On a cold, dark road in the middle of nowhere...

South Jersey Training Crit #4, 4/5 race

I finally made it to a South Jersey crit.

To make the 7:15 start, I left my place about 5:15. That makes for an early morning, and it's not any better when the expected temperature at the start was 30 degrees. It was not even light out when I first got there.

I barely got a warm up. Basically, I didn't want to get out of the car it was so cold! So, I sat in the car with the heat on, rolled around for 5 minutes, then the race started.

It was a pretty flat, 3-mile course. It's not really rectangular, with two long legs, one very short one (barely 1/4 mile), and one downhill leg. We were doing 6 laps.


I spent way too much energy in the beginning. Any time three or four guys got off the front, I tried to bring them back. I quickly realized that with about 40 people in the pack and a stiff headwind on the back leg, it was unlikely that a group would get away. Instead, I focused on riding well in the pack.

I made sure I was on the downwind side of the road so I was protected from the wind from both the front and the side. I tried to stay as close to the guy in front of me and beside me as I could. I stayed close to the front, but didn't pull. Any time a group started to get away, I sat in the pack and waited for someone else to bring it back.

On that back stretch, sometimes the group just cruised along, slowing to 18 or 19 mph. I just sat in the group protected from the wind and watched everyone else attack and get brought back.

I found that I need to work on my high speed turns. Coming into a turn at 30 mph, I constantly found myself braking a bit and taking the turn wide.

On the last lap, I made the mistake of not responding when guys started surging to the front. I should have moved up with them. Coming out of the last turn, probably 18 guys were still in front of me. I fought for a better position all the way to the line.

My other mistake was trying to sprint in too big a gear. I came out of the downhill and tried to sprint in the same gear I was just descending in. Instead of shifting, I tried to just muscle my way to go faster.

Despite those mistakes, I passed 4 or 5 guys in the final straight and fought one guy all the way to the line. I think he got me.

I thought about doing the 3/4 race afterward, but my hands and feet were so numb that I was not really interested.

Not bad for my third race in three weeks. I'm feeling much more comfortable in the pack and I'm able to hang on, even when there are pretty hard accelerations. Next weekend, I'm planning on two races: a 36-mile race on Saturday and a 40-mile race on Sunday.

A few numbers:
Distance: 17.6 miles
Finishing Time:45:17
Avg Speed: 23.1 mph
Max Speed: 32 mph
Avg Power: 218 watts (260 normalized)
Max Power: 1060 watts
Time not pedaling: 8:14

Yesterday morning, I was 181.4 pounds (I didn't get a weigh in this morning).

Attack!!!

Wilmington Training Series #2, B race
Today's race was a little different from last week's. The pack was smaller, with around 20 people instead of 30. We didn't get a neutral lap at the beginning. The one road only had two lanes closed instead of all three, so the one turn was a bit tighter. Oh, and the winds were gusting at 30 mph, up from 20 mph.

I would not say this week was much faster (as the numbers showed), but the group surged out of the turns making it a lot harder.

The pace was slightly more aggressive from the beginning. A few people up front were driving the pace hard, surging out of every turn, making it pretty hard to hang on. Every time a few people started to drop back, I'd move into their spot. I gradually moved up: tenth, then ninth, then eighth place.

I noticed that along the back straight away, where the winds were the worst, the pack always slowed down. It got me thinking: I know I'm not a great sprinter, so if I go to the line with the other guys, I could finish as far down as 12th. If I could shake a few guys loose, maybe I could tilt the odds a little more in my favor.

With a lap and a half to go (about 1 mile left), the pack was splitting apart in the wind. I saw one guy getting away and I went after him. I slowly picked through the riders behind him, finding shelter where I could. When I moved from the next-to-last riders, I gunned it with all I had. I led the field for the last lap, trying to shake off as many as I could.

With about 300 yards left, two riders attacked simultaneously, one on each side. I hesitated for a second as I considered whose wheel to get on. In that instant, they were past me and riding away, with the other riders in tow. I got out of the saddle and tried to bring them back, but it was too late. They were probably 30 feet in front of me, I held that distance all the way to the finish.

There is some debate whether I finished 7th or 8th. It seems that one rider who we lapped decided to sprint into the finish with us, so he still had one lap to go. It's just a training crit and I really don't care. I learned my lesson: when someone goes by, just get on their wheel! Don't sit and deliberate about it!

How were the stats?

Distance: 7.5 miles
Finish Time (Average Speed):
This week: 19:39 (22.7 mph)
Last week: 20:04 (22.4 mph)

Maximum Speed:
This week: 29.7 mph
Last week: 27.9 mph

Normalized Power:
This week: 267 watts
Last week: 257 watts

Max Power
This week: 1099 watts
Last week: 1080 watts

A couple other neat statistics: out of 19:39 in the race, I spent 5:14 putting out less than 40 watts (basically not pedaling at all). Unlike last week, my "most common power" was 160 - 170 watts (up from 120 - 130), which definitely tells you I was working a little harder in general!

This was a recovery week, so I took it pretty easy. I still managed to drop my weight 0.4 pounds to 183 and my body fat to 20.3%.

It's not really "taking it easy", but I tried out the Great Valley training crit on Thursday. It was a great time and I'll definitely be back to work on my pack skills a little more!

Never give up. Never surrender!

Racing season 2011 has begun. Today I did a training crit in Wilmington, DE. It was a very short course, probably only about 1K. We did ten laps (plus a neutral one), so it was really really short. That does not mean it was not difficult. It was very twisty, with half the course either setting up for a turn or coming out of one. About 25 or 30 people started.

The weather helped only a little. It was in the lower 40's with a stiff wind coming down the finishing straight.

I lined up with two other teammates, Pete and Mike. It's always great to have allies in a race.

The race started with a neutral lap so we all just cruised around the course at about 16 mph. As soon as we can through the start/finish, the pace picked up to 21 mph. I settled in around the fifth spot and hung on. Sometimes someone would move past me, so I'd move back up to stay in the first few spots.

On lap 5, it REALLY picked up. About 14 people went off the front of the pack and left everyone behind. After a hard week of training, I had a really hard time going with them and was dropped quickly.

I started to look around and see if I could salvage anything. I found Mike and drafted him for a few seconds to catch my breath. I saw another rider about 50 yards ahead and thought I could bring him back. So, I pulled around Mike and moved up. Once I caught that rider, I saw another rider ahead of him, who I then worked my way up to. There was one final gap to get me back to the breakaway group, so I set about closing that one too.

It took me almost two laps, but I managed to catch back onto the break. Unfortunately it took almost everything I had to bring them back. I held onto the pack for the next few laps.

With a half-lap to go, the rest of the pack surged to sprint for the finish. I started to go with them but my legs promptly refused. No one was behind me, so I just time trialed to the finish and finished maybe 8 or 10 seconds behind the pack.

How were the numbers? Pretty good.
My most common power output was 120 to 130 watts. In other words, I spent a lot of time soft-pedaling in the pack, letting others do the work.

My average power was 237 watts, which says that when I did pedal hard, I pedaled REALLY hard. According to my power meter download, on 27 different occasions I put out more than 500 watts for several seconds in a row (the longest was 15 seconds), then quickly returned to soft pedaling. I always tell people that crits are all about surging and then relaxing. The numbers sure proved it!

Even when I was chasing the pack, I still measured my efforts by jumping from one rider to the next.

The crit was barely 8 miles long, but we averaged 22.4 mph.

I counted: with 6 turns per lap and 10 laps, I turned 60 times. I only touched my brakes in 4 of them (usually when someone cut me off or when Pete tried to run me into the curb).

Not bad for my first crit since last April (and only my third since Sept 2006!)

Oh, and my weight this morning was 183.4 and 20.4% body fat.

Outside!!!

The last time I rode outside was December 4, so it was GREAT to get back outside for a real ride yesterday. It was the third time this week I rode outside; we rode two days at work this week as well.

The biggest shock for me was the increase in speed and power that I've seen over the winter. For the first time in my life, I broke 1200 watts. In two separate sprints on Wednesday, I hit 1222 and 1220 watts. My previous best was an irritatingly close 1199 watts. I was routinely powering up hills 50 watts higher than I was in the fall. I guess all that work on the CompuTrainer paid off :-)

Yesterday was kind of rough. It was not too cold at 44 degrees, but the wind was pretty nasty. Some of the gusts almost blew me off the trail. There was a constant wind of some kind, which sometimes slowed me to a standstill and other time had me rocketing along. It's days like this that the power meter really helps to maintain a consistent effort. Otherwise I'd probably be fighting way too hard into the wind and taking it easy when the wind was pushing me along.

Just for fun, I sprinted for any trail-side signs that I saw and I sprinted for each of the huge power line towers along one segment of the trail. I'm really focusing on my criterium skills this year and being able to surge repeatedly is a big one!

I did a total of 38 miles in just a hair over two hours, not bad for a gray windy day!

My weight is down to 183 (from 190) and my body fat down to 20.7% (down from 23% I think). I'm aiming to be in the upper 160's by the end of the summer.

New Kitty

Her name is Lexi!

2011 TdB Stage 2: Rolling Hill (Time Trial!)

Today was going to be a rough day. There were several elite riders in my bank and I knew I was going to have to work to stay with them.

Except that I didn't. I missed a surge in the first couple miles and instantly found myself 20 yards behind them. At the speeds we were moving, I was not going to bring them back. So, I found myself going a 36-mile time trial over rolling hills.

I'm pretty happy with how I did, really. I finished in about 1:47:00, which gave me an average speed of about 21.4 mph. Not bad for the rolling hills that we had to contend with. That was an average power of about 240 watts, which is really good for that duration and my heart rate stayed about 160 bpm for most of the day.

My legs are killing me after that. I'm looking forward to the final stage on Sunday just because it will mean that I'm done!

On the plus side, I got a new kitty tonight!

2011 Tour de Breakaway Stage 1

It's that time of year again: time to punish myself to help raise money for our JMI group.

The Tour de Breakaway is a 3-day event held on CompuTrainers at Breakaway Bikes. The first day is a 10K time trial, the second day a 60K rolling hills day and the third day a major climbing day. I also wrote about it last year:
Stage 1: TT
Stage 2: That's More Like It
Stage 3: Hanging on for Dear Life

I really had no idea what to expect tonight. I have been training, but more focused on the type of surges and sprints that happen in a crit, not on the type of long endurance for a time trial. Luckily, this was a pretty short time trial. Based on the numbers I've been seeing in training, I expected to hold about 270 watts. My weight was up a little (largely from eating salty snacks all week in strategy meetings), so I that was going to hurt me a little on the climbing portions of the time trial.

The one thing that should have sounded an alarm for me was how warm it was in the room when we got there. I never deal well with warm temperatures when I'm riding.

The first 4 miles or so, I was doing really well. I felt like I was pacing well, my power was holding sky high (about 300 watts average) and it felt like I was barely pedaling.

Then at about 4.5 miles, I started to not be able to breathe so well. It felt like every lung-full of air was super hot. I was sweating like crazy but not getting any cooler. When the oscillating fan blew on me, it felt like the heat was on. My power started to drop.

So, I collected myself and didn't panic. I dropped my power to about 230 watts (not really intentionally, but that's what I could hold onto) for about a mile. Once I reached the final climb, I jumped out of the saddle and gunned it as hard as I could.

I finished with a time of 16:40 and averaged 282 watts. My average heart rate was a whopping 173 beats per minute.

That was enough for 12th place (against a crowd of largely Cat 1,2, and 3 riders). I felt miserable but I was really happy with the results.

Next up, the long road day!

You know you're training hard enough when...

Athletes often wonder whether they are training hard enough. I think and easy way to tell is by measuring how much you look forward to recovery days and recovery weeks in your training plan.

Today is the last day of Week 3 of my training cycle, and let me tell you, I'm REALLY looking forward to the recovery week that starts tomorrow.

For the last three weeks, I've been increasing both the intensity of my workouts and the amount of time that I spend on the bike. I've been doing a lot of high speed, high intensity work and my body is really not happy about it.

So, for the next few days I get to take it really easy. No long rides, no sprints, no tempo work, not threshold work, no heavy weight lifting. Just some short, very easy rides on the trainer.

Next weekend is the Tour de Breakaway, our annual fundraiser for our juniors team. It's three days of racing on the CompuTrainers at Breakaway Bikes. I did it last year and really enjoyed it. Hopefully this year will be as fun!

As of this morning, I'm down to 183.6 (from 190) and my body fat is holding around 21% (from 22.5%. I think last week's 20.4% number was a fluke since I only saw it for one day).

Lego

In case you think I do nothing but ride my bike, this was a fun project Shelli and I did a few weekends ago.

It was my first attempt at this kind of thing (making a movie from a series of photos) but I think it turned out pretty well. If it's too small, you can watch it full screen by clicking the button in the lower right of the movie player.

A Little More Intense

This week, I added a little more intensity to the training diet, ranging from 1 kilometer sprints (only about a minute and twenty seconds, but HARD) to 30-second bursts at 400 watts to 15 second bursts at 620 watts to long 45 minute climbs at or above threshold.

Yes, my legs are a bit tired from it!

I have to say that it feels great. I'm really happy at how well my body tolerated the extra abuse. Within each session, I actually found myself able to go a little harder after the first couple, telling me that I was pacing myself too low early on. Of course, now I'm making the other mistake and starting out too hard and then struggling to maintain. I'll get it right eventually!

I'm still doing light plyometrics, trying to work up my explosive power. I'm not getting much additional power, but I am consistently hitting 5-second power in the 1040 to 1050 watt range. That used to be a personal best, now I do it three or four times a week.

One more week of really hard training and then a week of recovery before the 2011 Tour de Breakaway

In other training news, my weight bench and adjustable dumbbells should be here on Friday. I've already received by stability ball and elastic cords. Next weekend, Shelli and I should be able to start doing solid strength and balance workouts at home. (I'm sure FedEx will enjoy delivering the 108 pound package!)

And finally, my weight is down to 184.4 (from 190) and my body fat is down to 20.4% (from 22.5%).