JasonHilimire.com

Things have really started to mesh well the last few weeks. Been getting some good ride time in on the bike & all the snow is starting to melt. The sun is even shining!

Few days last week I managed some early morning road rides along the lakefront. Something quite serene & peaceful about it. Everything is still & it’s nice to have the solitude. Unfortunately so early in the am causes some unawakened legs also, but just takes some getting used to.

This weekend was great. The sun was out & got to race my bike on Saturday & get in a good ride again on Sunday. More importantly spent loads of time with Lake! Bridget is in NYC for a few days so we’ve been hanging out. Went for a bike ride, played some snow soccer & played some indoor hockey (don’t tell Bridget!) & all the fun stuff that little dudes do. He’s way too much fun, gotta keep it coming in doses though!

Thus week should be another killer week. Fitness is rapidly climbing & another giro again this weekend. Might skip Sunday & go climbing the hills of Naples for a big ride. Gonna be gorgeous! Maybe I’ll even get some pics up on thus thing & blog more than once a month!

I’ve written a new training tip on getting fit for going long! You can check out the article and the intricate details over on Singletrack.com.

Some good power based info on how to help you better prepare yourself for Endurance racing (and really any type of racing)

Also, Here’s some links to a few other articles I’ve written:

Mountain Bike Power

Race Simulation

It’s official, for next season I’ll be splitting up my time between road and dirt. On the road side I’ll be linking up with Minerva Design Cycling (official announcement here).

I’m super excited to be racing with a great new up and coming Rochester based road team for 2010. I’ll also be helping the fellas out with training advice and how to use those newfangle powermeter whatzamagics to make em even faster for this season. GVCC and beyond, better be on the lookout for the Red Train this season!! Choo Choo baby!

A few years back I split my season up between dirt and oad racing and have missed many a friends and the camaraderie of road racing. While I’ll still be shredding up the trails at all the same races, look to find me out racing and training on the road this season and sharpening up that razor blade.

Here’s to a great season with my new teammates!!

See Day 1 here:

Day 2 El Reto de Quetzal

Upon arriving back at the hotel from day 1’s journey. I was in such a distorted state I could barely function. I quickly cleaned up and hit the hotel for lunch. I had to eat. HAD to eat, so much so that I couldn’t actually function until I ate a giant plate of pasta, bean soup, couple of cokes and multiple baskets of bread. There’s hunger and there’s ravaged hunger! After that it was simply time to sleep and wait to eat again. The hotel was gorgeous with an amazing view overlooking the lake

I felt pretty hosed after the prior day’s efforts and day 2 was looking to be another epic day. While short in stature it had plenty of vertical, taking us up above 9500ft!! With all the climbing on tap I was wondering how the legs were going to possibly feel and would I be second guessing my 26/36 dual chainring?

The first 10k was a road climb, right outta the gate tires started on the incline. Surprisingly I actually felt really good. I like the long climbs (as much as you can ‘like’ a climb), especially when you’re not running full tilt with such a long day on tap. As usual the front teams took off the front leaving us gringos to grid away till we hit the village at the top.

I was feeling pretty good and sat out to ride some nice tempo up the climb, Todd who had a great day prior was suffering a little bit with effort out of the gate. So I yo-yo’d up and back for a bit with a few small groups. As cool as it was (mid/low 70’s) it was extremely humid. I made the right choice to go pack-less and even had to fully unzip on the climb as I was dripping in sweat. I woulda been dryer had I jumped in the lake.

We continued to climb till we hit the top and blasted down a dirt/concrete road. Only thing with blasting down a super fun fast switchback road, is the locals are still driving up and down the single car wide/blind corner road!! There were more than a few close calls of descending at 65kph and slamming on the brakes around the corners so we don’t collide head on with truck!

After the first descent it was time to go up a bit more (see above). This time we paired up with the Green Machine. Trisha and Steve, a canadian team who were leading the mix category race and gave us a beat down the day prior. Trish is a crazy good climber and spent the day bolting off the front every chance she could, while I gave chase and Todd/Steve were stuck behind yelling curses at us while we climbed away. We had some good laughs and great chats up the climbs together and spent a good majority of the race and after each day hanging out (there were only 4 anglophone teams).

Once over the top of the 2nd climb we had an amazing descent into the valley. Some nice cliff edges and beautiful views of the gorges and surrounding mountains. But as had been par for the course it meant a nice long climb out. The climb out was actually fun as it had some nice steep sections and some good rolling recovery sections. Todd was ready to roll at this point and we flew up the climb passing a few team and making up some ground. As far out as were were from any village, there were still locals kids here and they even were running along side and pushing me up the climbs. I got a kick out of it cause they were all too far gassed to offer any help to Todd!

Though once out of the valley climb it was back onto a long grind dirt road climb. After the fun of the previous singletrack climb, it was actually kind of hard to really get ourselves into a rythmn and get moving. And lo and behold the Green machine like the crazy robots they are churned away and pulled us back in.

A quick stop at aid station #2 for a refuel and were off to make the long singletrack hike a bike to the top. This trail seemed to go on forever and with all the climbing we had done mixed in with the elevation, it was gnarly to try to get moving and just put down any efforts. There were more than a few pit stops to catch my breath as I felt like I was just going to black out from the fatigue and the elevation.

Once we got to the top things opened up a bit and we were able to get back on the bikes and rolling.

I tried out my trials skills on a very tiny off-camber rock section. Got the front wheel up and across the gap, but the rear wheel slid and some big consequences. Off the side down into the ravine I went. A good 20 foot fall, somehow I jumped off the bike landed on my feet, but was moving so fast I had to jump again and again each time going down about 5-10 feet and finally slowing down by jumping into some bushes. I came out unscathed, but had the adrenaline flowing now!

Another pit stop at the aid station for some more of that delicious watermelon and still had 45 more minutes of climbing!! As we topped out at 9580ft of elevation it was time to do nothing but go downhill!! A super fun long descent all the way down the other side of the mountains we had just climbed. The descent was super fun singletrack, rocky, rooty and even got some crazy greasy clay sections with loads of ruts.

At one point were flying down the descent and came across a group of locals carrying firewood. Generally a good Ola! gets em moving out of the way, but for some reason this time they didn’t hear or decided they weren’t moving! Well it was a super greasy clay descent with loads of ruts everywhere and we were descending around 50+kph and they happened to be walking the best line. I moved off the line across some ruts and suddenly my rear wheel came sliding around and was know in pretty darn even with me and within my peripheral vision. Seeing your rear wheel at that speed isn’t usually a good thing. I started to think about how damn hard the crash was going to hurt as the wheel was sliding around and then, BAM! the wheel caught the side of a rut, straightened right out and I was on the move again. Todd who was descending right behind me could barely believe I pulled out of it, I jokingly bragged it was all in the skills (the chamois stains proved I was scared though).

Once off the singletrack it was onto some farm road descending for what felt like a good 20-30 minutes. Super fast 50 kph, slightly downhill banging it out at full speed flying along riding. It was the best part of the day, just churning the pedals away feeling like you had no chain. The road was pretty buff as far as no rocks or whatnot, but it was still dirt and bumpy making you really pick your lines at that speed. But it felt great to just punch it as hard as you could and feel like you were really flying. In fact the descent was so much fun, it made you forget about all the pain and suffering of going uphill the whole day.

Day 2 was in the books 5:45 of time on the bike. Grabbed our bags, showered up and grabbed some lunch as quick as possible. After the long lunch, it was back to the room for an hour of naptime and then right back to the restaurant to eat a 2nd lunch. We were quite famished and the first one barely touched us. Our 2nd lunch gave us some incentive to rest some more and then head to the dinner buffet where we gorged ourselves on anything we could find to fit in our bellies. Stage racing,,, ride, eat, sleep, eat, sleep, eat, sleep. What’s better than that?

Day 3 to come soon…we’re almost there!

Ok finally…not all but at least it’s Day 1

It’s not too often that you take your definition of “Epic” and completely redefine it. Most of the time the word often gets overused a bit, but I doubt there is a better term for the El Reto de Quetzal race that I participated in October 9,10,11th in October. I teamed up with local supa fast roadie Todd Scheske (who convinced me to go last winter). We put in lotsa miles on the 29ers down in Naples hitting up the trails and working on riding together.

I was a a little tentative and scared to head to Central America at first, but in the end everything worked out fine and it was actually pretty easy to get there and deal with customs. We arrived on wednesday prior to the race. Giving us some time to get settled, rest up, put the bikes together and explore the city of Antigua via bike. We rolled through the cobbled streets and markets with the locals gawking and staring at us and finally made our way out of town. We climbed up the highway out of the village up the mountain, but unfortunately we couldn’t find the way back down! This meant we ended up doing the ‘death descent’ down the highway using the shoulder into oncoming traffic. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been that freaked out on a descent in my life before. There are pretty much no rules for driving in South America and cars were whipping all over the windy blind corners, passing the chicken busses wildly and not even realizing we were there to try to descend down. Luckily we made it down without dying!

Day 1

Day 1 started us right in the City center of Antigua. Rolling out on the cobbled streets of the city, zig-zagging out way to the day’s first climb. Right away the fireworks hit and the front runners pulled no punches and lit it up the first climb. It started out steep and just got progressively steeper. The first parts of it were paved in the city and then we hit the dirt. With the slick clay it became pretty easy to justify hopping off the bike and saving the efforts.

Once we got up over the climb we did some rolling fast efforts through the farms. Lots of little ups and down that quickly took their toll. As we worked ourselves over on the bikes, the locals were toiling away in the fields, often rarely noticing what we even doing. (BTW Guatemalan produce is insanely large, cornstalks are 10-12ft tall and the carrots are as big as baseball bats!)

However, when we did come across and thru the several towns, there were loads of school kids with flags and plenty of enthusiasm to cheer us on. All day the kids and the locals yelled. “Animo, Animo, Animo!” It wasn’t till afterwards that we really realized what animo meant, kind of “get moving” or “go forward”. Every now and then the cheers allowed you to crack a smile through the grimace.

The reasons for the grimace were aplenty. For it seemed for many miles, the them of the terrain was insanely steep switchback descent, followed by an incredibly steep hike-a-bike climb out. We did this more than a few times. At one point, Todd and I were griping about the lack of noting that these were hike-a-bikes and someone yelled down, “What I don’t mark well enough, for ya”. Just happened to be one of the promoters sitting at the top chiding us on as we hiked up the climb.

After we made it through the hell section in which, I was multiple times sent into slumped over the bike/death march mode we proceeded to descend down the road, quickly. Continuing to roll through some small towns and making our way toward the final climb. I jokingly pointed and laughed as we rolled through one of the small towns to Todd, that we were heading towards what looked like the city wall. Well, it was a wall for sure and it was paved and we had to go up it. I’ve not seen pavement that steep, and for the first time I was forced off the bike and walk up a paved climb. I’m guessing it was somewhere in the mid 30% for grade, damn it was steep.

This finally brought us to our final climb of the day. ~8k of pavement in the sun. As hosed as we were at this point, we were no longer ashamed to stop and take a break in the shade. This was rough, but we were rewarded with a checkpoint at the top and loads of watermelon. If you’ve never done an endurance race, it’s worth it just to get the watermelon. Watermelon tastes so damn good when you’re hungry, thirsty and tired…

After the long climb we were rewarded with the gem of the day. The crazy descent into Panajachel. Riding the singletrack overlooking the lake and volcanoes across the lake. It was dam near vertical drop at some points right off the singletrack!

As we descended for what seemed to be ages, we came to the terraces and finally into the village.

Coming through the villages was on of the most fun descents I’ve ever done. Urban singletrack. We were descending through alleyways and corridors with very little room, and loads of continuous stairs. Zigging and zagging down and having some fun! The locals heads popping out around the corners and trying not to take em out.

By the end of the day, after 7:20 of riding I was never happier to be off my bike and finished. Though it was only 1 day down and we still had 2 more to go!

Find Day 2 here

Where to start, where to start?

Things were dialed in and ready to go this past Friday evening. Fellow local enduro rider Pete showed up and slapped the bike on the rear rack of the car while I tried to convince Lizzy girl that she wasn’t going with me on another bike ride (it’s really hard, I mean she does have a sad puppy face!). With the bikes loaded up, we were on our way Virginia.

Some 6-7 hours later or whatever, we rolled into the Stokesville campground. Unloaded the bikes, kitted up and headed out for a pre-ride. Followed a few riders and took the road over near aid station #2, then rolled back and climbed most of the way up the first climb. On the way up, got something stuck in my front tire and decided to swap out my XR1 for an ACX, and boy did having the bigger volume help on the downhills the next day. After the pre-ride wolfed down the usual pasta and salad supper and had a nice chat with Todd. Rolled back to the hotel, popped some sleeping pills and crashed hard till I awoke at 5ish am.

Early morning came fast, and the 550 strong racers rolled out of the campground. It should be mandatory for mountain bikers to race on the road sometimes, as it seems nobody knows how to ride in a big pack. Thankfully it was short lived and after we got across the bridge, I was able to move forward and get in a good spot heading onto the dirt road climb. On the opening climb last year, I had blown my load and put myself in the top 10 across the top but it cost me waaay too much later. This year, I rolled it easy and eased into it. Made my way up and worked through the groups and used the outside line on all the corners to carry speed and rip up the climb. I was feeling great and comfortable, and made it into the 1st section of singletrack and just shredded the descent (as usual).

Formed up in a small group on the road and made my way over to climb #2. Last year I came unraveled a bit here, but was ready this year and climbed the majority of it and only had to walk a small section. Raged the ensuing descent like a man on a mission and hit the road with a small group heading towards aid #2. When we hit aid #2, I took some time to recollect and lost my group. As a result I was on my own and heading toward the 3rd climb. On the 3rd climb, I came a little bit undone mentally, suffered a bit on the climb and just took it easy trying to wolf down some food and just get over the top. I ripped up the descent and hit the next aid station and stuffed my face with some fig newtons and jumped on the road. I managed to slip into a pretty elite group, taking pulls with Sue Haywood (the women’s race leader) and towing ol man Gunn4r Shogren on the Singlespeed around. Swapped pulls with Sue, and almost got dropped till Gunn4r literally pushed me right back onto her wheel when she hit a rise in the road a little harder than I could hang onto.

The next climb though didn’t go to well. My stomach was churning from the figs and I had to pull things waay back. About halfway up the long singletrack climb, I pulled off the trail and pulled the trigger. Emptied the stomach and got myself going forward again. Felt good to have the blood leave the stomach and go back to the legs. Tore up the descent and linked up on the road with Ryan Heerschap. Chatted and hung with Ryan for a bit, but just faded some more on the “soul crusher”. It took me a long ass time to get to the base of that fire road climb, including pulling the trigger one more time.

Thankfully, once I hit the fire-road turn I could get into a nice solid rhythm and turn the gears over and floor it. I skipped grabbing my bag and just topped off my bottles at the aid station. Rolled it up right to the top of the climb. Ready to rage the final descent. The dude who had just passed me, pulled off to the side at the start. After asking him if everything was ok, he said “Yeah, I rode behind you on this descent last year and you were ripping it, I don’t want to hold you up!”. Well I raged that descent, for a whole 5 meters and crashed right away. Way to live up to expectations I guess. To top it off, my left leg cramped and the dude had to help lift my bike off me. Though after I let him pass, I pulled him back in shortly thereafter (only to have him pass me on a few of the steep climbs cause I walked so I wouldn’t cramp).

At the very very very end of the descent, I flatted when I hit the creek crossing at 45 kph. Somewhere in my mind, something was buzzing about taking it easy on a light tire in the rear, but I forgot at that moment and paid for it. I threw a tube in and rolled it towards the last climb. At this point, I had suffered enough and was just praying to come in under 9 hours. Well, as soon as I hit the final climb, knew that wasn’t going to happen. Off the bike and walking the steeper parts. The left leg couldn’t push because of cramps and the right knee was literally going to explode. Finally at the top I was happy to start the descent and rip to the line, only to flat 10 friggin feet later. A shitload more of walking and someone finally tossed me a tube and a co2. Changed it out and lurched it down the final descent. Shit, that rear tire was so friggin rock solid on the final descent, I thought I broke a few ribs from the vibration heading down. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to finish a race. I’m still not sure if I want to ride it again… 9:16 something, 30 minutes faster than last year and 45 minutes slower than my goal (with a large chunk of it coming in the final 6 miles)

That’s racing though. Nothing to do, but get ready and prep and dial it all in for next season go around… Time to chill, hit some cross and up and do a little night mountain biking an cap the season off down in Guatemala!

Well, the past few days have been VERY hectic around here. Bridget went into the hospital Thursday last week and then again on Saturday. Originally kept for observation, the doc held her till monday so he could run some tests. Some scans, etc and then gallbladder surgery on monday. It’s been a whirlwind of visiting the hospital taking care of the dogs, picking up and dropping off Lake and taking care of things around the house. Thankfully she is home, feeling much better and my stress levels have lowered down a bit.

So… since she was in the hospital on sunday still, she gave me the go ahead to go and race at the Suicide Six. She was feeling fine, had some pain meds and didn’t want to see me bored out of my mind (not that I was or would be as I would do anything I could for her no matter what).

The race was, well not my best. Things started out well, was 3rd across the line on the 1st lap (1st Solo), I turned a 39 minuter, but the legs were no way feeling their best. The next 3 laps rolled perfectly around the 40ish minute mark. Lap 3 though I somehow took off without a water bottle, not a very biggie as I had a red bull in my pocket and grabbed a quick drink at the aid station (though what’s up with the aid station on a descent right before the tech singletrack?). It ended up only playing a small part in my demise.

Lap 5, my engine exploded, literally. On the singletrack switchback climb before the rattler, massive cramping. So bad the legs refused to move. Refused to move and locking up which = me falling over and laying there writhing in pain.

I walked it out, but had to shut it down immensely. Lap 5 was about 45-46 minutes long, quite a bit slower than priors. To top things off, it was now starting to rain, heavily. I lost the lead in the transition area and set off to give chase. I had to keep things on the DL on the climbs and try to maintain my gap and use the singletrack to my advantage. It wasn’t really happening. I was losing so much time on the climbs, and the legs were just utterly seizing at every hard pedal stroke.

Another 46 minute lap and I made it halfway through lap 7 with about an hour left of racing (Still on track for 9 laps), I just rode right to the pits, loaded the bike on the car and beat feet for the hospital. I had no need to suffer in the rain, and I was really stressing hard about deciding to race over staying at the hospital (even though she told me to go). Combine rain + cramps and it was an easy decision.

After eating, drinking, etc. Monday morning I was about 5 lbs light. I don’t think I peed till tuesday afternoon. With all that had happened, I simply forgot to drink. Not much I could do, and that’s racing. Big Congrats to Terry Blanchett of the Cannondale team on taking the big W!

Luckily I was able to get myself on track these past few days, knock out some final prep (including some season best numbers on a few 30 second intervals) and I’m feeling good (and hydrated) for the Shenandoah 100.

Unfortunately with Bridgets surgery we aren’t going down as a family to visit here cousin . Instead I’ll be rolling down Saturday am with Pete M grabbing a hotel (sleep!!!) and ripping things up come sunday

The hard part about preparing for big races? the lack of riding. What you ask, well if you want to get fast you gotta rest more. The side effect is I’m feeling like a caged tiger ready to pounce at the Shenandoah 100.

First thing though I gotta sharpen my claws here:

Though, weather is looking iffy for this weekend

Looks like I’ll have to lace up a spare set of mud tires just in case.

All systems check, I’m ready to go. Yesterday’s morning 30 seconders went well and tells me it’s go time. Nothing like the taste of lactic acid and blood for breakfast. Though the early morning sunshine and ride along the lakefront made it all worth while.

It all comes down to this:

Labor Day weekend can’t come fast enough!

This past Saturday, I headed down to Harriet Hollister-Spencer park to put in a few laps on this coming Saturdays suicide 6 race course. I hadn’t ridden there since last years race and needed a refresher.

Trails were in great shape and I ripped around the course. It seems the ‘backwards’ course is plenty fast. In fact I spent most of my 3 laps ripping up the fire roads and singletrack in the big ring. Other than a few steep grunt climbs (and a new switchback trail that reroutes a steep climb) it’s just wicked fun to blast it there.

Last year Dirty Bruce baited me with a shiny trophy for the fastest lap. Naturally I wanted it, but mostly cause it was shiny, so I ripped out a 39 minute lap. Then some extra suffering and I averaged about 43:30 for the rest of the laps. Well Saturday I turned 44,42,41 min laps without really pushing myself too hard (also included some stops to give some directions). I didn’t push it on the climbs & conditions were pretty similar. I just ripped and felt great.

I’m looking forward to this weekends event. I feel great and is 10 laps possible??? You never know . It’s the final tune up before I head off to Virginia for the Shenandoah 100!!

Hope to see you this weekend!

Last night was the grand finale of the RV&E Farmall Series. Things looked to be a little hairy on the weather radar as it was downpouring here in Waterloo/Seneca Falls area, but apparently never or barely rained on the race course. I had laced up a Bontrager ACX to my spare rear wheel just in case I’d need a mud tire, but ended up not needing it and was able to use the XR1 Team issue again as the course was super dry and super fast. I was super determined to break the course record of 1:03:30 and had broken down the lap times in my head over the past several days. Only thing to account for was lap traffic and/or a mechanical. Last season I took things for granted and had my ass handed to me a few times at Farmall, this year I was super determined not to let it happen again.

I felt really strong and comfortable off the start and got into the woods with a small gap on the Pilato Brothers. I was feeling good, but not quite as painful as the prior week and ended up the first lap 12 seconds faster than I was the week prior. Perfect, I was right on track and feeling good!

2nd lap was some more of the same. The Pilato brothers were still chasing me hard and in the chicane grass section, I started yelling at them to encourage a little brotherly ego race. After the second lap I had turned another 10 sec faster lap than the prior week and was still feeling really good and working the course well without really suffering (well I was suffering, but not nearly as much as last week). This set me up nicely and I realized that I really could push for the course record (even though the new course is slightly longer). My 3rd and 4th laps stayed constant and consistent, lap traffic was there, but never really became an issue as I was able to get around everyone.

After the race Lake asked me how I went down this hill so fast

On the 5th lap in the woods on one of the fast whup-de do’s somehow I was on the rear of my saddle and I heard a loud ‘pop’ and the saddle had kicked nearly upright on the rails. I stayed calm, carried my speed up to the top of the next climb and was able to hammer it down with my hand into a position I could at least sit on the nose of the saddle. I lost probably 15 seconds or so on that lap, but wasn’t scared. I stayed calm and focused and worked on making the time up. The next time around on one of the climbs, I dropped my chain and thought it had jammed into my spokes, but realized it had just jumped down the cassette, I was able to run out the climb and get the bike back into gear, losing only a few seconds in the process.

By the time the final lap hit, I realized I was still on pace even after a few mishaps and was pumped. I pushed it pretty hard and made up a few extra seconds and crossed the line right around 1:03:10. Super pumped to have a really solid race and feel great. My form and fitness are right on track and I have a few more days of really good training left before it’s time to rest up for the Suicide Six and Shenandoah 100. Hopefully everything falls in line and I have some great luck.

If you’re looking for pictures of Farmall Series you can go here