Hellyer Friday Night 23 June

Cat 3
Field:8
Teammates: Erik O.
M: 67kg
Michelin Pro race 2 Hed 3 front and back

Got to the track early, brought dinner and ate it, got in a good long warmup, almost threw up dinner while waiting for our first event. Went into this with a short day on Thursday with a few sprints for technique practice and a really long 225 TSS day with 60 minutes of L4 on Wednesday as a change of pace from previous ATL prior to Friday night track racing. I am not sure if this or a longer warmup or the two cups of coffee ( I am not going to sleep for a while...) was key to better performance.


8 Lap Win and Out:
Accelerated slowly at the whistle, and no one wanted to come with me. Quickly got a quarter lap and figured I would go for it. After a few more laps got up to half a lap and made it a goal to keep it there. Gio made a comment about the Deaf Games cyclists before the race - about how one should go much harder on the track than on the road when attacking, then soft pedal to recover, I tried to put this into action by going hard into the headwind section after turn 1 and before turn 4 and backing off a little bit on the other half of the course, keeping an eye on the group and keeping the gap at one half a lap. I thought Gio could not possibly be right but it worked so I was wrong. Amazingly there were only a few attacks from the group but nothing got organized so I was able to keep a gap and salute the crowd at the finish when I won.

Garrett Lau took this picture of me during the race:

Looks a lot like the blogger profile pic, sadly no pics of the finish line fist pumping.

T: 3:49
P: 352
H: 186
C: 103
S: 43.1 kph

Miss and out:
Since there were only eight of us, one only had to last 5 laps to get into the final 3. I thought I might be able to hold the front for at least that long. Started at the back of the group and when the whistle blew the pack went down to the stayer's line or lower so put in a big jump to pass over the top, looked back, and went to into the lane to lead the group around. Every single lap I was expecting to be passed, but was able to hold off everyone until it was down to Nick in the lead, Scott on his hip, and Alden in the lane and me. On the next lap, Alden was still in the bad spot and I was able to go over the top and past him to make into the final 3. Nick was still leading and Scott and I followed during the safe lap. On turn 4, Nick picked it up, then jumped really hard into the final lap. I did not even contest this and rolled in behind them, perhaps I should have tried, but have yet to beat Scott or Nick in a sprint of any kind.

Set a clear two minute power max average during the start and equalled my one minute max average on the road (thought I was holding something back, but good thing I wasn't), however here the power is stochastic, when I usually do L6 intervals on the road, I am holding power constant - probably need to mix it up during training, on the other hand motivation is always higher during races.
T: 3:32
P: 331
H: 189
C: 100
S: 42.1 kph

10 lap point a lap:
Mary said she wanted to play a bit during this race so I agreed to help. I jumped hard after the whistle and looked back and I had everyone on my wheel after a lap, then Jon jumped with Mary on his wheel. I stayed on her wheel and then they started sprinting for the points and since I really could not do anything for myself (only one point to the winner of each lap) or Mary from here I got out of the way and eased up and let the other folks try to bring them back - the sprint caused a 10 meter gap which is small but with the scoring of the race can make for interesting tactics where no one wants to do any work with riders off the front. I could see that Jon was not really cooperating with Mary and taking all the points but still not much I could do about it without bringing other riders with me as I shot a wad at the start of the race. Elliot then jumped hard enough that he was able to get up there, past the gap, and soon Jon and Elliot dropped Mary. Possibly I should have caught her quicker here and told her to rest but hesitated and took a few laps to catch up. Since most of the points were split between just two riders, final placings would be determined by order of finish on the last lap so I worked to pass Jon and finished just behind Erik O.
T: 4:29
P: 310
H: 184
C: 109
S: 45.8 kph

40 lap all hands scratch race:
23 riders P/1/2/3
Teammates: BB, Erik O.
I wasn't sure how I would fare in this race so set my goal pretty low of just finishing since they said they would pulled lapped riders. There were only a few times where I felt I had to work hard as I surfed the back of the pack to stay out of the way of the folks who would be contending for money as this was paying out four or five deep cash just for this race. Surprisingly McCook (who really must love the track because he drove back from Tour De Nez to race and I complain about the half hour drive in rush hour traffic) and DanHolla were back here for quite some time, too, and I could see some cat 3's working at the front of the pack. One time I got gapped and DanHolla was on my wheel so I worked a tiny bit so I could pull him up and not negatively affect his race. Dan and I talked a bit about our blogs and he wanted to try the SRM and I told him I wasn't racing on the track in August and I could rent it to him for that month. Towards the end I felt fresh and was thinking I should do something but with about 18 riders still left in the pack it was pretty hard to pass anyone without running into someone's butt. Should have attacked with about six or seven laps to go just to get a hard effort in as my output was not really that big, more like a L3 or low L4 effort - the 10 lap point a lap with just eight riders was faster. Next time! Need to learn to adjust goals on the fly. On the plus side, I met my initial goal. I think the order of finish was DanHolla, BB, Gio, McCook so staying at the back would have been a good strategy *until* the last half where I could not muster the courage to start moving up.
T: 17:55
Pavg: 201
Pnorm: 218
H: 177
C: 104
S: 43.9 kph

Finished 2/8 in the omnium. Felt good about doing well, but wished some of the other heavy hitters had shown up, the next day's race at Pescadero really doesn't seem like it would draw the same riders but perhaps some of the riders are also at Tour de Nez.