Race Report: Over the Hump 2010 #1

Tuesday afternoon was the first race in this summer’s Over the Hump Race Series at Irvine Lake. It was a good turnout for the first race: a total of 355 riders of varied skill levels and ages. The race this year is a little different from it’s inaugural year (last summer), and in all good ways. Main difference being that there are 12 races in the series this year, whereas last year there were only 2. Also, at least 50% of the course was new as a result of much the old course being a few to several feet under water (the water level of the lake is higher at the beginning of summer). From my understanding, the course will change slightly race to race, which should make for a fun, new challenge each week.

Another change (and I will have to say improvement) to this year’s race series are the number plates. Last year (presumeably because it was the inaugural year and there were only two races) the number plates were printed cardstock (ok.. maybe a little stronger than that), and would definitely not have lasted more than 6 races. This year, number plates are plastic and rather nice looking. My number for the series is 127.

#127!!! Ready to ROCK!

I must give credit where credit’s due. Most of the improvements to the race are the result of the hard efforts of the race directors, Matt Wenger and John Russell, and the many volunteers who helped create the course, organized registration, and manned the trail. They all made this race run very smoothly. But.. credit also has to be given to the sponsors:

Verizon Wireless - Title Sponsor
Specialized
H2O Overdrive
Oakley
Crank Brothers
SDG Components
Two Brothers Racing
Silversage Advisors
Kawasaki

And most importantly, our local bike shops:

Rock’n'Road Cyclery
Surf City Cyclery
Jax Bicycle Center
Bike Religion
The Path Bike Shop

I had an awesome race on Tuesday. Minh and I got there early enough so that I could pre-ride the course. I have to say that I was a little nervous that I wouldn’t do that well since I haven’t really been focused on training for this series. It’s just a fun series to do on Tuesday nights. I was pleasantly surprised at my time on my “warm-up”, and thought that I would do pretty well during the race.

Back from the warm up...

The first half of the course had a couple steady climbs and some nice single track .There was also one descent that looks like you’re going straight into the water, but makes a sharp right to some switchbacks.

The second half (after crossing the water bridge) started off easy enough with some rolling hills and open course. Before hitting the end of the loop (which is through the parking lot, back to the start), the course narrows to single track and snakes through a tree-covered area. This part was fun, but really bumpy, probably because it was new. There was one surprise climb out of nowhere just before hitting this singletrack. It was pretty much hike-a-bike at this part because no one had the momentum to get up this short (must’ve been less than 25 yards, but really really steep) section or the person in front of you had stopped and blocked your line (not on purpose though). The singletrack opens into a clearing and then the parking lot and then you’re back at the start, ready for your next lap.

heading to the FINISH!

I did pretty well. There was one girl in my class ahead of me that I was trying to catch up to. I caught her at the beginning of my second lap and stuck with her on the fireroad and the climb, but once we got to the singletrack, I was stuck behind some people and she was out of my sights. Then, when I headed back to do the second half of the loop, I saw her just ahead of me while I was crossing the water bridge. She was in my sights for most of that part until we hit the hike-a-bike and singletrack, where I got stuck behind some more riders and lost her. I finished in 42:26.0, just one minute after her, in second place. I was happy to take second, especially because there were more than 2 people riding in my class (11 women in the Beginner class).

During the race, Crank Brothers had put a bunch of golden envelopes around the trail that would contain either entry to a raffle or free gear. I was keeping an eye out for them because I love free stuff, and I almost jumped off my bike when I saw one. This was on my second lap after crossing the water bridge. It was stuck to one of the directional posts. I was able to grab it without getting off my bike, but i couldn’t fold it and get it into my jersey pocket. I had to stop to do that. That is at least 10 seconds of unnecessary rest time. I guess I need to practice putting things in my jersey pockest during races.

I got the Golden Ticket... ::music::

When I finished the race, I headed over to the Crank Brothers tent to claim my prize. I won a set of Split QRS, which are quick release skewers. I already have a set of blue ones on my mountain bike, so I grabbed a pair of red ones, thinking that it would match well with my 29er. But Minh reminded me that my 29er doesn’t use quick release because it’s a singlespeed. Just means I’m going to need to buy a new mountain bike (or a cross bike??). ::wink wink::

YAY!!! New Split QSRs from Crank Brothers!

Since there are more races in the series this time, there are better chances to get points and move up in ranks (series winner determined by best 9 races out of 12). I’ve signed up to compete in the entire series (saved me a little money) and expect to do pretty well the rest of the season. Looking forward to sporting the Leader’s Jersey at some point during the summer (which is another new thing this time around).

Minh and I hung around, waiting for results to get posted. I came away with a nice OTH 2010 glass, a beanie, and a H2O Overdrive waterbottle. I also scored a free t-shirt from Surf City Cyclery and VerizonWireless (did I mention yet that I love free stuff?). This is looking like it’ll be an awesome summer series.

Stay tuned for more race reports and updates as the summer and the series continues. Here’s the GALLERY!!!

Back from the warm up…

#127!!! Ready to ROCK!

heading to the FINISH!

I got the Golden Ticket… ::music::

YAY!!! New Split QSRs from Crank Brothers!

Status: Single…

JUST KIDDING!!! Like I would ever leave Minh (or he would ever leave me). Nope, this new status has to do with the new addition to our cycling family.. my new SingleSpeed 29er from Nashbar (!!!). This brings our current total bike count to 8.

I bought this as a birthday present to myself. I had told Minh that I wanted to build up a singlespeed over the summer just for kicks. I also thought it would be nice to have a 29er, just to see what it was like (having neer ridden one before). Minh said that it would be hard (and expensive) to find a 29er frame in my size (extra tiny) and even more difficult to find a singlespeed. Luckily for me, he’s great at scouring the internet for what he needs. A few days later, he showed me a complete singlespeed 29er from Nashbar that came in my size (15″) !!! The standover height was a little more than his S-Works hardtail, which I have ridden before. This would be a reach for my little legs, but it wouldn’t be too bad. The whole point is stay ON the bike, right?  

We ordered the bike and it arrived about a week later (after my birthday, but no worries about that). This is what was waiting for me after work: 

A present at my door!!!

We had to haul it over to Minh’s house to actually start putting it together (there’s no space at my house.. or tools). It was a little bit of a hassle to have to take it over there in the little CRV, but we made it ok (Minh did all of the muscle work getting it into/out-of the car). There was a lot of cushioning/packaging protecting the bike. I guess that’s a good thing becuase I didn’t want my bike to come already scratched up. It took me a while to get it all out of the box, eventually Minh just told me to rip the box apart, since we wouldn’t be using it again anyway.

RIP!!! TEAR!!!

We put the frame on the stand to start assembling the bike. I had to remove the fork because Minh got his hands on a “new” one for me (not rigid).

Good bye OEM rigid fork... you will not be missed..

The bearing spacer was different on the two forks, so Minh had to knock out the one that was on the original fork and put it on the new one. Probably not the safest way to do it, but it got the job done

Kids.. do not try this at home.. method is not advised..

We swapped out the breaks and rotors for a different/better set. We also went to a bigger rotor in the back for more stopping power.

Switching out the rotors

After we had it somewhat thrown together, we realized that the steer tube (not really sure of the nomenclature) was too long. So Minh had to trim that down quite a bit. Again.. probably not the safest way to do it, but it got the job done. We really didn’t have anywhere to clamp the guide to.. so Minh was just very careful not to cut himself.

Again.. do not try this at home, at work, at the park, at school.. just don't try it!

Put the whole thing together and did a couple laps up and down the street. Felt pretty good, definitely different from the Era that I normally ride. I couldnt’ really tell you how it was different.. mostly I felt higher up and like I was rolling slightly faster, but that may have been in my head. It was weird to not have gears to shift through, though.

Rollin' along...

Here’s a shot of the bike fully built up.

Fully built, but far from finished..

 There are still some changes that need to be made. We’re going to swap out the handlebars, wheels and tires, stem.. at least. Maybe a few other things here and there.

We took the bike out for a ride at Fullerton Loop on Saturday (sorry, no pictures). Minh rode his cross bike. Took us about 1 hour 30 minutes, which isn’t super fast, but also isn’t bad for being on a singlespeed. I had to walk two of the steeper climbs, but one of them I could have probably powered through if I really tried. The ride is a little bit bumpier with a hardtail, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. Looks like what I really need to work on is being able to power up hills and keeping momentum/speed.

Here’s the gallery of pictures from the build: 

A present at my door!!!

Good buy OEM rigid fork… you will not be missed..

Kids.. do not try this at home.. method is not advised..

Switching out the rotors

Again.. do not try this at home, at work, at the park, at school.. just don’t try it!

Rollin’ along…

Fully built, but far from finished..

Under Vacuum

I’m finally getting around to posting about my awesome new kitchen gadget… the SOUS VIDE SUPREME!!!! Minh got me this for my birthday, a little over a week ago. It was exciting to pull it out of the box. It was also exciting to pull the FoodSaver out of the box.

Here they are side-by-side.. after getting rid of all the packaging. We weren’t able to test out the Sous Vide Supreme right away, but we were able to test out the FoodSaver on some salami we had in the fridge.

Last last Sunday, we were finally able to test it out. In the morning, we made some soft-boiled eggs. We figured that it would be an easy experiment to start out with. We put 8 eggs in at 63deg C for 45 minutes.

The eggs turned out probably a little underdone than we are used to, like lightly poached eggs, but they tasted like no eggs I’ve ever had before. They were buttery and creamy without having added anything to them. It was delicious. We’ll need to experiment on some different temperatures and times until we find out what we really like, but this was a good start.

For dinner we made chicken drumsticks that my mom had marinated with garlic, light salt and pepper, and a little bit of sugar.. no oil or butter or any fat (other than what was already in the chicken). We cooked it at 64.5deg C for 2.5 hours. Afterwards, I pulled it out and stuck it under the broiler for 10 minutes to get a nice crispy, golden skin on it. Served with steamed veggies and mushroom risotto.

What was really awesome about cooking sous vide, even though it takes ages to get food done and you really need to plan it, you can set it and not have to think about it. We put the chicken in, ran some errands, and watched Food, Inc. while all before the chicken needed to be pulled out. It was AWESOME! I’m really looking forward to getting more meals out of this thing.

Enjoy the GALLERY…

Birthday Festivities

The birthday weekend has come and gone, and this year did not disappoint. The weekend started with a delicious dinner at Agora Churrascaria.. and the best part was that dinner came with a show!! About halfway through our meal, the gauchos (meat servers) came swinging down from ropes hanging from the ceiling. Then they started sword-fighting Zorro-style with their meat skewers.. it was AWESOME!!! And you must know by now that I am completely joking..  but that didn’t stop us from imagining it (and dreaming about it that night). Dinner was delicious with 16 different meats and a full salad bar and good wine courtesy of Anh Thu.

No clubbing or late night bar-hopping after dinner. Mostly because I’m an old fogie who sleeps at 9PM and doesn’t like to party anymore. Actually, that’s not completely true. I like to party.. but I’d rather not have to pay for it or dress up for it. And I’d rather spend a night in with friends having good conversation then hanging around skeezy old men in loud bars. The other reason is because Minh and I needed to get up early for the SHARE Poker Ride the next day.. which brings me to…

Pick a card... any card...

Saturday was GREAT! I haven’t truly been mountain biking in A WHILE. And it kind of bums me out that I don’t really get to mountain bike as much as I would like (for whatever reason) so I was really excited to do this ride. It started off easy enough with some long, gradual climbing. But that easy riding didn’t last long, and there were some hike-a-bike sections and some skid-a-bike-down sections that Minh and I weren’t ready to conquer yet. Actually, there were some sections that I don’t think Minh and I will ever conquer (in both directions). Here’s a picture of us before the ride (you can tell it’s before because we’re still smiling).

I was able to handle the ride ok, but I was definitely not prepared for it, physically or nutritionally. I had a bottle of Cytomax in the cage, a bottle of water in my jersey, and two GUs. Minh had two bottles of water. That was it between the two of us. We were out for about four hours (about two and a half hours of actual riding time). So you can imagine that we were pretty starving (at least I was) at the end. Grabbed a Powerbar and some more water from the Rock’n'Road tent, which was magical (almost), at the finish line. We also had a banana in the car that was still cool enough to eat.

On the way back to the car, Minh rode ahead and took some cool picturs of me on the mountain bike. Some of them turned out pretty good.

After the ride, we headed home, cleaned up and inhaled some Powerade, then took a quick nap while we waited for Scott and Laurie to go to lunch (not a good nutritionally).

We had lunch at The Counter in Irvine. For all the hype I’ve heard and read about this place, I was afraid I would be disappointed with this place. I don’t know if I was crazy hungry or what, but my burger was DELICIOUS.. as were the fries (regular and sweet potato) and all the sauces.

50/50 fries and sweets

I ordered a 1/3 lb beef burger with Danish blue cheese, grilled onions, organic greens and shredded carrots, and garlic aioli on honey wheat bun. I could only eat half of it (as a result of one of my debilitating stomach aches that was a result of not eating immediately after the ride… or during), but it was still good.

Blue Cheese Burger with Garlic Aioli

The rest of the weekend as relaxed. Dinner and a movie with mom, Anni, and Morgan. Sunday running errands and hanging out with Minh. We made eggs for brunch and chicken for dinner with the Sous Vide Supreme (I’ll post more on that later) and watched Food, Inc.

Overall, it was a good weekend and a good birthday. My glass is raised to a long and fulfilling life with friends, family, and love.

Enjoy the GALLERY…

Pick a card… and card…

Happy Birthday to ME!!!

26 years ago, today, I was able to give my mom the BEST (belated) Mother’s Day Present EVER (!!!). What might this spectactacular present be, you might ask? … ME (of course)! And I think the present has only let her down a handful of times (actually, only one time comes to mind…).

Not too much in store for the birthday weekend. Dinner tonight at Agora Churrascaria. SHARE Poker Ride tomorrow morning. Lunch with Scott and Laurie. Dinner and a movie (maybe Robin Hood??) with the family. No plans as of yet for Sunday (probably try to get a long run in).

This morning, I opened my FIRST birthday present from the man who gives the BEST presents in the world!!! Last Christmas, my sister gave me Under Pressure, the fourth cookbook from Thomas Keller, to round out my collection of Thomas Keller cookbooks. We had no intentions to make anything sous vide, especially because an immersion circulator is RIDICULOUSLY expensive.. and that doesn’t even include the water bath. However, it’s nice to look at the cookbook and dream about what could have been. Anyway.. Minh got me this Sous Vide Supreme to use at home!!! And he got me a FoodSaver!! I was going to put this stuff on the registry, whenever we got around to that (as in.. getting married, not putting together a registry.. that’s the easy part), but now.. !!! This makes room for other stuff on the registry. I’m excited to start making things with it. Maybe this is why he’s been pushing to get a new freezer.

In other news.. training has been.. meh. Swimming has been improving since I’ve been really good about getting up to go to Masters Swim Practice three days a week. I can’t tell yet if it’s helping, but I think it will. What I notice the most about it is that other people are CRAZY fast and that my arms are more sore now than when I was swimming on my own before (I guess that’s a good sign).

I’ve decided to start the Best Running Workout You’ve Never Done, which is essentially 30-second intervals at VO2max until you can’t do anymore. I ran my 6-minute time-trial yesterday and got 0.76 mile (which is good for me… 7:52 min/mile!!). I’m hoping that adding these intervals once a week for about 2 months should help improve my speed and hopefully my endurance. I’ll keep you posted with new 6-min time-trials every 4-5 weeks. My starting reference (other than the 6-min time-trial) is the 10 miles I ran on Sunday, which I did in just under 2 hours. That’s pretty pathetic if I want to be competitive (which I do).

And.. Cycling.. well… is cycling. No improvements on this front as of yet, but a bunch of new equipment to try out. First, Minh picked me up new wheels for my road bike: Shimano RS-80. These are replacing my current set which were Mavik Aksium Race wheels. I don’t usually know what the difference is, but there’s a huge weight difference on these. The Mavics were 2lbs 2oz in front and 2lbs 6oz in the rear, compared to the RS-80s which are 1lb 7oz in the front and 1lb 15oz in the rear.  Supposedly, they’re going to get me to go faster and climb better. I don’t really understand how better wheels will do that without any extra effort.. but I also think that knowing that I have better wheels will instill something in my brain to get me to try harder on climbs.

I’ve also got a S/S 29er coming the the mail!!! I wanted to build it up myself (pick out all the parts), but it was too hard (and going to get expensive) to get all the parts individually (especially trying to find a frame for my petite little self). Minh found one that was fully built up that should work pretty well for me.. and I can always convert it to 1-9 if I can’t handle the S/S. The up-side is that I do get to build it up once it comes since it’s being delivered to us for assembly. I’ll post more details and pictures once it gets assembled and I get my first ride on it.

I’ve got tons of pictures to post up, but don’t have them with me at the moment. I’ll get around to posting some galleries later… Specifically of the Long Beach Bike Festival last weekend: Long Beach Grand Prix Men’s Pro 1/2 Race and CycleStyle Fashion Show.. and some other random things along with birthday weekend updates. In the mean time, have fun clicking on links and … keep on keepin’ on.

Love,
TRAN!

P.S. Got my new copy of Triathlete Magazine (the swimsuit issue!!)  in the mail yesterday and was able to get a quick scan through before going to bed. WTF is this?!?!?!  I’m not really sure how I feel about this ad campaign from Fi’zi:k , and I don’t even think they make swimsuits. Now I kind of know what Chrissie Wellington looked like when she was riding around Nepal with dysentery.  More comments over at Slowtwitch.com.

The NEW and IMPROVED Training Plan

I haven’t posted much in a while. Mostly because not much has been going on (no races, no special rides), so there really wasn’t much to report. Lately, I’ve just been hanging out, getting some training in here and there, and Minh and I had a fun trip to Seattle for a wedding. However, I thought this would be a good place to post (and discuss) my new and improved training plan.

Since I started training for races (of all types), I had always put together my own training plans based on articles I read and by gauging my overall fitness level. The first resource works pretty well because there are boatloads of people out there with great advice on how (and how not) to train. The second resource isn’t such a good gauge because I often quit before my limits are reached (it would seem after a workout that I always feel like I could have pushed harder). Some other problems with planning my own training schedule was that I always felt it was about quantity rather than quality. I would try to get more miles, rather than quality miles. I would start skipping and falling away from the training plan. I would start to dread running when I actually do like it. I didn’t have any rest days scheduled, and I always felt like there was never enough time to do all the other things I wanted to do. It always seemed like something needed to be sacrificed.

Well.. Minh finally took a good look at my training plan, and gave me some good advice. The new plan focuses more on intervals, “quality” runs, and short workouts during the week, with longer rides/runs during the weekend. It also allows for more free time and time to “crosstrain”.. and by “crosstrain”, I mean yoga, strength building, EMS, massage etc. Here we go (click on it to enlarge):

Overall, if I put hard effort in during the intervals, then I should start improving. Also, masters swimming should help a lot with getting  me faster and more efficient in the water. We’ll see with the through the summer if this is actually helping me improve or if it’s another failed training plan.