2015 Burleigh County Cup - The One with a Flat Tire

If you have followed my racing at all, you know that there has been a bit of a gap between posts.  All of 2014 can be summed up by two words: 1) hernia  2) rebuild  With having to deal with surgery and subsequent extended recovery, I spent most of 2014 not riding a bike and instead sold my road and cyclocross bikes to build one bike to focus on what I truly love doing: riding gravel. 

With the help of a friend and hours of training-less free time for my OCD to run wild, I built the bike exactly how I wanted it and by December was able to start riding consistently. 

Fast forward to Friday, May 8th.  I drove to Bismarck on Friday afternoon for the Burleigh County Cup with a lot of different thoughts going through my head.  On the one hand, I had finished a 12 week training block without any injury or illness for the first time since my freshman year of college  and I knew I was riding “test” sections/climbs faster than ever.  I have always gone into races thinking I am behind on fitness and that was not at all the case this time around, so, put a check in the confidence category.  On the other hand, I had not ridden bike with a single person aside from my three daughters since April of last year (2014).  My work schedule doesn’t allow time to get out with people on group rides until summer so I was concerned about how I’d hold a wheel, etc, especially on dodgy terrain, so put a check in the doubtful category...so pretty much I was feeling unconvincing confidence going into the race. 

Race morning arrived and it was between 40-45 degrees.  This is not a fun temp range to figure out what to wear.  On a training day at this temp, I’d bundle up but this was a race and I didn’t want to be overheating 10 miles in.  After arguing for a good 40 minutes with myself, I decided on lighter than warmer gear figuring that once the proper racing started I would warm up. 

Final racing instructions...trying not to freeze

We pedaled easy thru the first 4ish miles on the neutral roll, into the wind, and I nearly froze.  However, once we turned swung right onto the first gravel road, the racing began and temperature would not be thought about the rest of the day.

Typically, every neutral roll-out I have ever experienced, people gradually pick up the pace when the “flag” drops or the officials say go, but this was a different animal.  I had marked Aaron Lael before the race as a guy to watch, mainly because he was one of the only guys I knew in these parts.  As the organizers said go, Aaron took the right hand turn like he had been fired from a cannon.  The next 2.5 miles were more or less uphill and John Goeddertz, Jake Aisenbrey, and myself hung on for dear life as Aaron hammered.*  It was around this point that I looked back to see who was with us and only one other guy (from this point forward referred to as “Green Shorts Guy”) was still around making us a group of five...I realize later that Chris Jones had been there also, only to get a flat less than 8 miles into the race.    

Now it’s at this point I pause to explain something.  Some people, including some of my track athletes, have asked me why I always train with a heart rate monitor but I never race with one.  The main reason is because in a race I’m there to race and with few exceptions, I’m going to push all the chips in.  I also didn’t drive 4 hrs to ride a controlled, hard effort for 75 miles, because I can do that at home.  I trained for and came here to race.

I am 100% certain that if I were to have a HR monitor on and look down at my computer, I would scare the hell out of myself at how far into the red I go early in these events.  Early on in races, like the situation I just described above, your heart feels like it is trying to jump out of your chest, you taste pennies in your mouth, and it feels like someone is holding your head under water.  This feeling is incredibly uncomfortable, but familiar in races and I’m usually able to calm things down after the initial storm. 

Lael, Goeddertz lead with me and Aisenbrey chasing

Alright so I was controlling the storm in my body and there were basically five of us in the group, Lael, Goeddertz, Aisenbrey, Green Shorts Guy and myself.  We were working together the best we could given that there was a crosswind and riding in an echelon on gravel is pretty tricky, and/or not possible.  Somewhere around mile 15, I became convinced of one thing.  Aaron Lael was going to win this race and he was currently toying with us like a cat playing with a mouse.  My reasoning was this:  Goeddertz, Green Shorts Guy, Aisenbrey and I would pull through and take 30-60 second pulls and then rotate back, while Lael would pull for 3-4 minutes, and was climbing every climb in the big ring and he wasn’t complaining about the fact that he was doing 80% or more of the work in the group.   

A few miles later, we entered a 3 mile section of double-track.  Lael again led the group thru which was now down to Goedderts, Green Shorts Guy, Lael and me.  And this is where I shake my head at myself.  About 2/3 of the way thru this section, there is a dastardly pair of tricky descents.  It is a rutted, steep pitch, and it is here, on these two downhills, where I lost contact with the group.  You read that correctly, the point where I got dropped by the race leaders was on a steep downhill... 

Another rider heads "up" towards the double track

In the remaining mile of double track, the three guys put about a minute on me.  That gap would grow to about 2 minutes and stay there for quite a while.  The whole time, I had a decision to make.  Aisenbrey was about equidistant behind me as they were ahead at this point.  Should I wait for him and try to work together or should I press on.  I decided to press on and did so for about the next 15 miles. 

Just after the drop-zone (an area where you could have race organizers bring a pre-planned bag of goodies), I decided that it was time to wait for Aisenbrey.  Although the top three were still in my sight, I wasn’t closing the gap on them and Aisenbrey was closing on me, plus I needed to take a “nature break” and this seemed as a good time as any to do it.  Moving me to 5th place, Aisenbrey passed me just before I got back on my bike and I was another mile down the road about to rejoin with him when I felt what no bike rider wants to feel in a race.  I felt my back wheel bouncing hard off the ground...I had a flat tire.

Normally, this is no big deal.  I can typically change a flat in about 3 minutes (with my OCD, I’ve gotten the timer out), but remember how I said earlier that it was 45 degrees out?  Well, when I was riding I was plenty warm and my hands weren’t cold but as soon as I stopped, my hands seemed to lose their dexterity and a tube replacement that should have taken 3 minutes left me on the side of the road like a fumbling idiot for just under 11 minutes.  During that time a number of guys came past me.

Eventually I got going and I responded like someone who was tired and not thinking clearly.  I hammered as hard as I could, straight into the wind for 6 miles, thinking I had to catch everyone who had passed me right now.  What a mistake!  I quickly went way into the red.  I was on my way back thru the double track at this point, about 30 miles remaining, trying to really decide what to do.  I was somewhere between feeling sorry for myself and just wanting to throw my bike down the ravine next to me in frustration.

The two dare-devil descents, the ones where I got dropped going down, I was now about to climb as the course headed the opposite direction. The first of the two really steep sections, I actually got off my bike and walked.  I was a mental mess, but then the words of my 4 year old rang thru my head.  She had told me before the race that “I want you to win dad**, but if you try your very best and you don’t win, I will still love you, so give it all you got dad.”  This had been a key lesson in her Sunday School recently and something I try to teach my kids, that no matter what you are doing, you should try your best.  It’s an ideal I try to live out every day.  I wasn’t defined in her eyes, or anyone in my family by my placing but rather how I went about racing. 

I couldn’t pack it in and just ride steady, I couldn’t be gone for two days from home and look at her Sunday morning and say, “sorry Phoebe, I haven’t seen you in two days, I didn’t win and I didn’t even try my hardest.”  So I swung my leg back over my top tube that has the aptly inscribed “pedal damn it” written on it and attacked the steepest pitch in the entire race with everything I had left in me.

15 miles to go

From that point on I hammered.  I pushed myself harder and harder and felt better and better as things progressed.  All the while the voice of my little girl was saying “give it all you got dad cause i’ll still love you.”  I caught a few of the guys who had passed me along the way and crossed the finish line in what I believe was the top 10. 

While the 11ish minutes lost fumbling with a tube on the side of the road had left a lot of “what if” questions in my head, I also walked away from this race having discovered something: no matter how hard I thought I had gone in previous races, I was able to find a new level this time when I thought I was totally empty both mentally and physically.

Now it’s time for a week off.  Time to eat cookies and other sweet things that were mainly off limits for that past 3 months.  Time to reassess things that could be better in training (ie: work on double track skills) and then time to start training for the all important Inspiration 100, all the while doing my job (teaching/coaching) and parenting/leading my family with everything I’ve got, because that’s how we roll. 

Thanks for Tyler Huber and Ian Easton for putting on an amazing event that I will absolutely be back for again!


* After the race I asked Aaron why he went like such a bat out of hell from the gun and he said it was because last year he got dropped there and didn’t want that to happen again.  Apparently the antithesis of getting dropped was to rip everyone’s legs off...not getting dropped meant not getting dropped...by anyone...mission accomplished Aaron!

**My children have a slightly unrealistic expectation that any race I go to I should win.  This is because the first race they ever saw me do, the Woodchipper 100, I won and subsequently gave the winner’s trophy to them.  Apparently I set the bar high!