I find Triathlons to be a fun alternative to road racing. Unlike road racing, you can enter a triathlon with very mediocre fitness and still have fun. It’s not like you’re going to get dropped on the first kicker of a 60-mile road race. The only downside is that you get a potentially very embarrassing number next to your name in the results. Personally I couldn’t care less. They’re fun to write about though, so get ready for a long report.
Erica is getting competitive with triathlons this year, so I felt obligated to do at least one race this season with her. The Webster Triathlon is run on the same course as the massive Danskin Triathlon, so I decided to give that one a go. I also convinced brother Shawn to sign up and do his first tri. Webster is a sprint triathlon listed as a 0.5 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run (last year it was 2.8?). Claimed distances in triathlons seem pretty suspect to me, so it’s hard to gauge your efforts based on this.
Last year I entered my first real triathlon and had a blast. Cycling in adventure-style multi-sport races is what got me interested in road racing in the first place. The trouble for me with a traditional triathlon is this swimming thing. A roadie trying to do a triathlon is a funny thing. If you read my report last year for the Tobay Triathlon, you know that I’m not much of a swimmer. Actually, not only am I not much of a swimmer, it’s a struggle for me just to stay afloat and not drown. And, because my swimming effort was so stellar last year at Tobay, I decided it was unnecessary for me to go to the trouble of bumming a wetsuit off of someone again.
In the interest of training as little as possible for a triathlon, I have not been swimming since Tobay last August. Actually, I may have sat in a hot tub at a hotel one night, but that doesn’t count. As noted in the Tobay race report, it had been 9 years since I’d done a real swim workout prior to that race. As far as the running goes, I may have actually ran a few times in the off season. However, that was far from consistent training and I definitely haven’t been running since February, maybe even Christmas.
Needless to say I wasn’t exactly starting this race with any delusions of trying to win, place, or put up any sort of result that looks impressive. The only thing I had going for me was that I bike kind of a lot, so I thought maybe I could put the hammer down there. Looking at past results, the winning bike times were only about 24.5 mph average so I thought: Hey! I can do that! Because 24.5 mph seemed so slow, I decided to give myself a handicap and sell my TT bike the week before the race. I also loaned out my disc wheel cover to a teammate for the Giro di Jersey. That left me with my road bike, no clip-ons, my aero helm, and my carbon wheels. Game on!
All week the weather forecasters were predicting a nor’easter to come through and pour on us during the triathlon. I got to say I was a little disappointed that we caught a hole in the storm and it didn’t rain. The only thing that could have made this sprint triathlon a more miserable and humbling experience for me would have been pouring rain. Actually, hail would have been even better, but I don’t want to sound greedy. Unfortunately, we only had grey skies, 60°F temperatures, and no rain. Where’s the fun in that?!
The first wave of racers went off at 8:00 AM, Erica went off with the younger women at 8:09 AM, and the male 20-29 went off at 8:12 AM. Why are triathlons so early? You train your butt off, do a handful of races each year, and they all start first thing in the morning so you have to get up at 5AM. Maybe that’s why triathletes only seem to do a few races per year. Anyways, I was in the last wave, and I’m one of the slowest swimmers in the race, so it was shaping up to be a pretty lonely race.
Before I even started, the first wave of racers was coming out of the water. The top guys were finishing the swim in less than 10 minutes. I was shooting to break 20 minutes. Yeah, in my dreams!
0.5 mile Swim – Event of Doom
Our wave finally starts and I made a strategic decision to just stand there and let everyone go. I knew my place after last year when I tried to stay within the pack. It turned out I wasn’t the only one with this plan. About five of us just stood there for a good 10 or 20 seconds as everyone else powered away. Finally I started inching my way into the water thinking that it was freezing cold and wishing so badly that I had a wetsuit to keep me warm.
After a minute of wading in the water freezing my butt off and feeling like a nine-year old that doesn’t want to get wet because it’s too cold, I finally dove into the water. Because I’m a totally seasoned and experienced swimmer now, I knew my strengths and went directly into the back stroke.
Back stroke is comfortable for me because I can breathe, unlike other strokes. Breathing is cool. The only trouble with it is that you can’t see where you’re going. Again, I was experienced and knew how to handle this, so I focused on keeping my feet pointed at the same point on the beach that we started. No problems!
I swam hard for the first 3 or 4 minutes without looking where I was going, trying to get into a groove and cover some ground. When I finally stopped to see where I was, I was pretty crushed to find that I was only about 1/3 of the way to the first buoy (the course was a triangle). Also, I had taken a path that was off course by about 30 degrees. So much for racing in a straight line this year.
After that I had to stop pretty much every minute to check where I was going. By doing so I stopped using markers to keep track of where I was going, and I started zig-zagging all over the place. This got worse and worse and worse. I also couldn’t see ANYONE else around me, and I was pretty sure that I was in dead last place.
I finally reach the first buoy and made the turn to the second buoy. This part of the course is into a headwind and parallels shore. I could see a few people behind me that were having incredible amounts of trouble. One guy was lying on top of one of the buoys. That would probably have been me if I weren’t in decent aerobic shape from cycling. As it was my heart rate was probably 190 bpm and I was barely moving.
Swimming into a head wind while doing the back stroke is brutal. The waves crash over your head and you swallow all sorts of water. I had also ditched my goggles because they didn’t work at all (obviously I didn’t test them before hand), so I was getting tons of water in my eyes. My only stroke wasn’t working for me, so I invented a new stroke. I call it the upside down breast stroke. It’s like the breast stroke, but on your back. Erica says that I can’t claim credit for inventing this because it’s already used as a survival stroke, but I’m going to take credit for it anyways.
Anyways, this survival stroke was awesome. There was one guy next to me at the half way point, and once I started doing the survival stroke, I put all sorts of ground into him. This was really exciting. Had I finally figured out how to swim fast? Thinking that I had, I got into a killer groove and started hammering.
I hammered for a minute or two before smashing into another swimmer. I say “smashing”, because it was a head-on collision with another swimmer. We both stopped swimming, he looked at me, I looked at him, looked around, and then it dawned on me.
“Am I swimming the wrong way?!”, I said? The other swimmer said “YES, YOU ARE GOING BACKWARDS!”
Dang, just when I thought I was getting the hang of this foolish sport, I go and do something worse than not moving at all. This marked an all-time low.
After that, it was stop and go for the rest of the race. I had an entourage of life-guards on surf boards and people in canoes following me because I was so close to the back of the race. It was kind of like being in a breakaway in a bike race, only not really in a breakaway at all. Actually it was kind of cool because I could stop and take a break on life guard girl’s surf board. That was pretty key.
The rest of the swim was pretty uneventful. All survival stroke and stopping every 30 seconds or so. My Mom was watching me with binoculars and said I must’ve swam the length of the course 3 times. It was that good. I finished in 26:29, 426/448, 17 minutes back from the leader and almost exactly 3x that time.
Transition 1 – Dizzy Time
Getting out of the water was brutal. I realized just how hard I had been working because I was wheezing and gasping for air. I had water in my ears and couldn’t hear at thing. I was ridiculously dizzy and it was hard to run in a straight line. You know how in between innings at baseball games they have fans put their forehead on a baseball bat, spin around in circles, then do some sort of running similar to doing suicides? That’s how I felt. Oh, and it was about a ¼ mile from the beach to the transition zone. I was about the 10th to last person out of the water, and there were no spectators left other than my parents. They probably would have left to watch Shawn and Erica leave on their bikes if they weren’t seriously concerned that they might have to call an ambulance to rescue me. As I ran up to the transition zone I had to weave through spectators that must’ve thought everyone had finished the swim already. I would say “excuse me” and they would move to the side and say “Oh!... good job! Keep it up!”
I rule at swimming.
12 mile Bike – Payback Time
Payback time, or so I thought. I felt sick after swimming, but it did feel great to get on the bike. I didn’t have my power meter on, but if I did I am 100% confident that it would have been the most pitiful 34 minutes of power output that I’ve ever recorded. I’m guessing about 220W average, which is a nice 5-hour endurance ride on a normal day.
I knew that there was a pretty decent hill about 4 miles in, and that the rest of the course was pretty much flat. There were certainly a bunch of rollers along the flat parts, but they weren’t anything you couldn’t power over with a couple of pedal strokes.
Having finished the swim ahead of 10 people out of nearly 500, you can imagine the caliber of cyclists I passed for the majority of the bike leg. Lots of mountain bikes and some of the worst fitting bicycles I’ve ever seen. Some of those people had to have been borrowing bikes from friends or something.
Anyways, I felt almost bad for these ill-equipped people as I went flying by. It wasn’t even fair. On the other hand, they would probably say the same thing about me swimming, so maybe it is fair. On little rollers I would power over while the mountain bikers shifted down to granny gears to grind it over. I’m talking speed differentials of 20mph vs. 8mph. I get a kick out of this.
I made sure not to go too hard before this one hill on the course. I knew when I came to it because there was a cyclist walking their bike up it. I thought I could see the top, so I kept it in the big ring and just about sprinted all the way up and passed so many people in doing so. The poor mountain bikers were absolutely crawling up this 8% (guessing!) grade.
I got to what I thought was the top and went downhill for about 5 seconds. This took me around a corner that showed me a last little kicker to get over. I was hurting real bad from the first part, so into the little ring and up the hill I went. I was still passing racers every 3 seconds, just not quite at the ridiculous rate as the first part of the hill.
The descent off the hill starts right after you crest the top. It was steep and there was no need to pedal. Even still I continued to pass people. It was as if they had their brakes set with automatic controls to prevent their speeds from topping 30mph.
After the hill it was all rolling flats with no significant climbs. I spent a lot of time resting my forearms on the handlebars wishing that I had aerobars. My forearms were getting bruised from hitting cracks in the pavement and gusty winds were making it extremely difficult to control my bike.
I really wasn’t pedaling hard at all by the finish. There was still a constant stream of cyclists to pass, but my legs felt like garbage and I can’t imagine I was doing over 200W. The last section was into a nasty headwind too. What really alarmed me was when I passed a runner at a low speed differential. I had passed cyclists at greater differentials. I felt like a kit trying to push through this headwind.
I made sure not to slow down at all on the last few turns before the finish, and made a super sweet cyclocross dismount just before the transition. I totally deserved a time bonus for this but no such luck. My bike split was 34:02, 24th place overall. 4 minutes back from the fastest time. Not exactly the stellar bike split I was hoping for, but given that I had to swim 3x as long as the leaders and I didn’t have aerobars, I wasn’t too dismayed.
Transition 2
I took off my bike shoes. I put on my running shoes. It was awesome.
3 mile Run – Most Boring Sport Ever
I could see my brother leaving the transition zone as I entered the transition zone. It was all going to come down to the run. He’s done some recent 5k’s in the 24-25 minute range. I haven’t done any recent 5k’s, and 8 minute miles is about as fast as I really want to run, so I didn’t know if I’d be able to catch him. It was pretty sweet for me though, because I could see him up the road dangling out there like a 30 second man in a time trial. This was key because it gave me a reason to run fast. Otherwise, I probably would have just followed the person in front of me like a lemming and doddled comfortably to the finish as a cooldown.
My legs continued to feel like garbage as I started the run, but I still felt at least one million times better than I did when I finished the swim. My calves were super tight and it was difficult to stretch my stride out even a little bit. I avoided pushing the pace in the first half-mile and just ran comfortably to get stretched out. It seemed like everyone was just following the person in front of them and there was very little passing going on. As slow as I felt like I was going, there was no one around me going significantly faster. During the run I was slowly passed by two people, both of which were barely going any faster than me.
Not long before the turnaround point I caught Shawn. He was going good, but I guess I was going just a tiny bit faster. Making a pass running seems so boring compared to cycling.
After that I didn’t have a carrot in front of me and I pretty much lost all motivation to go fast. My transponder was velcro’d around my ankle and was really digging into my skin, so I took a break and stopped to fix it. The rest of the run was entirely uneventful. I felt great when I crossed the finish line. Certainly better than I felt when I finished the swim. My run split was 22:14, 189th place. I finished in 1:29:37 and in 247th place.
Summary
Another fun triathlon in the books. I just like going out and doing something different for a change. The swim was awesome as always, but the bike was a bit disappointing averaging only 21 point something mph. I really wanted to be able to lay it all out in the bike, but I’m starting to think I’ll never be able to do that if I don’t learn to swim at least a tiny little bit. Maybe next year, right? Oh yeah, the run. I don’t know. Running is kind of really boring.
Erica smoked me by 8 minutes and finished 6 out of 30 or something like that in her age group. 90 seconds faster and she would have been in third. As her faithful coach/boyfriend, I feel it’s my duty to make sure she has aerodynamic toys for her next triathlon. No sense in spending hundreds of hours training if you’re not going to spend $200 to buy 2 minutes and move up to 3rd or possibly 2nd place.
Shawn did the swim in 17 minutes. I would KILL to be able to swim that fast. His bike split was 41 minutes, but I doubt I would have been much faster on his 28 pound Iron Horse. He finished just 40 seconds down on me which put him into 15 out of 40 or so in the Clydesdales division. Solid first triathlon.
Results are up here.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Webster Triathlon Time Trial
Mystic Velo Criterium, cat3
I’ll be on vacation in Europe for two weeks starting Friday, so the Mystic Velo criterium was my last race of the first half of the season. I’ve been really tired the last two weeks or so and feel due for a break. Haven’t taken a rest week since early May because I haven’t felt the need, and with a two-week break coming up I wanted to just ride and race as much as I could.
Ken and I headed down to Ninigret in time for the cat4 field, so it was an early morning but at a nice slow pace, just like I like. Watching Ken race was inspiring. He was off the front every chance he had, didn’t rest until there were 4 to go, then practically ripped the crankarms off of his bike as a he sprinted for second place. His acceleration in the last 100 meters was ridiculous, and he came up just short of a Mystic Velo rider that made a very long Haussler-like sprint.
The cat3 field only had 15 or 20 pre-regs, but the weather turned out better than predicted and we ended up with 37 starters. A lot of the older but very strong crit specialists showed up including Norton and his gang, Curley, and Yabroudy. I haven’t really raced against any of those guys this year and wasn’t sure what to expect. NEBC had three in the race including Mike, Brian, and myself.
I got a better position than usual at the start, thanks to unintentionally lining up behind the Mystic Velo guys that ended up getting a callup. Clipped in quickly and there I was in the front 5 for the first 2 or 3 laps. Victory! Actually, it was mostly useless seeing as everyone has fresh legs at the start and no one was going to get away. I just took a lot of unnecessary wind chasing wheels that had a 0.0001% chance of staying away.
Ninigret is pretty easy to move around on, especially compared to the New Britain course. After spending time near the front I could float to the back of the 37-man peloton and rest up without having to fight for a wheel. When the time came to move back up, it was no-problemo.
Somewhere in the middle of the race the first prime was called. A break of 3 went up the road and the rest of the field seemed like they just wanted to let them hang about 100 meters up. I was able to get a free ride to the front, and as we came into the last corner I was on the front. The break was still just dangling up there teasing me to chase them down. As we came out of the corner I waited for just a second to see if anyone would try and sprint after them. No one did, so I punched it for 5 seconds or so. Two of the three in the breakaway weren’t going very fast, and for a second I thought I might be able to do it, but then I noticed one guy had sprinted off the front. I sat up before burning too many matches and it was a good thing.
The rest of the field countered very hard coming over the line. I was crawling compared to them and had to sprint my butt off just to get my speed up enough to catch a wheel. Two sprints in about 30 seconds time. The pace continued to punish me for the next two laps or so. I just sat on praying that we’d ease up soon. After digging super deep, we finally bunched up and I can’t tell you how relieved I was.
That little effort really spent me. It took a good 10 laps of resting before my headed didn’t feel like it was going to explode. By that point we were at 4 to go and it was time to get position for the finish. A bunch of break attempts went off during this time, but it seemed like we were keeping a fast and smooth pace that kept all attacks under control. Nothing seemed to stay away for more than a lap or two.
Once again, moving around in this race proved to be really easy and I was able to catch a wheel to take me to the front. With 3 to go I found myself in the front 5, which was actually a little bit closer to the front than I would have liked. I followed wheels for the next two laps, but we were really ramping it up and I felt like I was taking a lot more wind than I should be. The pace with 2 to go felt like a typical pace on a finishing lap. I even made a rookie mistake and clipped my pedal on the pavement trying pedal through a turn.
That being said, I was hurting when the bell rang. Things also got pretty hazy for me, so I’m not sure how accurate this in. I think I was second wheel when the bell rang, but instantly got swarmed on both sides. Going through the first turns of the final lap I was in the drops and it felt like we were absolutely killing it, elbow to elbow. On the back straight I was in the middle, and the middle was shooting back while the sides were moving up. I couldn’t get on the moveup train, but then again I don’t think I had the legs anyways.
With one turn left in the race I was still around 15 wheels back, which normally is a position that I wouldn’t consider terrible. The trouble was, my sprinting legs were already cooked and the best I could have done was maintain that positon. I spent too much energy too early trying to stay in the top 5 and contend for the win. This field was too strong for me to race like that. I sat up on the finishing straight and rolled through with the back of the field. Results are up here.
This race was a satisfying end to my pre-Europe season. I really enjoyed racing with some very strong cat3 masters and experiencing their approach to racing. Even though I didn’t have a good result, I felt like I really tested myself by getting into a position where I could have done well if I were stronger. These June criteriums have been good fun.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Nutmeg & Whaling City Cyclone Criteriums
Criteriums have finally started for cat3’s in New England, and it’s quite exciting after a long spring of almost nothing but road races. The Great Falls Criterium in Auburn, ME was my first pure cat3 crit of the season. This past weekend included not one but two crits with pure cat3 fields, Nutmeg and Whaling City Cyclone. I signed up to race cat3s on both days as well as the p123 races. The p123 races were both shortly after the 3 races, so the only real point of doing those was for fitness and experience.
Nutmeg Criterium, cat3 & p123
In the 2008 Nutmeg Criterium I did the 4/5 and 4 fields. I enjoyed the 4/5 field, probably because there were only about 20 racers. In the cat4 race with ~70 racers I couldn’t for the life of me find my way to the front, and just rolled through mid-pack. It seemed like we were bunched up curb to curb the entire race. It was also the easiest race (by far) of the year in terms of normalized power (238W average). The course is smooth with a pretty short hill and maybe one corner that you need to brake for, making it not very selective at all. I knew that positioning would be tricky but absolutely critical.
Before the race I got to meet my long lost cousin, Steven Robbins. There was a mixup at registration, and he was given my number and vice versa. I guess it can get confusing when two people with the same last name are in the same field. Luckily we were able to meet up before the race and swap out our numbers with time to spare.
NEBC had just had three racers in the field, Dave, Keith, and myself. We’ve raced together enough this season that we know each other’s strengths, and our plan was simply to race the race. Dave had a nice position at the start, right on the front, while I lined up right on the back behind Keith.
After just a few laps I got to within the top 20 or so, but once I got there I got a little bit too comfortable. It seemed like everyone wanted to be about 20 wheels back, but very few people wanted to stay in the top 10. Dave was one of the few that stayed at the front. Before long we were curb to curb, and we pretty much stayed that way for the entire race.
By the mid-race point I was somewhere in the middle of the field, and my only goal was to try and move up. I was trying to do it without making red zone efforts, as the where plenty of laps to go and it wasn’t panic time yet. I tried finding a good line on both sides of the course, but I wasn’t successful with either. Often I would move up a couple of spots, only to have the other side of the field take them back shortly after. Everyone was on the same plan, very few people where under any pressure, and everyone was squeezing into the tiniest little holes they could find.
As the lap cards counted down, the riding got more and more aggressive. The holes were packed in tighter and it seemed like there was a lot of frustration. I imagine that most people felt like I did, not under any pressure and just itching for the chance to play at the front.
With maybe 5 laps to go I was still lost mid-pack, but I started having a little luck in the middle of the pack. It seemed like a lot of racers were looking to the sides to move up, and were momentarily leaving holes in the middle. If the wheel in front of me would move to the side to try and move up, I would immediately snag his spot. Often that racer would fail to move up, and ultimately end up behind me. This repeated over and over, and one spot at a time I inched closer to the front.
By the time we got to the bell lap I was about 25 wheels back. Still much further back than I would like but I could almost taste the wind at the front. Someone from Quad Cycles attacked, and I think Dave may have jumped on his move, but there was no way the field was going to let something like that go. We surged and surprisingly we remained almost entirely curb to curb.
On the back stretch there must have been a touch of elbows or something, and it caused the right side to slow up significantly. If you got caught up behind this your race was most likely over. I was right in the middle, and was forced to move left just a hair and gave the brakes a little tap. I was fortunate to get ahead of the people to the right, but the racers on the left passed me and offset those gains.
After the cat3 race I got a break as the women’s masters 30+ went off. Before long it was time to race again the p123 race. I think there were something like 120 racers in that field. It seemed a lot smoother than the cat3 race, probably because it was much more strung out. My legs were slowly turning into mush, and with 15 laps to go I started cramping and called it a day. It was fun and a good workout. In hindsight I probably should’ve eaten something more substantial than a Cliff bar in between races, and focused a bit more on resting and stretching out.
update (6/16): great video of the cat3 field
Whaling City Cyclone, cat3
This race is a newer one, and the course seems to be unknown to a good portion of the cycling population. The promoter has a very good description of the course on their website, including photos of many of the turns. That’s a good thing, because this course has a lot of turns that make this course pretty unique. The main straightaway is sort of a false flat uphill, and it is followed by three back to back 90° turns. The turns are so close to one another that you almost feel as if you’re in a slalom course. Shortly after these turns in a gradual 180° hairpin that leads immediately into another 90° turn. Once again, the turns are linked up and you make a transition from one turn to the next. At this point you finally reach two straightaway sections before coming back on to the finishing straightaway. This all occurs in about 1km. For the most part the course is plenty wide but the large number of turns makes it difficult to move up.
It was just Dave and me today for NEBC, and once again our plan was just to race the race. I counted about 30 starters on the line, so just a small to mid-sized field. It didn’t look like there were any others teams with more than two racers.
During all this time there were a number of primes, but it didn’t seem like the field was very interested in them. Most of the primes were free entries to races that I didn’t know if I would be able to attend, so that pretty much killed any reason for me to go for them.
The three of us got a decent little gap, with me on third wheel. The people in front of me took some very long pulls, but that may have been due to the technical corners. After two laps of this, someone yelled out: “This is the winning move! Stick with it!” I looked back and we had a pretty nice gap still. Dave must’ve been doing his magic slowing down the field. I started worrying that maybe this really might stick. I hate breakaways. I did some quick math in my head: 5 laps is about 3 miles, 7-8 minutes more.
After coming back to the field I went into full recovery mode. I figured my chances of doing well were pretty slim at this point, but I hadn’t completely buried myself in the break so I had that working for me.
We were moving a little faster on the last lap than most, but it was not anything crazy. The line was sticking to the inside of every turn, and it wasn’t super easy to move around despite the slowish pace for a last lap. When we came to the back straight I stuck to the inside line and moved up a few extra spots. Most people had taken the turn fairly wide, giving me a nice lane to move up despite being in the wind.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Charlie Baker Time Trial - 6/10/09
Connecticut Stage Race is in the books and I’m not doing Longsjo or Giro, so the only real time trial left this season is Working Man’s. Needless to say my time trial at CTSR was less than I was hoping for, and my overall experience on the new TT bike has been pretty miserable. In fact, if anyone is looking for a 54cm Cervelo p2-sl with Rival parts that has been used so little it is a disgrace, leave me a message. I’ve decided that with my limited flexibility, the 54cm frame is not the way to go. My next build will be on something a little bigger.
That being said, my interest has turned to doing the CBTT on my road bike. Every time I go from riding the TT bike to riding the road bike it feels incredible. Last night I figured I might as well give it a shot. I especially wanted to benchmark my power output and speed in a different position. I did the race with no aero gear (including box rims), standard s/s jersey with arm warmers, and my pockets full of gear. I also did over an hour of riding before the race at zone 2ish pace.
It was a cold and damp evening, 60°F dry bulb, 53°F dew point, and very little wind. I was just happy it wasn’t raining out.
My start was too hard. I was too excited about being on the road bike I think. 1,150 watts off the line and 325W average in the first five minutes. Last year that was right around my CP5 power. My heart rate wasn’t too high and it didn’t really feel too hard.
As always I started feeling pretty horrible about the time I turned off of 225. My legs were burning, it was hard to breath, and I felt pretty slow in general. It doesn’t seem like there’s much chance to recover after this turn either. In fact I don’t think my speed topped 40 kph after making the turn. By the time I was in Concord again my power was dropping below 200W on the downhills. I was hammering the uphills a lot harder than on the TT bike to make up for it.
I had my finishing time at 25:04, and I think the results are wrong with the 26 minute time. Average power was 286W, normalized was 291W. I was really shooting for 300W, seeing as that was my CP20 on the trainer back in February. I made it about 13 minutes before my average fell below that. Bad pacing and trying to be more aero (smaller hip angle?) surely hurt the average power figure. Like I said earlier, I’m not very flexible. I think this leads to poor power output at small hip angles.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Maine Race Weekend
Auburn Road Race, cat3
Auburn seems to be one of the flatter and less selective road races on the New England schedule. It’s an 11.4 mile loop with a steep power climb at the beginning of each lap and a longer punchy three-step climb towards the end of each lap. The finish is a long false flat of nearly 2km coming after this three-step climb. The cat3 field did 5 laps for ~57 miles total.
Despite being a perfect day, sunny and in the 70’s, there were only 29 starters in the cat3 field. We (NEBC) had the largest team in the race with 5, so we were looking to formulate a break. A field of 29 is the smallest I’d seen all season, and it was kind of nice to be able to move to the front more easily.
The first lap came and went without any major action. We hammered up the first power climb and a Green Line Velo rider eventually snuck off the front. He hung out there solo until the climbs at the back side of the course. We kept a decent tempo in the field but not hard enough to cause any trouble.
On the second lap Alex (NEBC) attacked over the power climb but the field was ready. We were strung out for quite a while after, but the elastic never quite snapped. Once we slowed down, we were absolutely crawling on the flat section that followed. A Bikereg and Landry’s rider attacked with no response from the field, and I was at the front so I bridged up and joined them. We worked the gap up to maybe 45 seconds or so, and a fourth rider from Nor’East tried to bridge. He never made it, and once our group hit the hills on the back of the course I couldn’t keep the pace and eventually floated back to the field. I got picked up just before the last of the three steep pitches and nearly got dropped. Keith (NEBC) gave me a boost as I struggled to hold the wheel in front of me. Having that nano-break was a miracle and I barely survived.
On the third and fourth laps both Keith and Scott went up the road. Keith went off in a group of four or five that looked promising, but there was confusion on one of the 90-degree turns and his breakaway mates made a wrong turn. Oops. Scott got way out of site with Mark Theeman (Green Line), and I thought they might be able to stay away. On a longer straightaway they were just barely still in sight, and I timed their gap to be right around 1 minute. These breaks gave me a lot of opportunity to sit in and block the chasing rotation.
As we got to the climb at the end of the fourth lap I got swarmed pretty heavily by racers looking to add to the chasing effort. Initially I didn’t think much of it and allowed myself to float backwards in order to rest up a bit for the hill. We went over the first two punchy climbs and I realized I was at the back with a bunch of other big looking guys that were breathing hard. The pace picked up over the false flat before the last little riser as attacks ensued. It was too late to try and move up here. As we crested the final steep climb I could see a gap opened up about 4 wheels up and a split was forming. I overtook a few guys that were being dropped, but I could only match the speed of the main field and wasn’t able to latch on.
There were about 6 or 8 of us dangling just 20 meters or so off the back over the long false flat. I hoped that the main field would ease up like on previous laps and that we would be able to rejoin, but it didn’t happen. I finished out the last lap, got passed by the King’s (that was impressive), and ended the day 23rd.
On the last lap Dave got in a break of three that stayed away to the finish. Alex attacked up the last climb and managed to catch Dave right at the line. They initially finished 3-4, but a DSQ to 2nd place moved them up to 2-3. A very good day for us!
Great Falls Criterium, cat3
Back in February when I was looking over my racing schedule for 2009, one thing that stood out was that there was not a single cat3 criterium on my schedule until June. All of my races were either cat 3 road races or a p123 crit (Chris Hinds). Road races generally don’t suit me very well, so I knew it would make for a tough start to my season, especially considering I had just upgraded.
The Great Falls Crit was my first cat 3 crit of the season, finally! My confidence was pretty shaken going into it because of all these road races, and I really didn’t know what to expect. I had never seen this course before, and I was extra nervous when I saw that it had a good sized hill. Short (<1>
Lately I’ve been having trouble clipping into my pedals. I used to be smooth as silk at this, but my cleats feel scuffed as of late and I think this makes me clumsy. With the start line on a gentle incline, and a couple of people killing it right from the gun, I nearly got dropped as I stumbled around to clip in. We hammered for lap one but settled in nicely after that.
Early on in the race I dropped my wheel into a nasty little crack on turn 3. The crack was about a third of the way through the turn and was in the general direction of the turn. When my rear wheel fell into it there was a cracking sound and my rear wheel jump violently. I was lucky to stay up and was lucky not to get a flat or have wheel damage. I stayed toward the back for a lap or two paranoid about having some sort of mechanical problem.
Around 6 or 7 laps in a $20 prime #1 was called. Keith jumped early with another rider and outsprinted him to take it.
10 laps in Dave attacked hard over the hill and got a good gap. I saw Eric power up to the front to slow things down so I joined him. Soon after we were joined by Alex. For three laps or so we were able to stay up there without much of a fight from the other racers. As Dave’s gap started to get large, the announcer was commenting on how the field was slowing down. This put a spark in the chase and a few Base36 guys started to get organized.
We sat about 4 or 5 wheels back, and allowed a little chase group to rotate through. Initially the chase was hard, but when it came time for those guys to take their 2nd and 3rd pulls I think it may have gotten a little more difficult. During this time Dave was able to eat up prime #2. With 5 to go, one of the Base36 guys put in a pretty massive effort and dragged us around for an entire lap.
As Dave was finally reeled in, the field let out a sigh of relief. A rider without a team thanked the Base36 team for providing the chase effort. Just as all this happened, Alex attacked and again NEBC was up the road.
Alex’s counter-attack created all sorts of panic. The pace got really spikey as a bunch of unorganized chases were attempted. On each lap I would work my way to the front going up the climb only to be swarmed on the back side by furious chases. Alex ate up prime #3 during this time.
With one lap to go on the top of the hill a spectator told us that the gap was 15 seconds. I figured that as long as Alex didn’t blow up he should be able to hold us off to the finish. Coming up the hill I felt strong and was able to get on the fast moving wheels. This was a million times easier than trying to hold a wheel up a long climb in a road race. I settled in five wheels back as the pace stayed hot over the false flat at the top.
Coming down the descent after turn 3 I was holding my position in fifth wheel. This was exactly the position I wanted to be in according to my pre-race plan. I had a brief lack of concentration as I realized that things were playing out perfectly for me. Just as I had this brain fart, the racer two wheels up attacked and the guy in front of me responded. I was sure this move would happen, but in my lack of concentration I hesitated and responded way too late to the attack. I tried to chase down the pair of attackers but they just dangled in front of me, just 10 meters up.
As we came around the last turn I was third wheel, but my legs were on fire and I knew they would be no good for sprinting. I never did get back on the wheel in front of me either. It seemed like the entire race came around me on the inside, and I think that the racer that had held my wheel won the group sprint and took 2nd place. Alex held off the bunch to take the win by a solid 30 meters.
I finished in 10th place, so I guess the entire field didn’t pass me on the finishing straight. I’m annoyed with myself for losing focus and letting that attack get away. It was a move that I was expecting and I still got caught off-guard. By just chasing it down I basically gave the sprint away too. I think that I’ve been so far out of contention all season that I was just a little shocked to find myself in that position.
This was an awesome day for NEBC, winning all 3 primes as well as the race. With 2 podiums on Saturday, it made for a fantastic weekend of results.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Connecticut Stage Race, cat3
This race was one of two ‘A’ races for me this season, and pretty much all of my training since March was structured to lead up to this event. My goal was to have a solid time trial, score a good finish in what I thought was a downhill finish circuit race, and hold on to the lead group in the road race. Well, the race did not going anything at all like that.
Stage 1 – 8.2 mile Time Trial
The first stage was an out and back time trial with a 2008GMSRish dip near the start/finish, and long gradual 2-3% gradient hills on the remainder of the course. There was a little bit of a headwind on the way out, but nothing too crazy.
During warmup I my power meter was reading some pretty big numbers. 250W felt like soft pedaling, 350W didn’t seem hard, and I was frequently going over 400W. I didn’t know what to think, other than that a big taper must really work wonders after all.
60 seconds before my start, my 30-second man is nowhere in sight. The officials tell me to come to the line. 20 seconds to go, I’m clipped in, being held up by my saddle, when my 30 second man comes running up to the line. There’s a moment of confusion amongst the starters, then the next thing I know I’m falling over as the guy holding me up lets go of me to hold my 30 second man for a brief second. He goes off (and ends up getting 2nd place), they apologize to me for letting me go unexpectedly, then tell me I have 10 seconds as I’m scrambling to clip in again. No big deal though, I’m off and going right on time.
I really didn’t want to start off too hard in this time trial, so my goal was to keep my power as close to 300W as I could for the first 5 minutes. So much easier said than done, especially when there’s a short 7% grade dip in the road right at the start. I stuck to my plan (which probably wasn’t ideal), keeping my cruise control on 300W, and I’m absolutely crawling up this thing. No big deal I figured, it will pay off in the last 7 miles of the race.
Coming over the top of the hill I felt like I was barely pedaling, but I stuck to my plan. Very shortly afterwards, almost exactly 1.5 minutes after my start, the guy 30 seconds behind me comes around. I wasn’t sure what to think. I’ve been pacing myself with my Powertap for over a year now, and have never had a problem. Maybe he was just strong or maybe he just went out hard. My heart rate wasn’t too high, but it wasn’t too low either. I was nervous and it was 140 on the line, so I figured I couldn’t really go by that anyways. The next mile or so of the course was downhill, so I kept pedaling what felt like a super easy gear.
After 2 miles the course goes uphill at a 2-3% gradient until the turnaround. I knew from pre-riding the course that I should be close to 32kph on this part. Doing so made my Powertap display 500W, and it finally felt like I had resistance when pedaling.
I almost caught the guy that had passed me by the turnaround. On the way back I was suddenly feeling a lot of burn in my legs, and my heart rate was 194 (max is ~200). I was slow as slime on the returning climb, and my 60s and 90s chasers passed me. It was pretty ugly.
That fiasco put me nearly 3 minutes back from the winner, and only ahead of people that either didn’t care about the TT, had mechanicals or missed their starts. My average power was a whopping 391W, so I figure I must’ve been doing something like 200W for the first 5 minutes. No wonder I got passed so early on.
As a team, we (NEBC) didn’t have our best day either. Alex and Dave had decent races, but were only sitting mid-pack. Brian’s bolt-on skewer shifted shortly after his start causing his wheel to barely spin. He averaged something like 300W for 32 minutes (winning time was 18 minutes) and averaged less than 16mph trying to make the time cut. Turned out the time cut did not apply for the TT. That’s over 50% longer than the majority of the field TT’d for. Ouch.
Stage 2 – 24 mile Circuit Race
3 miles per lap, 8 laps total, and you could say that there were 3 hills per lap with one being bigger than the other 2. A 120-degree turn after a downhill kept our average speed low and required additional acceleration. Not much flat ground on this course. Based on the course map, I thought the finish line was supposed to be after a downhill. I love downhill finishes, so I thought that this would suit me. Turns out the finish line was on one of the two smaller hills.
Our pace was reasonable but spikey. Most climbs weren’t too bad, but when someone one attacked it would get tough. Dave and Alex both got into good looking breaks, but the field was quick to shut anything down with more than 2 people. With the 91-mile road race coming up the next day, most people seemed to be OK with a bunch sprint. I don’t think a breakaway ever had a chance.
After only 3 laps or so, my legs started twitching. I rarely have problems with cramping, and I had been extra careful about nutrition and resting for this race, so I was really surprised. Maybe doing the TT in the morning gave me problems, I’m really not sure. With 4 miles to go my left calf seized up on one of the hills and I could barely pedal. I spun in to the finish losing a bunch of time on the GC, not that it mattered after the morning’s TT.
Stage 3 – 91 mile Road Race
This was the stage that had everyone talking, the Queen stage of the CTSR. Every single field in the race, from p12 to cat4, was to go 91 miles in the road race. The course went over 2 loops which were mostly different. I didn’t really know what to make of the elevation profile either. It certainly wasn’t flat, but after driving Rt 8, 183, and the parts in between it didn’t seem too bad to me. I didn’t get to see the part to the west of Colebrook, and it turns out that this was the worst part of the course. It was almost like having a 40 mile neutral start followed by the Bow Road Race. No flats, all up and down in the second loop.
Lots of attacks ensued in the early part of the race, most of which appeared to be half hearted and short lived. For a while there were some GC guys trying to get up the road, so those moves all got chased down. Before too long, a solo rider went off the front and everyone seemed OK by that. For a good 20 miles or so we just crawled along, with the solo rider a minute or two up. Somewhere around the time we turned onto Rt. 8 we reeled him, and a bunch of seemingly pointless attacks started again. I burned some matches chasing a few of these for no reason.
Shortly after the feed zone we stopped for a natural break. This was pretty much the highlight of my day. The official in the follow car screamed at us not to, mostly because we were still on Rt. 8 and there was a line of 50 cars that passed us when we did. If Versus was covering the race, it would have gone right to a commercial break. I’m pretty sure that every single person in the field partook, whether they had to go or not.
The beginning of loop 2 heads into the hilly back roads of the Colebrook area. This was the end for me. Once again, my legs were already cramping, and I was only able to survive the first couple of short punchy climbs. The pace wasn’t anything crazy over them, I just couldn’t turn my pedals over. I had plenty to eat and drink too. My calves seized up tighter than they did the previous day. There was no way I was holding on though, the course was all up and down and it was hard enough for me just to go at my own pace. After dropping back I just spun and enjoyed the beautiful scenery.
Summary
Overall this race was a pretty big letdown for me in terms of performance, my legs felt like junk and the TT that I had prepared so much for was a disaster. Other than that I had a ton of fun, Colebrook was an awesome place for a stage race and I found the courses to be interesting (and certainly challenging). Staying at Camp Jewell was pretty sweet too. I hope they do this race again in the future.
Now, let the crits begin!
