The Comeback

This story may make a bit more sense if you've read "Rubber Side Up", the post about my bike crash. If you just want to hear about how the Boston marathon treated me, jump here.

I'm quite a fan of my orthopedist. The day I was discharged from hospital after he had rebuilt my shoulder blade from 15 fragments, he told me to be sure to do my physical therapy "or else 2 months from now you'll be in worse shape than when you arrived in hospital." A few weeks later I asked him how my surgery ranked among other shoulder repairs he had done. He said something like "At one end you have simple collarbone fractures, and at the other you get someone whose arm has been ripped off. You were in the middle. You don't want to be at the extreme end." How we all laughed!

Anyway, he also told me, once I could move the arm, that I should stretch for 3 hours a day. Like most runners, I consider stretching a necessary evil, and about the most boring activity possible, so I don't think I ever got close to that goal. I like to think he was making an extreme statement to motivate me in the right direction. So when I eventually reached the point where I could start to run again — about 4 months post-accident — I figured I would count my running time as part of my daily stretching target. Unfortunately, running sucked about as badly as stretching, but at least there was variety in the suckage. Not only did my arm not swing properly for the first few months, but I had lost all fitness, and even the tolerance for the pounding of feet on pavement was gone. For the first time in my life I had some sympathy for people who say "I can't run, it hurts my knees."

Motivated by the desire to fix my shoulder and get my fitness back, I toughed out a couple of months of unenjoyable runs. I would just run away from my house for about as long as I could stand it, knowing that I would rather run back than walk. By New Years - 6 months post crash — I was up to an 8 mile long run and a 30 mile week. Running was enjoyable again. In March I managed to race 5 miles in a personal worst time of about 31 minutes.

So a month later the Boston marathon bombings happen and lots of people decide that they want to run Boston 2014. Many of my friends, including Christy, are among them, and a plan forms to use the Santa Rosa marathon in late August as a qualifier. I didn't want to commit to this plan from such a low point in my fitness, but I decided to start ramping up the mileage to see if it was at all feasible to be in marathon shape by August. As a bonus, Santa Rosa fell 3 days after my 50th birthday, and I liked the idea of testing my competitiveness in the new age bracket. Here is our bicoastal team of GBTC runners past and present on the night before Santa Rosa.

The GBTC crew. (Photo credit: Rod Hemingway)

Santa Rosa went pretty well (except for the fact that my training partner Jeff had a "calf heart attack" at mile 2, ruling him out for Boston and leaving me to find new friends for the rest of the race). I finished in 2:56:59, well under the qualifying time for my new agegroup, and for the first time since my crash, closer to a personal best than a personal worst. And I won the 50+ division, a nice way to celebrate my birthday. We all retired to a winery afterwards and had a great little picnic.

Once the qualifying marathon and associated recovery was out of the way, I turned my attention to cross country running. That was a good way to start getting some of my speed back, and it's also the running discipline I love the most. I had a pretty good season - one nice thing being that in XC, you can't really tell if you're as fast as you used to be, because every course is different. It all went well until the 4.5 mile mark of the National Club championships in Bend, OR, when I had a calf heart attack of my own. Unlike Jeff's, I was able to keep running through mine — I only had 1.5 miles to go — but once I hit the finish line I was limping and in a fair bit of pain. I knew I was going to have to take some time off before I could start my Boston prep — and Boston was only 18 weeks away.

The face of a man whose calf has seized up.

I took a few days off, then started cycling, and after 2 weeks I started the rehab process described here. My January training log shows this progression of weekly mileage: 7, 13, 40, 54. I've definitely never ramped up like that before, but time was running short.

From there on, my training went pretty well, and was about as good as I've ever done for a marathon in terms of consistency and mileage. I started to get in some good track workouts and long runs with sections at "goal marathon pace". The only problem was that I kept on getting small calf cramps during long runs — making me worry that I might have the same experience as Jeff, or as I had in Bend except with 10 miles left to go rather than 1.5. When talking to a friend the day before the race, I estimated that my odds of finishing the race were about 75% — that's how much I thought the calf might be a limiting factor.

Well, marathon day finally arrived. For weeks I had been saying "I just want to be in the race". I wasn't actually looking forward to being done — I was looking forward to being in the race. And it didn't disappoint. The marathon always feels like a pretty big deal in Boston, but this time was obviously different. It was a national news story, and the whole city seemed to be embracing the race in a new way. I told myself that even if I DNF'ed, it would be cool to have been part of it. But I really hoped I wouldn't DNF.

Having failed to run any races during my marathon buildup, I was at a bit of a loss as to what my time goal should be. I was pretty sure I could go faster than I did in Santa Rosa thanks to a lot more training under the belt, but I also figured that it was unreasonable to expect that, at age 50, I could match the time I ran when I was in my peak shape at age 44. So I picked an intermediate goal — sub 2:55 — and started the race a little bit faster than that goal pace so that, if things went really well, I'd have the chance to challenge my best Boston time of 2:49:46.

The first sign that I was having a good day came at mile 16, the steepest descent in the course, right before the Newton Hills. In 2008 I had started to feel quad pain at that point, and that turned out to be the first sign of the sufferfest that was in store for me later in the race. That race ended with me crawling to the finish (video here, report here) — an experience I was eager to avoid. So when I made it into the hills with no quad pain, I began to imagine that I might even have a strong finish to the race. Not that I felt in any way fresh at this point — but at least I was pain-free.

The hills went well — as they always have for me — and I saw a few familiar faces cheering for me as I headed towards the top of Heartbreak. I have always had trouble getting from the top of Heartbreak to the finish, so I told myself to relax as I ran the "haunted mile" from the top to mile 22. But at this point I hit the wall big time, just like my 2 previous Boston experiences. The desire to stop was just incredible. Fortunately I have been through this a few times now, and I have some mental tricks to silence the voice that tells me how good a little walking would feel. And the very fact that my calves — which I thought might be my undoing — were doing just fine gave me another story to tell myself: "you've made it this far without being stopped by injury, don't mess it up and wimp out now." So I sucked it up and pressed on.

There was a point around mile 24 when I began to wonder if I was going to have another day like 2008 when the legs just wouldn't keep me vertical, so I eased off the pace a bit — actually, I thought it was a lot. If you'd asked, I would have said I was running 8:30 per mile, while post-race data shows I slowed to 7:15 pace at the worst. I remember hitting the 25 mile mark, and then much, much later hitting the "mile to go" mark at 25.2. When I reached Hereford St, I realized to my dismay that it was two blocks to Boylston, not one as I had remembered. But then I was on Boylston, and even though the finish looked impossibly far, I had checked the map beforehand and verified that it was only 3.5 blocks away. I counted down the blocks and made it across the line. Given that I had stopped thinking about my time quite a while ago, I was astonished — and thrilled — to see 2:53:19 on my watch.

My only regret about the race is that I don't feel like my mind was really focused on the unique Boston-after-the-bombings experience. I was too darn tired and focused on getting to the finish. But it was a great event to be part of. And this was a special marathon for me because, after a year of training, it's brought me to the point where I feel like I'm back to where I was pre-crash. That feels great.

Rubber side up

It's taken a long time to get around to writing this blog post - the better part of two years. I didn't want to put too much detail online in the first few months after the crash, while I waited for all the legal and insurance dust to settle, and by the time all that was done I wasn't so keen on revisiting all the events around the crash any more than I had to.

I still think about the crash and its aftermath a lot. I'm forever running into old work colleagues who I haven't seen for a while - including a big crowd of them this week at a conference that I last attended in 2008. So I get plenty of chances to answer the question of whether I'm "all better" - to which the short answer is that I'm close enough to 100% for all practical purposes, and the long answer follows.

First, a happy story. In the crash, I remember the sound of something breaking and my first thought was that it was my bike frame. It might also have been the wing mirror of the car that hit me (which definitely broke) or it might have been the sound of one of my bones (many of which definitely also broke - but I'm guessing they made a more muffled sound - so probably the wing mirror). Anyway, it did turn out that the top tube on my beloved carbon fibre frame was cracked, and when I finally got to the point of deciding what to do with that bike many months later, I decided just to buy a new frame - different model, different color, because I wasn't sure I wanted to be reminded too much of the machine I was riding on "crash day".

Eventually, I took the broken bike and new frame to a bike shop, and had them move all the undamaged components over to the new frame (Orbea Orca, for the curious). When they were done, they told me that the old frame - a nice BMC, similar to what Cadel Evans rode to victory in the 2011 Tour - could be repaired for a relatively small cost. I decided to go for it, and hope I could find someone who'd like to have the frame. Some months later, I discovered that my friend Chris Birch was in the market for just such a frame, and the sizing seemed to work out. It was Chris who, as "Boss of 'Cross" at MIT introduced me to cyclocross when I rode briefly with the team in 2011. She's also a total star, winning the national D2 'cross championship this year. So I couldn't think of a better recipient for the battle-scarred frame, and this week she sent me the photo below, with a note saying how much she loved the bike. Note the visible carbon fibre repair on the top tube. I hope it brings her more racing success.

The repaired bike, ridden by Chris Birch

Back to the crash. I was about 3 hours into a solo training ride as I finished up my training for the "Tour of the California Alps" aka "The Death Ride". Maybe it's not wise to enter events with Death in the name. I had just finished the very satisfying and long ascent up the Western end of Alpine Rd in the hills above Palo Alto, and was making my way down Page Mill Rd. Practicing my descending technique, I was in the drops, leaning into the turns, and trying to find the best line through every turn. I was also maintaining what seemed like a safe speed: GPS would show I was going 28 mph where the speed limit was 25, which I considered a good way to minimize the risk of being overtaken by impatient drivers from behind. There's a double yellow line down the middle of the road, which I was observing, and in retrospect I think this gave me a false sense of security. There are quite a few roads in this area that I won't ride down because they lack a double yellow. Well, Page Mill is now also on my "no-go" list.

The thing that you hear about time slowing down in traumatic situations is completely true. I have a very vivid memory of what happened. I came around a turn, and saw a car coming at me on my side of the road. I was finishing off the turn, and I braked and tried to turn further to the right, but as I squeezed the brakes, I felt them lock, and I skidded into the side of the car. Then I heard the crack of something breaking and next thing I remember I was lying on my back and yelling "f*ck f*ck f*ck call 911 call 911". Fortunately, as I'm told happens with childbirth, I have no real memory of pain. I do remember trying to move my left arm and finding it completely unresponsive.

I'm guessing that from the time I saw the car until the time of impact was much less than a second, but it truly did play out slowly in my memory afterwards. I'm told that your brain works sort of like a high speed camera in these circumstances, so it's like you gather data at 200 frames per second but have the luxury of playing it back at 25fps.

There were other cyclists who had been cycling up the hill as I came down, and one of them helped me crab-walk on my back to get over to the side of the road. The drive of the car had stopped up the hill and was yelling at people coming down the hill to slow down, and my first concern was not to get run over by either car or bike coming down.

I asked the cyclist who helped me to confirm that the car was on the wrong side of the road, and he agreed that it was. When the driver came to see me, I remember saying something like "so we agree this was your fault, right?" and when she agreed, I thanked her for behaving honorably. I will say that I'm really glad I had those 2 conversations, because I remember them perfectly, whereas the certainty of where I was relative to the yellow line, especially after I skidded, is a bit less strong now. The police report - which was compiled maybe 15 minutes later - quotes me, the driver, and the other cyclist all saying the same thing about what happened, and the driver was cited for crossing the double yellow. And I have to say, given the amount of trauma I went through, it matters quite a lot to me that it wasn't caused by my error. Although reasonable people could certainly point out ways that I might have avoided the accident, it is hard to protect yourself against a car on the wrong side of the road.

I've looked at the Google Earth images of the crash site pretty obsessively (see below) - as you do - and it's pretty clear that the driver had a short section of straight road in which she tried to get around slow-moving cyclists going uphill. She simply didn't have time to complete the maneuver, and was still across the line when I rounded the corner. It's also very clear that if I had arrived slightly later I could have had a head-on crash, rather than shoulder-to-side-of-car. The latter happened because I was moving out from the apex of the turn towards the double yellow, on roughly the "correct" line for the turn.

Google Earth picture of the accident site. 

Green line is my estimate of my path into the side of the car

Some long time (or so it seemed) after the police arrived, an ambulance came, and they put on a cervical collar (as a precaution, they said) and strapped me to a stretcher. Funnily enough, the one thing I remember pain-wise was that the strap hurt my shin, which I had banged on a pedal at the start of the ride. I guess I blocked out the more severe pain from memory. I do remember asking for pain killers in the ambulance, and also thinking that the ambulance ride - about 7 miles of fairly twisty roads - took forever. I was figuring I had a broken collar bone based on the useless left arm, but I also noticed a gurgling sound in my lungs, which the EMT confirmed was probably a punctured lung. He said some reassuring things about the treatment for such a thing so I was still thinking I was in pretty good shape. I didn't expect to stay overnight in hospital.

In the hospital things slowly got less rosy. They managed to get hold of Christy pretty quickly, which was great - especially since I had called her from the ambulance, only to reach voice mail, and left a message mentioning an accident but failing to specify the hospital where I could be found. Memories of the long day in the ER are a bit more jumbled. I probably got put on opiates early on. I do recall having what felt like a bit of a panic attack, talking to a nurse about it, and being reassured that I was in good hands. Another memory, which is crystal clear now, didn't come back to me for a couple of weeks after I got out of hospital. Christy was with me, and was asked to leave for a bit as another patient was coming in and they needed the room clear. The patient was accompanied by a phalanx of doctors and nurses, and after a while one doctor said something along the lines of "do we all agree we're done?" Maybe it was a bit less cold, but it was immediately obvious that they had just given up trying to save the patient. Not only do I now remember this episode clearly, but I also remember the moment when the memory re-surfaced. It was pretty surprising that such a vivid memory could be totally suppressed. I'm sure this is well known, but it's another thing to experience the recovery of a memory. And unlike some recovered memories, at least the broad outlines of this one have been confirmed by a third party.

Over the course of the afternoon I was visited by lots of doctors, and scanned in various ways, and slowly my condition was revealed. 9 broken ribs, broken scapula, broken collar bone (got that one right!), punctured lung (right again!) and 2 fractured vertebrae. You'll need to be away from work for at least a week, said one doctor. (In the end I was off work for 3 months.)

I remember signing a couple of release forms to allow them to do surgery. I like to know what I'm signing, so I asked a couple of questions, and got good answers. Yes, you can die from an infection when we put a tube inside your punctured lung. When we repair the shoulder blade and collar bone, you might die from an infection, or a bleed. My father died in a hospital from a lung infection he acquired after surgery, so I was quite attuned to these risks, but what else can you do?

By night time I was in the ICU, and just hoping I could get through the surgery and not die from aforementioned complications. The next day would be mostly consumed with more scans to gather all the information needed for surgery and to assess the state of my vertebrae. Good news there - very minor fractures, not much risk to the spinal column. They built an awesome 3D computer model of my shoulder blade. By far the worst part of the day was when an ICU nurse decided to change my sheets by rolling me onto the broken shoulder. Again with the forgetting pain thing, but I do remember begging her to stop. She was on the receiving end from some stern words from Christy and it didn't happen again.

Two days post accident was surgery day. I had no idea how long I'd have to wait, but thankfully it was quite early when they took me off to operate. I woke up after surgery and I was told that 8 hours had elapsed. Must have been a long day for Christy. 7 of those hours were spent reassembling the jigsaw puzzle of my shoulder blade. I would learn much later that it had been in 15 or so pieces. I was immediately aware of being in less pain - and also bordering on euphoric, as I reckoned I had dodged the biggest bullet by making it out of the operating theatre. Now I just had to get the tube out my chest, and then get out of hospital, and my risk of a lethal infection would drop rapidly. I guess this might sound a bit melodramatic, but that really was where my head was at - seriously fearing death, but also feeling that I was dodging bullets at every stage. Helped along by some strong opiates, my mood got better and better.

Worst hospital experience aside from the sheet-changing: sharing my ICU room for 3 days with a methadone addict (I suspect this wasn't his only problem - but it was one I heard way too much about).  I never saw his face or learned what was wrong with him that had required hospitalization. Let's just say that he didn't seem as broken as me, but he sure did whine for 11 hours out of every 12 as he tried to persuade the nurses that he should be getting more than 2 hits a day.

After 3 days total I was moved out of the ICU, then next day the chest tube came out, and I started physical therapy. To my great pleasure, I was discharged after 5 nights in hospital.

Before I left, I had a conversation with the orthopedist who'd done the shoulder reconstruction. He said "you need to do your PT. If you don't, your shoulder will freeze up, and in 2 months you'll be in worse shape than when you arrived in the hospital." Hey, at least I wouldn't have a punctured lung, I thought, but I took him seriously. I still do shoulder exercises today. More on that another time.

I never got back in touch with the driver, although I think about doing so from time to time. I decided, after much deliberation, not to sue (it's not such a cultural norm where I come from) and just collected what I could from insurance. The driver had only $100k of coverage, and my five days in hospital cost about $140k. Fortunately I had health coverage of my own, and even my own car insurance policy surprisingly came through with a bit of "underinsured motorist" coverage - which applied even though I wasn't driving a car.  I didn't get much for "pain and suffering" but at least I didn't have to worry about how all the bills would get paid, or the cost of replacing my bike - a rounding error, as they say.

In keeping with long-standing Cantabloggia tradition, here is some vaguely related music. I listened to a lot of Regina Spektor in the hospital.

Laughing With - Regina Spektor

It's Not (Just) About The Hills.

This post is to appear in the April 2012 edition of The Wingfoot, the newsletter of GBTC

One of my favorite Boston Marathon quotes is from Fatuma Roba, who won
Boston three times starting in 1997. After her first win, she said
something like "I was told there was a hill, but I didn't find it."
While it's true that Heartbreak Hill is no Mount Washington, most
mortals do notice the series of hills that begin at about mile 16 and
finish at the top of Heartbreak around mile 21.

I have run Boston only twice: the first time was in 1994, a day
similar to 2011, with cool temperatures and a tailwind helping Cosmos
Ndeti and Uta Pippig to course records that would stand for many
years. My experience was very different from theirs (although the
forgettable PR I set in 1994 did stand until 2007). I was completely
focused on getting to the top of Heartbreak Hill, figuring that if I
could get to the top in decent shape, I would coast down the gentle
slope to the finish with ease.

I really had no problem getting up Heartbreak, but once I was on the
top, it was like a switch had been flipped. I had a classic hitting
the wall experience, and the final 5 miles were a nightmare of jogging
and walking and watching my goal time go out the window. I crossed the
line saying "I never want to do that again".

I have told that story to countless people over the years, and my
advice has always been: don't forget that those last 5 miles of any
marathon are hard, and the last 5 at Boston even more so. Make sure
you are ready to work harder after Heartbreak than at any other point
in the race - and that includes getting up Heartbreak. The funny thing
is that I almost failed to take my own advice when I finally came back
to run Boston the second time, in 2008.

After my 1994 disappointment, I did one more marathon in 1996, which
went even worse (don't ask), and then swore off marathons for a
decade. Finally in 2007 I embarked on a proper training plan,
compiled with input from Tom Derderian, many GBTC team-mates, and the
great book by former GBTC member Pete Pfitzinger, "Advanced
Marathoning". I also paid a lot of attention to pre-race nutrition,
guided by my expert partner Christy and the wisdom of Nancy Clark. At
Philadelphia I not only lowered my PR by 19 minutes (to 2:46), I
finally ran a marathon without hitting the wall. My last 5 miles were
the hardest of the race, but they were no slower than the first 21,
and felt much like the last couple of miles of a half-marathon. OK, I
thought, train properly, eat right, avoid the wall, it's that easy. On
to Boston 2008.

My leadup to Boston didn't go quite as well as the previous Fall, with
a bit of time off for injury and illness, but I came into the race
with a solid half-marathon tune-up and having hit most of my training
targets. Figuring that the 2007 Philly marathon was pretty close to perfect
(including great weather and a mostly flat course), my pre-race plan
for Boston was to go no faster than 2:47 pace for the first half. Once
the excitement and steep drop of the first couple of miles were behind
me, I settled into that pace and held it for about 15 miles. The steep
downhill coming into Newton Lower Falls - around mile 16 - was the
first sign that Boston might be a different race than Philly, as I
felt some pretty serious soreness developing in my quads. But then it
was into the infamous Newton hills, heading up to Heartbreak, and the
quads relaxed.

I felt strong all the way up to the top of Heartbreak, and chatted
with a running acquaintance who was doing his first Boston. "All
downhill from here, right?" he said. I gave him my usual advice -
expect it to get hard after you crest the hill. Those words were
hardly out of my mouth as I started down past B.C. to the "haunted
mile" when I realized that this was advice I still needed to hear
myself. Once again I felt a switch had been flipped and I couldn't
imagine maintaining any sort of decent pace for the next 5 miles. I
really wanted to start to jog it in or worse, and it was clear that
this was not going to be at all like the end of Philly. I was hitting
the wall, and I was going to have to deal with it. Two thoughts formed
in my head: first was "listen to your own advice" and the second was
"this is what you trained for all winter, don't throw it all away
now."

I got a little mental lift at the next mile split as I had actually
made good time down back of Heartbreak, but still 4.2 miles to go and
the course is essentially undulating from there on. My quads were
getting sore again, and no part of me felt good. I just focused
on getting to the GBTC cheering squad at mile 24, figuring I had to
pretend to look good there at least. The sea of cheering red at
Coolidge Corner did lift me for about 30 seconds or so, then on to
Kenmore. I was just trying to get to the last mile and hoping I could
keep it together from there. Finally I made the turn onto Boylston St
and I wished I had remembered how many blocks I had to cover to the
finish - it looked implausibly far away (note: it's about 3 blocks).

And then, with the finish in sight, my quads essentially stopped
working altogether. Video footage shows me wobble and fall forwards,
and I remember thinking - well, time to crawl as fast as I can. A few
"steps" later I decided to try to get vertical again and I was able to
walk across the line. That whole crawl-walk episode took only 15
seconds to cover the last few feet - just as well the marathon isn't,
say, 26.3 miles. I managed just to break 2:50, a barrier I was pretty
happy to get under (and still 16 minutes better than what my
30-year-old self had done in '94).

So, it's really not hard to run well at Boston. Train well, eat right,
pace yourself correctly, and be ready to talk yourself through some
tough times in the last 5 miles. Crawl if necessary. You might want to
practice your downhill running. Just don't expect the racing to be
done when you get past the top of Heartbreak.

Rubber Side Down

Photo Courtesy of SKN Photography

My introduction to multiday bike racing was the 2010 Tour of the Catskills, a 3-day stage race. I had a great time there last year and vowed to come back in 2011. Having upgraded to Cat 4 in the interim, and having noticed that the combined Cat 1-4 masters category was perhaps a little more competitive that I really needed, I decided to race Cat 4 open. My "tune-up" race for the Catskills was the Tour of the Hilltowns 2 weeks earlier, which has a similarly hilly profile, but unfortunately I managed to crash early in that race and then spend 2.5 hours chasing the peleton while bleeding from several spots and trying to stay hydrated on one of the hottest days of the year. I've heard it said that training for bike races is all about making deposits in the pain bank from which you make withdrawals on race day, so on that basis the Hilltowns was a great day of training. I'm pretty sure the only reason I finished it was because I had watched so many pros crash in the Tour de France and keep racing (most notably Johnny Hoogerland). All things considered I got off pretty lightly but I was still wearing bandages on race day (as the photo above illustrates - at least I was easy to spot in the peloton.)

In contrast to last year, which started with a real hill-climber's time trial stage, this year had a much flatter and longer ITT for stage 1, and my hope here was just to avoid losing too much time to people who would be better suited to that event. I only manged one practice TT race all summer, and my average speed of 22.5 mph for 10 miles wasn't that impressive. After a bit of adjustment to bike position I was hoping I might at least be able to break 23 mph for the 12 mile stage at Catskills. I was also hoping that among the Cat 4s in this race there wouldn't be too many TT specialists with fancy bikes, and on that point I was not disappointed. In the end I was pleasantly surprised to average close to 24 mph, covering the 12 mile course in 30:11, 43rd out of 71 and less than 4 minutes down on the leader.

I discovered that one of the problems of stage racing is that you go to bed with both pre-race stress and post-race excitement, which doesn't necessarily make for a great night's sleep. But I woke up feeling pretty good in the morning, and ready to tackle the first mass-start stage of the race, a 65 mile hill fest that includes the infamous Devil's Kitchen. This climb of about 1300 feet is at a 12% average grade but much steeper in sections, rivaling the steepest sections of Mount Washington and much steeper than anything in the Tour de France. It also comes very close to the end of the stage. There are some hairy descents before you get there, and the official who read us our starting orders made sure to remind us that it's not worth taking risks on the descents. I hit 45mph a few times on the downhills, and even at that speed I was losing ground to some of the heavier and more adventurous racers. I also have a dim memory of possibly pinching my rear tire on a bump near the end of one such descent, and feeling relieved when it didn't go flat. But as we got further into the race I started to sense that the tire was losing air, and around 44 miles I hit a bump and it went completely flat. Ironically, this was almost the same spot at which I had flatted in this race last year. The wheel van pulled up behind me, but there didn't seem to be a great sense of urgency in getting me a wheel. I said several times "Shimano 9-speed" and was given a wheel and finally got on my way again, and shortly afterwards established that it was actually a 10-speed. A later conversation with the wheel man convinced me that this important distinction of componentry was lost on him. Amazingly enough, I was able to get a fair number of the gears to work smoothly, and I set about chasing the peleton. It was hard work and I had been stopped long enough - about 2 and a half minutes - that I couldn't even see them. And I didn't want to arrive at the base of the Devil's kitchen completely cooked, as it were. Eventually I was caught by a group of stragglers and the 4 or 5 of us worked together to the bottom of the DK. I was very glad for the company.

The Kitchen was just as bad as I remembered it. I had actually changed my rear cassette before the race to improve my gearing for the climb, but of course that cassette was sitting in the wheel van now. GPS data shows that my slowest mile up the climb was a 10:44 - slower than anything I did at Mount Washington on bike or on foot. But it wasn't as bad for me as for some other folks, and I was soon passing the rear of the peloton that I'd lost when I flatted. Quite a few folks were walking, and I came extremely close to joining them but resolved not to do so as long as I could keep the bike upright. The top half of the climb starts to get a bit less steep and soon enough I was over it with just a few miles to cover to the finish. Heading down the other side I caught or was caught by a handful of other riders and soon we had a nice, fast-moving paceline heading into the finish. I was happy to be done but frustrated to have lost the peloton with a flat. I have had 4 flats in the last 5 years, and 3 of them have been in races, which doesn't seem reasonable from a statistical point of view. But I'm thinking that it might be related to the fact that I don't often exceed 40mph on my training rides either.

Results showed that I had moved all the way from 43rd to 42nd with this stage, and lost about 8 more minutes to the leaders. 2.5 of those minutes were from stopping for the flat, but I can't tell how many more I'd lost by being solo for so long after the flat. Not the day I'd hoped for.

Another night of not-great sleep as I looked back over the day and hoped for some redemption on the final stage. While the final stage lacked the steepness of the Devil's Kitchen, it actually had more total climbing, and I was hoping I could get over the first climb near the front. That hope was dashed pretty quickly as we started up the 1500 foot climb for the first "King of the Mountains" points - I know how hard I can work when I'm going to be climbing for a long time, and there's not much point pretending otherwise when the leaders pull away from you. But settling into the level of effort that I could sustain did allow me to pass a lot of people who had overcooked the first part of the climb, and so while I never threatened to take the lead, I did get over the top in something like 15th place. The descent that followed was really something, with plenty of turns to keep things interesting, and a group of about a dozen folks coalesced as we made our way down, hitting a top speed of 49.5 mph. We formed a good paceline as we headed on to the second big climb of the day.

The only way to make a hill less steep is to zigzag. Yellow line rule? Who cares?
Photo courtesy of SKN Photo

The photo above illustrates just how hard many folks found the last big climb of the race. In a move that I was pretty pleased with, I moved my way up to the front of our paceline right before the climb started and was able to break off the front of the group from the start of the climb. Of the dozen folks who had been together between the two climbs, I was second over the top, and quickly joined forces with the first guy, who happened to have been one of my companions the prior day. We caught one more straggler from the group in front of us and tried to see if we could stay clear of the folks who had been with us before the climb. But we were 3 small guys and before too long we were caught by a few of the bigger guys from behind, who were better at descending. Soon we had a good little group working well together and trying to make the best time we could for the last dozen miles. At one point a pair of guys from the Speedwell team launched a perfect attack and got clear, but as soon as the next hill came along we caught them again. We worked hard over the last few miles and as we shed a couple of riders off the back there were about 7 of us as we hit 2k to go.

I know that I have one of the worst sprints around so with about 500m to go I decided to see if I could manage a sneak attack, and it sort of worked as I did get off the front with one other rider, but then we turned for home and it was a 300m uphill finish. Much as I like hill climbing, those short hills do not play to my strengths, as I just don't have the explosive power, and 5 of my 7 companions powered past me into the finish. But I did manage 22nd overall on the stage, and moved up to 25th in the General Classification.

In the end, I was happy with the result. One thing that I got from the last day was the satisfaction of doing the stage to the absolute best of my ability - I feel like there was no point at which I failed to be aggressive when it mattered, and there was no way I could have hung with the leaders on that first KOM climb. Furthermore, I finished right behind Dan Moon, with whom I finished every stage last year. Had I not flatted on stage 2, I expect I would have been with him that day as well, which would have moved me a few places up the GC but not enough to really matter. So I can look at the flat with more equanimity than I did after the end of stage 2.

They say the best way to become a good rider in your 40s is to do a lot of riding in your 30s. Well, I missed that, but it's not too long for me to see if I can be a good rider in my 50s.

Up the Rockpile With 20 Extra Pounds

Mt. Washington and I have a bit of a checkered history. In 2002 I showed up at the start of the foot race to the summit, only to find that bad weather had forced the race to be cut down to only go half way up. I ignored the race for the next 8 years, then returned in 2010 to find that I actually enjoyed the race to the top - enjoyment that had a lot to do with near-perfect weather and a better result than I expected - 1:15:14, good for 50th place. Unlike most of my GBTC team-mates, I was planning to come back next year from the moment I finished.

But it was not to be. After a bout of injury in February this year, I spent a lot of time on the bike, and began my Mt. Washington training in mid-April. By early June I was ready for a tune-up race, the Pack Monadnock 10 miler, and a top-10 finish there within seconds of last year's time made me feel I was ready for Mt. Washington. Five days later, doing nothing more than an easy shakeout run, I felt my hamstring tighten to the point where I had to abort my run. It failed to improve in the 10 days before the Mt. Washington race, so there would be no running up the rock pile for me this year.

Once my non-starter status as a runner was confirmed, I started considering the option of entering one of the two bike races that go up the same road. I had 3 weeks to decide - fortunately the "overflow" race, a.k.a. Newton's Revenge, was not yet full. But as a bit of a cycling rookie, I wasn't sure I was willing to commit to that sort of challenge. I decided to try the Okemo hillclimb as a "proof of concept" and that went surprisingly well. That race climbs less than half as much as Mt. Washington, at a grade of 11% compared to almost 12% for Washington, and it was tough, but I placed well enough (19th from 114 finishers) to make me think Mt. Washington might be worth a shot.

There were enough moments on Okemo where I wished for a couple of extra gears that I decided some adjustments had to be made for Mt. Washington. Thanks to my crazy cycling friend Russ who got me started as a cyclist and who has done Washington a few times, I came to the conclusion that a 24-tooth front chainring was required, and with 8 days to go to the race, I found a shop in Boston to put one on for me. After a quick test of the new setup on the hills of Arlington, I entered the race.

One day before the race, on Russ' advice I removed my bike's rear brake to save a few grams, but resisted the temptation to remove the larger chainrings and front derailleur for fear of having too many untested changes on race day. (If this weight loss strategy seems extreme, note that a pound off the bike would translate into about 30 seconds of time improvement for a cyclist of my size and speed.)

Race day was warm and sunny at the starting elevation of 1500 feet, but we heard reports of 50+ mph winds at the summit. Fortunately, that was not enough to cause postponement of the race. We went off in 4 waves: the "Top Notch" wave reserved for those who had broken 1:20 in a prior race, then age-groups. The 45+ crowd, last to start, also included 2 tandems and 2 unicycles. Good to know I wasn't the craziest person there.

Determined not to go too hard too early, I let a dozen or more people get ahead of me as we started up the hill, and still I found myself breathing too hard for what was going to be a 70 minute or longer effort. I eased off and tried to find the right level to sustain for that duration, a tricky balancing act.

I had decided that beating my running time was a good goal, and that the way to approach that was to try to hit half way at about the same time I did in the foot race. However, for some reason I kept missing the mile and elevation markers by the side of the road, possibly because I was spending my mental energy thinking about gear choice, staying relaxed on the bike, not going to hard or too easy, and staying upright at an average speed of 6 mph. I did however reach half way (which, it turns out, is rather less than half way up in terms of elevation) just ahead of the 35 minute goal. Soon after than point, I decided to get out of the saddle for a little change of position, which required a downshift, and then when I sat down I had to upshift suddenly, which somehow sent my chain into the rear spokes. My bike came to a halt and with no time to unclip I fell over sideways. Fortunately there was no-one next to me. I unclipped, turned the bike over, unjammed the chain and got it back on the sprocket in what seemed like a few seconds, but then I couldn't remount the bike on such a steep slope. I kept getting the front wheel airborne as I tried to lift my unclipped foot off the ground. Eventually I managed to scoot the bike along and get clipped in and moving again with my heart pounding from adrenaline. I told myself to calm down and tried to resume my progress up the mountain. I had started to catch people from the wave in front of me at this point and I got some words of encouragement from the folks who had seen me crash. Thankfully bike and rider were in good shape (although my knee was bloody and would double in size later that day.)

Soon I hit the famous dirt section, and initially it was all good, with nice views out across the valley, but as it continued up around a hairpin I entered the clouds and felt the strong headwinds for the first time. I also found this section so steep that I was struggling to keep the front wheel down, but if I stood up the rear wheel slipped. As I passed a rider from 545 velo we shared some words of encouragement and I expressed my strong dislike for the dirt and the weather in language that needn't be repeated here.

It was great to be back on the paved road even as the weather worsened and I remember seeing the 5000 ft marker. I thought "Hmm, more than half of Okemo left" which probably wasn't the most positive attitude. I hit the 6 mile mark just inside the hour and realized that beating my running time wasn't assured. I tried to push every less steep section yet I also feared too many gear changes. Finally I reach 6000 feet - less than 300 feet of climbing to go. The excitement may have been too much, as my calf cramped precisely at that moment. "No cramps!" I yelled, and received some more encouragement as I passed another rider.

I knew that there was a flat section right before the infamous 22% "wall" and I managed to downshift and upshift without incident. Visibility was almost nonexistent, so I was glad I had seen the wall before and knew what to expect. Christy was there to cheer and I gave a fist pump, mostly to psych myself up as I approached it. What caught me by surprise was how curvy it was, and I came very close to the shoulder, but I was able to make my way up and then over the finish line, with 1:14 still showing on my watch. I could barely dismount, I was so wiped from the final "sprint".

Official time of 1:14:22, almost a minute under my running time, and certainly a much tougher day in terms of weather. Also no problems of stuck chains, banged knees or slipping wheels when you run it. I confess I had hoped to go a bit faster, but I have to admit that as a debutant in this event and a newbie to cycling, I can't complain. It was a great treat to find that I got 3rd in my age-group (even though the first two places were way in front of me) - my first ever "podium" in cycling. (How come runners don't have podiums?) And just as I said when I finished the race last year, I want to come back.

Since it's Tour de France week, it's amusing to compare Mt. Washington against the famous climbs in le Tour. It is steeper than any of the famous climbs, and higher than Alpe D'Huez - but, as local climbing guru Doug Jansen points out, those guys do the climbs at the end of long days in a 23-day tour. I bet they don't have 24 tooth chainrings either.

Cycling Anniversary

My first ever bike race was on April 10, 2010, at the Tour of the Battenkill, aka "America's Queen of the Classics", aka America's answer to the Paris-Roubaix spring classic. The organizers kindly moved the race to a Sunday this year so that it not only coincided with its more famous French cousin, but also marked the exact one-year anniversary of my competitive entry to the sport.

Last year's race was a great introduction to bike racing, with none of my major fears (crashing, flats, or bonking) being realized, and a surprising 8th place finish in my 50-man field of 45+ Cat5 riders. This year I hoped to improve on that placing with a year of experience, a plan to work with another rider I had met last year, and a more aggressive race plan. However, I was still afraid of all the same things as last year. The course this year had more dirt sections than last year - a total of about 20% of the 64 mile course - and an additional two hills to bring the total climbing to about 2900 feet (although it's been reported in some places as 4000 feet.)

I lined up close to the front at the start with my "team-mate" Greg alongside me, and after a 1km neutral start we were off at a brisk pace. This was also my first race with any sort of bike computer, so for once I could figure out how fast I was going and where I was on the course. I was also gathering power data for later analysis, and trying to avoid being distracted by my instantaneous wattage.



One of my reasons for starting near the front was to reduce my risk of being behind any sort of problems, like water bottles popping out on the first section of dirt, but almost as soon as we hit the dirt road there was a crash in front of me. I was just able to get around it safely and when we regrouped on the other side I didn't see Greg. I guess if we were a proper team I would have stopped to wait for him, but not being sure what was going on I just kept riding. (Does this make me sound like a bad person? Let me stress that we were not officially on a team. And read on.) Soon we were into the first hill, and I followed my plan of doing whatever was necessary to stay with the leaders. This meant a pretty full-out effort, but I consider myself a decent hill climber so I hoped I wasn't digging much deeper than the guys around me. I made it to the top of the 2nd hill (Juniper Swamp Rd) in about 3rd place, feeling OK, and in a group of about 8 riders. We regrouped on the way down, and then one of the riders organized us into a paceline. The plan was clearly to get a move on and separate from the rest of the field. Before long it was my turn to lead the paceline, and after a little stint at the front I moved off and dropped to the back, as you do.

What happened in the next few seconds probably determined the rest of the race for me, but that wasn't apparent at the time. Somehow, when I got to the back of the paceline, I couldn't muster the energy to accelerate back up to their speed, and so I fell off the back. I have replayed this scene many times now and I have to think that the effort on the first two hills plus a maybe too-long stint at the front just left me too tired to pull out the effort to rejoin the line. But I probably also made a rookie mistake of waiting too late to start accelerating as I reached the back of the line. (Subsequent power data analysis suggests that my peak power for the race occurred at this moment.) And I certainly didn't know then that by losing that paceline I was committing myself to a very long day of largely solo riding.

I soon found myself in the company of one other straggler, and I suggested we work together to try to join the leaders, but we turned out to be a very poor team: he was much bigger than me, and I would lose him on the hills only to see him flying past me on the downhills - and this was with me being as aggressive as I dared on the descents, hitting 40mph at times. There's no substitute for gravity when it comes to descending I guess. We did eventually managed to work together on some rolling sections, and then were joined by two other riders. We lost one of them to a mechanical issue, and the three of us hung together for a while.

Last year's course had a longish flat, paved section in the middle which I recall spending at a very relaxed pace in a paceline, recovering nicely before the 2 serious hills in the last 20 miles. This year, that section had been re-routed to go over dirt roads with another two serious hills. So there was really no place to recover, and eventually my two paceline companions dropped me. (Again, I wonder if I should have dug for something extra to avoid that fate, but I was really pretty spent, and still 30 miles from the finish). Fortunately, I was soon joined by Greg, who was very scantily clad in a pair of torn shorts, testifying to the fact that he had indeed been in that crash way back near the start. To his considerable credit, he had got back up and ridden solo for about 25 miles, passing most of the field to reach me, and we were at this point both in pretty much the same worn-out state. We rode together into the feeding station, where I picked up my third water bottle without incident (unlike last year).

Soon we were on to Meeting House Rd, a series of rolling hills on dirt, where I almost lost it riding through some deep sand, and then a tedious flat section before the final climb. I gave Greg the last dregs of my water (he hadn't picked up a third bottle, and was clearly having an even harder day than me - see, I'm not a totally bad person) and ate a final gel to keep me going.

As we approached the last hill I saw a 10k to go sign which lifted my spirits considerably. Somehow I was always able to find something to get me up the hills in a way that I struggled to match on the flatter sections. The last hill has a few false tops, but eventually I was at the real top, on my own again, with 4 miles of downhill pavement in front of me. I was determined not to lose any more places if I possibly could - last year I was caught by 5 guys on the last section, testament to my dreadful descending abilities, and 4 of them outsprinted me, pointing to another weakness in my arsenal.

Soon I was seeing 5k to go, 4k, etc., and finally into the finish on my own. Greg came in a minute or so back, pictured below. I crossed the finish line feeling a lot more spent than last year - I slumped over the bike while a kindly volunteer asked me if I was OK. I'd compare the feeling as close to the end of a marathon, whereas last year it felt much more like a half-marathon.

Greg holds his shorts together at the finish for the sake of modesty.

I had been trying to keep track of how many people were in front of me, and estimated that I might just have made the top 10. Indeed, that was one of the things that kept me going. After initially showing up as 11th, the official results show me exactly at 10th, which somehow feels a lot better than 11th. Not quite the placing I had hoped for, but I will also say that I went for it a lot more than last year, against what I suspect was a considerably stronger field. And I think I've learned a few things that I can improve on both tactically and in my training. I'll definitely be back next year, hopefully as a Cat 4.