Redlands!

Well, it's been a few years since I've done the Redlands thing. I think I remember doing this crit 3 or four years ago, and also doing the Pro 1,2 race a couple years in a row around '94 and '95. DNF'd one of those years and gutted it out during the other.

I can remember getting shelled on the Oak Glen Stage and riding hard tempo for quite a long time in a small group - barely made the time cut, IIRC!

Anyway, did a couple crits today - started with the 3's race and gave it a go a couple times including a make or break effort with 5 or 6 laps to go. Sold out on that effort and was brought back with just a bit over a lap to go. Decided to sit out of the final sprint on that one...

A bit of a rush to pull off those cat 3 numbers and reveal the 35+ numbers pinned underneath, but had a couple minutes to shake out the legs and roll to the line for the "main event" for me. Took me awhile to feel good, but was never really pressed until 4 or 5 hundred meters to go while I was sitting 5th wheel or so - got gapped a bit when someone dropped anchor in the middle of a corner and I basically wound up giving it full stick, nose in the wind for the last three corners. One person came around me in the few meters before the line - so, officially wound up 8th on the day.

Still gotta figure out a way to crack the top 5 in these pro 35+ races! :-)

Here's the SRM screenshot for the days efforts - some good motorpacing going on out there and a couple "rasise the left" vo2 type efforts in the 3's race.

Mt Palomar "Test"

I usually climb part way up Palomar a couple - three times a year. Last time I did it was in July of 2006. I was 74.5 kg's or so, and managed to make it 13 km's up the hill from the store (for you locals) in around 52 minutes while making 275 watts.

Today, I made it 13km's in around 47 minutes on 278 watts, while tipping the scales at about 68.5 kg's. Yeah, being skinnier helps when going uphill, eh? Who'd a thunk it!? :-)

As a side note, this makes my ~20MP to 60MP ratio to currently be around 1.10 plus. Interesting since I have put a lot more effort (especially during last fall) into doing lots of tempo work to burn KJ's... You know, it's pretty important to get a handle on the whole KJ's in, KJ's out thing when trying to lose mass! :-)

As far as Palomar goes, pretty much every time I climb this hill for a duration of around an hour since "really" using a power meter to train, I wind up being at 275W +/- 5W no matter what time of year or training focus. That's pretty crazy consistent, eh?




ooooh, that's an UGLY mug! :-)

A plot to consider...

I've had some questions recently about how many hours a week I commit to training. So, I pulled this from the database:



One outlier week, there, eh? ;-)

Doubt

Doubt is a pretty powerful thing. When it comes to competition, doubt is the enemy of champions. One has to believe in the process, methods, metrics - "feel", and the relationship between you and your "influencers" is an integral part of the whole deal...

Some folks will go to great extents to convince themselves that the path of action they choose to follow is the "right" one. They'll construct all sorts of algorithms, conduct tests, analyze - some of them will be rigorously scientific, others will be based in psuedo-science. Often times, in the world of performance, things wind up being "in the noise" due to improper tools, insignificant effects, tradition and lore, or quite simply inadequate experience. In these scenarios, folks tend to go with what they believe to be true. Sometimes they might be right based on pure luck, coincidence, or plain old over-exuberance. Sometimes they might not be right, though. The important thing is that in the end, some wind up champions. But why?

Ah, if it were only so easy as believing the numbers.

In my experience, bike racing is not a math problem.

Take, for example, my recent experience this weekend at the San Dimas Stage Race. I was completely outclassed in the W/kg department (as evidenced by my 57th place showing at nearly 4.5 W/kg for ~17.5 minutes in the 35+ masters class). Truth be told, I doubted myself after seeing the results last friday evening... I thought, 'damn, no way I can go much faster - I'm as light as I've ever been, and putting out within a percent or two of my maximal power for the duration, and I totally got my ass handed to me. No way I can be competitive tomorrow in the road race.'

Bull-shite - on the drive up, I cranked up some old-skool Tool - Aenima style:

http://toolshed.down.net/lyrics/aenimalyrics.php

and rememebered all the good days I've had ridin' bikes - road races, the lot of 'em... I stuffed the doubt that had kind of crept back in to the side. Have I mentioned that I don't think bike racin' is a math problem!?! ;-)

Well, sure, during the road race with all those guys that were puttin' out in excess of 5.5 W/kg in the hillclimb the previous day, I was put into difficulty - but only really once. Second lap up the little hill just before the finish - got a wee bit freaked out at the bottom as dudes were blowin' and I was in a bad spot. Over the top it was a bit rough, but the cake topper was that just after the descent, dudes started to sit up - nuttin' like goin' across gaps after a rough patch...

I could have given up, no one would have cared, or noticed - I mean, it was the freakin' San Dimas Stage Race not the USPRO championships... But I didn't give up - homey don't play 'dat!

It got way easier after that second lap, and in the end, the 2.4 hour effort was not maximal - just a pretty moderate tempo session according to my heartrate monitor, supercomputer, and measured kilojoule expenditure (I've hurt way worse for a few days after maximal efforts where my KJ expenditure was 30% higher for the same duration!). On the bright side, I did wind up getting in nearly 15 minutes of goin' hard time - certainly a wee bit more than the races I've done so far this year, but really, not anything too severe for a 150 minute effort.

Indeed, I was pressed a couple of times in the circuit race (the second lap…kind of a rude awakening…and, of course, in the finale). However, a few might believe that this 2.4 hour, non-maximal effort was above and beyond what I can do during a 40k TT in terms of watts. WOW, if I really could hold at least that power for 2.4 hours I'd be pretty impressed.

Yeah, in the end I wound up ninth in the circuit race (third in the bunch sprint). I was pretty happy with that placing (the main bunch finished a minute or so down from a break of 6) - it was my first top ten in the "pro" 35+ fields of the year. Something I can build on, I think. It's a long year...

This weekend was a great confirmation for me - in that, it summed up my experience as a bike racer - severely underpowered and outclassed, yet, somehow I still manage to be there when it matters.

It's a killer to doubt yourself, your methodology and your metrics when it comes to analyzing and improving your performance. I don't doubt mine, do you doubt yours?

Bike racing really isn't a math problem - race your strengths, run what you brung, and most importantly have fun!

Peace,

-kraig

PS - here's the chunk plot of that San Dimas Circuit Race (I'm 69kg, BTW):

Run Whatchya Brung

San dimas stage race power numbers for the hillclimb - started out a wee bit too hard, but really, this is pretty much all I can do for the duration right now! Next year, I'll just have to drop 10 more kilos to be competitive - 59 kilos is healthy for a six-footer, isn't it?!? ;-)

Any Whiter?

So, I was trying to find my start time for the San Dimas Stage Race Hillclimb TT tomorrow and was cruisin' on over to:

http://www.socalcycling.com

and what did I see, but perhaps the whitest dude in the whole world riding second wheel in a photo on the front page:




holy crap, I think I need some sun...

Looks like I toe the line at around high noon:

Confirmation

I haven't done a maximal effort longer than a couple minutes in the last 6 weeks or so (in fact January 28th was the last time I did a full gas effort up my local 17 ish minute field testing venue - Couser Canyon for you N. San Diego County folk!), and the last time I went up couser it was a pretty fast effort - 310W +/- while setting a PR for that climb. My training lately has pretty much been focused on one day a week of drilling 20 minutes at 325w+ in 5 minute chunks, i.e, "classic" vo2's:

http://www.biketechreview.com/op_ed/stripped_down_2.htm

Well, today, I think I have confirmation that my focusing on losing kilograms last fall helped me go up hills faster, as I was within a handful of seconds of that PR of 6 weeks ago. I've added these last two confirming data points to my alternate uses of a power meter plot featured on the BTR home page:



It doesn't seem as if losing 7kgs or so has effected my ability to make power for 17 minutes or so, does it? :-)

Murrieta Power!

Pretty good weekend up in Murrieta - really hot on Sunday for the circuit race - my SRM temp gauge registered high 90's on the Fahrenheit scale, though, I think that was a few degrees high...

Managed to stay out of trouble during the crit - bridged across a 10-15 second gap to what looked to be a dangerous move (had what I thought was the right mix of teams - I don't know everyone around here, so I have to keep an eye out for the right color combination of jerseys goin' up the road, so to speak..) but soon got re-absorbed and gambled on the final sprint. It all came back together with one lap to go and I think I might have actually passed a few people on the run in to get a top 15 placing.

Here's the srm screenshot of the last 2k:



Sunday circuit race had a couple of small rollers and a bit of wind - centerline rule was in effect and that wound up causing a bit of "trouble" for me when a nice group of 5 guys got away and the gap was hovering around 15 seconds or so. I told myself I'd go across the next time through the roller section - well, the gap grew 20+seconds in what seemed like less than 1 or 2k and by the time I tried to go across to the break:




the gap was too big - I probably only made it half way - but it was a truly maximal effort for me for that duration... Spent the rest of the race sittin' at the back, and to the paultracy.com team's credit (nice work, guys) the main group absorbed three of the five man break with 10-12k to go. I slotted myself into the front with a couple k to go and duked it out to the finish for another top 15 sprint finish. Here's the last 2k power:




I ain't winnin' jack, but hey, this bike racin' stuff sure is a lot more fun than trainin' for the triathlon efforts I had been doin' for the last couple years! Not that there is anything wrong with that! :-)

10???

Is that too many pins?

;-)

Gettin' ready to toe the line @ the tour de murrieta!

It's been awhile...

...since I've done this. So long in fact, that I had to get a refresher course from the bro'.

Two thin coats on the tire, one on the rim to soften things up a bit, and I'll be good to go!

Reminds me of that line from airplane! Ya know...

"looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffin' glue!"

D'oh!

What are some other good lines from that movie? Hmmmmm...

Merced Weekend Wrap-up

Wrapped up the Merced Marathon! Went full bore non-stop since checkin' out of work on Friday evening and making it as far north as Visalia, CA before calling it a night at around 11pm.

Made it up to Merced with plenty of time to do the Crit (SRM screenshot) on Saturday:

Stayed out of the wind and rode very conservative - didn't quite know what to expect from the scene up here in Merced. Basically, I was trying to erase from my memory the last time I raced up here as a cat 2 in the Pro 1,2 race about 10-12 years ago -got totally shelled during this crit and to follow it up, during the RR the following day (IIRC), I drilled a pothole and snakebit the rear clincher Michelin SuperComp HD TIRE! on my Specialized Tri-Spoke. Well, at least I managed to stay well within myself during the 35+ race this time around! :-)

As the screenshot indicates - I kept things under control and went a wee-bit harder near the end - wound up top 25 by the official results:

http://www.mercocyclingclassic.com/grandprix_results/

First half of the race was pretty cool, in that I got a chance to say hi to a couple of old friends and an acquitance from the wind tunnel! After the race it was pretty cool to put a face to a name (bpeterson) from the BTR forum as well!

The RR Sunday was interesting. Same rough pavement sections I remember from the last time I was here (but not sure if it was the same exact roads - for some reason I remember going the opposite direction in the mid 90's??). Again, I raced real conservative, never touching the wind, though, the way the race played out I think that was the right thing to do - pretty fast, and I never saw a threatening break that had both the Safeway and the AMD boyz represented.

Put myself in a pretty good spot making the second to last left hand turn ~8-10k from the finish and was probably 20th dood or so going into the last kilometer. More than likely wound up in the 15-20 spot in the final sprint (despite overhauling a women's race that was simultaneously finishing!) - a wee-bit sketchy final few kilometers as we were weavin' in and out of the remnants of that field.

Here's the screenshot of that pretty good "fill the right" RR effort:

After the race, we packed up real quick and headed over to the coast - yep, we took the scenic route home. It was a pretty long drive, but man, that section of road between Monterey and San Simeon is just about the best scenery in the world. Good stuff!

Here's a shot off of the Cabrillo Hwy (route 1) a wee-bit before sunset:

and a sweet shot of me and the Mrs. just north of Big Sur!

All in all, a great weekend to put in the supercomputer!

Some dude workin' at Merced

Kickin' it...

35-plus race in the bag. It was a fairly clean affair... Only one crash in the crit where they had to stop the race to let the ambulance get on the course... Probably wound up top 30 or so... Guess I need a few more watts, but am remembering how to race the bike!

Saw some familiar faces out there from the wind tunnel and also from the good old days of bike racing in the pac NW.

Just kickin' it right now with a belly full of pulled pork sandwich watchin' the pro womens race.

Tomorrow is another day!

On Scene @ Merced