Carreras Es Bueno

Posted by Dan on 30. March 2009 19:16

Sunday Team Fitness Together headed west for a day of racing in the rolling hills of Charlottesville at our first attempt at Jeff Cup, one of the only road races we see here in Virginia. Tim and I left Norfolk around 8:00 AM for a 3 hour drive. Wick was driving up with Kyle Knott, a Cat 4 rider from Team TriPower. About 30 miles out, the fog set in and brought light rain with it. The rain stopped and the fog lifted by the time we arrived. In fact, the sun was out, drying the roads.

Jefferson Cup is run in rural Virginia about 10 miles south of Charlottesville. All riders set up camp in an elementary school parking lot about 3 miles from the start/finish line. Registration was inside the school and they graciously allowed us use of the facilities. There were three general start times, 9:30, 12:30 and 2:30, with 3 groups starting at each time. Registration was opened about 2 hours prior to your start time to eliminate the possibility of a river of riders pouring into the school's lobby.

As our race wasn't until 2:30, we couldn't register until after the 12:30 group rolled out. We got Tim registered, then sat around eating bagels and jelly while Tim changed, got his bike ready and warmed up. Right around the start time, they form all three groups up in the parking lot. The head ref gets on the microphone and delivers the instructions for this unique start. Three groups were leaving the lot for a controlled start. On their signal, the Cat 5 group rolled out behind a squad car, slowing making their way to the start/finish line. Immediately following them was another squad car and the Women's Cat 4 race and finally another squad car and the junior's group. The caravan would exit the parking lot, head down the road a bit, make a right, ride another mile, make a left and ride the mile and a half or so to the line. The Cat 5s, assuming they were all together, would be allowed a rolling start while the other two groups were stopped. The women would wait about 6 minutes and then roll out. Same with the juniors and so it goes.

Tim put in a fantastic effort. His race was 3 laps of the 10 mile course. The first time around, he was showing peak form, kicking back in the last third of the pack. The second time around, he was in the front third of the pack, still looking strong. At this time, we had to head back up to the parking lot to register, dress and warm-up, so we didn't see the finish. Tim's report was that he bonked on the last lap, having nothing left in the tank. He finished 23rd with a field of 50 riders. You have to keep in mind Tim hasn't been on the bike more than 2 or 3 times since December with one of those times being the Snowball Crit I.

The Men's 1/2/3, Masters 35+ and Cat 4s massed up around 2:20 and stayed there until 2:45. Apparently there was a pretty bad crash at the finish of the Cat 5 race and three riders were being extracted. We finally rolled out with 125 1/2/3s, 122 Masters 35+ and 125 Cat 4s. It was a sea of obnoxiously colored polyester and overpriced helmets. We slowly wound our way down to the line and stopped. Several minutes later we moved up into the on-deck position and were briefed on the rules again. There was no double-line rule in effect, so we had use of the whole road provided we were in the rolling enclosure. That consists of a lead vehicle and a following vehicle with a third one moving back and forth between the two on occasion. If you get dropped and fall out of the enclosure, you were on your own and had to deal with traffic, so 'road rules' applied. Otherwise, you DID own the road.

I believe Wick was on the front when we finally got the green light. The pace shot up to a nice 24+ mph while we started the first minor climb. Overall, the climbing was nothing spectacular. The length and grade were similar to some of our larger bridges here in Hampton Roads, but they did tend to come at you with greater frequency and little time for recovery. There were several nice descents that would deliver 40+ mph with zero effort. It's important to keep in mind that when there are climbs, the lighter guys tend to move to the front and make the summit first. Unfortunately, their tiny 130-140 pound bodies just can't descend like the rest of us so we in the back spend all our time on the brakes. I love the smell of burning cork in the morning.

Having done only crits and TTs in my brief racing career, I've never raced in a field bigger than 50 riders. Sharing the road with 124 other riders that all wanted to move up from the back of the pack, but not so far that they were on the front was challenging. There was a lot of contact yesterday. Experienced riders were able to take it all in stride, making a brush with a neighbor a non-event. For example, I witnessed two riders in front of me both drifting slowly towards each other. Their upper arms touched, they slowed their lateral movement and reversed. Neither looked at the other and more importantly, neither overreacted by pulling hard in the opposite direction. They just slowly bounced off each other and kept going. No problem. On the other hand, we had riders ram into other line-minding riders, overcorrect and start a pinball-type reaction that ALWAYS results in a lot of yelling and cursing, then a meek apology. Aside from "SLOWING", the most commonly heard phrase was "WATCH YOUR LINES". Anyway, there was a healthy dose of experienced, steady riders and sketchy pinballs and everything in between. But there were no crashes, so that's saying something.

There were 125 starters and 74 finishers. I think we started losing people from the very first climb. The main field stayed together for the first 3 laps. I believe 2 riders went off the front on the final lap, but it was tough to tell because the only two riders I saw were about two bike lengths ahead of the front pace car, which led us all to believe they were Masters 35+ riders that were shelled out the back. At any rate, the pace started picking up after the second turn. There was quite a bit of dicing for position in areas we generally recovered in on earlier laps. The best place for moving up was always the climbs and turns. With only one turn left and no real climbs, everyone was getting desperate. At this point, I had consumed nearly one bottle of Gatorade and one PowerGel. I was feeling very strong and started making my way to the top 15. Wick was about 10 wheels ahead of me and Kyle was on my left making his way up the side to the front. It was at this point I thought maybe I should get on the front and give a lead-out to Kyle or Wick - maybe take the pace up to 30+ about 500 meters from the line. I came around the final corner and stood up to take advantage of the gaps and make up some positions. It was at this point my right calf cramped up and refused to participate in any more of this nonsense. Following that example, my other calf and at least one thigh cramped up. I think my neck may have cramped too, but I was in a fair amount of pain and didn't care. I had no choice but to sit down and ease up. I was still capable of staying with the pack, but moving up was out of the question. We passed the 1k to go sign and the pace picked up yet again. I tried standing again and was immediately reminded of why that was a bad idea. I was a hostage to my lower legs. I coasted across the line in 54th place. Kyle was able to weasel his way to the front and got 2nd in the sprint, 4th place overall. Wick got 13th. Congratulations to them both for hanging in there for extremely respectable finishes.

The moral of this story is stay in school and join the chess team. Or make sure you drink a lot. My preliminary research says it was either dehydration or simple overuse of the muscles. We've been doing 50+ mile rides at a breakneck pace for quite a while, so I think the muscles were accustomed to such abuse. That leaves dehydration. I will now embark on a quest to become an expert on fluid replacement. Or resolve to stay away from Charlottesville. I'm not sure which yet.

Out Like a Lion Weekend

Posted by Dan on 23. March 2009 23:49

Great weekend down in NC. Two races this weekend with a Road Race on Saturday and a Criterium on Sunday. I traveled down to NC with my buddy Kyle and got in some great racing.

Saturday was the Out Like a Lion Road Race in New London, NC. They had a great course set up with about 6.5 mile loops giving us a fairly short 35 mile RR. Nothing too special about the course, it contained a few turns and hills, only one of which was anything more than a power man's hill. Sure enough on the second lap two groups of eight got away with about 15 seconds in between the two, seeing that this might be a pretty significant split in the field I moved up in our group and bridged across to the first group. Moving up was rather difficult with 85 riders in the field and only one lane of road to ride on, fortunately decent positioning and fitness allowed me to move across the moves. As I latched onto the back of the first group we were approaching the bottom of the main climb, the pace slowed as the pain was starting to set in across the group. Sensing that the pace was slowing I moved to the front and shot off, no one was able to follow. As I crested the top of the climb I held about a 15 second gap, after looking back and seeing no one chasing I decided to give em all I had a keep going; about 5 miles later two others bridged up giving us a group of three, the two others were Kyle Knott from Tripower and Dan from Traveller's, both of them are good friends which was encouraging and gave me confidence. We got the gap up to about a minute until the Bojangle's breakfast set in and made its own decision that the break was no longer going to gain momentum. So after about 13 miles off the front our group no longer had the gas. The last turn before the sprint was about 3 K to go, making it interesting as that is significantly longer than anything I had ever done. With the yellow line rule and 85 guys vying for the front things got hectic. Sitting in about 40th wheel Kyle and myself gave it full gas with about 300 meters to go and pulled 4th and 9th respectively. Fairly content with the result given the amount of time off the front, should've gone sooner though since we both think we had much more sprint left in the tank.

Sunday was a really cool crit course in Hurley Park, Salisbury. The Carolina Masters Cycling Team did a great job of putting on the race. The course was flat except for the finishing straight which had a two-tiered climb to the finish and then a crazy fast descent to the first turn. I felt pretty terrible for the first half as I was dumb and got no warmup. I only felt decent after the halfway point when the organizers put in three priems back to back and one guy slipped away. Kyle gave it the gas with about two to go on a solo move to catch the single leader. Kyle actually put in a great move to catch the guy with about 50 meters to go to snag the win, leaving a bunch sprint for third. Going into the last corner I sat about 20th-ish wheel, as soon as we turned the corner I gave it full throttle all the way up the hill. I was going as hard as I could and it was almost enough. I lost the field sprint for 3rd buy about an inch, after checking the video of the finish it was confirmed that I didn't get it. I'm somewhat disappointed in not getting it after a sprint that felt as good as it did but you gotta be happy with fourth in a tough race.

Jon Safka was at the race taking pics, hopefully he'll have em up soon and I can get some posted here. He does some great work, can't wait to see what turns up on this weekend's races. Check him out at: www.cyclingphotos.ca

Sleepy Hole Smackdown Race Report

Posted by Dan on 23. March 2009 06:08

Two words: Today was really a decent day for a bike race. The forecast was calling for a high of 57, partly cloudly with light and variable winds. I walked out to get teh paper this morning and it was 35. By 10:20, it'd warmed up to mid to upper 40s and was only getting warmer. Winds were about 4 mph coming in from the wind.

There were roughly 30 or so riders in the Cat 4 race which was to last 60 minutes or roughly 40 laps of the 0.5 mile course. Two relatively tight turns kept the pace under control.

Just before the halfway point of the race, a solo rider went off the front. The pack slowed slighly while his teammates blocked a bit, but no one showed any concern. Within two laps or so, the rider was back in the pack explaining what happened. 10 minutes later, a group of 3 went off the front and were quickly joined by a fourth. This group looked a bit more capable and when the blocking started in, I thought about how nice it'd be to be up there with those four who probably weren't blocking anyone. I made a mad dash to close the gap and did so, inadertently taking the main field with me. Who knew? That was the last of the heroic efforts for the day which left us with a nice bunch sprint. A few laps before that could happen, the only crash occurred on the back stretch. I was a bike length ahead of the guy on the opposite side of the road, but I understand there was some handlebar bumping, a slight correction to the right and a blown front tire that made an alarming boom that I initially thought may have been from a 12-guage in bushes. When the field had passed, he popped up, crossed the road and laid down. He seemed to be doing alright after the race and his bike was promptly repaired.

Coming around the last corner, the pack exploded. Position going into the final turn was critical on this one seeing as the course was not exceptionally wide and immediately curved to the left. I put in an enjoyable sprint, finishing 7th. Not bad considering I was mid-pack coming around the last turn.

Thanks to Steve for coming out and showing his support and to Lydia for photographing the race. Check the flickr site for photos after they've been downloaded from the camera.

For the data junkies:
Duration: 59:51.00
Work: 1011 kJ
Distance: 23.998 mi
Avg. Power: 282 watts
Max. Power: 1096 watts
Avg. HR: 168 bpm
Max. HR: 186 bpm
Avg. Speed: 24.1 mph
Max. Speed: 33.7 mph
Avg. Pace: 2:30 min/mi.

Trade Zone Training Series

Posted by Dan on 20. March 2009 22:35

Wick made his way up to Upper Marlboro, MD for the Trade Zone Training Series. He participated in both the C and B races despite the cold and wet weather. I'll leave the gory details to him, but here are some pictures, courtesy of Amy Jones.






There are a few other galleries up by Jim Wilson and Les Doerfler.

DDTT Update

Posted by Dan on 20. March 2009 22:16

The final results were posted for the time trial. After an initial attempt to correct the times by subtracting one minute, there was still a one minute discrepancy. My final time was 1:06:59.70.

Thanks to Kevin and the folks at Team Kale for wading through all of that data and dealing with what I can only imagine was an avalanche of emails disputing the initial times in order to get us accurate times and set the record straight.

Dismal Dash Update

Posted by Dan on 16. March 2009 08:34

I received an odd email saying the promoters of the Dismal Dash TT were working with Kale Running and race officials on the "2 minutes starting with the CAT 5 racers." I can't find anything else regarding this mysterious "2 minutes" issue, but I did revist my PowerTap data. I reset my computer while sitting under the start tent with two riders ahead of me to start. It didn't start recording data until I was given the green light. I crossed the finish line, made a right into to the shopping center parking lot and dismounted, taking the computer off the bike and putting it in the car to keep it from getting wet(ter). My total ride from start to Volkswagen was 1:08:58 - 1 second LESS than my reported 40k time.



You can clearly see how power, RPM and speed all drop off at 1:07:00 in the image above. I guess it's possible for the PowerTap to be off a bit, but not that much. It looks like my time will be 1:06:59.70. Still 10th place, but I feel slightly better.

Dismal Dash 40k Time Trial

Posted by Dan on 16. March 2009 01:01

I'm thinking maybe next year I'll start my season around the end of May. Yesterday's Sleepy Hole Smackdown was cancelled due to rain. It's been rescheduled for next Sunday (3/22) should anyone not already registered want to participate. Today's Dismal Dash was... well... irritating. Temperatures were in the low 40s and the rain was constant. On the bright side, there was very little wind.

I picked up my racing number and instructions (aka packet) yesterday at All About Bikes so I didn't have to mess with registration today. I arrived with enough time to get my timing chip, change and get a 20 minute-ish warm up before my start time of 10:17 AM. The timing chip system provided by Kale Running is a very cool concept and I wish more races used them. Results are immediately saved to a database and easily uploaded to their site so you don't have to wait several days. They also put a pad at the half-way point to record time-out and time-back. Very cool.

What came next was a fairly boring ride that seemed to last several hours. My goal was to maintain 97%-100% of my max HR, which I did, more or less. I put on Wick's clip-on aero bars last night and rode the trainer for awhile getting used to them. I was a bit concerned I wouldn't be able to maintain an aero position for a full 40k, but it wasn't a problem.

If you haven't done the Dismal Dash before, you start out at the White Marsh Shopping center in Suffolk. From there, it's a flat run with one turn and a u-turn at the state line about 12.5 miles away. I was caught by the rider behind me a few miles before the u-turn. I passed three or four other riders, but never saw the guy that passed me again, let alone my minute man (who it turns out finished 20 seconds before me). After the final turn with maybe five miles to go, I was caught by two more riders while passing another. There was a wide range of talent on the road today.

The results were posted to Kale Running's website early this afternoon. In my BAR category, I scored 10th out of 16 starters with a time of 1:08:59.70, 5:09.30 back from the leader who had a time of 1:03:50.40.

The next TT is the Virginia Farm Bureau's Conquer the Canal Time Trial. This one's only 20k and I'll have my new Equinox. Factor in good weather and I'm sure to deliver a sub-30 minute time.