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Athlete Updates - September

9/30/2014

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Cat 2 rider Stefan Zavislan competed in the Everest Challenge Stage Race in CA this past weekend, placing 5th on Stage 1 and 4th on Stage 2 and 4th on the General Classification. This race is absolutely ridiculous. You know why its called the Everest Challenge? Because the amount of vertical climbing covered in both stages is equivalent to scaling Mt. Everest. Oh, and Stage 1 finished in a blizzard at the top. Totally, freaking COOL!  Awesome job to Stefan and fantastic way to close out a great year knocking on the door of his Cat 1 upgrade.

Cat 2 and master's race Matt Neigh, picked up a win at the Argyle Time Trial in WV earlier in the month to close out his season on a high note!  We won't comment on the field size...  Let's just say its lonely at the top and staying motivated the entire season, even in the face of adversity pays off! :-)  On a more serious note, Matt has had a rough time with race day luck this year, but has seen consistently higher power numbers all season with improvements in his threshold and LT numbers.  Hopefully a solid off season and a lucky rabbit's foot next year will net him some more podiums!

Last but certainly not least, Cat 4 Matthew Medlock welcomed his first born to the world in TX last week.  A wee baby girl named Pearl. Congrats to him and his wife. There will be many challenges and shifting priorities ahead but we will adapt his training accordingly so that cycling can remain a positive part of his life.

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Endless Summer Tour: UT

9/24/2014

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I was fortunate to get the opportunity to travel to 4 states and participate in 5 races as both a director and an athlete and attend my first Interbike in a 2 week time frame from late Aug to early Sept.  It was a busy trip but a good experience.  I am going to document each stop briefly over the coming days.

Well, I originally intended to do this earlier, but took me a bit to get around to it.  Stop 2 was direct from Burlington, VT to sunny Salt Lake City, UT, followed by a nice drive to Ogden UT for the next stop on my tour, the USA Cycling Master's Road Racing National Championships.  3 days of stage racing and an early wake up had me feeling a bit groggy, but I did my best to sleep on the plane flight out knowing I had to race the Time Trial the following morning.  I got into Ogden at a reasonable hour and found my way to the Air BnB house that one of my traveling companions (Stu Waring from the Annapolis Bicycle Racing Team) booked for us outside of Ogden.  The place was absolutely fantastic with plenty of space and beautiful views within close driving distance to both the TT and RR courses.  In addition to Stu and his wife Christine, I was fortunate to have 2 teammates join me on the trip , Scott and Katy Giles, the cycling wonder couple both racing with me on the US Military Endurance Sports Team in addition to Matt Albanese Stu's teammate from ABRT and their friend Chris.

The risk with doing a crazy trip like this is staying healthy.  I managed to keep my recovery and stress pretty in check, my preps were done and I hit the sack pretty early, so all was looking good until the early morning wakeup...  Let's just say my "plumbing" started working a bit too well and too often.  I clearly picked up some type of funk, but did my best to stay hydrated and try to keep some nutrition in me and put on a brave face for the TT the next morning.  But, I just didn't have the spark on the day, and ended up a disappointing 15th.  Both Scott and Katy did fantastic, each pulling down silver medals in their respective divisions!  I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed as I had good form coming into the week, the course suited me, and when I am "on" I can throw down a good TT.  But it was not to be and I wasn't at my best and wasn't able to put down a good performance.  Such is the fickleness of sport.

I was still having issues the rest of the day healthwise, but got another good night's sleep and felt better the following day as we previewed the road race course.  The course again suited me fairly well with a long descent at the start followed by several flat loops around a reservoir and then into a 7 mile finishing climb that was never terribly steep. 

Scott and I are similar types of riders, we favor the break and riding hard and on form can match each other pretty well with him having an edge on the flats and me having an edge on the climbs.  I had raced a few bigger master's races such as Gila, Cascade and prior Master's Nats in the past, so I knew some of the contenders, and they knew me and were likely not going to give me much leash, but Scott was a little less known...  We devised a strategy to put him up the road early, like from the gun early, hopefully draw some guys out to go with him and then hope the in fighting in the field, or over confidence the break would come back on the climb, would let them get enough of a gap to make it stick.  If not, I would sweep as best could on the climb. 

Race morning I was feeling better and was motivated having a strong teammate with me
.  We set off, and the plan worked pretty much as we laid out.  Scott made it off the front in the 1st K, hovered at 10 - 20 seconds solo for about 10 miles (much of it downhill) riding just hard enough to hopefully entice some bridgers.  Sure enough, 2 strong guys bridged up, the field looked at each other, and they were gone.  When the panic in the field started to set in, I played the good teammate and tagged on to dangerous counters and discouraged any organization as best I could.  The field just kept cancelling each other out, and the gap grew.  After awhile the group collectively knew that was "the move" and a bridge was going no where.  After that point, enough teams kept the pace up to just let the gap hover and hope to pull it back on the climb.  Our plan was working perfectly.

By the time we made it to the base of the finish climb, the break had 3 minutes and it was very possible it could stick.  The field went pretty ballistic at the base, I dug as hard as I could but couldn't quite make it with the best climbers.  In the meantime, Scott was just burying himself and it came down to seconds at the end with him holding the chasers off hanging on to take the win and the national champion's jersey in style!  I cranked out the climb as best I could and ended up 13th, feeling better than Tues, but not at my best still.   Kudos to Scott on an awesome job, was great to have a small part in it.  Katy did fantastic as well pulling a bronze medal in the women's race.

Scott tells his side of the story from the winner's seat on Team Bike Doctor's blog.  Great write up and he was very gracious in acknowledging a teammate on a day that was all him.
  As I told him, either one of those things, winning a race in a break wire to wire or winning a national championship, on its own is something you will never forget, but to do both together, wow.  Just fantastic.  Enjoy it Scott, you won that the hard way!  Thanks again to Stu Waring for sharing their lodging with us and to USMES for the support in getting to the event.  Also thanks to Katy and Christine for covering the feed zone for us.  On to AZ and NV for the next stops on the tour.

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Endless Summer Tour: VT

9/14/2014

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I was fortunate to get the opportunity to travel to 4 states and participate in 5 races as both a director and an athlete and attend my first Interbike in a 2 week time frame from late Aug to early Sept.  It was a busy trip but a good experience.  I am going to document each stop briefly over the coming days.

Stop 1 was from WV to Dulles Airport on to Burlington, VT for the Green Mountain Stage Race.  I am the director for the US Military Endurance Sports (USMES) Elite Cycling team and decided to ride with the guys in a helper role and also since GMSR is just such a fantastic race.  In the P/1 race, our primary GC threat had to knowingly depart the race a day early in order to meet a duty commitment so our primary target was stages.  4 of us lined up for the Stage 1 time trial, in addition Otterhaus athlete and USMES club member Stefan Zavislan lined up in the Cat 2 race.  We all threw down as best as we could, but the highlight of the day was Stefan pulling a solid 8th in the TT.

Stage 2 was a circuit race that generally finishes in a field sprint, I spent a good part of the day ensuring our top guys stayed in good position and ensuring they had bottles.  We gambled on the finish being a field sprint and of course a break got away and stuck.  All of us finished safely in the field and had our eyes on Stage 3 which suited our stronger guys.

Stage 3 is the "queen" stage of the race, 93 miles with 10,000 feet of climbing and a finish on the infamous App Gap.  The beginning of the race was met with showers but thankfully fairly warm temperatures.  We weren't the only team that missed the break the day before and the field, well, she was angry that day.  My job was to try to get in the likely early break and hopefully be up the road when our stronger climbers caught us.  Problem was, it was all the other team's plan as well.  Break attempts were pretty not stop for the first 20 miles and finally I got into a 3 man move before the first climb.  We never got much leash but it calmed the field a bit and allowed me to get over the climb on my own terms.  The race continued to be aggressive (and the rain continued to fall) over the next 20+ miles.  I did what I could for our guys heading into the first of the last 3 climbs and then came unattached from the field about 3/4 of the way up.  Turns out I had a slow flat, but was pretty much out of gas anyway with my job done.  Our top climber, Dwyane Farr, stayed with the leaders through the grippiest part of the race and went on to finish 12th on the day.

Day 4 was a crit in downtown Burlington, VT.  A solo rider from Cal Giant stuck a solo move from about 10 laps in for the win, and the majority of the race the field was busy launching ill fated counter attacks.   Jay ShalekBriski from USMES used his great positioning skills and patience to pick up a very respectable 8th on the day in the P/1 race!  Stefan Zavislan hung solid through the last 3 stages and ended up 15th on GC in the Cat 2 race.

We also got to visit Ben & Jerry's of course along with American Flatbread and the Skinny Pancake, all fantastic VT eateries.  All and all not a bad trip.


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    Otterhaus Blog

    Coach George Ganoung shares tips, observations and the occasional attempt at humor, sometimes all at the same time.

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