International racing thoughts
Justin and I arrived close enough time wise to meet at the airport in Montreal. Mostly due to the fact that the first rental car company left me stranded at the airport. Avid was willing to match the deep discount rate and offered an up grade so they got the business
We both went to medical classification after taking the seinic route through Montreal and Champlain. Justin was classified CP 5 and I was put into CP 4
My bikes had been lost in a 1 hour transit between Toronto and Montreal adding a little more stress to the day.
We arrived at Hotel Delta around 5pm ant the service there proved to be an oasis. Justin built his bike and we took part in dinner at the lavish restetaunt on sight. We sat around peeping for the next day watching the Montreal Canadians beat Boston. We turned in early and rested for the next day. Bikes showed up at 12am
So goes day one!
Here is up date two Race day one:
The day started with some dense fog that only spring in Canada can produce, plus being on the 24th floor you pretty much look down at most things. Justin and I started the day with a hearty northern breakfast of anything you want and started the day!
We arrived at the race site in Blainville early or so we thought but we were able to work through some minor registration glitches simply. Being early we got the lay of the land and milled about diligently. The remainder of the US team arrived just prior to the start and the real prep got under way. The racers crossed the start line exactly at 14:02
For this race categories were mixed so we were in a pack of about 25 riders from C-1 to C-5 which made for some interesting racing. Team USA dominated the pace, chased down break a ways and attempted some of our own, I went off the front once gaining 30 seconds on the pack before getting reeled in and Justin attempted it twice once in the final lap where he attempted to stretch the elastic to the breaking point, however almost at the point of no return the pack woke up and began the chase. With 1 K to go the set up for the sprint began to take form and unattended riders were beginning to be bumped and shed to the rear. The pack picked up tremendous speed towards the 250MT Mark reaching 35 MPH at which point Justin was caught and consumed by the chasing pack. The sprinters having been lead out began the sprint at this point with that maniac like charge to the line that sprinters live for.
Adv speed for the 69K was 21.5 MPH Justin finished 9th and I 10th, each picking up 8 and 7 UCI points respectively in the process.
So went day one we returned to the hotel after being treated to a Montreal traffic jam and celebrated with Burgers and Fries and watched the Montreal Hockey game with the crowd in the dining area!
Today is a rest day and we intend on doing just that with Massages set for 5pm and track recon this morning then its rest rest rest the hardest part of being a competitive bike racer!
Day 3: Rest Day
Today is Friday which in most circles of life denotes a break is near from the day to day grind of the work a day world. People will pack up and enjoy their favorite activities, families will travel to the treasures of our land and most will enjoy recreation in order to recover from the daily mental grind. However in the life of a traveling competitive cyclist it can mean only one thing, there is a race some where!
We are currently being treated to a sunny Montreal morning and are feeling quite spry maybe it is the spring like picture from our hotel window or the fact that as good cyclists we pretty much haven’t left the comfort (or prison, time dependant) of our hotel beds very much in the last 24 hrs. The term we use is rest day but in the science of cycling rest days are used and planned to provide the riders with the opportunity to fully recover from exceptionally hard efforts so they can have max energy and fitness to go beat themselves into a bloody pulp again That’s the game of cycling.
Thursday on our rest day we enjoyed to some extent resting and working on stemming the flow of minutia. Once again, after a extended tour of the suburbs of Montreal (that means we were lost) we found the race track for today’s time trial, Le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. We slowly rode our bikes around the track noticing the nuances of every turn, the effect of wind, the location of puddles and the degrees of difficulty every twist and turn had to offer. I don’t think it is something we do in a check list fashion but more on a subliminal level these things just register, because at some point they become the important aspects of winning or loosing, living and dying. To top off the mid day of our recovery effort we were treated to “free” massages offered by the event organizers Defi Sportif. Free they were and kind of like free Ole Milwaukie lite beer you take it, smile and do your best to enjoy it. My MT was a guy named Ildar Zakariev a Russian, Spoke limited English or French but to his credit had memorized the word relax in 4 or 5 languages. Justin got the German in Spandex and “I love beer T shirt” ah so it goes!
After that traumatic experience we both got some food, well a lot of food and returned to the comfort of out hotel room beds to watch the NFL draft.
Fridays (today) race is a time trial often called the race of truth. In a normal bike race weakness can be hidden through the proper use of tactics and stronger team members. In the time trial this is not the case. There is a rider, a bike, a course, a clock and whatever mother nature feels like throwing your way at that moment in time. In a measured and timed sort of fashion you give it your all hopefully timing it right, much like the unrolling of a carpet getting faster and faster as the end nears and whipping across the finish line, so that when you cross the finish line you are cross eyed, totally spent physically and emotionally destroyed. The time trial is a lonely endeavor and at the end you are reminded of who you truly are.
Today we race at 1830 est so if you are around some where you can light a candle or mumble a prayer to the Great Spirit please do so. Our goals today are not very diverse, we are gunning to reach qualification standards for the national team which will require a sustained speed of 26.6 mph adv over the full 17.6 K course. The weather calls for rain and wind at 13K so while you are at it light two candles!
Day 4 race 2
It is said that suffering is a universal plague. However I like the way Victor Frankle looked at suffering and his depth and view of the struggle we all face from day to day. In ones search for meaning he says it is the why that matters most have a big enough why and you can endure any suffering.
Racing in a time trial is sorta like that and ask anyone that has raced one to the point of their eyes rolling back into their head and to the person they will agree with me. Real Time Trialing is not for the weak of spirit.
Taking a que from yesterdays dispatch we finished up the day at the hotel in a controlled frantic way getting dressed and pinning #s on our uniforms, Then we headed to the race track in the most direct way forgoing our daily tour of Montreal. Arriving early we had a lot of time to mill about but this decision to be early almost ended up to be the tipping point and a saving grace for the other Americans when the race orginizers upped the start times by an hour! Thank God for Text and cell phones!
By early evening the weather had turned lugubrious with a gusting wind from the west. Every single moment felt like rain and the wind had started pummeling the course with left over leaves from fall rolling over the tarmac like waves crashing over some alien shore..
Pre Race is a funny time especially at high level races its sorta like a bar scene where everyone is checking out everyone in a free for all manner, hey he looks tired, he looks fat, look how tight his uniform fits his butt. I has been rumored that even the famous duo of Lance Armstrong and Johan Bryneel would do the same thing at early races even going as far as snapping other riders on the backside to “test” their level of fitness, in the end the cycling creed reads, small butt fast rider, big butt--- well you get the point.
There is also a cornucopia of bravado going on as past races good or bad are relived in vivid high volume reciting the crazier the race or the rider or maybe both the higher the volume. For Justin and I we pretty much found a place out of the wind and parked our well sculptured butts on some scrap wood and either droned out to an Ipod or stared blankly at the ground staying away from the undulating Star Wars bar room scene the registration tent had become.
We got to get in one warm up on the course during the intermission and this would prove to be critical as some points along the course had become squirrelly with the gusting wind. Then like the final tic of the clock it is your turn in the start house and the counter starts giving you your count. I was almost not allowed on the course due to a change in UCI rules dealing with aero extensions something I must change right away!
Justin went off in front of me at 18:03 and I would soon follow at 18:11. The support on the course was great and they made us feel like pro’s with photo Motor cycles riding in front of you and official cars zipping about insuring a clear lane and looking for infractions, pretty cool stuff! And so it went round and round for 4 laps each turning his self inside out in order to reach that magic time standard and a podium shot!
We finished off the day with Justin coming in 23 over all however 5 in his class ( 26:46 )
and I turned in a hard performance coming in 7th over all and third in class (25:40). The status quo was established with Justin just falling into the Emerging pool and I maintained holding in the upper Talent Pool missing the National time by a mere 4 seconds per K. Using there % calculations which I do not understand I beat out numerous world champions % wise as well as numerous medal holders from 2010 season!
I hope you have enjoyed these journalistic forays into the realm of cycling I enjoyed creating them both on the ground and on the computer I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into the reality of competitive cycling.
Day 5 race 3
Today we head out to the Defi Sportif Road Race where we will work Lock step with the National Team to insure USA is in gold tonight! The sun is shining and it’s a gorgeous day here in Canada, great day for a race!
The end has come and it is the feeling that one gets between the opening of the last present on Christmas day and the Dinner that will follow, weird place to be some where between ultimate excitement and total depression. However having or being excited or depressed is a sign of being alive, such is the flow of life
Today Justin and I simply entered a road race, rode around in an endless circle and there were winners and losers for a simple end that could be it.
However the story didn’t end there nor did it begin there: Our beginnings, Justins and Mine are similar in nature but differing in the beginning of the sentence. TBI is the silent killer of over 10 million people the symptoms range from simple head aches to total memory loss depression and sucide, each of us fall some where in-between. I have ridden a bike for 10+ years now and Justin for about 2 years. Each entered this program from various avenues that put us here today in Montreal Canada, an international Bicycle race invited here by the US Paralympic committee and supported by the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund as Elite members of Team Semper Fi we have come along way!
OK I’ll get to the race. After consultation with Mike Durner the Director for the US team here in Canada and he my cycling coach we had decided Justin and my jobs would be to run interference through the race like it was a simple chess game, however this game is hurdling down the road at an adv speed of 25 mph.
The first couple of laps were fairly easy with Team USA dominating the pace. There were a few flyers off the front but eventually they were reeled in as very few can match the rolling energy of the peloton ( main group). At about lap 8 Team USA tested the stretching point of the elastic and once determined rolled back into the peaceful grinding of the Peloton. Lap 9 would prove to be slightly different with Team USA launching a vicious attack off the front that very few could follow and the elastic stretched and broke, the remainder of us just “sat up” slowing the peloton to an agreeable speed allowing---what we felt was anagreeable break get away.
The remainder of us just played the game where we where. Flicking as they call it, but in the end it is Rugby on wheels each jockeying for the ultimate position. Once the last 2 laps were on us and the lead break over 1 min ahead, just as we planned, we were divided into 3 groups: lead, middle and the a trail group. Each group having nothing to do with skill fitness but shear luck.
As the race neared its crescendo the riders in the lead group had a solid lead allowing Team USA to take first followed by another American and a Columbian. The second group made up of about 6 riders screamed to the line oblivious of their surroundings only the line counted. I did my best to lead out Vince Juarez team USA for the up coming sprint reaching speeds of 30 mph into the wind, the sprinters went and as is customary I just sat up and coasted to the line albeit at 29 Mph. each of us were separated by less than 20 seconds!
What a race this was a good one, hard fast and tactical a true joy to be part of! Justin and I finished respectably towards the back of the pack taking 5th for me and 10-th for Justin we did a lot of work for Team USA so not bad and that’s bike racing folks!
In the end this was a total weekend of dread and excitement along with the honor of representing Team Semper Fi at an international level, nothing could be finer today! Tomorrow we become simple men until that special time comes again when we are faced with a bike race.
Over the weekend we stayed in the top ten and even reached the top three not bad for Vets who no one even notices on the street!
These placings have also added to our UCI Points and will move us up in the international standings where all big things exist as we push towards the US Nationals and hopefully a slot on the World Team for 2011
We both went to medical classification after taking the seinic route through Montreal and Champlain. Justin was classified CP 5 and I was put into CP 4
My bikes had been lost in a 1 hour transit between Toronto and Montreal adding a little more stress to the day.
We arrived at Hotel Delta around 5pm ant the service there proved to be an oasis. Justin built his bike and we took part in dinner at the lavish restetaunt on sight. We sat around peeping for the next day watching the Montreal Canadians beat Boston. We turned in early and rested for the next day. Bikes showed up at 12am
So goes day one!
Here is up date two Race day one:
The day started with some dense fog that only spring in Canada can produce, plus being on the 24th floor you pretty much look down at most things. Justin and I started the day with a hearty northern breakfast of anything you want and started the day!
We arrived at the race site in Blainville early or so we thought but we were able to work through some minor registration glitches simply. Being early we got the lay of the land and milled about diligently. The remainder of the US team arrived just prior to the start and the real prep got under way. The racers crossed the start line exactly at 14:02
For this race categories were mixed so we were in a pack of about 25 riders from C-1 to C-5 which made for some interesting racing. Team USA dominated the pace, chased down break a ways and attempted some of our own, I went off the front once gaining 30 seconds on the pack before getting reeled in and Justin attempted it twice once in the final lap where he attempted to stretch the elastic to the breaking point, however almost at the point of no return the pack woke up and began the chase. With 1 K to go the set up for the sprint began to take form and unattended riders were beginning to be bumped and shed to the rear. The pack picked up tremendous speed towards the 250MT Mark reaching 35 MPH at which point Justin was caught and consumed by the chasing pack. The sprinters having been lead out began the sprint at this point with that maniac like charge to the line that sprinters live for.
Adv speed for the 69K was 21.5 MPH Justin finished 9th and I 10th, each picking up 8 and 7 UCI points respectively in the process.
So went day one we returned to the hotel after being treated to a Montreal traffic jam and celebrated with Burgers and Fries and watched the Montreal Hockey game with the crowd in the dining area!
Today is a rest day and we intend on doing just that with Massages set for 5pm and track recon this morning then its rest rest rest the hardest part of being a competitive bike racer!
Day 3: Rest Day
Today is Friday which in most circles of life denotes a break is near from the day to day grind of the work a day world. People will pack up and enjoy their favorite activities, families will travel to the treasures of our land and most will enjoy recreation in order to recover from the daily mental grind. However in the life of a traveling competitive cyclist it can mean only one thing, there is a race some where!
We are currently being treated to a sunny Montreal morning and are feeling quite spry maybe it is the spring like picture from our hotel window or the fact that as good cyclists we pretty much haven’t left the comfort (or prison, time dependant) of our hotel beds very much in the last 24 hrs. The term we use is rest day but in the science of cycling rest days are used and planned to provide the riders with the opportunity to fully recover from exceptionally hard efforts so they can have max energy and fitness to go beat themselves into a bloody pulp again That’s the game of cycling.
Thursday on our rest day we enjoyed to some extent resting and working on stemming the flow of minutia. Once again, after a extended tour of the suburbs of Montreal (that means we were lost) we found the race track for today’s time trial, Le Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. We slowly rode our bikes around the track noticing the nuances of every turn, the effect of wind, the location of puddles and the degrees of difficulty every twist and turn had to offer. I don’t think it is something we do in a check list fashion but more on a subliminal level these things just register, because at some point they become the important aspects of winning or loosing, living and dying. To top off the mid day of our recovery effort we were treated to “free” massages offered by the event organizers Defi Sportif. Free they were and kind of like free Ole Milwaukie lite beer you take it, smile and do your best to enjoy it. My MT was a guy named Ildar Zakariev a Russian, Spoke limited English or French but to his credit had memorized the word relax in 4 or 5 languages. Justin got the German in Spandex and “I love beer T shirt” ah so it goes!
After that traumatic experience we both got some food, well a lot of food and returned to the comfort of out hotel room beds to watch the NFL draft.
Fridays (today) race is a time trial often called the race of truth. In a normal bike race weakness can be hidden through the proper use of tactics and stronger team members. In the time trial this is not the case. There is a rider, a bike, a course, a clock and whatever mother nature feels like throwing your way at that moment in time. In a measured and timed sort of fashion you give it your all hopefully timing it right, much like the unrolling of a carpet getting faster and faster as the end nears and whipping across the finish line, so that when you cross the finish line you are cross eyed, totally spent physically and emotionally destroyed. The time trial is a lonely endeavor and at the end you are reminded of who you truly are.
Today we race at 1830 est so if you are around some where you can light a candle or mumble a prayer to the Great Spirit please do so. Our goals today are not very diverse, we are gunning to reach qualification standards for the national team which will require a sustained speed of 26.6 mph adv over the full 17.6 K course. The weather calls for rain and wind at 13K so while you are at it light two candles!
Day 4 race 2
It is said that suffering is a universal plague. However I like the way Victor Frankle looked at suffering and his depth and view of the struggle we all face from day to day. In ones search for meaning he says it is the why that matters most have a big enough why and you can endure any suffering.
'He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how’
Racing in a time trial is sorta like that and ask anyone that has raced one to the point of their eyes rolling back into their head and to the person they will agree with me. Real Time Trialing is not for the weak of spirit.
Taking a que from yesterdays dispatch we finished up the day at the hotel in a controlled frantic way getting dressed and pinning #s on our uniforms, Then we headed to the race track in the most direct way forgoing our daily tour of Montreal. Arriving early we had a lot of time to mill about but this decision to be early almost ended up to be the tipping point and a saving grace for the other Americans when the race orginizers upped the start times by an hour! Thank God for Text and cell phones!
By early evening the weather had turned lugubrious with a gusting wind from the west. Every single moment felt like rain and the wind had started pummeling the course with left over leaves from fall rolling over the tarmac like waves crashing over some alien shore..
Pre Race is a funny time especially at high level races its sorta like a bar scene where everyone is checking out everyone in a free for all manner, hey he looks tired, he looks fat, look how tight his uniform fits his butt. I has been rumored that even the famous duo of Lance Armstrong and Johan Bryneel would do the same thing at early races even going as far as snapping other riders on the backside to “test” their level of fitness, in the end the cycling creed reads, small butt fast rider, big butt--- well you get the point.
There is also a cornucopia of bravado going on as past races good or bad are relived in vivid high volume reciting the crazier the race or the rider or maybe both the higher the volume. For Justin and I we pretty much found a place out of the wind and parked our well sculptured butts on some scrap wood and either droned out to an Ipod or stared blankly at the ground staying away from the undulating Star Wars bar room scene the registration tent had become.
We got to get in one warm up on the course during the intermission and this would prove to be critical as some points along the course had become squirrelly with the gusting wind. Then like the final tic of the clock it is your turn in the start house and the counter starts giving you your count. I was almost not allowed on the course due to a change in UCI rules dealing with aero extensions something I must change right away!
Justin went off in front of me at 18:03 and I would soon follow at 18:11. The support on the course was great and they made us feel like pro’s with photo Motor cycles riding in front of you and official cars zipping about insuring a clear lane and looking for infractions, pretty cool stuff! And so it went round and round for 4 laps each turning his self inside out in order to reach that magic time standard and a podium shot!
We finished off the day with Justin coming in 23 over all however 5 in his class ( 26:46 )
and I turned in a hard performance coming in 7th over all and third in class (25:40). The status quo was established with Justin just falling into the Emerging pool and I maintained holding in the upper Talent Pool missing the National time by a mere 4 seconds per K. Using there % calculations which I do not understand I beat out numerous world champions % wise as well as numerous medal holders from 2010 season!
I hope you have enjoyed these journalistic forays into the realm of cycling I enjoyed creating them both on the ground and on the computer I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into the reality of competitive cycling.
Day 5 race 3
Today we head out to the Defi Sportif Road Race where we will work Lock step with the National Team to insure USA is in gold tonight! The sun is shining and it’s a gorgeous day here in Canada, great day for a race!
The end has come and it is the feeling that one gets between the opening of the last present on Christmas day and the Dinner that will follow, weird place to be some where between ultimate excitement and total depression. However having or being excited or depressed is a sign of being alive, such is the flow of life
Today Justin and I simply entered a road race, rode around in an endless circle and there were winners and losers for a simple end that could be it.
However the story didn’t end there nor did it begin there: Our beginnings, Justins and Mine are similar in nature but differing in the beginning of the sentence. TBI is the silent killer of over 10 million people the symptoms range from simple head aches to total memory loss depression and sucide, each of us fall some where in-between. I have ridden a bike for 10+ years now and Justin for about 2 years. Each entered this program from various avenues that put us here today in Montreal Canada, an international Bicycle race invited here by the US Paralympic committee and supported by the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund as Elite members of Team Semper Fi we have come along way!
OK I’ll get to the race. After consultation with Mike Durner the Director for the US team here in Canada and he my cycling coach we had decided Justin and my jobs would be to run interference through the race like it was a simple chess game, however this game is hurdling down the road at an adv speed of 25 mph.
The first couple of laps were fairly easy with Team USA dominating the pace. There were a few flyers off the front but eventually they were reeled in as very few can match the rolling energy of the peloton ( main group). At about lap 8 Team USA tested the stretching point of the elastic and once determined rolled back into the peaceful grinding of the Peloton. Lap 9 would prove to be slightly different with Team USA launching a vicious attack off the front that very few could follow and the elastic stretched and broke, the remainder of us just “sat up” slowing the peloton to an agreeable speed allowing---what we felt was anagreeable break get away.
The remainder of us just played the game where we where. Flicking as they call it, but in the end it is Rugby on wheels each jockeying for the ultimate position. Once the last 2 laps were on us and the lead break over 1 min ahead, just as we planned, we were divided into 3 groups: lead, middle and the a trail group. Each group having nothing to do with skill fitness but shear luck.
As the race neared its crescendo the riders in the lead group had a solid lead allowing Team USA to take first followed by another American and a Columbian. The second group made up of about 6 riders screamed to the line oblivious of their surroundings only the line counted. I did my best to lead out Vince Juarez team USA for the up coming sprint reaching speeds of 30 mph into the wind, the sprinters went and as is customary I just sat up and coasted to the line albeit at 29 Mph. each of us were separated by less than 20 seconds!
What a race this was a good one, hard fast and tactical a true joy to be part of! Justin and I finished respectably towards the back of the pack taking 5th for me and 10-th for Justin we did a lot of work for Team USA so not bad and that’s bike racing folks!
In the end this was a total weekend of dread and excitement along with the honor of representing Team Semper Fi at an international level, nothing could be finer today! Tomorrow we become simple men until that special time comes again when we are faced with a bike race.
Over the weekend we stayed in the top ten and even reached the top three not bad for Vets who no one even notices on the street!
These placings have also added to our UCI Points and will move us up in the international standings where all big things exist as we push towards the US Nationals and hopefully a slot on the World Team for 2011
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