CCCX #1 24 September 2006, Prunedale

Teammates: Mike S
Friendly rivals: about 40.

I felt pretty good on the start/finish hill but after blowing up here a few years ago, held back a little on the next parts of the climb, felt like I had way too much in the tank after the finish and ended up riding two hours on the road bike afterwards and felt like I could rip the cranks off...

Tried to go hard on the climbs and recover on the downhills and flats, but ended up resting too much on the flat sections, and possibly should have accelerated harder out of the many technical turns - harder to motivate oneself sometimes versus a crit where it's do or die and get dropped. The other fields also played a mental part for me, when I got passed by riders in other fields, in attempt to not interfere with their race, let myself get complacent about passing people where I could. Gotta get that killer instinct.


T: 53:03
S: 20.1
C: 78
H: 179
Pavg: 152
Pnorm: 192




P.S.

Part of the reason the report was so short is I hit my head pretty hard on the last lap so it made the race a bit of a blur and. Had decent technical form mid race here:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=253859545&size=l
But feeling a bit of pressure from a rider behind me on the short, steep runup, and managed to do a face plant, my recovery from that was captured here:
http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=253859559&context=photostream&size=l

3 kilometer pursuit, masters 40-44

Events got pushed back about three hours due to events running over from the prior day so plenty of time to get ready. Used the Hed 60 with Michelin Pro Race 2 in the front ahd the CH aero disc rear with a Vittoria Open Corsa Evo with the 50x15. ATL was 95, CTL was 116, TSB was 16 so supposedly I should have really good legs according to the Training Manager, also worked a lot of high L5/VO2max lower duration intervals during my taper so specific workouts to address just this event for the prior week.

An odd number of entrants so I get to race by myself on the track, a rare luxury, and concentrate on a good start, not blowing up after too hard a start, and maintaining an even tempo after two laps. The standing start is surprisingly hard on the legs and feels excruciatingly slow but I get on top of the gear by the backstretch like in the kilo and am somewhat surprised and hesitate for a bit to get in the aerobars but decide to stop worrying and get aero. When I look down to check my power after one lap it's at 480, and I'm wondering if my SRM is out of whack or what. It turns out I just looked at it during my peak of lap two but at the time I wasn't sure if I should hold back more on the throttle or just go with it and decide to push it hard on the headwind part and pedal slightly less on the tailwind part of the track. After four laps I am feeling horrible, but after doing a couple hundred VO2max four to five minute repeats on Moody and Mt Eden this year , know that I can push through this, and just picture my progress on one of those climbs and keeping up the pace no matter what. Brian Peterson is kindly giving me splits which at first I was not paying attention to then realized I was keeping pretty consistent laps and something else to keep my mind off the pain. With two to go I feel like I have a second wind but hold onto it until a half lap to go when I am able to accelerate into the finish. Now I am thinking - I should have done that earlier because I had a little bit left at the end. The four hour coughing fit afterwards cured me of that notion. The muscle soreness in the hamstrings and glutes is unusual - this typically only happens to me when braking a lot using the legs.

Set a new personal record of 4:03 and change (versus first time last year at 4:24) and new two minute and four minute power max averages, and the first minute was only about 5% less than my kilo start yesterday. The average for the four minutes is higher than I can generally do for two minute L6 repeats which had me doubting the data so I calibrated the SRM again to check and I know I zeroed it several times before the event.

All I have to say is wow, the training manager does work.

T: 4:01 (two seconds different from recorded time, SRM doesn't start recording until after first revolution of the cranks )
H: 186
C: 107
S: 44.1
P: 376

Track Districts 2006

Used the last two race weekends to fine tune my work weekday taper and found that about a 100 TSS day every day of the week except 50 to 75 TSS on Thursday and Friday led to a 10+ TSB day on Saturday, the hardest part is holding back on Thursday and Friday. Had an ATL of 101, CTL of 117, and TSB of 12 for today's events.


Used the sprint bike with the Michelin Pro Race 2 on a H3 in front and Vittoria CX Open Corsa on a CH aero disc in the rear with a 50x15 gear.

I managed to screw up and lose count of my laps and was doodling along at fifteen mph in the front stretch when I got the bell. I had laid out a plan of ramping it up at L6 for the entire last lap and making the sprint into a longer effort but threw that out the window and started stomping on the pedals for the last 335 meters, took what I thought was a bad line and just tried to spin and prepared myself afterwards for confirmation of a poor result. Somehow I still set a personal best of 13.28 seconds in spite of the impromptu change in plans with an approach I may never have tried otherwise.

T: 29.5 for full effort
S: 48.7
C: 116
H: 174
Pavg: 10.8 w/kg






Used the pursuit bike with the Michelin Pro Race 2 on a Hed 60 in front and Vittoria CX Open Corsa on a CH aero disc in the rear with a 50x15 gear. Got in a good hour's rest between the end of the 200 meter time trials and this. Did a bit of practice this week on the standing starts, my peak power consistently was about fifteen percent less than a sprint with a rolling start. Maybe need to work on that more next year. Got on top of the gear in the middle of the backstretch, a bit before I expected and just got ready for the pain, and was wheezing for the last two laps of the ride. Set a personal best one minute power and a personal best time of 1:17 and change which was barely good enough for second in the 40-44 group.

T: 1:16 ( the SRM only starts recording after the first revolution of the cranks so first second plus is missing )
S: 47.8
C: 114
H: 185
Pavg: 7.5 w/kg

9 September 2006 Carrera de San Rafael

Friendly rivals: Phil from BRT, Mr. 270+ career wins and still a cat 4 :)
Teammates: none

This course has a long gradual uphill start/finish, a short, sharper uphill right, a long gradual downhill, steep downhill turn right and a right turn into the start/finish straight.

I was just going to sit on the start line for staging but someone told me we would have five minutes while they towed a car so I went off to take a couple of laps but they staged us after the first lap. Doh, again. I got stuck at the back and prepared myself mentally for working pretty hard at the beginning to pass the riders who would be dropped.

At the gun, lots of riders had trouble getting clipped in and filled the width of the start finish (crowded even further by the fancy start/finish arch ) so as soon as we got up to speed we at the back had our work cut out for us as I could see the lead riders already at least one hundred meters up the road at the turn. During the first five laps I had to work pretty hard to continually pass riders who were getting blown out the back. Finally got in contact with the lead group on the seventh lap and tried to recover a bit, about 4.3 w/kg NP for the first ten minutes, unfortunately for me, the hardest effort of the race. After a bit I was able to surf up closer and closer to the front. The most difficult part of the course is figuring out who is braking too much in the final downhill corner and who was taking it without braking, and following them. If someone took the corner well one did not have to pedal very hard but if they blew it, one had to put in a big effort to get back on the pack. In our group the hill was doable in the big ring, I never shifted from the 50 but did use the 23 in the back a few time to save my legs.

With about half of the race done, the loud explosion of a tire rang out in the last corner but it seemed fine until folks started braking a bit much and then I saw someone faceplant. That took the wind out of my sails quite a bit and set a new goal of just finishing, but still had to make up about thirty meters on the pack. Burned a match on the two uphill sections of the course, did tempo on the downhill, and looked back for help and a Cyclesports rider was game and took us the rest of the way back up to the pack, but it still took me three laps to get my breath back.

During the last four laps I made the same tactical mistake that I did at the Giro of only trying to move up on the steep uphill and getting stuck but I really wanted to go to work on Monday, so I did not try that hard otherwise to position myself for the sprint and finished in the middle of what was left of the pack. Had to brake a couple of times to wait for an opening during the final sprint.

This was possibly the hardest and longest criterium of the year for me. Disappointing with my result but can say I finished out the season with zero crashes and probably the best fitness I have ever had. Now if I could just get my head screwed on right for the tactics part of this. I need courses that are hard enough to whittle down the field due to attrition but not so hard that I get dropped in order to do well. I am really surprised I have done well in races with short hills - my short time interval power is relatively low and my longer time interval power is relatively high which would lead someone to reach the opposite conclusion for racing success.

13/75 ( 25 finishers )


T: 47:52
C: 101
H: 174
S: 40.6 // this is faster than a lot of the flat criteriums I did this year.
Pavg: 196
Pnorm: 241

Giro di San Francisco 2006

Used the 50/34 with 11/23, stayed in the 50 for the short climb as the speed of the pack is decent going into the base of the hill.
35+ 4/5 race:
Teammates: Doug H, Jim W
Friendly rivals: Bianchi Juan, Nakamura-san, Mark S, Travis from Pen Velo, Mr. 270+ career wins :), Phil from 3BRT, others.

Came into this race with a CTL of 120 and TSB of 6, so hypothetically fit, and neither super fresh or tired.

Managed to twist my skinsuit jersey sleeves into my rear wheel like a dork but just dirtied them up a bit during some recon laps of the course early. At the whistle I clipped in quickly and looked for an early attacker and someone from Metromint went so I just followed him. He powered us to a small lead and when I looked around when we exited the back stretch I saw it was only ten meters so I eased up and let other people bring him back, but noted he took the last two corners really well at about 30mph. Slotted in towards the front of the pack and never really felt pressured because if one timed it right it was possible to coast most of the way up hill with a few strategic pedal strokes. After a while the pace felt downright pokey on the uphill section. Halfway through the race I saw the riders in front of me part as a rider with his rear wheel in the air was in the process of cartwheeling prior to the next to the last turn, he either locked up his front brake or caught his front wheel in a crack and I picked the left side of him to go by and he slowly went rear wheel over front wheel, so I don't think he was hurt badly as he held onto the bars most of the way. This unnerved me a bit so it took a while to calm down. With six to go wanted to move up and every lap there was plenty of room on the left after the bridge on the hill so I waited and just went straight to the front and found myself with a fifteen meter gap by the start of the next to last turn. I hesitated here as I was not sure if I could hold the pack off for six laps and decided to ease up on the front stretch. I let about ten people pass me and got back into the group and onto Keith's wheel as he was the strongest person I knew in the field. I was able to hold it until three to go when on the first corner, a few people managed to bring each other down I believe after getting their wheels into the trolley tracks and both Keith and I had to brake hard but Keith got right back to the front in short order but I could only manage the back of the front group. Was starting to get impatient and with two to go came within a couple inches of Doug as the entire pack came almost to a standstill in turn one, hope I did not affect his race as he said he slowed down for me as I was trying to yield to him, doh. My position and Keith's did not change much from here to the finish as Keith won and I was about 20th and had to stop my sprint after 50 meters as I could see there was not going to be room to pass anybody safely.

Possibly I should have just stuck with it when I had the opportunity for a six lap solo or taking some inspiration from Keith's adrenaline inspired move after the accident and just moved right back up again but I was too conservative with my matches at six to go and probably overthinking personal safety at three to go.
T: 44:02
C: 81
S: 39.8 kph
H: 166
Pavg: 191
Pnorm: 235






4/5 race:
Teammates: Doug H, Jun A, Keiran C
Friendly rivals: Nakamura-san, Mark S, Travis from Pen Velo, Mr. 270+ career wins :), others.

T:42:08
C:88
H:168
S:39.8kph
Pavg: 185
Pnorm:222

Felt a cramp coming on after the first race so ate a Clif Bar, Gu, and one bottle of electrolyte and did not have any issues during the second race. This race felt harder at the beginning but was really easier, probably just the fatigue from the earlier race. No accidents that I saw versus the five that were reported in the 35+ 4/5 race. This race was really frustrating because after about halfway through I wanted to move up but found myself confounded by the narrowness of the bridge on the uphill section. I should have tried an alternative like burning a bigger match on the downhill right after the uphill but was too occupied with saving myself for the end. Next year... Was able to get behind Keiran, Jun, and Doug but not able to help them out any unfortunately for a mid pack finish. The only consolation was I was able to get a decent 15w/kg 5s sprint in at the end. I really felt fresh at the end so this was a pretty disappointing ending.

My take away from this is that I was not flexible enough with where I could move up, moving up was definitely possible on the downhill, especially with so many people barely moving at the top, I just was too comfortable with moving up on the hill from the earlier race and finding it just easy, and not willing to make myself suffer a bit more to move up on the downhill.