Lost in the Gray Zone

Years of blood, sweat, and tears for nothing. 

(Well, almost nothing)

~ Posted by Andy Blasquez

While attending a junior college in San Francisco's East Bay, (a phenomenal place to ride) my mate showed me his new bike: a mountain bike.  I'd never seen one.  Yep, it was that long ago: Mid to late 80s for sure. I rode it for the first time and was immediately hooked.  I was also immediately bad at it.  Sure I could bomb hills and ride the technical stuff, but just couldn't handle the heat and the hills of Northern California.  Although my mind was more fit than my body, I still made the hasty decision to start racing mountain bikes.

My first race was in Cool California, up near Auburn.  I was stoked!  I knew that the energy of the event, the venue, and my unbridled enthusiasm was going to carry me through.  This was yet another in a long line of gross misjudgments!  Cool California was anything but cool that day.  The weather, the venue, and the terrain just laughed at me!  The climbs were anaerobic, and the descents left every fiber of my muscles feeling as if they were falling from my bones.  I loved it!  No.  That was my ego.  It just sucked...hard!  I learned a lot though, and was inspired by the level of fitness and bike skills I saw on the course.  I also learned that there is no substitute for fitness, and evidently I didn't have any.  Endurance sports aren't dominated by athletes that are talented.  They're dominated by athletes that are skilled, disciplined, and fit!  For the next decade or so, I would prove to be none of the above.

After reading that road biking was an excellent way to train for mountain bike fitness, I bought my first roadbike.  A Spcialized Allez A1, 27 speed Ultegra bike.  It really was a beautiful bike for the time (1996). Tripple up front ought to make those hills feel flat!  Yea?  No.  I spend the next ten years dabbling in cycling events, both on and off road, in an effort to learn what worked and what didn't.  For a myriad of reasons, I never learned what worked, but started painfully learning what didn't.

Briones Regional Park, CA

"No pain. No gain!" right?  

Training for the Bud Light California Mountainbike Championships in Briones Regional Park in Martinez I went spelunking into the pain cave a bit too deep.  It was hot.  Well over 110, with virtually each climb having an anaerobic element to it. Just hot as hell itself.  I remember just thinking, "This must be what the fast guys do!  They really push themselves!"  The next thought I had was one of confusion.   I awoke under a bush to the voice of another biker with a very concerned and confused look on his face.  He must have been thinking "What the hell is this guys doing sleeping under a bush in the middle of nowhere?"  And I was thinking, "um............uhhhh........".  I had no idea what was going on.  Hours later, wrapped in ice and I.V. tape, Doc got my body temp down from 107 degrees to a healthy level and told me sternly, "Don't ever do that again!".  Sadly, I don't know who that good Samaritan was that day, who drove me to John Muir Medical Center.  But hey!  If you're reading this, "Thanks mate! I'm doin' fine!"

"Pain! It's just weakness leaving the body." 

Right?  Right!  So if I knew what "too much" was last time out, I'd be safe staying just under that level of perceived exertion this time. However, Doc neglected to tell me that your body is smarter than your mind!  Once you suffer from heat stroke, your body  knows your an idiot and starts shutting down early!  This time I started to notice the signs; I stopped sweating, got the chills, I was sleepy, dizzy, etc.  I got to my truck, this time on my own.  I don't remember the drive home, but remember laying down on the driveway with the garden hose down my shorts.  Typically I'm a modest person.  That day, I didn't care who was watching.  Maybe it wasn't that I didn't care what anyone thought, but that I wasn't even aware than anyone might be watching...or even existed.  All in the name of simply elevating myself to a level that wasn't outright embarrassing.

UCI World Cup - Napa California

Finally I found it!  I found out what "condition" I had that so many cyclists didn't.  It was simply the fact that I wasn't going to quit.  My buddy Jon and I entered a mountainbike race in San Jose, California.  We showed up early.  Our nutrition was ok. We actually got on our trainers in the parking lot (a first for both of us) and really warmed up.  The weather was horrible!  It was a late spring race, but it was absolutely freezing and crushing rain.  Now I'm never cold, so I just brought my shorts and a short sleeve jersey.  Everyone else was in long polypropylene rain pants, jackets, full fingered gloves, etc.  Once again, I was out classed. I stood, teeth chattering, in a sea of slop.  BOOM!  We were racing.

We took off and I paced myself.  The loop was a sort of figure-eight that was about 8 miles long.  We would do it twice.  About a mile and a half in we were all walking.  "Already?" I thought.  We had hit adobe: Wet adobe.  For those of you that don't know what that's like, it's mud, that's more like firm peanut butter.  Add freezing temperatures and a torrential down pour to 'firm peanut butter' and you've just removed any traction whatsoever from the terrain AND added 30 pounds of mud to your exotic, titanium clad mountain bike.

This was (as Macca has now taught us) Embracing the Suck! The top of the first climb (which we all hiked) had a small lake.  We ALL threw our bikes in the lake.  We'd each spend 2 to 5 minutes removing adobe from our bikes as we recognized that the terrain had changed to hardpack sand and we could roll on.  I got to the 1st intersection, about 4 miles in, and saw many, many people heading for the truck. They were obviously getting tools, support, a jacket, nutrition, or something to help with the race conditions.

It wasn't but a few minutes later that I was completely alone.  Brutal anaerobic climbs, but this time with excellent traction.  I was laughing at myself, as opposed to crying, as I labored up the biggest climb.  I made it!  90 degree right hander at the top, then down back down to the intersection to start lap two.  Well, I thought it was a 90 degree turn.  It was more like 110 degrees.  I, however, opted for 90 degrees and proceeded to ride off the edge and slide a least 30 meters down the hill, only to be stopped because my bike which had preserved us both by getting snagged on a manzanita bush.  That's when I noticed that a) I was now back into wet adobe.  b) it was going to take divine intervention to get my bike and me back up to the trail and race course. c) a pro passed by and screamed "Oh no!  DUDE!  THAT'S ALL POISON OAK!" and d) my sense of humor was kicking in to high gear!  The pro was obviously finishing lap two and I might just, for sanity's sake, pack it in at the end of the 1st lap.  I wanted to get clean and get the poison oak off of me.  I was sweating like a pig and just slid down a mountain of hell.  I'm happy.  Let's call it a day.  Well I dug in both feet at a time and dragged my bike up another foot and a half, then again, then again...until I made it to the trail.

When I came to the intersection with the clear intention of quitting, I thought to myself, "You know what?  Screw it!  I'm not quitting!  I'll pick up the pieces later...but I'M NOT QUITTING"  This lap had taken nearly two hours, but now I know what the lap looks like and I'm just going to do it, damn it!  When I got to the intersection, my brother ran over to me with a water bottle and a towel screaming, "You took 3rd!".  Third?  I'm only half way done!  I grabbed the bottle and washed my face with the towel and started to clip in.   Tim yelled, "Where are you going!  You did it brother!  They cut the race in half and you finished 3rd!"  I immediately asked if my friend Jon had finished.  "Jon won!" he said.  "So who won the overall?" I asked, happy to take my first ever podium for my age group.  Tim couldn't settle down.  He said, "No!  Jon WON! There's a pro in second...and you got 3rd overall!"   Big smiles!  The memory still brings big smiles!

It wasn't long after that, perhaps around the year 2004 when I started cycling more regularly.  Enjoying weekend rides with buddies.  Joining the occasional group ride, 100k, or 100 mile event.  The 100 mile events really did take a lot out of me, often leaving me a bit lethargic the following day, but I always seemed to learn something.  In fact, I always seemed to learn something in any event I entered.

I now lovingly refer to this entire period of my athletic life as, "PM" or "Pre-Macca".  This was my athletic life "Stuck in the gray zone."  Suffering: Dumb suffering, because I simply didn't know any better.

It took until Christmas of 2012 before my athletic life ever really took a turn for the better.  The catalyst for this change was my need to be well in my mind, body, and spirit: Triathlon would bring me that.  The change agent?  Chris "Macca" McCormack: one of the most talented, inspirational, intelligent, and giving people I've ever had the pleasure of associating with.  My wife bought me his training program and signed me up for the MaccaX platform which enables triathletes at ALL levels, beginners to true elites, from all corners of the globe, to teach and encourage each other.  The one on one dialogues I've had with Macca himself are only the tip of the iceberg.  The network he created, of like minded people, is unprecedented.

Next Post ~ Training for my first true triathlon.  Ironman California 70.3 2013.