Ultimate Dirt Challenge

Bad start, steady race, good result... Back down to the race site in a few for awards and the beach, then a 3:30 wake-up call for the drive to the airport tomorrow...

Ryan Hall Interview

Here is a must read interview - http://www.runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=19104

Rincon Puerto Rico

It's been a good week in Purto Rico. Tuesday and Wednesday we did some really big rides, hit the beach thursday, and rode the course Friday and today. The roads are steep, weather hot, medalla lights cold, and local lifestyle slow.

Here are a few photos that capture it well.

Tomorrow is the UCI level 1 Ultimate Dirt Challenge, 6 laps of fun single track at the beach...

PR

Borrowing some story and photos from Jason here - since he's done a good job with both...


http://www.teamjamis.com/wp/


http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonsager/4454196194/







my Puerto Rico

After smoothly cruising through 10hrs of airport travel time I hit Puerto Rico time immediately upon landing in San Juan…

After a 1hr delay for bags in San Juan I had no idea who would be giving me a ride out to the town of Florida where I would be meeting the others. Luckily the municipality had a couple guys there who immediately spotted me – sweet! Uh bad news one said – we need to wait for another rider arriving at 9pm… It was 8. So I asked if we could get something to eat and through some not so great English they could only suggest Wendys. A couple chicken sandwiches and 90minutes later, we gather some details on the other person, who is actually the UCI official, but we don’t find him or hear from him so we take off….on Puerto Rican time.

After at least 30min figuring out where my room is we finally meet up with the rest of the group, Jason, Adam, Blake Harlan, and Troy. Viva la Motel La Roca! I won’t go in to too many details but at this motel rooms are rented for 6hrs and you pay by cash through a little door to the outside. The rooms are ok though, with good ac, and we’re taking some extra precautions to stay clean. After getting out today I see there are NO other hotels in the area, so I guess it’s a good location?. Everything is kind of a crowded rural layout, not really open land, but not really any towns either. After a late breakfast of giant pastries and small but strong coffees we made the ride to the course. More figuring things out – where to register, “riders meeting” and we finally get a couple fast laps on the course. 19min and 17min of twisty trails in the jungle / woods mixed with open sections along the road and through some fields. Not much climbing but a pretty physically demanding course. The weather is hot and humid, but not terrible.

Dinner time was my first time on the “banana boat”, which everyone else was lucky enough to experience the night before. The town's old school bus picked us up and chauffeured us to some other random area to a random pizza place. We tried ordering Pico Queso, and I don’t know if they got it or not but the pizza was pretty good. We were lucky to have a rare grocery store just down the road so we got some proper breakfast food for the morning rather than some snacks from a gas station. Should be interesting! Florida Mtb Classic = fast hot race. The technical course suited me well and my pacing worked out just right in the end as I moved into 3rd and barely held off major leg cramps on laps 6 and 7 to hold the podium spot through to the finish. More details later.

The training is paying off and I'm having a great time. We're now staying with a good friend of Jason's on a really nice area of the Island near Rincon. Looking forward to some very hilly riding and getting to the beach,

Bonelli Triple Crown

Bonelli was a good all around weekend of racing. The venue is only about 45 minutes away from home for me but with the afternoon starts the races took up the entire weekend. The Saturday XC was a good test on a short, somewhat hard course. We did 6 laps in 1:45 to give you an idea. I felt good throughout, but not 100% fresh and ended up 24th in a field of about 60.

The short track was one of the fastest courses I've been on and the race was only 15min plus 1 lap. The start was key and ended up dead last. A couple laps in I was feeling pretty good and moved my way up to 20th out of about 35 guys. Again good, but not quite what I was hoping for.

The Super D was basically a 7min time trial about 45min after the short track and I nailed it. I was able to get in a bit of a zone and simply rode my fastest for 6:31 and that turned out to be pretty fast - check it out!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/races/bonelli-park-ne/super-d/results

Now I'm somehow already in the middle of a crazy week - super busy at work and trying to get ready for Puerto Rico. I will definitely take it easy training wise, there's no fitness to be gained between now and Friday with too many other things going on. Adios

Pre-Race

Cruising through things at work while the others are out pre-riding Bonelli. The work would be more satisfying if I was closer to being caught up... I did have a nice spin in the morning on this beautiful day. Came accross theseearlier in the week, maybe I'll watch again tonight for some extra motivation for the races...

http://www.benharper.com/#/media/videos/fly-one-time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqTFNfeDnE&feature=youtu.be

Work

I've sure been neglecting my site recently. Work has just been super busy lately, and of course I never skip my rides, so there hasn't been much time or energy leftover lately for anything else. The race at Sagebrush took a lot out of me and it took 3 days of recovery to feel fresh again. That meant that last Thursday I trained hard and have been pouring it on everyday since except Monday. The focus has been on Tempo efforts which are coming along well with a couple short interval days mixed in for a little extra power which I'm sometimes lacking this early in the year. So far so good.

This weekend will bring some really fast guys into town for the US Cup Triple Crown at Bonelli park. We'll have some Jamis guys staying with us which should be fun. I feel bad when people from out of state come to the big Socal races at Bonelli and Fontana and those are the only areas they see! There's such awesome beaches and other great riding less than an hour away but most of the guys just stay in an average hotel off the super busy 15 freeway, ride an ok 5 mile race loop, and leave.

This post alone is taking away from some things I should be getting done right now, so it's time to get back after it so my Subway run doesn't get pushed back too far.

Oh, at some point I also have to tune-up my bike for this weekend and finish planning for the upcoming trip to Puerto Rico. No Vision Quest or Fontana National for me - I'm off to the UCI races in Puerto Rico!