ucla road race -- brrrrrrr

still waiting for the results from the UCLA road race to be posted but i'll give a quick recap anyways.

here in southern california we can't complain about our weather. while all my friends on the east coast, midwest and rocky mountains are bundled up and either skiing or rolling around with the knobbiest tires they can find, i have been logging consistent outdoor training miles since december. until last week, we have been enjoying summer-like weather!

this past saturday, a few Swami teammates and i opted to ignore the weather forecasts (would you ever go outside if you listened to everything the weather man suggested?) and drive to the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, east of LA, to race the UCLA road race. the 75-mile race consisted of six 12.5-mile laps with 1,500-feet of climbing each lap. a bruiser, to say the least.

it was a small field so the head ref combined the pro/1/2 field with the collegiate "a" racers for a total field size of 30-40 riders.

my role within the team was to set an uncomfortable pace from the gun up the first four-mile climb. i drove the pace for as long as i could, but i was the first casualty of this effort. i popped off the back of the group before we hit the descent which might have allowed me enough time to recover.

after the first lap, i started to see the damage the initial pace had produced as single and twosomes of riders were popping off slowly but surely. i learned later that our team's top climber, Orion Berryman, rode a great race and finished in the lead chase pack just behind the select group that produced the podium.

on the third lap, the temperatures dropped and snow flurries came over the peaks and started blasting us. the descent on the fourth lap and the climb on the fifth laps were the coldest of the race as all my fingers were numb and the snow was sticking to my sunglasses impairing vision on the descent. at the top of the fifth lap, the sun peaked out and stayed out long enough so i could thaw out my fingers. i told myself when i made it to the end of the fifth lap i would ride off course back to my car and get a warmer, and dryer, set of gloves before finishing the final lap. however, when i got to the start/finish line at the end of the fifth lap, Orion and Pascal were there waiting (they had to wait for the guy with the car keys!) and said the ref had shortened the race from six laps down to five.

even with the shortened lap, i saw at least a dozen racers drop out before completing the fourth lap, so my guess would be that 20 or so riders finished the race.

after popping on the first lap, i regained my composure and strength and caught quite a few riders who popped out of the peloton throughout the race. the effort was just what i needed going into this upcoming weeks race at calville bay classic, a four day stage race in the hills outside of las vegas.

till next time,
lars

Valley of the Sun - Cat 2 GC win!

Going into Valley of the Sun weekend, I did not know what to expect. I was coming off a strong 60-miles of riding in a small break with Pista Palace's James Gunn at last Saturday's Boulevard 90-mile Road Race, but then marvelously cracked and limped in to the finish (just ask all my Swami teammates who passed by me to the line: Chris, Orion, Matt and Pascal). Realistically, I thought if I could crack the top 10 or 15 places on GC then I could get some points towards an upgrade. I was equally ready to commit to my two teammates, Matt and Chris, depending on who went the best in the 14-mile TT.

Stage One: 14-mile TT, Buckeye, AZ
Oddly enough, the event I felt most prepared for on paper at VOS, the opening time trial, ended up being a ho-hum performance in comparison to the Cat 2 field. I left San Diego very early on Friday morning and arrived to the start two hours before my start time. I had plenty of time to prepare equipment and get in a good warm up. I had my Power Tap race wheel with a Wheelbuilder.com disc cover so I could glance at my wattage from time to time and focus on maintaining a high and even pace throughout. The course was an out-and-back, with the out portion into a headwind and ever so slightly uphill and some jarring bumps in the shoulder. I rode an even paced race to place 11th on the stage at one minute behind the winning time of 30:43. I felt as though I rode well and was surprised I was not in the top ten. This told me I had not done my homework and should have ridden on the smooth white shoulder line, or maybe should have driven over the night before or finally (but worst to admit to yourself) was possibly outclassed by better riders.




Stage Two: 87-mile Road Race, Casa Grande, AZ
My two Swami's teammates, Matt and Chris, and I went into the road race with a loose plan of attack. We all felt good and we agreed we would be aggressive and opportunistic. No more than three miles after the start, one of my teammates launched off the front of the group and drew a few other out. Conditions were windy (crosswinds) so they didn't stay out for long.

On the second lap as we headed into the crosswinds, two riders jumped from the group and got a few hundred meters up the road. The pace in the group was sluggish, so I pushed a hard but steady tempo and no one followed. I was committed so I stayed in the saddle and bridged the gap to the two leaders. I told them to keep the pace steady but that the group was not following us. At the base of the climb, we were joined by three other riders and we were now in business. One rider in particular, Michael Jasinski from NorCal, was so strong on the climb that each lap we dropped riders from our break. I made an alliance with him that I would get the group to give him the KOM on the second and fourth times of the climb if he would pull us up (no brainer, right!). This guy was a workhorse but he had difficulty keeping a steady pace and his accelerations on the fourth of six laps whittled the break down to three. While he took top KOM time bonuses, I took second and got two seconds for each, four seconds in total.

On the penultimate time up the climb, a race vehicle told us we had two-and-a-half minutes on a chase group of six riders behind and that the peloton was nowhere in sight. Despite our own hard tempo pace up the climb, somehow we lost two minutes to the chase group behind. We were caught near the feed zone so with 10 miles left to race, we were a group of nine riders. The pace over the next seven miles was very hard and I had to sit out every other rotation. At the start of the final climb, I rode up to the NorCal rider and told him this was his race to lose and that he was the strongest climber in the group and he should "go and not look back". He listened and jumped and it instantly splintered the group. One rider followed him and they put 50 meters on me very quickly. I rode tempo and carried three others with me. With 200 meters to the line, those three jumped and I took fourth to the line. We put good time on those who had fallen off the pace early in the climb.



I ended up sixth on the stage and jumped into the race lead, four seconds ahead of the road race stage winner. My early gamble of riding in the break paid off.

Stage Three: 45 minute Crit, Downtown Phoenix
I told myself before the race I needed to stay aggressive and stay near the front of the race. In the opening ten laps I did neither very well. I was in poor position near the back of the group and was riding passively. The announcer started auctioning off primes and I started using the laps after a prime lap to move up in the group. Finally, halfway through the race I established a position in the front quarter of the group and the ride became easier from that point on. I finished safely in the group and ahead of the two GC contenders sitting in second and third place and hung on to a four second victory margin!



I am realistic and know that in the road race I might have managed to sneak one by the field. The guys told me that morning that racers usually note the top 10 GC riders and in 11th place I might go unnoticed. The group may not have given me a leash in the road race had my number been written on enough top tubes, but that was their fault and not mine. Maybe next time they will pay attention to the rider sitting 11th!



It was so cool having Emily and Kaia at the race cheering for Dad. It made sweating it out in the desert worth every second.

remembering Keith Carter

Mr. Carter was a part of my family's Arabian experience from the very beginning.

As a kid I wanted to be the Lone Ranger and dressed the part of a cowboy everywhere I went. During a tantrum in Houston, at an Aramco orientation for new teachers. I took off one of my cowboy boots and flung it over the balcony as I was upset with my parents. As fate would have it, the boot landed in the middle of a table occupied by Keith. My parents, who had heard about Keith through mutual family friends, Tom and Ann Monson, introduced themselves to Keith and then had to ask for the boot back. Keith always joked that he would stay teaching until I passed through his sixth grade class.

Almost a decade later, I experienced the legendary teaching methods Keith shared with so many other students. The European and African notebooks were the most difficult, time-consuming, yet most rewarding projects. What brilliance and vision he had to have sixth graders research every country on those continents, draw a map of their profile, draw a map of their flag and find an article inside a newspaper featuring that country. I ended up majoring in history in college and I am convinced that year in sixth grade with Keith inspired that.

My other favorite project in Keith's class was investing in stocks. Yeah, I did this later in high school, but by that time I had already experienced Keith's methodical preparations in which we always had to show the work we had completed and provide a reason WHY we selected what we had. I still remember Shane Lambert was the big winner in the class as Chrysler was a big mover in 1992! I was conservative with my fake money and had selected a few mutual funds along with my favorite fast food restaurant McDonald's.

I was a paperboy for the Arab News and Saudi Gazette in 7th, 8th and 9th grades and Keith was on my route. I knew he loved getting his daily news, and as one of my teachers, I wanted to make sure his paper never got caught in the sprinkler system. His was the only paper I did not throw in a baseball-style toss, instead I placed his neatly folded copy on his doorstep. He rewarded me with a handsome tip each month. I think he always knew the style I delivered all the other papers and tipped me so that his paper did not receive the same delivery experience!

Keith was a family friend and we continued to have reunions when he retired back to Iowa. We visited his Arab Heritage Museum in Newell a few times, the most recently three years ago when I was able to introduce Keith to my wife. His health had noticeably declined but he still spent a few hours with us telling stories of his world travels, his museum treasures from all over the Middle East and Africa and he even prepared coffee in an old Arabian coffee pot. That was the last time I saw him in person.

Keith, your patience, worldly vision, and strong conviction to always do the right thing and to ALWAYS show your legwork will live in those of us who were lucky enough to be your students.

Thank you teacher and friend!
Lars