Pilarcitos #1, Brisbane, 2007 October 7

CTL: 120
TSB: 8

Fitness *still* fading from the road season. Biggest field of the season at about fifty. Bianchi Juan Ortiz (not the one from Pen Velo, need to remind BJO of his doppleganger), and Curt Ferguson, pere of the prodigy Jeremy, and still on Coumadin so he can't crash - ever, show up and we reminisce about when we were actually fast...

The course was mostly in one large field, going out and back several times to create a longer course. It consisted of a short paved start/finish section, a rideable, off camber seven foot hill, a steep drop back to the bottom with a 180 right hander back up the hill, which was faster for folks who ran the whole thing compared to me who rode down it, but I didn't keep the speed up well on the dismount, a meandering back to cross the start finish road, and a long out/back over a field to a series of three barriers followed by a seven foot hill (making a really long running section), down the hill, a few hundred feet, back up another hill, down the seven foot hill for a longer out and back to a different spot on the seven foot hill followed by a dip and rise that you could get big air on without trying, then down the hill again, and up it again for a long loop back to the start finish. Always a test of trying to keep speed up on the corners without washing out the tires.

Lined up near the back of the pack and most of the field walked for a minute once we reached the first dirt section until things opened up again. Lost track of Juan and Curt but it turns out Juan was just ahead of me and motivated by the sight of me behind him and Curt was just behind me and gaining on me every lap.

I never found a good rhythm on the course until late, always losing ground on the long dirt straights and making it up or holding ground on the corners. Got really close to Juan on the last lap when he and I both went hard from about 300 meters out. Need to do that a bit earlier - like the start of the last lap = to play to my strength, and not my weakness, and work on trying harder the rest of the time as the power output was closer to the effort for flat crit.

41/50
T: 46:19
S: 19.4
C: 78
H: 179
Pavg: 165
Pnorm: 187

2007 Oct 6 Low Key Hill Climb - King's Mountain

CTL: 123
TSB: 14
Teammates: Jay (week off the bike and recovering from cold), Luke, Rich, and Saturday ride comrades Erik B and Dan

Somehow got talked into this even though I am not a climber. Started off the day by misreading the start time by an hour due to either dyslexia or dementia. Dog Gam! Anyways showed up early by time trialing to the start thinking I was late, so got a super long warmup with time for extra jibber jabber.


Based on the finish times for Luke and Rich at Montebello, decided to go with the slower group behind them. We warmed up by riding from Alpine/Portola Valley and Dan remarked that he wasn't sure why we were going so fast - most of the riders in our group were unattached and perhaps did not race that much. I didn't think it was that bad but we went so hard we caught the group ahead of us on their warmup.

This was a portent of things to come - Dan and I eventually dropped every one who started with us. We staged in on Greer with Dan and I at the rear about ten yards back of the front of the group. Usually I time from the stop sign at the bottom to the stop sign at the top so I *think* this would be a slightly longer distance from Greer to a little bit short of the stop sign at the top.

The riders at the front went really hard at the start. I just tried to follow wheels and close gaps when riders got dropped. We still had eight riders when we got close to the park entrance when I got tired of the surging and just went to the front. I didn't feel that bad but noticed our intensity for the first ten minutes was almost as hard as I do shorter five minute VO2max intervals!

At this point, it was a matter of reeling riders in front of me from other groups, go hard but not hard enough to blow. Saw lots of folks I know but could only manage a short "hey" or "hi" between gasps for breath. Pacing myself behind people or trying to catch people *seems* easier than just pacing by myself because I managed to set a new PR by about two minutes. Riding the lighter, race bike setup probably helped a lot, too.

This was a really well done event with snacks at the end and free energy gel at the start. May have to do more of these, even though it's not the best prep for cross racing the next day.

30/72

T: 25:59
S: 16.0
C: 83
H: 184
Pavg:274
Pnorm:276
D: 6.879 km

mass: ~65kg

CCCX #2, Salinas, 2007 September 30

CTL: 123
TSB: 14

Still floating by on fitness from the road season, work eased up a bit but catching up on errands, not fitness now.

Teammates: Mike S., Scooby in the 45+ B race, Filip in the B race

Course: starts with a short steep hill (~ 30 seconds) on pavement, a super long descent on singletrack so passing is going to be pretty hard for while after the hill, long flat section of back and forth over barriers, ditches, and serpentine passages of tape back to the start/finish.

The hill doesn't feel so hard the first time up at the pace I would like to go, but then Mike passes me and I realize I need to make myself hurt and pass him back. We keep the group in sight for the next lap but manage to lose them on the next time up the hill. I needed to pass people at this point instead of being satisfied with where we were at. Need to get used to the lung burning feeling, especially since the hill was short and the descent was long.

At this point the only thing I focus on is the race in the race where Mike and I duke it out, sometimes he gains a meter and sometimes I gain a meter. One lap he passes me in the serpentine tape section, then I grit out another attack on the hill and pass him back. This really hurts but in the big picture is a lot less than I normally do for 30 second intervals. Not sure where the sweet spot of repeatability (as opposed to blowing) versus getting close to max ability is. Feel like quitting after Rod says four laps to go, but if Mike can do it, so can I. :)

Anyways, we spot Troy on a singlespeed and follow for a lap and I surge ahead on the climb on the next lap and he and I fight it out side by side on the barrier sections before he tells me to go ahead. Now Mike starts getting closer and closer, and at the same time the B leader laps us and we are down to one lap.

Concentrate on just not making any mistakes and let him get closer until we get to the last pavement section and I surge a bit and pull away from the diesel engine Mike obtained through multiple double centuries over the years. Funny how Mike and I are teammates and manage to end up racing against each other for position in every race!



Pavg:172
Pnorm:221
T:41:00
S:19.6
C:79
H:176

CCCX #1, Prunedale, 23 Sept

Lots of work, little riding so coasting by on fitness from last month.
CTL: 125
TSB: 22
Teammates: Mike S.

The course was changed a bit from past years with the two somewhat steep but very short runup removed so laps were fast and shorter. Usually finish with Mike and Grant from SCCCC so when we started I found Grant's wheel and followed him up the hill the first couple of times. The second time there was a small gap but I didn't think anything of this but we never closed this up. This was Grant's third cross race this week and he was feeling it in his legs and he dropped off a bit afterwards. I felt like I was going hard but the data shows otherwise. Gotta learn to ignore that perceived effort thing and just go till I blow next time. After this, never caught anybody in front of us except for a few stragglers, and Mikey kept the same distance behind me each lap. Loved the new course, just have to push myself harder next time.


T: 43:20
Pavg: 173
Pnorm: 207
S: 21.0 kph
C: 80

Benicia Town Race

CTL: 128
TSB: 8

Last planned road race/crit for my 2007 season so hope to be able to produce something positive today. Plus I don't think I can maintain the current weight with my current diet of ice cream every day for breakfast. New course with a lot of character, technical, hilly with mostly good pavement with a few rough spots. Nice change of pace for a crit and right in the middle of a neighborhood, near downtown Benicia. Feels like cross weather, though, with the overcast skies, fifty degree temperature and brisk winds.

The officials start us off with a neutral lap and we get a whistle for a rolling start on the lap after that. That's a new one for the road, used to doing that on the track only.

The start/finish straight is one half of the road, slightly downhill/uphill/downhill/uphill, and into the wind, so what ends up happening every lap is that it gets strung out, then the momentum runs out and no one wants to be first into the wind so it bunches up, we go into the first corner all bunched up, then it gradually strings out a bit on the slight uphill into turn two, then the course goes vertical, a bit harder than Vacaville, but we have the full road so there is plenty of room to pass, then a small descent, then back up another hill, then turn three where we bunch up again, a small descent, a small rise, then turn four back onto the finish straight. The first four times into turn three I can smell burning brake pads from folks wanting to suck wheel a little too enthusiastically, and usually there are one or two guys who are braking so hard that their handlebars are shaking from the front brake pads grabbing the front rim. I assume there is going to be a crash here, but instead after seven laps, there is a crash about thirty meters in front of turn two, where we bunch up due to the headwind. Two riders make contact a few meters in front of me, and I think about squeezing through to the right, but hesitate, then a rider starts rolling to the right on the ground, taking up that hole, then I think about going up the middle, but then more riders hit the deck in the middle, and soon I am at a complete stop. I was actually still in front of some people but decided to pull out and save it for the next races. That's the bad thing about reg'ing for multiple events, sometimes you just think about saving something for the next event. My legs didn't feel that great at this point, and I thought the race was hard while I was in it, but it really wasn't that hard according to the data, which goes to show me that I should just ignore whatever I'm feeling sometimes...


Cat 4 Race
T: 14:02
Pavg: 190
Pnorm: 232
C: 94
S: 38.5



Lots of familiar faces. One more chance to redeem myself. This feels easier, but the final data shows the race was actually harder! This may be due to having a bigger field where there is more shelter from the wind, but also more people to push the pace.

This time I committed to staying a bit closer to the front, but still could not stay where I wanted to in the top ten. I have little trouble moving up on the hill when I want to, it's just a question of when to do it.

At one point there is a prime and two riders go up the road a bit. Somehow they manage to crash each other out on turn three while in the lead. Then an ambulance shows up for them. This is a bit unnerving, and I don't think I quite mentally got back into it after this, and slide back through the pack.

But the bell works on me like Pavlov's dog, and I start thinking about moving forward after turn one. By turn two I am about thirtieth ( did we drop anybody? these old guys are fit! ), surge up the hill into the top ten. Here I made a tactical blunder and eased up. I should have just kept on going and went for it all the way to the finish. What happened was I thought about the crashes in turn three and near crashes and just bided my time and was only about fifteenth going into the final turn. The eventual winner surged out of the turn, and the fellows behind him hesitated. They were all strung out on the left, so I just went for it up the right. I easily passed four, five, six, seven, eight riders when I noticed there was a photographer standing in the road in front of me at the finish line. I had to ease up off the pedals, and there were seven or eight of us spread across the road at the finish line, and I got about last of the leading group. Since prizes only go three deep, not that upset about the photographer, but geez, hope I am not that oblivious.

Also, I need to not let these races finish in field sprints if my sprint is not my strength...

35+ 4/5
T: 39:33
PAvg: 183
PNorm: 229
C: 97
S: 38.7

Giro di San Francisco

CTL: 132
TSB: -1

I was considering ending the road season but have a ridiculous amount of fitness for me and am really close to upgrading via top tens or points (15 points for the calendar year after some points aged over twelve months this week...), and get to see most of the other familiar faces for this end of season crit (used to be), so I pre-reged for a couple of races.

The course layout at the Giro has the start/finish about 150 meters from the final turn. The first, left turn is a slight descent parallel to some old trolley tracks so it's tight, then there's a right after a short block, then another right with a gradual ascent for one block, then a slightly steeper ascent for one block over a bridge that narrows, making passing difficult sometimes in bigger fields, then three blocks of flat or slightly descending to the next to last turn, a right for a steep downhill but short block, then the final right hand turn. Position at the top of the hill on the last lap pretty much determines within a few places where one finishes in a field sprint because only a few places can be made up or lost due to the descent/two corners/short finish straight. In some ways this is good for me as I am not a sprinter but I can go really hard for two to five minutes. The roads are in pretty rough shape as well to add to the challenge.


35+ 4/5
Field: 75
Teammates: Erik O

Haven't race a flattish crit in a while. Since most of my teammates are in different age groups/categories, the best courses for me by myself are a little hilly, which isn't the Giro! Forgot about the thrills and spills.

The race felt pretty tame for the first few laps and was able to move up easily on the hill. I wanted to try to attack on the hill and see what kind of gap I could get so when the next prime was announced I moved up to fifth wheel, then just jumped hard when the climb got steep. By the next to last corner I could see Eugene/ICCC chasing so I took the last two downhill corners without braking and put in a little sprint on the finish straight to make sure I got the prime and was able to coast across the line. Now if I could only do that on the last lap! The pack was about five seconds back when I was in turn two, when I heard the sound of bikes and riders falling, looked under my arm and saw it was in turn one. Eugene had caught up and I hung onto his wheel up the climb then thought better of trying to stay away, then the announcer said neutralize. So we went kind easy/tempo for three laps while they attended to one of the fallen riders. Then it was game on again.

Rest near the back when one of the riders and I collide after turn two, we took slightly different lines but his handlebars go into mine from behind, I steady and after a bit of wobbling he steadies and we both slow and unlock bars and get back to racing. I use this to make myself start moving up.

I planned to attack on the last lap up the hill so moved into position, but let myself drift a bit too far back. Was in about thirtieth position entering the hill but easily passed about twenty riders. The problem for me was the riders ahead were slowly drifting to the right, and cutting off the virtual passing lane. I was about to burst into the lead, right at the corner when the rider two feet to the left of me took the corner really tight and took me into the curb so I had the choice of braking hard or attempting to jump the curb and I braked. What someone told me afterwards was one of the riders behind me locked it up and a few riders went down, but since it was uphill they were not hurt badly. After braking there was a gap to the first ten riders so I had to sprint on the descent to catch up, got in the draft just before the next to last corner and waited a bit too long to uncork my sprint on the finish straight, was gaining on everyone but only got seventh, too little too late.


Pavg: 192
Pnorm: 238
C: 87
S: 38.8
T: 45:03




4
Field: 75
Teammates: Erik O

OK, after finally being in position for a sprint at this race, what I learned was I need to burn a match *two* laps before the finish to ensure the correct setup for last lap position, so my goal is to attack two laps to go and one lap to go.

This race feels about the same as the first race but more strung out, possibly due to higher winds. Then as I sit in the shelter of Erik's wheel, some riders go down between turns one and two (again!) and one of them is screaming quite loudly. More than anything this is a sign that he is OK, a silent rider would be one that one would worry about. Our race gets neutralized because he's in the middle of the road between turns one and two. So we start riding neutral but it still feels kind of fast to me, just sitting in, we go hard until we get to turn one and we go five miles per hour, then sprint up the hill, that's probably what makes it feel harder than it is. So we get the signal to start racing again after four or five laps, and then we get the signal to stop racing.

Apparently a spectator saw the blood from the downed rider and fainted and fell on his head so an ambulance was called for the spectator. We have to stop and the start and leave room for the EMT's to drive pass on the course. After about twenty minutes we restart with ten laps on the lapcards and a prime a lap. I try to mentally prepare myself - this is going to hurt. The ref says the first lap will be neutral but when the moto pulls off with a 500 meter lead, it's only neutral if we catch the moto... Erik gets a great start and I use him as a carrot. I tell myself I've done track races much harder than this to motivate myself to hang in there when I feel like quitting. Every single time we go into turn one it seems like there is a potential crash or five - we are single file until that corner when we are going so slow that everyone bunches up and there is a lot of close contact and none of us is strong enough to go to the front and keep the pace up. Finally this catches up to us with two laps to go, a few riders make contact, and one starts cartwheel with his bike and the other careens the other direction. Another rider trying to avoid the carnage without braking runs right into Erik and locks bars with him and I see Erik braking hard and I am braking hard to avoid running into him when finally the other guy goes down and this takes Erik's bars out (thankfully at a very slow speed so I am sure he is not hurt badly and this is confirmed after the race). I do my best standing start after forty minutes of racing and chase. The group has about fifty meters now at the bottom of the hill. I pound the pedals and make up twenty meters and keep even for the rest of the lap. The next time out of turn two, another rider rides into my handlebars from behind so we have a side by side tandem for an excruciatingly long time, I can feel him wobbling while I keep it steady and he brakes a bit and we finally disengage. OK, now after that drama, it's last time up the hill, I put everything into it and I make it back to the lead group. Keep up until we get to the start of the descent and I have nothing in the tank. Roll in for a back of the front group finish, with one rider off the front, and my first sixty plus minute crit. Almost threw up after the finish. This made me think it was harder but the data reveals it was only harder for that bridge effort, the total effort was easier than the first race, I just didn't push myself hard enough in the second race to make something positive happen.

Pavg: 175
Pnorm: 231
C: 87
S: 37.1
T: 41:22

San Ardo Road Race, 35+ 4/5 Group A

Field: ~40 riders
TSB: 5
CTL: 129
A couple of teams had pretty big representation, but usually nothing stays away due to the flattish last fifteen miles of the twenty three mile lap. Checked out the finish and it was five hundred feet from the last corner to the finish line with a slight incline, and a much longer incline leading up to the turn. Started the race about as fit as I have ever been so I felt confident. A little too confident as it turns out. Needed a fourth place finish to upgrade to cat 3 or I would have to start earning a lot more points because my points from 2006 would start expiring. Stayed in the top four or five for the first thirty miles, covering moves or leading the group. There are some steep hills but they are very short so non climbers like myself have a chance. As we entered the flat section for the second lap, a small group of a couple was ahead but I figured there's always someone to chase stuff like this down. Started to worry when a few miles past and they seemed to be increasing their lead so I started spending a bit more time on the front to reel them in when a couple of counter attacks went off and two more riders joined the other two ahead making it four, then two more riders went and this made six riders ahead by about thirty seconds. Was a bit stuffed from spending too much time on the front and could not respond yet. When we got to the hilly section on the final lap, and the breakaways were out of sight. At first I was disappointed because it looked unlikely that I would get any upgrade points out of this, but then figured I should just enjoy the ride. Spent a lot of time on the front during the hilly section to try and up the pace, but there were so many teams represented in the break I didn't get much help except from one team.

Finally just drilled it off the front for five minutes and was rewarded by the sight of a couple of the breakaways. The group behind got some motivation from this as well and started closing on me. One rider was off the front and joined me and I was about to rest on his wheel when my left calf just seized up and had to pedal very gingerly for a minute and massage the muscle. The group then caught and dropped me during this muscle spasm. The group reabsorbed the breakaways and now one of the bigger teams in the lead group had some motivation to chase the other breakaways. For a moment felt sorry for myself then gritted my teeth because I was determined to at least finish with this group so I put the hammer down for a couple of minutes and caught them on the next hill.

Now we were racing for fifth place. When we got to the long flattish section, Jay took a break to look behind us and said we dropped half the field by this point. I was scouring the horizon for sign of the break but they were out of sight and had to be at least a mile ahead of us by now. Knowing the distance at this point helps a lot and we had sixty three miles done, and six miles to go. After massaging my calves at the back of the group for a while I went back to the first four or so and waited for the finale, and counted down the miles. Three teams had enough riders left for leadouts, and on the final hill before the turn, Dolce Vita and EMC both were upping the pace signficantly. I had to dig deep to hang onto wheels but pushed through the pain and almost made the stupid mistake and turning onto 101 instead of the finish straight. Made sure to attack hard at the finish turn so I would be passing or on the wheels of the riders in front of me in the final 500 feet. Three riders were ahead of me and I was just able to pass them before the line for fifth place.

After the race I investigated a noise my bike was making since lap one and it turned out that I bent my front rim and the brake was rubbing for most of the race...

T: 3:12:03
D: 112.49 km
S: 35.1 kph
C: 84
Pavg: 171
Pnorm: 213
TSS: 241
W: 1966 kJ

Patterson Pass Road Race 35+ 4/5

CTL: 128
TSB: 7

Wanted to do this race because I had never done it before. The profile sort of resembles 80% of OLH on the first big hill, and the second hill is like Haskins, so in the prior weeks went really hard on OLH and Haskins and set some PRs just to prepare myself for the probably length and intensity of the race effort. Wind is a big factor as the headwind on the big hill kind of neutralizes the strength of the pure climbers.

The race starts out pretty mellow because there are about sixty of us together and the road is narrow. Even though it's uphill from the gun the pace feels easily doable to me, any time I put my nose in the wind, and the effort required chastens me back to the safety of the pack. It only feels hard for the last couple of minutes, we crest the hill and effort turns out to be a bit less than my best efforts on OLH but with really stochastic with lot more short hard efforts interspersed with a lot of freewheeling. The descent is a bit sketchy with the pack intact but it's fairly easy to stay a bit farther back and catch up, then the right hand turn of the base of the second big hill comes up. It hurts to stay on, and I almost lose the pack when I struggle to stay on and realize the crest of the hill we are on is not the final rise, but a friendly voice encourages me and I dig a bit deeper and we catch back onto the group when we cross over 580. A long meandering descent at about 50 mph follows with a couple of short hills and the start/finish.

The next time up the big hill, the womens' 3 field is neutralized to allow us to pass. We still go up the hill fairly easy. Now we are neutralized to let the womens' 3 field pass us. When we get closer to the top, folks are putting the heat on and it's going to be a close call if we catch or don't catch the women's 3 field, and the moto is nowhere to be seen. It would seem unsporting to use them to cause a gap but this is what happens, if I had the legs maybe I would have done it, too. About ten guys catch then pass the women's field at the top of the hill, I am just behind and with the rest of the men we have a very hairy descent where a lot of people are going on the left side of the road into blind corners. We also have trouble passing the women's field due to the narrowness of the road. An oncoming truck narrow misses several of the riders on the left and I ease up to avoid any potentially cartwheeling bikes/riders. This time on the second hill I am with the second group and we are about twenty seconds back. We are going to catch the women's field and the moto neutralizes them for us, but the effort takes so much out of me that my legs don't respond when we hit the next small rise and I have to recover for a bit and the group rides away from me. Not sure if I didn't eat enough or spent too much time over threshold but didn't have any breathing problems, just no legs at this point.

One thing I would do differently in preparation if I do this again is probably intervals on OLH, then 84 to Skyline, then repeat to simulate the effort required for two laps.




Pavg: 180
Pnorm:227
W: 1624
TSS: 210
T: 2:26:21
D: 71.8 km
C: 88
S: 29.4

Fort Ord Road Race E4

TSB: 10
CTL: 127

Did the E4 race instead of the 35+ 4/5 race because the E4 race started around 8:00 and the 35+ 4/5 race started around noon.

Start and finish moved from last year. Last year it was sunny and cool, this year, very cold, foggy, overcast and windy until I left at about 1:00.

A little *excitement* at the start due to the no show of porta potties until five minutes after the P12 start, if you visit Fort Ord any time soon, watch your step!

Just rode with the group until the one big hill, and was caught behind a little crash and crested about 20 seconds back, followed a couple of other guys to get back onto the group by the finish line. Really never felt recovered from this effort and on one of the small rollers to the 180, just could not pedal fast enough to keep up and had to recover for a minute, then started chasing and for the next lap and a half, stayed the same distance back from the pack. Lost it on the fourth lap and started losing ground so packed it in - ended up with a similar effort to last years 35+ 4/5 race. Lasted forty five minutes with the pack, not sure if I didn't eat enough during the race or if I was over threshold for too long on the short sharp hills.

T: 2:27
W: 1573 kJ
Pavg: 178
Pnorm: 223
D: 71.8 km
C:87

Watsonville Criterium E4

CTL: 127
TSB: 6
Cat 4 race, 15 miles

Had to officiate for the race immediately preceding this one due to a shortage so not much of a warmup but the race felt pretty easy for the most part. Each of the riders who won the Cat 4 and the 35+ 4/5 Coyote Creek races were here so tried to keep an eye on them. The main difficulties on this course are the hill and the wind. The hill is pretty short, it's only about 500 feet from the last corner to the top of the hill where the finish line is, so last corner position pretty much dictates the finish, I thought this was probably not enough to break up our race even on the last lap. There is a 150 degree turn at the bottom of the hill and a 120 degree turn near the wheel pit and three 90 turns going into the start/finish straight hill.

Never felt like I was in difficulty for the entire race. Was able to surf wheels mid pack until we got the three to go card and started moving up. Was sitting about tenth wheel on the last lap and patiently waited for the corner before the finish and was planning on attacking into the corner but there were several riders in front of me that were pretty sketchy and just held off enough that I lost about five positions, then had to choose between sprinting with a draft on the left or leading myself out on the right and went with the right. Was able to pass five people and though I was going to pass a few more but one of the riders died about six feet to my left and suddenly veered all the way to one foot to my right so I had to brake and ended up tenth of forty something. Wish I had worked harder because just sitting in until the final sprint was pretty easy.



T: 40:28
Pavg: 199
Pnorm: 219
C: 98
S: 38.4

American Velodrome Challenge Cat 3 15 lap scratch

I was planning on riding easy today but forgot I had committed to help man registration, so by virtue of having to be there, decided to do the scratch race - also may not have time to do anymore track racing this year so gotta take the opportunity when it presents itself. Was eligible for a ton of other events but wanted to save something for Watsonville.

This was scheduled to be a twenty five lap race but the sprint and keirin heats ran a bit long so ten laps were cut out.

Disappointing but you make lemonade...

Got to the front and surged a bit when the whistle blew, saw there was a gap after half a lap and just went out at pursuit pace for four and a half laps off the front before being reeled in. Recovered for three and a half laps, and went again for two laps, was caught and countered. The guy off the front had a pretty big gap, and after getting dropped, and then catching up with the help of Keith, after three laps of watching him was about to attack again when Rob went with two other guys close on his wheel. I hesitated because I didn't want to pull everyone if Rob was trying to stay away, but isoon regretted this because when Rob pulled up the other two guys pulled up, too, instead of working to catch the breakaway, and only one guy from the main pack would catch him by the end. At this point couldn't do much besides finish behind the sprinting pack. Should have kept on pushing and followed Rob and just pulled the pack so our team could have done better.


T: 7:02
PAvg: 313
PNorm: 334
C: 106
S: 44.5

Lafayette Criterium

CTL: 129
TSB: 1
Afternoon race and it's sweltering. I am not feeling so great, but perhaps everyone else feels the same way. The course is a triangle with one long gradual uphill leg, a short downhill leg, and a long meandering flat leg to a 150 degree turn uphill. I take note that the entire M123 field takes the hill in the big ring and only takes about 1:20 per lap. Their time from the last corner is about twenty seconds, and their time from the last intersection before the last corner is thirty seconds, so my plan A is to attack from the last intersection on the last lap, and plan B is to attack into the corner on the last lap.


The race feels hard but I tell myself this is just in my head - usually it is after I examine the downloaded data. I have no trouble on the hill but even from midpack the yo yo action is pretty bad out of the exit of the downhill corner. One has to take it pretty cautiously due to one idiot or another every single lap trying to surf the inside line which leads right into a chain link fence. At one point someone goes off course on the uphill and tears the yellow tape. I am well away from this but still manage to get a passenger of ten feet of yellow tape wrapped around my rear hub till the end of the race. The uphill 150 degree corner is an adventure every lap with vary degrees of success for everyone, sometimes I can take it really fast and others times come to an almost halt due to the surge, and finally there is a crash in front of me into the hay bales on the turn, but I make it past to 20th position again.

I look down and note it's been thirty five minutes since we've started and we should be getting lap cards soon and we get four to go soon afterwards. I am glad as I was considering quitting because even if it really isn't hard, it sure feels hard. With two to go I get over my laziness and prepare for the end game and easily move up to tenth wheel on the hill, rest a bit, and maintain for the last lap. Just a few meters before I was going to attack, another rider attacks. By the time I have to consider chasing I figure I will wait and see what happens. The pack slows significantly before the last corner, and this is my signal to attack and try to catch the single rider off the front. Slowly I gain on him, each stroke brings me closer and closer. We get to the false flat near the top and I am five meters back but only ten meters from the line and realize I will not catch him and mentally give up. The swarm soon surrounds me and four other riders push me back into sixth. Doh! At least I got in a much better sprint than I did for my 200 meter time trial earlier today.


T: 39:56
Pavg: 187
Pnorm: 227
C: 107
H: 175
S: 38.6 kph

200 meter flying time trial

Haven't done this in a year so wanted to get at least one time recorded this year. Stuck with the 51x15 with the Hed 3 front and rear and used an aero helmet with a normal short sleeve jersey and shorts instead of a skinsuit so I could get ready for the Lafayette crit quickly afterwards.

In the warmup I had a decent sprint but it's from a low starting speed.

The new cooldown/warmup circle is a sweet but maximum speed has to be kinda low so a trainer might be necessary for some riders, use it until it's my turn to get called up. Keith tells me he hits 33 mph in between turn one and turn 2 and gets a time of under 13. I think my average will be 33 for the 200...

Since I don't have much of a jump, try to go into turn one at a high speed, stand up in between turn one and turn and drop kind of late, after turn two, and really can't seem to get on top of the gear. End up with a 13.5 which I guess is OK for not practicing but didn't get a good sprint off, did reach my max at the 200 meter line but it was super low. I need to practice this to get a better time, one day a year on the track just doesn't cut it for me...
T: 13.50
PAvg: 586
C: 126
S: 53.7

The last lap is :
T: 24.0
Pavg: 635
C: 117
S: 50.1

Masters Track Districts

CTL: 128
TSB: 7
Tapered a bit but not nearly as much as last year so carried more fitness than freshness into districts which was the reverse of last year and showed in the results. Trying to maintain more fitness for road racing and crits.

3 Kilometer Pursuit, used 51x15 with Hed 3 in front with Vittoria EVO CX tires and a ghetto disc in the rear. Practiced the standing starts with the 51x15 but never did much else except with this bike for a 34km time trial and have not had the chance to do any track racing either so this would be my first track race of the year. Also lowered the position a bit to get lower.

Immediately after the start feel like I don't have the legs but put that out of my mind and focus on an even paced effort after the first lap. I am not sure of how much I have to give so I hold back a bit to avoid blowing up but end up holding way too much back as I end up with a time about six seconds slower than last year and am able to talk easily shortly after the race. Average power is only 345 which I can do for five minutes instead of four, so I should have been able to do much more for four minutes. Will switch back to 50x15 for the next time as I was slightly faster for the first few laps with the 51x15, starting losing a second by the two kilometer and totally blew the last kilometer, going six seconds slower over the last three laps with the 51x15.

T: 4:09
P: 345
C: 102
S: 43.6
H: 185



There are ten people signed up for the 60 lap points race but two people drop out, probably due to the 3 hour delay. So there will be no where to hide for a long, long time. Don't bother to change from the 51x15 used in the pursuit. I have never finished with the lead riders in one of these district championship races so that is my first goal, since we have a lot of cat 1 road riders, this may be a tall order. A rider who is not one of the cat 1 roadies attacks early and I try to bridge but can see the field not far behind so don't commit and just score a few points while the leader takes two sprints. The race is pretty tactical the rest of the way with the best riders just marking each other and ignoring the rest of us. After the second sprint, it feels like body blow after body blow, but I am able to time trial a bit or wheel suck and get back onto the lead group after every attack and even manage to score a couple more points. The best pursuiter ends up winning the points race and I am happy to be even on laps with him and the other leaders by the finale, if I could have sprinted I might have been able to move up a spot but have already lost track of my score, much less anybody elses by this point. Also, 51x15 although only a tiny bit different from 50x15, felt too big for me to sprint in this year, perhaps if I had been racing more on the track it would be OK, but with less time on the track, should have used a smaller gear.

T: 30:07
Pavg: 249
Pnorm: 273
C: 95
S: 40.8
H: 181

40-44 60 lap points race

Coyote Creek Circuit Race

TSB: 14
CTL: 127
Had to drive to LA at the last minute on July 4 so rode less this week and ended up peaking for today unintentionally. Still trying to catch up on sleep three days later.

Signed up for this race without any expections - it's sort of like the Brisbane course where there's a long climb. At Brisbane the descent is long so there's not much recovery time, here, the descent is short and the flat section is really long so if one chooses to not work, one can rest quite a bit between repeats of the hill.

E4 Race:
Teammates: Eddie Z., and a new club member, Marco.
Preview of the course reveals a very strong headwind on the finish straight/climb and a very strong tailwind on the flat section after the descent. Three juniors from the track program are also in the race.

The race starts and we go at a pretty hard clip on the hill but the effort only takes about two minutes with the hardest bit taking forty five seconds. This fits with my short attention span so I am able to comfortably hide in the pack. Surprisingly I am gapped out of the downhill corner into the flat section almost every lap, I sprint hard but the yo yo effect is huge. On the other hand by the time we reach the next corner, the whole pack slows considerably so one doesn't have to chase hard at all to get back onto the group. This repeats itself eight times, every time up the hill I am thinking this hurts but I tell myself the other guys can't be in any better shape, and the juniors don't seem to be suffering that much, and I always tell them to not give up until after the finish line so it would set a bad precedent to give up while racing with them. :) I seem to find myself on either Marcus Smith or Daniel Farinha's wheels, which is fine since they are good riders but since I have fifty pounds on either of them, there is not much draft here! Can do the climb in the big ring in the group but use the inner ring to take it easier, only have to use the big ring on the last two laps to keep up.

There is the usual sketchiness from riders who don't look before they move, and then either start doing the paper boy on the climb without looking to the side first or take a line totally different from the people in front of them. Work hard to pass these guys.

Finally lap cards come out and it's three to go. Unfortunately, I hear a hissing sound and it's Eddie Z, he has to slow and pull out of the race, his rear derailleur wrapped around his cogset for some reason, ouch.

The other thing that happens every single lap is we slow to crawl on the climb, and the right side of the road has an open lane because the wind is coming from that direction, and it's so easy to just echelon to the left. I count on this happening in the final lap so I bide my time until the final lap, start moving up on the climb, fading back quite a bit on the descent/flat section to the back of the pack, and thinking - the race is over for me because I am too far back, but then on the last time up the climb, we slow considerably. I immediately start edging to the right, ignoring some contact, and patiently pass when possible. When the 200 meter sign shows up ( I measured this at 400+ meters before the race ) I finally get to the front of the pack. We are going so slow at this point I assume we could get swarmed at any moment so I attack and hope for the best. Am a bit overgeared for being on the front but grind it out on the slight descent into the final little pitch upward and am still on the front. Holy cow, this can't be happening. Of course it doesn't happen, as a very strong rider easily passes me in the last 50 meters or so but I force myself to turn the pedals over despite the pain in the legs and hold on for second place. The last five minutes of the race is the hardest I have gone for five minutes in a year, even though I just tried to sprint long.
T: 47:20
Pnorm: 248
Pavg: 192
H: 166
C: 99
S: 39.1 kph


The fog burns off and the afternoon race is really hot. No teammates in this one and a lot of faces show up that were not in the E4 race. This race starts off at a slightly more sedate pace than the E4 race, and I force myself to use the 36 on the climb to save my legs as they are complaining mightily. Normally my quads never get sore but I can feel them burning now. Each time up the climb feels hard but I know it can't be as bad as I think and try not to defeat myself with negative thoughts. I hear my friends cheering for me on the sideline, too, so it feels like quitting would be letting them down! Have better luck with staying in the shelter of the pack with this group for the whole lap, though. And I know the speed it is a little lower than the first race, so concentrate on one section of each lap, every lap and hang in there. The lap cards show up at three to go and I concentrate on only four more times up the hill, manage to drop my chain while downshifting and am passed by most of the pack while I struggle to get the chain back on and burn a match to get back into the shelter of the group, near the back of the pack and start moving up. With two to go I am second wheel on the climb so a little too hyper from four cups of coffee, and patiently wait for the swarm and get back in line in tenth on the final big descent. Try to rest a bit on the flats but this costs me about twenty positions. Whoops. Once we hit the first part of the climb after the momentum fades from the flat section we start going about fifteen miles and hour and group up very compactly and there is lots of contact and I concentrate on not freaking out... I try to move up but the hill is not hard enough yet, and we probably went a bit easier so lots of rested legs in the pack so less people are blowing up. I am in the second row when a rider jumps off the front. He gets about twenty meters and it looks like that's the race with about three hundred meters to go. Finally I get to the front and attack. I am gaining on him gradually but I can tell with about thirty meters to go that I will run out of real estate to catch and start to fade. This is when two riders pull even with me and I sprint again but don't have anything left and end up in fourth. The last five minutes of this race tops the last five minutes of the prior race, but I still was overgeared in the final sprint, the last little descent requires a bigger gear but I forgot to downshift for the last uphill.

Woohoo, sixteen upgrade points now over the last twelve months.

T: 43:30
Pnorm:247
Pavg: 175
H: 170
C: 102
S: 38.3



The tactic I used today only works on a few courses, the pace is high enough on flat courses that one cannot go all the way from the back to the front in the final lap , especially when there are 40+ riders.

Vacaville Grand Prix 35+ 4/5

TSB: 5
CTL: 132

Did well last year with a breakaway, and a solo breakaway won the race, but the field is twice as big this year with two teams with big representation, Davis(8?) and Pegasus(5?), and there will be seven primes in fourteen laps.

The first five minutes of most crits seem to hurt no matter what, so when I find myself on second wheel on the first lap and no one wants to pull, decide to dig a little and see what happens and suffer on the front instead of the back. Not sure if Davis or Pegasus are planning on attacking all race or trying to set up a leadout train so we'll see if they send anybody or just pull me back.

Have about two block lead after the descent, and when I go through the start/finish, the bell is rung for prime. Now folks are interested in chasing but I get to practice full speed through almost a full lap and am caught before the last turn. Fade to the back of the pack over the course of the next eight laps. The amount of braking sucks from this position, especially in the dogleg turn. The tradeoff is the climb is easy because people break the wind for you on the flatter section and you can thread through the stragglers and work up through half the field.

I hear Curt Ferguson telling me to move up every lap. My first thought is I'm going to kill him. But I know most races are actually not that hard when I am wheelsucking like this and force myself to move up and start moving up and not relinquishing position. One time on the climb there is eighteen inches between me and the right curb and someone calls inside and we knock handlebars for a while, but I forget about it and try to accelerate away from him. With two to go the Davis train forms with three riders. With one to go, Pegasus moves to the front alongside Davis. It seems oddly slow, so when we go through the grind up the hill for the last time, I attack from fifth wheel. I look under my shoulder and no one reacts so I dig a bit deeper and try to get as big a gap as possible on the hill and take the last two turns without braking. Thought I would have been passed by this front stretch but no, and I get to the chicane with fifty meters to go, it hurts, but hear one of the leadout guys yell "go, go, go" to his teammate so I sprint with whatever I have left and make it to the first painted line I see but there are three lines five meters apart and the last one is the finish, and one guy passes me convincingly, with a one bike length gap at the finish, then a second person edges me out for second with a bike throw at the real line. Same as San Ardo 2006...

3/50
PAvg: 202
PNorm: 257
T: 41:50
H: 173
C: 93
S: 38.9

CCCX MTB XC #9 35-44 Beginner, State Finals

TSB: 6.1
CTL: 131
Finally the hip strain from the pedal unclip and the compressed disc in the neck is healed enough that I can consider racing off road. This race is run under NORBA rules for a change so I *have* to race beginner unless I upgrade.

Broke all the rules for doing well by a.) not verifying the start time until this morning and realizing I have less than two hours to get to Monterey. b.) no warmup c.) forgot to adjust tire pressure for conditions so go off with 45 PSI

Get to old venue with forty five minutes to spare, then realize, I needed to read the flyer a bit more closely and have to drive to the other side of Fort Ord to travel about half a mile in thirty minutes due to construction.

Register with fifteen minutes to spare and line up and the guy next to me points out the guy who won the last five races, a Clydesdale but he must be plenty strong to win five races. Decide to attempt to follow him...

Race starts off with a pavement section and find myself second wheel. As we go into the first descent the Clydesdale takes the lead and I tag along. I have no trouble climbing with him but due to lack of practice at speed and way too high pressure find myself bouncing all over the place on the descents and having to make up ground on every climb. The climbs only last two minutes max so it's hard to figure out the correct pacing, plus I want to do well tomorrow so need to not dig too deep. After washing out the front wheel for about the tenth time, I give up on followng him and he drops me on a descent.

Don't have much company for a while, get to the late race pavement section, and the one big climb. Have to use the middle for it and get passed again but he falls on the next descent and I pass him back and don't see him until the end of the race.

On the second lap someone passes me on the descent after the finish and I start reeling him in on the climb but hold back a bit - am I going hard enough to blow, hard enough to hurt my form for tomorrow, dunno, but going hard enough to catch is going to hurt and I cut my losses and throttle back to time trial pace and he gradually pulls away.

Don't see anyone else for the rest of the race except for slower riders from the prior 18-34 wave.

3rd/9

T: 1:15:31
Pavg: 186
Pnorm: 223
H: 178
C: 83
S: 21.6 kph

Pacific State Bank Grand Prix Stockton

CTL: 128
TSB: 9
So my neck injury from January is finally better and the hip injury from last month only hurts after a half hour on the bike so thought I was healthy enough to do a flat crit plus I hadn't done one in about twelve months. No expectations but didn't want to just sit in if I could help it.

About fifty riders for the Cat 4 crit. This felt really hard for five laps but the data shows it was pretty easy, just not used to sprinting for three to five seconds, go easy for ten to twenty, repeat ad infinitum. After about thirty five minutes and two crashes in front of me I finally felt comfortable doing the flat crit thing and started moving up. Started making a move up on a headwind section when there was a crash and had to stop and restart, got back to the pack with one and a half laps to go, started moving up again, then there was a one rider crash in front of me on the last turn and I just gave up at that point and came in at the back of the pack.
T: 45:21
NP: 202
AP: 181
C: 94
S: 41.0 kph
H: 173



Six hours later the last race was the geezer 4/5 race with fifty riders again. This felt much easier. There were still a few single rider crashes all around me so still had to stay on one's toes. But the pace felt so easy I attacked and stayed away for a couple laps and rested and figured I would try that again with two laps to go. With four laps to go I moved up to last wheel on the EMC train on the front of the pack. I bided my time and counted down the laps. As I prepared to attack again if felt like my left foot had a lot of freedom of rotation so I started playing with my pedal and the entire crankarm came loose. Doh! Had to coast and pull out. I am such an idiot. At least I noticed and nobody came close to crashing because of me.

T: 44:24
NP: 200
AP: 171
C: 86
S: 39.3 kph
H: 171

Pescadero 35+ 4/5

CTL:128
TSB:23
Got the start of a saddle sore from sitting way too long on the fixie at Dunlap and had to cut back on riding this week and unintentionally peaked for this, at least according the PMC data, would have ridden differently to peak just for this, but having to stand up most of the time during rides makes it hard to do certain things.

Perfect day for this race with the fog burning off and the roads drying off. Really nice to have a race that is only one hour from home and everything from reg to marshalling is well done. Curt Ferguson is there to support his son and offers to feed me on the hill, and I take him up on it, and only take one bottle with me.

Last time I did this race I got dropped on the first hill on Stage so aim to make it through one lap this time. Start off with 74 other coots and we take it fairly sedate until after the machine gun statue on Stage. As the road goes up, we go a bit harder but we only drop a few riders. This makes the first descent interesting with seventy plus riders, thankfully only a few close calls and one guy locking up the rear in the hairpin and saving it. This makes the trip up easier, but it feels hard and I only catch my breath towards the end. Get my feed from Fergie, woohoo, and try to drink some before we go up the next hill. We make the turn up Haskins and riders start dropping like flies. This still leaves about thirty riders about halfway up and I just can't do it anymore and have to ease up and watch the pack pull away. So close...

Time trial on the descent and don't pick anybody up and no one catches me for about twenty minutes. Finally someone catches me as we get to the school and I have company for the last lap. Happy to have someone to help break the wind and drive the pace, hard to go hard sometimes solo, and we pick up four or five riders by the Stage climbs. Jose from Pen Velo and I drop them on the climbs and we prepare for the last time up 84 with a two man time trial. The Cat 5 lead pack of of seven riders catches us along with some other 35+ 4/5 rider but we let them go and ride ou own race. Jose wants to give up but I encourage him to keep going as I could use the help until we start going Haskins again, and he makes it almost to the turn instead of giving up way before then. We part and I go up as hard as I can, but it's not nearly as hard as I went up the first time.

The first two climbs up Stage total up to about ten minutes of climbing at 4.3 w/kg, and the climb up Haskins until I got dropped was at about 4.3 w/kg. So all one needs to do is about four repeats of 4.3w/kg at ten minutes a pop. Even though I got dropped on Haskins, it's my fastest time up it by about a minute. The first hour is much easier than my time trial fifty minutes last week, but I didn't spend much time over threshold during the time trial versus twenty minutes in the first hour this week.

PAvg: 184
PNorm: 219
T: 2:30
C: 88
S: 29.9

Dunlap Memorial Time Trial 35+ 4/5

The past few years I have done the Dash for Cash crit on the day prior to this event and for a change of pace I skipped the criteriums to focus a bit more on the time trial. Chris D managed to convince me to not do a five hour ride to Pescadero and the group ride outvoted me and we just did King's Mountain so I wasn't too tired and came into this event with a TSB of 7 and a CTL of 134.

Still bruised and battered from the crash before Berkeley Hills, some road rash on the elbow where I rest my forearm and my right hip still hurts a bit when I press hard but it goes away after about an hour so today I'll just try it and see what happens.

Use the pursuit bike with Vittoria EVO CX tires and a latex tube in the HED 60 front with the ghetto disc in the rear, wearing skinsuit, space helmet from Louis Garneau and shoe covers. After reading my report from last year, switched from the 50x15 that I had been doing the valley loop (doh!) to a 51x15, calibrated the SRM, and left the bars where I last used them about eight months ago.

Been doing mostly sweet spot training at about 90% of what I think my threshold is so today I test the theory out by aiming for 260 watts. At the start I remember to zip up the skinsuit unlike last year, and try to hold back a bit as the start is not that important in an event this long. Still manage to catch my one minute man as he has a mechanical on the side of the road. I am going at about 270 for the first five minutes and it feels easy, and I hope I am not digging a hole that I can't recover from later. It is a long fifteen minutes before I see the next rider and he fights hard to stay in front of me so he's a good rabbit. The wind has picked up but it is not nearly as bad as last year. My 30 second man had a P2C with a Zipp disk and a Zipp 100 deep wheel, didn't think I would see him again and I don't. On the second head wind section I start catching someone every minute or so and soon pass about ten riders in quick succession. Now I am hoping the race will end soon, look down and only about thirty minutes have elapsed. Probably about twenty minutes or so to go. Tell myself this is doable and I force myself to pedal faster into the headwind. I struggle with really painful sit bones, but can't adjust anything without slowing because I'm on a fixed gear, and in the the time trial position. On the plus side that takes my mind off the hip and the re opened wound on the elbow. I pass a couple of more riders and look down, forty minutes down, about ten minutes to go. Make myself pedal as hard as I can, the bike swaying a bit to the right and the left, thankfully no one near me. There's one corner ahead that says 15mph and I take it at 25 and the rear wheel slides a bit but that's it. There are two more corners left with course marshals and I think there's about two kilometers to go and I am drooling over myself at this point. Finally on the last straight, one and a half kilometers, and I want to give up but remember that the difference last year for a couple of spots is less than five seconds and press onward. Finally the finish line arrives and my time is 50:10 which is thirty seconds faster than last year. Good enough for 7th of 35. My top five/ten/twenty/thirty minute powers all start from the beginning of the race but the average for the first thirty minutes and the last twenty minutes are only one watt different, well within the precision of the power meter so my pacing was pretty good, even going a good four percent harder than last year. It does seem the power/speed sags in the middle when there was no one to chase but something to work on next year.

After the race I can't sit down for about two hours on a chair or a bike saddle due to the tender sit bones, may have to change saddles next year...

Changes? Wonder how much time a 100 mm deep wheel would get over a 60 mm deep wheel. Someone I spoke to had almost the same power output but his time was about four minutes faster. He's been in the wind tunnel, though, and last I saw he had a custom 18cm long stem. Not sure if I am up for that kind of dedication. :)

Otherwise, not sure what else to do to improve except increase the power, and maybe use the under the jersey camelbak as my mouth was parched at the halfway point and it only got worse as the miles went by, and judging by this picture, learn how to apply numbers. Also, the helmet makes my butt look bigger.



Thanks to Mark and Paula for the photo!

Photo © 2007 Mark A. Adkison, Ph.D., Hors Categorie Photography



T: 50:10
NP: 257
AP: 256
HR: 187
C: 93
S: 39.9

Mount Hamilton Road Race 35+4

Stats going into this race
CTL: 134
TSB: 7

Lost CPU about two miles before finishing my post ride 38 mile cool down so no data except the parts I remember. Doh.

Also managed to tweak the hip I did not fall on three weeks ago, perhaps as compensation or in a really long hypochondriatic search for a worst case solution - leukemia or the bone necrosis. Whatever, I assume it's just a strained muscle and have to get out of the saddle for pretty much every hill for the past two weeks.

On the plus side, if logistics for the riders is difficult, it's ridiculously hard for the promoters and they pull off an awesome job again this year with reg/marshals/EMT (even for non participants...)/refreshments/and a feed from the SJBC car sweeping the course at the end of the day!

Recognized one of the riders as MVV Bill, at six foot plus it's hard to miss him. The race started off much slower than last year as I was able to ride at close to FTP on the first short hills. Even so, since I lined up at the back, I had to close a lot of gaps when riders got dropped on the descents. On the last hill before the longish flat section leading to junction my chain fell off, but I didn't panic and was able to shift it back on with hand and catch the group pretty quickly on the descent but had to burn a match. Then we started going slow leading up to junction and it seemed a lot of riders were riding really close since they couldn't go faster than the riders in front of them, and they didn't want to give up their position by slowing. Then the slow motion ballet of riders going down started playing out in front of me with eventually three riders falling, and about ten of us slowing or stopping. Since it was still mostly flat and the pace was still slow, the chase to the pack was over pretty quick. Then we started the first rises on the big climb. I remember really having trouble here last year because we went so hard from the gun but this year I was able to follow, along with thirty of the forty five starters, at a pretty mellow for a race pace, at about my FTP. This continued for a really long time. Finally by the mid point of the climb, the mountain goats came out of hibernation and started accelerating out of the pack. I think I was nearly last of the thirty or so but just went at my own pace and picked off about a dozen riders. At this point I thought only about ten total riders were in front with three about one hundred yards ahead when one larger rider caught me from behind. He encouraged me to work with him to catch the group ahead so I rested a bit and pushed the pace a bit as we crested the hill and got us to within twenty yards. We lost them on the next hill. I could not see anybody close to us from behind as we crested this last big rise, and we committed to chasing these three down. This went on for a good five miles and we never saw them again. I thought we were in trouble when I kept dropping my on the road companion from Valley Spokesman as we were descending and he was much bigger than me. We, on the other hand, were caught from behind. Eventually we became a group of ten. This turned out the be the main pack as far as I can tell. At least this made the ride to the final descent much easier as more people could share the load, but it felt like some folks weren't pulling their weight. While I was in the middle of the paceline an insect of some kind flew into my helmet. Ordinarily I would stop and get it out but I really did not want to get dropped so it stung me a couple of times before getting tired of listening to me whine. On one of my turns at the front while going uphill I ramped it up to a much harder pace than before but this only caused a slight separation in the group so I waited until the last two sharp rises before the narrow bridge and attacked in earnest. My Valley Spokesman companion for the two man time trial joined up! So we worked together for half a mile when the other fellows behind us woke up and decided to try, and they chased us down. Since most of the other guys were much bigger than me, wasn't sure of my chances in the sprint but at least the attacks had given me good position in second wheel. On the final, crazy descent, three riders, who hadn't shown any cards in our little group, attacked and were joined by Valley Spokesman and gapped me and the rest. I was able to make up ground on the descent and first accelerated in the final straight to reel in the EMC rider, then got to the front three who helpfully weren't paying attention to the midget on their wheels. I saw the 200 meter to go sign and this finish hill was much shorter than the hill I use for long uphill sprint practice so I just went when it started going up, and gapped the rest of the field by about twenty meters. As it turns out there were fourteen folks ahead of us, so I ended up 15th/45. The max power I had on this sprint was really low, only 11 w/kg but I must have kept it high for a long time.

Compared to last year I felt much better after finishing this year, even after riding back to my car it felt like I had a ton of energy, just not strong enough to keep up on the long hill.

3rd Annual Mount Hamilton Century Plus, LGBRC/MVV

Someone wanted to see this data. Milipitas to Mount Hamilton, Mines, Del Valle, Livermore, Calaveras, Milipitas.

19 May 2007

T: 6:53
D: 171 km
S: 24.9 kph
TSS: 391
kJ: 3554
AP: 144
NP: 185



When I got home, I was so hungry I could almost eat what was on the kitchen counter:

Berkeley Hills Road Race

In the interest of sabotaging myself worse than last race, managed to unclip from a pedal during a sprint and roll about thirty feet on Foothill on Wednesday, then went out on Friday to watch yet another sequel and subsequently spend way too much time discussing the merits of different zombie flicks, i.e. any time.

Also lost fellow race carpooler with cold feet, in spite of this, managed to make the start of the race with plenty of time to spare.

The 35+ 4 race filled in forty eight hours so I signed up for the elite 4 race. Conditions were about fifteen degrees cooler than last year and also nobody had done Cat's Hill the prior day as we did last year so the race would probably be harder.

In this regard the race did not disappoint. For the first forty minutes, even though I was just sitting in, it was about ten percent harder than last year. A combination of younger and fresher legs probably contributed to this. After the turn from the flats, it was strung out for the next six miles and we passed the P12 women pack. Tried to rest a few times but at no point could I really coast and hang with the pack due to the terrain and pack speed.

What was really irritating is that the exact same spot as last year, about forty minutes in, at the middle of the first longer hill, I lost contact with the pack. By itself this hill is not that hard, the rollers in the leadup to the hill compound the difficulty.

Well I've paid so still need to race so for the next forty miles. Chase and am chased by a few fellow refugees from the cat 4 pack. Played the game of trying to see how long I could hold off the P12 women's pack since we had passed them. This only turned out to be one lap. Just for fun followed at a discreet distance up the last hill and the P12 women were going at about 4.3 w/kg for the four plus minutes, but they seemed to all be pretty comfortable as no one was dropped.

Actually felt stronger than last year and did not cramp (and fall over) and ended up finishing in about the same time this year, even though was solo for most of this year and with the groupetto last year. Also didn't want to disappoint all the kind folks yelling in support, so had to go hard.

CTL: 134
TSB: 6
Pavg: 181
Pnorm: 217
S: 29.5
C: 90

Cat's Hill 35+ 4/5

Teammates: none, one registered, DNS :(
Field: 75
As prep for this, did a century + going over Mount Hamilton and back over Calaveras last weekend so was able to ride a bit less during the week and still have a fairly high level of fitness after a small taper:
CTL: 133
TSB: 9
Lost a bit of weight with the century but the ice cream and movie popcorn at work dashed the best laid plans so only squeezed a one kilogram weight loss compared to Wente. Too hard to say no to cherries on top of chocolate covered chocolate ice cream, then there's the 31 cent scoop day at Baskin Robbins...

Have not finished this so my first goal was to get farther than before with the pack, then finishing without getting pulled, not much but gotta start somewhere. During the warm up going up Kennedy, dropped the chain every time I shifted to the small ring, so I had to fix this, and make sure it worked. Last year I just used the big ring the whole race so I wanted to try something different. Was able to downshift to the small ring on the straight before the hill every lap, stay with the pack and go up the hill in the 34.

The first two laps it felt kind of easy, but probably was that way for every one's fresh legs. By the fifth lap, I was ready to cry uncle. Cheers from friends and teammates kept me going as I did not want to let them down. It's only about twenty five seconds up the main part of the hill to the stop sign so I made myself think - every one else is suffering just as much, and then trying to work as little as possible anywhere else. Found I was able to gain a lot of ground by just not braking during the last turn onto the finish straight, being in back helped as I could choose whatever line and follow distance, but made it a bit chancy as one had to constantly maintain vigilance and pass folks who were giving up. By the eighth lap it felt like every one let up a bit from the ferocious start so tried to recover whenever possible on the descent/flats while the respite lasted. On the next lap came round the corner at the bottom of the hill and there was someone stopped about ten feet in front of me, had to look behind, steer around and not think about how close we came to a collision. By the last lap only about half of the field was left.
Going out of turn one I could see some riders getting really close to the outside curb, then riders and bikes falling. Tried to go for open ground to the inside but the domino effect went too rapidly and had to slow to avoid hitting someone in the back. This left a big gap to the main pack of twenty or so ahead of the crash. Went to try and close this gap on the hill and did not have the legs for it, so cruised into the finish, meeting a couple of goals: getting farther than before, and finishing, but oh so close to something more...

T: 29:14
S: 36.1
C: 92
Pavg: 198
Pnorm: 273
D: 17.6 km

Wente Road Race 35+ 4/5

My preparation for this race involved staying out till two in the morning and then getting a leg cramp when I first stepped out of bed. At least I have cut out the daily ice cream and have got my weight down to 67kg from last years' 69kg at the same race. This year I concentrated on *not* leading the group up the feedzone hill and this and the weight change helped immensely as I was able to hang on well past the overpass with the main group of forty or so. The last of the hills after the overpass was my undoing, just could not pedal fast enough in the 34-26 to keep up, either need to cut out the daily M&M rations to cut down the weight more or get an even smaller gear... The group was only about thirty seconds ahead but I had already used everything keeping up, maybe should have gone till I had blown or caught. After a few minutes on the downhill some other folks caught me from behind and we worked together for the next 45 miles, they were stronger than me on the downhill and headwind sections, and I could comfortably ride at the front on the long uphill sections. The same calf that cramped this morning started cramping again so I tried to massage it a bit when I could. The next to last time up the finish hill simply followed the guy in front of me and we dropped the others by about a minute. Since we were well behind by this point I figured I would try something in and see if I could solo in the last lap. This was working fine until my leg started cramping again and I had to ease up. When the groupetto caught on the descent, I slipped back in but just as I was easing into the rotation my calf totally seized up and I had to wave them on. I alternating stretching and massage and after a minute I started pedaling again gingerly. Was not making up any ground nor losing any by the time we go to the flat section, when thankfully the rest of the groupetto caught me. This enabled me to get a bit of a rest and I was able to close the final gap for the rest of the guys. The last time up the hill I was able to ride away from the groupetto (to be fair many of them said they were saving it for the crit tomorrow) and catch five or six other stragglers. If I could just lose another three kg... On the positive side stayed with the group ten minutes longer than last year, with pretty much the same fitness so the weight factor is enormous for me and this group and this course.
TSB: 11
CTL: 128
T: 2:30:34
PAvg: 178
PNorm: 214
C: 90
S: 30.7
VI: 1.2

Santa Cruz Classic Crit 2007

Teammates in the 4's: Filip V., David P., Steve S.

TSB: 0
CTL: 128

Signed up for the 4's and 35+ 4/5, figure doing the early 4's race will give me an excuse to find a great parking space, get a few laps in to get used to the course, make sure my shifting works because I plan on using the 34 and ride with some teammates. Fifty seven show up for the fours which doubles the field size compared to last year. The race starts off hard and feels hard for the eight laps I am with the group, then tailgunning at the back off and on for the next two laps when the fellow I am wheelsucking gives up on the hill( it turns out we are both going to do the 35+ 4/5 race later ) and I really don't want to bury myself to catch up just to finish in the pack with a second race later. My shoulder starts acting up as well so I figure might and I consider packing it in but figure I will just not sprint too hard in the next race. For the twenty minutes we are in contact with the group I get a Pnorm of 255 and Pavg of 208 which will turn out to be about the same as the later race. Filip manages a twelfth with tired legs while the rest of us DNF'ed.

Forty eight in the field for the 35+ 4/5 which is about twice the size of last years' field as well. Managed to show up early enough to snag a front row position and prime photo ops. I always snap in quickly so after the whistle find myself comfortably off the front going down the hill. Have to force myself to soft pedal up the hill as I am definitely not strong enough to spend much time at the front and don't want to give into the temptation to go too hard too early and folks start passing on the little dip after the first rise. Immediately notice that a lot of people have to get out of the saddle to get up the steep part after the 90 turn/stop sign. Since I can't pull very hard with my arm have to spin a small gear, better for me but laziness makes me like the big gears... As soon as I get comfortable with this group on the hairpin, the next time through, a few riders are sprawled in the apex so the rest of us have to thread the needle to get around safely. None of us is strong enough to stay away for long so it always regroups on either the climb before the stop sign or the climb after the stop sign, even while tailgunning for a bit I find I can manage this with a little effort. If only being able to use one arm for pulling isn't enough drama, my right foot slips out of the pedal and I realize my cleat has worked it's way loose, possibly due to striking the ground hard in the hairpin a few times. Now I get to see how I do with one good wing and one good leg in the sprint... With three to go I think about moving up and latch onto a rider's wheel as he barely makes it past some riders in the gutter on the left during the descent and then I think better of following him but he does put me in the top twenty. I hold this position for the next two laps and the last time up the climb the first acceleration puts a gap into me but I accelerate in the small and manage to make up ten places, on the main part of the climb. Now I hesitate as last year I was actually boxed until closer to the line, doh, (the file shows me not pedaling for five seconds) then wake up and try to spin a bit more and realize this is too small a gear for this part of the climb and then go to the big ring (it works) and accelerate again and get close to the front (I swear the winner is only two bike lengths ahead) but run out of real estate as my throw earns me ninth of forty eight.


T: 29:42
Pavg: 198
Pnorm: 257
S: 35.8
C: 98
H: 176

Ronde van Brisbane 35+ 4

Teammates: Doug H.

Entered this race pretty fit for me, CTL of 125 and TSB of 3, but a bit overweight at 67kg due to a lot of chocolate cookies, cupcakes, and ice cream for birthdays at work... Got dropped the last time I did this race at about three laps so I decided to play it pretty conservative and not do any more work than necessary until the end game.

Great race organization and course as usual for Pilarcitos with the start at the crest of a longish, not so steep hill, going into a right hand steep descent with a 90 left at the bottom leading to a long descending backstretch with a 90 right going up a bit, down a bit, then rolling up the longish hill to the finish. We had half the road with the other half of the road open to traffic.

During the race I found I could just start at the back of the group at the top of the course with a gap and catch the group by the right hander at the bottom of the descent so I didn't worry about keeping right in the draft, but this came back to bite me during the race. During the uphill portion about where everyone lost their momentum from the descent, the pack spread out pretty wide and slowed a lot so there was another place to recover or get back in the group if necessary.

The uphill portion was taking us between 2:30 and 3:00 and the descent was taking us about 1:30 each lap. This felt hard but doable and the post ride analysis shows this is below my FTP.

At four or so laps to go, a couple of riders went off the front and I could see them and Doug ahead of me in the pack, and thought, good for them, felt like I was barely hanging on! We did ramp it up slightly in the latter parts of the race, with some folks trying to catch the breakaway. With two to go, as I was running up on the back of the group again a rider pulled in front of me and braked really hard in the apex of the turn. Sort of freaked me out and I had to slow and felt the tires slipping, and I pulled out my inside leg for some outrigger action but it didn't come to that but I had to sprint like mad for once to catch back up this time going downhill.

During the next to last ascent I made a stupid mistake. I had been going up in my 50x26, and then started using the 34x19 to give my legs a respite the last couple of times but I shifted under load going from the little ring to the big and spent about ten seconds getting the chain back on and lost contact. Doh. There was only about fifteen seconds to the group with one guy just off the back. I decided to just use this fellow to get back up. Unfortunately I was concentrating too much on wheel sucking and not enough on getting back up as the group disappeared by the time we got close to the crest and we would not be contesting the finale. Should have drilled it instead of being lazy and drafting, had a lot more in the tank - waaahh. Only managed to catch a few stragglers but at least I improved greatly over last time, was not pulled and finished (with an extra six pounds of chocolate).

T: 50:27
Pnorm: 241
Pavg: 199
S: 36.2 kph
C: 97

March 17 Beat the Clock Time Trial Canada Road

Managed to wake up late again(!) and had to rush over to Woodside to park and get ready for the half hour *training* time trial. I asked that I start in front of Peter Tapscott to give both him and I some extra motivation since our times were so close last time, little did I know he was one of the first people scheduled so we got a super early start at 7:34. This time I took it a bit easier in the days before the event and came in with a CTL of 122 and a TSB of 3.7 so hopefully a bit fresher. Equipment-wise the same except I mounted the disc wheel cover on my rear spoked wheel, good for thirty seconds to a minute over an hour so maybe fifteen to thirty seconds on this course. Wanted to go a bit harder over TT pace on the uphills this time and easier on the descents as one wants to minimize the amount of time going slow for the best time. I thought Peter had a chance at catching me on the outbound leg and this idea kept me going, it turns out I had almost the same split on the outbound leg as the last time. Managed to mess up the turn around this time by going in too fast, taking a long look around for cars, then braking really hard to avoid hitting the curb. I could see an Alto Velo rider very close behind me after starting the in bound leg so I wasn't sure if this was Peter or the two minute man, and a two man team a bit in front of me so both a rabbit and a chaser to keep me honest on the inbound leg. I never saw the team in front of me again, but the chaser caught me on the next to last riser, and it was impressive how much faster he was. ( I think he's a cat 2.) After he got twenty meters I tried for a little while to use him for pacing but it was a little over my head so I went threshold over the next to last rise and put everything into the last hill. This was the only point where I got out of the aerobars to climb as the speed dropped down to thirteen for a bit. I thought I saw some other racers in front of me and I caught them but it turns out they were just out for a ride. Was pretty spent by the end, losing about a quarter pound of drool, just to try to catch anybody in front of me and to keep anyone else from catching me. Managed to cut about forty five seconds from my last ride on the inbound leg so either it was less windy today or the pacing was better, ended up finishing about forty five seconds quicker than last time, too. Still have a bit of room for improvement as I have done better for the same amount of time in some other events so if I have the chance to do this again I have another target for which to aim.

T: 26:05
Pavg: 245
Pnorm: 247
C: 95
H: 181
S: 37.3 kph

Beat the Clock Canada Road TT, Feb 17

The reason I have not been doing much posting lately is that I think I have a compressed disk in my neck so I can't pull or push on the handlebars very hard or I get a shooting pain down my arm.   Even without the shooting pain there is a constant pain from the left shoulder down the arm, and sometimes in the neck, which varies in intensity, along with a varying amount of tingling in the same areas down to some of my fingers.  This is about how I felt in the last CCCX cross race and some testing every once in a while with hard efforts out of the saddle or hitting the odd rough spot in the road gives the injury a chance to remind me that it is still there.


But there's lemonade to be made and after playing a bit with the pursuit bike I found that I can ride in the aero position on the time trial bars with less pain than I have when I am sitting upright in a chair at work so I found an outlet for some pent up race jones'ing. Also I want to test my fitness as my CTL is finally starting to teeter over 120 TSS again and I was topping 4.0 w/kg on OLH repeatedly. The Beat the Clock series is a fund raiser for the
Lance Armstrong Foundation, which no matter what you think of its namesake, helps cancer survivors. Since it is not a race, the traffic is not going to stop for the riders but at least they have marshals around to warn you if you are going to need to stop or slow.  The course is a gradually descending 5 mile outbound leg and a gradually ascending five mile inbound leg, most of the elevation change in the first mile of the course and a series of rollers to the turnaround.

We had to pre reg for this race and got our start times via email which was a nice touch. Found myself slotted at 7:40 AM(!) behind multiple district and national champion Al Morrison and a few others I recognized as cat 1 and cat 2 so I was sure I was not seeing them again until they came back from the turnaround and two minutes behind me was scheduled someone who beat me by six minutes at Dunlop TT (about twice as long ) last year so I had my work cut out if I wanted to either not get caught or catch anybody.


I tried preriding the course in the same gear I have on my pursuit bike but had to use my arms too much which wasn't an option with the neck thing so I just stuck clip on aerobars on my road bike.  The other equipment concessions to aerodynamics were shoe covers, skinsuit, aero helmet, Hed 60 front wheel.  Also put on the Vittoria EVO tires with latex tubes to try them out in anger for the first time.   Considered upping the gearing from 50x11 but didn't want to mess up the shifting and if any time needed to be made up, it would be better done on the uphill sections, not the fast bits.  

Normally one has to be concerned about going out too hard but since I can't use my arm too much did not worry about this and got up to speed fairly quickly with the assistance of gravity.  Not much to say about the rest of the ride except that since the course was rolling, one has to try to go harder on the uphill sections and a little less hard on the downhill/downwind sections.  Felt like the outbound leg went really well and no one had caught me and I could see the riders who started before me only after they had started coming back from the turnaround.  I glanced down at my elapsed time and it was twelve minutes then almost missed the turn but the helpful marshals waved me through.  I did not catch anyone and no one caught me on the inbound leg either but from the results it looks like the guy who whooped me at Dunlop came close.

Examining the data reveals I should have 

a.) gone a little harder on the downhill sections, especially after cresting the hills it looks like I rested too much or was satisfied with going fast and not thinking about going hard

b.) already I went out about ten percent harder twice this week for the same length of time but those were constant intensity efforts and not stochastic like this, maybe need to try to make this more constant so I don't need to make a judgement on balancing the high/low intensity load.  In either case I should be capable of a much better time and if I get an aero rear wheel instead of just using my normal 32 spoke wheel can save some time there as well.

c.) took three minutes longer on the uphill split.  I might have saved a bit too much for the last five minutes which was my max five minutes for the day but not that great for me, was hoping to average that power for the whole event!

Pavg:240
Pnorm:242
T:26:48
S:36.7 km/hr
H:182

CCCX #5 7 January 2007 Fort Ord East Garrison

Teammates: Mike S.
Friendly rivals: ~15 including Grant S.

Missed about a month of racing due to illness and work.   Finally got my fitness back up to a semirespectable level.  The tradeoff with doing the short races on Sundays is that one has to decide if one is going to try to do well and taper a bit and let fitness fade a bit by passing up the opportunity to ride hard on Saturday or just keep training to raise or maintain fitness.

For some reason my shoulder that was sort of bothering me on Saturday was really bothering me by the time I got to Monterey but since I had driven that far I figured I had to ride.  It only hurt when I used my left arm so if I fell, I would try to roll on the good shoulder...

The course was changed a little bit with more hairpin turns added and full road closure on the road bit.  Even though it was hilly, the longest one only took about thirty to forty seconds so it felt like a fast course.

Managed to bend the inner chainring during my last warmup lap so decided to do the race with just the big ring.  Probably could have used a small ring but this really only hurt the last two times on the biggest hill.

Slotted in at about eleventh of thirteen on the first climb and fought off Mike for two laps and then he just rode away from me on the parts where one had to brake, just like on the road ride the day before!

Salvaged a 12/13 on the day with the threat of being lapped in the last lap motivating me a little bit, and 14/46 overall for the series.  Afterwards, did the MTB trails around Fort Ord then did a lap on the Fort Ord road race course.   For a non local, Fort Ord roads are pretty neat because most of it was closed to cars so one only sees hikers and other bike riders on the roads.

Power seems kind of low, freshness and snap not there due to burning a lot of matches trying to hold Rob, Filip and DiskZero's wheel on Saturday.
ATL: 127
CTL: 112
TSB: -14
Pavg: 172
Pnorm: 201
H: 171
C: 78
S: 21.1
T: 46:27
D: 16.3 km