Heat Exhaustion

Well, I did not think it’s going to happen to me, but it did.  I had many warning signs, but ignored them all….

After the Ravensdale race,  I went to pre ride Ski to Sea TT course. Though I was not feeling that peachy in the morning. I thought I must be just tired after first race. But it seems to be only day I can do it, with Mutual of Enumclaw next weekend.

I started from Everson, riding over south pass to the DOT shed up the mountain. On the ride I started to have weird chills, it was pretty hot outside, but I was freezing. I stopped at Glacier to refill the (only) bottle i had, drank a coke and coconut water there, and continued climb up the mountain until TT start area. I was filling awfull. At the DOT shed I turned around and started to ride at TT pace, going pretty fast. Mistake. By the time I hit Glacier again I was done, I was out of water again but decided to go until turnout to Silver Lake, where I saw another grocery store before. After another two bottles of water I continued to limp back to Everson. I did not feel that bad on the bike in a while. Just like complete bonk, but I knew I ate well and had enough calories in. I thought it is strange to be this tired on the second day, when just couple weeks ago, I was killing it at DRVTT second day.

By the time I made back to the car, I was absolutely wasted and crashed inside car for 10 or so minutes to get some rest.

 Still I did not realized what happened.

Next night I had weird chills again and muscles were aching like I'm having flu. And next day I could not get warm enough in office, wearing warm jacket. Driving home, I was just freezing, and cranked car heat all the way up, and still freezing.

By the time I got home, I was shaking like I’m in ice cold water and could not get warm.

Finally I realized I must be step away from heat stroke and started to drink bunch of water, and putting ice over me.  Took me 10 minutes or so to get better.

I continued to hydrate well, and kept myself cool with ice. Ouch.

Next 3 or so days I felt like crap, and it took me about 6 days to get over this, which followed by common cold. Bunch of people in the office were sick and my immune system was low after the heat exhaustion.

Well, I had so many warning signs and ignored it all.

-       cramps during race were due to heat exhaustion

-       feeling muscle aches next day like you getting flu, but no other symptoms

-       feeling cold, freezing in hot weather and having chills

-       feeling bonk and so bad on the bike while seemly having enough food

If I to realize what happened on Saturday, and started hydration and skipped the 90 mile ride in the sun next day staying in cool place instead I could have avoided it. Or if next day I could just drink more water and stay at home instead of going to work I probably could have minimized damage. Checking weight in the morning was not enough to catch up on heat exhaustion if it is not limited to water loss.

Well, now I know. Hopefully someone could learn from it.  And to think that last year, I could do regular 30 minute roller workout in sauna in 160F without problem, getting ready for nationals. Ouch. Had to start doing sauna again!

Two weeks off the bike is the price to pay now.

Ravensdale Road Race 2012

First road race of the seasons is in the books.
I'm starting really late this year. Work was busy, and weather was horrible.
On the flip side, I'm healthy this time of year and feel pretty fit.

I road with coach to the race, which is about 20 miles/1hr ride from my place. It was good warmup and beats driving. Weather was sunny and nice and warming up, but not hot yet. It was good chance to catch up on season goals plans with coach.

First race is usually big stress for the body, and hard to know what to expect.
We had 7 people from the team in masters 123, so my plan for the race was to get in some race efforts and help team if I can.
Break went from the gun, with two team mates in, so our job became to cover any attacks. Ryan D took first watch in front, and I was trying to stay in first 15 of the peloton. Audi was very good covering attacks, but we had to do our share too. Since I needed race efforts and team needed help, I decided to get job of closing any attempts of the attack, either trading it with Audi, or following Audi cover. According to WKO I covered 18 attacks, or 3 per lap, which sounds about right.
Hopefully it allowed Martin and Ryan save their legs for the second break.

Even with all our efforts, Stanley and olympia, was able to close up on the first break.
I saw Matt h going up the hill trying to bridge and close on break. I did pretty good dig up the hill and closed on Matt, and tried to keep tempo up, and saw Audi and front to come up and we all merged with the break by the finish line.
There was some confusion there, and it split again, I heard Alex, Alex, not sure what the mean, either close on break or let them go. Either one was fine with me. I saw 2 team mates up there and sought maybe Greg or Dave wants me to open gap. Which I did. But then I think he wanted me go with them. Anyway, my job was to cover any attacks again, which I did.
On second to last lap it started to breakup, and I ended up covering attack up the hill again, following Alex R from garage, but my legs started to cramp really bad, and on the last lap, cramp became very bad, that I had to stop pedaling couple times. But few hard efforts kind of fixed it for a bit. Cramps are not unusual during first race, especially with all the sprints I ended up doing. So I guess it's good that I did not go in second break.
Finishing race was ok, cramps were bad, but I still could pedal through it.

Ryan and Martin, ended up finishing 2 and 3rd, not a win, but still good result for the team. Hopefully, I contributed just a bit for it.

So all in all, I got what I came for, race efforts in great weather and satisfaction of helping friends to get some results.

It was good to be racing again, though was a bit hard to jump in the racing after such long time off. But once racing started, it was just like I did not take any break. I feel that fitness is pretty good now, and I can get good results if I continue to stay healthy.
But results is not everything.

Deschutes Valley River TT 2012

The year was pretty hectic so far. I let my fitness drop a bit due to busy work schedule. Luckily I had a bit downtime after big show in Vegas and put good multi-day block of training. But my CTL was already pretty down, in 50s.

After another busy week and not much training I decided to go again for DVRTT, the only TT stage race. Last year I was sick and over-trained trying to rebuild fitness. This year, I’m healthy but under-trained, trying to rebuild fitness again.

I was a bit concerned with last TT results, after I went to UCI position last year, so I adjusted pads a bit, so I’m still fully UCI compliant but faster.

As the last year, my competition were 2 pro triathletes from Portland and a strong rider from Oregon, and  30+ people in other categories.

First stage was 26 mile, that start with about 14 minutes climb of 900 feet.

I went pretty hard on the climb, surprisingly holding about 330W for the first steep part of it, still I was caught up by rider who started 30 s behind of me, but I suspect he blew up, because 3 minutes later I passed him on false flat  gaining 1:40 by the end. I witnessed crash on descend in front of me, just before the bridge, but rider walk away fine.

I’ve ended up second on the stage behind 15 seconds behind, after an hour+ ride. Average/NP power was pretty good, probably PR for this duration on TT. I was also about 2 minutes faster than last year, where my competition was goin at about the same time.

Stage two was 4 hours later, 30 minutes hill-climb of 1800 feet. I’m not really good at the same day racing, though earlier in the year I was able to hold 308W for 30 minutes Wawawai hill climb after 20 some minutes TT.

Last year, I made a mistake of racing on my road bike with strong headwind, so I was riding TT bike this time. Wind was not strong, and my legs were not good either.

I ended up loosing about 2 minutes to competition. Not good. But on the flip side, I was about 2 minutes faster than last year, where competition lost time.

Last year, on the stage 3 , I was only few seconds behind, long distance suites me. So I figured, I gained 2 minutes on each stage vs last year, I have good chance to win overall. So suddenly training race became my to win!

The last stage is 52 miles/2hrs TT with 26 miles climb, 13 minutes of which is steep. I was starting second to last, being  second in GC and 2 minutes behind.

I went pretty hard on the climb, probably 10% above last year, it was less tailwind though. Then I settled in the good tempo afterwards.

I caught up my 1 minute men, and it gave me more energy. Adam beat me in hill climb yesterday and was about 50 seconds behind on stage 1. I started to pass people, and saw that I’m closing on my 2-minute man.

I passed Mick and Marta on heavy tandem, and their encouragement made me go even faster. On the last climb I’ve caught  and passed my 2-minute man, who was 3^rd in GC. Chris won this stage last year, and was clearly surprised to see me. I thought, at least I can have a stage win.

After turnaround, I looked at my clock and looked again when I saw Damian on the way up. It was ~2 minutes difference. I was in the lead, Damien must be 4 minutes behind, all I need to keep it safe on descend.

Crosswind was strong and my 1080 became twitchy. I went a bit slower and Chris passed me back, which did not concern me. I just kept him in sight maybe 50-100 feet ahead, keeping it safe at 30-40 mph. I had 3 minutes on him in GC by now, including 2 minutes on the stage.

Suddenly I felt my rear wheel bottoming out on the rock. I thought "oh no, maybe it is just bigger rock"? But rear wheel did not feel right and did not sound the same anymore. At 40 mph, you don’t take risks. I pulled out to check it. Sure enough I've got a flat! And all I had to do is coast 15 miles to the finish punching on some rollers. Bummer.

There are no wheel cars in this race. One car stopped, they don’t have spares. She asked me I wanted the ride. No thanks, I hate DNFs.

All my competition passed me. 6 minutes later, red car stopped. It was following other rider and had wheel in a bag.  So after about 8 minutes and help from good Samaritan I was rolling again. I did not take any risks and just finished the race.

Well, I guess I should have brought “pit stop” with me. I had about 3 minutes to fix the flat and still win overall. No one to blame but myself. 

But never the less, I’m happy with result. Fitness is a bit better than I expected with more than a month of 3 hrs per week “training”.

I think position adjustment is good too, while keeping bike UCI compliant.

After all, I got what I came for: weekend of good training in good weather and on great roads, with good cycling buddies!

Great race, I wish more people can attended it. Thanks George!

Pico de Veleta

I had to be in Spain for work, in Granada of all the places. I did not really do my research before coming there.
During lunch, after I arrived, I mentioned that I wanna do some riding around, I’ve been told that there is “highest paved road in Europe” just outside the town!

I could not pass this opportunity! Owner of the restaurant, cyclist himself said it should take me about 2 hours up Sierra Nevada ski area. Later in the day, 2 hours before sunset, I went for easy scouting ride, with the road to mountain starting just outside my hotel in city center near the church.

Basically, you have to follow the river. I met some Spanish guy doing his PM workout and explained that I want to go to Sierra Nevada. He directed me right up the climb after I attempted to take few wrong roads. That day, I went to about 4K feet, to save something for the next day.

After doing some research online, I found that after ski resort, the service road would go another 2500 feet up to the very peak of the mountain.

Due to local holiday, I had half a day to myself and I decided to go for the ride early morning.

At the bottom of the climb, in small town of Pinos Genil, I saw new Bentley being loaded in huge truck. They passed me on the way up, and I saw car going down from the mountain. Apparently, they test new cars on this highest road all the time, and you can see “taped” mystery cars all the time in Granada.

What a great climb! It is just a bit steeper than Haleakala, but is more scenic. I was going steady tempo, and did not have much wind until maybe 7000 feet, when I got to Sierra Nevada. All the way up you can see signs on the road from Vuelta. It was warm, but not to bad, maybe ~ 80F.

I took ride through the switchback of the town, instead of left turn off to the ski area which would be faster. Main road ends at Ski Area, and here is where the most people stop. But my plan was to go all the way up!

Once at ski parking area, you go pass military outpost to narrow and beaten up service road, that starts at about 8500 feet. It’s in pretty bad shape with a lot of potholes. One thing to note, is that eventually you end up at the fork, with sign “ National Park” in Spanish. Go left! The road on the right will end up at observatory. Luckily, there were people climbing it on foot, and I could ask after taking wrong turn.

In some places I decided to walk over, fearing for my skinny tires. With about few hundred feet it became dirt road, and I was still riding it, until it pitched to maybe 20%. At that point I got off the bike and started to push it until the rock where the monument sits. Than I have to shoulder the bike and climb up the rocks, not the easiest thing to do in cleats and with the bike. But I wanted the picture!

Mission accomplished. Another mountain is concurred, and I have a rock from the top for my collection! Descent was super fun as flowy, I liked it more the Haleakala descend.
Here is Strava file

Elkhorn Stage Race

I always like to do Elkhorn race in Baker City, Oregon. I’ve heard some people are complaining that it is “hill climb with 100 miles before it”, but I disagree.
The last stage is like a route of European race, going over 3 mountain passes with 2000 feet climb in the end.
In the end, it all comes to TT and the last climb, but you can loose race on the first day or in the crit too.

I was registered for 1/2 race and felt well prepared, putting in good volume few weeks before. On the other side, I started too feel burn out of the long racing season.


The first stage, Oregon Trail race is pretty hard, at least for me. There is 800 feet climb before feed zone 2. I was close to front when it started and felt pretty comfortable. We were going at what felt like just a bit over threshold and after 8 minutes I was happy that we crested the hill. But I forgot that after the flat section another 100 feet of climbing is left. There was quite a surge on the flat part and in few seconds I found myself sliding from the front to the back of the pack, and as soon as the last kicker started my legs suddenly felt bad and lost it. Could not close the gap, losing maybe 20 seconds. I don’t have power file, but seems like my HR on the flat section spiked and I was not able to recover.
I tried to catch the pack, but it was fruitless. 20 seconds grew up to minutes.
Eventually few dropped guys caught up with me, I think there were 3 guys from Bob’s bicycle team. In the end, only one other guy was left from BB. We almost caught the pack before last climb, but did not really make it, loosing 6 minutes on the day.
That was kind of disappointing, if only I was more attentive to stay in front after we got to flat section of the climb, instead of sliding back, I would have made it.

Stage 2 was Pleasant Valley TT. I did not have big expectation for it. The day before was hard, I spent to much time chasing instead of cooling in the pack and legs were tired. Plus I never really did good in this TT.
I felt OK on the course and passed few people, which did not mean much, since I was starting behind people who lost time day before. Pacing was pretty standard, with slow uphill part on the way out and fast “descent” on the way back.
I was pretty sure I will make top ten, but to my surprise I found myself on the podium, taking 3rd in TT! I would say that it was my best result, getting 3rd place a stage of 1/2 race. There were some strong guys from both Washington and Oregon I beat. In the development coach moved to first in GC beating my time by 21 seconds. I think my TT was good, because we did not have any wind and significant part was slight uphill. Plus 56x11 gear on descend helped.
I made Oregon Cycling Action news page too.


Stage 3, Crit was uneventful for the most part. It is very flow-y course, and after first 5 minutes I moved up and did not have problem staying and moving up. But I spent a lot of energy nevertheless. It was one-hour crit at threshold. It was my first pack finish in 1/2, so I was happy with it!

The last day is the Queen stage. Finally we had great weather, it just took 3 years. I did not know what to expect from my legs, so opted out from going in a break, I just wanted to survive. My mini goal was to try and make it with the pack until mle 98 or so, before the main climb starts. (Last year, I was dropped few times on the passes, but made it back to the pack).
We had early break going on and sticking. Hagens team had man in the break, and Bob’s bicycle missed it and was trying to bring it back. Good report from the race in here.


I was worried about 3rd mountain pass with hard 5-minute section, and it was hard! But I was able to dig deep and made it with the pack without being dropped.
As soon as pack caught Alan from Haggens, who flatted from the break, HB set hard tempo right at the crosswind section of the course. I had a mistake getting stuck behind very small guy and was not getting any draft. Plus my road position is pretty high, so I was catching a lot of wind. I felt I was about to blowing , and showed guys behind me to pass mee, pulling out of single file. My plan was to slide back a bit to get recovery and find bigger guy. It worked! ( Latter Danny said he thought I was gonna get dropped when I pulled out). It was close for sure.
In any case, I was happy to make it with lead pack to the base of the climb! Goal accomplished. I tried to see how long I could hang on the climb. Few times I felt dropped but slowly crawl back doing that "one more last dig". Well, I lasted for 4 minutes! Then, I was done! No energy left. I actually did not eat enough during previous 4 hrs! I hardly finished climb and was actually much slower than last year. I had no energy left. I ended up loosing 13 minutes, finishing 25. Still, I was happy with getting to the base with the lead pack. So I finished my first 1/2 stage race, getting podium on TT stage.
I would consider it not too bad. I think I can do better next year in Elkhorn, learning from this experience.

CAT 2

It seems like I have a lot of catching up to do here. It’s been busy May and June.
After getting sick in mid April, I decided to take a week off to get fully well.
With an off week, and lingering sickness, I felt that my fitness has dropped quite a bit to try doing Tour of Gila. It was hard decision to make, since I did plan to do race for a while and really wanted to. After going back and force on where to ride it or not, I finally decided to pull plug on it.
With no Gila and enough points, I felt it’s good time to move on with Category 2 upgrade! I also decided to take it a bit slow and try to rebuild base for the second part of the season, racing a bit less.
I did low key Green Valley TT as CAT2 taking 5th place. I’ve tried to race Vance Creek in 1/2 but did not have enough fitness and got dropped on second lap, after gaps started to open in front of me. 90 miles race proven to be too long for my fitness.

Afterwards I did pretty big endurance block riding to Carbon River/Rainier, then spending 2 days in Chelan/Wenatchee area doing pretty big milage. I knew it would take 4-6 weeks to see any benefits of the training block, so I did not have big expectations for Wenatchee Omnium.

I had pretty good TT on ALCOA course, finishing 13 in stacked 1/2 field. The weather for road race was ugly: heavy rain and flooding. I decided to do it anyway. I’ve got dropped first time up the hill, just could not go deep enough over threshold power for long. I finished race anyway, even though I was listed as DNF.

Next race for me was Enumclaw SR. I needed to put some racing miles in, but with time-cuts and technical 8-corner, there was no way I could do 1/2 crit within time cuts. I saw bunch of people pulled during race, but it seems that they did not enforce time cuts anyway! I was pretty sure, that I’ll be pulled in the crit and won’t start Road Race.

So I was racing master 1/2/3. My TT was pretty good, but the starters screwed up times. I knew what my time was, and some other people knew too. So we had a lot of protests. Officials made “Judgment of Solomon’s” and cut every ones time by 30 seconds, which put me in 6 place. I would never know what my actual place was.
As I expected crit was hard and fast. After so many laps, I was taking corners too slow and got dropped. I set in my own tempo and finished it loosing about 2 minutes.
Road race was pretty hard. With no team-mates I just followed the wheels. I made split first time up the Mud Mountain hill with lead group of 10, but everything cam back together. But I had problems on following laps, falling back, but every time I made it back. VO2 reliability sucks. I finished race in field sprint. Kudos to Nathan for staying away for the whole race and winning GC!

Next on the menu was Mt Hood Cycling Classic. Unfortunately, with no separate NRC race, Pro/1/2 field was full by the time I’ve tried to register, which left me no choice but to race 35+ category. I really was hoping to ride prologue to see how I’ll do, well no prologue for masters. That said, the masters field at Hood was the toughest field I saw. I’m not sure if there was a single 3 in the field, but I’m sure there were enough former pros and generally fast guys. The race did not go so well for me, I’ve got poor position before first climb, and had to go around people with the lead of the pack killing it at 6 W/kg. After making an effort to go around people and closing gaps from the back I got dropped to the chase group. We caught up with the pack at Moiser but could not bridge completely. I did climb OK on the long climb but it was not enough to close on the lead. I ended up loosing 9 minutes, effectively out of GC. Next day TT went not too bad for me, I finished 20th @ 1:16 back. Usually 20th place would be disappointing, but in that field it’s result I’ll take. Crit was a disaster, I was tailgunning for a while and you can only close so many gaps. I ended up loosing another 2 minutes there. Then came the Queen stage. Three summits road race. As TG put it, the “hardest 70 miles you’ll ever do”. It was never flat: always up or down, almost 8000 feet elevation gain, crazy descends, super steep climbs. It was mostly on forest roads, recently cleared of snow. But it was also very scenic. To no surprise, I got dropped on one of the climbs after an hour of hard racing, then I was going from group to group. I felt not too bad on final climb to the Ski area. Overall, the Mt Hood stage race was good experience, but my fitness was not there yet, after mid season building block. I was hoping it will come together in time for Elkhorn stage race.

After Hood, I did OBRA ITT championship and finished 3rd in 1/2, I was pretty happy with my time, 53:36 on 40K course with 27.6 mph average.

Next was Elkhorn stage race, I've got registered in 1/2 field. Somehow I was not super excited about the race with unknown fitness and lackluster results in previous month. But weather forecast looked good, and I decided to give it a go.

TO BE CONTINUED.

Deschutes River Valley TT Stage Race

After Cherry Blossom, I was determined to go for Walla Walla and fight for overall , but unfortunately fate had different plan. Day before RvP I was feeling a bit of sore throat, and by the time I was in Las Vegas for annual trade show, I got completely sick. It was pretty bad, could not go out of bed on Tuesday. I’ve got back home on Wendsday night, and by next day it was clear I could not race on Friday in Walla-Walla. I felt like I need at least one day to start feeling half decent. I also felt that doing any lengthy anaerobic efforts will put me back into beign completely sick. So I decided to bag Walla-Walla and look for something more aerobic to do after almost a week of the bike.
Luckily, in OBRA land there was DVRTT going, 2-days time trial stage race ( maybe the only TT SR in US?).
I’ve heard about this race 3 years ago, from CycleU team-mate Steve H. (R.I.P.)
So on Friday night I was heading back to The Dalles Oregon then Maupin.

But let me borrow Steve’s description from 2008 of the trip to DRVTT:

“My trip to and from Maupin, Or. was also just as breathtaking as the races...no pun intended? I went over 90 to 82 through Yakima, followed 14 along the Columbia to 197 at the Dalles which goes straight to Maupin. I had never traveled that way before. Your up at snowline going south of Yakima in open range country it appears. Very spacious country. Curvey Highway 14 on the Washington side parellels the Columbia giving wide open breathtaking views of the gorge while I managed to stay on the road. Here were also a couple of wineries. As I crossed the Columbia into the Dalles I saw fishing platforms down on the water. I hadn't seen Mt. Rainier from that angle before and it seemed even more majestic and I could view Mt. Hood at the same time. Crossing into Oregon I climbed up out of the Gorge with many apple orchards all around. Then you enter range country and very beautiful hilly desolate desert country where you can see for miles. When entering Maupin from any direction you will descend quickly.”

The first stage was 28 miles loop with some 15 minute climb out of Maupin. I felt pretty good and was passing bunch of people. I finished 2nd overall and 1st in my category.

Later same day, we had 2000 feet hill climb. Though TT bike could have been better I decide to use road bike to put in some climbing training. I started 3rd from the back. I felt bad. After 5 or so minutes 2 guys from A-group on TT bikes passed me, and I became the last person on the course. I was suffering, I was demoralized. Maybe cold left me unable to go over threshold or maybe it was mental, but I ended up loosing something like 2 minutes and moved to last place in my category. Did I mention I only got 3hrs of sleep night before? Come to think about it later, I’m pretty sure I was completely depleted of glycogen as well. Not fully recovered from cold and racing an 40K TT few hours before.

The last day was 48 miles TT with about 3.5K of climbing. Out and back on Bakeoven road. I had 4 people starting after me with 30-seconds interval. And after previous day fiasco, I was concerned I would get passed on first 20 minutes climb. But to my surprise I felt really good. I glanced once on hairpins climbs and saw that I had much more than 30s after first 5 or so minutes. I was going pretty fast trying to treat this TT as 40K , 1hr+ race to turn around, hoping that way back would be pretty fast. I think after 20 miles are saw MickW coming back, and I passed everyone, becoming on my leg. Way back was fast but not easy. I was not sure how much time gap I have. There were too man people coming towards turnaround to know who is who. So I pretty much went all out on the way back too. Few rollers were especially hard. I felt bonk coming on, and was hopping for the last 4 miles of steep descent to come soon. I took descent pretty carefull, with all side winds and hairpins.
I ended up gaining 6-10 minutes! On competitors in my field.
It was enough to move me in first place in GC wining stage race in B group. I was 40-seconds off first place overall for the stage. Two pro triathletes beat me. But I blame it on cold!
So all in all it was good race and experience. Another win never hurts confidence either. Thanks to George for organizing superb and unique race!