Gravel Growler 2020

2020 Gravel Growler - Shawnee

The 2020 edition of the Gravel Growler was a blast. This year we headed south into some undulating terrain. It was a little cool at the start but warmed up significantly once we got going, well after the worlds longest and slowest neutral roll out. 

Freezing before the off...

I had been talking with one of my teammates and riding buddies before the race about how maybe we could ride together. Once we got going it became obvious that wasn't going to happen, she blew me away within the first two miles after the neutral start.... She went on to win the "old lady category" her words not mine with a smoking time 4:59:49. 

Bye Carin, you are at the front of that group.

After the fast groups had dropped me, I settled into my "race" pace. I was caught by a couple of teammates and we rolled along pretty well. After a stop to take off some layers we ended up riding at different paces and mostly that is how I rode the race, solo and unable to bridge up to draft people.

Out here doing my thing

The gravel was great

At the aid station around 43 miles in I caught back up to Zach. I was able to get in and out of the aid station pretty quickly and managed to get ahead of  Zach.  He caught back up to me and we rolled together for a little while before he dropped me again, he is riding really well at the moment. 

The miles were going by pretty quickly and there was almost no wind however the hills kept coming. 

more hills

and again

Empty roads

Before I knew it I was 80miles in and back in Shawnee.

Almost the finish, I caught the guy ahead of me. 

Another selfie, sure ok then. 

Results

I finished in 5hrs 20 min with no cramping and no significant loss of power, this is a huge improvement over last year at this race where I went out way to fast and blew up like a "champion"

24th place in my category

"Old people" category

Pro results

The Strava

G3 Race 3 - Guthrie to "Luther" and back

It's G3R3 report time, catch up on race two here and race one here

This weeks race seemed to come around really quickly, I have been slowly ramping up my training for Landrun double, mileage tracking can be found here. This means I have had a pretty heavy tail end of the week for me.

Thursday was running intervals followed by two hours of zone 2 on the bike. Friday was an "Easy" long run though it didn't feel that way.

As we lined up at the start of the race I wasn't sure how my legs were going to respond. I was excited to try and ride with John Lynn who was down from Colorado to see his son. We rolled together through the neutral roll out then the pace increased and that was the last I saw of John :)

John is in that front group... Bye John :) 

My legs were feeling pretty good though and I settled into a tempo ride. Fortunately for me Jeremy Black was there with me and we rolled out a good pace. With a couple of ladies (Heather and Rhonda) and one other guy.

Love riding with Jeremy :)

Allowing others to lead :)

After a few miles in we caught up with a group whom had turned the wrong way? I have no idea to be honest but there were four guys and they pulled away from Jeremy and I along with the other three riders. I chose to maintain my pace rather than go into the red so early in the race. Then I had to stop to pee, Jeremy choose to stop and adjust layers and we rolled on together after being passed by multiple people.

The roads were great though, as we were flying down one of the many inclines we came to a corner, as we rounded the corner the road became really soft. There were a group of riders stopped aiding another rider. I later found out that it was a teammate Aaron who had gone down in the sand and unfortunately broken (smashed) his collar bone. I hope you recover quickly Aaron.

We continued cruising around and before we knew it we were at the aid station at the vineyard. We stopped to get some water, not that I really needed it. Then we were off riding through a loop of the vineyard before hitting the roads again.

Well I have never done this

Fun with friends

As we headed north there was very little wind and we were once again riding great. The roads were pretty and the company fun. Before to long we were crossing a walk section on the a bridge. I once again needed to pee, WTF body? I had hardly drunk anythink. Oh well Jeremy, soft pedalled and I caught up with him removing vegetation from his derailleur.  We continued on and then on one of the hills we caught up with Jackie Chastine. She had had an off earlier in the course and seemed frustrated and a little dazed. We rode with her for a few miles before she told us to go on.

A few more hills and a long headwind section and we turned back west.

I was having a blast! 

That lovely red dirt

More straight roads for a change

Cool b road

Always having fun

We were flying and catching and passing people. It was a lot of fun. Then on one of the descents which was particularly rough I heard a rim strike. I thought I had gotten away with it but a few miles on the front tyre was very soft. I waved Jeremy on and added some air. Around 1/2  a mile later is was soft again. I threw a lot more air in and continued on my way. Then I came across Jeremy and Corey who were fixing Corey's tyre. At this point I decided to put a tube in my tyre as it was soft again. I couldn't see any leaks and still had sealant in the tyre so am at a loss as to what is going on with it. Oh well that is to work out for another time. A huge thanks to Jeremy who loaned me a CO2 and inflater as I had failed to pack my CO2 inflator.

Flat fixing club

By now I had a tail wind and was enjoying the last few miles back to the finish, my legs felt fantastic and I'm sure without the flat I could have caught a few more people.

I passed Corey who had gone flat again, he had already called in a ride so refused to take my offer of another inner tube. 

I crossed the finish line and got to have a chat with teammates and friends who had also completed the race. Then I was off home to check on the beautiful Amanda who has unfortunately got Shingles. TLC is the order of the afternoon. 

Tomorrow I get to race CX again!

Results 

I will add later.

The Strava

G3 Race 2 - Guthrie to Crescent and back

If you haven't had time to check out my blog on G3R1 then head over here

G3 race two took us a little north from Guthrie to Crescent and back to Guthrie. The course contained a few more hills and was around 65miles in length.

My Race 

We started at 8am and rolled as a group for the first 4.5ish miles. This was because there was a one lane section of highway over the Cimarron river which was traffic light controlled. 

Waiting to go

It was a long wait

After we eventually got a green light we cruised a little more pavement then turned into a headwind section on more pavement before we hit the gravel. Not long after hitting the gravel I was dropped.... :) 

Bye bye

Yep not fast enough

So long lead riders

I probably could have worked a little harder to try and keep up with the front group but for once I did the smart thing and let them go. This was a really good decision on my part as it meant I didn't cramp up for the race and had power through the whole race. 

After the front group had gone we formed a nice group on the road and the miles were flying by...

Enjoying the smooth dirt

Sun finally came out

Oh no back to showers

The pace was good probably due to the tail wind really :) and we were working well together. a couple of faster riders passed us not long after this and a couple of the group jumped on their wheels and left our group. Oh well we were still doing great. We were now at the far north of the course where there was a little mud followed by a long section into a headwind on a soft road. 

No walking but it could have been much worse

Woo hoo headwinds

Jeremy and I split the work on this section, I was very thankful to have a teammate and strong rider with me it made a huge difference to my workload. 

Drafting Jeremy

After we turned off this road we were into Crescent and our aid station. We stopped and filled up bottles then headed out of town. There were four of us together at this point. Jeremy and I were doing most of the work into the wind but its all good training right? 

Next up was the hilly section of the course. I actually got to see what climbpro on my Garmin Edge 530 looks like. It is a great tool . 

Climbpro

Real life view when not staring at the screen. :)

We conquered two of the three climbs before hitting the pavement section again, we had caught up with a couple of riders on this part so four became 6 as we rode the headwind paved hill. Jeremy and I once again took turns to pull the group along. 

Oh highway miles :(

Getting a tow from Jeremy. 

After this long section (or so it felt) of highway we hit the dirt again. 

Smiles again on the dirt. 

We then dropped down a closed to vehicles road and crossed a bridge before climbing up on the final climbpro climb of the day. The course was definitely more technical for around a mile. I tried to video it but alas my phone wouldn't start recording. We went in as 6 people and came out as Jeremy and I, mountain bike skills pay off I guess. :) 

Here we go

It got way more fun further on the trail. 

We were now 53miles in and I was loving it. We repeated a little bit of the previous course, stopped at the aid station after the field section and were informed that we were probably top 20. At this news Jeremy and I decided to get going before the people following us caught up. We headed out down the farm track and onto the pavement for a mile before getting back on dirt. At this point, Jackie and Gabriel caught back up to us. We cruised the dirt, crushed the pavement section then enjoyed the last dirt into town. Back to civilisation and obviously we got stopped at the traffic light after the hill. We waited and waited then Jeremy jumped the red whilst the rest of us waited. We finally got a green and finished off the ride. 4hrs 18min and an average speed of 15.1MPH. I'm super happy with that as I felt way better at the end of the ride than I did a the end of  race 1.  

The Strava 

TDD - Turkey Mountain Festival - 29th September 2019

Turkey Mountain Festival wrapped up the TDD 2019 series. The race was originally scheduled for earlier in the year but due to the weather not playing ball it was rescheduled for the 28th and 29th September, the event is a fundraiser for burn camp to help burn victims, they raised over $5,000 which is great. 

The festival had an omnium race series consisting of a TT and short track race which were held on the Saturday. Due to other commitments the Blades family was unable to make these events. However we did make the Sunday for the final race in the XC series.

Kid's Kup 

First race on Sunday was the kids kup races. Fiona and I got out and prerode the course and she seemed to really like it, vs the last course which she hated.
The race started and Fiona was off the back again during lap one but working hard to try and catch the riders in front of her.
As she started her second and final lap she was in 5th place but managed to pass another two riders to finish in a strong 3rd and on the podium. 

Lap two and putting in some effort

Full gas to the finish

Hi fives :) - thanks for the photo Jennifer Black

I am really proud of her racing this season, we don't get to bike as much as I would like but she has shown some real strength in her riding and finished well whenever we have had time to get a good preride of the course before the race.

Podium and looking for mum :)

The Cat1/2 course

Turkey Mountain actually has a little elevation compared to some of the courses we have been riding, it also has a technical aspect too. The course starts with a climb which by the time we rode had a pretty obvious line all the way up. Then we had a flatter section with a little bit of flow which dropped into a slightly technical descent and then a technical climb. Following this it was more flow sections then a technical descent into a short climb and a longer technical section. The final descent had a small rock drop then flat out flat section to the finish or repeat the lap. It was a 5mile lap. 

I pre rode the course after the kids kup awards, during the cat 2 race. I found the technical sections not to bad and managed to clean all but one of them and saw where I went wrong on that one first time.

The race

Before going into the race I had been doing some number crunching on my season points. I was sitting in 3rd place overall, this is a little strange to me since my best placing has been 4th.  

The only guy who was racing at Turkey Mountain Festival and could catch and take 3rd away from me was Cody Pollard. Cody had a race in hand over me as we do a best of 6 races and was 45points behind me, this meant that if he got top 4 he would be 3rd overall. 

We lined up on the start line and at the whistle we were off. As per usual I took up my role as "sweep" for the cat1 pro/19-39 age group. The guys I race against really do start way faster than I am capable of at the moment. I started the first climb and had the guys ahead of me in sight. I was feeling good, although felt my legs were once again lacking some of their usual power. I am thinking that all the running I am doing is currently having a detrimental effect on my riding but alas I do currently need to do it. 

As I continued and was passed by the various guys from the categories who started behind me I was still feeling ok, just a little under powered. I got into the first technical section and a guy who I had just let past me stumbelled. I jumped off and ran that section. When I got to the next technical section I picked a really poor line so ended up walking a significant chunk of that section too. Then I caught up with Cody, he had a flat, I asked if he needed anything and he said he didn't have a C02 so I stopped and gave him mine, hopefully this act of karma would mean that I wouldn't need it for my race. 

I set off again and finished lap 1, grabbed my bottle and continued into lap two of four. This lap was a disaster for me, my heart rate monitor decided to stop working, I didn't make it through any of the technical sections without walking and hit a tree with my right shoulder. 

I did make it around the course though and started into lap number three. This lap went way better than lap 2, I didn't make the first technical section but I did clean the first part of the second one and felt much better all the way through it. before I knew it I was starting into lap four and I hadn't been lapped. 

As I started up the first climb I heard that the race winner was coming across the line, I assumed also by this point that Cody had dropped out since he hadn't passed me. The first climb seemed to go well and although I didn't make it through the first technical section unscathed, yet again I had to dab. I did feel good on the rest of the top part of the course. At the top I stopped to give a pickle juice to a fellow competitor who was suffering with cramps. I enjoyed the downhill and almost made it through the 2nd technical climb but failed at the last moment. Oh well much better than lap 2.
Lap times
Lap One - 31:58
Lap Two - 33:57
Lap Three - 34:18
Lap Four - 35:59
So whilst I was slowing down at least my last lap wasn't 10min slower than my first lap as has happened in the past.

I crossed the line at 2:16:14 which puts me way off the pace of the winner at 1:41:23, i'm also down proportionally to where I usually am at 34% back. I did however, more by luck than anything else manage to seal up 3rd place overall in the series. 

6th Place again. 

3rd place in the series, super stoked. 

The other great thing about the series here is, they do a team points award. The top four racers from each team at each event put points towards this award. It's been a three way battle all season but I am happy to say that Bike Lab came out on top in the final race, for the third year in a row.

2019 TDD Team Champions 3rd year in a row!

The Strava

What did I learn throughout the season

As many people know I like to track data about all my exercise to see what I can learn from it. I also track where I sit in relation to other racers. This season has been tough for me in Cat 1, although the equivalent to what I raced in Alaska, it has found me racing solo a lot. 

In Alaska, although I was in a similar position time wise from the winners, I was mostly racing with people. Here that is not the case, the fields are much smaller and although the racers are fast, albeit not significantly faster than Alaska, I don't feel I am racing them as I rarely see them after the race starts. 

In the early part of the season I feel I was starting to catch the guys ahead of me however, I had a slip in performance for the second part of the season which is totally my fault. I didn't train or even really ride over the summer due to family commitments, and I would probably do the same again, ok maybe I would try and ride a little more.  

I am very happy to have finished off the season in 3rd place, do I deserve that? I sure worked harder than the other racers, ok I rode for a longer time :) But what really got me that position was riding for 6 races. Only five riders in my category did that which, makes me wonder where are the other racers in this 19-39 age group?

Here is a spreadsheet of my finish data from the races I did. I will link up the points when they are updated too. 

They even gave an award to Mort

Yes my dog is a state champion, 3rd place for being awesome.... I think they got the wrong dog as he is vocal but I would honestly class him as being a pain in the butt. He couldn't even stay quiet at the last award ceremony he was at.

See Dad, I am awesome they
even gave me a medal.

G3 Race 1 - Guthrie to Cashion and back

What a race!

A little background

The G3 race series (3 races) was set up to allow people to train in preparation for entering the Landrun 100. The initial thought was that you would do the races which get progressively harder course wise than decide if you feel you are up to the Landrun 100 in March. 

Landrun 100 then moved their signup date to coincide with the first G3 race. Oh well, the start was pushed 15min so that we would have time to register. I am not sure how quickly LR100 filled up but I am guessing it was within minutes again.

So about that Landrun 100

I was fortunate that I had Amanda signing me up again for LR100. This year I was on the start line, (last year I was out riding) and it took the pressure off me knowing that she was doing it.

On LR100 this year I have decided to do the double.

What is the double I hear you ask?

It's a 50km run on Friday followed by the 100mile ride on the Saturday with the masses. It is I am sure going to be brutal but, on the plus side I will have some friends joining me to do it. Amy Sebby who suggested I should do it and Oscar Lage who joined me for LR100 last year. We have lots of time to train so if any of my friends would like to join the three of us, sign up and start training now, Brant I'm talking to you.

Back to the G3

After the delayed start so we could attempt to register, at 08:15 we set off and the pace was hot!

Ray I think giving the announcements 

Front row looking back

My legs felt good though, so I pushed the pace and soon I  was in a pretty solid group and absolutely flying! We were working well together through the field section and for the next 15 or so miles. 

pace was quick

One of the few cars we saw

At around mile 25 I was dropped out of that group which was unfortunate as the next two miles were into a headwind.... 

Spot the group they are way way up there

Sad face 

Next thing I know I am being passed.

Oh shit I need to get that wheel!

I stashed my phone and jumped onto a wheel. We worked well and rode significantly faster than I would have gotten into the aid station at mile 32. As we arrived at the aid station we had caught the group I had been with who were just leaving the aid station. Unfortunately I needed to fill my bottles and they didn't so lost that group. Oh well I waited for the next group to share some of the load into the wind. The husband of the couple (John I think) had aero bars and was a great draft, the wife (Rhonda I think) was a strong rider too. So strong that they both dropped me after the beer station. 

Husband and wife couple

We now had around 18 miles to go but I was feeling the onset of crampy legs, I ate some more food and drank some more fluids but knew they would get me eventually. 

As I started riding down to Liberty lake, I hear my name being called. It was my friend Simon Lynn.  He and his friend were riding well and promptly dropped me on the hill before we turned into the singletrack. 

By Simon and group

Fortunately for me, they missed a turn and I ended up leading through the singletrack section. That was the best bit of the whole course! It felt just like a cross course back in Alaska with Simon chasing me down :) We rejoined the road and I got dropped again by this group. 

Getting dropped by Simon... again :) 

Then I had my left leg cramp up.  So much so, I had to get off the bike and stretch it out. I drank my pickle juice and managed to get going again. I got a little more relief as we did the pirate section of the course and walked the plank. 

Plank walked

Then I hear a train, I checked my map, I need not have bothered, I knew I had to cross the tracks. Oh well a little break won't hurt me. 

Yup that is a train 

I set off again soft pedalling so as not to cramp up, this is especially hard when you are trying to balance through sand pits along the road. Then I hear a voice, it was Kris my teammate who has caught back up to me. 

He very kindly soft pedalled with me all the way to the finish. 

Riding with teammates is awesome!

I finished in around 3hrs 56min. Aside from the cramps this race was a total blast. Great course, terrible headwind, great tailwind, smiles all around. 

I am also happy that my friend Phillip Banta rode the race and had a blast too. Hopefully I can get my self organised and get out on some training rides with him. 

The Strava else it didn't happen.