Good Sensations

After state I thought it would be easy to fall off into a rut. With the way I structured my season my off season occurred in June and July. I was just starting to build up when I hit state. I took a taper to get some good performance when everyone else was peaking, but peak isn't until late April. In the lull after state despite having great fitness, best shape ever by far it is time to hiker down into base building. Building the foundation at a higher level and continuing the upwards trajectory.

I took two days off to enjoy my good race at State and then straight back to it. Doing a mix of threshold work and long rides with just a hair of higher intensity. Also keeping up with the driveway where I got a nice surprise this Thursday in the form of very good legs.

After two hard days, one with 3 hrs or bride 1.5 of which was L4 and another with three hours of variable paced endurance (complete with a 5 minute power record for 7 minutes), I was using the driveway (in the 1234) as a recovery day of sorts. A respite from higher load days but not a rest day.  Similar to a TT stage in a stage race. I was expecting fatigue to hold me back instead I got a very pleasant surprise. Some of the best legs I have ever had.

I started near the back of the race and in the first couple laps moved up to the top ten a couple times I ended up on the front but I pulled through and straight off.  (When riding sans team no putting in work unless you are hankering for a workout or are off the front.) About 10 minutes into the race I was sitting on Kevin Fish's wheel when he punched it. I jumped to try and match it and to my surprise was right on his wheel. The rest of the race followed suit, I was able to bridge to promising looking moves without dragging people and still slot back into the front of the group when caught. On the last lap I was positioned well initially but got spooked by some sketchy riding instead of finding a way through it and ahead of it as I had earlier in the race I dropped back. And found myself on the back side of a small split but won that "sprint"  for a whopping 20th. I feel certain that had I ridden more assertively in that last lap that I could have been top 10 though. Good sign for things to come.

Driveway, State, and finding a winning mindset

There are many aspects to racing, a lot of attention gets put onto training and equipment, and rightfully so. They are both major determinants of performance. However, the mental part of racing is huge as well. Bike racing is painful, you have to push your body to your limits to succeed and that makes an enormous amount of mental strength, and the right approach. This is always been something I have struggled with personally. (not just in racing but other stuff as well, I have a tendency to quit when things get hard) When the race gets hard, I question myself "can I do this?", "everyone else is better than you, you should give up" . Often times big races make it worse, racing against good competition makes me more likely to believe that maybe they ARE better than me. Training better/smarter/more makes it better because it is easier to believe in the foundation you have built, but sometimes it is not enough. Lastly, I know that pushing up against my limits makes it better, learning that there is more. Knowing how hard you have gone and having a harder hard to compare everything to pushes the limit of what causes you to quit. At Killington this year I suffered from this quite a bit (as well as equipment malfunctions a nice double whammy) and drastically underperformed, at Chappell Hill I kept trying to fight back but the voice eventually won at about 5k to go when I told Nate I couldn't do any more work and at 3k to go again when it told me I couldn't follow his wheel. I'm determined to beat that little bugger though.

After Chappell Hill I looked back at my best results and tried to think of what my mindset was at those. Ultimately I realized it was believing in myself, believing that I  could win the race, but NOT that I should win (this breeds under performance as I tend to feel entitled to win and won't go hard at all).  Every time one of those thoughts comes in, I first recognize it and then remind myself of what I've done in training and that if I go into deep dark places, and race smart I can win the race. This is something that I generally have believed when I won races in the past, no questioning my ability. Just need to put the effort in, the smarts and it can happen. I first purposefully applied this at the Driveway on Thursday. I was doing the 1234, which it might be somewhat foolish to think I can win. But I believed it. It was a slower race than usual but every time I was in the wrong spot, or in a spot of bother I just reminded myself that A) most of the others are hurting and B)If I got through it, put myself in the right position I could win. Don't let it get in my way. I didn't win, I failed to be in the right spot at 2 laps to go but I was one of 20 people in the final group.

So now on to state. This is the type of big event I would normally screw up. Nerves, knowing everyone else was in good shape. When the going got hard I would be defeated. Not this time though. I put myself into the front early on, out of trouble. I looked out for dangerous moves or opportunities for me to make something happen (instead of trying to force the creation of an opportunity). On the way out from the start line along the rolling hills I kept in the front third of a very large group. Careful to not slip back so far that it was hard to move back up. On our way back down towards the finish straight we had a head cross wind, a potential opportunity. I attacked a couple times but it was clear that it was not enough of a cross wind. Riders could sit back and get an easy ride which left lots of fresh legs able to counter moves. So I filed back into the first third. When we turned right onto the finishing straight I could see that the group was tired, people were scattered about a bit we had a nearly 100% cross wind. I moved up front and put in a little dig. I quickly caught up to a guy a bit up the road and I had him slot in. He didn't seem to be able to force the pace too much, but I didn't want to be alone. 1km later I looked over and saw TC Porterfield and Jake Lanoux bridging. Reinforcements and good ones. We got into a echelon and drilled it. (No power numbers today guys sorry... zero offset was definitely off and lots of power drops). The next 2 km we kept the force on. We turned right through the feed zone, now with a predominantly tail wind. We could still see the group and kept force on. Unfortunately everyone in the group wasn't able to keep the tempo on pulls, we weren't going fast enough on the climbs by a long shot and just barely maintaining on the downhills. Group behind was motivated. Near the top of the first big climb Vince Dietsch came past our lead group. I thought I was hurting but kicked it up a gear, got right on his wheel then looked over my shoulder and saw most of the field.  I sat up (Vince kept going solo and was caught about 10 miles later). Off the front for about 25 minutes.

Problem now was, that was a hard effort and I was hurting. I had thought that with TC, myself, Jake and Jacob Shofield who had also bridged at some point we would make it. Good move, good timing, but others had other ideas. The groups efforts to bring us back had taken its toll though, looked like maybe 1/3 of the 98 (I think) starters were left. The effort had hurt me though: I battled within myself, the voice said "you are spent you can't win anymore" but I overpowered that voice. I was capable of winning still, I still had one solid effort in the legs just needed to manage carefully the rest of the way. I sat in, allowing myself to recover as much as possible, drank (I actually drank almost all my liquids this time, yay me). On what is the second big climb of the course I started to cramp, but I managed it. Shifted back in the seat a bit and made it over the top with the group. Shook out my legs, and over the next couple miles noticed that it seemed most people were doing similarly. It had been a hard race.

As we got ready to turn onto the finishing straight I put on my game face, moved to the front. At 4k to go the group was looking at each other, sitting up. Who was going to take up the drag to the line. I considered attacking, but wasn't sure my legs had it in them and if people shut it down, could I reload for a finish? A Dallas Bike Works rider DID attack, people didn't jump on it... they looked at people to chase it.  The obvious answer (too me) was AustinBikes, they had 3-5 guys in the final group still. (there are two austinbikes affiliated teams and it is confusing because they will often block for each other, sometimes work together but also sometimes don't). Didn't happen though, State Championship on the line perhaps all racing for the title, I dunno. Chase was sporadic and as such it proved to be a brilliant move, he won. But there was still second on the line. I stayed up front but never ever pulled (I don't like racing for 2nd instead of first, but pulling would be racing for no place for me) I manged to jump groups of trains as people revved up and down. I belonged up there, I could do this. At 800m or so to go, sitting 3rd wheel I  went. I knew I had less jump than usual left. 100m in I sat down, everything was cramping I kept going though. Low and error... motor. Glutes, quads, calves, hamstrings every single one felt like it might explode but I was in second. I pushed through the pain. 200m to go (such a LOOONNNNGGG feeling 200m). I came through 2nd, 5 seconds behind the Dallas Bike Works rider and a half second ahead of a King Racing rider.

I will train hard this off-season and carry this mindset over. I also pushed harder than every before there, something that will help me to defeat that little voice in the future.

2nd Place Trophy, pretty neat trophies

Driveway 345: Racing Smart

I've been progressively trying to race smarter lately, partially because it makes for better results but also because while in the Cat 3 fields I can get away with it, when I move up I'm gonna need a brain. I had to remind myself this during the race today.... but that means, no pulling unless you are setting a teammate up for a win, other times it is acceptable to be on the front doing work are when you are attacking, bridging, or in a break, when in the break don't be the guy driving the break, start sprint before others. Today it all worked out.

Early on given that we where doing the "speed loop" the plan was to sit in, but stay near the front, then go for the long sprint options. As is typical early on plans changed on course due to the way the race played out. Early on it was clear there were a limited number of people interested in chasing down breaks, and I was not one of them! Nate Sheetz went and we all debated whether or not he had another solo move in him. Then it was two, with a pretty healthy gap as well. I moved to the front. A group of 4 went off (not the right time to go I told myself).... the group was ratcheting up the pace. Water droplets started slowly from the sky. Then prime lap, the chase heated up. At what seemed to clearly be the highest pace we could go I took off. I expected it to hurt quickly but I pushed through that initial feeling and it dissipated, woo hoo race energy... I got the group of four quickly and debated going straight across. Bad move, stay here and go after some recovery.

After a little rotation I ratcheted up the pace, all but one guy came with me, and the rain started to fall. I quickly made the gap very small and then made the others pull through. With 7 in the lead group we started rotating more quickly. Oddly for a 345 field we worked well together. I thought the group behind us would likely speed up but the rain started to fall harder. Tthe group behind us would be very cautious in the sweeping bottom corner. No need, Driveway is a race track which excels in the wet. We worked together, but I never forced the pace. I felt better than usual, pulls felt eerily near effortless, and sitting in was great recovery. Looking over the data HR was high, power was very good (average of 228w and normalized 268w), but my legs felt sublime.

Coming into the last lap, we knew there had to to be some cat and mouse games. After the 'hill' everyone sat up. Who was going to pull? No one wants to pull, but if no one pulls we get caught. Eventually Nate Sheetz, possibly the worst sprinter and definitely the biggest engine in the group took it up. I grabbed his wheel. At 600m to go Nate ramped up, I stayed steady but let a wheel or so open up between us. At 550m I started getting that itch... should I go? not yet....500m not yet... 450m better go before someone else does. I jumped, used the gap to slingshot, and kept the pedal down. Look under my arm, someone there but not right there, keep on driving. At 200m: still there but not close enough to get a draft. Stay out of the saddle the whole way, I can see out of the edge of my eye someone inching up my left... kick it up a notch, starts to fall back again. I hit the line first by about a bike length. Raise the arms.... oh crap tilting.... grab them before I crash.

Then I roll into the back of the P1234, HR at 180bpm. Energized from a sprint win. Get a couple congrats and we are off. A half lap later I haven't settled I feel unsafe in the group. It is pouring rain. I was only supposed to do one race today... follow the schedule and keep everyone safe.

Some screenshots of WKO+ for the race today

Bridge to the group of 4, sit in for a bit and then pick up the pace to get to AustinBikes duo in the lead, no smoothing

Full period of time off the front of main group, 15 second smoothing

Full finale, accelerations by nate and then my jump and hold. Power for sprint was 618w for 30 seconds. Complete with a power drop, no smoothing

Entire race, you can also see the point at which I went off the front ~ halfway through. 30 second smoothing

Chappell Hill RR: Long Breakaway, heartbreaking finish.

In bike races sometimes you see the guy who nearly makes it after a long breakaway, but gets caught in the last 500m or so. Tony Martin had this happen to him in the worst way possible, riding solo for 160km off the front and caught in the 25m before the line. So how much does it suck, I found out today: it really really blows. On one hand you know you road really well and on the other you look back over the entire day and think of all the little things, little places where maybe if you had pushed a little harder or held back a little. Anyways onto the report.

Chappell Hill RR, is a lollipop style race, 13 miles out, then 4 loops of about 12 miles then 13 miles back into town where the race finishes up on a little hill. 500m to 200m is fairly steep and it shallows out from there. Race started with a one mile neutral roll out, our lead car was dumb and motor paced a guy 100m off the front of the rest of the neutral group. Fortunately an official fixed that and then we were off to the races.

In the initial 13 miles loop one guy raced off the front got a little bit of a gap and the whole group just kinda sat up and let him go. I thought this could be promising if I got up to him without pulling the group with me. I slow rolled off the front with one other and once I could see the group had given us a gap hit the gas a bit. The guy who came with me apparently was just marking me, he refused to pull through. I got about 3/4 of the way across and was easing up because I was just pulling deadweight, then Derek Alvorado of Comanche came up to us and we worked together connected with the guy up front but were shortly pulled in by the group. At this point I road near the front, but did no work. Staying out of trouble, watching for dangerous moves and trying to ride smart. For the last couple weeks I've been doing one of two things, dumbly attacking, or idiotically being a non-factor in the race. My goal today was to wait for the right moment and then attack.

AustinBikes was controlling the front and letting no one go off. I quite frankly found this dumb: why were they wasting energy chasing down everything when they had no one up the road? I was assuming they wanted a field sprint, but eventually one of their guys DID go up the road. That was a problem, 4 guys covering the front covering every attack and riding second wheel so if you pulled off they soft pedalled. After about a lap of this and trying to motivate people with teams to do something about it, the gap was about a minute. Something had to be done... so I went up front and rode threshold. I was slowly pulling the group back. Eventually two other guys came up and gave pulls, as they dropped back I told them to make sure they took Austin bikes spot on my wheel. In total I spent about 15 minutes up front at 235w, and pulled the gap back from about a minute to about 15 seconds. At this point I moved back to rest a bit, didn't want to do much more work than that at least not by myself. A half lap later we caught the group and Nate Sheetz countered. This was bad. I expressed to the group that if they let Nate ride away they would never see him again. People who knew Nate went up front and started trying to bridge. Now there were only two guys covering attacks and it was clear they were starting to tire. I was going to try to make the bridge when the opportuninty presented itself.

Shiva was the first guy to get away, he was joined by one other and they were somewhere between 1/3 and halfway across. At this point I would up about 5 bike lengths behind the Austin Bikes guys to make sure they couldn't easily grap onto my wheel. I jumped across to Shiva pretty quick, I was originally planning on working with them to make it a larger group up the road, however when I got there it was clear that they weren't moving at a clip adequete to catch Nate. I went straight past them and set my sights on Nate, as I found my "tempo" (tempo was low-moderate L5). 7 minutes later I joined Nate. I pulled up the climbs at a good clip and he pulled on the downhills, we traded on the flats but quite frankly Nate is a machine... I had a hard time holding pace on the flats and downhills. That said he was definately working harder than me on the uphills. It was a good tandem. About a lap in I was hurting pretty bad, but we were out of sight. Hopefully out of mind with Austin Bikes still blocking the front?

Earlier on in the race and before I had made a poor decision. The line for the bathroom had been fairly lengthy and I had foregone a bathroom pitstop pre-race. From the moment we started rolling I needed to pee, and because of this I didn't drink. Why was this such a bad idea? I carry all my nutrition in my bottles I was drinking very little for the first hour to hour and a half. After I got up to Nate I started drinking as I normally would/should.... but it was too little too late. I started trying to make up for lost time and thought for a while I was feeling better, but I really think the pace was just slowing up a bit. At one point we looked over: no longer out of sight. It looked like we might be caught, Nate threw it down on the flats and I started picking it up again on the hills. When we hit the feed zone again we were back out of sight, about a one minute gap from what I heard. 13 miles to go.

At this point I was clinging onto hope that I could find some magic. I was fading fast, I couldn't punch the hills the same anymore and finally at about 5 miles to go when nate waved me through to pull I quite simply couldn't get my legs to do it. I told Nate "Get me to the finish line and the win is all yours." I didn't think I would make it on my own, but simply could not give anymore. At somewhere between 3 and 5k to go, Nate stood up on a hill and I couldn't respond. I went harder but not hard enough. He pulled away from me. I kick myself now, maybe if I had tried to get out of the sadddle and followed I could have made it? Gotten second, but at the time it certainly felt like I was giving everything. As he pulled away I settled into doing what I could do: maybe we had pulled out enough that I could make it in. I wasn't actually even sure how much farther I had to go. Each corner I was looking: is that the finishing  climb... nope. I kept looking over my shoulder and saw nothing... kept pushing.

Finally I saw the 1k to go banner and looked over my shoulder and.... SHITTTTTT charging field. I put everything I had in at that point. Of course now I question: was it really? Did I have more? Could I have done more. I made it over the steepest section of the climb, and then just as it levelled out the pack finish leader swept past: maybe he has a gap... keep pushing. Woosh at 200m the rest of the field past me. Absolutely heart broken. I lost a couple of tears as I soft pedalled across the finish line. After I got passed I found Nate and said congrats. I got off the bike and it was clear something wasn't right.

It feels like sitting in the drops, I cut into my thigh with a saddle that was too wide or something. I'm going to swap back to the Selle SMP which I had moved away from due to shorts wear because... this isn't acceptable, and it has happened with this saddle once before One specific small part of my my glutes just throbs a sharp pain. As I was riding back it had seized up, I could barely turn the pedals over. On one of the hills up I nearly got off and walked but I saw Paul Carty ride by and asked for a push. Thank goodness Paul is stupid nice. He pushed me till I could coast into the parking lot.

Now I'm left with questions: if I had eaten more earlier could I have made it? what if I had worked less earlier? What if I hadn't had aforementioned saddle issues? Maybe I just needed to push further mentally (I was cramping a bit but had been handling it... maybe I could have pushed a bit more?)? It is really dissapointing cause I put so much effort out and came so close to making it. I raced smart, I went with the right move and I just barely couldn't close it. I can't help but second guess everything, especially the mentally pushing part.

Some race numbers: average power for the race (3hr 3min) was 184w, 3.55w/kg. NP for the race was 209w, 4.0w/kg, average speed 38kmh. Average power for the whole time off the front (1hr 33min) was 3.84w/kg, NP 4.2w/kg, average speed 37.8kmh. Time on the front early on was 15 minutes, 235w AP, 250w NP, average speed 38.5kmh. Time spent bridging was 8 min, AP 5.2w/kg, NP 5.5w/kg, average speed 39.5kmh.

Now my legs just hurt, a lot. They ache just laying down here typing this, climbing up and down stairs is brutal. Unfortunately in the end, no matter how hard I rode, all I REALLY got was a good workout. I didn't even get a placing. Officials missed me and since they were a ways away protests had to be done via proxy of race staff, who told me that since I wasn't in the top 20 they didn't really care about my result. I suppose it doesn't really matter, but I did finish that darn race, if this was horse shoes or hand grenades I would have done pretty well too.

TOA Day 2: Sketch Sketch Sketch, Crash Crash Crash

Well as promised I was back to attacking today. Early one I set out to make the race hard, stay near the front, and stay out of the sketch. That part of the race was pretty awesome. I was off the front 3 or 4 times with multiple different people but no one would work with me and the group was as expected for the 34 field, chasing everything down. I spent the first 8.5 minutes or so attacking pretty incessantly. During that time period I averaged 254w, NP of 295w. At that point I recognized that I was getting close to the catastrophic limit for recharge time, when I'm close to the bottom of the reserves. So I decided to be smart and sit in and recharge, later on I might try something again, and if it came down to a bunch sprint I was going to launch anywhere between 1km and 500m where opportunity presented itself.

That is when I realized how much sketch was going on. Once I was in the middle of the pack it was kinda hard to move up but not impossible and I did a decent job staying near the front. Lots of bad lines in corners and near crashes, but at 3 laps to go it just became terrible. I'm guessing people were starting to feel tired (and I noticed it among people's demeanor). If I could have gotten up front I would have attacked, but I was stuck about halfway through the pack. About 2/3 of the way up the long grading hill going counter clockwise at the driveway, for now apparent reason there was a very very very near crash. Schreeching brakes, sound of bike contact and freaking out, the group widened to dodge the sketch point and I got pushed onto the rounded curb bumper thing. No big deal, except as I came off my wheels got stuck in a short gap between the track and the curb I was on. When I got off it something happened with my wheel... click, click, click, click. I opened the breaks that fixed it and I chased back on.

I was determined to not let it ruin my race. I chased on, and charged up to midway through the field. Ready to give it what it took to make the win I new I could get happen. Then Jake Lanoux crashed midway through the field, I had to slam on both breaks. Fishtailed and swerved around him and then 1 corner later 4 people went down, I had to ride into the grass to avoid that one. I was now out the back again and the crashes were all over the place. I had had enough, it wasn't worth putting my body on the line for the long shot I know faced. I dropped out. 1 lap later in the same corner 5 more guys went down near the front of the group. Very ridiculous. I'm looking forward to Chappel Hill though, and my head is back in the game.

Tour of Austin Day 1: Circuit of the America's

I was really excited for this race, I think everyone was. What is cooler than racing your bike on a perfectly paved F1 race track? Well, in my opinion it turns out a lot of things are better. Don't get me wrong, riding around the track was awesome. I would love to ride around the track over and over again, but racing around it sucked (for me). I know lots of other people loved it, but I somehow got my feathers rustled and never enjoyed it.

About the track, the pavement is perfect, it is twisty with a couple hairpins. The track is wide though, so you can scorch around the sharper turns and pedal through most of them. There is the one short and steep hill, with a sharp hairpin up top and then a very quick descent. It all sounds like a recipe for a great race... but I couldn't stand it.

The problem with the track being as wide as it was is that everyone had lots of space. Usually that is a nice thing, but people have learned how to race in confined spaces. Confined as in "if you don't move the same direction as the guy to your left, right and in front of you then you will crash." On the race track, people spread out and then everyone who swung wide would try and take the apex of the turn as would everyone who was way on the inside. The end result was people taking 6 different lines that all hit the same point, lots of grabbing of the brakes, people riding over rumble strips. If there had been a wall instead of rumble strips people would have crashed very very hard on the first lap. Over time it got better, but there was still tons of brake grabbing, a variety of lines and tons of sketch throughout the race. In the sections where there wasn't a corner riders fanned out across the whole road leaving 3 times as much room as normal, there was less draft in the group because of this, and since people had room they stopped riding in straight lines which annoyingly made it harder to move up.

My second issue with the race was admittedly not entirely the track's fault, but very few people really raced. If you got up to fifth wheel in the race the people on the front would stop riding because they didn't want to waste energy. They would soft pedal and 20 people would be in front of you again. A constant cycle of circles, then when someone attacked everyone jumped on their wheel. Classic every man for himself racing to win. The course was also rather unselective, sure there was "the hill" but there was also the downhill after it. No one in our group was able to snap any elastic the hill was so short and a number of pretty large dudes made it to the end of the race. I actually tried on 3 consecutive laps to get to the front of the group to put in a hard effort on that hill. But everytime I got near the front as we approached the guys in front of me would sit up and let 20 people go around.

End rant of frustration with people. I have to blame a lot of my dislike for the race on myself. When I was upfront and people in front of me eased up I should have attacked. I should have raced smart, gone when people let up. Something switched off in me yesterday though. I switched back to the racer I was a couple years ago, the guy who never attacked, never got on the front, never made the race happen. I myself stopped racing my bike and waited for the race to happen. Part of that is because I've been perhaps a bit too... crazy lately. Attacking from the gun at HHH, attacking from the gun at the Driveway last week. Lots of ending up on my own solo in front of groups. I want to find that balance, but I would prefer to be attacking too much then not enough. I didn't like my race yesterday not just because of the course, and how others raced but because my mind was out of wack. At three laps to go I was asking myself what I was even doing, I contemplated dropping out because I just wasn't in it, but I stuck it out (and am happy I did). Everyone has their lulls, time to get up, get my mind in the right place and race the way I have been racing this evening.

Results wise: I sat up in the last two corners, was on the back end of the main field. I made it to the finish and I was done. There was no chance for me to win, I hadn't put myself where I needed to be to make that happen, and to be honest I really hadn't tried. I had just sat along for the ride. After the race people where falling over about how hard the last lap had been, how they felt like they were dying, talking about how hot it was, and I hadn't experienced any of that. In the end I'm frustrated I didn't race, that I just rode.

Hotter n' Hell Hundred: Happy with how I raced, result not so much.

(Note: for all those power nerds who are curious, currently 52.5kg)

Going into the HHH, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I've never raced 100 miles before, and have done very few Texas road races. Back when I was in high school I worked on weekends to make enough money to get to and from school and race at the driveway. My training was pretty abysmal (consisting of on average one weekend ride, racing at the driveway and occasionally a short ride one day after school), I had very little endurance, and I never got to see much racing outside of the Driveway. Additionally, I've never done a RR with as few hills as this course featured. Tactically I wasn't sure how to play it out. Going into it I thought that I would sit in until past the halfway point and then when lots of people were tired try to get a breakaway. I figured someone would go away early, but it sounded like a suicide mission.

After a bit of spinning out and the race started rolling I completely abandoned that plan. My legs felt pretty fantastic, I thought that I would put in a little effort see how they responded and how the group responded and go from there. 4 minutes into the race I attacked, for the next 5 minutes I averaged 220w at which point the group reeled me in. I knew one thing for sure, my legs felt good. So after about 20 seconds sitting in I went again. This time they let me roll a lot more. My thought process was that I would establish a gap of some sort of distance and then settle into mid-tempo. See if the gap held, if it came down. My theory was that very few people really wanted to race from the gun and I might be able to sneak out a big gap early, and then put in the effort of a lifetime to hold it.

I attacked, a very short burst of 550w got me off the front as I had slotted in third wheel. Then I settled to threshold for about a minute until I looked back and saw a gap I was happy with and settled down to tempo. about 10 minutes later the moto told me I had a one minute gap. Not to bad, I was averaging 36kmh, doing just about 190w. I kept riding on. Aproximately 30 minutes into my effort I became aware of a number pinning issue. Due to my small body size and the enormously large 4 digit numbers I had to pin the numbers higher than I ever have, and didn't account for the stretch of my jersey from my shoulders bending down enough. Multiple upper pins became undone and if I lowered my head it became a huge sail in the wind. I couldn't get into my usual " in the zone" position, couldn't stare at my stem like Chris Froome, was straining my neck, and most importantly couldn't get as aero as I would have liked. Anyways it didn't really end up mattering, at some point the group apparently decided to chase. About 40 minutes into my little move it was clear I was going to be caught, lots of miles left to race and I had plenty left in the tank so I sat up. Group apparently did the same. I was doing 120w and still off the front and then one rider bridged and it was game on. Now a group of two, and soon 4 we held on for about 5 more minutes until as I heard from someone later, a group attempted to bridge but instead pulled the whole group with them to us. I went ahead and settled into the group. It was outrageously easy at this point. I was doing 115w sitting in and we were going 35 kmh.

At about mile 25 the group allowed 2 guys to roll off the front. Then hit the slow pedal, all the way down to 28kmh. ~5 miles later they were out of sight and a number of us decided it was time to try and close the gap. Charles Mills took off in pursuit and after a suitable gap had been established I decided to bridge that and work with him to catch the leaders. At the same point in time Nate Sheetz had the exact same idea, and Jake Lanoux seeing both Nate and I go decided it was a good idea to come as well. The group decided it was too many to let go and right about the time we caught up to Charles we were caught by the group. Shortly after that they allowed Nate to go all on his lonesome then. He bridged to the 2 leaders, they disposed of one and made it to the finish with a 1.5 minute gap.

Over the course of the next 40 miles or so things get pretty muddled in my mind. I attacked... a number of times but was never allowed to get away. We caught a guy from DNA racing who had been dropped from the lead trio (now duo). There was lots of rough pavement. I was a hurting unit on the rough pavement. Uphill, on a flat, didn't matter, I felt as though I lost a percentage more than everyone else on that stuff.... and it totally makes sense, I did. Everyone loses the same amount of power to rolling resistance, just ends up being a higher percentage of my lightweight power output. At one point not long after we turned onto the only road where we could not use the whole road a number of people seemed to get flats. I know Jake Lanoux did, and that sucked because he was looking good all race. Anyways, all these people getting flats and the gauntlet was thrown down. Suddenly the pack was split into 2 and I seemed to have just missed the cut. I drilled it, didn't take me too long to catch up, maybe 1-2 minutes. Then we rolled through a feed zone and sat up some more. Then we went hard some more, the gap was out to about 4 minutes and no one cared much to chase.

Finally we made a turn onto some prisitne pavement, suddenly when people went hard I felt like I could go harder and I finally got some recovery. I talked to TC Porterfield, and we agreed that we needed to get away. I talked to a rider from the Garmin junior team asked how he was feeling and told him I was going to put a dig in to go. He seemed on board. I went up front and hit the gas, no violent acceleration, but a definate change in pace. 4 guys came with me but neither TC, nor the Garmin kid where there.  We rotated a bit and then were caught and TC attacked, I saw the Garmin guy go with him and I tried to respond but I just didn't have the effort after the previous move.

At this point we hit rought pavement again and I mentally hit a wall, and was starting to hit a heat and energy wall. I sat in and suffered on rough road through the next aid station and then kinda came back to my senses. There were ~10 people up the road, there were maybe 2 people in my group who wanted to do work, I didn't want to race for 10th, and I knew my sprint was a bit fried. I decided it was time for an all or nothing move, I was going to go threshold off the front. We only had ~20-30minutes left, I would give all I had until I got caught or hit the finish line.

I went up front and set off, I settled into the hardest effort which I felt I could manage. I wasn't entirely sure how long I could manage it, but I was going to keep on pushing on. For the next 15 minutes I did 220w, and I caught 2 riders who had dropped off the previous group. My legs felt like I couldn't do 5 more minutes worth but they had felt like that from the start of the effort so I kept pressing on, right up until I was caught by the group behind me. My arms were throbbing from staying low, my neck ached from holding the head up to keep the sail from rising, my forearms had been killing me for 2 hrs, and my legs hurt to ride endurance. I couldn't clatch onto the back of what was let of the "main field." I rode the last km in by myself, I talked to some rally riders, pulled some along and my legs ached a bunch. I ultimately crossed the line ~13min behind Nate and the winner, the next group which I had just barely missed finished 1.5min off them and the main field 5.5 behind them. My official placing: 37th.

I can't say I'm satisfied with my placing, but I am satisfied with how I rode. Next time lets race up a mountain.

Prime Laps and Field Sprints

Another Driveway in the books. This time an unspectacular finish, but that is alright, did what I came to do (put in some good efforts to bust open the legs a bit before HHH on Saturday). I sat in most of the time, but took a couple of laps solo to mix things up, and try to win.

First couple of laps were really hard, and just as I felt as though the whole back was about to settle down and breathed a sigh of relief I hit the gas. 20 seconds at ~600w to get a nice gap and then brought it down to about 260w for a bit to keep it opening up. After about a minute, just after climbing the corkscrew to get up top there was a good point to sneak a look at my gap. It was pretty sizeable for a crit and how long I had been pushing. Then I settled into threshold... As I pulled through the finish line I hear a bell ring and Logan announce over the loud speaker "Prime Lap Prime Lap." My immediate thought was something involving profane language. Nothing to ruin what looked like a promising move like a prime lap. Prime laps always seem to be the end to my best laid crit getaway attempts. I'm guessing it isn't planned this way, but it always seems like they happen just as I'm trying to get a break formed. At the turnaround at the bottom I was caught. Sat in, and planned to do so until the end.

Sometimes you see an opportunity to go and you just instinctively react. That happened to me at 3 laps to go, everyone sat up and I instinctively jumped. After getting a little bit off the front, with no one coming with I was like "Well.... wish I hadn't done this." I had a good gap though, so I pushed along at tempo. As soon I was out of sight, I punched it. Unfortunately a group of four had decided to bridge, and the group decided not to let it happen. Oh well... then came slotting in. Didn't go so well. I ended up near the back with 2 to go. People at the back were getting tired and sketchy, but I tried to move up. In the end I didn't do what I needed to in order to be in position and with a lap to go my only option was to blast up the side taking a bunch of wind. I tried it, two or three times, but AustinBikes had 5 guys in the race and they were lined up at the front throwing down and then peeling off. I was pushing ~370w to try and move up and only moving up a couple spaces at a time. Well done Austin Bikes, and bad job getting where I needed to be.

Sitting 30th, there was no point in sprinting. I was basically at the pack of the group, there were some stragglers behind me. No one was going to win from there and everyone else was trying to sprint to get 25th instead of 30th so I moved to the right and let off the gas. There were others doing the same thing, next thing I know some larger guy with an air attack and a BH G6 comes barrelling past me yelling "DON'T STOP PEDALLING ON THE HILL." I approached him after the race to say sorry for interfering with him and explain to him that sprinting for 30th is both nonsensical and dangerous. He retorted something along the lines of 'I've done thousands of these, you need to hold onto the group at the end. Wait until you learn how to race.' First of all, I resent the idea that because I'm young people assume I don't know how to ride a bike, or race one for that matter, second what the hell does having ridden a bunch of races have to do with not being and idiot and putting others in danger? (one thousand races is a  whole lot of years of racing every weekend and hitting up weekday races) This is the second time in a week that someone doing something blatantly stupid has used "lots of experience" to justify doing something stupid. (the previous was a guy who we passed on our group ride who slotted in in his aerobars. I asked him once to get out of them and yelled twice. He didn't get out of them but instead asked me "What was I supposed to do" and "I've ridden a whole lot of hours." For the record a whole lot of hours on the bike do not make the person in front of you less likely to hit his brakes)

I understand that many people are just trying to come out and do better than last week and that is cool. That said, you are endangering others and yourself when sprinting for anything other than the single digits in placing.

Driveway Series: Cat 3/4 Win

Since I came home from school I went through about a month of detraining. For the power nerds out there, that corresponded to a CTL drop from ~110 to 75 during the month of  June. In June I started riding, unstructured and when I wanted too and midway through June I started building up again. I wasn't really building up for anything though. No races on the calendar at the time and "only" the Driveway. I'd kinda written myself off as not a crit racer. Then at some point it clicked on again, that bike racer in me. I didn't have to sit in and field sprint, let the race play out the way it would and then sprint. I would bend the race to my will and strengths.

A couple weeks I got off the front for good amount of time 15-20 minutes off the front. Once with a large group and once solo, both times caught though. So I decided I needed to be a bit smarter based on the course I was on and what would work. This week I came in with a plan, I don't have a great sprint but I've got good 1 minute power. I figured I would go a little early and hold the field off. The course almost always came down to field sprint, so I would sit in and then as soon as there was a lull inside the last 1k I would jump.

I did exactly that and it worked exactly as drawn up. At 4 laps to go I moved into the top 10, and I maintained that through the last lap. At 1.5km to somone tried to go extra early (too early). The pace picked up as the whole group grabbed his wheel. We whipped around the long, lazy u-turn and then there was an ever so slight lull, I jumped at ~ 500m to go. Stayed out of the saddle for about 5-10 seconds and then sat down got as aero as I could and kept motoring (looking at files it also seems I knocked it down a gear after sitting). At one point I snuck a look under my arm to see if I had the gap and I had a gap of ~20m. Kept on charging and when I knew I had it raised my arms.

Racing bikes is a lot of fun, winning bike races is pure bliss. It is a bit addictive really. When it happens frequently you start to expect it and without winning you get irratable, when it happens occasionally it is just like nirvana every time it does happen. For me this is win number 2 or 3 of the year (depending on if you count time trials) and podium #4 or 5, but this was the first time I got to raise my arms. Last time I won a mass start race it was close enough I didn't know whether or not I had won. This time I did and it was awesome, that realization of "HAHA I ACTUALLY DID IT" in raw physical form. Good stuff. 

For the power nerds: a couple of charts, first my finishing "kick" and then the whole race with 30 second  rolling averaging. I'm currently 53kg

Couples Tri: The yearly trial.

Ever since I started bike racing, moving away from triathlons I have still done one triathlon a year. For the last three years that has been the Couples Tri, which I have done with my mom in the Parent/Child division. Couples Tri is a race where two people compete as a team, do the whole race, add the two times together and then rank. 2 year running we had won the division. I'm going to ruin that story line right from the start (because it isn't about both of us, it is about trying to do a triathlon with 0 specific training), we didn't win this year, we got second. Still not half bad. So onto the story of racing without any specific tri training.

The Swim

Swimming is a large part of why I stopped doing triathlon, I really really really don't like it. I've never been fast, and I find training for it dead boring. In previous years I have jumped in the pool a couple of times before whatever race we were going to do in order to prove to my mom that I wouldn't drown. After pulling off a 2.4 miles swim with near enough 0 training last year, my mom decided I could make it 800m and didn't bother me about it too much this year. I was actually a little faster this year, felt better overall than usual. 18:49 for an 800m swim (despite never swimming I continue to become a faster swimmer, weird to me at least). My puny wonderfully weak cycling arms made it, in the top half of those who made it too. Woo hoo!!!!

The Bike

Obviously I was better prepared for this than any of the others. My mom will make fun of me cause I took the time to put on socks in transition, but whatever. I held back a bit on the bike, knowing too well what it feels like to come into the run way overcooked. I was probably at around 95% of threshold for most of the ride. (I haven't looked at the data yet) Triathlons do have a peculuarity though, passing people who aren't very comfortable on the bike. Lucky me, I was in the second to last wave to start. This means I had the priviledge of being on course with the majority of people. I spent just about every minute yelling at people to leave less space when passing, to stay to the right, that I was passing them. It kinda sucked, had a couple people yell at me for being rude. Sorry, I was going fast (progress) and you were drastically impeding my progress. I made sure not to spook people in corners, but otherwise I notified and flew past. I ultimately got the 2nd fastest bike split of the day: 6 seconds off the fastest, averaging 24.4mph for the 11.2mi reasonably hilly course. I'm very happy with that, especially given my troubles with having seemingly everyone on course on their hybrid, passing each other with 10 bike widths between them and riding 2/3 of the way into the lane. 

The Run

I was so glad I saved something for the run. When I first got off the bike, my first thought was: "Man I forgot how funny running feels after that bike." I quickly found my groove though. About a mile in someone came up to pass me, we ran together talked, I asked what our pace was (he had a garmin on, we were doing 7 min/mi) and then I decided to pick it up. Up to that point I had mostly been gliding on, whatever felt like a good natural pace. I was pretty amazed I felt so good. Coming into mile 2 there was a water stop, a guy from the wave behind me had just passed me. Coming through from about 50 yards out I yelled for water. as I came in I made sure they heard me again. 1 water, 1 water. Perhaps I said it too many times. Meanwhile the lady walking in front of me took all 3 waters out of the volunteer handing out waters hands. When I ran past her I said "I guess not" she yelled "You could be polite! Grab your own." Fair point, I was trying to keep a good pace, I had someone I was keeping in sights and I could hear someone coming up from behind, it is a race, I wanted water and I wasn't going to slow for it. I'm really not that sorry, although I hope I didn't hurt the volunteers feelings at all, after all without here there wouldn't have been water. Anyways there is a nice hill around mile 2.75 on the decker course, on that is where I started to really feel my legs. Holy cow, muscular fatigue. I haven't run in a long time. I finished up at 21:14 for the 5k, 6:49 min/mi. The craziest thing about this, is that even when I was doing track and cross country in high school, I never did my runs this fast. Maybe I was in better shape off the bike but I honestly think it is all about having that aerobic engine. 35th ranked run on the day

The funny thing is, even though I have trained less for both the swim and run in this yearly experiment than I ever have, I went faster in every discipline than I have in previous years. I think that just being in better shape aerobically makes a lot of difference (certainly helps that I do know how to run with some efficiency from cross country). At the same time though as is frequently the case here, I can't help but wonder if I would be faster in triathlons if I were to train for them than I am in cycling training for it. Who knows, I like riding my bike more.

Driveway Series: July 11th

Back at the Driveway series, and training in general now that TT "season" is over. This week I opted for both the 3/4 field and P/1/2/3.

For those unfamiliar with the Driveway Series, it is a great weekly 'crit' series in Austin on pristine smooth race track pavement. I say "crit" because most of the courses lack 90 degree corners and the signature bursty accelerations of a true american criterium, and that is absolutely positively fantastic. I'm a terrible crit racer but I can do 'ok' at the Driveway.

Anyways as always the 3/4 field goes at 5:30, and bakes in summer heat for 45. Today it was a brilliant 100 degrees out. Right from the word go somebody went off the front and about 10 seconds after they said go I decided that I would join him. And so I did, I rode just above threshold up to him, and straight past at threshold, joining and lifting the pace a hair. Eventually we were joined by more and at one point I think we were a group of 7 a number of guys came... and went. And about 20 minutes later we were caught. It was rather dissapointing, as we had everything you need from a good break. Strong guys, lots of teams represented. We did lack one thing important, cooperation or ability/know how of how a break works. For the record, if you can't pull either stay at the back or pull up and off. Sitting up front just ruins everything. Anyways we were caught and I stayed up front, a lap and a half later I unintentionally found myself off the front again. That was quickly caught and I decided to sit in for a while. with 3 long laps to go (about 3km per lap)  there was a break of 5 guys, 4 from the same team up the road and 3 of them up front blocking. I decided to bridge. Got up and one of the 4 (Vince Dietsch) attacked. No one else from the group was going to chase, so I got to it. Careful not to use to much I started clawing my way back up to him. Our group was caught though. Unfortunately the group seemed satisfied by having caught the mass and eased up allowing the gap to grow some more. It was still small enough to shut down but just barely, and Vince was a good time trialist. Nonetheless I decided to settle in for the sprint. Coming into the last lap I had great position, about 10th wheel (they were long and fairly untechnical laps). I failed to hold that position, partially just cause I picked the wrong train of people buzzing up the road. (There were two, one exploded into suck the other did well) Then too far back at the corkscrew and some jackass decided it was his time to blast up the the front and then slam on the brakes. (Says the guy who had been planning on blasting up the corkscrew) Anyways that happens when you are so far back. I did alright in the spring though, on top of the corkscrew I got back to about 10th wheels. For my sprint I did something new, a quick hard acceleration out of the saddle and then sat down and maintained as best as I could. Seemed to work alright. I ended up 5th. Vince managed to hold on for first, which is awesome. (From a photo finish it likely looked like a sprint win)  A well deserved win.

Then came the half hour 'recovery', it didn't work. I was overheated pretty badly and had raced hard (I think I was in every breakaway that lasted more than a lap). Anyways, from the start the legs didn't feel great and the numbers never lie, I couldn't do squat. I was in the pain cave the whole race, but my power and HR was way way down. First race was an average HR of 182bpm, NP of 219w and AP of 183w. Second race was 162bpm, NP 191w, AP 160w, and I would say it was far harder mentally and physically. I was simply clawing or the will to hold wheels the whole race. We started with 84, and although I don't have official count, I would guess we finished with about half that, and I was near the back of those who finished. That said, I finished with the group. I consider that a success.

Anyways good day of racing now to train somemore and be back next week. Quick note on training: rolling into State TT CTL was down to 78, lowest since January. Back up to 95 now and should hit 100 before the driveway next week. Super un-focused at the moment. Trying to get to ride everyday and 2 long rides in a week. Beyond that, basically what I feel like when I wake up. Riding at 6am is the bomb, but I think I need to introduce some heat acclimitization for the Driveway. That was terrible.

State TT: The journey, pain, and triumph

One of my major goals for this year was to improve my time trial. Being light has many advantages, time trialing prowess is not one of them naturally though. It is never a bad thing to work on really, it improves your chances in most stage races and requires improvements in FTP. That said, I thought it was particularly useful for me to work on. My time trialing last year was close to if not right at abysmal. My times on the local monthly time trial, the South Mopac Extension, and 8 mile TT were 3 minutes slower than the good riders in Cat 3. It would be a big shot to my stage race goals, add the fact that I was planning to do 3 stage races with important time trials to that and it just made sense.

As part of my regular training I was doing lots of 2x20 and 2x30 during the off-season to improve FTP, something I would have done whether or not I was targetting TT's, the big change was position work. Last year I had the following position for TT's.

It is a pretty decent "Ironman" position, but I was using this position for all my TT's. For that it was pretty darn abysmal. Step one was a largely negative stem. Removing about 3cm of stack. Putting me at the following (I apologize, my webcam sucks for quality):

This was a bit improvment, but I knew I could rotate forward and down more. Next came some aerobar trickery. I flipped my Profile T2+ bars upside down, and strapped the pads onto the base bar. I removed another 2-3 cm of stack. Putting me here:

Much better or aero, power output I was concerned about but on the road it actually worked out alright. I did end up doing one more swap, I switched to some aerobars that had a lower stack while still giving me something to really settle my arms into (I found that without the "cup" shape of the pads my arms slid outwards. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of this position

I was pretty happy with this position (and I finished mid pack in a TT with it), but saw some room for improvment. For one, the arms were SUPER close together, which I kinda liked but it is clearly straining my shoulders and pulling them down which makes it hard to allow my head/neck to sink. I needed to shrug my shoulders intead of pulling them forward. My arms are also pointed down, gross. I was also sliding off the front of the saddle during the TT, and moved it forward more after this. I widened the bars and angled the bars up a bit. This mostly concluded my fit changes, some small tweaks but nothing noteworthy. Now came the TT riding. 

The next TT was the Killington TT, which I already discussed. I had some great power output and finished top third in the stage, with my front brake rubbing. After that I had nothing big on the schedule, planning to do the State TT just to see what I could do. I drove back home, going through colorado and doing some great riding there. No real training, just going out and riding for fun. I decided after I got back to sign up for the Ironhaus TT on June 15th, to get some practice with the pacing for the effort. I had a target of 235w for the event and decided to go out at 225-230w and try and come back with whatever I could. I ultimately missed that power target, averaging 225w the whole way. But I broke an hour, one of my big goals for the year. 58:48 was my time, 2nd in the open division. It was a small event but I was happy with my time, very happy.

At this point I realized that a TT bike would certainly shave good time off my time. I searched and thankfully Jack Mott put me in contact with Christopher Stanton who hooked me up with a TT bike for the race. I got it just in time to blitz the South Mopac TT, where I beat my personal best by 3 minutes. Obliterated my goal of 18 minutes, doing 16:57. Then I mostly stopped riding. I did one set of 2x20s, a 2.5 hr endurance/tempo ride and then nothing right up until openers. I was just kinda burned out on training, and the TT stuff was supposed to be a fun different break so I didn't do anything.

The borrowed TT bike, and front wheel

I decided to register for the U23 category for state, prospects of podiuming in the 3's were low. Possible but low, I knew of 3 guys who were definitely capable of beating me in the 3's. The U23 field was smaller though, we ended up having 3. I was second to go off. Nerves running high, it took me about 5 minutes to settle into pace. We had a strong tailwind for the first 10km, and I averaged 46.3kmh up to that point. Power was down a bit, but somewhat expected it to be given the heat and lack of training. Ultimately I averaged 218w for the 40k, good for a time of 56:20. 2 min and 28 seconds faster than my previous TT, on less power. To some extent I think conditions may have helped me a bit (warmer and drier), but a large part of the difference was probably the bike. THAT is the difference aero makes. 

The results were good, and I ended up right were I wanted to. First place in the u23 division, I now have a state champion jersey. Big improvement from last year, and a huge testament to how big aero is. 

Reflection on Killington as a whole... and what went wrong on Stage 2

Overall, I'm fairly dissapointed with how Killington went. I went there thinking I had the shape to compete for the overall, looking back now I still think I did. I just screwed up. There are bright spots though.

The first stage is literally a blur in my mind. I have happily removed it from my memory as it is close to the coldest I have been on the bike. I didn't die or get hypothermia and that is a success.

The second stage is where everything went wrong, but first the things that didn't go wrong: 1)I finally got my nutrition right 2) I positioned myself well for most of the race and avoided crashes. Now the things that did: 1)I let the difficulty of the first climb get into my head and started thinking negatively about how I would fare 2) The climb was steeper than I had trained for, with my gearing standing up was essentially a requirement for extended periods and I have trained for mostly seated climbing.

For a physicality of why generating power was hard for me: I hadn't trained for this "Quadrant" of riding. Most of my threshold work and climbing work is done around 90rpm, I like going hard seated and at this cadence. I was in my smallest gear and standing at 78rpm with a 40t front chainring and a 28t rear cog. For steep grades like this, I should both train more specifically for their demands AND select gearing that allows me to run my 'optimal' range for force/velocity. I'm trying to trade my standard for a compact in order to make this a possibility. In reality for a climber who a prefers a high cadence, a compact is probably the best option anyways.

From the mental standpoint, this is something that has been going on for a long time, but has been better this year. Knowing where my fitness is going into the races with the power meter is an advantage, but for this race I let myself think that perhaps the guys were faster than me and I simply couldn't keep up. In hindsight... I know I was capable of more even at the low cadence than I did. It is a continuing battle for me of recognizing when I'm thinking negatively and trying to counteract it, or isolate it. I get to a point where I believe that I'm just not meant for it when I'm down in the race. I'm sure other people get there as well, I just need to learn to deal with it better.

Stage 3 went pretty well. I'm definitely frustrated about my front wheel fiasco though. The brake was certainly rubbing for the entire ride. I was in a rush getting out of the car and warming up and the front wheel simply was not installed properly. How much time did I lose to that brake? Either way my TT is improving, perhaps with a proper TT bike I would even be close to competitive? Hard to say cause I don't know how fast my effort would have had me go without that silly brake.

2013 Season thus far

This season has been frustrating, but I have progressed a lot. Started everything off with a good bang with my win at Rutgers, and from there became more frustrating and at times enlightening. A look at some of the memorable race weekends, what happened and what I learned.

• Rutgers: Exciting, learned I had to improve 1 minute power but this was expected as I hadn't done any 1 minute efforts. 
• MIT: First collegiate A-race. Made the break but worked too hard early, didn't eat enough and blew up. Learned that I should really avoid pulling as much as possible.
• Hornby Hills: Flat rear tire. Started using Caffelatex after this. Very frustrating.
• Bloomfield: Super windy, shelled myself trying to bridge to winning move, didn't eat enough. I really don't like windy races.
• Check your Legs: Small group into a headwind, was pretty shelled and then attacks came. Felt good on the hills, not so great on the flat. Legs were tired from the day before.
• Penn State: Had a very good first climb, wasn't prepared to keep going on the rolling hills sections. Stomach issues led to not eating, which led to severe glycogen depletion and sorts of screwed up things later on.
• Hollenbeck: Group let someone roll away from the start. I should have been best of the rest but didn't hold proper position going through the last climb. Why do people swarm the front coming into  a steep finishing pitch when they don't have a strong climb?
• Bristol RR: All was going well till I bonked really hard. This was the straw that broke the camelsback and I started looking at different nutrition options.
• Tour de Syracuse: Ok TT, sketchtastic crit, RR was started early and they told me the wrong direction to go when I missed the start.
• Killington: Nasty weather first circuit, mentally sucked up the RR, one of my best TT's ever but with my front brake rubbing.

There are a couple repeating issues I have: mentally losing and bonking. Bonking is an easy fix overall, and I think I've got a workable system down with some liquid nutrition and gels. I'm going to keep working on improving it, but it worked well at Killington for me. 

The mental thing is harder for me. I go into the race feeling positive, then we hit a hard part and I know everyone is going hard but I start wandering if I can go that hard for that long. If I do make it over that part will I  be able to keep up when they go hard later? Thoughts of "maybe I'm just not cut out for this" pop up. Overall pretty negative, and I end up with crappy performances. See Killington as a great example, or MIT to some extent. At Killington RR, the first climb was good, the second climb was brutal and I seriously started questioning how I would handle the finishing climb. The initial slopes of the main climb were hard and I gave in, I stopped pushing it afraid I would blow up and then dialed it back way too much. There were some other issues as well, quadrant wise I was not where I have been training (seriously considering trying to swap to a compact), but I should have had a stronger output on that climb, but I broke mentally.

I don't really have any plans for the rest of the season now, I was originally staying in upstate and doing 2 more big stage races. Financially however, it isn't really an option. I'm headed back to Texas where there is nothing but crits and TT's all summer. I'm probably going to give a 40k TT a go, take a couple weeks off and then just start building towards next season. Unfortunately this means that I will miss the mark on all of my racing goals for the season cat 2 upgrade, a top 5 at a stage race. That said I am a much stronger rider than I was in January. 20 minute power is up from about 4.1w/kg to 4.7w/kg, and I think I can do better. I'm on track to hit one of my numerical goals which is to get that number up to 5 w/kg before October, that's the good news.

I'm going to search calendars and see what I can find with climbing in it later this season and see if I can't come to some races in even better shape and get those points.

Killington Stage 3: TT, Best of the lot

Stage 2 didn't go as planned and Stage 1 was just terrible weather. I'm typically no good in a TT, but I was ready to lay it all on the line today, see what I could get out of my body and get the best time I possibly could. I went with what I call the "Haul ass and hold it" pacing strategy. Do threshold just until you can feel the pain and then go a little harder than feels sustainable and sustain it. I had an idea of what was a pretty good wattage goal, having done 250w for 20 minutes during a RR, I though 250 for 25-30min on a stand alone TT should be doable. I considered going for 255-260w but it seemed kinda out there.

The course was thus: Start heading WNW on a windy valley road with a bunch of nasty cracks in the shoulder. This portion was gradually climbing up little stair steps, rounding about to about a 1% grade for the first 8 km, then you take a sweeping bend to head NNW. Right after the bend there is about 1.5km of climbing at 3%, then leveling out for the next 5.5km when you hit a short 7% slope, turn right go back down the hill and sweep back to going NNW. From here there were 2km of small rollers to the finish line. The nature of riding through entirely valleys and a 20+ mph NW wind gave us a nice strong headwind the whole way. 

On the first section of the course, I had a really hard time finding a 'groove'. Along with the stair steppy gradual climbing I was trying to stay in the shoulder pick out a line, should have just taken the lane. Averaged  245w through this first section, less than I would have liked. On the next half, and especially the long flat I was able to really find a groove. On the short 7% popper I stayed low, but got on the hoods for some shifting and popped out 300w up it. Kept the power up to the finish line and finished having done 251w.... and I most certainly could have gone harder. 

In the end I finished up in 27:49 for the 17.1km course with the head wind and gradual climbing the whole way (~110m of net difference between start and finish according to my garmin). 22nd out of 60 and moved up from 31st to 26th on GC. I don't think the TT has ever moved me up on GC before, so that was happy. I also discovered that my front brake had been rubbing the whole time, not a whole ton but definately rubbing, not sure how much time that lost me but some. The wind died down just a hair after I finished my TT, and became a bit more gusty. Not sure how this affected TT times though, either way I got a good effort out of myself. Gonna take a week or two of just fun riding and then continue building up towards next year.

Post to come with thoughts overall on the race and the season so far.

30 second smoothed view of data metrics from the TT, NP=AP=251w

Critical power curve from today, personal best average power from just about 13 min - 28min

Killington Stage Race: Stage 2

You remember last night I was saying today was supposed to be worse? Good news: it wasn't! It was 10 million times better. I only sprinkled on us a bit, the sun came out briefly, started in the mid 30s, finished near 40. Nothing got rain soaked. Overall weather was very good. So now for the usual race report... first the course.

Single loop road race, 61 miles. Near the start there was a nice short climb with no KOM points on offer, 2.1km at 5.6% grade. After that climb there was a long twisty downhill, fairly shallow started steeper and shallowed out to near a false flat downhill. 12km at -2% and then 20km at a -.5%, but really it was a -1% grade with a couple little climbs. Then we hit the base of the first KOM climb, overall about 7km at 4.7% but it was very stair steppy, with the initial ramps being the steepest (14% ish). After the KOM we didn't go immediately downhill, but climbed a bit more through the feed zone. Then some rolling hills before you got your real downhill. Gradual downhill until we turned right, onto a dirt road on which there was a 1.6km climb at 5.3%. Then it was meandering gradual uphill (false flat) until you hit "the Beast." The Beast opens with 3km of 9% grade of  stair stepping climbing, steepest sections were about 12-15% gradient with small sections of 4-5% in between them. After this you have 3.6km of rollers, with no net elevation gain. Then you take a left onto the main road up to the ski resort and have 1km of steady 9% grade ahead of you. The Beast was what I was (dementedly) looking forward to.

Like I said started the race in about 34 degree temps, sprinkling. I won't go through everything I had but it will suffice to say I bundled up, and couldn't take much off. Hit that first climb, were I felt quite good moved up from mid pack to the first 15 riders or so. About halfway up it the three guys in front of me crashed (I guess one of them hit the guard rail). Anyways, I was directly in the middle of what should have run into it, but in a fit of no thinking miraculous didn't think I had these handling skills, I slammed on the rear brake, fishtailed the bike into a very tight turn which I could not have made otherwise and weaved around it. It was pretty awesome. Anyways then we hit the descent which was wet with cranks all over the road. I was happy I was near the front. I could see and pick my lines pretty well, about 5km into it I heard the distinctive squeeling of brakes and skidding tires and the then a domino effect of crunching bikes. I guess a decent number went down but I talked to a number who made it back into the group. 

Anyways, we hit the base of the first climb and people went crazy on the initial steep section. I was doing about 320 w and in the second group on the road, with about 5 guys in front of us. After the steep seciton everything re grouped and it got hard at times, but I sag climbed the rest. Saving some energy. Rode easy through the aid station, on the small downhill that followed I drifted just off the back of our main group picking my own line. Rolled right back into the group at the bottom where I sat in. Then we hit the dirt road.

I was pretty nervous about the dirt road, it had rained a ton the previous couple of days and it was bound to be somewhat nasty, not to mention I just don't do that well on dirt normally. It was alright, as expected some of the stronger guys punched it on the dirt, but I held in just fine and the climb part felt pretty easy. The descent was a bit scary, but I let myself fall back a bit pick my own lines.

At this point I think a lot of guys had decided we were waiting for the climb, the main group was definately much smaller than what we started with and I was exited and ready to go. For once I had eaten and drank like I was supposed to, we mostly soft pedalled to base with and exception of a flurry of attacks at about 20k from the finish (I assumed people trying to get away who weren't the best climbers). We rolled into the base, I emptied the half bottle I had left of water onto the road and it was supposed to be show time.

I had decided leading into this that I wouldn't follow surges but would peg just over threshold up the climb. That didn't work totally, ramps were too steep. In my 28t, out of the saddle I was at 75rpm and 340w. I was trying to keep pretty even with the group but the kept pulling away. First pitches I averaged 270w, 5w/kg and was falling back. Craziness. I settled into my tempo at this point realizing I would certainly blow up if I continued at that pace. Up to the rollers I ended up averaging 250w or 4.7w/kg. On the rollers I pushed about 270w up, 220w down until I was fast enough to tuck into and aero position and gain speed. Then the last 1km I pegged 240w. All in all, 28 minutes at 233w, 4.3 w/kg. I didn't feel like dying at the end and definately could have pushed more, but at some point I lost my incentive. I finished 4 minutes down and 34/64. Not what I was hoping for on the day.

I'm also a bit perplexed, it was windy on the climb but even so I don't think my power numbers add up to my finishing time. A VAM model puts me at about 3.5 w/kg for the climb. And I know I have climbed comparably to the guy who got the stage throughout collegiate racing season. I thought I had a flat on the climb, thought my brake was rubbing but neither were true. Maybe my PM was off, and I just wasn't generating the power, or maybe those guys were really just stupid fast. Maybe a combination of the two, maybe there is something up with the bike. I dunno but I'm gonna figure it all out tonight at some point. In the end it is just disappointing because I thought I brought "A game," but got C results. Not to mention I have no plans on racing for the rest of the season outside of weekly crits since I'm headed back to Texas and there is nothing else... guess the 2 upgrade will come next year after a strong hard working off-season. Try and ride the best TT I can tomorrow.

Update: Some more time to reflect, some more data analysis and a look at ride info from other guys. Simply conclusion: I didn't go hard enough and could have gone harder. I can see early on in my effort a HR of around 182bpm, which is what I typically hold for these length of efforts. I should have just stayed with that group, dug in and kept going. Based on what I've seen data wise and from what I know of myself... I think I could have done 4.5-4.7w/kg for the climb and felt like vomiting at the end. Based on others ride files.... that would have put me right at the head of affairs. I felt like I could run afterwords and yeah my legs hurt but I was not at my limit at all. Part of this is a bit of mental defeat that I'm working on, the race was hard earlier and I let it get into my head that I wouldn't be able to keep up... when I really think I could have.

Final climb, shown with 30 second smoothing. You can see the strong efforts on the steep ramps and slight recovery between, as weel as the power surge and fall on the rollers. Perhaps not the best pacing technique, but without better gearing I feel as though I had few options. NP for the whole climb was 240w. 

Killington Stage Race: Stage 1

On paper this event was supposed to be 4 laps, 72 miles. However, the weather was total crap. 37 and raining, 20mph winds and the roadways were starting to look like rivers in areas. It was cut to 3 laps at the start and cut to 2 during the race, 37 miles.

So about the course, one really long gradual climb mostly with a tailwind. Really gradual, steepest seciton might have been 5% average like 1.5%. Then there was a short steep downhill with a hard right turn at the bottom, followed by a long mostly flat section. Road here was sketchy with a head/cross wind.  At about 4-5k to go the road pitches down fast, sketchy road and a the wind is coming at you hard as a mostly cross wind. Like that right down to the sprint, shallower grades, but still downhill straight down to a right hand turn.

This will be pretty short, but basically this race was not a race. It was a test of survival, who dealt with the cold rain better whether via equipment, body insulating blubber (fat), or just pure grit. I didn't have the first two. I covered things in duct tape to try and keep water out... it worked for a little while. Eventually everything was just soaked though. It was cold, I couldn't generate the power I normally can, I had no 'snap.' Anyways I fought through it, but wasn't racing. I was just ensuring I didn't crash, people were borderline hypothermic and then 5k from the finish of the second lap they told us we were finishing up our last lap. There was a sprint, I finished close enough in to be placed in the main group. Goal of the day completed.

No clue what the plan is for tomorrow because they are trying to figure that out themselves still. Should know by morning but by the book should be a 61 miles road race that finishes on top of a mountain. Should be ~30 in the morning and raining/snowing. Warms up a bit, but yeah... cold. I'm hoping for... something different.

Tour De Syracuse Omnium

This race was overall... kinda a disaster. Three races in two days. First day was a rolling hils 15.2km out and back TT and a crit race with no real turns but lots of flowy curves in a mile long track. Second day was the road race which was also the state championship road race and was my big target for the weekend.

TT
So a bit about the course, it was rolling hills, but not big rollers, lots of small rollers not really that steep but noticeable. Close to flat but not quite, the outbound was 200m longer than the inbound. My goal for this was to really give it a practice run for Killington. Same equipment, position, and all out. I knew my 20 second man was a strong TT rider and did not expect to see him again, I was hoping to hold off David Richardson who started 40 seconds behind me off for as long as possible with a overly optimistic goal of not having him pass me, and a realistic goal of having it happen past the turn around. I set into a pretty good tempo and ended up settling into a position I've never used before but felt quite good and low, I'm looking forward to seeing pictures.I wasn't able to generate quite the power I would in my normal road position, partially because I need to move the saddle forward and up to hold this position. I wasn't getting much activation of of my glutes. I was able to hold a solid effort, but couldn't get much past threshold in the position. I ended up doing 234w for the effort, 41.8kmh, 22:02 was my time. I feel like I could have gone a lot harder though, afterwords I was tired but not much more than a 2x20 this was more like threshold effort not 20 minute effort. David passed me maybe 1km past the turnaround, but went faster on the second than I did finishing in 20:39 for the win. I was 11th/19. Not bad for me in a TT, but I can do better.

Crit
This is were things really went wrong. I wasn't entirely looking forward to this as an omnium event in a crit means EVERYONE sprints at the finish. It makes for a more sketchy event IMO (versus in a stage race where many GC contenders will just sit in for same time, a  'rest stage' of sorts). We were also combined with the P12 field, but scored seperately. Alright, but I think this just causes more prolems in a bunch gallop. I figure the saving grace would be that there were no real corners. I was wrong.

This was the sketchiest race I have been in were no one actually crashed. I'm not sure what it was exaclty, but I've never seen so much line changing, half wheeling, and shaky all around handling in 'corners'. It was bad, and REALLY bad in the middle. think cat 5 race, except without the freaking out and crashing instead lots of saves. It was one of those races where either the very back or the very front of the race. I chose the very back and once we got into the last lap I let myself fall off the back and pedalled it in. DFL on purpose.

After talking to some people after the race I think that part of why it was bad was that lots of cat 3's felt really on the rivet and had quite literally never ridden their bike that fast in a pack before. Person after person I talked to said "It was FAST!" There were no corners and we averaged 44.25 kmh. It was fast yes, but it was only an hour and it was not that hard for me at least. I guess that is a good sign. Avg power: 157w, NP: 191w. Really... not hard. Bristol had a NP of 205 for 3 hours, not one hour.

RR
This course was close to perfect for me, 58 miles one long (~8min is the strava KOM) 5% grade climb 3/4 of the way through and an uphill sprint to the finish. I was really looking forward to this one and thought I had a real chance of winning. Unfortunately, I never actually made it onto the course which totally ruined the whole race weekend. Why did I miss out?

First of all I missed the start. The race was staged not at what appeared to be the only entrance to the parking lot, nor did it come out it. It was staged off the side of the main school parking, in another parking lot and sent the race off through an alley between 2 buildings. I realized this at just about the time we were supposed to start (I had been riding in circles next to where I thought staging was and thought it was weird no one was there when we were supposed to start). I got to the start line 30 seconds or so late, and found out they had started the race 2 minutes early. There was no announcement in the main parking lot about staging or where it was occurring  Not the end of the world though... I can chase right? Well when I asked where to go they said: "Take a left and then a right." I did just this which took me out on the main highway through town. I chased for 20 minutes at a sweet spot effort level (211w, 36.6kmh. A good pace but something I knew I could sustain for what I figured might be a long solo ride.), then passed some guy clearly not racing asked him if he had seen a group come by (I had been going on the same road for a while and not seen a glimpse of a group, support vehicle or volunteer). The answer was no.... I knew something had to be wrong and so I turned around and road back into town.

I wasn't supposed to go left and then right... I was supposed to turn right until I saw the corner marshall. I was now over 40 minutes behind my race field with no way of catching up, totally dejected. It was WINDY and kinda cold, spitting rain at times. I'm still upset, I am not the only person who missed the start. I talked to 2 others (out of a 30 person field) who missed it and and many others who "almost" missed it. I'm just the only guy who was given incorrect directions. Not cool.

From now on I will be obsessive bout being early to start times and knowing staging locations. I could have prevented those, but the guy who told to turn the wrong direction..... I can't control that and it destroyed any chance I had of racing. Good thing I  don't know exactly who it was because he would have gotten an earful, all I remember is that he was wearing an USAC official shirt.

Bristol RR

I'm not feeling particularly wordy today, so this will be shorter than usual. They combined the 3 and 12 fields due to small fields, and increased the distance of our race from 51 miles (3 laps) to 68 miles (4 laps). Cat 3's were still scored seperately, and to be honest I was perfectly ok with this change. Racing with 14 guys wouldn't have been that fun. The course had 2 climbs, the first one was gradual with a steep section at the end (1.6km long), second one was pretty steady, some stair steppy sections, 6% for 2km.

Legs felt really good going into the race, and during warm up. First lap felt good, matched a couple of attacks on the first climb, split up a bit on the second climb I was in group '2'. Probably could have gone with group one but I was boxed in and it all came back together on the descent. Brendan Housler, David Richardson and a couple other attacked on the flatish section. I knew I couldn't go there, it was a headwind... and flat. Sat in, no one chased... ever. 2nd time up the climbs was uneventful, it split again, i was in the wrong spot when it did but again it came back together. Third time up I was feeling pretty good, weakening but others seemed to have faded more. Then I hit a brick wall, I bonked.

I had only eaten one cliff bar because I felt like puking everytime I ate, and 2.5 hours into the race I hit that point where glycogen stores were not were they needed to be. I started fading fast. I fell back to the 3rd group on the road, worked with their rotation a bit then faded more and more.... and was out the back. I slowed up, tried to eat more, rode endurance pace in. A bit frustrated and dissapointed, nothing I could really do about the lack of cooperation and working to pull back the leaders. I could have done something about the food. I need to figure this out, ASAP. Don't want any more ruined races due to food issues. Ended up getting 9th/14. Not THAT bad all considering. On a high note, my legs felt good.