MueckeRacing

Sat on the living room floor with a cup of joe and stretched for a while as I waited for the sun to come up,  then decided to check e-mail and see if Craig had had any luck with the website.  Turns out he had gotten the pic. function to work, so here’s a pic of my new webmaster:  Like all things wordpress, it’s pretty easy once you know what to do.

Anyways, we (Craig and I) took a ride up to Basin City to see the sights.  It is supposed to rain the rest of the week, so it was good to get out and stretch the legs.  The  unplanned week and a half of  early tapering didn’t feel too good on the legs, but hopefully they will come back in the next few days.

Basin City

 The ride went well, though.  Craig had not been up to Basin City by way of Ringold,  so it was a good ride for him to see some new roads.  We stopped in town and found a little sustenance, then turned into the wind and hammered out the 35 miles back to Pasco.  I must admit that for the first time in about five years I did do just a little bit of drafting – it does of course cut down on the workload to let someone else pull for a little while.  The only drawback to going out to Basin City is that it feels like a long ride but you are still about 30 miles short of a century when you get back home.  So we swirled on out to Finley,then turned back into the wind for the final push home.

And in the back of my mind all day : only nine days till RAAM.  Unbelievable.

Short ride this morning to usher in my final RAAM preparations.  Unfortunately, I spent the last week and a half fighting off another round of illness.  Alas, it was a losing battle.  I was loath to go out into the unseasonably cold and wet conditions for fear of aggravating my condition back into a full-blown lung problem again.  So, apparently I took a week and half off as a rest period before RAAM. 

I didn’t feel too bad while riding today, though I could definetely feel the low mileage totals from last week.  Anyways, I ended up meeting up with Craig Coleman again, and he has offered to help out with the website – so look for some changes coming soon.  We are hoping to be able to get it to where we can upload photos during RAAM – there’s a few tricks involved in using the blog software that I don’t have the time or inclination to deal with.

The next few days look to be busy with generating piles of clothes and equipment, then trying to get the van loaded for the journey.. Work is over for a month or so, so I should have enough time to get everything done.  I am definetely looking forward to the start of the race, at which point I will be able to just relax and ride for a while.

The weather continues to be uncooperative – it was yet another morning of 40 degrees, with stiff winds out of the usual headwind by crosswind.  After finally getting up enough interest to go outside, I ambled around the river for a while then rode over to the store.  Looked like about 30 people showed up. 

The main group departed and I ambled along with them for a while, then had to stop to water a sage bush.  Never did see the main group again the rest of the day.  I guess that’s the allure of riding in a peloton – you get to go a bit faster than when you are soloing. 

It finally started to warm up a bit by the time I reached the river, but still not warm enough to take off my jacket.  I ambled over to the “other” Scotts, said hi to Scott himself, had a quick sandwich, then headed home.  Of course I had to take the hilly way home, and as I was pushing along the river in Plymouth towards the Clodfelter climb, I see this woman on her phone.  She flags me down and asks if she was headed in the right direction.  This poor gal had taken 3 1/2 hours to get up the hill then down the other side.  She had called Scott for some assistance, and was now in a quandry as to whether or not she should continue on or wait.  I assured her that waiting would be the best option since she had already called for some help, and continued on my way.

Overall, a cold and windy day for a ride.

Sort of a lazy week, though I did have to commute to work three days. I managed to stretch one morning out a bit, but overall just a recovery week.
Today is the annual Scott’s to Scott’s ride – so after I stack on a few miles this am I will wander over to the store and see who shows up – sometimes the lure of free lunch brings out a pretty good size crowd.

After a restful night in Wenatchee we saddled up and headed home the hilly way.  Brandon took over driver duties while Dad took over the information gathering duties.  All went well for the first two hours as I unwound my legs and burned off yesterday’s lactic acid buildup.  Quite painful actually, but it goes away after a while.  Hopefully I won’t have to endure that during RAAM, as I don’t plan on sleeping long enough to cool down.

We arrived at the base of the real climbing up Blewett pass, and Brandon pulled off in the wide pullout used for installing chains in the winter.  They were about a mile ahead of me when I spotted them. I could also see a pickup of some sort, pointed downhill on the shoulder, facing me.  As I got closer I could see it was moving downhill slowly.

At this point I assumed it was someone just looking at the river, refocused my attention on what delightful mouthful of food Brandon was going to hand me, and paid the truck no more heed.  Until, CRASH, I turned to look, and the truck had rolled off the road, down  the bank and into a tree.  Looked like a total loss, as the front end was wrinkled from bumper all the way to the cab.

At which point some guy comes up out of the river bank with a toothbrush and cup in his hand.  He had stopped on his way down the hill to brush his teeth, set the parking brake, and walked down to the river.  As the brakes cooled off, they lost their hold, and he was out one truck.  Bummer.  Oh, nice – another peanut butter sandwich.  Thanks Brandon.

Blewett Pass came and went, seeming much flatter than I remeber it, then the historic mining town of Liberty – whose cafe was far to crowded for us to stop and wait for a plate of pigs-n-blankets, and then a short little climb before dropping down to Ellensburg.

We hit Ellensburg a few minutes before Taco-del-Mar opened, so I headed towards Yakima while Dad and Brandon purchased me a burrito.  Once again the climb seemed flatter than I remembered, and in short order I was arriving at the viewpoint overlooking the Kittitas valley, and enjoying a hearty lunch of rice, beans, guacomole and Red Bull.

We had a small routing error caused by my trusting the google maps – and got seperated in Yakima for a while.  I ended up ditching my planned route and just staying on the interstate, then heading east on Hwy 24.  I got a little nervous about 7 miles out when I had eaten my last granola bar – but pretty soon Dad and Brandon came along and we continued along.

We made the climb over the ridge in short order, stopped for a ice cream sandwich in Sunnyside, and plowed on.  One last climb up to the plateau over Prosser, a light dinner of clam chowder, and we were hammering our way east into a cooling evening and a 20 mile 2% climb.  No problem.

All in all, a very enjoyable weekend of riding – the tough part came today when I had to work for almost 8 hours, all at once, – in the same day.

Dad and Brandon crewed me for one more ride before RAAM – a short little 200 mile jaunt up to Chelan and then down to Wenatchee.  Turned out to be a great day for a ride – a light, heartening tailwind chased us all the way up to Sims corner.  The temps climbed into the mid 80’s, and for the first time this year I got to use a little sunscreen.

Dad and Brandon did great – though we all made a slight miscalculation early on and left me out on the freeway for about 10 miles with no food.  I managed to get back on top of it in short order though, and we continued to fly northward.  We practiced a few bike swaps, blew through our “time stations” and generally had a good time.

After the turn in Sims corner we were greeted with a fairly strong crossing headwind – which was fine, since it can’t all be a tailwind.  The plummet down the canyon was a great reward to the day’s 9 hour 3000′ foot climb.  Mcneil canyon road has been rebuilt and is a great 12 % drop back to the river.

A quick climb up to Chelan, another drop back to the river and we were on our way to Wenatchee.  Brandon got to try out his new skills as a mechanic and changed out a flat while inside the van.  Great job Brandon!

We were also trying out Alison’s dehydrated food supplies – so every 6 hours I was treated to a nice, warm, home cooked meal!  Great job Alison!

Aside from all that, just another day in the saddle as we traversed four counties and spent all day anticipating some interesting scenery.  Today, we just have a short, 200 mile return journey with as many hills as I could find between here and home!

Saturday was the annual Group Health century ride, and Craig Coleman from Pasco High was looking for a little company for the ride.  I got up at 2, just to make sure I was good and awake by the time I got there at six.  Looked to be sort of a small crowd this year – but maybe everyone else showed up later.

I hung out with Craig for a while and enjoyed the day.  It wasn’t too cold – and not much wind to start out with.  We had our requisite number of flats to deal with, but overall it was a nice ride out to Benton CIty.  From there the course turns uphill to the top of the Plateau before taking you out to Prosser.  The wind had picked up out of the west by now – good practice for Kansas.

Once in Prosser I waved farewell to Craig and headed west.  Sammi had some more school stuff to attend to in Toppenish, and I  had asked her to drop a bag for me in Mabton.  I grabbed the bag and a Red Bull at the mini mart, and headed for Bickleton. 

The initial climb is an 1800 foot thing of misery – steep and unrelenting, but the views of the Yakima Valley are great.  It was a slow climb being weighed down with 3 litres of water and about a half ton of food, but little did I know it was about to get slower.

After topping the first part of the hill, the grade lessens and rolls it’s way south and west onto the vast plateau of farmlands.  Unfortunately, the building storm cells had all decided to collapse at the same time and I found myself pushing into a stiff headwind which threatened to decay to an all out downpour.  Harold Trease had told me about this little climb – I think his words involved an indication of surprise – and I too was a tad surprised that I never seemed to top out.  The actual top of the plateau is up around 3000 feet, and by the time I finally spotted Bickleton in the distance, I was pretty well excercised.

The rain held off, mostly, though I did get a few sprinkles out at the edge of town.  I stopped in at a hardware/gift store – one of only four businesses in the entire two block town, couldn’t find any postcards for Alex and Xavier, and moved on.

The 22 miles down to the river are a fantastic ride.  12 miles of a gradual descent, followed with a dizzying drop down the face of a wickedly steep hillside.  The views are great, the flowers are out, and there was almost no traffic.

Once on the river I was able to hold descent speed,  except for the occaisonal stops to reload the jersey pockets with food.  With 37 miles to go, however, the focasted north winds picked up in earnest, producing a solid cross wind.  I finally made it to Plymouth, stopped in at the tavern for an emergency bottle of water, and headed back over the plateau.

All in all a very nice day for a ride.  I managed to stay awake long enough to eat some dinner and watch a bit of a movie Sammi was watching, then ambled off to bed. 

Just for fun for today, back out of bed at 2am, eat some breakfast, then head out for a Pendleton loop.  Supposed to be sunny and nearly warm enough to go in shirtsleeves.  Guess I will have to leave my jacket and leg warmers on all day – it’s getting really late in the year to try and train for the desert.

First, a few non-bike items:

Wife Sammi had classes in Toppenish all weekend, but had a tooth go bad on her on Friday morning.  The dentist was able to patch it up pretty good, so she headed off to classes.  Son Brandon had his driving test for his license on Saturday morning, so I got up at 3am, and couldn’t go riding.

Meanwhile, the weather report was for strong west winds.

So, after getting Brandon taken care of (he passed and got his license), I ate a huge lunch of leftover fajitas, filled a backpack with food, water and spare shorts, and proceeded to spend 6 hours riding into a wicked headwind.  Good practice for Kansas.  Toppenish is only 65 miles out, but given the late start and the duration of the ride, I was perfectly happy to go find a burger once I arrived in town.

Turns out it was a good thing I decided to head out there, as Sammi wasn’t feeling too well, and appreciated the company.  Plus she wasn’t so sure she should be driving home on Sunday.

Sunday morning was a bit cold, and still windy – I took a quick run up to Wapato to look around, then back to the hotel to help her pack up and find some breakfast.  And then turned back into the wind to spend another three hours wind-burning my face.  I made it out to Fort Simcoe State Park, which is a real nice park tucked way up a valley south of Yakima.  The wildflowers are all out, the sage brush is budding out, and the fact that the entire ride was on the Yakama Nation Indian rez. meant I got in PLENTY of dog sprints.

And then to top off the Kansas training, the wind died for the return journey.  Go figure.  I was looking forward to coasting downwind all the way back to Toppenish, but instead got to work for it.  Perfect.