It’s been a while since I last wrote anything for this blog so a brief catch up is in order. Over the past three years I’ve focussed more on road racing rather than ultra events.
I’m now a Cat 3 on the road and in addition to road racing this year am planning to give track racing a try as well.
Here’s a summary of my 2016 Cycling highlights.
I went in to the year with a goal of getting in the bulk of my riding before the schools broke out for the summer. I had sketched out a balance of randonneuring and racing objectives and intermingled those through the spring.
Randonneuring
Seattle Randonneurs were hosting the Cascade 1200 again this year (an ~800 mile loop around Washington). As such I needed to complete a full brevet series, 4 rides of progressively longer distances, 200-600 km, to qualify for the ride. To make the qualifying series a bit more challenging I wanted to target personal bests for the “shorter” ones aiming for times less than 50% of the total allowed times.
Myself, Mike McHale and Adam Morley completed the 200k in 6:26 and then did a road trip down to Oregon with Bob Brudvik for our 300k in 9:50 (20 mph average on the bike with minimal breaks off the bike). It’s extremely satisfying to me to stick to a plan and execute it so well with such good friends and riding companions. We’ve all ridden a lot together over the years and are able to get into a steady fast tempo and hold it for many miles.
The 400k and 600k wrapped up the qualifying series.
The Cascade 1200 hits some of my favorite riding areas and mountain passes, particularly east of the Cascades. We rode through most conditions from rain and storms on the first day to epic head winds and high temperatures east of the mountains. So many highlights from this ride including sprinting for town signs against Jason and others over the last 2 days (I set my max 5s power for the season on our final head to head after 790 miles in the saddle, jumping at 300m and trying to hold him off, unsuccessfully 
🙂 ). This may not be the most efficient way to ride 800 miles but it certainly adds to the fun.
Racing
This was my third year with Apex Racing and I had two main goals for the season, win a road race and upgrade to Cat 3. The early season courses suit me and I’ve come close in the past two years, podiuming at Sequim each year.
A week in February of training in Borrego Springs with the team was the perfect set up for spring racing. We had a great group of people along and riding each day in the mountains and desert around that area was ideal.
It seemed to work as I then went on to win my first two races of the season at Mason Lake and Sequim giving me the points I needed for my upgrade.
All in all a great year of riding. Looking ahead to 2017 my plans are to focus more on road racing in the coming year particularly in the spring and to give Track racing a try. There may be a fast 400k in there somewhere as well though I don’t think anything longer.
So, in summary, 2016 highlights
1) Borrego training camp
2) Winning two road races
3) Personal bests in 200k and 300k brevets
4) Upgrading to Cat 3
5) Cascade 1200
6) Many miles of riding with friends
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