Race Report: 2013 True Grit - 100 NUE

Luck Number 100 for the 100-miler Open.

Note: For previous year's race reports take a look at the 2011 True Grit 50 and 2012 True Grit 100.

I learned a few more things about endurance racing this year on my third bout with the unforgivable and fantastic True Grit singletrack.  Every year I leave St George post-race completely demolished with a vow to never return.  The Grit is a hard 100-miler to prepare for when you live in northern Utah where there is still snow on the ground through March.  I knew going into this one I wasn't really ready to race 100-miles but I had already made the commitment to race so I was going to show up and see what happens.

Anyone with a competitive spirit would be lying if they didn't admit there is some part of them that would like to be up front mixing it up with the top-level endurance athletes.  Watching these guys perform is a reminder of what it takes to ride at that level and the gifted athletes they are.  Racing along side these top guys is kind of like a 50-yard-line seat at the Super Bowl for me.  The fact that we can all line up together and do these type of events is part of what keeps me coming back.

This was my third year racing the Grit and it always goes pretty much the same way: I start getting ready in late December. I try to eat right, spend a lot of time on the trainer, plan the days and weeks meticulously, hope I don't get sick, I get sick, I recover, I build again, I have work commitments, I have family commitments, schedule compromises, and so on.  Race day arrives and I hope I have prepared enough.   I arrive in the dark, sort out my drop bags, spin around nervously for 30 min, chat a bit with friends, and line up.

The race director yells "GO!"

I cross the starting line, settle in behind the first 10 or so fast guys and spin out the first few miles as they slowly drift off the front.  Almost every NUE race starts out this way for me and I am good with that.  I love the experience and every endurance race is a race against myself, bad fortune, mechanicals, and the clock.  I hurt, but I am happy as 12 weeks of dedication culminate as I cross the finish line.  After a few days of rest and comfortably back in my day-to-day routine, I'm ready to do it all over again next year.

The script was pretty much un-changed this time around.  The race was a steady state of forward motion and a blur of desert landscapes.  I had a few crashes that cost me a bit of time.  I cramped a bit after the 5 hour mark but that seems to happen almost every 100-miler so I was expecting it.  I was worked over from the rough terrain but kept turning over the pedals through the finish line.  I raced to the best of my ability and turned in a respectable time of 8 hours 13 min.

See you next year True Grit!

Zen Trail 

Barrel Rolls

Post race headed home

Flash Gordon V2.0

I'd like to give a big thanks to Slim and Knobbies Bike Shop, Infinite Cycles,  Project321, Ergon, Stan's NoTubes and Ebay for helping me put together what I hope will be a lethal race weapon for 2013. I'm really looking forward to racing this bad boy Saturday!

Camp Lynda V6

I attended Camp Lynda once again this year put on, once again, by the the dynamic duo of Lynda Wallenfels and Dave Harris of LWCoaching.  Despite the 50% chance of rain both days, St George, Utah delivered.  Friday was excellent, the trails were dry and there were plenty of fast guys to chase around the desert.  Saturday we hit some of the best trails around including Zen on the True Grit race course.  The weather didn't cooperate but the cool temperatures and wet trails made for some very fun riding.  It was definitely fun to ride the whole day with guys that I usually only see briefly at the races before they hammer off the front.  I also met some new people that I hope to hit the trail with again before next year.  If you haven't made it out to Camp LW I highly recommend you give it a try. The pace is relaxed and there is plenty of riding company for all fitness levels.

Meeting at in the Starbucks Parking Lot for Day 1

Headed back from the "City Creek-Pioneer Hills-Pioneer Rim-Powerline-Dino Tracks-Church Rocks-Prospector-SilverReef" ride on day 1.

Somewhere near Church Rocks (I think).   These trails were new to me.

Same place as above.

Pushing the 34/20 SS up a big sandy hill east of town.

Day 2 Start.  Duff Johnson, Chris Faatz, Brandon Firth and The Gear Rush tent occupied by Alex Grant

Taylor Lideen, Alex Grant, Brandon Firth, Bart Gillespie (left-right).

Same guys, different order.

Dirty bikes ready to head home,  but not too dirty.

St. George

Chris Holley, Drew Free, Chris Faatz at the overlook on Zen Trail.

I started riding bikes again at age 35 while living in Colorado after nearly 15 years of not riding bikes.  I love Colorado, it has huge mountains, it has roads you can ride on that end on the  top of 14,000ft peaks, it has the Colorado Trail, it has Breckenridge.  I moved to Utah in October 2011 and found that Utah has a lot of good riding.  While Utah doesn't reach into the sky nearly as much as Colorado it has one place that Colorado does not, a place I have grown to love, especially in the winter.

Utah has St George.

Training With Power

Power, HR, and cadence data from my first ride with a power meter.
Red: Power (watts)
Blue: Heart Rate (bpm)
Cyan: Cadence (rpm)

I took the plunge this month and invested in a power meter (Quarq S975) for my CX bike thanks to some help from my shop sponsor for 2013 (Thank's Slim & Knobbies!).  The graph above shows my first ride on a stationary trainier where I averaged around 215w over the course of 2 hours 15 min riding in HR zone 2-3.  I am in bike geek heaven with all of this fancy data and hopefully I will learn to actually put it to some good use over the next 12 weeks.  Needless to say, I am very excited to move past a fundamental problem I've had.

The Problem:

I have been using a HR monitor for the past 3 years and that has helped guess at how much effort I was expending during my training sessions.  I say guess because that's really all it is. The problem with a HR monitor, or more specifically, heart rate is the inconsistency as it relates to actual power to the pedals.  Some days my HR will much higher or lower for what seems to me like the same effort so it really is hard to know if I am pushing to hard for a given workout or not hard enough.  I have found that when compared to other riders, my HR has been 10-20bpm lower than theirs which was confusing to me at first.  For a while I thought this was because I wasn't pushing myself as hard as they were.  I eventually realized that my HR is just low, if I reach 160bpm I am getting close to bleeding out the eyeballs.  Anyway, you get the point, HR is a horrible way to gauge effort on a consistent basis but it is better than nothing.  With enough experience training with a HR monitor and paying attention to your body it is possible to get by.  Eventually I believe one reaches a plateau training with HR alone and I think I may be sitting on one right now.

The Solution:

Training with power takes everything inconsistent, vague, and problematic that comes with training by HR and replaces it with consistency, exactness, and cold hard reality.  200w of power today will be 200w of power tomorrow plain and simple.  With HR there is ramp up time between a change in effort and a change in HR. Power happens within a second or two at most.

So there you have it, everything I know about training with power.  I have a lot of reading to do and fortunately for me, there is a lot of available reading. I plan to start with the links below.

References:

11 Reasons to give Santa why your bike needs a Power Meter (LW Coaching)

Train Smarter By Training With Power (MTBCoach.com)

Training With Power On A Mountain Bike (Trainingpeaks.com)

Why Training With Power? - An Executive Summary.

PowerTap - Training With Power (Joe Friel)