TJ Woodruff ONLINE

Today’s race was a scorcher and I can’t imagine how hot it would have been anywhere that wasn’t so close to Lake Superior Temps were probably in the mid 80’s with full sunshine and a fair share of humidity. The first three of five laps where quite uneventful. We rolled around the 18 mile flat circuit doing about 100 watts or so. Seriously, one time I looked down to see that my HR was at 79 bpm. A couple of guys had rolled off the front, grouped together and put some serious time into our main group. With two laps to go the gap was at six minutes. Not long after this it was unanimously decided that we should start bike racing. One guy from GP, Bjorn, and I did a lot of pace making at the front with the help of some of the others that I don’t know too well. These last two laps were quite hard and I was pleased with the effort level since it would actually count as training. The final miles were full of attacks and late race antics. GP would attack, I’d bridge, some one would counter and this went on for what seemed like an eternity. In the end I came up one attack too short and was totally spent with about 200 meters to go so I rolled across in 11^th.  A huge thanks goes out to Mr. Chris Anderson, who was kind enough to reload me up with two bottles in the feedzone. With the heat and sun and 89 mile distance, I surely would have had problems out there without the help. All in all a good day of training. Thanks to the Lake Superior guys who put on this great first time event. Stop by the SickBlog for another, more thorough race analysis.

Yesterday I also did a length ride, 80 miles with good pals Chad and Frank. These miles fall into my ‘junk training’ category, but it was fun to catch up with these guys and a ride always makes for a good opportunity. I hadn’t seen Frank since the Off Road Classic back in May of ’05 and it had been since December since Chad and I hung out. The 80 miles was about the right distance to fit in the numerous conversations that took place.  We rode about 10 miles of dirt too, half being on the Gandy Dancer Trail and the other being a section of road construction. Chad managed to get not one, but two flats on this section. He blamed the second flat on the red anodizing that’s on the inside of my frame pump… Maybe he doesn’t know how to get enough air in and that caused the second flat… Either way, his flat fixing commentary was enough to have Frank and me laughing pretty hard!

This week has been all about recovery. Last week’s four day block had me quite worn out, easy rides were on order. Yesterday I got out for the city park tt action here in Spooner. I’ve always heard stories about how much fun this weekly ride is and I was by no means let down. Seeing a lot of familiar faces and riding some incredible trails can’t be beat. After all, these are the trails that I first fell in love with, way back when I first got a mountain bike. We never actually ‘raced’, but we kept a solid tempo for three laps on the six mile, predominately singletrack circuit. Next week we race! I’ll be cracking the whip again with some intervals the next couple of days and I might even get up to Superior to do the South Range RR. Maybe I can get Sova to join me for that one… All for now, I want to get out on the bike.

I always seem to talk about how the weekend flew by with so much excitement and all. This post will be no different.

Some fast crusing in Minnesota.

Stop number one on the weekend was in Inver Grove Heights for the MNSCS opener at a brand new venue. It’s always good to line up with familiar faces after racing a bunch of ‘numbers’ out west. Around here, you get to know everyone’s story which makes the racing more exciting at times. This race was super-tough, (as if any mtb races are easy), but honestly this one was different. The flat terrain forced you to pedal the big ring the entire time. I was looking for every opportunity to coast out there, but I never found a good one. The suffer-o-meter was cranked pretty high as I rolled around the course cutting my own wind for a majority of the six lap raced. I crossed the line in 8^th; respectable, but not what I had hoped for. Perhaps my legs were tired from the Thursday and Friday interval workouts where I was doing new personal best wattages…

I must say that Doug was absolutely flying out there, the Moore boys have hit the nail on the head with their season preparations and Justin Rinehart was rallying pretty dang hard. Good thing I’m not in semi-pro having to race him at the norbas!

Cresting the climb at Alpine Valley.

After this Minnesota madness, my dad and I toured HWY 94 to southern Wisconsin en route to the Alpine Valley WORS. My legs were quite heavy from the race and kept me up a little that night before I finally fell asleep. By Sunday morning the recovery process had done its trick and I was feeling up to the challenge of second xc event in as many days. The race was going to be a gun fight with other Norba riders Tristan and Matt Kelly toeing the start line along with the usual suspects Brian Matter and Doug Swanson. At the top of the start climb I knew that it was going to be a good day on the bike as I was firing on all cylinders. By the end of lap one Doug and Matt had opened up a gap while I chased them with Tristan in tow. Laps two and three Tristan and I would trade pulls at the front, but we were never really going that hard. Perhaps we should have been hitting it a little harder, but we were still pulling back Matt and Brian wasn’t catching us too quickly. By lap four we had the gap to Matt down to twenty seconds and Tristan kicked hard to make the catch. At this stage of the race the lap traffic was thick and helped to exaggerate the gaps between us. About as soon as Tristan went for it, B. Matter rolled up behind me and the racing was on for the fifth and final lap. Brian is the authority at these last lap, high lap traffic situations and he knew enough to get past me before entering the final ribbon of downhill singletrack. His tactic proved successful as we finished 4^th and 5^th on the day. It was a successful day for me just to be riding with these guys at the front end of things and to be feeling as comfortable as I did out there, especially after three hard days of riding. It was great to have the support of everyone cheering out there and especially great to have my dad along doing an awesome job of feeding, cheering, and picture taking. This guy knows how to multitask! It’s so great to be racing on ‘home turf’ even if it was a eight hour drive home, thanks in part to a two-hour accident clean up delay near Baraboo.

Piloting the Sewanee across a bumpy ski run.

Confirmation that the training works can be hard to come by at times, but this race is all the evidence I need to keep at it. Each week I continue to race stronger so I’ll keep riding this trend throughout the season if luck goes my way. Keep it Real, TJ

In a whirlwind of busyness lately it feels good to be home and resting up. Not only did I drive 2,800 miles in a single week, but I also did the hardest race weekend of my life.  Joe Martin was an awesome experience and I learned a ton by racing out there with all the fast guys. The organizers managed to mess up the results, but I was able to compete in all for stages despite the fact that the results don’t show this.  About 100 guys got cut before Sunday’s criterium, so for me it was a success in and of itself just to make the required time cuts. The first two stages were the two longest races I’ve ever done and also the fastest. Somehow I recovered and put out a decent time trial performance, making the time cut by about 16 seconds. By Sunday my legs were feeling quite tired and the ballistic pace from the gun had all 115 of us strung out single file around the hilly and twisty course. It was just a matter of time until the accordion strings snapped and I was left off of the back with the other first victims of the day. It was fun while it lasted and at least I got to give it a shot.

Sunday afternoon I left Fayetteville, following Ian who was also headed back north. We drove until about 2 am when we got to Albert Lea. Monday I finished off the drive and have been enjoying the serenity of Spooner ever since. The Joe Martin took more out of me than I first anticipated so until I feel normal again I’ll just be doing some easy short spins around. I’m excited about WORS this weekend and look forward to seeing everyone there. I might even double up by doing a Minnesota MTB race on Saturday. We’ll have to see about that… Until then, keep it real. TJ

That’s me, number 18, front and center in this picture posted on  Velonews.com.  You can see that the field size was huge. Imagine the footage from the Tour that you see on TV, and then add another forty riders to get our field.

Today’s race went much better than yesterday’s and I was actually able to pedal hard when I needed to without any back problems, foot aches, or weird issues. After about 20 miles my legs had cleaned out and I was actually feeling great .I was with lead group until 1/2 way through the final lap when a split happened about 20 riders in front of my. Perhaps I was riding too far back, but the gap was already there. About 10 of us worked hard in attempt to reconnect, but it never happened, so about 30 of us rolled into the finish together. Brian Eppen was in the same group so we were able to talk mountain bike when the pace wasn’t pinned.

I’m feeling much better now compared to yesterday after the race. This is good as I’ve got time for some more eating and a nap before the uphill TT tonight. A flat section followed by a 10% grade to the top is how the 2.5 miles will play out. This should be tough enough to break some legs. I’ll do my best but the organizers plan to cut the field size down to about 80 riders before tomorrow’s crit, so making that cut will be tough. Well back to the food, riding 210 miles all within 24 hours has me pretty hungry right now. Keep it real,  TJ

So a majority of my posts are written with you, the reader, in mind. This post is written mainly out of self interest as I’m awaiting the start of today’s 110 mile road race. I’ve got about an hour before we roll over to the race start (appropriately for Arkansas, we start at Wal-Mart), but I’ve already got things in order and need to kill some nervous energy here.

This week flew by; actually most of it drove by. It’s been 1800 miles in the Taurus since Monday afternoon. Chloe and I made some quick time to Boulder and even got to check out Vegas along the way. Wednesday seemed somewhat normal since there was no driving, some riding, and plenty of eating and relaxing Boulder. I really needed that before enduring yesterday’s 800 mile drive. I left town early enough so that I still got here with a bit of daylight, but I was pretty bushed after spending the entire day in the car.  Nothing a good nights sleep couldn’t fix though; I felt pretty good this morning.

If I have a couple ounces of energy left I’ll be sure to post something with today’s recap later this evening. Keep it Real, TJ

Brutal pretty much sums up today’s race. The speed was so much faster than any race I’ve ever done before, but I was feeling good about it. The field size of 220 riders made for a couple of sketchy situations on the road. The first came as we crossed some train tracks. I was towards the front 1/3 of the group and over to the left so I got by pretty easily, but about 15 guys went down hard. I looked back to see that Ian must have been to last to get around unscathed. He says that he bunny hopped the tracks, landed and locked them up, then slid it out sideways to ride around the carnage. Sketchy situation number two was rolling through the first feed zone. I came to complete stop so that I could reload with fresh bottles since the six year old volunteers could barely get their hands around the bottle and were dropping a lot of them. Sketchy situation number three was an uphill crash that I was behind. The guy in front of me was going down so I rear ended him and sort of did a nose wheelie. I got my feet on the ground and was able to run it out before going down.

I was with the lead group until we hit the eleven mile climb that started 75 miles into the stage. By this point I was starting to feel some fatigue, but the worst of it was that my feet were throbbing, my back wrenched, and I had a weird side/chest ache. Other than this I think my legs and lungs were still ok.  Needless to say I got popped from this lead group and climbed solo. By the top I’d joined up with six others so we had a seven man team time trial going on. I at the limit a couple of times but I couldn’t get dropped because I thought I’d never find my way to the finish. As it turned out, all of the intersections were marshaled, but the fear of getting lost likely kept me in the group. I finished 136^th, but the key thing here is that I finished and lived to fight again tomorrow. On schedule are 93 miles of sharply rolling hills. I’ll be sure to buckle up. Keep it Real, -TJ

If keeping the air in my tires was the first success of the STXC yesterday, then just hanging on for dear life would have to my second. The start was blazingly fast, as expected.  I was able to move up some, but so much as during the cross country since everyone was going full tilt this time.  Rather than giving you the ins and outs of how the race went, I’ll just post a couple pictures that Dave was able to get from the race. Thanks so much!

The rocky descent that bottlenecked big time on lap number one.

Rounding the corner at the bottom.

Coming back into the finish straight.

And now, the road trip… Next race reports will be live from Joe Martin in Arkansas. 110 miles on Friday; this ought to be fun!   Keep it real, TJ

After a great start, working my way through the field of 100+ riders I found myself in the top forty or so. My good luck didn’t last too long however since at fifteen minutes into the race I knew that I had a slowly leaking rear tire. I finished out one of the climbs before jumping off to use some CO2 in hopes of sealing off the flat.  This worked for about five minutes before going flat again. Off the bike again, this time I went for the spare tube. A couple minutes later I was airing up, keeping an eye on the bead. There was a section of about five inches or so that hadn’t completely beaded correctly, but I already had 40+ pounds of air in likely. With not much CO2 left I decided that I shouldn’t concern myself about the section of non-locked bead. Wrong decision. Fifteen yards later the shotgun blast sounded as my rear tire and tube completely blew off the rim. Game over.  The eight inch gash in my tube was quite impressive.

I was quite upset for about a minute before I got over it and started my walk out of the sagebrush. Of course I was at the farthest out section of the trail with a long walk back to the venue. A situation like this is hard, if not impossible to control so I’ll live to ride another day. My legs were feeling alright after a great start so I hope this means good things for today’s STXC event. I’m expecting another back of the pack call up, so it will be another full-on charge through the field which I somehow seem to enjoy.

Further inspection of the tire revealed two cuts. One was right at the bead and the second was just below the cornering knobs on the sidewall. Both of these tire sections take huge amounts of stress so there was little chance for sealant to do the trick. There is definitely a trade off between heavy and durable tires and lighter but less burly tires. This time my risk was not positively rewarded… All part of the game. Stay tuned for a STXC report. Keep it real. -TJ

We’ll we’re down to the final hours before the NORBA cross country opener. All systems should be go for tomorrow’s noon start time.  The course will demand a very hard start on my part since everything is pretty tight and passing will surely become an issue. Ian raced the marathon today and has reported that the sandy soil rapidly degraded from our pre-ride conditions. Some sections are like beach sand out there… This is a course where you have to be ‘on’ the entire lap, since there are no sections that allow brain-dead pedaling. It’s always looking for a line, braking, standing or sitting, and never anything too consistent. Fox was able to do a fresh rebuilt on my shock, so having a functional damper should help smooth out of the rough course. The rides this week have been pretty low key so the legs should be set for four tough laps. Once the dust has settled I’ll post a race report so be sure to stop back. Keep it real, TJ