As usual, your insight is correct.:D I was just trying to temper his reasoning. Last season AZTR had goals of staying in the field, now he is contesting and is relishing the moment.

And as I have learned this year, " 'tis far better to lap, than to be lapped."

I'll shake the silliness out of my head, turn down one of my last chances to race this year, and prep properly!

I'm with Ex. I see no point in doing the prep race. Focus on the prize. It's one thing to do a B race the week before an A race, but the day before? The risk is high and the reward minimal. Just do 1hr Z1 and be done with it.

We are in Irvine, CA and attended a training session with Roger Young at the Velo Sport Center in Carson, CA. The session lasted 3 hours and there were a lot of racers in attendance. Saturday is the LAVRA racing so this session was a dress rehearsal preparing for the events. We managed to say hi to Cleave who attended the session after ours.

Hi,

Meeting got cancelled so I am officially on my lunch hour. :D

Racer Ex, regarding Tuesday evening races, look here: http://www.californiabicycleracing.org/2012.Eldo.pdf

Only a few more weeks of this race with this promoter. Supposedly a new promoter will start in June. I'm not sure I'll be participating in the "new" series until the political dust clears. Also, I will be at a professional conference all-day on Saturday so no TTs (Sanitago or VSC) for me. :( The conference ends on Sunday at noon so I'll rush down (from Woodland Hills) to LAX to do the Cat 3 race at 3:30p.

Hello chilipapa, I'd scan some photos of me racing in the mid-1970s to share but I'm way too vain to let anyone see how skinny my legs were back then. Can you say, "Baggy wool shorts?" Interesting that you didn't have to wear a leather hairnet during TTs. We had to wear them, as useless as they were, for all races.

AzTR, I am +1 with Racer Ex and shovelhd on not racing the day before your district crit. Since it's your "home" course nothing good can really come of it. Also, are you coming to SoCal to race at Dana Point?

I had the pleasure of chatting briefly with the debonair Hermes and the ever lovely Velo Diva at the velodrome last night. Both of them look very fit. During the interval session I was still a hurting puppy (see below). I hope that the Z1 1 min, Z2 2 min, Z3 1 min, Z4 20 sec, Z3 1 min X 5 per set X 2 sets helped me more than hurting me. :twitchy: Since I'll be sitting the rest of today and most of tomorrow, I hope my legs will be reasonable by Sunday so those kids don't drop me.

Last weekend just about killed me -- seriously. By the time I got to my third race of the day (45+) I was talking to myself and struggling just to stay in. When lap cards showed 2 to go I said, "I'm done!"

When I got to the Tuesday evening race I knew I was tired. Still, I had to try a break and ended up in a two-man effort that lasted almost 2 laps (3.4 miles). Later, a couple of inexperienced teammates got into a large break of 10 or so. One of my teammates fell out of it but I and a couple of other more experienced teammates tried to lead by example and actively blocked by "interfering" with chase efforts. The break stayed away and our new racer got 7th in the sprint. I really should have pulled everyone together to debrief what happened while everything was fresh but everyone tends to scatter after the race in an effort to get home (since most of us have to work the next day). I guess that will have to wait until next week.

Everyone have a great weekend riding or racing.

Not looking good right now because of other travel. I'll make a final decision this weekend and let you know.

I raced the first of 4 races of a local series today. It is a 1.2 mile closed circuit in a park with sweeping turns, tight turns and two hills per lap. I raced in the Masters 45+ race which was combined with the Masters 35+ race with about 35 total riders in the race. I had a teammate in the 35+ race and two others in the 45+ race. As it turned out the 35+ field only had 6 riders so we decided to work for the younger team mate. During the race one of our 45+ guys got dropped leaving the 3 of us. About mid-race two guys went off the front and they had numbers on their teams. All three of us tried to push the pace to catch the break but were consumed by the teams with riders in the break. I didn't think that my 55 yr old team mate and myself could have done much due to the horsepower in the pack. We decided to work for our 35+ guy and carry him to the sprint and lead him out. We were all near the front at the top of the hill at the finish line leading into the last lap. I got cut off and ended up in the grass and lost a bunch of spots and my guy. I spent the next 1/4 mile working through the pack and hammered on a flat section before a 90 degree turn and caught my team mates wheel. Going up a slight hill through a parking lot I tried to get around Chris just as he moved over to pass another rider and I was pushed into a parking island. Oh man a pucker moment!!! My wheel brushed the curb but no one went down. Once again I burned a match to catch Chris's wheel with the intention of going around to lead. I did catch on his wheel with about 1/2 mile to go but the sprint started and all I could do was follow the lead pack. I ended up riding behind the sprinters. It doesn't always go as planned. After burning 3 matches on the last lap I don't think I would have been any help anyway. Normalized power for the 57 minute race was 303w with 29% at supermax. It was 39 degrees and raining lightly during the race.:(

Lovely weather out there today wasn't it AJ? I did my first race there CAT 5 . Off the back going through the parking lot, somehow i always lost time on that corner. Ave. heart rate was 171, max 181. Both are too high and i loose power. Oh well. Still better than staying in bed,,although when i heard the rain at 5 am , crossed my mind. Plan on coming back in 2 weeks, and doing better. Might bring some of my kids to give it a try too!

I was shivering by the time I got back to the parking lot after the finish. Maybe it was due to temp or that our race only averaged just over 23 mph, but my average HR was 144 bpm. That left turn into the parking lot can be tricky. When I started racing 4 years ago I feared that turn. I've since learned how to look ahead to where I expect the bike to end up and ride right through. If you loose speed at that point you really have to dig going up the hill which is usually into the wind.

Your children will have fun racing. A few of my team mates bring their little ones to race.

I'm racing in Pittsburgh next Sunday and will also miss RATL #2. We will need to meet at #3. I am doing the race in the CVNP tomorrow.

It was only a little bit above 39 degrees for my race today, but the 39 degrees was Celsius. My Garmin had the temp on the blacktop at up to 105; 90's in the shade.

For the first time in a RR, I was a DNF. I was dropped on the initial long climb, hit the wall hard, and went into survival mode. When I realized the broom wagon was pacing behind me about 7 miles from the finish, I was polite and packed it in. Looking at the data, I'm still not sure what the heck happened. My power numbers just aren't enough to indicate an unrecoverable blowup, but then there is some weirdness in the numbers. They also don't match how totally spent my legs are, and my HR was disproportional to the power output. My max HR ever recorded is 188, and I was at 184-5 for maybe 5 minutes. But those power numbers are averages. I didn't really see anything on the ride to indicate the PM was way off, other than the numbers being maybe even lower than the totally dogging it pace I was maintaining. Normally, if I hit the wall, I can't get my HR up, because my legs won't work hard enough to do so. This time, my HR was elevated the whole time. I had real trouble with the heat, and staying hydrated. Had mild cramps for the first time in 2 years, despite constantly popping Endurolytes. I wore a 40 oz Camelbak, carried two 24 oz insulated bottles, and still kept getting neutral water, even if that required stopping. I went through well over 200 oz of water, and that doesn't count what I poured on my head and back. Its a brutal course. Last year was even hotter, with more DNF's, and a line of people puking on the side during the final climb. A (young) guy passed out on the bike, waking up in the ambulance. Not quite as bad this year, but I wasn't the only one who blew up. A woman shared the truck ride with me after getting IV fluids from the EMT's, and there were other vehicles out picking people up. Wife says its from not getting enough sex.

Hey AzT!

It doesn't matter what I've done the day before, or it doesn't seem to. I haven't found any sort of correlation. I have noticed, though, that it takes me longer to warm up now than it did just a year ago.

By the way, I raced the Sea Otter Classic Women's Cat 4 Circuit Race yesterday and the Women's Cat 4 Road Race this morning. Neither was pretty. I don't know how to race, and I don't know how to climb. I also don't know how to train, and that really came into play. The other, minor, issue is that I'm not under 30. As I said to a course marshal today while struggling up one of the climbs on the road course "you guys need to have an over 60 category!" He said "you're it, and you're winning!". Oh, joy!

The one comment I have about the Cat 4 women is that I am glad I stayed towards the back of the peloton during the neutral pace. There were two "almost crashes", inexcusable, during that segment. Those kids are real squirrels! But, they're damn strong and damn fast.

http://i1111.photobucket.com/albums/...ofRoadRace.jpg

Wow, was I happy to get off that bike this morning!!

Congratulations. You sound a lot like a female version of me, especially the not knowing how to race or climb part! I'm beginning to figure out why it took me so long to lean how to train, too: it's extremely painful.

And I share the slow warm-up characteristic, as well. All the experienced TT guys have been telling me this for years, but I don't think I ever really understood until very recently that the harder I am going to need to go, the longer my warm-up needs to be. I can't get my full effort out unless I've warmed up really hard.

LOL! Now that is the sort of training advice a man needs from his wife!

Being at 97%-98% of your max HR for five minutes at a time is pretty hard going, I'd certainly go pop after an effort like that. And the heat must be a factor.

You have much, much more experience of riding in high temperatures than I do, but is it possible you drank too much? A couple of years ago I rode in Tanzania for a week, and on one day the temperature on the road was 116F. I drank seven litres of water in 70km and still couldn't pee. I thought I was dehydrated but the medic with the group diagnosed that I was bloating. Too much water diluting the sodium levels in my blood and interfering with my kidneys. He told me to stop drinking until I had peed out the excess and, sure enough, normal service was resumed. Interstingly, he told me that the cause was not too little salt - I'd been taking electrolytes - but just the volume of water overwhelming the system.

Just a thought.

I may actually show this post to my Wife!Tell your wife I said thankyou. With your high heart rate and lower power/whimpy legs it sounds like your heart was not working efficiently.( that is my issue right now) Make sure you get plenty of sack time, i mean sleep, a lack thereof will cause some cardiac issues.
Wish I could trade some of your 39 degrees C for some of our 39 F. My legs and heart do not work in the cold. By the time I was warmed up and moving it was breakaway off the back time.

I'm thinking this was a factor. I had ~5 hours sleep, due to family stuff, and the need to drive 3 hours to the venue.

Great race-suffer shot Sara... and congratulations on tackling those races, Sea Otter attracts a lot of really fast folks. We had a couple of juniors out there this weekend: they both tear it up here in AZ, but were down a ways in the results. Keep it up!

AzT, thank you! It was really tough out there, very hot, and that just made it all that much harder. But, wow, was it ever worthwhile.

Thank you! I didn't do much other than finish, though. The first climb, and pow, off the back! I had the (silly) notion that I could stay in touch on the descents, and I did for the the first lap, then I just fell apart. I had to back off just to be able to get around that course. There were two short, steep climbs, and then the finish was at the top of a BRUTAL climb (which I have done many times, but NOT in 90 degree heat). I really sucked. All that did, though, was make me realize I've got to get even more serious.

You've hit something on the warm ups. I'm pretty similar to you, there.

My teammates swept the podium in the 45+ 1/2/3 RR at Sea Otter. Hearing about that made me both happy and sad at the same time; just wasn't going to be ready for that race so I passed and did a TT yesterday instead. 3rd in the 45+. The racer part of me is frustrated at a sub par technical ride and a lack of power, the rational voice points out quietly that I was pretty busted up a little more than a month ago.

I'll throw my 78 cents worth of advice on some of the items from recent posts...

Warm up- As older athletes (and you can follow most of this stuff with a mental "In most cases"), it takes longer to initiate heart rate response when you're not warmed up, the muscles suffer 02 and nutrient deficiency as a result. If your average HR at V02 is 170 BPM, and you're riding at 250w/120BPM, you're not going to be there for very long before the wheels come off. A proper warm up is designed to bring the HR response in line with effort and to activate the other systems in your body that provide fuel.

Really important stuff if you're looking at violent efforts from the gun. If I miss my warm up I go right to the front of the race and ride pretty hard. This way I'm dictating the pace, pushing my body to respond correctly, and it's much less likely I'll get attacked into Offthebackistan. Most fields are happy to have you up there and leave you up there for a while.

Heat- Changes how the body responds in so many ways and requires acclimation, as much mentally as physically. We're really inefficient machines, most of out energy turns into heat vs. wattage. Trying to ride a 70 degree pace on the first 100 degree day isn't going to work and likely you'll see some bad stuff happen. Heat is also cumulative; I would shake my head at people who would stand around most of the day out in the sun before their race, especially at the State TT in Texas; I would often pass folks who would be completely gone after 30km.

Racing and training- You don't stop learning. At 50+ as a new/newer rider I'd suggest reading as much as you can stand on training and racing, even biographies often have some good insight into both. Along with that try to hook up with either a good coach or mentor, avoiding pitfalls is a important as anything else; mistakes are amplified for master athletes. Try to find someone who knows masters athletes BTW. A 20 year old is not a 50 year old.

This tiny thread actually might be one of the better resources out there BTW, because you have people competing at very high levels who have "been there, done that".

Competing against the kids: They are dumb and strong. You will not be as strong but you can be smarter. You have to be actually. And that means not just smarter in the race, but smarter in preparation, training, nutrition, Etc.Sara, your situation is hard and I've got a great deal of respect for you going out there and throwing down. Women's fields are smaller in the first place, and masters women's fields are a rarity at best.

Sara, you rare an extremely tough athlete and the Sea Otter race series is one of the toughest race courses with the best competition. Entering, competing and finishing takes a lot of courage. Congrats.

IMO, one of the things we have to do as a masters racer is take age off the table. IMO, thinking about age and performance differences is totally counterproductive. Age should be addressed when putting together a training program but that is it. It is a fact of life that many times we will race and train with younger competitors. So what? There is a group of 60+ women that compete in NorCal and my wife is one of them. They are as tough as the young women. And there is no 60+ women's new racers group that you can race against and beat the crap out of them. And that applies to the men as well.

The woman who won the previous circuit race that you competed in was coached by my previous Russian coach. I was talking with him about the Circuit Race Course and he thought it was a very difficult course. His athlete broke from your group and caught the group ahead which had a 5 minute lead. She is 50+ and it was her first race. The competition is just brutal.

Warmup... IMO, it is not the length of the warmup but how one uses the time to prepare the body for the effort required by the features of the race and course and how the race plays out that matter - longer is okay but may not be better. If the course starts with a climb, we know that the field is going to go very hard. So the systems of the body that support a max effort must be ready to handle that. IMO, if there is a hard hill, the trainer is not enough. One has to warm up programmatically on the trainer and then go on the hill and kill it. Then you are ready for the field when they attack the hill. However, many times one cannot go on the course so try to find a proxy hill close by for just go on the road and get out of the saddle and kill it.

Pick courses and races that are easier that have mentors. A four cornered flat criterium may work out better for you. You have to be able to corner well and match accelerations but you will not be faced with power to weight as a competitive disadvantage.

+1. I reviewed Team Sky's warm up protocol for TT's (regardless of distance). Very focused 30 minutes, designed to do the things I pointed out above.

I'd listen to that rational voice. I think it is little short of incredible that you can podium so soon after a serious accident.


In case those of us with less experience don't say so often enough, let me take this opportunity to say I appreciate your advice, and that of others. You haven't much to gain from spending time in this thread, and speaking for myself, I find it really helpful as well as interesting.

Looking like I need a new tire.:rolleyes:

http://i489.photobucket.com/albums/r...5/1fc49cd9.jpg

Okay, a couple of follow up items. I reloaded my Garmin file into TP, and that got rid of the weirdness. It now clearly shows two separate five minute stretches, with a 2-3 minute break between them, where I was up in the mid-300's. That's what I thought had blown me up, but then the data had confused me. In hindsight, there was one point where I was in front pacing our points leader, who is known for intentionally grinding people down on this course's climbs, where he kept looking over at me. Not sure if he was wondering why -I- was pushing the pace, or just seeing if I was holding up. I maybe could have tried to bring the pace down there, but not sure. I was a half-wheel behind him the whole time, so I definitely wasn't encouraging him to push it. I knew he had pushed the pace last year intentionally from talking a teammate of his I've gotten to know, so I was basically trying to mark him, knowing that if I lost the group, my race was over. I just didn't have what I needed to hang on with that much climbing, especially since its been all crit's of late. The HR numbers make more sense now as well - everything fits.

I'm guessing there is a story waiting to be told. Cow cross the road?