Mill City Tri

Completed the second tri of my life today. I knocked 15 minutes off my time. I’m happy with my steady improvement,but still have a ways to go until I’m happy with my times and performances.

I woke up before my alarm, had some oatmeal and grabbed my transition pack. The Mountain smith bag is working out perfectly, I’ll continue to use it. As I was packing the bike onto the car Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” came on, perfect for the first song on a race day. The drive down to Lowell was unremarkable, I parked and checked in. Set up my transition area as before, and waited. I got in to early so I ended up with a fair amount of pre-race down time. I walked the transition area a few times, studied the water, and stretched. I used body glide on the neck line of my wetsuit this time, seemed to keep all the chaffing away.

My swim sucked, not as bad as last time. Katie let me know that there were 25 people in the water this time, instead of the 6 in Ashland. The river current was brutal, I ended up having to hang onto a life gaurds bouy to catch my breath 1/4 of the way through the course. The return trip was much better, with the current. I didn’t stop at all on the way back down. I am happy that I didn’t spend nearly the same amount of time on my back this time around. I got out of the water in about :43 miutes, a better time then last tri. I was pretty out of it going into T1. I actually felt light headed. When I bent down to pick up my socks I nearly fell over! I opted out of my socks for the bike, mainly becuase I didn’t believe I could stay vertical long enough to get them on, and my shoes. As I was leaving T1, I was taking the left onto the street, I thought I’d felt my cleat engage, but I was wrong. I went down as I tried getting my first stoke out. Not a banner start to my second tri. I was bloody, tired, and still had 26 miles of bike, and 6.2 of run left.

I regained my composure quickly on the bike, and was happily cruising at about 20 mph. After about 3 miles, I stopped quickly to see if a rider needed help, he was looking confused by his tire. Lucky for me he was running 650cc wheels and there was nothing I could do for him. I started back up and quickly got back on pace. About 8.5 miles in, I heard a rythmic thump. I thought it was the road at first, but half a mile later I heard the hiss of my tube blowing. Of course it was my rear wheel and not the front. Pulled over, swapped over the tube, and got back on my way. It felt like an enternity to fix my wheel,the reality is that it only took me 5 minutes. I got back up to pace, and finished out the bike with out any other problems. My favorite part of the race happened about 20 miles in. I was trucking along a nice flat road, and I spotted a rider in front of me. I looked and went “i’m passing him”. A quick changing of gears and I’m up to 25 mph. I was feeling strong. As I closed in, I notice he’s on a nice Cervelo. As I passed him I gave a cheerful “how ya doin’?” his reply as I passed him? “Not so good now…”

I got into T2, and was feeling pretty good. And this was where I made another mistake. instead of taking the minute to put on my nicely rolled socks, I opted out of them. I’m a fool, and a gluton for punishment. I’ve never run sockless, and probably won’t do that again. I made pretty good time, held an 8:20 pace for the 10k. I am paying the price for it tho, Two blisters on my arches, and one on my right foot!

Overall the course was awesome, I’ll try and work it into next years schedule. It’s a small tri, not a huge throng of people, so it’s manageable… and it’s close!

Trans NH Wrap UP

2009 Team DeRoche

It’s been a few days since the Trans New Hampshire bike ride, and I’m writing to thank all of you. With your help and support the ride raised $137,600! Katie and I personally raised $1895! This year we only had 101 riders, which means the average amount raised by rider was about $1300, in this economy it’s an amazing thing I can’t thank you all enough.

The ride started out on Friday morning. We trucked up to the Canadian border, and got prepped for the first 100 miles. I ended up at the front of the group to start, and averaged 23MPH to the first rest stop. This was a little faster then I’d been planning, so I stopped and waited for the rest of Team DeRoche to show up. We re-grouped and went off from the second stop with out incident. A few hours later, we had our first mechanical problem of the day. One of our team’s bike was making a bad noise. We flagged down the race mechanic and on the side of the road his bike was taken apart and fixed. Only 3 of us stayed while the rest of our group, 12 in total, rode up to the next rest stop. The next rest stop was being run by Katie. As I pulled into the rest stop Katie yelled out from her sandwich station “Riding a little slow today aren’t ya hun?”. A little later on we were riding out of Whitefield and had a small crash. The rider in front of me slowed, and I crossed wheels with him, the sent me across the road into the rider behind me. I stayed up, but the rider behind me wasn’t so lucky. Minor damage to the bike, and a couple small scrapes on the rider. His front tire popped, so we fixed his flat and continued uneventfully on. My average moving speed for day 1 was 19.2 mph.

I think Teagan's favorite toy is his wheelchair!

That evening was a spaghetti dinner at the Littleton Fire Department. Pasta, salad and cake. Teagan had come up to see the riders, and spoke at the dinner. As his mother was telling the story of Teagan being diagnosed with MD, she was understandably getting choked up. Teagan looked up at her and said “Don’t be sad mommy”. The courage that Teagan has is amazing. The next morning we were all getting up and Teagan was flying around the parking lot in his wheel chair. I think he had a permanent smile on his face the entire time he was up there.

We woke up the next morning and assembled out in the parking lot. The Littleton Fire Department gave us an escort to the town line and we were off. We hung back from the front to avoid the diesel fumes. At the third stop we remembered a nice sweeping S curve in Monroe. So I took a quick stop and hammered on down to the curve with one other rider, to position ourselves to snap some pictures of the rest of the group. I have some great pictures from Day 2, unfortunately I left my camera at the Fireside Inn in Lebanon, so I’m waiting for UPS to deliver it to me. Day 2 was nice, it stayed mostly dry. Right before the last big climb in Hanover, the sky opened up and we had a nice lightening show. Climbing in the rain wasn’t bad since it generates a lot of heat. Descending was cold thanks to the 20+mph we bombed down the slick roads at. My average on day 2 was 19.1 mph so another decent day on the bike.

Once we got into Lebanon I changed into my running gear and spent 35 minutes on the treadmill. You wouldn’t believe some of the looks I got after riding 75 miles and jumping directly on the treadmill. It felt good to run after riding for two days. We hung out at the hotel and some played ping pong, and we all drank a couple beers before dinner. Dinner was an amazing chicken and rice dinner. After the dinner we had the presentation of jerseys. Every member of Team DeRoche received a new jersey for raising over $1200. After the jersey presentation we retired back to the picnic tables for some more beer and laughter.

The profile from Day 3

On Day 3 Katie was the first rest stop, before “George’s Hill”. Day 3 is probably the hardest and most fun day of the three. There’s a lot of climbing on tired legs, the first 25 miles we climb 1200 feet. Then it’s just a high speed burn to Concord since from mile 25 to 55 we decent the 1200 feet we climbed. There’s two sections of day 3 that we just let it all hang out and ‘play’. By play, I mean we hammer hard, 40% of the ride I was above 23 mph chasing and being chased by some rather strong riders and good friends.

riding in with the other 102 riders

After we regroup at a Concord Fire station, we parade over to the Rundlett Middle School for a BBQ and to meet up with family and friends who have come up for the finish.

I know there’s a lot that I’m leaving out. There is no way to truly capture the spirit and community of the ride. The only way to understand why this is a staple in my summer, and why friends fly in from California, Illinois and Texas to come ride 250 miles through rain, cold and heat that is only available in New Hampshire, you’ll have to come out and do the ride one year!

Thanks again for all you support!

Joe