Training

In December of 2010 I left the startup company I had worked at for several years in order to take a long over-due sabbatical. One of my goals for the time off was to focus on some of the sporting events I had in mind for the year, such as the Ironman 70.3 triathlon in April, and one of the week-long bicycle tours in Colorado during the summer. On a whim, I signed up for the Leadville Trial 100 MTB race about that time and was quite surprised when I made it passed the lottery in February.

For a while, I wasn’t really sure I was going to be able to do the race at all. I am primarily a road cyclist, and I hadn’t ridden a mountain bike in almost two years when I signed up. I knew Leadville wasn’t considered a very technical course, but in reality my technical skills were at the neophyte level and there just wasn’t the opportunity to do challenging climbing where in live in Texas. There are plenty of technical, twisty courses to ride in, but nothing with sustained, hard climbs. Even in the Texas hill country where the terrain changes to be rocky with lots of short, steep hills, the experience would not be anything like the Leadville course.

So from January through April I focused primarily on the 70.3 race. Cycling was my strongest sport, that received only basic attention while the swim and run occupied the rest of my training time. I wasn’t worry about having enough endurance or strength to train and finish the Leadville race after the 70.3, at least not at that time.

The 70.3 event did not go great. I have reoccurring issues with under-fueling for big events, and I ran smack into that early in the 70.3. After my swim wave had finished and I got on the bike, I felt sluggish and low on energy. I almost dropped out of the race then, but I stopped, ate a ton of fuel, and got back out there. It took 2 hours longer than I had planned to finish the course, but I did, although that did not give me great confidence on my ability to fuel myself through an 8-12 hour long event at race pace like Leadville.

After the 70.3 I focused primarily on road cycling training with power, building a stronger base for the Leadville specific training. I kept an eye out for mountain bikes, but at that point I still hadn’t even decided to buy one or that I was really going to do the race. In fact, after the 70.3 I spoke with the Leadville race organizers about dropping out, but they strongly encouraged me to go and give it a try.

About this time, I bought the movie Race Across the Sky about the 2010 Leadville 100 trace where Levi Leipheimer set a new course record. The movie was incredibly motivational – at first. When I started watching the movie, I had expectations that I would be able to finish the race near the 9 hour mark where you get the big gold belt buckle. After all, why not? My road biking that year had put me in great condition and I felt I could do it. After about 15 minutes of the movie I quickly changed my mind and decided the 12 hour mark would be a reasonable goal. By halfway through the movie I decided I would be happy just to finish, and by the end of it, I would be happy not to be carted away by ambulance.

As part of my time-off, I wanted to spend most of the summer in Colorado training and exploring. In mid-May, I left home for a road-rip out to Colorado. I meandered a bit and met some friends in Durango over the Memorial Day weekend for a great camping experience in the mountains. I also got plenty of chances to bike the US 550 “Million Dollar Highway” between Durango and Silverton for some intense training at altitude.

After the Durango trip, I made my way up to Grand Junction in order to bike the Colorado National Monument and then up and over Grand Mesa. I’ve biked these routes before and loved the scenery and the challenge they offered. Biking up Grand Mesa solo was a first for me. I was really happy that I was able to make it up there by myself without issue – it gave me confidence that my acclimation to the altitude and my climbing strength were improving nicely.

After Grand Junction I made my way to the Fraser Valley to visit with some friends there. My original plan for the summer was to rent a condo in the valley for a couple of months and do most of my training in the area.

One of the first things I did after arriving there was to take a mountain bike ride with my friend that lived there. I rented a cheap 26″ bike from one of the local shops and we went out for our first adventure. It was already a beautiful, early summer there, but the heavy snows of the season meant early June was still very much a muddy mess on the trails. A muddy mess can be fun, but it isn’t the best training material.

To make matters worse, my friend assumed my mountain biking skills were way beyond where they were at the time. This was my first time on a mountain bike in over 2 years and I had never once ridden one on a true Colorado mountain trail. So, of course, he took me on a technically difficult trail. I wound up spending a great deal of the ride getting off the bike to climb over rock gardens and to avoid the treacherous descents. At some point, I knew I could handle these trails, but as a first ride in a long time, it was extremely discouraging and didn’t help my desire to actually do the Leadville race.

After spending another week in the valley I realized my vacation budget had been blown for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was an unexpected and expensive repair on my truck I was using for the trip. It was enough to help me decide that riding Leadville wasn’t a great idea and that I should go ahead and head towards home and start looking for another job in time for the fall. No doubt, I was looking for excuses…

It wasn’t a great feeling making that decision, and leaving beautiful Colorado for a scorched and parched Texas felt even worse. Once I made it home, my enthusiasm for my workouts waned and I had a bad attitude about looking for jobs to begin with, but I knew I needed to start it.

About that time another friend in the Fraser Valley emailed me out of the blue to encourage me to do the Leadville race regardless of the cost. It was quite a surprise to get that email from her, as it was a bit out of character for her to email me on that kind of topic. But, she made some great points in that email, not the least of which that this was a great opportunity and the few thousand dollars one way or the other would not make a big difference in my life, but the experience of the race certainly would.

I made a deal with myself right then. If I could find a great job that either let me work remotely or that let me start after the race I would head back to Colorado and focus intensely on Leadville and enjoy the experience. At this point, it was mid-June and with only 2 months before race day I knew it would be a huge challenge getting the training and mountain bike time in that I needed.

By early July, I had found a job that would let me start after the race so I made my decision and bought the mountain bike I decided I would need for the race – a Specialized Epic Comp 29er. I at least was reasonable about the purchase and did not splurge on the carbon fiber versions of the bike.

Disaster struck in one of my first training rides, however. I was riding in Houston’s Memorial Park, in some of the moderately technical trails they have there. These trails have tons of short, steep 5′ to 10′ high hills with large roots and stumps to maneuver around. After about 90 minutes into one of my workouts, and about the point where I was getting tired and sloppy, I hit a root without enough speed so the bike stopped. To keep from falling over I clipped out and put my foot down, but I landed wrong and it immediately twisted on me as I fell. I heard a horrible sounding double-crunch and thought that I had broken my foot. It didn’t hurt very much, though, so I gingerly got back on the bike and cruised out of the park, only to have the pain intensify over the next several hours.

After a day it was clear I needed to head to the doctor, who got me in a few days later. At this point the pain was rather intense so I assumed my race chances were over. But he had good news for me – it was just a sprain and it was already healing well. He encouraged me to wear an ankle brace and keep riding immediately as the physical effort would help the healing.

Time was running out, so I knew if I was going to do this race I had to get my act together and get back out to Colorado with as much time as I could spare. In the end, I didn’t make it there until the first of August, leaving just under two weeks of training before the race. That would be enough time for a reasonable acclimation process to begin, and enough time to ride some of the Leadville course, but not enough time to really improve my mountain biking skills. I was hedging on the hope that the Leadville course was not all that technical and that it wouldn’t prove a challenge to me from that perspective.

I had some fantastic training rides once I got back to Colorado. I rented a condo in Winter Park and used that as my base of operations. One of my favorite rides during this time was the ride up to the top of Rollins Pass from the Winter Park side. This is an old unimproved road that lead to a railway station at the top of the pass. It’s passable with any 4×4 and a passenger car with enough clearance and driven properly, so it makes an easy mountain bike trail, other than the altitude. But a road like that lets you push the effort strongly as the grade is shallow enough that you can push the speed up without getting into the red zone too quickly.

I did this training route twice, and enjoyed it immensely both times. On the second attempt I went with my friend who lived in the valley and we had a blast getting to the top. On the way down we both bombed down the road, especially me as the full-suspension bike I had gave me a lot more capability going downhill. But, it doesn’t make the bike invincible, as I found out when I smacked into an old drainage pipe, dented my rear wheel, and flatted.

Early in the week before the actual race, my friend and I drove over to Leadville itself for a scouting ride on the race course. We started where the course transfers from pavement to the dirt just outside of town, and did the St. Kevin’s climb, Sugarloaf Pass, and then the Powerline descent. The descent down Powerline is considered the most dangerous part of the race, so it seemed a very smart idea to get some experience on that technical section of the course.

The ride went fantastic. The St. Kevin’s climb was steep, hot, dusty, but relatively short. The gradient was such I could get a good strong cadence going without redlining too frequently. I didn’t know what to expect from the crowd on race day, but I felt like that climb wouldn’t do me in.

The climb up Sugarloaf Pass was a different experience. It was much more like the climb up Rollins Pass road that I had done the previous week, but grew more technical towards the top. It was rocky, with a gentle grade, and a lot of opportunity to go relatively fast.

At the top, things got more interesting. The dips and climbs leading up to the actual Powerline descent began to get more technical and were a new experience for me. We were going fast and it was very easy to get air and lose control without realizing it. I had to back off quite a bit and control my speed more diligently so I could take the technical turns and twists without careening into a tree or off a ledge.

The actual Powerline descent was an amazing experience. It was both easy and hard. The actual obstacles were minor, and bike handling wasn’t a huge problem, other than making sure your speed was controlled so you didn’t go flying off the line; the hard part was picking the line. With all the ruts in the road it was very easy to get trapped and one and either crash or get stuck. I went down a lot slower than my friend but felt it was something I could handle on race day, as long as people weren’t going too crazy around me.

It was now Tuesday and I had the rest of the week to taper, eat constantly, and get mentally ready for the big event. I felt I was ready, I felt I could do it, and I was really looking forward to the experience. If nothing else, the land around Leadville is amazingly beautiful Colorado high country, and worth the experience just to see more of it.

Pre-Race

The day before the race all the racers are required to gather in Leadville for a pre-race briefing and packet pickup. The briefing was covered quickly in the movie I watched, so I had an idea of what to expect, but it was a great experience seeing Ken, the race founder, speak to the crowd and get everyone motivated.

After the end of the pre-race briefing there was a follow-up briefing for first-timers. Here’s where I learned just how little I had actually prepared. The presenter talked about several parts of the course I hadn’t experienced. The Columbine Mine climb I knew about, of course, and knew it would be the hardest part of the race given the long climb and altitude involved, but what I didn’t know about was a section called “Little Stinker.” The presenter asked how many of has hadn’t ridden that part of the course, and the few dozen of us that raised our hands gave him pause to how unprepared we might be. As he described, and I later found out, “Little Stinker” is an extremely steep hill that requires quite a leap of faith to get down, even though it is not a very technical descent.

That night I did everything I could to eat well and get tired and ready for the race the next day. I had difficulty sleeping most of that year, and being nervous for a big sporting event always killed my ability to relax and get to bed. That night wasn’t much of an exception, but I did get about 5 hours total before waking up at 4am to have breakfast and head over to Leadville from Frisco, where I was staying.

Race Day

I got to Leadville before dawn and made my way to the starting line with the rest of the racers. It was an expectedly cold morning, about 40ºF, but nothing unexpected. I really wanted to avoid any nutrition issues on this race, given its length, so I made sure to drink sports drink for the hour or so before the race start.

My nutrition plan on the day seemed solid. I had made a couple of multi-hour bottles of Hammer Nutrition’s Perpetuem fuel, and would use that as my constant, primary fuel source. I had additional bottles prepped with my support crew at the various aid stations. I also had solid food with me, such as energy bars, sports gummies, and a few other things. I would eat as much as I could stand early on during the race, as I’d never reached the point of puking during a race, but I have bonked many times.

As the sun started to rise and the number of races in line continued to grow, the excitement and nervousness of the crowd was palatable. I didn’t feel that nervous; I felt well-trained, well-prepared and I had ridden some of the course. What could go wrong?

We started right on time, but it took about 3 to 5 minutes after the starting gun for my group to get to the starting line. I started about two-thirds of the way back in the field, thinking that would be the best place for me to be given my goal finishing time.

The ride through town was downhill, fast, and quite cold. A spectator had dropped a large American flag in the middle of the road and the entire field had to slow down and maneuver around it. This entire section of the race was great fun, but crowded enough there wasn’t much opportunity to gain a lot of position. I pushed my self a bit hard here just to warm up; by the time we reached the edge of town and went off road, the temperature had dropped to below freezing and I was shivering with the lack of body heat and the fast ride downhill.

Once we hit the dirt, things got a lot more interesting. There is a bit of a bottleneck as we turn off the main road, but everyone expected that and were polite about making room for each other. What did make this section challenging was the huge dust crowd that was being thrown up by the riders in front of us. They warned us about this during the pre-race briefing, but I neglected to bring a bandana to breath through. It was a complete mess. It was hard to see more than a dozen yards ahead of you and you could feel the dirt sticking to your nose and mouth, and no doubt your lungs were filling up with dust.

Luckily that section is short and we began the climb of St. Kevin’s quickly. I was surprised to find that the group of riders I was with took this hill much slower than I did on my scouting ride. In fact, it was impossible to push it and gain any position here as the crowd was too thick. I decided to lay back a bit, go as fast as conditions would allow without panicking, and save my energy for further in the race.

Once we reached the top of the climb, I was able to push the pace quite a bit more as I found a gap through a large group of riders. The trail that lead from the top of St. Kevin’s over to road around Turquoise Lake was fast, relatively easy, and had plenty of room to pass slower riders if needed. What I did find, however, is that I was busy enough that I didn’t have time to take in solid food in this section, or on the climb up St. Kevin’s. I kept drinking my Perpetuem fuel bottle and hoped that was enough energy for me later in the race.

Once we reached the road around Turquoise Lake, I was able to fly and gain a few minutes on the group around me by taking some risks on the descent down the road. I love descending fast on a road bike, but the mountain bike proves quite a bit more challenging, but the same principals apply. But, of course, what goes down must go back up, and about halfway through the road section of this course we had a long, steady climb to make. I got into a steady climbing cadence and kept the pace moderate, so I didn’t go red before the dirt climb up Sugarloaf Pass which was just around the corner.

Once we reached the dirt, I found it a bit easier to bring the pace up a bit. The grade may have been slightly less steep than the paved section, actually. But, I also started to feel a bit low energy so I took the time to eat an energy bar and a gel in this section. At this point in the race, the sun started to warm the sky, and the long, steady climb up the mountain started to make me feel a bit uncomfortable with wearing my jacket, but I didn’t want to take the time to strip it off then.

Towards the upper section of the Sugarloaf Climb, I really started to feel the race taking its toll on me, and so early! I slowed down a bit and ate some more, hoping it would kick in and knowing the climb wasn’t all that much longer, and the fun Powerline descent was just ahead.

Finally reaching the Powerline descent and heading down was a great milestone in the race. I knew now that the race would be mostly flat and relatively easy until the climb up to Columbine Mine. But what surprised me was just how much the crowd ahead of me kept me from going down Powerline at the pace I wanted. It was practically impossible to pass with the group I was in – although I did see one guy pass us in one of the large ruts that he expertly managed to fly out of at the end without crashing. The descent was a lot slower than I wanted, but I knew it was only going to be a couple of minutes delay, tops, so there was nothing to do but hang on and ride a clean descent, rather than taking crazy risks passing several people at once.

After the end of Powerline I was in unchartered territory. I hadn’t pre-ridden this section of the course and I had only a general idea of what to expect based upon the movie and reading the race materials. The road section out of Powerline was fast but surprisingly hard given the winds of the day. I stayed with a couple of pace-lines for as long as I could, but I quickly discovered I had pushed it too hard solo trying to catch up to one of the groups and I couldn’t hold the pace any longer. Instead of a good, solid 20 mph pace-line into the wind, I fell back to about 15 mph solo.

Soon we reached the dirt again, and with that the Pipeline aid station. My race plan had me skipping this aid station and heading onto the Twin Lakes aid station, so I went through here without stopping for any good or water – I still had plenty on me.

The race course after Pipeline was quite a surprise to me. I expected more road, but instead there was a lot of gravel road and plenty of single track to contend with. Some of single track was great fun, but I quickly found myself behind another large group of riders with no real way to pass. It’s hard to know how much this section cost me in time – probably no more than 5 minutes – but it was frustrating as I saw the clocking ticking for the first time in the race.

When I finally reached the Twin Lakes aid station I was exhausted and ready for a break, and ready for a whole lot of food. But, I knew I didn’t have time, and I was already pushing the 12-hour race plan right to the edge. I reached the aid station right at the 3hr 30min mark. The CTS staff at the aid station was stellar – they had all of my gear organized and brought me exactly what I needed with no delay. I think I was out of the aid station within a couple of minutes, tops, and I took that long just to grab and eat some extra food.

Now, it was finally time for the Columbine Mine climb. I knew this was a brutal climb, but I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t expect it to be too hard until above the tree-line. My training had taken me that high before already in the state, and it wasn’t much a problem for me, despite being from sea-level. What I encountered though, was a much harder climb, much earlier than I expected.

Interestingly, right about the time I started the climb is when the lead group was heading down the mountain, wow! That’s both an amazing, motivating feeling, and also a hint and just how slow you are compared to that level of rider.

The lower section of the Columbine Mine climb is a relatively well-groomed gravel road without many large boulders in the way, but the grade was rather steep. After about an hour of climbing, I was exhausted. I started to feel bonk-ish, even though I never really went all the way there. The steepness of the grade and the length of the race so far had taken their toll on me and I was finding it hard to push the pace. For the first time, riders started to pass me en masse.

About the 5hr 30min mark in the race, and around 10,500 ft of elevation, I couldn’t handle riding anymore and I jumped off the bike to walk for a while. I knew a lot of people walked up the Columbine Mine climb – but I didn’t expect that to happen so far down the climb. It was rather demoralizing to be getting off the bike at this point, and for a few minutes I thought of throwing in the towel. Luckily, I knew better, and Ken’s great pep-talk the day before at the race briefing made it clear giving up wasn’t an option.

Up and up I climbed. Around the point we reached the tree-line, there was Ken on an ATV giving the riders pep talks and help. One woman ahead of me needed water and Ken gave her some. He cheered on a few riders and when it was my turn, he said something to me that made me laugh out loud and motivated me a bit, at least for a few minutes. He said: ‘”you built all those muscles, now its time to haul them up this mountain!” A great, positive thing to say given I’m sure at the time I looked rather disheartened and exhausted.

After the tree-line the climb got serious. It was a true unmaintained jeep trail, with plenty of large, loose boulders to get in the way and maneuver around. And, of course, the most challenging part being that you now had two-way traffic on the road, so the uphill riders to really watch themselves and not get in the way of anyone speeding down the mountain.

On and on the climb continued. As far as the eye could see there were riders walking up the road. Every time I’d see a ridge thinking that was the peak of the climb, I’d see over it and find that the road was a whole lot longer than I’d imagine. The section above tree line was simply long, brutal and difficult. I was out of energy, I couldn’t eat and drink enough to make a difference, and the thin air made it neigh impossible to sustain any effort for any length of time. I tried several times to climb back up on the bike only to get back off after a couple of minutes.

Towards the top of the Columbine Mine climb the road flattened out and then began a short descent before peaking up at the aid station. I got on the bike here and made sure I rode all the way to the aid station on pedal power instead of walking. Once I got there, I immediately downed some hot noodle soup they had waiting for us – that was absolutely the most perfect thing I could have had after being so drained. It warmed me, the salt was desperately needed and it just tasted wonderful after a full 7 hours on the bike.

I sat there for 15 or 20 minutes, pondering my fate. I was really happy having reached the top of Columbine Mine, but the race was only half over. It took me 7 hours to reach the top, and unless I could pick up the pace for the remainder of the race I wouldn’t make the 12 hour cutoff time for a belt buckle. I could still make the race cutoff time, so I pulled my sore body up off the chair and decided to head down as fast as I could.

The descent down Columbine was fast and easy. I knew I wasn’t 100% in the best mental state at the time, so I didn’t go too crazy above the tree-line, and there were still plenty of riders still climbing up the mountain. But, once I reached the tree-line I found myself alone. No one else was climbing up and no one was around me descending, either. I had the entire ride down the mountain to myself, except for a couple of people I passed in the middle sections. That also gave me a clue on just how far back in the field I was – the riders that would have still been climbing hadn’t made the previous time cutoff.

When I reached the Twin Lakes aid station again the CTS crew was again super helpful, but when I asked them if there was any chance of hitting 12 hours they gave me the bad news. At that point, my heart wasn’t in the race anymore, but I still wanted to try and finish. But, I was exhausted, sore, dehydrated, hot, and felt a bit ill. I did get back on the bike after just a minute delay and began the ride back to the Pipeline aid station. Here, I had supplies waiting for me and if I could make that cutoff, I could probably finish the race.

This section of the race course was hot and I was by myself for a lot of it. I found a few riders here and there, but not many. I found myself not able to push the pace for very long at all. At the relaxed pace I could hold, I knew I’d never make the time cut-off at Pipeline. But, I kept pushing myself despite the sense of impending doom.

There’s not much to say about this section of the race – I went slow, and it was familar terrain after having ridden it earlier in the day. The one section that was amusing was the “Little Stinker” hill – seeing it from the downhill side made me wonder how on earth anyone could actually bike up it, even though I know people do. I hopped off the bike and even found the hike back up brutally hard. After though, I knew I was close to Pipeline and I looked at the time and realized I still might have a chance of making the cut off. I pushed the pace as hard as I could handle without going into the red, and made sure I kept taking in fluids and fuel so I could try and keep ahead of myself.

In the end, though, I didn’t make the time cut off; I missed it by only 15 minutes. I realized then how many opportunities I really did have to make up that time earlier in the race. If I had lined up in a faster group at the start, if I had been able to fly down Powerline, if I had been able to stick with the pace lines on the road sections, if I had been able to stay on the bike longer on the Columbine Mine climb, and if I hadn’t rested so long at the time – any of that may have made the difference.

When the race folks stopped me at the cut-off they expected the riders to be distraught. And, indeed, the riders around me were quite upset. I can understand why, that’s a lot of effort and time to put into the race only to have it end at the 70 mile mark. I had made my peace with that a long time ago, and frankly I was ready to be off the bike. I asked if they had any beer for me and that brought some laughter out of everyone.

At the aid station I took in what little food and drink they had left – they were busy shutting it down at that point and waited for my ride to pick me up. Several other riders asked me if I just wanted to ride to town with them, but by then I had no interest in getting back on the bike. Cooked does not describe the feeling.

In the end, I rode 70 miles in 9 hours 15 minutes, with about 8 hours and 50 minutes being actual riding time.

Not finishing the race was of course disappointing, but the race was so much more epic than I expected that really I was just happy to be there. I enjoyed the experience immensely. There was so much I learned from the race and how I performed. Most importantly, I found I enjoyed a mountain bike race more than even most of the road races I have been in before. Mountain bikers seem just a whole lot more laid back than roadies.

I hope to race Leadville again. I’ve already signed up for the 2012 race lottery, and I’m really hoping I’ll get a chance again so soon. I’m moving to Colorado in 2012, so I’ll have more time in the mountains to train, and with more focus on training for that race I’m confident I can finish and likely finish under the 12 hour mark. I think the 9 hour mark is still beyond my skill level, but maybe after a few more years of training I can improve enough to do so. Finishing this race under 9 hours is just very difficult.

One big obstacle for me remains, though, and that is my nutrition. I consistently have problems with not fueling properly on longer races. It’s worse for runs, but it shows up on the bike too. I’ve tried for years to get past this issue with only a little bit of success. Despite lots of expert help, there’s still a lot I’m not doing right. I suspect until I figure this out, doing well at big races will always be just beyond my grasp.

In 2009, the picture was taken in late June, after a winter of relatively little snow. This year, the picture was taken in mid June, after a winter of very heavy snow and a long, cool spring.

It is also clear from the pictures just how low the reservoir level was this year compared to the past.

Taylor Reservoir in June, 2009

Taylor Reservoir in June, 2011

Clouds make for more awesome pictures.

Day 6 – Granby to Georgetown

My last day of the tour went rather well. After reading Ingrid’s description of her day 6, I am very glad I slept in and avoided all the bad weather. I usually wake up around 5am while camping, but hearing the rain and feeling the cold is a great motivator for not leaving the sleeping bag. I didn’t make it out on the road until almost 8am on Friday, and by that time the rain had stopped in Granby and I never had any more for the remainder of the ride. It was still rather cool, though – when I made it to Winter Park the local banks showed 44 degrees on their clocks, and the sun never really peaked out of its clouds for the rest of the day.

Day 6 was one of those days that looked rather intimidating in the route map booklet. Berthoud Pass is not small, and I had driven it several times the week before the ride. Based upon that, I assumed it was going to be the 2nd hardest climb of the entire tour. In reality, it turned out to be one of the easiest. According to my gadgets, the climb from where the pass begins in earnest, just pass the Robber’s Roost campground, was 6.3 miles with a 4.3% average grade, climbing a grand total of 1821 ft. That’s really rather mild compared to many of the other climbs we did. Granted, it doesn’t tell the full story, as a lot of the climb occurred from Winter Park to this section of the pass, but that was even a shallower grade.

Chad on Berthoud Pass

Regardless, I arrived at the top a lot sooner and a lot fresher than I had expected. It was certainly cold at the top, but thankfully the ride organizers had one of the motor coaches waiting at the top for us with the engine running to help riders warm up some. A nice hot coffee from the lovely ladies at Gypsy Crepes, followed by the obligatory picture of the pass sign, and then a relaxing warm-up in the bus was a great way to chill out after the climb.

The descent down from the pass was one of my favorites. I knew the road well from having driven it so much the week before, so I felt comfortable going full speed down. The several 15 mph switchback corners make great bike turns, especially with the gigantic shoulders that exist on this pass. The road quality, which seemed rather horrendous in my truck, was fine and mostly smooth on the bicycle. And then there was the reality that the descent was just plain fast, with little wind, little traffic, and really long. I barely had to work all the way down to the intersection with I-70 at Empire, and even after that the “climb” into Georgetown was really more of a gentle rolling road and was a great way to end the tour.

Day 5 – Steamboat Springs to Granby

Snow on Rabbit Ears Pass

My day 5, on the other hand, was not nearly as enjoyable as the last day. In fact, it was pretty clearly the one “bad” day of the tour I had. Granted, it started out fantastic with the climb up Rabbit Ears pass. I treated day 4 as an active recovery ride, and that plus a good yoga session left me in great condition to tackle that pass, especially since it started so early in the ride. My legs felt great, my energy levels were dialed in just right, and the altitude was relatively low so I was able to get into a climbing zone and hold it, all the way to the top. Looking back at my ride data, I can say with confidence that this was my best climb up a mountain ever. It was great fun, and the views at the top of the pass were fantastic. Lots of snow left, but it was melting so fast that all the streams in the meadows along the top were raging torrents.

The quality of the ride changed quite a bit once we began the descent off the pass. Instead of a lovely, fast descent, we encountered a rather stiff headwind. It really limited my downhill speed and frankly mostly ruined the I expected coming down off that pass. Perhaps that, plus the reality of 5 days in a row of hard work, put me in a bit of a cranky mood for what was to follow.

Towards the end of the descent, I hear a shout behind me about a rider passing – my first reaction was “yes!” since rarely had I noticed riders calling out if they do pass on a descent. What followed was a pace-line of 6 riders, going at least 40-45 mph (I was descending at 35). Descending in a pace-line is a rather dangerous and stupid behavior on a group ride, but what most surprised me was that in the back of the pace-line was a rider with OFFICIAL taped to his bag and helmet. He made the classic newbie-racer mistake of cutting back over to the right when he thought he was well clear of me. In reality, his rear tire brushed my front tire and nearly caused me to wipe out. I was pissed-off enough when this happened to me, but then I saw the same scene repeating itself for the next half mile of road, as the same group would continue to pass small groups and then cut sharply over to the right immediately in front of the riders they were passing. Incredibly reckless and negligent behavior on a group ride, especially from someone who should have known better – you can get away with that crap on a closed-course race circuit, but don’t do it on public roads with 2,000 other riders.

There’s an well-known truism in life that it is your own reaction to events that matter the most, not the events themselves. Certainly my reaction to the above incident put me in a foul mood for the rest of the ride. The strong headwinds didn’t help. The bad road conditions and heavy traffic on US40 didn’t help, either. But all of the normal little acts of rudeness and lack of courtesy from other riders seemed twice as bad as they normally would have. I really just did not have a good ride all the way to Kremmling. At the aid station here, I took time to chill out (a cookie is always a great de-stressor) and forget about the events that had transpired so I could focus on the rest of the ride. It helped knowing that the road direction was changing, and we were going to have a slight cross- and tail-wind for the remainder of the ride.

In fact, that rest of that day was fantastic. The trip to Granby was fast and scenic. The canyon near Hot Sulphur Springs was a joy to ride through, as all of those narrow, tall canyons tend to be. Granby itself was my least favorite town of the tour, but great beer was drunk, and good food was consumed, and all troubles were put aside.

Looking Back…

Despite the speed-bump on day 5, this year’s Ride the Rockies was my favorite bike tour to date. My training and fitness was the best I’ve done yet, and the few weeks of time I was able to spend at altitude before the ride clearly made a big difference for me. The views were stunning, especially of the Steamboat Springs area, which was a brand new part of the state for me.

There are still a few little things I think the ride organizers could do better. Having some basic medical supplies at each aid station is just a no-brainer. People forget sunscreen, lubricant and anti-inflammatories, or sometimes they just fall out of their pockets. Having a few of those things available, or even if some of the aid station vendors would realize they could sell these things, would really help out a lot of people that run into a situation where they need some. Likewise, even though the organizers do a good job pushing safety, clearly this message isn’t getting through to a lot of the riders, and the ride officials.

This post also appears on the Denver Post at http://blogs.denverpost.com/ridetherockies/2011/06/22/looking-back-on-ride-the-rockies-2011/1304

This part of the valley is incredibly scenic, with lots of beautiful countryside, ranches, and luxury homes in the hills to gawk at.

I had decided to make this ride a true recovery ride and keep my efforts to a bare minimum – the aching in my legs made this an easy decision. The first section of the route was slightly uphill, but these hills were small enough not to require too much effort. I also stopped a bunch of times when great ‘picture taking’ opportunities presented themselves. This certainly helped keep the ride effort low.

Just before the first aid station in Oak Creek, we had a long, but gradual climb to make. This was the longest climb of the day, but as we learned later, it was by no means the hardest. In fact, after leaving aid station 1 we had a long, and somewhat steep climb to make – I felt sorry for anyone who overate at the aid station pancake buffet and then had to make that climb.

View after leaving Oak Creek

Once we crested this big climb, we were given a great view of the countryside and a nice long descent towards one of the local mines along Twenty-Mile Road. At this point, the roads became to decend, and it was easy to make good time. We did have a couple of small climbs – a small ridge line separating us from Steamboat Springs in the distance.

The climbs over this ridge were surprisingly tough. They weren’t all that long, but the grades were rather steep. There were several 10-11% sections on a couple of the hills, even though I think the average grade for the entire climb was more along 7-8%. It was impossible to stay in the recovery zone on these hills, but I took it as easy as I could and just enjoyed the view.

Chad Climbing near Steamboat Springs

The remainder of the ride gave us scenic roads on the outskirts of Steamboat Springs, with the same great views of the ranches along the hillsides. This really was a great route for our ‘easy’ day. The distance could have been shorter, but it was nice to get an easy 50 miles in without feeling like it was taking a lot out of you.

Hopefully all that active recovery will make the climb up the very steep Rabbit Ears Pass tomorrow go well!

This post originally appeared on the Denver Post at http://blogs.denverpost.com/ridetherockies/2011/06/15/the-easy-day-at-steamboat-springs/963/

Not so much, as it turns out. The day started out fast and fun, with great weather, calm winds, and a nice mostly downhill ride out of Edwards. Once we hit Wolcott, the climbing began with a nice 1,000 ft climb and then a fast descent through Bond and then ending at McCoy where aid station 2 was located.

The bad news we heard about a rider crashing and later dying on a descent yesterday seemed to affect everyone I saw descending. There seemed to be a little reluctance to go as fast as the previous two days. It might have just been my own perception and awareness, but in general everyone seemed to be a lot more cautious than I have seen before.

After leaving aid station 2, we began the biggest climb of a day, a nice, long, winding climb along highway 131 heading towards Toponas. The terrain changed from high desert to a slightly more lush wide valley, with plenty of aspens and wildflowers to color the landscape along the way. This climb was really a lot of fun – the grade was just right, steep but not too steep, and it was long enough that you just needed to find your zone and keep the pedals turning.

There was a short descent after this hill towards Toponas, and this is where the trouble began. The mostly westwardly winds seemed to get stronger, and became a headwind for most of our route. The speeds coming into Toponas were much slower than I expected and once we reached aid station 3, we knew we were only halfway done with the day.

I took a long break at aid station 3, and indulged in some Nutella and banana crepes from one of the ride vendors. I’m sure it was an excessive amount of calories, probably more than I burned on the entire ride, but it was completely awesome and total worth it.

I wasn’t looking forward to the remainder of the ride, as we were going to have a headwind almost the entire way. But, I had a couple of guardian angels that showed up and made the next 20 miles amazing. A couple on a tandem that I had been hopscotching with all day passed me on a windy straight-away, and another rider and I latched on and used them as a nice, big windshield. I stayed with them until aid station 5, going at least 5-10 mph faster than I would have been able to maintain alone.

Stagecoach Reservoir

The Stagecoach Reservoir where aid station 5 was located is gorgeous, and frankly, so was the remainder of the ride coming into Steamboat Springs. This was my first time ever in this part of Colorado, and the first time to Steamboat Springs. The route through the lush valley coming into town was gorgeous, and hats off to whoever picked the route, and to making sure all the road obstacles were well marked. It remained windy, but luckily the downhill grade was enough to overcome it and I maintained a nice, fast pace coming all the way into town, even with the few rolling hills along the route.

This turned out to be my longest day in the saddle thus far at 5 hours and 45 minutes. I also wound up doing quite a bit more work than before too, pedaling out 2,977 kilojoules of work compared to 2,500 on the previous two days. Maybe that crepe wasn’t too many calories after all.

This post originally appeared on the Denver Post at http://blogs.denverpost.com/ridetherockies/2011/06/14/day-3-the-hardest-day/871/

I decided to skip breakfast at camp and opted for the famous pancake breakfast at the first aid station – this may have been a bad plan. The first 13 miles were the hardest of my day – moderate cross- and head-winds the entire way, and a gradual climb with no respite the entire way. Couple that with tired muscles from day 1 and it was a rough way to start out the day. I wasn’t the only one who felt this way – I heard lots of complaining along the way, and some short tempers compared to day 1.

The pancake breakfast hit the spot as it always does, and gave me enough energy to head directly to Leadville and bypassing aid station 2. The ride into Leadville was surprisingly easy compared to the first 13 miles. The road grade seemed more gradual, the winds miraculously died down completely, and the temperatures were perfect.

The road quality in this section was the main issue, as we had little to no shoulder and a sandy margin beyond that. Oh, and of course the altitude continued to creep up and we did a large part of this section over 9,000 ft, eventually reaching 10,200 ft in Leadville proper.

After a nice break in Leadville, it was time to leave town, go on a short, fast descent, and then make our way up Tennessee Pass. This climb was fantastic. The road grade was very gradual making the climb up to 10,424 ft a pretty easy one.

The descent down from Tennessee Pass was fast, mostly straight, with only a little road traffic to contend with. This descent ended too quickly though, and then it was time to climb Battle Mountain. At 59 miles into the ride, and the hardest climb of the day, this climb wore a lot of us out. It was much steeper than the other climbs up the day and the temperatures had warmed enough by then to make shedding clothes a necessity. The road was narrow, rough, and with lots of traffic, but the views were spectacular.

After Battle Mountain, we had a fast 15 mile descent into Minturn, followed by another descent along US 6 into Edwards. That section of US 6 was almost entirely downhill, but there was some occasional strong winds that made the descent quite a lot of work.

The overnight setup in Edwards is nice – maybe a bit more spread out than we’d like, but everything is nice and clean. I made sure to visit the yoga class this evening to help work out some kinks after a couple of hard days of riding. We’ll see how that helps with day 3 trip to Steamboat Springs!

This post originally appeared on the Denver Post at http://blogs.denverpost.com/ridetherockies/2011/06/13/windy-climbs-on-the-way-to-leadville/764/

Chad at the top of Cottonwood Pass

The weather looked perfect starting this morning so looked like a perfect opportunity to finally get a chance to see what this pass really looked like and how fun the descent would be.

Like everyone I talked to, this morning’s cold weather really made getting out of the tent and going difficult. I waited, as snug as possible, until the sun finally made it over the mountains before venturing out. I still managed to get on the road by 7:30am so not too much time was lost waiting.

Taylor Reservoir as seen from Cottonwood Pass

The ride down to Almont was amazingly fast, and a great way to start the day. Likewise, the ride through Taylor Canyon has great – perfect weather, gentle climbs, and little traffic to contend with. Once we made it over the Taylor dam we were blessed with one of my favorite sites in Colorado – the Taylor Reservoir with the mountains beyond it.

The climb up Cottonwood Pass itself was great fun. Even though it’s a dirt road, it’s in such good condition that there’s very little lost traction to contend with. The weather on the climb up was cool, but not too cold – perfect climbing weather. Even though Cottonwood Pass is one of the highest, the road grade coming from the Taylor Reservoir is rather gentle and makes the climb a lot of fun.

Granted, once the we cleared 10,000 ft it was really hard to keep the pace up as before. I got into a groove and kept it there, just happy to be there and enjoying the climb in great weather.

The best view of the day came just before reaching the stop of Cottonwood Pass by looking back down and being able to see the entirety of the pass road and the Taylor Reservoir in the distance.

And finally, the descent (but not before indulging in a quesadilla!) – fast, smooth, and a blast. Car traffic was well-behaved, it wasn’t raining, and the wind was mostly playing nice, with only a few big gusts to contend with.

Day 1 – what a gem.

This post originally appeared on the Denver Post at http://blogs.denverpost.com/ridetherockies/2011/06/13/day-1-what-a-gem/422/

Land's End as seen from the Grand Mesa Scenic Byway

The effects of the higher elevation on me are different than I would really have expected. Yes, if I jump right into it from sea-level, I’ll get the classic headaches and a bit of dehydration. But more surprising is how it effects my riding. I don’t see increased heart rates, and I don’t see a longer time to recover after a hard effort. What I do see, though, is a precipitous drop in power output compared to riding back home. After a season of training, that’s quite frankly annoying to see performance drop just because of a few little, er, massive mountains.

Still, it’s great fun climbing up these things, especially given back home in coastal Texas I can ride for 70 or 80 miles and see a grand total of 150 ft in elevation gain. Climbing 5,000 or more ft a day really lets you know your body had some hard work to do, and the feeling is incredible.

The high point of Rim Rock Rd in the Colorado National Monument

I’ve been lucky enough this spring to be able to spend some extra time in Colorado and do some of my favorite rides: Durango to Silverton, the Colorado National Monument, and a loop up Grand Mesa. These are amazing rides, especially so for someone like me who doesn’t live in the state and has few chances to ride them.

The first day of this year’s Ride the Rockies is the day I look forward to the most, thanks to Cottonwood Pass. I rode up Cottonwood Pass back in 2009 on another tour, and it was fantastic fun, despite the heavy rain, fog, and new freezing weather we had the entire way up. I didn’t get a chance to ride down into Buena Vista because the ride course was shut down, something I’m hoping to correct this year.

The gate to the Dachau Concentration Camp with the German words "Albreit Macht Frei" - "Work Makes Free"

The Dachau concentration camp is one of the more well-known of the Nazi’s concentration camp system, primarily because it was the first concentration camp built by the Nazi’s and it was used as a model for all the others in the system.

Today, the memorial at Dachau is a beautiful place. In fact, it seems too beautiful, pristine, and graceful compared to the horrors that took place there. It is quite difficult to appreciate what the prisoners lived through by seeing it today.

Reconstructed Barracks and trees where the original barracks once stood

The original prisoner barracks of the camp do not exist. The two buildings that can be seen today are a reconstruction, and the interior is much more pristine and museum-like than what people experienced during the camp’s operation.

The gas chamber of the new crematorium building, disguised as a shower room

Where the horrors of Dachau do become very real is when you visited the crematorium area towards the rear of the camp. Along the way, you pass the foundation footprints of the original barracks, as well as several religious memorials for various faiths that have been built at the camp since the site was converted into a memorial. And then, you come to the crematoriums.

The original crematorium was small and grisly looking, but nothing compared to the new crematorium complex. This building was a model for the mass-murder machines the Nazi used at bigger camps such as Auschwitz. In a single structure were areas for delousing clothes, a room for prisoners to disrobe, a gas chamber disguised as a shower room, and a larger crematorium area designed to keep up with the heavy body load the gas chamber was capable of producing.

Grave of Thousands Unknown

Behind the new crematorium building the character of Dachau changes again. Here we have some of the most sacred ground on the memorial site – the locations where much of the cremated remains were buried, along with pistol execution ranges. These areas are memorialized by nature gardens today, and are really quite beautiful during the spring time – in some respects, visiting Dachau in the middle of winter when it’s raining might have seemed more appropriate for the nature of the place.

If you’d like to see the rest of my pictures from my visit to Dachau, you can find them here, on Flickr.

If you’re visiting Munich, I highly recommend Radius Tours as a way to visit sights such as Dachau. All of the guides I experienced while there were fantastic sources of knowledge and really added to the experience.

The Passage of Time

World War II has always been ancient history for me – not much more real than the American Revolution or the Norman Conquest. I’ve met several people who fought in the war, or lived through some of the battles as civillians, and several survivors of the Holocaust. But, the events still do not exist in my actual memory, so it’s hard to have a true appreciation of what happened.

And yet, I began to fully appreciate just how recently World War II really was during my visit to Dachau.

Before this trip to Europe, my last trip out of North America was just over 32 years ago when my parents took me home to Texas after living a couple of years in Saudi Arabia. We went home via the Far East and visited Bahrain, Thailand, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. I remember this trip like it was yesterday. I was only 8 years old at the time, but my memories of the trip and its impact on my life remain a strong part of who I am. Quite frankly, 32 years ago just doesn’t seem that long to me. I would imagine the same can be said for most people who have reached middle-age and beyond.

The US Army liberated the Dachau concentration camp on April 29th, 1945 – 66 years ago. In a coincidence (at least for the purposes of this blog post, so bear with me), this is just under 34 years before my trip mentioned above, and only 25 years before I was born. This quick little bit of date math gave me much more appreciation of how just how recently in history the war was. Being physically at such a place as Dachau no doubt contributed – I would have expected the same thoughts to have occurred had I visited Normandy or any other significant historical place of the war.

World War II of course will always just be history to me – I didn’t live through it. The same is true for my parents and their generation. My grandparents did live through, but it’s hard to appreciate their experiences and memories, especially if they are reluctant to share. Listening to the stories and interviews of those who lived through it all, and especially those who survived the Holocaust, can be appreciated so much more when you can connect it to your own experiences of time.

Yes, 66 years ago is a really long time ago, and the world was such a different place, and yet, it really just was not that long ago.

One way Netflix has tested their ability to survive failure is to constantly force failure within their system. They built a system component named ChaosMonkey that randomly kills part of their architecture to ensure that the rest of it can survive and continuing offering service to customers. I love this approach. Not only does it show a lot of maturity within the Netflix engineering team about what systems failure really means, but also shows that they understand the importance of constantly ensuring that failures are expected and recoverable; I still see too many enterprises today that have yet to learn that important lesson.

ChaosMonkey reminds me greatly of what I used to do, albeit manually, when I was in charge of systems architecture at a company in the early a part of my career. We had a wonderfully horizontally scalable system architecture, back in an era when most enterprises would only use mainframes for systems of such size and importance. It was a critical part of our ability to provide high levels of service and performance at a relatively low cost. We did a good job of giving our operations team plenty of opportunity to test system failure and ensure that we could survive catastrophic failure, but I found it was never quite enough as the system grew more complex.

About the time we began implementing RAID drive subsystems for our database nodes, I began a systematic approach to destroy parts of our architecture on a regular basis. At first, it was a way to make sure the RAID subsystem would act appropriately in a degraded state – and they did, but we had plenty of software modifications to make to allow our systems to perform better in such a state. My experiments quickly became a little more aggressive… a few times a week, I would randomly pull drives out of their carriers, or kill processes on production nodes, or even cause an entire system crash.

Remarkably, it was rare when any of this activity would even be noticed. Our architecture was so good at surviving single points of failure that the operations team would often not even notice that anything at all had happened. When they did, it was usually a sign of a weak-point in our architecture that needed to be fixed. Occasionally, hardware actually failed from my little experiments, and I always felt bad about that, but the reality is that same hardware would have failed at a much more inconvenient time.

Alas, once our company was purchased by a publicly-traded company, development was no longer allowed access to the data center. For the most part, this was a very positive thing, but it also prevented people like myself from twiddling with the system to make sure it would work well. Our operations staff was good however, and many of the lessons development learned over the years were picked up by them. Today’s trend of dev-ops is a welcome return to some of that way of thinking, as it really does show that you need developer mindsets when running your operations.

I can distill my experiences doing dev-ops work in the past into some key points:

1. Build your systems with the assumption that failure happens, and happens regularly.
2. You must test your ability to fail and recover, and do it constantly.
3. Hardware & software solutions for vertical scaling are inherently inflexible and likely much more expensive in the long run. This was true in the 1980s, and even more true today now that more shops understand the nature of horizontal scalability.
4. Beware of the mindset that wants high uptime for individual systems. It’s cool for your server at home, but in an operations scenario that system represents one that might not startup properly if it does fail. Inability for a system to startup properly was, and remains, a hugely common problem. Reboot all of your systems regularly.