Monday, June 29, 2009

Cow TT #21

Everyone (all four of us) was within 45 seconds of each other with three of us in the 25mph range and one in the 26. Strong group.

Here's how my ride shook out:
Route 589
2:49
268 watts
24.2 mph

Peterson Road - into the headwind
10:03 - but felt like forever
261 watts
21.1 mph!

Alcony Conover - yay no more headwind, time to wind up
1:53
274 watts
25.2mph

Ahh the tailwind of Troy-Urbana
6:44
270 watts
31.2mph!

I've got no races scheduled until July 8th's Blue Streak!

Monday, June 22, 2009

#20 Ohio State time trial championship

After the USA Cycling changed the master's tt to 16 miles I decided that my goal race of the year would be the state time trial. Knowing early on that it would be on a flat course helped! Even though my training has been terrible due to health/work/lack of time issues/fat ass, at least I have been feeling pretty good just about every time I ride my time trial bike. On a side note, just about every ride on my road bike has been for crap.

Around 110 riders were registered for the time trial in Versailles and it was awesome that they closed the road at the start/finish! It made for kind of a professional feel to the event...well as professional as I can dream of. The juniors went first but I was the 7th adult to start on the day. Seeing the quality of the field ahead of me (Gary Painter, Peter Wimburg, etc) I knew I would be lucky at best to pass anyone on the day. Seeing the quality of the people behind me scared me enough as well!

The 'out' portion of the course went south then east for 9.something miles, all with the wind at our backs. Felt really good and my average was almost 27 at the turn around. I did pass my one minute man around 7 miles in. The turn around was on a slight down grade so we had to jut up a little rise immediately. Ouch. Into the now head wind. Ouch ouch. The ride back was a struggle fighting the breeze. It wasn't bad, but just enough to matter to me and I averaged only right at 23 on the return half for an overall average right around 25. Right around my typical speed.

This was good enough for the win in my age group!

Full disclosure time
In the 35-39 age group there were 5 people. I beat three of them and the person who beat me was from Indiana and was not eligible for a medal. But I don't care, gold is gold is gold.

In checking my data I was happy to see a decent power average for a course this long. It's getting close now to my old averages for shorter tt's of last year.

That makes 6 wins on the year, one better than last year and several more races to go.

Monday, June 15, 2009

Interesting to me only

Since I started racing bikes, we use the age we will be on December 31st of the current year. So all year, I've been 39 where it relates to racing. I actually turn 39 tomorrow. What does this mean? Well, I've got a short (as in 6 miles) race tomorrow so I don't know how I'm going to get my "39" miles in that's required via some unwritten rule.

Ok, so that wasn't even interesting to me.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

#19 Colavita TT June

Crappy feeling on the warm up. I warmed on the trainer and just didn't feel "it", whatever "it" may be.

Anyway, it was a perfect condition day. There was a slight tailwind going out so I figured there would be some fast times since it's longer that way than the trip back home. I started 11th with some good riders ahead of me. I only caught two riders on the day. Usually, I try to make the turnaround in 16 minutes and I was at 15:40-ish. That was nice. I pushed as hard as I could into the slight headwind and hit a time of 28:52, which knocked 9 seconds off my fastest time set last September. Average was a shade over 25.

So I won some Heed and a pair of sunglasses. Having a prescription and not able to wear non-Rx, I traded to the glasses to Shane who won a helmet. Perfect!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Groveport TT #18

This is my fourth consecutive year racing this course.
In 2006 my average was 23.9
In 2007 my average was 24.19 (time of 58:31)
In 2008 my average was 24.53 (time of 57:57)

I knocked some 43 seconds off my best time and my average said 24.6 via the powertap.

This course is fun and hard, but does not suit my strength. The front half is some rollers where I saw 16mph on my computer at one point. Ouch. Bunch of false flat type roads too. The return half is less rolling (pretty flat) but had loads of false flats.

I ended up 5th in my division. Even in the cat 4 group there were some fast times with the winner of our group in the 54-minute range. The overall winner was in the 28+ mph range with a time in the high 49-minute range (former national champ Paul Martin).

Next up is Blue Streak on Wednesday followed by the Colavita TT this Saturday.

This was the first long time trial on my new saddle. I'm walking a bit gingerly at the moment, kind of like a cowboy. Should be fine for riding tomorrow with some bag balm. Have I mentioned that I really don't like Champion's new chamois?

Thursday, June 4, 2009

#17 Strawberry festival TT

That's a little more like it.
In one race I set a season high 20 second and 15 minute power and lifetime high in 5 minute power. Not sure of my result yet (announced top 2 only), but my average was 25.4 (powertap) for the 10 mile course. There were lots of good riders out there tonight.

I keep reminding myself how fast I would be had I not be carrying a 20 pound bowling ball around my waist.

The time spent the last two weeks solely on the tt bike is paying off.

OFFICIAL RESULTS:
http://www.speedy-feet.com/results.htm
5th out of 19 in the 30-44 age group
7th overall out of ~70 (I'm throwing out the tandem, recumbent and the obscure woman's time of 27mph, as that's got to be wrong)

Why do they keep spelling my last name wrong???