Rockwell Relay's Last Stand: Race Day 1

One of the major changes in this year's race, aside from the gaudy prize purse, was the fact that all non-competitive race teams would start at 7 and all competitive teams would start at 9.  Seems a small thing but it settled I don't know how many lengthy discussions between Cap'n Engar and I about the merits (or lack thereof) of each race strategy.  I was always for starting earlier for purely selfish reasons.  One, it's cooler.  In fact most years I'm off the bike in Monticello before the mercury hits the eighty degree mark and I get to watch everybody else sweat and suffer.  Two, an earlier start (theoretically) keeps me riding my second leg through Capitol Reef in daylight.  In actuality that has only happened once (last year) and a 9am start virtually assured that I would be riding the entire Hanksville to Torrey run with only a helmet light and whatever the moon could muster, to illuminate the road.

I'm a ritual kinda guy, even when it doesn't necessarily work
but this works

Upside to the later start was the extra hours of sleep and prep time.  I was out of bed just in time to see the non-competitive cyclists rolling their neutral start past the Riverside Inn.  The number in the group was disconcerting, hard to estimate exactly the size of a peloton, even one moving slowly, but I figured about 45 wheels, subtract that from the total of less than 100 teams and you get... well not nearly as many riders to help whittle away the next 500 miles of wind and hills as we had hoped.  I set my chagrin aside and reveled in the ample prep time, actually had a real breakfast, oatmeal with blueberries and honey, which may or may not have been the X factor in my recent PR shattering canyon climbs in the preceding weeks.  It's also possible that Thad's well studied and proven training methods had a hand in it, or a combination of the two, regardless I had found a ritual that worked and on race day I was't about to mess with it.  So I suited up and rolled down for some warm up reps, only to find that I was plenty warm as was the ambient temperature.  It was in fact, hot. Not in the 'check out that dope new bib kit Josh Bro-coded for him, that's hot!' hot, but the 'this is pretty miserable, maybe we should go for a swim in the river instead', hot. I quickly gave up the ride prep and retreated to the shade of Swanney park.  When the rest of team Honey Mooners joined me I told them, when you catch me, soak me down, it is hot.  Hotter than it's ever been for a relay weekend.  They agreed to do so though I was wondering how we would have enough water to stay orally hydrated and evaporatively cooled.  We left Salt Lake with a single 5 gallon container of water (1/2 of what we normally had) and that seemed a paltry amount for 4 cyclists over 36 hours of hard riding.  Nothing I could do about that though, but it was the thought front and center in my mind as I roasted in the middle of 50 or so other cyclist 1s as the the starting clock wound down.

Guys, it's hot, like really hot.  Like I want to stay right here
in the shade hot.  I should probably wear a cooling coloured bib kit
on a day like today.  Black maybe, you think?

9 am (sharp) they cut us loose, I managed to avoid any potholes and attendant mechanical issues as we rolled toward Main Street, Moab.  I spotted Nebo cycling, a team that finished in just over 30 hours (our goal) last year and a group Thad had ear marked as a bellwether; stay with them and you will be on schedule.  Just as we turned onto the main drag, team DRG Texas, formerly a co-ed team, now a 4 woman, competitive, 4 man domestique, two team group, about crossed wheels with Team Fatty Family (Eldon 'Fat Cyclist' Nelson)'s team, the one who maintained a strangle hold on the co-ed competitive category for, well every year this race has been a race.  They were currently involved in a blood feud with Zone 5 (formerly Team Infinite) cycling.  Zone Five had brought 3 teams to settle take down Fatty after losing to them on the final leg of Rockwell 2015.  Watching the near miss with DRG I was reminded how quickly and capriciously months (team cumulatively, years) of training and plans could be put asunder.  The two rubbed rubber momentarily then righted themselves and charged on.  And charging is exactly what was happening even the neutral start felt like a workout as the wind (which Weather Underground promised would be ~10 mph right in our faces all 55 miles to Monticello) kicked up and the mercury rose. When we were cut loose the lead pack ramped up the cadence and revved up the watts.  Soon there were about 25 teams out in front which I tried desperately to hang with.  I had lost sight of Nebo but could still see Fatty and Zone 5.  From my left a few cyclist started calling out their (well founded) complaints 'Come on guys, it's 500 miles, back it off!.'  I looked down at my power meter and saw that we were pushing 400 watts and knew (again, thanks to Thad's meticulous preparation and training) that I could hold that power for about 2 minutes before I would have to scale way back and recover for several minutes before pushing again.  In fact, Golden Cheetah told me (by way of Jenn, who like Thad can look at the squiggles, figures and cryptic acronyms from the myriad GC training screens and translate them into real world workout numbers) that I could average about 215 watts for three hours if I wanted to be able to ride my bike again for any distance or time in the 24 hour period after I got out of the saddle.  So with that in mind and with corroborating testimony from my legs and lungs I dialed it down a notch... several actually and let the pack move into the wind swept horizon.

About five miles out of Moab I saw the first Zone 5 cyclist (Mary, one of the strongest amateur female cyclists in the state) stopped roadside, an apparent mechanical issue.  Two miles further on, Marci (another Zone 5-er and QOM champ) was similarly sidelined.  I settled in with four cyclists, only one of whom was willing (or able) to hold a paceline,  a guy named Gregg from Brigham city a Rockwell (and Cyclist 1) veteran broke away and we worked together for about 30 miles.

Cap'n Engar putting it all on the line for Team Honey Mooners, 

nearly pulling a hammy' but nailing the hose down

Team Honey Mooners support was on point, always the case for the first couple of legs before, one by one, you take your turn in the saddle, burn your pent up energy and race nerves and settle into resignation and shock at the reality of what you just did and what you still have left.  They soaked me down and kept me plied with fresh bottles and the occasional potato, though I had lots of food in my pockets which I was eating regularly (as instructed).  Around mile thirty the Zone 5 caravan caught us.  First Marci and Billy, then Mary and half a dozen other Zone 5 riders, making me wonder how many team they actually brought.  Turns out the emptied the support vehicles in the first 15 miles and fought (in vain as it turned out) to get back in the competition.  At the moment Mary was struggling and at the breaking point.  You can be strong and well trained but if you push too hard you flame out, no matter who you are or how well conditioned you've become, a point I've proven to myself more times than a sentient individual should  have to before he/she learns the lesson. These conditions were not helping as we were battling more wind and more heat than I ever did on this leg in five previous efforts.  I joined the group and worked with them, pushing my watts higher than may have been prudent but getting help too.  Gregg dropped off, and eventually I dropped off.  The group pulled away just before the last climb and eventually a couple of big, strong looking riders (Team Wolfpack) also dropped off and worked with me for a few miles before they too got cracked by the wind.

Top of the last climb I told Cap'n Engar, politely, that I had everything I needed and to please leave me to the last ten miles of my ride and go get Jenn ready to start leg two in Monticello.  This they did and I soldiered on through the mounting headwinds and heat. I rolled into the first exchange in 3 hrs and 41 minutes.  A PR* for most time** spent pedaling the 55 miles from Moab to Monticello!   If we were hoping to compete, even if it was just with ourselves, I had just dug us a thirty nine minute hole, but felt completely satisfied with the effort.  I had averaged 225 Watts for the three hours (15 more than Golden Cheetah told me I should have) but rode within myself, working with riders when I could and never blowing up.  I cut Jenn loose, knowing she was about to get her 45 year old, lycra ensconced butt handed to her by the 46 miles and 2600 feet of climb between Monticello and the Mule Canyon Wilderness trailhead, miles that would cook like a swirling convection oven and hurt far worse than the they did on that temperate June morning in 2015, a day that seemed a world away now.  I gave her the traditional smack on the spandex and sent her on her way.  Thad immediately began handing me food and drink and telling me to eat it, now.  And I immediately began not eating or drinking as much as I should have.  Honestly, what I need is a feed bag and a time frame (noted on our growing list of things to do differently next year).

Thad: "Maybe start eating some food, you know to replace the
3000 calories you just spent?"

Me: "Orrrr maybe snap some selfies and post them on Instagram
to keep our social media presence fresh and current.
I mean, they are both important, right?  Right?"

*I should give up on Family Medicine and be a spin doctor instead

**looking at stats after the fact, this leg did a number on every single cyclist 1.  Fatty, for instance, did this leg last year in 2:35. This year?  3:16.  Forty one minutes slower, almost identical to the thirty nine I had just donated.  Even the pros (Cameran Hoffman and the Livewell  automatons) took 3:06 to finish leg 1 this year.  It was an ominous harbinger of what what the roads ahead held for us.



We took enough time for me to shed my shoes and put on a T-shirt and we were off to find Jenn.  At these temperatures and under these conditions, leaving your rider for even more than a few miles or minutes was unwise.  We took our (now traditional) lunch break at the laundromat in Blanding, where I ate but clearly not enough, and then chased her down, not hard to do on a day like today.  We tracked team(s) TRG and team Chimera (co-ed competitive and our closest competition 70 miles into the 500+ mile race) losing ground to the former and putting serious time into the latter.  A feat Jenn would do time and time again.  Team Chorizo/Chupacabra/Chimera's cyclist 1 would put the hurtin' on me and then Jenn would jump in the saddle and administer the payback, with interest. Despite her valiant efforts, it was clear, to me at least, that our dreams of a sub 30 hour finish were going to remain just that, but this race would still challenge us.  Shaving time from last year's effort wasn't out of the question but the constant and unyielding southwest wind was going to make us work for every mile and every minute.  In fact, Jenn, despite heroically pushing into the earth baking, soul crushing heat, was currently adding to rather than chipping away at our time deficit compared to 2015.  I knew once Thad got on the bike the route would turn obliquely to the wind and by the time Kim was turning the cranks the wind (if weatherunderground's predictions could be trusted and so far the wind and warm were exactly as advertised) it should be squarely at her back. The thing we were losing (and had lost to the by no less than 40 % compared to last year) were wheels to work with and bodies to block the heat storm.  Jenn had been caught and dropped by the pair of Wolfpack riders that started 5 minutes in arrears, but on the final climb, the one we incorrectly assumed Jenn had enough fluids to cover, she caught them again, and found them floundering.

Jenn thought bubble:  "That water bottle soaking isn't going to cut it. 

Too late to sign up for the ice bucket challenge?"

This heat was CRIPPLING.  Team Wolfpack support offered her some water but she waved them off and told them to attend to their beta males who were currently withering in the desert.  Probably she should have accepted the handout since we unwittingly left her to dry up like a raisin in the sun.   In the end (even as she finished thoroughly parched and internally cooked) she would increase her power output on this leg by  more than 10% compared to 2015 and would still drop a full twenty minutes, maddening given the excitement and optimism our three months of intense and focused training had generated. Maddening, but predictable given the conditions.

Going in to the second exchange we were a full hour in the red but the Rockwell Road is a winding one and eventually the constant blow back would be negated and even help us. At least that's what I told myself as Thad, Kim and I simmered roadside, waiting for Jenn to crest the eternal climb that marks the end of leg 2.

"OK, so if I give this bottle to you will you fill it up and give it back?
Promise?  Cause I don't want to be out here without any water..."

The effort Jenn made to reach exchange 2 before the hapless Beta Wolves from Team 'pack paid off hugely though as Thad pedaled out of the Mule Canyon Wilderness exchange flanked by a pair of Gama males from their team.  This I knew would be a serious boon to the pack as, having ridden behind the cap'n, I know that he leaves a jet stream similar to that of a 747 luxury liner in his wake.  Jenn dismounted, totally physically spent but with an unbroken but thoroughly cooked spirit.  She would spend the next 6 hours trying, mostly in vain, to bring down her core body temperature before she would have to ride again.



Body heat/hydration, as it turns out, is a lot like nutrition.  Once you are past a certain deficit point you are done until you can be someplace cool and maybe wet (like a water theme park?) for several hours. Unfortunately there were no waterslides or wading pools handy at the moment.

Crewin' for the Cap'n

Thad on the other hand was cookin' but in a good way.  The trio of Thad and the wolves were barreling through the miles of cheesebox shaped bluffs, redrocks named for Biblical prophets and their furniture, sand and sagebrush between the second exchange and Lake Powell.  The three worked together, tried to pick up a fourth, dropped him and powered on.  The trending splits that put us in the red broke as Thad shaved a full fifteen minutes from his 2015 effort on this desolate stretch of pavement.

The Lone Wolf or Relay's past finds a pack to work with.
Impromptu roadside tune up of poorly shifting bikes is just one of the valuable services
(along with the wind tunnel-like draft shadow) that the Cap'n rpovides

I've said it before and it remains true, Thad knows his business on the bike and, like a consummate captain, is capable of directing the crew to maximize the efficiency.  Empty a bottle of product, hose down with a bottle of water, grab refills keep pedaling, repeat until you finish your allotted miles.  It's like watching a finely tuned Swiss watch, albeit one that pushes 240 watts for hours on end.  And, like I've said before, what Thad's rides lack in drama they more than makes up for in results. Having entered the world of power meter training I've watched Thad's number's with interest and growing respect as he would post rides of an hour at 290 watts and ninety minutes at 285. Trust me when I tell you these are huge numbers and a bit mystifying.  How do you maintain that level of effort in city riding, where stop signs, descents, traffic and crappy roads all combine to thwart your power output?  I wasn't doubtful I was just intrigued.  Did he simply have a power meter setting that negates any half pedaling?  The answer came on our Memorial Day Big mtn climb, a ride we did as a team and during which he averaged 263 watts for more than four hours.  I sat in his draft (for as long as I could hold on) and watched as he pushed the pedals at constant cadence of about a 100 and never soft pedaled anything.  The man does not turn an ambivalent crank... ever.  All business, all the time.  That's our leader.

We arrived at the Lake Powell exchange just after six in the evening, about the same time we arrived in Hanksville the first time we signed up for this protracted and extremely intense double date.  Kim left the exchange just as support vehicles for the open category teams (the pros who started two hours after us) were arriving.  Thad pointed out Cameron Hoffman, a local cyclist with multiple LOTOJA Cat 1 victories under his belt and captain of the only team that was a serious contender to unseat the IHC/LiveWell cycling juggernaut.   We talked to him for a few minutes (they were currently out in front of LiveWell by several minutes-probably they should have just stayed with them and tried to work together and maybe out sprint them at the end-I say as if I know more about bike racing than Hoffman but as it turned out they totally should have... I digress). About the time we stopped chatting with the underdog team in the hunt for thousands in prizes, I noticed Thad was still kitted up.  Odd. Completely.  If Thad on the bike is like a Swiss watch, Thad off the bike is that same watch that was over wound to the bursting point.  He quite literally falls apart when he's done, at least equipment wise.  It's like he was balloon cyclist that finally met its fated needle and all that remains is the blast shadow of cycling gear: helmet, gloves, shoes, head band, lederhosen... (you think we would have noticed that when he was on the bike, we didn't) that stand as evidence of the max effort Cap'n Engar put into every mile and every minute.  On this occasion he kept it together, and he did it to help Kim. I don't remember if he mentioned his intention to do this or not but it's probably something we should have anticipated.  Last year this leg was Kim's introduction to the Relay and probably the most difficult leg (race condition-wise) of the entire race.

I wonder if it could possibly get any hotter?  No?
Oh good, I would hate to think we were missing out

The forty five miles took her 3hrs and 15min to complete but more than that it demoralized and scared her (like this race has done to every rider who has ever signed on for it, without exception) and left its mark on her cycling soul.  Those wounds heal over time but the scar they leave remains.  Trust me,  I know.

I'm certain it was with this in mind that Thad, having just swallowed his own jagged Rockwell Relay pill of misery, jumped back on his bike, just as Kim exited the relatively protected confines of the Lake Powell grotto and began the arduous twenty mile climb that occupies the middle of Kim's first leg.  It was the courageous and strategically savvy move of a shrewd Team Captain and the act of genuine kindness and compassion of a loving husband.  One of the most indelible images I hold in my mind from the the last ever Rockwell Relay is that of Thad, who is a big guy (not big in the gentle Teddy bear way but big in the, 'if you need a protection detail, somebody to stand between you and a person or persons who mean you harm call this man, he will get the job done' big) and Kim who is a petite woman (though even Jenn at 5'9" looks petite next to the Cap'n) pedaling into Utah desert, the sun setting on the horizon, Thad's arm fully extending, pushing Kim toward the summit.  It was an oddly tender tableau.  I wish I had a photo but then again it was somehow intimate in a way that belongs to the moment itself.  It reminded me that we were doing this race, not just with people we loved to ride with, but with people we loved: our wives, the mothers of our children and the women we asked to spend the rest of their lives with us. Bonus when that time is spent in activities like this one. Huge bonus.  The moment passed and soon we were again telling each other how sexy their current wattage numbers made them look and joking about how much more interesting this race would be if our current teammates came with as casual an attitude about wearing clothes in public as our former teammate Josh had.  But it was a real moment and one that has stuck with me.

Both Thad and I have been beaten down by this ride.  A certain amount of that comes with the price of admission and while it may have felt theoretical after last year's relative pillow fight it was a painful reality now.  Just because we'd warned our wives and teammates how bad it could be didn't mean we wanted them to suffer unnecessarily, so Cap'n Engar did what he could, for the team's sake and for Kim's.  And it worked, she managed to shave a full 35 minutes (!) off her time from 2015. So if you're keeping score at home: the Larsen duo (Cyclists 1&2) have given away an hour and the Engars (Cyclists 3&4) have take back 50 minutes.  That math needs to change, and soon.  Even with Kim's heroic effort, and Thad's team leader assist, she was still east of Hanksville at 8:30, the hour at which the race bible told us we had to have a safety vest on our rider's back and light, fore and aft, burning on her bike.  Anticipating a full dark, near three hour ride from Hanksville to Torrey, I requested dual lights, helmet and handle bar, using the mtn biker's bike light arithmetic: 2 lights = 1 light and 1 light = 0.  Cap'n Engar had me set up accordingly but Kim's late evening ride necessitated a quick adjustment (handlebar light off my bike and onto Kim's).  As he made the change he assured me the light on my helmet had more than enough juice and lumens to get me safely to Torrey, and I believed him.  No reason not to.


Next up:  Moonlight riding in the National Park, Taking in the Torrey nightlife, Boulder Mountain revisited, Cap'n Engar takes down the Grand Staircase Escalante but nobody sees it (again).