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Three Weeks, Three Races, Three Wins…with a side of Humble Pie

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

Been a while since my last blog, as Mel has reminded me, so I guess the recent hat trick seems the best place to start as any….

Coming into 2011, I was pretty excited about the way my training and racing had progressed over the last few seasons. A solid winter strength program and some quality time in the saddle had me feeling really fit early on. But after a nasty stomach bug hit right before my first race of the season in Waco and then some hellish work travel that took me half way around the world, I was starting to get a little worried about the next month’s racing schedule. Three races in four weekends and there was no telling where I’d be in terms of fitness.

First up Pelham and the Southeast Regional Championships…one that I really, really wanted to win…was still struggling with a minor foot ailment courtesy of some pesky root or rock or gremlin that snagged me in Waco in the midst of a massively dehydrated suffer shuffle run split, but otherwise was feeling okay…race day was perfect, dry and hot. A couple of last minute scratches to the start list certainly helped me out, but I was super stoked to pull into the lead position halfway through the bike leg. After a couple of minor mechanicals that cost me a couple minutes, I ended up riding Casey Fannin’s wheel through a lot of the twisty singletrack on the back half of the course. Being his home course, it’s great to watch him rip through that stuff and made for a really fun ride… The run course change was a great addition I think. It’s still a tough run no doubt, but taking a couple of those crushing hills out and adding in some fast trails at the end sets it up for a great finish. Was able to coast it home for an overall amateur win!

The next week was a bit of recovery and then off to Bermuda for a work trip turned bike camp…got to spend 5 days getting crushed on the roads of Bermuda by the local roadies led by their fearless leader and all around good guy Greg Hopkins, owner of Winner’s Edge Bike Shop. These guys can really lay it down when the want to. This was great for my fitness and also allowed me to rest my foot a bit more.

Got back home and had a couple of days to gear up for Xterra Tsali, a small local(ish) race just over the border in North Carolina on some really fun and fast fast singeltrack. This was more of a sprint race, with an 800m swim in a cool lake, followed by a 5 mile run, and then finishing on a screaming fast 10 mile bike loop. Was out of the water and on the trails in first, followed by a few guys that were right on my heels. First race where we hit the run on the second leg, and I very nearly blew myself up trying to lose the guys behind me. By mile 3 I had put almost 2 minutes on them and just kept adding until I got to the bike and had finished the 5 miles in under 29 minutes. Must have been the Avi Bolts…Got to ride wide open with no one in sight and really enjoy those trails on the bike leg, but as it was only 10 miles, the wild ride was over in a mere 46 minutes. Got some interesting swag: raspberry sparkling malt beverage, a 26” tube for my 29er and a T-shirt for a local bike shop that didn’t even mention xterra…oh well, it’s not about the prizes, but the racing and camaraderie.

Final stop on the month’s tour was Richmond, 12-year home to the East Regional Championship…this is really a great race. Right in the heart of downtown Richmond and incredible fan support all the way through, complete with costumes and cow bells. Went with two changes for this race, no socks, and no gloves…sock decision was a good one, the Avi Bolts pretty much felt like socks and had no issues with blisters at all…no gloves, not so much…but we’ll get back to that. Swim start is always interesting, trying to jockey for space on the concrete pillar and figure out where to launch from. Watching Mel and a few other pros move way upstream and use the current to their advantage, I made a last minute move up there to follow. Had a decent swim and came out in 5th place. and about a minute back I managed to pick off the other 4 guys on lap one and was riding in first again. All was well, and then the humidity took hold and the hands got a bit slick. Twice in a row on a pass, I managed to let the hands slip and go endo into the woods…last time catching a pretty big lump on my back and an arm full of briars…second lap was kind of a fiasco, having to go through so many other sport racers and the back end of the championship pack…but then off on the run holding first and feeling really good. Hydration was spot on and I was able to run a hard pace, but not having to chase let me doll out the effort in control. Crossed the line with another overall amateur title and only 15 seconds away from the cheese…!

Hitting multiple races in a short stretch really makes you realize what a great group the Xterra community is. It is infectious for sure and makes all the rest of life’s issues seem less significant for a little while. Got to spend some quality time with my coach Mel and met some new MelRad teammates, as well as catching up with good friends on the tour….big props also to Audie Smith and Greg Swersky, 50 somethings and fellow Knoxvillians that made the rounds with me to the races and always finish with a smile…. always good to have drinking company on the drive home!

Now for the humble pie I spoke of….July 4th was to be spent with family in Breckenridge CO. Got married there in 2003 and was really excited to be back for my daughter’s first birthday and to take on the Firecracker 50, a 54 mile mtn bike race that climbs and descends over 10,000ft each…and the lowest elevation on the course was 9600 ft…yikes. You know you are in Colorado when women, on single speeds, pass you up on the climbs and aren’t even out of breath. Seriously, there are more elite athletes there than most of the southern states combined. A really great race to be a part of out there and always good to get it handed to you once in a while to remember there is always a lot to work on.

Next up is my first ever mtn bike stage race in the unforgiving mountains of Pisgah National Forest at the end of September….probably worth a blog whether I finish the race or go up in flames, so stay tuned. This was to be a short blog, so keep the wheels turning and for now…focker out.

xterra-tsali July 4th breck-2

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Mama said there’d be days like these…

Sunday, August 29th, 2010

By Fred Smith

Man, I tell ya what, when I signed up for the Fool’s Gold 50 mile mtb race, I envisioned having a tough but good training day out in the mountains of north Georgia for about 4+ hours. I had never done a 50 miler, but I knew I’d put enough training in this year that it wouldn’t be a problem. The timing was good, it was after all of the qualifier races and right in the sweet spot for hard training leading up to the Nationals and World Championships. It was close enough that I could get there and back in 24 hours and not leave my wife with Penelope, our 7 week old, for too long on her own.

I had a couple of guys from K-town with me and met up with Craig Evans, Casey Fannin and Mark Rudder from the Xterra ranks. A good crew to race with. Well, despite the clear weather report, a powerful line of thunderstorms moved through the Camp Wahsega start/finish, unleashing seemingly nonstop lightning strikes followed by booming thunder and heavy rains. The local news issued flood warnings on race morning, the result of stationary storms that were dumping as much as one inch of rain per hour on some areas. Although the electrical storms moved through well before the start of the race, steady rains remained to take their place. Thus began the 2010 Fool’s Gold saga. More of the full report from cycling news below….

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/national-ultra-endurance-nue-series-7-fools-gold-100-ne/results

Now on to my report….The dirt around north Georgia is a red clay, which is a greasy nasty kinda dirt if you aren’t familiar with it. The first singletrack section is a fun but technical downhill that had turned into a river. Slippin and slidin all the way down. It was actually pretty dang fun to be honest. The next 15 miles or so were a mix of dirt road and singletrack and now that everything was completely drenched, the rain really didn’t matter. it actually helped to clean the bike. It was a tough slog though. The flat sections that were supposed to be fast had turned to quicksand and stream crossings that should have been a splash turned into water bottle deep. What we all didn’t realize is that red clay and minerals turns into something like sandpaper when it gets watered down and while we were all rocking and rolling through the mud, our brake pads were rapidly being ground down to nothing.

At the 30 mile mark there was a SAG stop and it looked like a block party had started. Half the 100 mile group that started first had already lost their brakes and a bunch of guys were organizing to take the road back to the start. My front brake was pretty much toast, but the rear felt good so I filled a bottle and kept moving. Some of the more technical climbs had basically become unrideable with all the water, but other than that and the previously mentioned quicksand, you could still ride hard. Descents were a bit sketchy because you had muddy water flying in your face the whole time, but it was still a blast. So I drop into one of these singletrack descents at about mile 38 and grab the rear brake. Rather than a quick deceleration, I got more speed and realized my brakes were officially 100% gone.

Now if you are from the South you may remember old Dukes of Hazard shows where they launch the General Lee off some hill or pile of dirt and the scene freezes and the narrator says something witty like, “I reckon the Duke boys gonna have trouble trying ta git outta this one”…well I had my own little scene freezer. I mean, this was a pretty flippin steep hill so I really had one option, a high speed bailout. I pulled one of these back in college riding a long board down a steep road in Boulder. I basically scoped out a bush and threw myself into it. Worked then so I called on those skills once more. I launched the bike in front of me, twisted both my feet and leaned to the right…two or three fast footsteps and then a barrel roll into the woods…worked like a charm. Popped up with no cuts and bike still in tact. That’s where the fun really began.

12 miles to go. No brakes. The rain had stopped and now the mud was as think as molasses. Climbing was a breath of fresh air, descents meant I had to get creative. Some were walks, some were peg leg rollers. Some were done alternating dragging one foot after the other. Sometimes I’d stay clipped in and grab small trees, branches, bushes…basically anything sticking out into the trail that didn’t look like it would win the tug of war with my arm. Those next 12 miles were quite possibly the longest 2 1/2 hours I’ve spent on a bike.

Finally rolled into camp at just over 6 hours and rode right up to the keg of ice cold beer so kindly offered by the race director. The Specialized Epic handled the crap conditions like a champ. Seeing as everyone’s brakes were gone, I can’t knock them for that, the bike never gave me any other problems the entire ride. Little did I know that not only my breaks, but all the bearings, hubs and entire drivetrain were also being ground to bits….but that’s a story for another time…After a dunk in the river to get the layer of crud off, we grubbed some mexican food and hit the road. Really glad I finished the race, but not exactly an experience I’d care to repeat.

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XTERRA Panther Creek

Sunday, August 1st, 2010

MelRad represents! Fred Smith wins 1st place overall and Marcus Barton takes 1st in men 40-44 (6th overall). Full race report on its way!

Fred Smith and Marcus Barton

Time for a new uniform

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Knobscorcher

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

What a day to race. I can’t remember having a nicer to day to go out and race mountain bikes in a long time. We loaded the bikes and the dogs and headed through the Great Smokey Mountains to Tsali Park near Fontana Lake in North Carolina for the third SERC race in the regional series, the Tsali Knobscorcher, and it lived up to it’s billing.

lilly

sam

Weather was in the 60s to start and climbed to the 70s by the end of the race. Colorado kindly exported some of it’s signature periwinkle blue skies for the day and spring was in full bloom. If that doesn’t get you fired up then….well I don’t know what, but you sure as hell ain’t my friend.

The Tsali trails have been maintained really well of late, and they were running FAST. The average for the race was near 14 mph, but it was by no means a 14 mph race, it was either wide open at 20…or a grinder of a climb at 8. Fast smooth single track with boatloads of nicely bermed corners and enough short steep climbs to keep you honest for all of the nearly 30 miles. You would have needed a crowbar to smack the grin off my face. My Specialized Epic with Maxxis Crossmarks treated me right and fellow Melrad teammate Jo “The Show” Markham was rocking her next to new Era, apparently with some of Coach Mel’s magic left on it, because she crushed it for a second place finish. I’m looking forward to seeing how she fares in the dirty-Tri world; after her success at cycling, cross, mtb and anything else on two wheels, I suspect she’ll do great.

fredjo

finish

My mojo held up okay considering it was the first race in many months and Coach Mel didn’t let me taper for it, but I was having so much fun, I could have gotten dead last and been happy with it…so good to get the wheels turning fast again on dry dirt. Omar and a few others took turns serving me up nice big pieces of humble pie today, which isn’t as good as real pie, but much more helpful in the long run.

Spring is here, racing season is officially open and I am fired up for that! Days like this are what keep me sane. I love it. See you all on the trails real soon!

post

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Xterra C-Ville / My Wife is the Best

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

heather2 Heather at the finish end2 Home stretch bruce-t22 Bruce coming out of T2

We had another great weekend of racing in Charlottesville, VA this weekend. After driving 5 1/2 hours though torrential rain on Saturday I headed over to the race venue to pre-ride the slop while Ali spent the next 3+ hours in a stinky Holiday Inn with our two dogs. This was actually the first Xterra I ever did back in 2007, so I was pretty excited to be back. The bike course is great. Lots of really technical riding with roots and rocks everywhere. Not a lot in the way of climbing, but constant short ups and downs and off camber roots on tight turns which made momentum and balance really important. The rain finally let up so we headed into the pedestrian mall in Charlottesville for some people watching and dinner. It is a really cool place actually; lots of open air restaurants and book stores. A very good vibe.

When we got back to the hotel we found out that there was a family reunion at the hotel, a really big family reunion. There were people all over the place, drinking and having fun. Pretty cool for a while, then about midnight I called down to ask the manager to see if he could put a stop to the foot races in our hallway at least. That went away, but the party did not. About 2 am I finally couldn’t take it anymore so I barged out of the room to confront what turned out to be about 15 really large women scattered all the way down the hallway just hanging out like they were at a neighborhood block party. I yelled that they had better cut it out….then I got about 20 seconds of silence followed by several minutes of strong laughter. Yeah, that went well. They actually did quiet down and we managed to get a couple hours of sleep before the 5:15 wake-up.

Race morning was perfect; temperature was in the low 60’s and it was clear and sunny. Fellow Melrad teammates Heather and Bruce M. were there to race as well. It would be Bruce’s first race back since the Richmond race, so props to him for getting back out there again. I wasn’t too excited about the swim format. They broke the group of only about 150 people into 6 waves 2 minutes apart. Since it was a two loop 1200 meter swim, this meant that on lap two you were constantly navigating around people. I had a good swim but came out of T1 a little slower than I had hoped…still need to work on those transitions…The rain made for a lot of tricky riding as all those roots just got wickedly slick after the rain. There were also lots of log crossings, some you could ride over, but several were dismounts, which at times made this feel more like a ‘Cross race. The course really let you keep hammering the whole time pretty much. Because of the staggered start, it was hard to really know where you were in the order, which I find a little frustrating. I am the type of racer that needs to have someone to chase or someone chasing me to really hit my top speed. I passed a couple guys early and never saw anyone else the whole time, so it was pretty much a solo race out there. Coming into T2 I was met by Bruce waving his hands saying “can I have your wheel, can I have your wheel?” I don’t know what happened, but of course you can…so there we went out of T2, me running for the final leg and Bruce next to me carrying my front wheel…is that even legal?? Must have been a funny scene and the fact we had matching unis.

The tire exchange…

shoes It’s gotta be da shoes…

The run was good but pretty tame. It was only 4 miles, so it was a quick finish. The Avia-Stoltz were money here. With the slick roots and twisty turns the extra traction was perfect and I had great footing the entire time. I ended up getting 2^nd which I was pretty happy about. I rode hard and other than my slow transitions, I think I raced really well. It was great to get back out in a race again after a couple months of just training. This race would be one of the better ones on the tour if they would make it closer to a championship length. Heather won her division and Bruce and his son (who was racing his first ever Xterra) both finished well.

Ali was a great sport. She got to spend her weekend off (she is a Vet so works every other weekend) with me racing while she tried to manage our two 75 lb golden retrievers in a pretty bad hotel without getting any sleep.

sam

Sammy

Then of course since I was tired, she offered to drive home. We made great time until she got pulled over for reckless driving…oh well, I guess she really needed that to round out her great weekend.

So I took over from there…

homeward Isn’t crusie control great!

I sometimes forget the sacrifices our wives/husbands/boyfriends also make to allow us to do what we love to do and to support it as best they can. It certainly wouldn’t be as fun without someone to share the highs and lows of racing and training with, so cheers to all of you.

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