Solvang Training Camp - Day 2

Day 2 - Drum Canyon Time Trial. This ride started out with an easy (well, OK, it wasn't totally easy) ride, maybe 15 miles, to the start of the time trial. It was cold out for the start of the ride, maybe 40 degrees and very cold in the shade. Once I stepped into the sunshine, it wasn't too bad. Each camper was given a bag to put in the SAG (support and gear) vehicles. These bags could include extra clothes, nutrition and whatever else you thought you might need throughout the ride. Since I was wearing nearly every piece of clothing I brought, I put a couple of packages of Luna Moons and a Clif Bar in my bag and proceeded to throw it in my designated van. I felt very awkward when I got on my bike. This is not unusual, since I hadn't been on my bike outdoors since November. I felt a little shaky and riding in a group of people I wasn't used to riding with made me quite uneasy. I dropped a water bottle within the first 15 minutes of the ride. Thankfully, no one in the group hit it and we continued on.

We got to the start of this time trial and I was told it was flat for the first couple of miles and then it was uphill for the last 3 miles. The key (or so I heard) was to not blast out too fast because you'd be dying by the end of it. All the groups met up and the SAG vehicles pulled up. I was quite toasty now and seeing as this was going to be a hard effort, I stripped down to just a jersey and shorts. I even switched to half-finger gloves, so it must've been warming up! I saw one of the more experienced cyclists also putting both his water bottles in his SAG bag. Said he didn't need the extra weight. I didn't think a water bottle was going to make a difference, but I took one out and left one on the bike. The campers were swarmed around the back of the van, stuffing clothes into their bags and bananas and Clif Bars in their mouths. I put my stuff in the bag and threw it in the van as fast as I could. It was organized chaos and I wanted to get away from it as fast as I could.

I got to the start line where one of our support crew stood there with a watch, starting cyclists about every 20 seconds. The rep from Saris was at the front of the line coaching us through resetting our Power Taps so we could accurately record the needed information (average watts, time and kjs). I was happy that I had attended his talk the day before because I knew how to reset my info.

Before I could even get nervous about the ride, it was my turn. I took off but made sure not to overexert myself in the first couple of miles. I can also tell you that it didn't feel all that "flat" to me. I was passed more times than I care to recall, and then the uphill started. I down shifted. Then again...and again...soon I was in my lowest gear and I had brought a 12-27. You've got to be kidding me! I was going so slow! I checked my rear tire several times...I was sure it was flat. Nope. That's just me going slow. Passed again...and again...I stop counting the dudes passing me. The road winds and, in true IMWI fashion, around every curve, it goes uphill even more. I start to wonder if this is longer than 5 miles because it sure is taking me a very long time to ride this! (for the record, everyone went under 30 minutes) This was taking FOREVER! Sweat was pouring down my face and I was so happy I took off all those extra clothes. It was so quiet out there, I could hear myself breathing loudly with each pedal stroke. It was extremely difficult not to get up out of the saddle, but I didn't want to further damage the hamstring.

Finally, there was a mark on the road indicating that I had just 2K left. What felt like a half our later was a 1K mark. Jeez, how much further is 1K? Then I could hear a cow bell and Robbie yelling and cheering people to the finish. Sounded like it was just around the corner. Up, up and yet further up the road was going. There were hairpin turns and I could hear the voices, but come ON ALREADY, where ARE THESE GUYS!?? How much further? Just as the road began to get steeper, I made another turn and I could see Robbie Ventura standing in the middle of the road. He would start yelling the names of the cyclists as they got close to the end.

The finish was rather uneventful because it ended on a slight uphill, so no one came flying through. There was a small collection of cyclists about 200 yards up the road discussing the ride and comparing wattage. I slowly rode past them to begin the descent. We were warned the night before that the descent was fast and dangerous. The road was rough. There were many potholes and lots of shade on the road so, in many cases, you couldn't see the pothole until you were just about to ride through it. They say not to be tense as you ride down, but that was near impossible. My hands were on the brakes almost the entire descent. Any time I took one hand off, just to stop it from cramping, I picked up too much speed, got scared and had to put my hand back on the brakes again. Many of the more experienced cyclists flew right past me, sometimes scaring the crap out of me not just because they were going so fast, but they came a little too close.

My hands ached by the time I got to the bottom. The SAG vehicles were down there waiting for us so I put my extra water bottle back in, grabbed something to eat and went back to my bike and waited for the rest of the group to join us. We were to finish with an easy ride home which I didn't find so easy. The group took several stops along the way to let everyone catch up. It was now pretty warm outside and the scenery was beautiful. All of us were happy to be outside on our bikes!

As soon as we got back to the hotel, I dropped my bike on the designated rack. I had just 10 minutes to go up to my room, put my swimsuit on and jump in the van for the swim workout. It was now 12:45pm. The swim was crazy. There were about 20 of us packed into 3 lanes. I ended up getting into a lane that was a little too fast for me, but it felt nice to try and stretch out after that tough ride. When the swim was over, we weren't even given enough time to shower and we were being hustled back into the van.

Back at the hotel, I got out of one van and into another to be carted over to my massage. (I will write a whole other entry on the massage!!) A group of us got our massages and got back to the hotel. It was now after 4pm - the cut off time for entering all our ride information!! I quickly logged in and uploaded my info from the day.

I then washed all the cycling clothes I had worn that day and took a quick shower. Then it was time for dinner. The day flew by and there was absolutely no down-time. I hoped the rest of the camp wasn't going to be quite as hectic. The dinner was in the same room as the first night, again, buffet style. There was a re-cap of the day, a small presentation and then an overview of the next day's events. I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the dinner/meeting. We had a brutal day in store for us and I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

Solvang Training Camp - Day 1

I went into this camp thinking "we're not riding 100 miles a day, what am I going to do with all my down time?" I couldn't have been more off in my thinking.

I arrived at the Santa Barbara airport with some other campers in the early afternoon on Monday. We had to wait a couple of hours for someone to come and pick us up to drive us to Solvang. The time seemed to fly while we were waiting because the campers got to know each other, some of us were first-time campers, others were returning campers. It also helped that it was in the low 70's so as we stood out on the curb chatting, we were taking in all the fresh air and sunshine.

The drive to our hotel was beautiful and sort of intimidating. The hills in that part of the country are like nothing we can see here in the midwest. Even the IMWI or Horribly Hilly courses do not compare with the hilly and rolling terrain near Solvang. I began to wonder what I had gotten myself into.

As we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, a group of cyclists was taking off for an unorganized ride. There was nothing planned for a ride this day because most campers were just arriving this day. I hoped I could get into my room, put on some cycling clothes and get out for a ride before it got too cool and dark outside. I went to the hotel lobby to wait in line to check in. I was handed a Camp Guide and a list of all the attending campers. In total, there were about 65 of us, including campers and coaches.

I dragged my overstuffed suitcase up a flight of stairs to my room and I noticed my roommate had already checked in, but was not in the room. She had already staked her claim to one side of the bathroom sink and placed her stuff near one of the beds. The hotel was nice with a faux fireplace and flat screen television in each room. During the whole trip, that television was not turned on one time.

I rummaged through my suitcase to find my bike pedals. I ran downstairs to the mechanics' trailer to ask them to put the pedals back on my bike. I found my bike easily on one of the racks they had set up in the parking lot. I looked it over quickly and it seems to have made the trip to Solvang with no incidents. A couple of VQ coaches had driven the bikes out to Solvang in a large rental van. The very thought of my bike squeezed in there and bouncing around with other bikes was a bit nerve-wracking. I was thankful my bike is titanium...holds up to just about anything.

One of the mechanics put the pedals on and I looked around and there really wasn't anyone else to ride with. The other campers that came in with me talked about a ride, but just listening to them, I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up. I was looking for another female camper to head out with, but the women campers were few and far between. I was bummed I took such a late flight, then decided there would be plenty of biking to do this week, so I shouldn't worry about it.

I went to my room and unpacked some of my things and flipped through the Camp Guide to get an idea of what was in store for us. On paper, nothing looked that difficult. The agendas seemed short and I tried to plan out what activities I would attend. I noticed there was a talk on "Intro to PowerTap" happening in just 10 minutes, so I once again rummaged through my big suitcase to find the PowerTap and head down by the mechanics' trailer to educate myself on how to work this device.

Though I was one of the first 2 campers to show up for this talk, other campers wandered over and I think about 10 of us were there for the presentation. There was a representative from Saris who was very knowledgeable and walked us through set up, display, setting intervals and basically answered any question we had. It was extremely helpful for me, because I never even read my PowerTap manual. I went back to my room, where my roommate returned from her ride (oh, was I jealous). We talked a little, and then it was time for dinner.

Dinner was in a large conference center set up in tables of 8 or 10. The food was set up buffet-style just outside the doors of the conference center, outside. It was getting rather cool outside and I wondered how the temperature would be in the morning for our first ride. As the campers and coaches filed in the conference center with their plate of food, the volume of voices steadily increased. The excitement was in the air and people were getting to know each other.

About half way through dinner, Robbie Ventura got up and put an agenda, projected from a computer, up on a screen (well, it was a wall, but what's the difference?) He welcomed us and gave us a quick over view of the camp. We were assigned to pre-arranged teams, which would compete for points throughout the camp. Another coach came up and discussed safety protocol. Another one came up to talk about logistics and other basic frequently asked questions. Our teams then broke out to other areas to create a team name and practice pacelining. I've never practiced pacelining on foot, but I didn't have a whole lot of pacelining experience, so I was trying to learn what was to be expected when we got out on our bikes the next day.

Cyclists are very particular about the way they ride and if you don't follow the rules, you are opening yourself up to be yelled and screamed at. Most of the time, those yells and screams aren't meant the way they come out, but it makes you feel like crap when it happens. Cyclists also have a very distinct "we" vs. "they" mentality. Know who the "they" are? Triathletes. According to many cyclists, triathletes are terrible bikers and we have no idea what we're doing.

And in this very first breakout, one of the cyclists spoke up and said, "OK, who here are the triathletes?" Many of us raised our hands. He then proceeded to say, "Alright, all you guys stay in the back and try not to screw up our ride." I rolled my eyes. This guy hasn't seen a single one of us ride, but he's already got us "screwing" up "his" ride. Unbelievable. I wonder if he realizes how much of an a-hole he sounds like. Probably not.

We went back in the conference center where the teams introduced their names. Robbie then got up and went over how the points would be distributed. Most of that was run through so quickly, it was confusing and we were all looking at each other like, "What did he just say?" But it wasn't a big deal because we were all just excited to be out there to ride for the week. Two of the four teams had the option to sign up for massages the next day. I had to quickly review the agenda to make sure I didn't schedule the massage over one of the activities I wanted to partake in. Then I just had to hope that time slot was available by the time I got to the sign-up sheet!

Each day, we were to upload ride information into the web portal. You can check out the portal by clicking on the "badge" here on the right-hand side of my blog. Or you can go to www.vqsolvang.ning.com. This site was put up to house all our reports, ride data, pictures, videos and messages regarding the camp. We were to log on to this site every day to keep abreast of new information and just stay connected to the other campers. Very cool site.
Some of the information we were to upload each day included time rode, miles, KJs, average watts, max watts, rider of the day, quote of the day and a few other things that I can't remember at the moment. This information needed to be completed each day by 4pm. All this information was then collected and points distributed via some formula. There were 2 competitions - the team competition and the individual camper competition. Again, not sure how all this was computed, but we were told that it evened things out, so one of the weakest cyclists could still compete with the best cyclist in the camp.

By the end of all this, we were quite exhausted. It was about 10pm CA time, which is midnight Chicago time and I had gotten up at 5am that morning. I was anxious to get to bed and get some sleep. The first day was the time trial (most of it uphill) which would determine what groups we'd ride in. Once back in the room, I set my alarm and fell asleep the second my head hit the pillow.

Return from Solvang

Got back into town very late last night from Solvang. I took my laptop to camp thinking that I'd be able to update you all each day on the happenings in camp, but that obviously didn't happen. There was pretty much no down time for me during the entire week. I do plan to write about a lot of the things that we did at camp, but that will have to wait for a bit.

I have never pushed myself so hard as I did at this camp. It was an awesome experience and I learned so much about cycling as well as myself. I experienced very high moments as well as very low moments, met lots of great people, had lots of laughs and was happy to be OUTDOORS on my bike.

More later...

Packing for Solvang

Well, I just finished packing my bags for my trip to Solvang for a Vision Quest Cycling Camp. This is the first (of I hope, many) cycling camp I've ever gone to. I've been fielding a lot of questions about the camp, but I really have no idea what we're going to do. Just 2 days ago, I got a sheet that approximated the mileage of the rides. Until I received that sheet, I thought we might be riding 100+ miles every day! I'm thankful that this is not the case. Oh, and guess who will be there...GORDO!

Solvang, CA is really hilly. I went last year with BC and met CL up there to do the Solvang Century ride. It's a HUGE ride...I think there were 5000 participants. It's very different in CA, much more bike friendly than here in the midwest. These people were telling me they get to ride outside EVERY DAY of the year. Can you imagine that?

You might have noticed the "badge" here on my blog to the right, listing my participation in the Solvang Camp. Click on that link if you want to find out what's going on with me and the rest of the campers. I've never had the opportunity to be a part of this sort of web portal, but it was put into place for the campers to communicate, upload the power files from our daily rides, etc. and download photos and videos. It's a really cool site! Hopefully it will give you a little taste of what attending a cycling camp is like. I've charged up my camera (it wasn't working for a while, which is why you haven't seen any pictures on my blog lately) and I'm hoping to get some good pictures to put here.

I'm nervous about going with the bum hamstring. In fact, I considered bailing on the trip all together. The last thing I want to do is ruin all the progress I've been making while straining up some stupid hill. I'm taking all the precautions I can and will be following specific instructions from my physical therapist. My rides not be the best they can in the hills right now, but getting out on open roads beats the CompuTrainer any day! I'm looking foward to the fresh air, sunshine and camaraderie of the other campers.