Two Race Weekend: Manions Cross Race Report

Trip to Kansas City for the first ever Manions Cross. I headed West early and while driving thoughts of a two races started to enter my head. I would get there by 11 in time to to race the Noon Masters race (40+) then again at 2 for the Cat 2/3 race. Why not?



The course was on the side of a hill which made for a fun and interesting layout. Half of it down hill, felt like a ski slop, the bottom flat leading to the base where we climbed back up. I liked the course, the down hill gave you enough time to recover before the climbing started again. Creative for sure.



Masters 40+, 27 starters. 6 lap race

Got on the front row with some familiar faces, 30+ guys go off then 1 min later they let us go followed by 50 and 60+ guys a min later. The start was up hill to the barn, I had a good start and was first to the barn that led to the beginning of the down hill. I stayed conservative especially after I heard Dan Miller yell at me to race smart. Did not want to go guns a blazin only to fall apart near the end.



On lap two Stephen Songer and Ethan Froese come around and take over. Stephen gets a 10 second gap as Ethan and I stay together. The next lap we begin to bring back Stephen and pass him just before the flat straight away at the bottom of the hill. Ethan gives me a nice pull along here setting me up for the climb back up. At that point I lose both of them and sit alone in first.



I spent the remaining laps growing the gap, catching 30+ guys then cross the line in 1st. Sweet.



Men 2/3: 18 starters 8 lap race

The 2pm race was a Mens Open and Men Cat 2/3 race. I opted for the Men 2/3 race looking for a chance to score some cash and upgrade points.

Mens Open included Josh, Schottler, Shadd, Jensen, Ethan doing is second race of the day along with 13 total starters took off first with the Men 2/3 1 min later.

Not the best start of all time for me, did not get clipped in due to unintentional bump that pushed me off balance at the start. Had to re-group and I think was dead last as we entered the barn. Ben Stover off the front along with Cale, Dan Miller and many others.

I kept a calm steady pace and began to move my way up. Not sure when it was but I caught Dan and asked him what place he was, he said 2nd. Sweet! He and I moved our way up to Ben Stover who was leading and formed a 3 man lead group. Soon after as we were climbing the hill Dans pedal gave out on him and he was out, that left Ben and I racing for the win.

Ben had better legs than I up the hill and began to slowing break away. With two to go I could see Cale closing the gap from behind. He caught me on the last lap about halfway down the hill. I grabbed his wheel thinking we would let the hill climb decide 2nd place. We hit the hill and Cale had nothing left, said he was toast and I rode away for 2nd.

Action packed Sunday for sure and well worth the trip. Thanks to all the guys and gals that put on the race, well done!

Full Results

Next up, Boss Cross Saturday and Sunday. Looking forward to this one, I hear great things about the crew that puts this race on, first time I've had the chance to race it.

Manions Cross this weekend

Looking forward to what the guys in KC have in store for us on Sunday. I hear it's hilly, see ya there.
Manion's Cross

Hermann Cross Event Report

Things are coming to an end for this year and what a year this Hermann Cross was. All was teed up to be a great weekend of racing and it was until 8:30pm that Saturday night, then things changed. Here is my account of the evening, times may be off a bit, but they are close.

4pm – First race goes off, band is playing, grill is hot and ready for orders and the line at registration is full
6pm – More and more racers arrive for their race, those that have finished stick around to enjoy the entertainment, food and fun, all seem to be having a good time.
7:45pm – Lights are on, the park is getting dark but I notice lighting in the sky off to the north. I check my phone radar and see there is a blob of red moving East just North of Hermann. I tell registration and the food vendors to pack it up.
8:15pm – It’s about to rain
8:30pm – It’s raining, lighting is getting closer and we start the last race of the night.
8:45pm – Bell lap rings, lighting is way too close, officials call the race.
10:00pm – Home with Dawndi working on results and prepping rosters for next day.
10:45pm – Rain wind and thunder are strong. I look out the window to see trees blowing all over the place and can only imagine what the park looks like.
11:00pm – Get a bite to eat then prepare to visit the park to see if there is any damage to the course as the storm dies down a little.
11:15pm – Dawndi and I get to the park to see the towers turned over, fence blown all over the place, tent the officials were under twisted and destroyed. Rain is still coming down. Chris Creed loading his stuff up in trailer.
11:15pm - Drive over to the Dogfish tents to see them tilted. Tell Dawndi we need to get them down but not dressed to do so. Head home to change into rain gear.
11:25pm – Back to park loading up tents. As we load water in the creek comes over bank level and starts to flood paved road. Get tents in truck, water now at shin level, water is coming up fast.
11:30pm – Go over to camp ground by the baseball field, start to wake up campers along with two other guys who rode in that night from the west on the Katy Trail, water just a few feet from their tents.
11:45pm – Drive over to bath house to start waking up the campers in RV’s. Hear a cry for help, Chris Creed gets his SUV and trailer stuck in the ditch as he tried to get out, the SUV is pined and water is coming up fast.
11:45pm – See a lady in car and tell her to call 573 486 5400 and tell them a truck is stuck and park is flooding.
11:45pm – Dawndi and run over to the SUV and help Chris and his family out of the water to higher ground.
11:50pm – Begin knocking on RV doors by the bath house along the creek line trying to wake them up, it was tough, the rain was still coming down, lots of storm noise and folks were in a deep sleep. When they woke up to me telling them they need move out it took a bit for them to realize how close the water was to them.
Midnight - Police arrive to help, park crew arrives to help and campers that are now awake are also helping wake up other campers.
12:30am – Still raining. Go over to RV parking lot by the basket ball court where the boom was located. Wake up JJ and his crew, but was too late to save the camper, water was above the jacks and there was no way to move it. They got their cars out and that was it.
12:40am – Move up to the line of RV’s at the top of the parking lot and being pounding of their doors along with park department and others.
12:50am – Move back to bath house area and turn on one of the race lights so people could see better. Campers are getting out one by one.
1am – Anthony Dust shows up just in time to move his car that was parked on the road by the bath house now in water.
1:30am – Guy in large pavilion by bath house who thought he would stay dry on the top of picnic tables needs to be moved. Water is about to cover picnic tables. Several others and I wade over to help him haul his stuff to dry ground.
2:00/ 2:30am – All campers now moved.
3:00/3:30am - Home, clean up and fall asleep.
6:00am – Dawndi and I get back to park, water has receded and left a mess. Officials stand gone, towers gone, 1/3 of the fence gone, flags gone and what is left is a muddy mess. Corry, Jay and others were out picking up stakes putting them into piles.
6:30am – It starts to rain more and a cell is about to hit.
7:30am – Regroup after rain lets up with Dawndi, Danny and Dennis, we spend the rest of the day cleaning up. For a moment I thought we might see the creek flood the park again as it was starting to rage. It held back letting up get finish out clean up.
4:00pm – Clean up done, head home for the day.

I thank God that no one was killed that night.

What happened next is just awesome. Many of the racers said keep the Sunday entry fee, those that provided services said don’t worry about the fee, those I rented equipment from said don’t worry about the fee….. the list goes on. I thank each and every one of you who in one way or another donated to the Hermann Cross/ City Park recovery. I also thank you all for the support you have given Hermann Cycling events, I very much appreciate it. I enjoy bringing these events to you and will continue to do so.

Hermann Cross this weekend

The excitement is building as Hermann Cross approaches this weekend. Right now about 135 athletes will toe the line both Saturday and Sunday.

Course is almost done, all the stakes are in the ground and ready for tapping on Friday afternoon. I'm trying to get as much rest as I can so I have a decent race weekend. Regardless it should be one heck of a race weekend.

My goal is for each rider to walk away with an awesome pro level experience. All the components are in place to make that happen, we'll see how the weekend turns out.

More on Hermann Cross later...... see you at the races!

Pride CX1 Race Report

Dawndi, Hadley and I packed up and made the trip to Alton on Saturday for the first cross race of the season. What a great feeling to have the season start :)

The "A" race and last race of the day saw a surprise showing of Josh Johnson and legend Ethan Froese from Columbia. Jay Strothman was there and several others to round out a small field of 10 to 12 riders.

Conservative start with Jay taking the lead.



Somewhere in lap 2 I think I passed Jay and was then alone in front for a lap or two.

The rain from the night before made for a soft and marginally muddy day. There was enough mud to get plenty dirty and there was some slippin and sliddin going on. I rode aggressive and took some risks, caused me to slide out and fall a few times but good to test the limits of the bike. I had one bad lap where I went down twice.



Josh eventually bridged the gap passed me and followed his wheel for the next lap. We hit the long mud section before the finish where I sucked the entire day, this allowed Josh to get a good gap I could not recover from. See ya, he stayed off the front to take the win.

The remaining 4 laps I worked to hold my 2nd place position as Jay was clearly on a mission to catch me. With 1 to go he closed the gap and we were side by side for the last lap. On the back side of the course there was a long brick straight fast section. I made my move there, attacked and got the gap I thought would be enough to hold him off to the finish line.

Not enough, he closed it back on the muddy down hill section then passed me at the beginning of long muddy section before the finish. He had to unclip on the short steep hill just before the left hand turn on to the paved section before the finish.

I made it up clipped in, closed some the gap and the sprint was on!



We were both going all out.... I was gaining as we approached the finish line but ran out of runway, Jay takes 2nd I cross in 3rd.

O' so close.

That was a fun race from start to finish!

Thanks to Mark from Alton and his crew for a fun day.

Photos courtsey of Mike

Locked and Loaded for Cross

It's just about GO time! Saturday kicks off the cross season with a PrideCX race in Alton then it's time to put the last minute touches on Hermann Cross and build the course. I've spent a lot of time thinking and re-thinking the course design for this year. Those that have been here in the past can count on a completely different yet familiar course with configurations I've never attempted before. I start building Tuesday afternoon taking my time with each section with test runs and re-routes to fine tune this thing to as perfect as I can get it. Look for 12 foot wide lanes, multiple dismounts, technical sections and full throttle runways.

Good to look back and compare just before the season starts. Performance Management Chart below shows all the power data I have which includes this year and most of last. Do all these lines and dots mean I'll have a good cross season? Hard to say, you’ll have to check back to find out, it all starts in less than 2 days.

Cross Practice

Hadley needs a cowbell.



Cross only 4 days away!

Tall Oak 2 man 6 hour MTB Race

Mark and I made plans at the beginning of the year to team up for this event after he joined the team. He as been riding well all year long and I'm was feeling good coming into the cross season, out chances of a podium spot look good.

19 two man teams were on the list. Most notable was last year winners Chris and Tom, Ethos team Travis and Garrett on their single speeds, Doug and his teammate from 360 racing to name a few.

Things got started at high noon with a long neutral start followed by a sprint to the hole shot. Mark took the first lap heading into the woods in 6th spot.

Lap times were 31 to 37 min long. Fist to arrive was Travis with a huge lead over Chris followed by Mark. Travis and Garrett would continue to open up a large lead over the next 6 hours. They just dominated that trail.

Mark and I traded laps so I was up next and held on to our third place spot with 4th about 1.5 minutes behind and 2nd about 2 min ahead.

At the 3 hour mark Chris had broke a derailleur and had to cut the course to get back so this put them down a lap and out of contention. This moved us up to 2nd and the game was to hold on to this til 6pm.

We did and took home 2nd place. Both of us had a great day, rode well, consistent and had zero issues. Could not have asked for a better day to race! We ended up doing 11 laps, Mark did 6, I did 5.

Big thanks to Nick, Jessica and the rest of Team Red Wheel for hosting another awesome 6 hour!

Lap times and power info

Power distribution for the day

Bars are in order from left to right: Active Recovery, Endurance, Temp, Threshold, VO2, and Anaerobic Capacity. 39 min or 16% of my day was in an anaerobic capacity state.

Pride Cross starts in 6 days!

Tabata Interval Block Conclusion

11 Tabata intervals over 4 sessions in the month of Aug have concluded. Overall a motivating and fun block of intervals.

I don't like to keep doing the same type of interval workouts for very long as they get stale, and I think you can peak out what you can accomplish mentally if you keep doing the same thing over and over. Tuesday was my last Tabata session for this season.

To keep track of progress I tracked the average watts for each 3 sets of 8 x 20 seconds On FULL GAS, 10 seconds OFF with 8 to 10 minutes between sets. I decreased the rest to 5 min on the last day.

I found it highly motivational to view the power tap setting on avg power for each 3min 50 sec interval. The average peaks out on the first interval and then drops as you rest for 10 seconds. Then when you get started again at full gas the game is to move the average back up as far as you can before the 20 seconds is up and you have to rest again. To achieve the maximum average for the session you can't cheat and rest for an extra second here or there, you have to get back on the gas right when your 10 sec rest is up.

To illustrate, of the 11 I did over the past month this is what my best one looked like which took place this past Tuesday. Overall average was 324

Here is what that 3min and 50 seconds looked like from a running average power perspective.

Gas on 20 seconds 1: 0 to 486
Rest 10 seconds: 486 to 375
.
Gas on 2: 375 to 393
Rest: 393 to 345
.
Gas on 3: 345 to 362
Rest: 362 to 328
.
Gas on 4: 328 to 342
Rest: 342 to 320
.
Gas on 5: 320 to 334
Rest: 334 to 323
.
Gas on 6: 323 to 330
Rest: 330 to 317
.
Gas on 7: 317 to 324
Rest: 324 to 313
.
Gas on 8: 313 to 324
Done!


8 days til cross!