#24 Ohio State TT Championship

Last year I was 3rd place in the "cat 4" division. This year I opted for age group (35-39) instead of cat 3. Result would have been the same regardless!

After a few bad weeks of training, lethargy and apathy, I had few expectations of a good ride. In the end, even though my placing was poor, I was happy with my ride. The Groveport course is rolling for the first 7 miles or so then flattens out nicely for a quick ride back to the finish. I passed 7 riders (1 minute intervals at the start) and had 2 guys pass me on route to a 24.19 mph average finish. My time was 58:31 on the "not quite 40k course". I think it was 23.5 miles or thereabouts.

Team COBC did great job as usual with organization, however, I do wish the start times were posted on their website as opposed to just being emailed. We lost a rider from our team due to a mistyped email regarding his start time.

Anyway, next up is the Greenville TT this coming Saturday.

Upcoming Schedule

The rest of the season is shaping up like this:
Tomorrow - State time trial (duh)
6-30 Greenville TT
6-31 Grandview (masters 35+)
7-15 Team Dayton crit (masters and cat 3)
7-21 Troy Crit (masters)
7-22 Tour d'Burg (cat 3)
7-28 Greenville TT
8-4 Pur Tour (cat 3)
8-5 is the last race of the Ohio cup - it's the Zoar road race in northeast Ohio. Not sure about this one as it will totally depend on how I feel. Right now I still don't have many positive vibes to my riding/training/racing.

Unfortunately, I'm going to miss the Newmark Crit for the first time due to being out of town. I really like this course. Last year it was pushed back so late that very few people showed up. I did the 2/3 race (my first race as a category 3) and only a dozen people showed up so they let anyone join us who wanted to.

Fudge

Moving massive amounts of furniture the week of the biggest race of the season is pretty dumb. First, we're getting carpet at the house so we have to move our couches, chairs, tv, etc Sunday night. Second, for the last two days I was installing the custom office furniture that I designed for a client. This stuff is made out of 2" MDF (Medium Density Fiberboard).

The laundry list:
Scraped & bruised right shin
Bruised knees
Strained right groin
Strained right hamstring
Sore back
Tweaked right knee


Super. No riding last night as I got home too late.

Leading up to the State Time Trial

Ok, so I've NOT done a 40k tt yet this year. Oops. What I have done is gotten myself dropped in so many road races that I basically turn them into time trials. Not the best training, but hey, what can a guy do? This week is going to be a relaxing week with Friday and Saturday off to rest up for Sunday's race. Barring thunderstorms, I'll hit the training crit Tuesday, do some intervals on the TT bike Wednesday and a tune up ride on the TT bike Thursday. After Sunday, I'll be picking and choosing races including the Troy Classic, Team Dayton Crit and Colavita's Time Trials.

Bad beer for $6.50? I went to a Reds game Saturday night for my birthday (37!) and saw that beer was $6.50 a bottle. Now this was not Oberon, Smithwicks or even Blue Moon. This was Miller freakin' Lite, Bud and Bud Light. Yuck.

Summer Solstice stage race

What a bust of a weekend! The shocking disappointment of the race has lead me to re-evaluate the amount of racing that I wanted to do. I definitely should not have upgraded when I did. Morale is at an all time low so I'm shortening up my race schedule a bit and increasing my training.

In the stage 3 time trial, my 25.17 mph effort was good enough for 23rd in my category (out of 50+). Reviewing the other categories, I would have been last in the 1/2/3 race, 4th in the cat 4's and 1st by a big margin in the cat 5's.

One great benefit of the Powertap is that I've been able to assess the real reason behind getting dropped. All these accelerations over and over again kill me quick. My training is also the reason why I am pretty decent at time trialling. Now I have to choose. Less of time trial training and work on the acceleration problem, or continue working on time trialling and screw thinking I'll ever be good at road racing?

Last night was race #23 - Tuesday crit
55:12
20.33 mi
TSS 81.7 (0.943)
Norm PWR 264
PWR 0 886 242
HR 93 181 164
SP 8.3 33.7 22.1

#18 - Tuesday crit

Now that the cut grass had a week to settle down, I didn't have any chest pains or breathing issues from allergies. That was nice. The race was low in attendance, and I'm guessing that's due to the Ault Park race tonight. 9 guys started the A race I think. 8 of them did not get dropped. har har.


55:22
20.35mi
TSS 84.7 (0.962)
Norm PWR 269
PWR 0 912 249
HR 98 180 165 (lower than normal average)
SP 3.4 31.6 22.2

Races aren't coming fast enough (but that's about to change)

Due to insomnia I decided to avoid the two and a half hour drive to Indiana on Saturday. The alarm was due to go off at 3:45am and I was still awake at 2 so I made the call to bag it. It sucks because that was my final chance to get an official 40k in before "the state". The drive along I-70 is enough to cure insomnia itself, so I felt it was risky to chance it. I opted to join my team, who was participating in the Troy Strawberry festival parade. Most of the team was there so after the parade we went for a short group ride, a photo op, then I rode home.

This weekend (barring the fore casted thunderstorms) is the Summer Solstice Stage Race in and around Wilmington. Three road races and a time trial on the schedule. Tuesday is also the regular training crit (again, barring thunderstorms).