I raced about a 1/3 of a cyclocross today in Kansas City. I had planned on doing 3/3 of a cyclocross. Not sure what to say other than it is impossible to rotate your legs in circles when both hamstrings are cramped. And that happened in less than 20 minutes. Twenty minutes of racing. I’d ridden 50 miles, at a 20mph average, into a stiff headwind, on a very hilly road, to get to the race. 13 minutes before the scheduled start. Next to Brian Jensen. Not a good thing. They did start 15 minutes late, so that was something. But, not enough.

My hamstrings had been feeling weird all day. But, eating at 8 am, 6 hours before the race and then doing the before mentioned trek, didn’t help much. The weird thing is that I didn’t see it coming. I’ve hardly ever cramped up a hamstring. Never both simultaneously. I had been feeling weird back in Kansas this past week. Allergies or something. But, today I felt pretty great riding over there. But, I did run out of juice as we had to pick up the pace to make the race start. Then, there wasn’t much to eat in the van. And no coffee. Not very good planning on my part, but at local races, I don’t usually cross all my t’s and dot all the i’s. Maybe I need to start. The sport is hard enough, that there isn’t much leeway for sloppiness in preparation.

The course didn’t help much either. It was more of a grass circuit race. 1.5 miles in length. On the side of a hill. 50% up and 50% down. And it had rained a bunch yesterday, so it was super slow. Not peanut butter slow, but sticky slow. Slow enough that I only rode in my small ring down hill pedaling. No rest.

So, I followed Shad Smith, KCCX around for most of the first lap. I was pretty comfortable. I got in the lead climbing back to the start line. The 2nd time over the barriers, I felt a small twinge in my left hamstring and though, “shit, it is way too early for that to be happening.” I backed off a bit and thought maybe I could ride into a pace. Then the next lap over the barriers, both hamstrings cramped. I can’t think of a race I’ve ever been in that I quit when I was leading. But, like I stated above, there is nothing you can do to pedal a bicycle in that situation. So, I just stood on the side of the course as everyone rode by. I couldn’t really move for 10 minutes or so, then just rode back to the van. Josh Johnson, Big Shark, won the race over Jonathan Schottler, Big Shark, with Shad Smith, KCCX, coming in 3rd. (Shad lost the sprint for 2nd because he was never told it was the final lap).

I can’t really complain too much. I haven’t ridden a cross bike one pedal stroke before today, but that wasn’t the issue. I guess I need to address this hamstring thing pretty quickly. There was only 10 meters of running on this course. So, I cramped up after 30 meters of running. That probably wasn’t it. I did have a very hard training day. Not such a hard race day though.

So, if anybody has any intelligent thoughts about how I can address this quickly, feel free to tell me. If not, I guess I’m going to have to try to figure it out myself, which is a long shot. And it won’t be quick.

Not the photo you want to see of yourself at a race.

Early in the race when I was leading (and still riding).

Artsy photo Joe Houston sent.

Bromont hadn't been to a bike race for a few weeks so he was in dog heaven. He loves cyclocross.

Did you guys see this article at Velonews.com last week? It is to report that one of the guys that Joe Papp had named that had bought drugs from him had an expedited arbitration hearing and was found not guilty. I posted earlier that the worst part of the last article on this subject was the line -“The names will not be announced publicly until and unless the individual cases are resolved against the riders”. And it is.

USADA has a confidentiality rule*. But, Velonews doesn’t have have to abide by that rule. And they imply that they know the riders name. Velonews wrote – “Out of concern for the rider’s privacy, VeloNews.com has opted not to publish his name.” So, Velonews isn’t going to name the rider to protect privacy. Boy, that is nice of them. If that is the case, then Velonews should never publish the name of a rider with a positive (non-negative) A sample before the results from the B sample results are released.

Transparency insures integrity in systems such as this. And the media is the avenue of transparency. So when the media, ie Velonews, fails to uphold their part of the system, the system is flawed.

I suppose since the arbitration ruled not guilty, they didn’t feel the need to release the name. Not guilty isn’t the same as innocent. And no matter what, it is still news.

But is this news now? It is and was news if they had named the rider. What was the point of the article now?. To make their first article seem less credible. This Joe Papp inquire has truth. USADA must of thought they had enough evidence to make a charge. So, whose rights are we protecting from making the charge public. The innocent? If that was the case in the United States, then all charges/arrests would be concealed and made private until each case was ruled against the individual charged.

I suppose it is one of the guys Joe outed in his tweet** from the Tour of Utah awhile back. And if that is the correct, then it is pretty easy to figure out who the rider is. Just look at the Tour of Utah results from stage 2 and do a little deduction. It would be one of those five guys. At least one of those guys are on the “Papp list”. And three out of those five are Americans. And one out of the three would never have to buy his drugs off the internet. So, figure it out.

There are reasons for the media to release the name of the rider before the hearing. Maybe there are a lot of guys out there with information that could of been used at the hearing. But, no one was notified that there was a hearing going on. And there are lots of reasons a not guilty ruling could happen with the charges still being true.

I think it stinks. I wish they Velonews would have not published the article in the first place.

*UNITED STATES ANTI-DOPING AGENCY
PROTOCOL FOR OLYMPIC MOVEMENT TESTING
11. Confidentiality

Except for the notifications to the USOC, NGB, IF and WADA (or other sporting body ordering the test) as otherwise provided in this protocol, USADA shall not publicly disclose an athlete’s positive test result or other alleged doping violation until after the athlete has been found to have committed a doping violation in a hearing conducted under either article 9(b)(ii) or 9(b)(iv) above. USADA may release aggregate statistics of testings and adjudication results.

**On August 19, following stage 2 of the Tour of Utah, Papp wrote, “Jonathan McCarty, don’t worry, you were really 5th today in Utah. Or at least you will be.”