Sara, I suggest just clicking past that race and forget about it and do not relive it. It strikes me that you have been sick and are on powerful medication that will dramatically affect your performance. You made a great effort, you got what you got and that is okay.:)

@saral, pred and all the drugs in its family (including methylpred) cause huge side effects, sometimes more in one patient than another. We use it to treat autoimmune muscle diseases but its always a bit of a clinical dilemma- because it big time can exacerbate muscle weakness, too. Amongst a myriad of other things. Its a hormone, the pharmaceutical equivalent of cortisol, which your adrenal glands make in response to stress. Hormones have huge effects in the body, they are very potent things. Nothing can be concluded about performance while you're on the pred.

^ What they said. I was on it years ago for poison ivy and by the end of the course of meds I felt like a homicidal maniac with crying sprees.

Thanks everyone. I really enjoy crits, and this coming season I won't have many opportunities to race them. So, when I totally blow one (and it was the drug, I'm quite sure), it's disappointing. You who know me know how hard I can be on myself, too.

Thanks again!

It's early. Now you have some additional motivation.

Indeed I do, Shovel.

As promised, video.


And, the lap where I jumped back in - you can see why I decided to pull the plug.

.be

Sara you gotta write this one off. In the first clip you started way too slow and had to bury yourself just to catch the back of the field. Once you made contact, you stuck like glue to the green lady when she was suffering herself. You had multiple chances to surf wheels back to shelter but you just stayed there.

The second clip was total mentor failure. They put you in way to late when the field came by so you had to chase again. The mentors were willing to assist another rider for half a lap but when that idiot made the bonehead move in front of you, opening up a huge gap, which was unavoidable, they just rode on by. If I were to be pissed about anything that day, that's what it would be.

There are some nasty noises coming from your bike.

Your cadence was at 110 rpm or more many times and above 100 for the first 5 minutes of the race. From your report, you said were in the small ring but, IMO, your leg speed just killed you. Your HR was 156 and stayed there even when you were at reduced power, IMO, due to the higher cadence.

When you got back in the second time, you had to chase at high power which had to be hard. Then your HR settled into the mid 140s and your cadence was in the 80s and 90s.

The guy to the far right at the start of the video was Dmitry who was my first coach. The woman with the FRCC on her butt trains with him. She is a pretty good rider. It was good to see Dmitry there with his clients. He has a racing team FRCC.

The storied Russian coach? With the heel of black bread and the borscht and the 600 box jumps a day?

That is the one.

I thought you made him up!

Now that is funny.

One set...of many...


More Dmitry torture...my wife on the rollers.

Thanks for posting the videos Sara, really interesting to watch, especially with your earlier comments. I watched the videos and then went back to read other people's comments, and I think shovelhd nailed it. You missed some chances to move up past Tibco, that might have put you in a more protected spot and back in the main field.... but of course, if you don't have it to go around, then, you just don't.

Did those girls crash? i couldn't believe grey-jacket 128 stayed up with her front wheel taking a hit like that. She needs a cornering clinic.

See you at Cherry Pie?

Cherry Pie, maybe. It's not on my "target list".

I agree with everything Shovel, Hermes and you said. I rolled off sort of lazily because I didn't expect the pack to go off like a shot. My head wasn't in it. I considered moving off of Tibco's wheel on the back straight, but I was too gassed to do it. Yeah, I was in the small ring, and yeah, that pretty well did me in (my working cadence is 90-100 RPM). I felt better on my restart, but the chase, yeah, that was hard. Then, with the shenanigans going on in front of me with the mentors and the lady in gray, I was nervous about passing them. By the way, the lady in gray did not go down in the video - she did later in the race, though. Poor thing, I felt sorry for her.

Anyway, thank you, guys, for the "debrief". I really appreciate it!

Oh, Shovel - my bike sounds like it always does, it's pretty quiet, actually. I think - think - what you were hearing was the shifter cable flapping against the camera housing.

And yeah, when the faux pax happened in that corner with the mentors and we ALL got gapped, I chased with no help for a bit, and then decided to just hang it up. Things were not going very well at that point.

I always learn from failure. Having different perspectives from the bench of experience is SO valuable! I wish I'd had that camera last season.

I just got a camera too, looking forward to racing with it and hope to learn from it.

This was my first time. OMG, do I wish I had one earlier! The comments that I've gotten here from what the camera showed during this short race has really opened my eyes! What a great training tool. CDR has used one for years and loves it, and it's now so obvious why!

They are instructive. I learned a lot from CDR's vids, and from his commentary on some of those posted by others.

I dread to think what some of my early Crits would have looked like on camera, though. More than once I did exactly what you seem to have done here, stayed behind a struggling rider under the illusion that I was getting protection when in reality all I was doing was allowing the field to get away. And I wasn't even on medication...

One lives and learns.

Indeed! Multiple mistakes in this one. You'd think I'd never raced a crit before. Proof one's head NEEDS to be in the game.

This is where the track with its compact venue is great for teaching and videos. This race is from 2013 Helllyer Velodrome Challenge and it was a scratch race. One of the masters BF members is in it - green helmet. Others feel free to criticize. I think he needs more puke intervals.

lol after watching, I concur, more puke intervals! (And less skiing!)

Darn near made it across, though! Had to be the green helmet (puke green?).

I'd note that the guy in the green helmet had no teammates and was not getting a lot of love. And that the field had a bunch of studs with teammates including a former nats champ that had come off a 2 year drug suspension. And that it was the last race in a 2 day event and I had already done a 30 minute points race against the same guys where I got 3rd despite a working over and almost taking a lap on a 333.

WKO sayeth:

4:52 I finally got tired of watching the break ride away. If you're going to pull the string, pull it tight :). 24s at 640w

So close on that bridge. 1000w hit then 20 seconds at 600w to drop the pack. 365w for 2 minutes, 10s at 200w to catch my breath, and finished with 15s at 365w.

Fun looking back at the file. Sort of. Actually it makes my legs hurt sitting here.

"Nice job, Bickel"!!!

Cracked me up.

Bad thing about track is when you do puke, it's in front of everyone.