Christmas Catharsis

Merry Christmas to you all.  ( all 3 or 4 of you who read this…)

This year has had me trying to decide if I am the grinch,  or just "was Grinched".   Not been a great year,   and certainly not my favorite Cross season.  Did spot a new hybrid out there,  the Santa Grinch.  Maybe my year was just his idea of a joke.

Bo Bickerstaff   -  http://bobickerstaff.com

So a whopping 2 weeks after getting my heart probed,  thinking I was PROBABLY safe from "Pulling a Cedric Gracia" I went ahead and jumped back in a race.  Figured if being a good little cardiac patient and not stirring up my heart arrhythmia led to it not happening while I was probed,  I just as soon change the operating point,  and start getting it to go nuts more often.  So,  racing at states seemed like as good a plan as any.

Turns out that HURT.   A LOT.

After NOT getting my heart issues fixed,  I kinda went through a low point,  got a little whiny,  felt sorry for myself and the like.  Strange,  just 45 minutes of searing agony seems to have cleared a lot of that up.

John Hailey has put in a back-breaker of a course down there,  killer hard,  but also really fun.  My "race" was a bit of a blur,  made very cloudy by a searing haze of pain.  I do seem to remember having some fun sliding around in some greasy mud over ice,  you know,  kinda like cross should be.  After weeks of sitting around,  avoiding heart tachycardia in the vain hope that all that would soon be fixed,  and 2 weeks after getting my heart probed,  racing there induced levels of pain & suffering I am struggling to ever remember matching in any other bike race.  And all that for 30th place out of 36.  At least I did not get lapped.

It went about as well as one would expect from someone who was not really even ON a bike for weeks prior to the race,  after even longer of not ever riding hard.   You can get the idea by the HERDS of people who pass me (probably thinking "what the hell is wrong with THIS guy…" as they went by.) in the first couple of minutes in the video.


2013 Colorado State CX Championships - 45+ 4 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

I'll give my team credit,  they are a fun bunch and managed some creative heckling for may way back in the pack suffering.  We had the plan in place that if I was looking "Really Bad",   either side could call for a "Code Brown" and start the beer hand ups.    Not all that good of a sign when they started offering that "Code Brown" on lap 2.


High Peaks Masters Heckle-cam from John Deibert on Vimeo.

So,  with the Cross season "over" for me,  outside of maybe torturing my malfunctioning heart again at the Pre-nationals race,  and crewing and spectating at Nationals,  it is time to look ahead,  reflect back,  and see what I can do to completely avoid another year like this one.  Really,  I am kinda sick of this shit.  Tired of being broken.  Old I'm used to,  but not old AND broken.

We are off to the normal Christmas insanity,  going to go do a bit of Family holiday stuff, then some skiing and tourist-ing with some out-of-town folks coming in.  Then time to re-group,  re-arm and get a new plan in place with the Cardiologist,  which is the day after Christmas. (Merry Christmas to me…)

I did manage a bit of a milestone this year,  internet-blogger-video-trending-kinda wise.  My video from  Mile High Urban Cross went to over a THOUSAND views.  Almost 1100 now.  A first for me.  Since I started this yammering here in October of 2009,  I've only had about 37,000 hits TOTAL,  so it takes a bit more than my few readers to get 1000 hits on a Video in a couple of weeks.  Thanks 303 Cycling and MUCCY for the help there,  by putting my vids up.  What is the definition of "internet famous",  anyway?


Mile High Urban CX Chaos from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

I wish all of you out there a great holiday.  If you are done racing,  have a good beer for me.  If you are peaking up for Nationals,  keep pounding.  Thanks for reading.  I'll try and find some more entertaining stuff to write up.  I hope Santa has some nice stuff under the tree for you.

Merry Christmas,  and to all a good night!

That's all folks!

That's all folks.  Pretty much the end of the Colorado Cross season.  It went out with a bang on Saturday,  with the ICCC guys putting on a pretty good show for the "last" race of the season.  An "interesting" venue,  and they managed a fairly good course.  Conditions were almost into the overused "epic" category,  with cold,  snow,  ice and mud,  and at times all in the same lap.    There has been a fairly large amount of chatter online,  with a number of people not caring for the course,  the "gimmick" of a spiral course element,  saying it was dangerous and the like.    While there were things that could have been better,  or done differently (de-icing or sand on some paved sections in the AM,  shoveling more than 2 paths thru the snowdrifts,  and fixing slow & disorganized registration in the early AM...),  I thought that the event went well,  and was a worthy test for a state championship.  PLENTY hard to make a selection.   I even liked the "Spiral of Death" after it got muddy , slick & slimy.  Plenty of groveling about on the ground was seen all day.

My own race was really much more of a tour.  Was still in the dying throes of the head cold that took me out the weekend before,  and some desperation over the counter antihistamine doping attempts at being able to breath better backfired big time.   Turns out I don't react well to some of these home remedies.   Ended up awake all night,  listening to my heart thump away.  Also managed to hit heart rates 10 BPM higher than I've seen all year,  just warming up.  Slogged around the back of the 35+ 4 field at what seemed like 30% power,  feeling like I was going to die.   Only crashed once,  which seems like less than the average crash count for the day.  55th at the end of a long painful 45 minutes.    So much for my big end of season goal.  Oh well,  watch out next year,  all you beer-drinking dads!  I'll be back and ready to rumble.

Personal congratulations from this slow guy to Doug Richards on his win in the beer drinking dad's league on Saturday.  It's been great chasing you around at the lunch "races" all this season.  fun to see it pay off for you.

For me,  it's a couple of days at work,  then off to Bend.   Pretty cool that an old,  slow back of the pack Cat 4 can travel across the country and line up with the best riders in the U.S. at one of the biggest races of the year.  Says a lot about the attitude of our little fringe sport.   The whole goal at Nationals for me is to only get lapped ONCE,  and not get in the way when the big boys come by.   Oh,  that and see how much of the Deschutes Brewery's fine work I can help deplete.   The bikes are in the trailer & headed up there,  it looks like it might even get up to the 30 degree mark at times up there.  What better way to end a great cross season?  Hope to get a few updates in from the big party.

Lap by lap video for the 35+ open & 35+ 4s race.  As usual,  credit pics & video to Lisa R.   MANY thanks for her endless work out in the cold,  week after week.  You rock,  Lisa!

35+ open

ICCC States SM35+ Open Lap 1 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ Open Lap 2 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ Open Lap 3 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM 35+ Open Lap 4 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.

35+ Cat 4

ICCC States SM 35+ Cat 4 Lap 1 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ Cat 4 Lap 2 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ Cat 4 Lap 3 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ cat 4 Lap 4 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.


ICCC States SM35+ cat 4 Lap 5 from Dale Riley on Vimeo.