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.