start/finish. The Missus had moved into the sun, and combined with the temps now in the 40s things felt much warmer.

I rolled up to the hill and started my death crawl up the thing.

One of the CCNS guys, Hunter, was taking pictures. I told him I ought to win the Stupid Gear award because I had such a stupid high gear. I mean, okay, Thierry Claveyrolat won the polka dot jersey in the Tour one year pushing something insane like a 46T inner ring, but I'm not Claveyrolat, not by a long shot.

The fact that Hunter and I had this conversation while I rode all of about 20 feet shows just how slowly I was going up the hill. When I looked at Strava my low speed on the hill was in the 2.x mph range.

Hunter and I talk.

I descended alone this time, not going quite as fast. I eased to see if two guys behind me would catch me before the descent really got going but no deal so I went on my own. Just before the last little plunge they blew by me.

Amos blows by me, another in tow.

Although I followed them they rode away from me after the hard left.

No Missus on the next lap - she was changing Junior. Same deal with the hill, death crawl. Over the top a rider in Daisy Dukes caught me and we rode the rest of the lap together.

Daisy Duke and myself roll to the finish.

I had finished five laps of seven at that point and since the Missus was still missing I figured I'd do one more lap. No donuts or anything, I just started going again.

As I started up the hill I got that familiar weak, dizzy, cold sweat feeling - I was bonking. Doing all that work, no breakfast, in the chilly morning... I turned around and rolled back down the hill.

Good time for a donut.

I picked out one, drizzled in caramel and chocolate. A volunteer was kindly sticking a straw in it, I guess to let us pick up donuts without getting dirty. I told her that I didn't need the straw and took the donut.

The Missus showed up with Junior, and although he was in good cheer we really had to leave to get home. As we were getting ready to go one of the Biker's Edge guys, Rob C, showed me a fist full of straws.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" he said as he rolled by.

Que?

Ends up that to get your 3 minutes off per donut you give the straw to the official and they tick off how many 3 minute increments you get credited to your time. So by being polite and saving the volunteer a straw I missed the chance to take 3 minutes off my time.

Aw shucks.

We packed up the car. I struggled so much to do the most simple tasks that the Missus, concerned with my sore legs, offered to drive. I gladly took her up on that offer as even sitting down hurt my legs a lot.

After we got home we had a bunch of things we had to get done. Before we got started I looked at Strava and saw that the "third of a mile hill" was actually closer to 0.7 miles. Not all of it was 2 mph steep but, still, that sort of explained why I felt to absolutely destroyed when I stopped.

I'll have to make it back next year. I'll skip breakfast again but I'll be eating donuts from the beginning. I'll collect straws or whatever they use as markers. I'll put on some lower gear and use some wider tires (more on the tires later). And maybe I'll even get to do the full seven laps.

We'll see.

Training - 2013 in Review

For me it's time to start thinking about next year. I mean, okay, I've been doing that for a year already, but this season is pretty much done. No more racing for me this year. I'm going to start training for next year, deal with some equipment maintenance, possibly hone some equipment choices (minor changes), and think about how to get back some of my lost speed.

I post everything to Strava nowadays. It's easy to access from anywhere, the offer a great "synopsis page", and I can get a quick snapshot of what I've done (and, similarly, what others have done). I still maintain some offline power data in Golden Cheetah and, prior to moving to Macs, I used WKO to store my power data. Strava, though, is the quickest way for me to get an overall view of my riding.

This is my 2013, which I probably should have "ended" at the end of September. Still, though, it's impressive to me.

Snapshot of the Training page from Strava

You can see some trends here. First, January is a high hour month. My hours drop off quickly because I got sick and stayed sick for a while (I'll blame it on Junior picking up colds at day care for a few months). I had no SoCal training camp so no 25-30+ hour week in there.

February I almost didn't ride - 8 hours for the month isn't great for me, and no rides in the second half of the month. I hurt my back, sleeping on a couch while holding Junior who was coughing up so much phlegm I was worried he'd choke. In fact for a while I was convinced he had whooping cough, and even though the doctor said no it was still kind of panicky sometimes, with him choking on phlegm while on his back. Laying on my chest helped so therefore that's what I did.

March and April I don't ride much - I basically race Bethel, do an easy ride here and there, and that's it. Bethel consumes my off-bike time, stresses me out, and basically forces me to do a very light two months of riding. This year I went into March weighing 181 pounds, a lot for post-2009 me. From 2004 and 2009 I sometimes hit Bethel at 200 lbs or even a touch more. In 2010 it was 158 or so. I gained weight steadily, I think entering 2011 at 168 and 2012 at 175 or so (I forget). At my higher weight, with virtually no riding in the prior 4 weeks, I knew the races wouldn't go well for me.

May through August normally is the heart of the season. Unfortunately once Bethel ended there weren't a lot of races for a while - a few were canceled, others had been moved up the schedule so they were on the same weekends as Bethel (but on Saturday), etc. I rode to pick up the van at Bethel (that's that spike in April), but otherwise I got into "summer mode", which is doing a day or two of training a week plus race on Sunday. Weather played a big role too - a lot of the Tuesday Night races got rained out so I lost an hour or so of riding each week there. I still managed to do 13-17 hours a month from May through August, with a few glimmers of hope amongst a myriad of DNFs.

September was unusual this year. We went away for a week to visit in-laws (to me). The Missus, having watched me get shelled regularly, encouraged me to train a bit, so I did. Not only did I train a lot, I did about a third of my total annual elevation in four days of training. I hoped that this would give me some fitness for a tough, end of season race in Hartford.

This didn't happen. I had a terrible race, shelled in less than 3 laps. This worked to give me solid motivation to keep training, keep losing weight, and to focus on my next race, the first race at Bethel in March 2014.

Racing - 2013 Bethel CDR Gold Race

Sunday I was a bit discombobulated before the start of the race. I really wanted to try the red Tsunami, the one that used to be orange. I rode it on the trainer and decided that if I felt comfortable riding it at the race I'd be okay with not having power or anything - I hadn't installed the SRM wire and I wasn't planning on doing it on race day.

I did wrap the tape though and thereby decided that the levers were in their final-for-now position.

I also test rode the new-to-me wheels which I'll review later, but the important part is that the front is a HED Stinger 7, 75 mm tall, and the rear is a HED Stinger 9, 90 mm tall. Both have the SCT profile, the stability thing that comes from a rounded "peak". The rims look more U shaped than V shaped. I wasn't sure if I wasted a bunch of money buying the wheels but the data seemed to indicate that these U shaped rims should be fast.

Plus they look and sound cool so there was that.

I wanted to use those wheels because my goal this week was to help my teammate Bryan at the front of the race on the last lap. I figured I wouldn't be sprinting up the hill, my main focus would be drilling it on the backstretch. Realistically I knew I wouldn't be able to do much else - I've been struggling just to finish the races this year. I also knew it would be a big ask for me to be at the front on the last lap, but if I could do it I'd bury myself to keep Bryan out of the wind for another 20 seconds.

With that in mind I decided to use the super duper aero wheels. The Stinger 6s, my faithful 60 mm rimmed wheels, stayed in the pits.

I rolled to the start line with those 7/9 wheels but mounted on the black bike. Although I'll race new-to-me wheels off the bat I figured that racing the red bike wouldn't be smart - it would mean its first outdoor ride would be a race. The black bike is a known quantity even if it needs a bit of work. For example I regularly see 1-2 watts when I'm soft pedaling and the freehub body is clicking - that means I'm using that much power just to turn the cranks.

With all my thoughts on what bike, what wheels (the new rear wheel doesn't have a magnet yet), I decided I'd rely on Strava to record my ride. I even started Strava before I rolled out there, with the Record button prominently displayed in the center of my phone.

I forgot about my heart rate strap but again, with Strava, I was just getting speed, distance, and GPS location. The SRM sat on the bars so I thought it'd be nice to have heartrate but whatever, it was all good.

While I waited at the desk I also pinned my numbers.

Because I had to man the registration post I couldn't leave the registration desk until 8 minutes before the start of my race. It meant a quick bathroom break (which I couldn't take before either), changing with all that it entails when it's a chilly race, realizing my HR strap wasn't there (it was in the car), and quickly rolled out to the line. The race started almost immediately after.

I forgot to start Strava.

I even forgot to power on the helmet cam. By the time I did the field was strung out and we were already heading past half a lap into the race.

Just after I turned on the helmet cam. Yeah, oops.

I felt okay at the start. Fresh, of course, since as usual I hadn't warmed up. My legs felt a bit better than they did last week - I had my head better covered, I wasn't freezing cold, and I'd eaten some amount of food during the day. I even moved up into about 20th spot in a few laps. I started thinking optimistically - maybe I could get to the front and drill it to lead out Bryan.

I did notice that the big wheels seemed really fast. I wished I'd had power (meaning the SRM was hooked up) because I felt like I was barely pedaling and the bike just wanted to roll.

Even better the bike didn't feel terrible on the hill. I wondered if the slight weight penalty would be something I'd notice but apparently it's below the cusp for me, at least in the poor condition I have right now. Maybe in a summer race, at the limit, in shape, I might notice something, but here, in cold Bethel, out of shape, I'll only notice coarse differences, not fine ones. Whatever, the bike climbed willingly on the hill and I had fun climbing out of the saddle.

After about 20 minutes though I started to suffer. I know I'm hurting when I look at the lap cards. I hope to see less than 10 to go because that always seems possible. When I looked the first time today it said 22 to go.

Yeah, bad.

My teammate Joel said something to me but I was so out of it I have no idea what he said. I just focused on the wheel in front and told him to move right - I needed him to move over so I could get some more shelter.

Things looked grim.

By 45 minutes into the race I was suffering a lot. Someone let a gap go at some point after Turn One and I had to close it on my own. By the time I did I was cooked and we were halfway down the backstretch. Luckily the field eased that lap going up the hill so I didn't get popped but that was a really close call for me.

The gap I had to close.

Same spot as the first picture - note location of white house.

The gap really hurt me, zapping whatever reserves I'd saved up. My mistake though and I paid the price. As the laps wound down I reminded myself of my goal - to help Bryan out before the sprint so he wouldn't have to do everything himself. I tried to empty the tank so that I'd be near the front at 1 to go.

Unfortunately I couldn't muster the strength to get up there for the bell. I'm good doing a last effort going up the hill but if I did that at the bell I'd blow up at Turn One. Therefore I tried to go hard without exploding myself. This half assed approach got me nothing.

Coming up on the bell... not good.

With everyone flying I had my hands full just maintaining position. I think I only passed riders who'd blown up or had given up. Everyone else seemed keen on doing exactly what I was doing - trying to move up for the sprint.

On the backstretch it looked like one of the teams would get a leadout going up the left side. Although initially balked when the field spread out, a gap opened up again and I waited, hoping they'd drill it. I figured with one effort they could be inside the top 20. At that point I could move up to wherever Bryan sat and help him.

The leadout guy backed off though - I think he blew up before the balk and couldn't get rolling again. I watched the gap go away and realized that I wouldn't be able to get up there for Bryan.

Approaching the hill on the last lap.

Big hole center right. I used it to blast through to the next bunch of riders.

My next hope was to finish behind Bryan. I had faith that he'd be good in the sprint, maybe a top 6 to get in the points. Since every point can be important I hoped that if I could do a good sprint I could place right behind Bryan. If he placed higher up, like 3rd, and I could take one of the places behind him, I'd deny some rival those points.

Bryan, to the left in the red shorts, exploded.

I was too far back anyway but I still had a few pedal strokes left in the tank.

That all went to pot when I saw Bryan exploded and shooting backwards on the left side of the course. When I saw him sit up I also eased - I had no aspirations for myself so it wouldn't do any good to sprint for the line. When I crossed the line I was actually on my hoods, shifting down, looking for a path to the left side so I could turn around and go back to registration. No bike throw, no real pedaling, no nothing.

I couldn't find a path so I did a cool down lap before heading in to the registration area.

SOC and I both managed to "beat" Bryan. Unfortunately our goals were to help him and neither of us made it up there to do so. I likened our result to something like if Bernard Eisel and Mark Renshaw both beat Mark Cavendish to the line for a Tour stage. Beating the leader isn't cause for celebration even if it represented personal triumphs for the two of us (I wasn't sure I'd finish the race and even turned down an offer from someone to bring me to the front).

As it turns out Bryan had had bad legs the whole day and simply didn't have it for the sprint. Last week he won the field sprint on his own. This week, not so good.

At least for me there's a week break. I can do some training to get some hours in - I looked today and I rode just 8 hours in February. That's not enough to get in shape.

I can also get the red bike ready to race, train outdoors on it, get the SRM harness set up, install the magnet on the Stinger 9.

Then I can return to Bethel for the 7th ready to rumble.

Promoting - 2013 Tour de Kirche

I suppose the whole promoting gig started on Friday. The Missus got home from work, Junior went to sleep, and we immediately set about doing the pre-reg books, releases, start lists, etc. We had to double check the "exceptions" (like when I add someone manually) to make sure we had releases for the start list people and that the start list people really should have been on the start list.

Saturday got busier.

In the last 5 or 6 years, since I moved away from the Bethel area, I've driven down the day before the race to my dad's. Since we've had registration indoors, first at Panificio Navona, then now at the Retail Lab, I drove down to do minor set up tasks. Sometimes it's not so minor, like shoveling a few hundred yards of road shoulder clear of snow. Other times it's pretty basic, marking off the lawn or doing a quick drive-around to make sure nothing weird happened since the last time I was there.

The Missus works Saturdays at this time of year, even Sundays, so she normally can't make any races after the first one.

The new wild card for this year is Junior of course. Someone needs to look after him so with the Missus at work Saturdays that means I need to make sure he stays out of trouble. This means waiting until she gets home before heading out towards Bethel.

March 16th was a bit different. I've missed, for eight years, the one official's clinic held each year in the district. Most years the clinic happened to take place while I was training in SoCal. Last year the Missus and I had our hands full with Junior's arrival. This year I decided to make it a priority this year to attend the 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM clinic.

That times range meant that I had to have someone take care of Junior. One of the regular Bethel officials Meg volunteered to take care of him - she'd be bringing another Bethel regular Delaney to the officials' clinic. So I got to the venue at about 8:00 AM with a full day's of distractions packed in a few bags.

Junior hanging out before the clinic.

It ended up going well. Junior behaved himself, spending literally hours in the classroom (the clinic was at a local school) with all the potential new officials. He only really made noise a few times in which case Meg would take him out exploring the rest of the school. He even slept for an hour and a half in the class, waking up with his quiet self-babble, only getting excited when he realized I was there.

After a long day I passed the very reasonable test. My one error had to do with the free lap rule of all things. Never assume, right?

I headed home with Junior, the plan being to leave the Golf with Junior's stuff and take the Jetta. I had to finish packing the race stuff in the Jetta - my bikes were inside still, for example, as were the computers and such. Once packed I headed out... but it was late.

On the way out - this is about 10 minutes from the house.

I wanted to check the course and such but I didn't have time, plus I was exhausted from the long day (Junior wakes up at about 6 AM each day now). I knew tomorrow would be another long day so I made the executive decision to head straight to my dad's house, skipping checking out the course (which would add about an hour driving to the route). I had to stop for dinner - tonight it would be an egg sandwich and a calorie rich muffin.

I kept thinking of things that I might have forgotten. My shoes ("okay they're in my gear bag"), my helmet ("that's in the bag with the clean Leader's Jerseys"), the check book ("in the bag with the official clinic stuff... and it has Junior's log in it, oops"), finish line camera, race permit package ("in the plastic bin... and there it is in the rear view mirror"), etc etc.

My phone kept ringing (during the clinic as well as during the drive down) but I let it go to voicemail. If I took any calls about the race now I'd just forget whatever I promised to do and that's worse than the caller just thinking, "Oh he's not available".

On the way it started to snow.

Arrived at my dad's at about 9 PM. It's snowing.

Once at my dad's I brought in one laptop and my overnight stuff. I had to handle a few last minute questions about the race, mainly about the weather, and posted stuff to the site about the weather. The Missus and I had spent Friday evening prepping pre-reg so that was all set.

Then my brother and I talked, as we usually do, except this time we talked until something like almost 1 AM. I wouldn't recommend this with a 4:30 AM wake up alarm.

Arrive at the course at about 6 AM.

I managed to get to the race okay. I was on that race day adrenaline, my mind racing, thinking of all the things I had to deal with during the day.

The first deal was the ice cold conditions. We had black ice on the course, it was in the low-mid 20s, just bitterly cold. The Cat 5s braved the conditions for the clinic and the race and by the time the clinic finished the last of the ice was covered or gone.

Registration has really smoothed out. The Missus wasn't here for the first time this year but things ran well nonetheless. Our new crew for day-of-registration, Amanda and Joel, did superbly. I helped out here and there but otherwise it was all them. Delaney, as a newly minted official, handled the pre-reg folks perfectly as well.

The camera, too, went better, with Jonathan manning it. As another newly minted official he had a better understanding of the various priorities of an official so that helped.

The marshaling has really improved for this year. We still need help whenever we can get it but the main spots, by the start/finish and Turn One, the hill, and "Turn Two", had good coverage. A lot of racers stepped up and marshaled, getting comp'ed for their race in return.

Unfortunately the Tour de Kirche marked the first anniversary of a tragic crash. Last year Markus Bohler fell in the Cat 3-4 race, succumbing to his injuries early the next morning. VeloNews did an article named Death In The Family about the crash - it was their Editor's story of the year. In respect we had a moment of silence before the Cat 4 race and the Cat 3-4 race.

Rob Kelley of Pawling speaks briefly to the Cat 4 field before their start.

Finish of a silent lap in memory of Markus.

Someone put flowers at the crash site this year.

The Markus Bohler Memorial, in use by spectators as intended.

The cycling community really pulled together after Markus's death, raising funds in New York and New England. Ultimately the fund was used to build the Markus Bohler Memorial at the start/finish area of the Bethel Spring Series. Each week this year people have sat there to watch the races, exactly what the intent was when the Memorial was designed.

The fields were unusually large this week. I was happiest about the Women's race, hitting almost 50 racers.

The Women's field lines up.

The Cat 3-4 race was a massive 120 starters, the most I've ever seen at a Bethel. Three of the five missing starters were my teammates so it was very few people that couldn't make it. The other fields weren't as big so it may not have been a record day overall but it was definitely one of the bigger days. Hard to believe after that day's morning where we had black ice, frozen sand, and snow on everything except the road itself.

We managed to start breaking things down during the P123 race. I had suffered in the 3-4s (finishing 93rd out of 95 finishers) so I was around to help once I recovered a bit. We pack up stuff in the van, trailer, and whatever car I drive.

After receiving two birthday gifts for Junior I headed home.

View to the top right.

View to the top left.

Once we put the rack on the Jetta I've been very aware of the rack whenever I pull into the garage. Every time we go somewhere I stop and look up before I pull in, even if we didn't bring a bike. One day, after I stopped the car outside the garage and craned my head left and right, looking at the obviously empty rack, the Missus asked me what I was doing.

"Practicing."

I got home a little bit before 7 PM. I backed up to the garage, looking at the bikes on the roof and the garage entrance. Yes, I stopped before the garage. I quickly unloaded the race stuff from the car, the Missus putting Junior's seat back in place. Now if we needed to go anywhere with Junior we could - leaving the car packed meant that we only had one car available with a babyseat.

I knew the racers really wanted to see results up, including the GC, so I worked on that before I did anything else. The Missus tried to feed me dinner but I couldn't even feel hungry until I was almost done with the GC and I'd already put up the day's results. Only then did I feel like I could take a shower and relax.

Of course I was so tired I really couldn't do anything. I couldn't stay awake, I couldn't focus, and I could barely read a half dozen pages of a book before the blanket of fatigue covered my face.

I took off my glasses and fell asleep.

Promoting - 2013 Ronde de Bethel

I don't know where to start so I'll back track a little bit.

It all started falling apart back in January or so, when I asked the town to confirm that it would be okay to hold the races. I'd sent them a letter a while back but it got lost in the shuffle and never made it to the town's board. Instead of getting ready for the races I decided to wait until I got permission. I figured if I started to prepare then they would say no and I didn't want to tempt karma.

Because, you know, karma's a b...  well you know.

This set me back by a month since I had to wait for the next meeting.

And from there it just went down hill.

I was pretty sick for a while, which is okay, but then my back went out. Instead of building my bike and preparing for the Bethel Spring Series I was laid out, unable to move much, barely able to look after Junior.

Write off another couple weeks.

I wanted to have a meeting with our regular permanent staff, the people that the races probably recognize as "part of the race". I planned the meeting for a certain Saturday. Because I've moved since the Series started it would be a 90 minute drive, minimum, to get to the meeting.

Then my brother asked if we could babysit their kids that evening. I figured it would be tight but I could do it. Then it snowed that day, the worst snowstorm in recent memory.

Push the meeting back a week.

I met with the folks on Turn One. They put $15,000 buying sod for their lawn. They wanted people to stay off of it. I promised them we'd keep them off the grass.

In return they allowed us to use their driveway to route bakery customers and volleyball participants (there's a volleyball tournament place at the other end of the registration building). This was good except I needed three more marshals now.

I met with the bakery folks. They had painstakingly built a regular Sunday business over the last year and they didn't want to lose it. This meant I couldn't use the front door area of their dining area for registration - I needed to find a different place for registration. I steeled myself and the staff for a return to the bone chilling outdoors for registration. I mentally told myself to remember the heaters and the propane tanks.

Then someone called someone who called someone else. Word filtered through the grapevine that we may be able to do registration indoors a few doors down from the bakery. We'd have power, a bit of space, and heat. It'd be a limited space but hey, that's better than outside.

I headed down there one day to check it out. It seemed like it'd work fine. It was larger than I expected, it was heated, and it even had a power outlet in the wall. The location was a retail lab of sorts so it had to be pristine when we left it. In the past the racers absolutely trashed the bakery, damaging fixtures in the bathroom, ruining the finish on the floor, etc. We couldn't have this happen in this new location.

After the meeting I waited word from the higher ups. Ultimately the powers that be approved us using the new location.

Phew.

Suddenly it was time, the last week before the Series. I had to get things done now, no excuses. It didn't matter that I had the worst sinus infection of my life - coughing so hard I was yakking, coughing so hard I couldn't sleep, ultimately giving in and going to the doctor. Junior had something similar, snot and spit up everywhere, then had a round of pink eye when it seemed like he was finally getting better.

Inevitably things fell through the cracks.

For example, in the past we would drive the van down a week early, loaded up with all sorts of street sweeping accouterments. This year, due to me being sick, Junior being sick, and even the Missus getting sick (she never gets sick), each time we planned on driving the van down we had to cancel. It finally got to the point where we wouldn't be able to drive it down before Sweep Day.

This meant I had to carry the sweep stuff and the race stuff in the van.

Now, in the past I've carried some extra stuff in the van, extra finish line cameras, an old printer, and all sorts of stuff we never used. I'd bring it "just in case". This year, to streamline things, I took all that stuff out - when I started loading the van it was virtually empty.

Yet when I tried to get everything in there that I needed for Sweep and for the race... it didn't fit. I started putting non-essentials into the Missus's car, one that she would drive down Saturday afternoon.

The van, a huge 15 passenger size van, was packed to the gills. My bike ended up sort of wedged up against the ceiling of the van.

With Junior in the picture we needed a sitter for Saturday morning. Luckily we had one but this was a new thing for us - the Missus working and me driving a vehicle that wouldn't hold a baby seat, going to a place where I couldn't really take him. Junior had to wait at home, and to do that we needed someone to look after him.

I made it to Sweep okay, we cleared a lot of the course, and I even rode for about 20 minutes until my back went out. Apparently it wasn't as good as I thought.

Then I headed over to my dad's and printed stuff, set up the radios, set up the registration spreadsheet, started adding this person and that person, and finally fell asleep exhausted.

Sunday I hoped things would go better.

It started poorly. I mean we didn't even get into Sunday and Junior was up twice, coughing like mad, doing his projectile vomiting he does so well. The Missus had me sleep in the family room so I could sleep really hard instead of sleeping while sort of listening for Junior.

We got to the race and we unloaded the registration stuff from the van. It was less than I wanted. I'd left behind little things in some of those "unnecessary" bins, things like tape, paper (I borrowed some from my brother), binder clips, some pre-made signs on number placement, stuff like that.

Early in the day someone came up to me and pointed out the release forms didn't have a spot for a team or for the race entered. I had printed out a combination competitive and non-competitive form, not the standard competitive release form.

1200 copies. Of the wrong thing.

Crap.

The camera... what a fiasco. It was set to 1080i, not 1080p, so the images weren't clear. Then it focused on the people across the street. It auto adjusted the shutter speed due to the overcast conditions, blurring the numbers.

Finally, by the women's race, we had it all set. 1/10,000 manual shutter speed, manual focus, 1080p at 60 frames per second. For the 5s and 4s it was too late, we had incomplete results.

It had to be terribly frustrating. One racer complained twice to me in person, then emailed me, then called me, complaining about the results. Someone posted a negative comment on a YouTube clip. I got three hang up calls, and although they were hang ups (well it was just breathing) I never got them before so I'm assuming they had to do with the lack of results in the 5s and 4s. Heck I couldn't say anything because the camera didn't work right for those two races. Going forward for the rest of the Series and beyond it'll be fine, but that doesn't help the racers in those first two races.

I was short marshals, even with a huge number of volunteers. I had some very hard working volunteers around that Turn One building, on the hill, and out around the course.

I entered the 3-4 race but with two weeks of basically no riding I got shelled. (I rode 30 min Friday, 18 minutes Saturday, and about 20 minutes during the clinic, and before that it was 2 weeks of no riding). Somehow that seemed appropriate based on the way the day had gone.

The Missus had taken her one day off that week to help with registration. When things finally started to quiet down she went and retrieved Junior from my dad's place and brought him back. Seeing him put a smile on my face after a long and difficult day.

Other things worked well. The radios, more powerful than last year's, worked fine from Turn Two. I even had the channels set up properly. I got the numbers okay. There were enough pins. We had enough pens. We had some extra primes donated to us. We have new grate covers. The stakes and yellow tape worked well on Turn One, and I have snow fencing in reserve. We didn't need the area rugs for registration.

I need to do more though.

This coming week I have more reinforcements. The Missus said she'd return to help at registration - this meant lining up my brother and his wife to look after Junior. We have two more staff people showing up, two that were unable to make the first week (another will return on the third week and yet another will return on the fourth week). Our camera is working. I packed away enough binder clips for a decade. We have tape.

Personally my back is okay - I'm not walking weird, I can pick up Junior, but it's still a challenge to unload the dishwasher. I'm not that sick now - I finished my prescription stuff last week, I just blow green stuff out of my nose regularly. Junior is a bit better too, sleeping a bit better during the night, no recent projectile vomiting.

Friday I need to pick up the print job (the release forms) and organize the binders and the numbers. The Missus told me she'd help with that - she wanted everything ready to go on Saturday so I wouldn't have to work on stuff when I got to my dad's.

I'll head down Saturday afternoon after the Missus gets home from work - we'll do a Junior handoff and then I'll head south. I need to do three things at the course. First, check the course and do any major sweeping necessary. Second, stake out and mark the Turn One grass area. Third, patch any real bad potholes and smooth out any of the jarring dips I can find.

After that I'll head over to my dad's to meet up with the Missus and Junior. And, hopefully, Sunday we'll have a much smoother race.