jwible

Yeah the lap power was something like 274 on the back and then around 150 on the front. The third lap I managed to average 150 watts and the last lap was 244. Everyone was very content to stay bunched up until the last two laps.

Creakyknees

yeah same here.. sorry that wasn't clear from my post. but (thankfully) most of the 1-2 40+ guys prefer to race the p12 races.

waterrockets 

mattm

Seward Park 3/4's - last one of the season.. went out with a bang, as planned.

Bridged to break of 3 on first lap, but we only lasted a lap or two. We got caught and two more rolled off and I went with them. Got caught, too early.

6 laps to go, prime lap, and I'm sitting about 30th wheel coming down the hill. At the bottom of the uphill, I'm about 20th. Nobody off the front, and I hammer it up the hill on the right and get a nice gap, then give it another kick just to be sure - $10 in the bank, and a new water bottle. Chad said nobody even chased, guess it looked convincing enough.

Was too cooked to move up well for the finish, but it was a good last road race of the season.

Hida Yanra

well done matt - that was a heck of a good season for you!

Racer Ex 

"Master's Track Nationals...2km in 24 hours."

Really, I would have been much happier doing a 3k, but apparently guys my age can’t ride the extra kilometer. The extra kilo doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the difference between a paced aerobic event, or an aerobic/anaerobic sprint TT ballet with very sharp knives. There are about 8 different things to get right if you don’t want to slip up and have bad things happen. 2kms are nasty little vermin.

A bit over a week ago I was rolling up for a practice effort thinking about all those things. What I forgot to think about was going fast enough to keep from sliding down the banking and polishing the track with my skin; but I was mostly healed by time Wednesday afternoon rolled around, down to two small bandages.

Arrived at the track just in time for the sky to open up. Unlike road stuff, you don’t ride 44 degree banking in the wet, so we waited. And waited. And waited.

This would be the theme over the next 24 hours. Back and forth to the track. We’re ready! No we’re not. One hour delay. Another hour.

See you tomorrow at 8.

At 9.

At 10.

In three hours. Go home and take a nap. We’re ready! Maybe one hour longer.

A bit over 24 hours later they start running heats. Little drops fall from the sky, but not enough to stop the event. The heat in front of mine is staging and things open up yet again. Another rain delay.

Hard to prepare mentally and physically in this situation.

Finally the track is dry enough to get things back underway. I get ready to stage, watching the times being posted. So far nothing under what I did at Regionals a few weeks prior.

Finally it’s my turn. We’re running two at a time, but racing against the clock. I’m ready. Countdown. GO! I launch and it feels like the guy is still holding on. I hear a clack. Then another. The clacks are matching the wheel rotations. Two laps later I’m waved off for a mechanical. The wheel has pulled to the side in the drop outs. Despite that my first lap was very good.

But I’m getting a feeling that I’m not supposed to be doing this.

So I’m rescheduled to the last heat. I’ll go off by myself.

In the meantime half a dozen guys go under my time at Regionals. Fast time is 5 seconds and change faster.

I’m called up. Line up. Countdown. GO!

Wait for the clack. All quiet. Not a great start. 2nd lap is way too fast. This is bad. Back it down. Time checks are good. I can hear the announcer screaming. I do my first 1km in 1:14, a little behind the fast time. At 2km I’m leading. Then the two lap mechanical and the too fast 2nd lap catches up to me. Legs go to wood. I’m wrenching everything I can out of them, ignoring the pain. One to go. More pain. Cross the line. Die.

I’m 4.5 seconds faster than my time at Regionals.

It’s not enough. I hear the announcer say “silver medal”.

1.1 seconds off the jersey.

ridethecliche

Not too shabby ex.

Looks like you had a good event all things considered.

Congrats!

Flatballer

Damn. Good job Ex. I'd take a silver at a nationals event anyday, especially considering everything that happened.

mattm

Nice job Ex, helluva 2km race!

wanders

"Nationals" as in the nation of the US of A?

...dang.

mike868y

nice job ex!

waterrockets 

Great racing Ex, congratulations on the medal. Very very cool.

Silver steak knives?

bostongarden

Congrats Ex!!! Very well done with all the unexpected turn of events.

Nate552

+1. You've had rotten luck this year but still get results! Congrats EX!!!

Ygduf

Challenge RR
Cat 5 - 3rd place. (small field of 15, but I'll take what I can get)

This race was fun for me. I had no expectations, and let myself get on the front for a lot of the race. Whenever we were climbing w/o huge wind, I'd go up front and drive just enough to put a little pain into people. After my first couple races of trying to hang on, it was nice to be on the wielding end of the stick.

By lap 2 we were down to 6 guys. I had some issues with bottles (1 ejected(first ever for my arundel cage), 1 feed bottle where when I went to take a drink the top came off and the bottle basically emptied) which left me near cramps. I know my sprint isn't strong, and with the cramp-twinges I didn't have a lot of confidence in beating anyone in the group. So, with about 3 miles to go I decided I was going to do what I could to pare the group down. By the 1k sign, we were down to 3. I was still about 20 yards off the front at the 200m sign, when the nearest 2 guys sprinted and came around to get me, maybe 10m from the line. I expected to get caught, and was happy to have 3rd.

In re: the course. The climbing isn't that bad. Honest. The road from nowhere, otoh, was horrible. My eyeballs were shaking. I couldn't see. I lost a bottle, and was just glad my bars/stem stayed together. Far too many miles of that stuff.

milliron

Challenge RR
Cat 5 - 8th of 15

The first long climb after the neutral start, group split up. Seven, four (the group I was in) then some stragglers I think. The four of us worked together on the back, rolling side of the course.

At the second feed zone, guy in front of me went down. Barely missed him. 3rd person went off the front from there, I never saw him again. Down to me and other guy.

Second lap backside, we caught another person and were caught by the guy that went down in the feed zone. Stuck together until the second feedzone when I kicked it up a little and left them.

No problems with cramps or anything. Drank my water, ate my gels, watched my PM and put in a (for me) hard ride.

There was one decent climb coming up from the back side that was totally exposed. Wasn't fun with the sun beating down like that. But yeah, I agree, that road from nowhere business was awful. I image that's what riding on cobblestones is like.

I stuck a rolled up used gel wrapper in with my seat tube water bottle. Between the cage and the bottle. Made the fit a little tighter.


EDIT:
https://www.strava.com/rides/175359

natec

Central Coast Circuit Race (Monterey, CA)
Cat 5

This is a 4.3mi loop with a bit of everything -- fast descents, a couple of power climbs, two challenging corners, and a slightly uphill finish. 5's are 60 minutes.

It was cold and foggy for the 5s' 8:30am start. I got in maybe 5 minutes' shivering cold warmup, finishing with a short effort just to try to get the blood going. Visibility was awful, and not helped by the mist on my sunglasses. Off we went. I went straight to the front and pulled the field around for the first 5 minutes so I could finish my warmup. After that I settled in at the back/middle of the pack, moving up on the climbs and getting swamped on the flats. The usual.

Fast forward a couple laps and we have a prime on lap 3. I marked a solo move then went around him and off on my own. This is when I learned exactly how far the 2nd-last corner was from the finish (far too far). Straight to the back for some recovery during a very slow post-prime lap.

Bell lap started out with a whimper as nobody wanted to do any work. One rider launched a rather un-cat5-like attack and immediately got a good gap. With the fog, he was soon nearly lost to sight. Eventually the chase heated up and things were strung out up the climb on the backside. Somewhere in here we caught the solo break and the pack detonated. I sat somewhere in the top 10, clinging to wheels and moving up out in the wind around gapped riders.

All I knew at this point was that the 2nd-last corner was far too early, and that I wanted a clean fast line through the last corner. I jumped hard on the outside before the turn, made it off the front, nailed the corner, and jumped again. The line was an awful long painful way away, but I'd gotten a good gap except for the one rider who must have caught my wheel. He came around me a good ways from the line, but nobody else could. 2nd. Got a medal and a pound of strawberries from cal giant for my trouble.

natec

Ygduf and milliron, nice work in the race that I lacked the fortitude to do.

MtnRide

I like that descent. Gives the course character and challenges handling for many roadies.

waterrockets 

Tour of Austin F1 (3/4): collision immediately in front of me with 100m to go. Not racing aggressively today, and I paid for it with a great view from the top 10 all day, followed by coasting in for the final sprint because guys bounced off each other.

Tomorrow, I'm going to put on my RX costume and go OTF. I'm already attacking.

bostongarden

natec -- well done!!

WR-- good luck; looking forward to your report!

johnybutts

I signed up for that race but chickened out...
My race: go to bed at 4:00am the night before, wake up at 7:30 drive to Austin for my 11:00am race, get there with 30 min to spare. warm up and ride to the star/finish. First 3 laps each had a crash. 100m after the start, my teammate goes down in front of me, and I have to come to a complete stop and drop my chain.

half a lap of chasing later, I made it back to the field. Sit in, a friend is in the running for the omnium, so I pulled him to the front on the points prime laps.

Things had been sketchy all race long. On the last lap, I knew if the pace dropped everyone would bunch and we'd all be going down. With a teammate on my wheel, and a friend on his, I started my leadout @ 1000m ramped the pace up and dropped everyone off at 400m to go. My teammate couldn't hold my wheel, but my friend did, and ended up sprintin for 2nd.

The guy that won had been marking me, and apparently I lead him out too. I talked with him after. He had read the interview with me in The Racing Post and liked RX's quote, and took it to heart.

So tomorrow Im registering 4/5 again, maybe the 3/4 but if WR is attacking I dont know how long I can hold on.

bostongarden

Wells Ave B today. A group got away. When I realized they were up by more than 20" and pulling away more, I went into group-think mode and went off the front a few times and dieseled a bit for the remainder of the race. And, typically, I'm not the type to do that because I don't recover well from that sort of riding. However, seeing that we were losing ground, and, I saw little value/potential pleasure in conserving for a sprint that would not be contesting for anything, I decided to get out of my comfort zone and see if I could help.

I wish I could say that we caught the break -- we didn't. But, I felt good about contributing in a way that I could, and, I think I recovered better than I ever have in a race with the type of efforts I put in. And, I didn't care too much about primes or the finish. I wanted to keep pushing the pace. For example, with 5 to go, I went out front, got in the drops and led us around for 98". When someone finally came through, I rested a bit, he opened some space, no one else came through, so, I stood and got on his wheel and we pushed it more. Prime lap came up right after this, but, I just kept pushing it without thinking about winning the prime. Alas, I forgot about the prime until I saw someone jump!! I am satisfied that I could push the pace hard for a lap before the prime and still be pushing and in contention for a prime when it came up.

Final stats were 59', 219ap/257ap, 24.6mph. A somewhat strong wind probably kept the mean mph down a bit. I felt like I pushed myself pretty hard today and have a little more confidence about recovering from hard efforts during a race.

Racer Ex 

I could offer more than a few bits of constructive criticism, reading your report I think you should have won. PM me if you want them. But if it wasn't that bad, you didn't go hard enough.

Nice.

Congrats to both you guys for finishing well here.

WCroadie

PA Cat3 Criterium State Championship

I wanted to win this race in a bad way, felt great all week, me and 1 other teammate made the 2hr drive north to downtown Wilkes-Barre PA. Typical downtown crit course, there was a nasty head wind on the back stretch, I wanted to jump with my teammate on the bell lap but after a few warm up laps I told him we would die in head wind, we'd have to wait a see how the race unfolded. Some heavy hitters in the field, I stayed near the front and just waited. My teammate sat mid pack. Some break attempts were made, nothing got away until just after a prime with 4 to go, 7 guys rolled off the front. I was watching and waiting for someone to bring it back. Finally some guys chased and the field was strung out. We caught the break with 2 to go.

My teammate rolled up and asked what I wanted him to do, I said string it out, keep it fast on that last lap and I'd jump early. Well he drilled it out of turn 1, thru turn 2 and into the wind, crushed himself the whole back side, I was sitting about 8th into turn 3 and just hit it. I knew if I could come 1st out of turn 4 I'd at least get a good result, the finish was about 500m after the turn, a long way but I'd give it my best. I was 1st thru turn 4 and sprinted out of the turn, looked back and 2 guys were on my wheel but we had a gap. I sat down and kept my nose to the stem looking for the finish, expecting someone to come around. I saw the officials tent and was still in the lead, I stood for one more effort, saw the line and crossed in first by 1/2 bike length. Wow did that hurt but felt soooo good.

I gave him half my winnings and we celebrated into the night with some delicious Belgian ales and food. What a way to end the season!

I swear I do not have a gut, that's a bad pic.