Racer Ex 

ThNW Crit "A" field report 4/30ish:

After the longish ride the day before and 4 hours in the car after I was a little sticky during warmup. Local "A" team had three guys in the field (two Cat 1's and a 2) and were joking about how they were discussing plans to kill me. Nice to know you're still taken seriously while spotting folks 20 years or so.

One of them goes from the gun. Half a lap later another jumps right before I was going to. I jump a couple of seconds later. Takes me a lap of chasing to get his attention, smart racer he is he backs off and we hook up and start working together. We're motoring hard but making no progress catching his teammate, who later tells us he thought it was me coming up alone.

Two teammates from the local club bridge up to our two man effort, one of them a strong junior. The guy falls off right away and the junior hangs for a lap or two then vanishes as well.

Still chasing, the last "A" team guy shows up 10 laps in having towed another racer up. We catch the flyer. The "tow up" gets spit out when one of the "A" team attacks so now it's 3 on 1. Couple of attacks and I hang; we negotiate a settlement agreement (No attacks and I'll help pull till a couple to go, otherwise I'm sitting in and doing nothing) so we start doing a TTT. 3 minutes a lap or so, two to go we catch/lap the field and go through to the front.

"A" team flyer guy takes a flyer (he's a monster) I get worked over on the last lap, the lapped pack is in the mix, and I get 4th in a tight sprint at the end.

Once I got over the sticky, best I've felt in a while. TT bike today, drop ride tomorrow, weights Sunday. TOC comes through the area next week, might check that out.

12 days to Nats.

Racer Ex 

BTW, Laurens Ten Dam has been in town doing some of the local races. Beat Bobby Julich's record time on the local HC. Did not beat the undocumented LeMond time though. Sagan spotted over at the lake.

LAJ

Best on Hess 5/27

This is an out and back with a big ol downhill, and a resulting big climb back.


Last year, I sort of sucked on this one, and I was hoping to have less suckage. Keeping my head, and not going out too hard has been an issue, and this time, I managed to straighten up and fly right. Climbing the first rise, I was where I needed to be, then the flat and downhill, I was much lower than I wanted and needed to be. There was a bit of wind that messed with me, but I doubt that was my downfall. Simply put, I need to make power on the flats and downhill. Good power climbing, but it still wasn't enough to overcome the rest. HR was a little low, so there was some fatigue left over from the previous week, as well. Pulled a 5th out, with a less than optimal ride.


Lafayette Criterium 2/11

This was labelled as a 1.7 mile course, with a big climb, and a technical downhill. I was OK with it, until I wasn't.


My warm up was pretty convoluted, simply because I've never ridden this course before. I watched a few racers take the downhill, off-camber corner, and saw the good and the bad of the differing lines, and filed that away. Once I rode the course, and did my warm up, the weather started to look pretty cruddy. I talked to @rapwithtom prior to the start, and we both agreed that riding to my truck wasn't a bad option if the weather tuned to crap.


There were only 11 of us? Not sure why the low turnout, as this was a pretty cool event. Either way, we lined up, and it started sprinkling, and the whistle blew. Within half a lap, it started to rain. The pace was sane the first lap, then on the climb, Gordon and Billy (I believe) put a little gap into us. The rain was getting worse, and the downhill corner was a little hairy for me, and I had to work a bit to maintain contact on the uphill. The other downhill and corner, I was more confident, and I maintained contact easily. The finishing straight, the group took a break, and slowed. We did that type of lap one more time, Gordon was reeled back in, and I decided to give it a go on the climb. I didn't like riding around people in the rain, and it wasn't getting any better.


Music to my ears.... As I started to roll by guys, all I heard was "hup, hup, hup". They knew what I was up to, but couldn't do a thing. I was off, Blair and Gordon were with me, and we took off. We got a gap, the next lap, Gordon was off, and it was just Blair and myself. I gapped Blair a couple times on the climb, but my trepidation on the corner hurt me. Simply put, my confidence was low, and it messed with me every lap, to the point I was flat hosing it, and allowing the gap to go down. From then on, Blair took the lead on that, and that was fine.


It was awesome, as when we went by the start/finish, @rapwithtom was shouting time, and encouragement. So very much appreciated! We held the break, I started my sprint 20 feet too late, and I finished second by 2 feet.


Things I learned... People that are strong may not have the commitment to stay away. Blair was ready to give in the second time around, and I had to convince him "we got this". Next time, I may tell my break-mate they better roll back... I ended up doing a lot of the work, simply because I was committed, and would rather fight one or two, than the whole bunch. Start my sprint early, but not as early as last week at Oz.

valygrl

Nice work LAJ!

Same races for me this weekend.

Stunk up the TT at Hess, 8th/9 in the Sw3. Then did my first TTT with a friend on a different team, she races masters so we did the MW50+. We had practiced one time using some help from a very reliable source (you know who you are, thank you) and our communication plan worked great. She pulled more of the down, I pulled more of the up, and we beat our only competition by ~4 minutes.

Sunday I raced masters again, due to weather/time of day - the cat 3 race was at rain o'clock. Tiny field (3) but we raced with the 4's so not too lonely. One of the masters crashed herself out for no reason, the other was looking ok, and it wasn't too hard to stay with the 4's. Then 12 minutes in, no front shifting. ... Oh yes I did ... Low battery on my di2. Stuck in the little ring. Rear shifting still worked. Wow I'm an idiot. So, I knew there was no way I was going to contest a sprint, so my only hope was getting rid of the other master in the climb. Lucky for me, other girls were also trying to make the climb hard, and it was ok for me but the other master disappeared at about 3 to go. I tried to stay with the group but on the last time on the flat straightaway before the finish, the lack of a big ring did me in, and I rolled in about 6th overall and 1st in my race.

That course is super cool I don't know why turnout was so low.

revchuck 

Having a Master's moment, are we? Way to keep your head in the game!

LAJ

Awesome, and even more awesome.

Racer Ex 

Great racing LAJ and Valygrl!

LAJ, I've found over the years that some people don't know how strong they are, or get stuck into a mode where they are more afraid of getting blown out from an effort trying to win than they are having a mediocre finish.

Heart and smart go a long way in bike racing.

Dang Di2 batteries last so long between charges that it's easy to lose track of the last time you plugged it in. This is where racing track comes in handy

Heathpack 

Nice racing, @Racer Ex. Lol, nice to still scare the kids.
@LAJ dominating the podiums of late. Love it totally.
@valygrl, way to win right through the brain fart.

LAJ

Well done, @valygrl!

I loaded my bike, and happened to realize my battery was still in the charger. It only takes once, and my once, I got lucky.

valygrl

I missed r.w.t.'s news - congrats on the upgrade!

happybday29475

Congrats!

Totally agree. Last year was the first year for this race and it was poorly marketed, almost like an underground race...but it's a totally fun course! I'm surprised it wasn't more crowded this year...maybe the weather? Spread the word for next year!

Heathpack 

???

I missed it too, I guess.

happybday29475

That's a solid result on a non-trivial TT course!



I saw a few crashes when it was dry..the last thing either you or I need is to bash our hips into some pavement..

I understand being tentative in corners. A year ago it was a strength for me, now it's a liability. I'm working on changing it back, but it takes time...

In your field there's nobody that can significantly out TT you. Maybe you've got some peers, but there's nobody that can run you down without a big, big effort.

When the two of you went free, in the chasing group there were 2 strong guys, Rob and Bob. Bob didn't want to work because when the catch was eventually made, he wanted to be fresh and win. Rob didn't like doing all of the work, and certainly didn't want to pull a fresh Bob to you. So there was never a super-concerted chase. (Also, and here's the fun part, Rob now doesn't like Bob one bit, so Bob's future races just got a skosh harder...)

I didn't see the separation. But whatever you did, take note, and do it some more!

You should be plenty confident that in the area(s) of your strength, you're one of the strongest in the field.

This. Applies to most every cat 4, I think. Apropo dog quote: "better to have eaten and thrown up, and eaten again, than to never have eaten at all."

I resemble this remark. I borked an interval workout in March because I was stuck in granny.

happybday29475

lol thanks peeps! I upgraded at the end of last season.

Heathpack 

Oh. I'm pretty sure I knew that and congratulated you then. If not, congrats.

happybday29475

Lafayette Crit Race Report.

Preamble:
- I raced this last year, 2x in one day, for a 2nd and a 4th place. Totally loved the course! (Obviously).
- At the end of last summer, I upgraded to 3's
- In the fall, I got to spend a bit of time relaxing at the local hospital.
- Since resuming training, my power numbers have steadily improved, but are still not near where they were last year.
- For 50 year old cat 3's around here, the race category is 50/1,2,3...and the field is combined with 40/3's.

Race Build Up:
- First race in the new category!
- First race with some new body parts!
- First race against some former mentors!
- First race having several national champs in the field!
- First race against an ex-TdF rider!

Actual Race Report:
- Official says, "Go!"
- Field charges off at full speed up the 45 second hill
- 50 seconds into the race I'm off the back

Post Mortem:
- I set a 2016 PR for 1' power-weight...in the first 60 seconds of the race

valygrl

ow.

LAJ

Ow is right.

So good to see you back out there, @rapwithtom!

Cleave

Glad to see the Colorado folks are having fun out there. @rapwithtom, I really can feel your race pain and I've set some PRs while being dropped.
@Racer Ex, makes the 50th comeback of his illustrious career. Have fun in NC.

Racer Ex 

Last episode in the Racer Ex Quinquagintology.

sarals 

Kill it!

Heathpack 

Well, it went reasonably well. I did not find my "extraordinary" today but I managed a solid effort and made it decisively onto the podium, 6 minutes ahead of 4th place. Whew. I was a little afraid I might screw this up, I wasn't really sure what to expect from myself after my weird mental collapse of last week.

Started out pretty frazzled. We left the house late but then made up time on the road and got to the venue 25 minutes ahead of when I needed to start warming up. Plenty of time, it seemed. But there were huge lines for everything (check-in and portapotties) and I wound up getting on the bike for my warm-up 5 minutes late. Then my number wouldn't stay stuck onto my new skinsuit and we were scrambling to pin it at the last minute. And the guy holding me for the start was holding me tilted way off to my right until I said something, I thought he was going to start me like that but it turned out he was distracted and looking behind him at something. Got me righted with a second or two to spare.

This course is a big rectangle out in the desert, 6 miles by 2.75 miles, and you ride the first leg twice. So five legs total. Wind direction today meant a tailwind for the first/last section, which is also slightly uphill. Then a headwind for the six mile 3rd leg and crosswinds for the two short legs. The wind was pretty pipey. I would guess we started in 12 mph winds and finished in 17-18 mph winds. Generally not-great pavement but the only bad section is on the second leg. Pretty cold- upper 40s for my warm-up and low 50s for the race (those are my kind of temps, actually). Typically, Ex just lets me figure things out on my own as far as race strategy goes, with gentle nudges to get my brain thinking in the right direction. However, for this one, he gave me some of his files for the course to look at and much more specifics as to power targets on the various legs. It was very helpful. I go into all of these races with an idea of what I want to do, but I don't always have tons of confidence in the plan. Its more that I'm trying to figure out what works. But this time, I knew the plan was solid.

We figured to win this would take a sub-58 minute time and really 58 minutes was very do-able if I could execute the plan perfectly. If I could find something more extraordinary, I could go sub-58 and win it. (This BTW is a 37.2K, do not be too impressed by these times). I knew if I did not execute it perfectly, I could wind up with a time over an hour, which would probably leave me off the podium, as the woman racing today with the weakest palmares (besides me) has put up times on this course right around 1:00:00 to 1:01:00ish.

Everyone looked pretty pro at the start. I knew the women starting our group first and second, but the third one (the one with the weak palmares) was an unknown. She was the 2014 State TT Champ in Women's 45-49 but it wasn't that impressive a time (just over an hour), so I had sort of discounted her. Then she showed up at the start and looked like the read deal- full aero everything, looked like a TTist, right down to physique. Yikes.

Felt pretty great at the start. We didn't really have much wind during warm up and I was distracted by the number-pinning, so I didn't really notice that the wind had picked up and I had a big tailwind. I thought I was riding a pretty conservative start but was a little over target for this one. Seven minutes in, I passed my 30 second woman, whew she was not as real of a deal as she appeared. As I came into the first right turn, I was confused by the presence of cones in the road (to keep you from swinging wide)- that's not something I've ever encountered and I had to process what I was seeing for a moment. Good discipline though, just looked from my aerobars until I understood what I was seeing. But I was definitely too slow in this corner.

Not realizing I had the tailwind, I had a bit of a rude awakening on leg 2 when I turned and was suddenly in a big crosswind, with a little headwind component, and still going slightly uphill. On bad pavement. But it all seemed pretty ok to me, and I was right on my power target for this leg. Better turn this time, I barely even slowed down.

Then the big headwind leg and I found it really hard to stick to the plan. I was getting blown around a little- nothing too bad but I needed to watch the pavement and men passing me and traffic. I'd be right on target and then get hit with some wind and deal with that only to glance down and see I was 20 watts under target. So I'd spool it back up but wound up being under target and very uneven, not the way to ride a TT at all.

Boy I was glad when I saw that next turn coming up. But on my last training ride, I almost slid out on some gravel/sand in this intersection, so I took a good look and thought I saw gravel and slowed quite a bit. Wrong, they had swept the intersection and that was just lost time. Another rude awakening on leg 4, because I was expecting cross but semi-tailwind since the last crosswind had a headwind component. Nope, it was just a solid crosswind, and definitely the wind had picked up significantly. I was getting blown around quite a bit, the wind even caught my helmet a few times and blew my head to one side. I knew I had been under on my power target on the previous leg so was going to bump it up slightly for this leg but I wound up hitting my target instead. Again, the wind was just distracting. But it didn't alarm me at all like the unpredictable canyon winds that I'm usually dealing with- this was just steady wind in a stable direction, easier to deal with.

Last turn was another moment of confusion to me. More cones and this was also coming round to the start line. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be on one side of the cones and the starters on the other. Or if we were supposed to both be on the same side. It took me a bit to figure it out. And guess what I did? Slowed down too much. These turns make me cringe totally now.

Final leg home I was feeling mostly strong and would have sworn I hit my power target spot-on. I was a little below, though. But still better power than leg 1 (which was the plan) and faster on leg 5 vs leg 1 by 1:10. Epic fail at the end, though- I ramped it up for my final 1 min and then just stopped riding with 20 seconds left. No idea why. I was tired I guess. But really? Could I not have deferred that tiredness for 20 more seconds?!

When we were waiting for results at the end, I watched a bunch of people take that final turn and realized I could really use with some instruction as to how to ride a bike. Just seemed like everyone was taking those corners better than me. And just overall more time on the bike would help- I would do better if things like the wind required less thinking for me, if more of my responses were automatic.

But overall, I'm pretty happy with the results and making the podium. When I decided to try this State Championship TT back 3 months ago, I didn't even feel entirely comfortable articulating the goal of making the podium. But now I can sit down and dissect what I did today and see how it is actually realistic to not just make the podium but win it. I think I gave a minute away easy. Just get a little stronger and a little smarter and a little more skilled and I'm there. Nice feeling.

Also worth saying that I feel majorly lucky to be working with @Racer Ex. I saw my former terrible coach today, he was trying to protest a result for one of his kids but after the time for protests had passed. He was totally disorganized and clueless. What a schmoe. OMG, all the difference in the world to work with someone who knows what he is doing and has his act together. I see this guy and I think, 'where the heck would I be if I'd stuck with him?' I'd be totally disorganized and clueless too. Just a completely different experience to go into everything knowing that you are prepared and that its just a matter of doing it well (which is a hard enough thing by itself).

In the end, it was me in 3rd with a time of 59:06, which is a PR by at least 3 min for me. First place was 57:00 (which is a very fast time for this age/gender on this course), second (former State Champ in 2014) was 58:11. Nemesis won her 55-59 class, it was 4 legs instead of 5, I didn't stick around to hear her time. Great to see @Cleave out there today! We were talking after about how tough the wind was. Lol, I was glad he thought so too and it wasn't just me.





PS I know! I need to get my head down and out of the wind. It was demoralizing to watch the TOC TT yesterday and see all those pros with their great position on the bike. Working on it.

happybday29475

Congrats HP! Terrific!

Lol too skeered to go public with your goal (ummm I can relate) yet you crushed it!

re: cornering:
a) get some Ex time. It's my opinion that those with a motor sports background generally understand cornering better than those without such a background.
b) practice makes perfect. I practice regularly...and my coach even schedules time for cornering practice.

IBOHUNT

Congrats HP. Solid effort

IBOHUNT

Church Creek 40K TT
M55+
7th/12

in this. The last 7 miles into a head and cross wind and vehicles going by at 50 mph. Made for some moments where I stopped pedaling to unpucker. Ended at 5W over target however the last 7 miles I'm sure could have been better.