#24 training criterium

It hurt like a race, was held on a race course and I didn't win. So therefore, it was a race. I chose the B race because I wanted to at least feel like I could be a factor longer than three seconds. There were maybe 25 B riders.

Really I was there for training and not to try to win so I kept floating around, hitting corners hard and making little accelerations. During one of my jumps, I caused a break of three riders. Oops. During another jump, I caused two more riders to bridge the gap. Then it was down to the rest of us. Half way through it was down to five of us in the "chase" group, a half lap behind the leaders. I continued to not play nice and hit the corners, jumped and screwed around for the workout. On the last lap, one kid took off and no one chased (I was sitting last wheel, getting ready for my own attack). He was gone, so then I took off on corner 3 and rode in hard ahead of the rest of our little group.

Good training day. We'll see what happens when it's for real this weekend.

#23 Colavita TT July

Not much to say about this one. The weather played a factor into the slower times. I rolled a 24.5 average and was the only one to break 30 minutes in my division. 7th tt win of the year.

Won some Hammer Gel and some Heed. My cupboard overfloweth with Heed. I like that.

#22 Blue Streak

Not counting the HPV's, I was 10th out of 70+. Everyone had good times last night and I shaved well over a minute on my personal best, rolling in with a 25.92 mph average. 3rd in my age group of 30-39.

Big ride by Kyle Lyman, going over 27mph with the only aero gear being a skinsuit and shrinkwrap on his helmet (that is, if he rode the bike he was warming up on...his road bike) - Team Dayton, get that guy a tt bike. Jeez.

Results:
http://www.speedy-feet.com/2009/0708/BlueStreak.htm

Half year review

Happy July? It's cold out...

This is just a small review of the half season that it's been.

Mileage wise, I am way off the pace. Due to everything that's been going on I just haven't had the time or energy to put as many miles on as I would like. Right now, I'm at 3,154.91 for the year.

Running half year totals:
2009 - 3,154.91
2008 - 4,013.80
2007 - 3,769.5
2006 - 4089.47
2005 - 4,455.07

On the road racing front, I've been complete crap. Six races - 3 dnf, 2 last places and 21st place out of 25.

Time trials on the other hand have been going well. A nice way to start the year was winning the series of indoor TT's for my age group. In 12 outdoor time trials, I have 6 wins, two 2nds, two 4ths and two 5ths. My new position, skinsuit, shoe covers and front wheel have made up the difference of my declining health, training and increasing weight.

So that makes 21 races right now. With the potential addition of cross races and the rest of the season's time trials, I should have a decent number of races by year's end. That's not even counting crits, as I'll do a couple of them for fun.

In the meantime, I'll keep plugging away trying to get dropped less and less on group rides, try to get my TT speed up and work on the weight.

Cyclocross

From the looks of it, cross racing is becoming more popular than road racing. What is a guy to do? Well, buy a cross bike and hit the dirt/grass/sand/pavement!

Now I'm getting pricing on a singlespeed cross bike that I can use for adventure racing and commuting (whenever I move) as well as cross races. That should help retain some fitness over the late fall/early winter season and stave off some of the trainer riding.

One nice thing about cross races is that there are more categories than road racing. I can race beginner 35+ to start. Races start in late September.

How am I going to mount my powertap on a singlespeed cross bike though??? HA

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!

#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.

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.

#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!

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?

#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???

Drink up!

Cow TT #16

Saturday was the 9.1 mile Cow time trial. One mile into my warm up lap I knew this was going to hurt. I had one day off Friday after a hard six day block that included one interval session, two time trials and three hard group rides. Yeah, oops. So heading eastbound on the warm up lap was painful.

The actual race was even more painful. Going out it was a struggle to hold 23 and hitting 25 took way too much effort. That's when I shifted from singing songs to myself to talking to myself. That's never good! I felt a little better on the short southbound section knowing that once I turned right again it would be easy sailing. The ride back home was 28 mph easy. My overall average for the 9.1 was 25.1 (powertap measured). Again I'll say when I have a bad day but can still average 25, it's not really that bad of a day. I was just worn out.

That being said, this week is sort of a rest week with a 40k tt on the schedule for this Sunday in Ft Wayne, Indiana. Didn't ride Monday or Tuesday and Sunday's ride was just an hour on the tt bike at a moderate pace to get used to being aero for that long. I think that's what today's ride is going to bring.

Speedy feet TT #15

I decided to race up north instead of down south today. I was in a hurry and had both of my dogs to make sure they didn't get overheated, resulting in a limited warm up...

Am I out of excuses for my 2nd place finish (out of 25 or so riders)? ha ha, I got beat by 0.5 mph average so my coming to a complete stop to avoid running over a goose is moot.

Anyway, I had my season best 15 minute power which was nice and averaged 25.0 but I don't remember how long the course was...maybe 7 miles or a little longer. I kept a lower cadence for some reason, like I didn't have the right gear. I was probably chugging 80 rpm or something. That was interesting and led to a slightly lower (but expected) heart rate average.

You have to expect the bad while racing on an open bike path with dogs, kids and geese.

Running TT tally:
6 time trials
4 wins
2 second places

May's Colavita time trial #14

No thunderstorm!

This was the latest I've ever arrived at a time trial. My brain must not be working right as I usually am the first person there - today there were at least a dozen cars in the lot. My lack of brain is becoming disturbing. Being late, I was 19th to go off (out of around 50 riders).

The rain started to come down during my trainer warm-up, but by then it was getting time to pack up and head to the start house.

A guy on a sweet, brand new Fuji TT bike was just ahead of me. Good rabbit. Out on the road, there was a little head wind and I hit the turn around at 17 minutes passing four people in the process (including the Fuji). The return (shorter) trip had me about 12minutes40. Front side I averaged less than 23 but on the back side it was over 27 for a 24.5 average on the day. Certainly not my best effort and I was kind of pissed when I realized that I felt pretty decent within 10 minute of finishing. That means I didn't go hard enough.

The end result was good enough for first place in my division. Not that my division had a whole bunch of riders, but whatever. Finished 9th overall out of the 50.

The all-time record was broken today. 24:57! That's about 4 minutes faster than my best ever time.

Update

Well I didn't race Tuesday even though it was a nice evening. Since I didn't work in Cincinnati, I felt no need to drive 1.5 hours each way for a 10 miler. I opted for one of the crappiest rides I've ever had instead. Almost literally. At the one hour mark (and 30 minutes from home), my stomach was in serious jeopardy. Luckily, I was able to hoof it home in time.

Wednesday's race was a washout (for me at least). I was at a client's office at 4 getting ready to leave when a nice thunderstorm hit Troy. So I worked more. Around 6 when I got home, the weather was actually decent. Crap. No riding Wednesday.

No riding Thursday. Enough said. Not a good day.

Today was nice enough and I had a spare hour to hit the time trial bike for a warm up for tomorrow's TT in Greenville. Basically, it was another "getting to know you" ride on the Specialized working on keeping my knees in and chin down. Due to the wind from the south, my north ride up Peters Pike was a steady 30-32mph.

The TT bike is cleaned up and ready to roll. Tomorrow is looking thunderstormy though but I have the season series to worry about so I'm racing rain or shine.

In exciting news (to me only), I'm going to get my Trek out of storage and get it ready for crit season. It's never seen a race and hasn't seen the road in anger in over two years. It needs new shifters (9 speed to 10 conversion) and some bar tape. I have a cassette, chain and powertap mounting kit, so it's going to be a low cost upgrade.

Lucky race #13 Germantown

...lasted 12 minutes. 1/4 mile of downhill followed by 1/4 mile of uphill. The downhill featured a turn that I could not manage and got gapped. Ended up getting pulled after 7 laps out of 25.

Probably missing Cleve's tomorrow because I'm not going to be in Cincinnati.

Blue Streak is Wednesday and the Colavita TT is Saturday so I can get some racing in.

crap nutz crap yay!

CRAP:
After Sunday's race I developed a slight cough. I just thought it was the normal cough after a hard effort but it turned into a scratchy throat. Felt better for Monday's ride, but by Tuesday morning I could hardly drag my ass to West Chester.

NUTZ:
I finally made the call at 5pm to ditch the time trial and go home. One less race but I didn't want to push it since I felt like garbage to begin with.

CRAP:
Felt sick all day Wednesday and today. It felt cold in the house so I thought it was cold outside until I had to make a short road trip. It was warm so I had to ride at least a little.

YAY:
With ideal conditions for my time trial test, I felt that was the best thing to do today since I would be on and off the bike in less than an hour and the hard effort would only take 13 minutes or less. So I meandered my way down to Dog Leg and Jackson feeling pretty descent and trying to maintain form. As the picture at the top of my blog shows, I need to work on pulling my chin down a touch and was working on bringing my knees in.

Time for the interval. Up Dog Leg, right on Old Springfield, Left on Peters (had to kind of slow down for a knucklehead driver that sat too long at the stop), right on Evanston stopping just before my subdivision.

5.768 miles in 12:22 which by my powertap showed a 28.0 average. First time I've done a test at 28! Last year my best was 27.6 under similar conditions.

In full disclosure, it's not a completely accurate assessment of fitness since there was a SW wind at 9mph, but I've gone slower with more wind. But I will take it. I didn't wear my heart rate strap, but my power was where it should be for that type of effort. But also under full disclosure, I wore my normal helmet and normal kit with no shoe covers.

No riding tomorrow (work all day), but the Germantown race is Saturday. Looks to be another rough one.

A friend of mine was taking photos on the climb

My last trip up the hill

#12 Spring Valley

9. something miles laps, 5 laps with one climb to the finish. Not steep, but long (for Ohio)

There were only about 25 cat 4's and all fields were a little low. Not sure if there were other races going on today elsewhere or what. It was a nice day, but the forecast of rain may have kept people away.

We caught the cat 3's near the end of the first lap. It's not like we were riding all that fast though. Up the first climb and surprise I got dropped and couldn't catch back. Traded pulls with two other guys (Glen from 7hills and Rick from a team I didn't recognize) for the next two laps. Being nice, we decided to regroup at the top of the climb each time (because they would have dusted me up it). I reciprocated by doing as much pulling as I could on the flats to get my TT workout in. At the start of lap four the cat 5's caught us and we sat at the back of their pack for a few miles. Someone attacked and popped Rick off the back. Near the end of the fourth lap, which was the last lap for the cat 5's Glen and I slowed down a bit to let them finish. Glen was done by the end of that lap anyway, so I pulled most of the lap number five. Other than cramping, I felt ok so it wasn't a problem to pull so much.

In a show of gratitude and respect, Glen told me since I was pulling him around, he wouldn't pass me up the hill just to finish ahead of me. It's not that we were in a break battling for first place, but I still appreciated the respect. So he coasted up the hill and I rode in for 21st place.

I finished and I wasn't last. Small victory in what is turning out to be a very hard year.

Tuesday looks to be a nice day, so I'll be heading down for the Cleve's TT unless something comes up.