Good Morning!
WOW! It's cold outside! -6 degrees Celsius here in Portland! As promised, Part II of "How did this Happen?" is coming hot off the press. Another item hot of the press is this musical assortment of beats brought to you by my good friends at the Wetblog. I'm downloading it right now so I can listen to it on my way to the gym this morning.
Part I finished up just as the Whitman '13 class was just starting to get the hang of group riding and I was getting pretty amped for a cyclocross race. The first event in Portland at Alpenrose was huge as usual. Twelve hundred competitors plus, with over 10 categories. Coined by commentator Dave Towle in 2007, the Whitman Dictionaries busted out the year with some strong results despite our relatively small team. To our surprise, the spirit of cyclocross brought out some of Whitman Cycling's Portland alumni. Although our racing schedule was not nearly as intense as our 2007 campaign, (which saw Duncan McGovern'10, Ian Delaney'10, John Spring'10 and I race every weekend in either Portland or Seattle in preparation for the 2007 Collegiate Cyclocross Nationals in Kansas City - see Whitman Post & Sammy Jay's Post for more details [Am I Nuts?][Kingdom of my Camera), we raced again the nutso Halloween event in Walla Walla at Charles Stanger's farm. That course include a fire pit, an over'n under bridge, two freezingg river crossing. It didn't feel much like regular cyclocross, more a throw back to old school racing! Any way, before we knew it, it was December and I was heading to Bend for Cyclocross nationals. I finished 7th so I was super stoked to have raced a clean race although I was out of shape, it was -10 degrees and the frozen ground made for many a dangerous obstacle. Northwest props went out to the 19 year old cyclocross superstar Steve Fisher who took 2nd place behind some turd burgular 35 year old racer who was apparently taking some classes somewhere. The jersey was Steve's in my mind. Steve has continued to tear it up all over the nation this season with the Seattle-based Rad Racing team. Way to kill it Steve!
Brian Kearns '10 had a good start to his cyclocross year, seen here starting the runup
Zac Strode '08 stressing it to the max at Alpenrose
Whitman's only 2010 CX womens rider, Zephyr Sylvester'13,
took a podium finish in every race she started!
Old man and general tough guy Dave Radler'08, raced despite a hectic,
yet eventually successful schedule of med school interviews.
Duncan McGovern'10 made it count at Stanger Farm's Halloween event
The Whitman support crew making the loud noises
Video Montage of the Team @ 2009 Alpenrose
Video Montage of Bend Nationals
Many a long drive back to Walla Walla made for interesting shots
We always knew we were within 80 miles of WW
when we could see the prison glow
Into November, the team started a whole bunch of fitness testing. Fortunately, the recently formed Wetbandits made sure that we had loud music for those last few very painful moments. We recorded flexibility and vertical jump measurements for ten riders, holding Conconi power test for each of the them. Later in February, with the rediscovery of the team's Computrainer supplied by Walla Walla local physiotherapist and long time supporter Dave Tupper, we set up a nice area at the school medical center. In that building, Claudia Ness helped us set up the long unused club sports physiotherapy room. After scoring an old ice bath and a brand new ultrasound machine, the team's training resources expanded ten fold! Thanks Dave and Claudia!
Living with two dj's has many benefits
Pre-season testing with freshman Alex Emrie '13
Whitman legend Timbah Bell'10 came back to finish in 2010
and graced the cycling team with his presence
Colin Gibson'10 made sure to keep the big guy motivated
Timbah Testing Montage in the Pain Cave
Claudia, Alex, Michael, Whitney and I at the Welty Health Centre Club Sports Training Room
ICE BATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I came back from winter break early. At Whitman, they give you a month off which is way too long if you ask me. Besides, it was an el nino year and I needed to TRAIN!! Since the fall semester was way hectic, I hadn't really started any real training yet so I was very happy when I returned to Walla Walla to find no snow on the ground. In fact, all last year, I only rode indoors 3 times, 2 of those in December! Duncan McGovern also came back early to get some skiing and mixing practice, we got bored one day on the roads and took a wheat field short cut. It was rad.
Walla Walla off to the right, Blue mountains to the left.
Late January marked the beginning of the second semester and the return of a lot of anxious riders. Kendi Thomas '10 (Kenda Pro Cycling Team kit) was looking forward to getting some good training in and seen below, she gets ready to lead the team out for a cold but fun ride.
Emrie, Molnar, Chelsea, Roxy, Kendi and Molly
It was in January that I also started a new type of training, focusing entirely around developing the power I could generate at my lactate threshold. I was very hesitant at first but my coach David said that they would be very hard, but also very effective. Besides, these workouts were the entire reason why I invested in a power meter back in October. A regular training week was simplified down to how many minutes I would spend 'working'. For example, a day in saddle would equate to a total work set of 12 minutes over a 90-120 minute ride, which would be broken down further into 3 sets of 4 minutes, with two minutes of rest in between. Two minutes is the ideal time to recover from a lactate effort. Every day included a set of intervals! It was hard but the goal was to ride at a stress level that I could recover fully within 24 hrs, then slowly increase the stress load. The longest interval I did was a 10km TT. Fortunately a 4 lane highway just outside of Walla Walla that was complete but closed to traffic through June served as the ideal testing grounds. From January to April I saddled up the Time Trial Bike (a retro-fitted Trek 2300 road bike) every 14 days for a test ride and it was really cool to see the improvements.
In February, the team took off for the Cherry Pie road race in Corvallis [Post]. This wondrous occasioned marked the debut of the NEWLY designed Whitman Trailer. After picking up a new 2yr wine sponsor in Stephenson Cellars, with financial assistance from Valley Physical Therapy and Wilson Design, Colin and I cleaned up the Whitman trailer (originally designed by Dave Radler'08) so John Sasser of Integrity Design could dish out the latest in graphic design. See the progression below!
The team @ Seward Park in 2007
Top Row: Colin, Dave, Kendall, RJ, Mara, Fiona, Kendi, Elliot, Ian, John, Ian, Nick, ?, me, Glenn Silver
Bottom Row: Rachel, Didi, ?, Seth, Zac, Nathan, Matt, Andrew
Cherry Pie 2010!! BAM!! GREEN EGGS & HAM!!!
Necessitates a close up! Bike designed by RJ'07
February was also the month of cycling week. During last week of the month, before the stress of mid terms hit in March, the team goes nuts for a week with biking and bike racing awareness on campus. Included in these events are bike polo, seen below, daily rides in which students can borrow a bike and try riding with the team, and a series of mock races introducing racing tactics to the new racers while providing an important benchmark for establishing team time trial teams during the opening set of Spring Break races.
Colin, Sara and Emrie playing Bike Polo
Of course, Cycling week also means the arrival of our new Orbea Bicycles, new Voler team kit and the annual team photo. This year we went big and invited everyone we could think of that helped us win the National Championship in 2009 and had helped us prepare even better for our 2010 campaign. On the far left, Malcolm Dunn, the varsity running coach, worked with me throughout the spring semester as we co-taught the first ever "conditioning for cycling" class which, available to all students, focussed on all the things a rider needs to learn before the race season starts. This included bumping grass practice, cornering and pace lines, group rides, power testing, setting up a structured training program and goal setting/training logs. It was a great success! Thanks Malcolm and Dean for helping set this up! Also on the left is Team Advisory council member Walter who helped the team get our sponsorship and finances set up, thanks Walter! Justin, our team chaparone from Allegro Cyclery, is a pivotal member of our support team. He is a pro mechanic but also has +30 years of racing experience, lending a helping hand to the new AND experienced riders. Dave Stephenson (black) was our new wine sponsor and we were very stoked to offer a bottle to each of our homestay families through out the spring. Also, super cool for 2011, there is now a Whitman Cycling Stephenson Vintage! Dave Tupper (red) helped me throughout the entire year as I had an injury from shoveling the summer before, he also came out to Wisconsin for Nationals. This man is too awesome! George Bridges on the right is Whitman College's president and a big supporter of the team. It is always cool to get George involved. And last but definitely not least is Glenn Silver who is pretty much the reason why I started to pursue cycling in the first place. After guiding the 2005 and 2006 teams to victory, Glenn saw me race my 2nd criterium at Seward Park in 2007 as a collegiate B. Two weeks later at our home race in Walla Walla, he sat me down at told me that I could win a national championship if I wanted. I said I did. So after progressing the rest of the season, I went home that summer and dropped another 15lbs to 155 (ski racing makes you big!) and trained my socks off for three seasons. Thanks Glenn!
Team Shoot 2010
The team wouldn't be the team without some funny picture
Racing season was only 12 days away after the Sunday Mock road races and we planned to launch 2010 at BSU's Boise event with a BAM!
But that's Part III.
