JEP Coaching Scholarship Report: Week 5

I had some time off of work this week so that meant I got to do a few more hours on the bike, as well as getting plenty of sleep. Focus was on time in the aerobars and longer rides. Spent a lot of time in the saddle and tried not to get rained on.

Monday 12/20
Prescribed: Day off
Actual: Day off

Tuesday 12/21
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: 90min endurance in aerobars
Actual: WO1: Good lifting at Defiance Crossfit, WO2: Had to split this due to work and time constraints, rode 50min to work on road bike, then in the afternoon rode another 50min in aerobars.

Wednesday 12/22
Prescribed: WO1: 2 hours with several 10min z3 efforts, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: Joined SportVelo Wednesday ride for a 2.5 hour ride, WO2: Stretched

Thursday 12/23
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: 90min endurance in aerobars
Actual: WO1: Good lifting at Defiance Crossfit, WO2: 90min in aerobars with Andi, nice and easy after lifting

Friday 12/24
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hours Tempo "as you feel", WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO2: Did a nice 3 hour tempo ride with Dan and Andi, WO2: Stretched

Saturday 12/25
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hour ride with 10min z3 efforts OR 3 hours indoors, WO2: Stretching, WO3: "Holiday"
Actual: Although it was Christmas, I did manage to do a 90min ride before the rain started, but once I got back from that I didn't have the motivation to finish another 90min on the rollers, so I continued on to WO3 and enjoyed my holiday. WO2: Did stretch, felt good.

Sunday 12/26
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hour ride with 10min z3 efforts OR 3 hours indoors, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: Had a nice 3 hour ride which included climbing OLH for the first time in a while (I've done a lot of flat rides to avoid descending on wet roads). WO2: Stretched.

Weekly Totals
Prescribed: 17:50
Actual: 17:01


Thanks for reading!

JEP Coaching Scholarship Report: Week 4

This was definitely a week of dodging raindrops, some days more successfully than others! I got most of my hours in and didn't spend too much time riding on rollers. It's rained quite a lot in the past few days, but at least the temperature stayed reasonable.

Monday 12/13
Prescribed: Rest Day or optional commute to work
Actual: Rest day (drove to work), I was tired.

Tuesday 12/14
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: One hour active recovery on rollers
Actual: WO1: "Heavy Day" at Crossfit - lifting at 80% of max! I also tried the December Challenge at Crossfit, which was a 500m erg piece. I used to be okay at these, but it's also been about two years since I did any hard erg pieces so I only managed 1:42.1, with fairly bad rowing form. WO2: Did 45min on rollers - had to use our small rollers (2.25 drums) because Jose wanted the 3.0 drums for a workout on his TT bike.

Wednesday 12/15
Prescribed: WO1: 90min Indoor Trainer Session with 10min z3 efforts, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: Not actually raining outside, so I did my first couple of efforts with Andi then finished by riding to work for a 2 hour total ride. WO2: 50 minute commute home, easy, WO3: Stretched

Thursday 12/16
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: Ride in aerobars for 90min
Actual: WO1: Felt great doing front squats @ 80% of max, then way too many burpees, pushups, situps, and squats. WO2: Rode to work on TT bike, got in a few good chunks in the aerobars. Total time on bike:70min

Friday 12/17
Prescribed: WO1: Endurance in aerobars for 90min, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: It ended up raining, but I still managed to get out for 90min on the TT bike (on which I hastily placed a fender). WO2: Stretched

Saturday 12/18
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hour ride with z3 efforts or Indoor Trainer workout, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: It didn't rain! It kept threatening to, but I got in a good two and a half hours with Dan and Andi before it started raining. It didn't even rain that hard at first, so I got to finish out my 3 hours without having to touch my rollers. WO2: Stretched

Sunday 12/19
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hour ride with z3 efforts or Indoor Trainer workout, WO2: Stretching
Actual: WO1: Started out with an hour outside, but it was raining, gusty, the roads were full of debris, etc, just generally miserable out there. Came inside and continued my workout on the rollers, but only lasted about 30 minutes before my focus started slipping and I got tired, so I decided to call it quits before I started falling off. WO2: Stretched.


Weekly Totals:
Prescribed: 15:20
Actual: 14:31

Thanks for reading!

JEP Coaching Scholarship Report: Week 3

This week was nothing special, just a few more hours on the bike than last week. I took out my time trial bike twice this week, since Coach Dan is trying to make sure I practice putting out power in the aerobars. I was rather tired by the end of the week though, since this week's Crossfit seemed extra hard, and I did two 3-hour rides on the weekend. I also did plenty of stretching, and I think already my hamstrings maybe be getting more flexible.

Monday 12/6
Prescribed: Rest Day
Actual: Rest day

Tuesday 12/7
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: One hour Neuromuscular Power Seated Sprints
Actual: WO1: Hard workout at Defiance Crossfit - the "warmup" included box jumps, wall balls, kettlebell swings, and jumping pullups! WO2: Did sprints on my commute to work, though my legs were tired after Crossfit. Rode home easy after work.

Wednesday 12/8
Prescribed: WO1: 2 hours with VO2 max in aerobars or functional threshold in aerobars, WO2: 30min stretching
Actual: WO1: Chose the zone 5 efforts because shorter intervals would be easier mentally, but didn't do very many because my legs were very tired, likely from the tough Crossfit yesterday. TT bike felt good though. WO2: Stretched for 30min

Thursday 12/9
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: One hour active recovery w/HC progressions
Actual: WO1: A bit tired at Crossfit, but a great workout nonetheless. WO2: Rode to work easy, high cadence progressions were hard because I was so tired from the workout and had trouble focusing on keeping the cadence up. Rode home easy after work.

Friday 12/10
Prescribed: WO1: 90min Pedal in Aerobars, WO2: 30min stretching
Actual: WO1: 70min on the TT bike, much of it in the aero bars. It's been a while since I've spent any long amount of time in the aero bars, so my lower back, shoulders, and arms started to hurt after too long in the aero bars, but a few more hours on the TT bike should fix that. WO2: Stretched for 30min

Saturday 12/11
Prescribed: WO1: Bridge Team ride, WO2: 30min stretching
Actual: WO1: Did a nice 3 hour ride with Dan, Andi, and Emily. We practiced some bike handling skills under Dan and Andi's guidance. WO2: Stretched for 30min

Sunday 12/12
Prescribed: WO1: 3 hour tempo ride with high cadence, WO2: 30min stretching
Actual: Rode with Dan, Andi, Emily, and Jose and did part of the A ride. We decided to climb 9, then come back the way we came and ended up with just over three hours. WO2: Stretched for 20min

Weekly Totals
Prescribed: 15:20:00
Actual: 17:48:23

JEP Coaching Scholarship Report: Week 2

This week was something of a recovery week, since SportVelo Camp last week was a lot of riding. The high point of the week was Saturday, when I did my first dirt ride and my relatively new cross bike got to be used for the first time off-road. I'd been using my cross bike as a commuter, but I finally got to put on the knobby tires and play in the mud on Arastradero's trails.

Monday 11/29
Prescribed: Rest Day
Actual: Rest Day

Tuesday 11/30
Prescribed: WO1: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: One hour active recovery
Actual: Good lifting session at Defiance Crossfit, then an easy commute to work as active recovery (47 minutes on the way in, 52 on the way home).

Wednesday 12/1
Prescribed: Low cadence climbing intervals, 2 hours total, WO2: Stretching
Actual: Did most of the intervals, but discovered (or re-discovered) that low cadence climbing, especially sitting, makes my lower back hurt quite quickly (I'm used to my lower back hurting, but generally only on longer rides with long climbs). The mystery of the lower back pain continues, though I did find that higher cadence climbing hurts less. Stretched some after, but should have done more.

Thursday 12/2
Prescribed: Defiance Crossfit, WO2: One hour active recovery with high cadence progressions
Actual: Good lifting session at Defiance Crossfit, did shorter sets with more weight. I'm getting better at box jumps. Then an easy commute to work as active recovery with HC progressions along the way.

Friday 12/3
Prescribed: Pedal Drills for 60min, Stretching
Actual: Had a long work day and didn't get to the workout until after 6pm, at which point I hopped on the rollers and discovered to my woe that I was far too tired mentally and physically to focus on riding rollers without falling off, so I stopped after only 15 minutes. Skipped the stretching and opted for sleep instead.

Saturday 12/4
Prescribed: Cyclocross skills, 2 hours in Arastradero
Actual: Rode there, so got an extra 30 minutes in on the road beforehand. Great dirt ride with Dan and Andi Smith, John Ford, Ted Burns, and Jose Soltren. It was my first time using my cross bike as a cross bike and for the most part it was great fun. I managed to not crash, though I had some close calls (at least in my opinion, since a few times I was scared out of my mind). It was nice to have such good friends along to help me out, teach me how to ride the trails, and wait for me when I was slow :-)

Sunday 12/5
Prescribed: 2 hour endurance ride, stretching
Actual: Nice easy 2 hour ride, just beat the rain. Stretched some, need to stretch more.

Weekly Totals:
Planned: 13:00:00
Actual: 11:38:54

JEP Coaching Scholarship Report: Week 1

This is my first Scholarship Report, and I'm really excited to be a part of this program. I've been working with Coach Dan since this July, and I'm excited to continue working with him. I haven't yet met with Coach Dan to go over next year's goals, so I'll report on those next time. This past week I attended all of the SportVelo Fall Foundation Training Camp and got some good hours in.

Monday 11/22
Prescribed: Flat Threshold Test on Beat the Clock course

Actual: Warmed up and rode hard, but had a bad test. My power was low, probably due to a combination of cold weather, inadequate sleep, and the fact that it's November and I'm not exactly in racing shape right now.

Tuesday 11/23
Prescribed: WO1: Strength training at Defiance Crossfit, WO2: Neuromuscular Power Sprints

Actual: Went to Defiance Crossfit and had a good workout. I didn't have time to do the sprints because work kept me busy late.

Wednesday 11/24
Prescribed: 90 minute endurance ride with focus on high cadence

Actual: Decided yesterday's sprints were more important, so I worked them into my usual commute to and from work, 50 minutes each way. (I ride to work most days from Menlo Park to San Mateo and back.)

Thursday 11/25
Prescribed: Strength training at Defiance Crossfit, then relax for the holiday

Actual: Had a great workout at Defiance Crossfit - we did a bunch of running, hang power clean to push press, box jumps, and situps.

Friday 11/26
Prescribed: 4 hour tempo endurance ride at SportVelo Fall Training Camp, WO2: 30min stretching

Actual: On the bike for about four hours - we went out to Canada and back for a warmup, then climbed Kings. I opted for the slightly shorter route and descended Tunitas and climbed back up, then back down Kings. I took it easy up Tunitas since my lower back tends to ache on climbs, but it was fine since I took a break or two.

Saturday 11/27
Prescribed: 4 hour tempo endurance ride at SportVelo Fall Training Camp, WO2: 30min stretching

Actual: It rained quite a lot, so SportVelo camp was moved to Defiance Crossfit for an overview of lifting techniques followed by two hours of indoor riding. I spent most of the workout on rollers, which was great practice for me, then switched briefly to a trainer for some drills.

Sunday 11/28
Prescribed: 4 hour tempo endurance ride at SportVelo Fall Training Camp, WO2: 30min stretching

Actual: 3 hour ride: up Old La Honda, down West 84, Pescadero to West Alpine, down Page Mill and back. It was chilly outside but sunny so it ended up being quite a nice ride. Did remember to stretch after the ride.

Week Totals
Prescribed: 19:30
Actual: 16:20

Alto Velo JEP Coaching Scholarship

I'm pleased to announce that I was recently awarded a John E. Peckham Coaching Scholarship, along with Barrett Ausman and Ryan Gibson. The scholarship helps pay for the coaching services of Dan Smith of Sportvelo from this November through next September. I've been working with Dan since July, and I look forward to continuing to work with him. As part of the scholarship, I'm required to send out weekly reports on my training and progress towards goals, so I'm going to post them here on my blog too.

More information about the scholarship can be found here: http://www.altovelo.org/scholarship.php

A Nice Day

Some days when I go outside to exercise, life just feels wonderful. This afternoon when I went out for my ride, I just felt great. I had all this positive energy and I've been cheerful ever since. It's funny, I used to get this same feeling every once in a while back at MIT - I'd occasionally decide that I wanted to go for a run, and I'd get outside, breathe in the fresh air, and have a really great run, even when I wasn't in shape. I think part of it is the weather - we've had a lot of rain lately, and before that a cold spell, so today was the first day in a long time that I've gone for a ride not wearing arm warmers and a vest (or knee warmers). Anyway, I'm in a great mood today! I've been meaning to write about a few things for a while now, so expect some updates from me this weekend.

Strength Training with SportVelo at Defiance Crossfit

This winter training season a group of SportVelo athletes are doing strength training together at Haley's gym, Defiance Crossfit. Every Tuesday and Thursday morning she's got a new workout for us. We started out slow, since none of us were used to lifting weights (it's only the beginning of winter training after all), and we don't all know all of the lifts and how to do them properly and safely. To start out, Haley showed us some basic lifts and exercises, and we found our one rep max weights for the deadlift. I lifted 225 lbs, which is better than I expected given the shape I'm in. I'm pretty sure my old max weight during crew was closer to 265 lbs, but that was after a month or two or three of working up to that weight, so we'll see how far I get this winter. We also found our one rep max weights for hang power clean (105 lbs) and front squat (155 lbs). The workouts we've been doing generally consist of a warmup, two main sets, and core. In true crossfit style, our main sets almost never consist of just lifts, but lifts then something extra. For example, 5 front squats quickly followed by 5 jumping air squats. It mixes things up a bit, but it can also be quite tiring. In any case, I think the workouts are great, usually fun (though difficult), and we'll all get so much stronger from doing them.

Elite Track National Championships: Points Race 10/2/2010

The Points Race was on Saturday afternoon, and the first thing I had to do was race in a qualifying heat. The heat was 40 laps, with sprints every 10 laps, and the top ten qualified for the final. We only had 13 starters, so most of us would advance. My goal for the day was just to make the final. The heat started and we went fast! I think it was the fastest track race I'd ever been in, since I've pretty much only raced with the B men at Hellyer. I also found out quite quickly that although I was energetic and excited before the race, my legs were rather tired from all of the pursuiting. Fortunately I was able to get near the front on the last lap and got one point on the last sprint, which was enough to qualify me for the final. Then I got to wait 2.5-3 hours for the final, which was good actually, since my legs needed time to cool down, rest, and warm up again. It was also enough time that I could eat some food.

Since I was still feeling fairly tired, and I also have very little experience doing points races (especially in a fast field), my goals for the race were simple: don't get dropped and get at least one point. The final was 100 laps, sprints every 10 laps. The pace was fast, but it seemed less frantic than the qualifying heat, maybe because it was a longer race. I also had a bigger gear, so it may have been just as fast but I got used to it and wasn't spinning out. In any case, I was conservative for the first 50 laps, since I wasn't sure of my legs and also needed a bit of time to get comfortable racing in a pack of fast-moving women. I learned quickly to stick to the wheel in front of me lest it get stolen, but I also ended up in the back a lot because the wheel in front of me wasn't trying to get to the front. With 50 laps to go, there was actually a crash on the home stretch, but luckily I was far enough behind that I could go up and over. I'm not sure how many people went down, but the race was soon neutralized and we were allowed to stop (and get water). Two girls were injured enough that they didn't restart, but several ladies who did go down (including Beth Newell) got back in when we restarted.

I was feeling a little less tired in the second half and started being a bit more active in the race, going with a couple of breakaway attempts, but nothing stuck for more than a lap or two. I still wasn't great at moving up through the pack, but when I did get near the front I responded to several attacks. Luck was with me in the last few laps, because when Cari Higgins and Hanan Alves-Hyde went off the front, I had the opportunity to bridge when the girl in front of me decided to go for it (otherwise I was blocked in). I made it to the front group, though we ended up with almost no separation. There ended up being five of us strung out in front of the pack, which was close behind but so strung out that they weren't about to overtake us. Cari and Hanan were taking good pulls, but the other two girls pulled off after half a second on the front, so I took a good fast half-lap pull to keep us out there. I can't remember how many laps we were out there, but with about a lap and a half to go all I remember was trying to hang onto Hanan's wheel as she and Cari accelerated. She pulled away from me very slowly and I just kept fighting to stay on her wheel, having no idea who was behind me or how far, just knowing that this was my last chance to win any points. Luckily, I think everyone behind me was suffering just as much and I got 3rd in that final sprint, netting myself 2 points. I got 12th in the race, which I think was pretty good for a beginner. Also that last sprint was awesome! I'm looking forward to coming back next year with a little more experience and really kicking butt in the points race.

Elite Track National Championships: Individual Pursuit 10/1/2010

Friday afternoon was the individual pursuit, but my legs weren't feeling as good as they were the day before. It didn't help that not only did we have little rest between team pursuits but we were kicked out of the track right after awards so we had no time to cool down. Since I'm new to track cycling, they weren't able to seed me properly and I was in the first heat (the fastest four were in the last two heats). I had a pretty good start, and I floated the second and third laps just like I planned. Then I thought my legs were feeling pretty good, so I upped the pace and did a couple of sub-19 laps, but unfortunately I couldn't hold it for long and ended up fading by the end, though I did still pass my opponent. I clocked a 4:01.298, which is a PR, but I had been hoping to break 4 by a few seconds. I think if I'd been feeling fresh I would have been able to, but I'll never know. I then had to wait for everyone else to finish to find out if I'd made the finals (top 4) or the podium (top 5). Unfortunately another unknown showed up in the 3rd heat and beat my time by one second, then all four ladies in the last two heats beat her, so I ended up 6th. Haley and Andi both put in solid performances: Haley did her first ever Individual Pursuit and Andi improved on her 3k time from Elite Districts.

Elite Track National Championships: Team Pursuit 9/30/2010

About two weeks ago we finally got together a team for the Team Pursuit at Nationals: me, Haley, and Andi. We all went down to the track a couple of times and practiced our exchanges, and we felt pretty good about it. Coach Dan and I drove down to Carson on Wednesday afternoon with a full car, since we were carrying Andi and Haleys' bikes, wheels, and rollers. Andi and Haley flew in Thursday morning and in the afternoon it was time to race. We had our order set, our strategy ready, and our communications agreed on. Unfortunately, it didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped. The plan was for Andi to start and take one-lap pulls, followed by me taking two-lap pulls, then Haley taking one-lap pulls. Our start was okay, and I floated the second lap at 19.0 seconds, then apparently Haley and I were both feeling really good, because we went much faster than we'd planned, with me doing my second lap at 18.1 and Haley holding that pace exactly. Andi was feeling the pace a little, but she did her lap well and then I was on the front again. I'm not entirely sure how it happened after that, but sometime during my two-lap pull Haley and I gapped Andi, and I heard her say "down down down" as we'd agreed. Unfortunately, shortly after I first heard it I heard something else (it may have even been a spectator saying something), and thought that she was back on, so I kept going after an brief slowdown. Once Andi was off the back even a little, it was harder for her to get back on, and I didn't realize how much we'd gapped her by until I'd finished my two laps, going at what I thought was a conservative pace. I pulled off to let Haley through and saw how far behind Andi was - not really all that far, but enough that she wasn't getting a draft at all. Unfortunately, I failed to properly communicate this to Haley, so it took us another lap and a half for us to all come together again. I stayed on front for 3 laps to spare Andi (since she'd been in the wind going full speed for 3 laps) and Haley led us through the final lap. Despite our many miscommunications, which were all of our faults, we still managed to clock a 4:00, which is not a bad time in its own right and I think downright amazing considering we spent a chunk of the race apart.

There were only four teams registered, which meant that all four teams got to ride again for the finals - 1 vs 2 and 3 vs 4. We ranked 3rd. Since there weren't any other events going on that afternoon besides the Men's Team Pursuit, we only got about 30-40 minutes before we had to race again, but even though we were tired, we were glad to get a second chance. We got off to a bit of a slow start, and we were definitely tired, but we knew the other team was tired too. Coach Dan decided that since Andi had been forced to chase us for a couple of laps, she should take half-lap pulls, and it was my job to avoid any abrupt accelerations so that she could stay safely in the draft. For the first few laps we were actually a quarter lap behind the other team, but we held it together and picked up the pace a bit, while the other team got tired and fell apart. By the end we were more than a quarter lap up on them, not far from catching them. Our time was 3:58.742, and we beat the 4th place team by nearly 8 seconds. We were all pretty thrilled to have won a bronze medal at Elite Nationals! I was lucky to have Haley and Andi on my team, they were fantastic.

Friday Night Racing 9/17/2010

This was the last Friday Night at the track for the year, and it turned out much better than the one three weeks before when I crashed hard. The fields were Men 1/2, Women 2/3/4, and Open 3/4, which turned out really nicely for me since it meant I could race in the reasonably small Women's field while the Cat 1 Women raced with the men. I decided to race not only the Omnium but also the Sprints, since it seemed like fun. My first race of the night was a match sprint against two men I didn't know. I wasn't running a very big gear since I knew I might not have time to change it before the next event, so I decided to take them by surprise and go long - I started with over 1.5 laps to go. I held them off for a while but one of them came around me on the home stretch, so I ended up 2nd.

Next up was the Power Mile, which was just a 5 lap scratch race. I think there were eight or nine of us, so it was a nice sized field. We started off a bit slow, and on the second lap I heard Coach Dan yelling at me from the warmup circle to punch it and see what happens. I made a bit of a move, but not enough to shake the field, so I backed off to rest for a bit before taking the last two laps hard to win it. My next race was another scratch race, which was only 12 laps long. We all traded pulls for a bit and some small moves were made but nothing too exciting happened until I powered off the front going into the last lap for another victory. Right after that race I was called to the ready for my next sprint, which would be after one other pair went. Oh, and I just happened to be sprinting against my boyfriend, Jose Soltren. Well, we'd done this against each other before, and I pretty much knew I didn't have a chance, but I went for it anyway, attacking with just over a lap to go, hoping to catch him off-guard. It didn't work and he passed me pretty quickly, but at least I tried. I was getting fairly tired by this point, having come to the track that morning for pursuit training. Luckily I got a bit of a rest as we waited for the Kiddie Kilo and the 50 lap points race to finish before our 20-lap points race. If I'd been fresh I would have considered trying to lap the field, but since I was tired I decided to be conservative and just sprint every 5 laps. I ended up winning the first 3 sprints and got 3rd in the last one, so that was my third victory. Right after that, I was called again for a match sprint, but luckily the other guy scratched so I ended up 7th out of 12 without having to race a 3rd time.

The last race was the Miss 'n' Out, which was thankfully very short due to our field size being down to 6. I burned a fair amount of energy staying up above most of the laps to avoid being caught at the line, so when Heather attacked on the last lap I was a bit slow to follow and couldn't quite pass her at the line. Since I won most of the races, I also won the Omnium, which was cool. I had a lot of fun racing and I wasn't very nervous about riding in a pack again, though I did witness some close calls in some other races. I think next year I'll come to a lot more Friday Nights since I had so much fun this time.

Tuesday Night Racing 9/14/2010

This was my first race back after my crash a few weeks ago. It was also my first time riding my shiny new red Langster which replaced the one that died in the crash. I raced in the 3/4 category (since I'm a 3 on the track) and first up was a scratch race. I quickly realized that although my body had healed from the crash, I was scared of crashing again and didn't want to ride to close to people. Unfortunately, it was a moderately sized field (15-20 riders?) and there was a lot of aggressive riding going on, including crowding and passing underneath, so I was rather uncomfortable riding in the pack. To make things worse, Taylor Meilahn crashed with 11 laps to go. I don't really know how it happened, but she ended up with a concussion, a cut above her right eye, and lots of road rash. I hope she heals as fast as I did. We finished the last 11 laps and I spent most of them riding a meter or two off the back, because the wheels in front of me kept moving side to side quickly and I really didn't feel comfortable staying close. The points race was more fun, because it was 25 laps with sprints every 5 laps. I decided to take a chance and attacked right at the beginning, coming out of turn 4 after the whistle was blown. I got quite a lead on the pack for a while, staying half a lap ahead for several laps and even getting as far as maybe 2/3 of a lap ahead, but after I won the first sprint at 5 laps in, I think the pack realized that they needed to get it together and chase me down before I lapped the field or won too many sprints. I stayed out for another 2.5 laps or so before I gave up and got caught by a chase group, but unfortunately I'd pushed myself too far trying to stay ahead for so long, and I was unable to join the group. In fact, I think I really overextended myself, since I think I ended up getting lapped by most of the field and didn't even have the energy to latch on and draft. At least it was a safe race and I gave it all I had.

Elite Track District Championships and National Qualifier 8/27/2010

Part two of Districts/Qualifiers was rolled into Friday Night Racing, which was kind of fun (I'd never done a Friday Night race before). I got there in time for a good warmup and got ready to race the keirin. I registered for all three races that evening - keirin, scratch, and points, and I was hoping to do best in the points race. The keirin had heats, reps, and a final. I placed 3rd in the heat, so I went to the rep. I'd gone too early and just narrowly missed 2nd. Between those races, Jose switched my gearing from a 90 to a 92 since I was spinning out a little bit. The rep went well - I won it. Then I had just the one mens rep before the final, so I stuck to the warmup circle to wait. The final started out fairly well, I got 4th wheel (out of 6 of us), and I was behind Beth Newell, who I figured would make a good move that I could follow.

Well, I was right about one thing - Beth did make a move, shortly after the motor pulled off. Unfortunately, the girls in front had slowed down when the motor pulled off, which meant that the space between the first few girls immediately disappeared, and the moment before Beth made her move, her wheel was just overlapped with Ruth's in front of her. Beth tried to move up track to make a move and instead she hit Ruth's wheel and went down immediately. There was no time to do anything (and I certainly don't blame Beth, it could have happened to any of us, it happened so quickly) so I plowed right into Beth's bike on the ground and flipped over, and the two girls behind me (Lala and Alissa) went down too. I separated from my bike right away and hit the ground, hitting my head (helmet) and knees before rolling over (and getting road rash all over the place). I remember screaming for a few moments from the shock of the pain, since road rash always hurts like heck for at least a few moments, not to mention my head hurt. Jose was by my side in seconds, having sprinted across the infield the moment he saw that I went down.

Once I got over the initial shock, I figured out pretty quickly that I'd been extremely lucky - nothing felt broken, though my head hurt a lot. I was soon informed (after being told to not move) that I had a big cut above my right eye, and apparently you could see a bit of my skull. A nurse named Kim Yglesias was by my side pretty quickly and helped put a bit of pressure on the cut to keep it from bleeding so badly (her daughter Christina was racing there that night). I saw a bunch of people walk up to me, glace at my cut, wince, and perhaps say something about that needing stitches. It was almost funny the way they did it. Because I'd hit my head, a bunch of people asked me questions to make sure I was still all there mentally - what day is it, do you know where you are, what's your name, etc. Then I think the ranger who showed up checked that I could still feel and wiggle my hands and feet. A few minutes later, the ambulance showed up and I got to answer all those questions again, along with questions about any medical history, drug allergies, etc. Because they were still concerned with the possibility of spinal/neck injury, they put a neck brace on me and strapped me to a board, which wasn't terribly comfortable but a good precaution. I'd heard that another girl was still down, but that neither of us was critical, so we went in the same ambulance. The other girl was Lala, who I don't think was bleeding as much as I was but was complaining about pain in her back, which was worrisome. Luckily the ambulance ride was fairly short, maybe 15 minutes or less, though poor Lala winced at every bump because of her back. Once we got there I didn't see her again, but I heard later that she'd broken her L1 and L2 vertebrae - ouch!

Once I was in the ER (they rushed us in since we were automatically classified as trauma patients due to the high velocity of our crash - around 30mph), I got asked a whole bunch of questions again then sent off to get a CAT scan to check for a concussion. Since I didn't lose consciousness, chances of a concussion were low, but it was good to check. The CAT scan came back clean, which was a relief. I couldn't remember when my last tetanus shot was, so I got another one just in case. I got a bunch of stitches put in my face - apparently there were 2 cuts, one bigger than the other. I think it was 12 stitches total. The shots for the anesthetic hurt a heck of a lot, but then it was all numb. Eventually the nurse cleaned up and bandaged all of my road rash and gave me some ibuprofen. Dan and Andi came to visit me and were relieved to find that I was doing pretty well. I managed to stay remarkably happy through the whole thing since I was just so thankful that I hadn't broken anything, it could have been so much worse. After signing some paperwork, I was finally free to go - it was around 11:30pm. After a half-hour drive home, I was really tired. Unfortunately, there was one more thing I had to do before I could finally go to sleep, and that was wash my hair - I found that there was a LOT of dried blood in it and it was very crunchy. Jose helped me rinse out my hair in the kitchen sink so we could use the sprayer to get my hair wet without wetting my face. I was so tired when I went to bed that even though lying down was painful (from the road rash), I got to sleep right away.

A big thank you to everyone who helped me through the crash: everyone at the track, the medics with the ambulance, all of the staff at the hospital, Dan and Andi for visiting me, and Jose for being there for me the whole time. I hope everyone else who crashed heals up quickly.

Elite Track District Championships and National Qualifier 8/22/2010

For the past five weeks or so I've been training for the Individual Pursuit, and finally I got to race one at Districts. My goal was to qualify for Nationals, so I brought along some friends to race to make the field size bigger (which means more people qualify). Thanks to Mary Ellen Allen, Mary Ann Levenson and Andi Smith for coming out and racing, we ended up with 12 people racing the pursuit! I had a good warmup and then I was on the start line. I had a decent start for once and I was off. My second lap was a little fast, 25.8 seconds, but then I settled into a fairly steady pace around 27 seconds per lap. My last couple of laps were a bit slower than the first couple, but not by a whole lot, so I ended up with a final time of 4:05.32, which is a bit faster than I expected to go on my very first pursuit. I'm really happy with my time, but it was a bit frustrating that Beth Newell only beat me by 0.8 seconds - so close. Congratulations to Beth for posting a great time and winning districts, I'm happy to have gotten 2nd place and qualified for Nationals.

After the individual pursuit, Andi and I wanted to do a team pursuit. We didn't have a third person, so we recruited Margaret Jones, who I met there that morning. Margaret had never been to the track before, but she did fine in the individual pursuit, so we decided we'd give the team pursuit a shot. We didn't even get to practice beforehand, but we figured out a strategy and away we went. Andi started, then Maggie, then me. Andi and Maggie each took half-lap pulls while I took full-lap pulls, since my time was a bit faster. We did pretty well actually, especially since we didn't practice and I know that Maggie and I have never done team pursuits before at all. We finished in second place with a time of 4:09.2, only 2.8 seconds behind the first place team. Since there were four teams, we actually qualified for Nationals!

Dunnigan Hills Road Race 8/14/2010

Category: W1/2/3
Field Size: 32
Length: 86 miles
Place: 16th

The course was very flat, probably the flattest road race I've done here since Cantua Creek. I like flat races, but this one was a little on the long side too. When we finished, my clock said something around 4 hours. We did two long laps, and the first one was fairly relaxed, since most of the attacks that were made didn't seem serious so early on. A couple of times there were a couple of people up the road, but we never let them get too far away. About twenty miles in my lower back started aching, so after that I didn't do very much work bringing breaks back or attacking myself. I just settled in and tried to keep myself properly fed and hydrated so that I'd have something left for the sprint, since it looked like no breaks were going to stick anyway.

Before the race, we'd been warned by the race officials that the centerline rule was being strictly enforced and if you were caught advancing across the yellow line, you'd be DQ'ed. Well, our motor ref took this very seriously and over the course of the race he DQ'ed five people. After the first one, I realized just how strict he was being and took care to generally stay on the right side of the pack and move up on that side. Anyway, on the second lap there was a group of three off the front for a long time, but they were never that far ahead, we kept them in our sights, and finally they were reeled back in with maybe 10 miles to go. We were all together with about two miles to go, though people kept making moves to get near the front, when we were informed that the finish line had been moved an extra two miles up the road and that we'd only have a single lane for the sprint. That messed up my plan since we were supposed to have the full road for the last half mile, so I was hoping to be able to get to a better position at that point. However, we stayed single lane right to the finish and I didn't have the energy to stay at the front since everyone was trying to do that and the pack kept churning. As a result, I was stuck in the middle when the sprint finally came, though no one had much room to sprint anyway.

Also very cool was that my parents were in town for this race and both of them raced too! Mom was riding my commuter bike, which fit her ok with some adjustments, and Dad rode Jose's cross bike, which fit pretty well. Mom did the Womens 30+ race, all 42 miles of it. She had never raced before so she got dropped by the main group about 7 miles in, but rode most of the rest of race with another lady. Dad rode in the 45+ Cat 5 field and finished with the pack. He was disappointed that they didn't have the whole road to finish on because he didn't get to sprint and he wasn't tired at all. We all had fun racing and stopped for IHOP on the way back.

Warnerville TT 8/7/2010

Category: W1/2/3
Length: ~22.5 miles
Field Size: 7
Place: 5th

It was nice out for the Warnerville TT, fairly warm and not too windy, though with a bit of a headwind on the way back. The course was very long - advertised as 20 miles, but really closer to 22.5. The way out was rolling but more downhill than up, so the way back was painful with the headwind added in. I was a bit tired coming into the race from a hard week of training, so I wasn't expecting to do very well, and I didn't. But that's okay, because it was great practice for me and good training too.

Timpani Crit 8/1/2010

Category: W1/2+3
Field Size: 26+17
Length: 55 minutes
Teammate: Ange
Place: 11th

The course was a nice flat four-corner loop going clockwise. The roads were fairly wide, and apart from a couple of bumpy bits of pavement and manhole covers, the road quality was pretty good. I met my teammate Ange for the first time the day before at her farewell BBQ, since she's flying back to Australia today. I was glad to get to do at least one race with her before she goes away, and we had a pretty good race together.

The race started off at a decent pace, but not super fast. There were some attacks, and I did my part in chasing them down occasionally. Ange was up there too doing a great job staying active in the race. I know I saw her follow groups up the road a number of times making sure nothing got away from us. At one point I heard her behind me telling me to go, so I went, and actually both of us got up front and got a good attack in - or so I thought: I'd forgotten that they'd called a prime and forgot to sprint for it, so I lost it at the line. I was so focused on trying to get in a break that I forgot to keep track of when I should sprint for primes. It's not the first time I've been rather confused about when primes are - I think I've sprinted for a couple that weren't there in past races, and generally I don't try to contest them unless I'm feeling really great. Ah well, this will teach me to keep better track of things in the future. With about 10-15 minutes left in the race a break of 6-8 people made it off the front and got a 6-8 second gap on the field. Since neither Ange nor I made it into the break, I did my best to either bridge or chase it down with a number of attacks, but I just didn't have it in me.

I made one last attack on back stretch of the last lap hoping to get away one last time, but I just didn't have it, so I rounded the last corner about 10th wheel in the pack. The road was wide open, so I decided to sprint for it anyway, and I actually had a pretty good sprint, I just started too far back to place well. For the first time ever, I sprinted properly by getting out of the saddle and pushing a big gear, and it felt surprisingly natural. In previous races I'd always just stayed pretty much in the saddle pushing a somewhat big gear but spinning more than anything, but that always led to slower acceleration. Standing out of the saddle helped my acceleration more than anything I think. Anyway, I had a good race and it was great to get to finally race with Ange.

Beat the Clock Time Trial 7/31/2010

Category: Open Women
Length: 9.7 miles
Field Size: 10
Place: 2nd

Beat the Clock is a low-key time trial series that raises money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LIVESTRONG). It's not technically a race, but it's nice to be able to do the course and compare times to other people and your own previous times (since it's a series on the same course). Jose and I got to the course rather later than we'd intended, but we'd decided to go to sleep early the night before and had to get up early for our 7:12 and 7:26 start times, and we weren't really packed in the morning. As a result, I didn't get in very much of a warm up, but I felt pretty good anyway. It was a chilly morning, but at least it wasn't windy. I was the first woman to start, so there was a minute gap in front of me. I felt good on the way out, and shortly after the turnaround I actually passed the guy in front of me. A while later, I passed one more guy and eventually made it to the finish still going strong. Despite the short warmup, I think I had a pretty good TT and pushed hard the whole way.

Taleo Benicia ITT 7/25/2010

Category: W1/2
Field Size: 7
Length: 12.4 miles
Teammate: Haley (4th), Andi (2nd in W35+)
Place: 3rd

I had heard beforehand that it was a rolling course that could be windy, but that didn't prepare me for the amount of wind we encountered on the course this morning. It was crazy windy - I don't even know in mph how windy it was, but it was very windy with a lot of gusts. It was so windy that Andi lent me her 404 front to use instead of my 808, but even that ended up being a bit scary, since I've never really practiced riding in my aerobars in super windy gusty conditions. Also the only rear wheel I had available (other than a normal training wheel) was an 808 clincher turned into a disc using a wheel cover. If I'd thought about it early enough and found the tools, I probably would have chose to take the cover off and had a much easier time, but it didn't occur to me until 2 minutes to my start time. Oh well.

I had a nice fast start, especially since there was a downhill bit almost right away, and I settled into a good hard pace. I soon discovered that the wind was very tricky, because it would be steady for a while, but then it would gust hard then drop off suddenly, so I had to be careful to stay steady and not overreact. I think it was less than halfway to the turnaround that I decided that I didn't feel safe/comfortable in my aerobars because I was having trouble controlling my bike. So I spent the rest of the race on my bullhorns, most of the time trying to crouch down low anyway. I felt a lot more comfortable like that, and I was able to focus more on going hard than staying on the road, though I still had to pay attention to where I was going. On the way back the wind wasn't quite as bad, since it was more of a headwind than a crosswind, but I wasn't confident enough to get back in my aerobars so I stayed up. I saw some people going the other way who weren't in their aerobars either and that made me feel better about it, that it wasn't just me who was uncomfortable with the wind. I had seen a couple of the ladies that started right before me after they turned around and they were in their bars, but I don't think any of them was riding a disc wheel so they weren't feeling the crosswind gusts quite so badly. When I finally crossed the finish line, I think I was more relieved about not having to fight the crosswinds anymore than I was about being about to go easy, which is quite a change from the usual TT. I probably could have pushed myself harder physically, but I just glad to get back in one piece.

Despite the wind, I had fun and it was a good race. I was super excited for Haley too, because this was her first race coming back from her broken collarbone. She had a pretty good race too, and she didn't have to fight the wind as much because she was using normal spoked wheels. She was able to stay in her aerobars on her shiny new Leopard bike the whole time and put in a really solid effort. Nice job Haley, it's good to have you back!

Andi had a good race too - she'd had Haley and me to use as guinea pigs to figure out what equipment she should use and what the expect in the wind since her start was later. She was brave (and more experienced than me) so she opted to use her disc anyway, but used a very shallow front wheel just in case. I think she actually had fun in the wind, and her effort earned her 2nd in the masters women.

Catching up

So I know I've neglected my blog for a while now - I've written a number of reports but wanted to post them in order. At this point I'm going to post everything I have then try to fill in any gaps that are left. I'm going to try to post them chronologically, so it's possible that "new" posts won't appear at the top of the blog.

EDIT: Only 8 more entries to go until I'm caught up - 4 more races and 4 more days of camp. I'll catch up eventually. New posts include reports from as early as May, so if you're interested you'll have to look at "older posts" to see them.

Berkeley Bicycle Club Crit 7/18/2010

Category: W1/2+3
Field Size: ~30
Length: 50 min
Teammate: Linda Elgart
Place: 7th

The course was a nice four-corner crit, each lap being only 0.6 miles. After turn two there was a bit of a rise, then it went back down after turn 3. The pace was kind of fast for the first couple of laps, but then it slowed down. There were a number of attacks and breaks, but for the first half nothing stuck. I was actually kind of stuck near the back for a while, because I wasn't sure of the corners - they'd warned us not to go more than 2 wide, since 3 was uncomfortable and 4-5 meant crashing, so I was pretty tentative. I got more comfortable after several laps, and I moved up some, latching onto Linda's wheel once or two. This was Linda's second race of the day, so she wasn't up for being super aggressive (having won the most aggressive rider award in her first race of the day), but it was still nice to have a teammate there. About 33 minutes in, there were about 6 riders up the road, but well within sight - maybe 4 seconds up? I didn't count how far up they were, but I decided it was time for me to quit messing around and bridge up. It took me less than a lap to catch on, and a couple of people followed me, so we ended up with about 11 riders in the "break". At that point, since the field wasn't big to begin with, it was more just the first half of the peloton. A couple of teams had two people in the group, so I made sure to pull my share but no more, since they kept trying little attacks. The last lap was crucial to the finish, since pretty much the first couple of people around the turn 3 can hold position to turn 4, then finish in something close to the order they round the last corner in. Naturally, almost everyone (including me) tried to make a move on the back stretch. Unfortunately, I got pushed to the far right, and was forced to drop back for the turn, so I was about 8th coming out of turn 3, and I ended up placing 7th. It was a good race, and the little hill kept it interesting.

USA Cycling West Coast Development Camp Day 2 7/6/2010

On the agenda, breakfast was scheduled for 6-9am, but unfortunately we didn't know that the dining hall only started serving breakfast at 7:30am. Me and a couple of the guys were stuck waiting outside for about 15 minutes before food was ready. Breakfast was yummy, but the waffles weren't worth it, especially with vaguely maple-flavored corn syrup. Then it was picture time. We got our USA development camp jerseys and took a camp picture. The jerseys are a little funny, because they've been seriously redesigned since last year, when they were mainly red, white, and blue. This years jerseys are red, yellow, black, and blue, with a smidgeon of white. I don't think anyone is sure why. After that, we pinned on our numbers (spares from a Memorial Day Crit), and headed out to the course. Our start order was alphabetical, though they told us that for the second field test it would be reverse alphabetical. This meant that I went last.

When we got to the start, everyone had to be weighed. We got weighed with our bikes, then without. We got weighed with everything we were racing with, so any water we were going to drink before our start had to be on the bike. A bunch of us have power meters on our bikes, so the coaches could use our data to help calibrate the course so that everyone's approximate power and power to weight could be calculated. The data gets sent to USA Cycling to help them learn about each of us as riders, to pick out the strongest and also as data points to track improvements year to year.

Anyway, finally it was my turn to head up the climb. I wasn't feeling great, in fact my legs felt terrible - super heavy and tired. I did ok up the climb, though most of the boys beat me. Anyway, a lot of them are super skinny so I don't feel so bad about being beaten by them. The climb was about 2k, and it took me 6:10 to get up it. My average power was approximately 323 W, though I'll have to take a closer look at the data to tell for sure. After the climb, we did a bit more riding then headed in for a nice lunch.

After lunch, it was back on the bikes for us. We spent four hours in a parking lot doing a whole bunch of drills. We split up into eight groups of four, and practices some skills. For each skill, we got a demonstration, then time to practice it. After four skills, we did a relay where each team member had to perform the skill. The first skill was to ride in a straight line while looking over our shoulders at teammates riding behind us. The next skill was to pick up a water bottle from the ground, then take a bottle that a teammate was holding out (like a feed). It took me a little while to figure out how to get low enough on the bike to reach the bottle. Next, the musette bag grab. We figured out how to hold the bag to make a nice big target, then practiced taking the bag with each arm. Once we had the bag, we had to get it over our helmet so that the bag would lay on our back so as to not throw us off balance. Last in that set was the bike throw and panic stop combo. The motion is nearly the same, except with the panic stop you also engage the brakes while throwing your weight backwards. Everyone on my team completed the skills, but we weren't very fast.

The second set of skills was in my opinion much harder. First, the skill was to ride across the parking lot with no hands, then turn (using hands) and return with no hands. For me, this was very difficult, because unlike all of the cocky teenage boys who like to show off their skills, I don't regularly practice things like riding no handed. Unfortunately for me, the next two skills were much much easier if you were comfortable riding with no hands. One was to put on and take off a pair of arm warmers while riding (in a very short distance), and the next was to put on and take off a vest. The arm warmers were hard, but I figured out that if I rested my forearms on the bars, both hands were free to pull the warmers onto my wrists, but I still had control of my bike. Once the warmers were on my wrists, pulling them up was easy. Taking them off was pretty easy too, since I've actually tried that one before. The vest wasn't too bad, as long as you got it right side out, not tangled up. The hard part was zipping it up, which required both hands to be off the bars. Fortunately, when it came to the relay they let us stop at the other end of the course to zip it up if we couldn't do it in time. The last skill was super fun, because it was the team bump. Each group of four rode right next together really slowly and practiced riding so close together that we were bumping shoulders and handlebars. Once again, during the relay we weren't super fast, but we did finish eventually.

For extra credit, we tried a massive team bump. Initially we tried with 20 people bumping, but that didn't work so well because we didn't start well and couldn't stay next together. We spent a while practicing with smaller groups where we started with four stable riders in the middle, then added on a person on each side until we had a bunch. That was pretty fun. Then we also tried the four person team bump on a small figure 8 course, so it was tricky to keep the people on the inside and the outside of the turns together. Some people also tried an extra challenge, which was to put on and take off leg warmers while riding around. A couple of people actually managed it.

Then, we got to jump in the pool for a bit before dinner. The lesson there was how to tuck and roll, which is useful when you're falling off your bike and don't want to break a collarbone. We practiced it by jumping into the pool and rolling. Mostly we just played around though and relaxed. By that time, I was starving, so when we headed back I went straight to the shower and hurried to the dining hall for a large dinner.

After dinner, we had more "cycling school", this time in the form of a talk from our mechanic, Steven. He talked about some basic bike maintenance, explained why it's good to keep your bike clean (less wear, looks good, good time to inspect for wear or damage), and also talked a bit about components. He pointed out that using flashy, rarer components tends to be a bad idea, since neutral support is almost always Shimano, and if you break something that's a hard to find part at a race, there's almost no chance that you'll find it a the local bike shop. He also recommended that we have separate training and race bikes so that the race bike can be kept cleaned and tuned, so if something breaks on a training ride, you still have a bike for the race.

We then had free time until we decided to go to bed. This meant that the boys were loud and rowdy and I settled down to a nice book before bed. Anyway, it was definitely a fun day.

USA Cycling West Coast Development Camp Day 1 7/5/2010

I decided several months ago that I should go to this development camp, since I'm pretty much a rookie cyclist. The camp is mostly for Juniors, but it's also a U23 development camp. Check-in ended at 2pm, then we met and talked about the agenda for the week, did introductions, talked about our goals, and introduced the GC points competition for the week. I decided that my main goal for the camp was to improve my bike-handling skills, since I'm not super comfortable on the bike. Our staff consists of Larry Nolan, Debbie Nolan, Steven Mielich, and Laurel Green. There are 32 campers, of which only 2 (including me) are female.

After that, we went for a short ride to preview the 5-minute field test course. Then, to the cafeteria for dinner. After dinner, Laurel gave us a talk on nutrition and food. She talked about how the human digestive process works, from chewing down to the large intestines. One cool thing that I learned was that there is a reason that people (mothers :-) ) always tell you to chew your food well - not only is it for the more obvious reason that you don't want to choke on your food, but also important is the enzyme in saliva that starts to break down carbohydrates. Therefore if you chew your food properly (for rather a long time really), then the energy from the carbs will be available more quickly due to faster digestion. Fats and proteins still take about 3-4 hours to be processed, which is why they're not great race food. The other cool thing we did involved a bunch of different foods, like Doritos, Lays, a PowerBar, a Rockstar energy drink, and some Lara bars. For each food, we looked at each ingredient and tried to classify it as either "food" or "not food". We tried to decide whether we would eat it by itself or not. For instance, the first ingredient in Doritos was "whole corn", which is a food, but many of the later ingredients (there were over 20) were not food. Lays, on the other hand, had all of three ingredients, two of which were food.

Anyways, after talking about food for a couple of hours, it was time for bed. It was a fairly exciting first day, I had a lot of fun.

Davis 4th of July Crit 7/4/2010

Category: Women 1/2+3
Field Size: 33 1/2s + 18 3s
Place: 10th
Teammates: Emily (21st), Linda (25th)
Weather: Very hot!

The course was a fairly standard L shape, with five lefts and a right. Since the course was only about 0.7 miles per lap, there wasn't a lot of time to move up through the field on the straightaways. As soon as we got out there and started the race, I realized that I'm not used to the heat (I think it was between 100 and 110 degrees out there). Despite a good warmup, my legs felt really heavy for the first few laps, so I ended up losing position and straying towards the back of the pack. A few laps later my legs felt ok, but I realized that I had bigger problems - I was overheating, I had goosebumps, and I wasn't sweating as much as I should have been. At that point, I realized that probably all I could do was hang on and hope that somehow I would feel better by the end. I managed to move up in the pack a couple of times, but never far enough forward to do anything. I saw Emily move up to near the front about halfway through, and she made a couple of good moves. With 10 laps to go, I finally started feeling a bit better, and at that point I figured that I could push my legs a bit harder without overheating too seriously, since the race would be over soon anyway. I slowly moved up a bit, and saw that Emily was on the front again, trying to keep the pace fast. With about 4 laps to go, I finally had the opening I'd been looking for - the pack had left an opening on the right side of the front straightaway, and I took it. I powered up from near the back to being right near the front, somewhere in the top ten riders. Earlier in the race I'd made the mistake of letting people cut in front of me, especially on the corners, but I knew that now it was crunch time and I had to keep my position. There was a crash on turn 5 near the end, I think it was with just over two laps to go. It looked like a couple of people went down, but I didn't stop to look. I was lucky that I wasn't directly behind it so I was able to stay near the front. Through the final lap, I wasn't in as great a position as I'd hoped to be, and I think I came out of the final turn sitting around 10th place, which is how I finished. It was only my 3rd crit since upgrading to Cat 2 and it's the best finish I've ever done in a 1/2/3 crit, so I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

New Coach: Dan Smith

When I started racing this year, I wasn't really taking it that seriously, since I wanted to ease into and just have a lot of fun. But then things started getting serious as I quickly upgraded to Cat 2 and I have now joined a new team with the goal of progressing further. Going to Nationals was a gentle reminder that although I'm not a terrible bike racer, I have a long way to go to really be good. And I have a lot of training to do, and that's something that I've been unable to organize on my own, having neither the knowledge, the time, or the motivation to put together my own comprehensive training plan. Therefore, it's finally time for me to get a coach to help me figure out how to be a better bike racer. I do have the time, the inclination, and the motivation to carry out more training, so I'm now getting ready to train more seriously with my new coach's help. I decided that I want Dan Smith to be my coach for a couple of reasons. First, it's awfully convenient for my coach and my director sportif to be the same person because then my coach already knows what races my team is focusing on. Second, I've gotten to know Dan well enough in the past month to realize that I'll definitely get along with him and that I like his way of approaching things in general. And thirdly, Dan seems to know what he's talking about, being both an experienced racer himself and an experienced coach. He's lucky enough to have his own full-time coaching business called SportVelo, so I know that cycling and his athletes are his main priority. Anyway, I met with Dan today and we talked about the plan for the rest of the season (what races I should do, etc) and I think it's the start of a very promising partnership. I'm off to development camp this coming week, so he's off the hook for this weeks workouts, but I'm looking forward to seeing what he thinks up for me to do (and then doing it).

Webcor/Alto Velo Bridge Team

A couple of weeks ago, I got an invitation to join the Webcor/Alto Velo Bridge Team, which is a developmentally focused team for young women who want to bridge the gap between local races and national-level races. After due consideration, I decided that this sounded like a good idea to me. The other members of the team are close to my age, they're all focused on racing a lot and doing well, and they have the benefit of mentor/director sportif Dan Smith to help them along. I'm really excited to be joining the Bridge team, and extra so because my teammate Emily Foxman is joining the Bridge team at the same time so we'll continue to race together. My first race as a Bridge team rider (new kit - mostly green and black!) will be the Davis 4th of July crit this coming weekend. Nationals was my last race for LGBRC, though I will continue to be a proud club member. I'm excited for the rest of the season - I've still got a couple of months of racing ahead of me.

Nationals Road Race 6/27/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 62 +17 U23
Distance: 113km (~70 miles)
Place: DNF
Teammate: Emily (?)

The course was somewhat rolling with a couple of longer climbs. It was four laps, each with about 1000 ft of climbing. The first longer climb was right before the feed zone, which was on a lesser incline. Then there was a descent, and a couple of miles later there was a much steeper climb, though the steepest portion was relatively short. Emily and I arrived nice and early and got in a nice easy warmup. The morning was a bit chilly, but by the time the race started it was warm enough to take off the arm warmers.

We started off and the whole first lap was a relatively easy pace. Much of the time I was sheltered enough in the pack to not have to work much except on the rolling hills. I dropped back a bit on the climbs, but I stayed with the pack. On the second lap, near the beginning there was a small crash, but it was off to the side and I stayed with the pack. Going into the pre-feed zone climb wasn't too bad, but then I think a couple of people near the front made a move (I believe there were three people up the road at the time) on the hill. I wasn't able to hold the faster pace up the hill, and I got dropped, along with a couple of other people. I chased hard through the feed zone to catch onto a group, and we got five of us together. In that group was me, Emily, two other U23s, and an elite rider. We worked together and tried to catch another small group that had been dropped from the main pack, but we didn't make much progress. I may have expended too much energy trying to chase, because I lost contact at the top of the last steep hill. I wasn't far behind on the descent, and at the end of the second lap I wasn't far back at all. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to chase and stay with that group, my back had other ideas. My lower back had been aching all week, perhaps due to spending 7.5 hours in a car on Wednesday, and it had only been feeling worse. Then, all of the climbing threw it over the edge, from a dull ache to an extremely painful tight feeling. When I was chasing, I felt it pulling and hurting with every pedal stroke, and from experience I knew it would only get worse. At that point I decided that it wasn't worth it to finish. After my experience at Panoche, I knew that even if I was able to hang on for a 3rd lap, I wouldn't be able to do the 4th, and after the 3rd I would be in really excruciating pain, which doesn't sound too appetizing when I was looking at a 9.5 hour drive home that afternoon.

This was the first race that I've really made a conscious choice to pull out of, but I think I made the right choice. I'm glad that I started the race (I had thought about not registering for it), and it was good experience, but I wouldn't have gained almost anything by continuing with little hope of finishing. Now I know my biggest weakness and I will work through the rest of this season and winter to strengthen my back so that this doesn't happen next year.

Anyway, congratulations to Emily for finishing, especially despite having an unhappy derailleur that wouldn't keep her in the correct gear. She likes hills, and I have to learn to like hills.

Nationals Criterium 6/25/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 17 U23 + 54 Elite
Distance: 50km (39 laps)
Place: 52nd

I got the chance to preview the course that morning, before everything was setup. It was a pretty standard rectangular course, five blocks long and one block wide. Road quality was pretty good, but you had to watch out for the curb because the road got wider for parking spaces, but then the curb would abruptly narrow the course again. The short side between turn 3 and turn 4 was also a bit of a bottleneck, since there was a slight rise going into turn 3, then a narrower road, followed by a slightly off-camber turn going slightly downhill into the finishing stretch.

I got in a good warmup, and I was feeling fairly good at the start. I didn't get a great position on the line, so I started near the back and soon lost position and was all the way in the back. It started out quite fast, and I wasn't quite up to cutting off corner-divers, so naturally I got pushed back. Unfortunately, with such a large field, this meant that every turn I had to slow down rather a lot then sprint out of each turn to stay with the pack. The constant reaccelerating combined with the rather fast average speed really wore me down. I think I stayed with the pack for about 8 laps, then spent maybe 3-4 laps chasing on then losing contact again. I was so close to staying with the pack, but they were just going too fast. Me and another lady were dropped at the same time, so for a couple more laps we were chasing together. At that point I decided to keep going as hard as I could until I got pulled, just in case the pack ever slowed down and I'd have a chance to get back on. I think I rode about 5 laps by myself before they finally pulled me. In a way, those laps were easier because I could take the corners closer to full speed, so I could save energy that way. However, I couldn't go as fast as the pack by myself. It was the first race that I've ever been pulled from, but considering who I was up against, I think I did all right.

Nationals Time Trial 6/24/2010

Category: Elite/U23 Women
Field Size: 12 U23, 36 Elite
Distance: 35km
Place: 6th in U23, 35th overall
Teammate: Emily (2nd)

Emily and I drove up to Bend, OR on Wednesday (the 23rd), and we went for a ride to spin out our legs and preview the TT course. The course was pretty simple - after a couple of turns out of the start, the course heads up a moderate grade for 12km, gaining about 800 feet. At 12km, there's a turnaround and it goes back down the hill to near the start, where it turns off into an extra 11km loop. The loop is rolling, with a couple of moderately steep parts. Finally, there's the finish line.

We got to the course about 75 minutes before our start and started warming up. With 45 minutes to start, I went to the start corral to get my bike checked to see if it met regulations. I almost had a panic attack when they measured it and told me that both my saddle and handlebars were outside the limits. One exception is fine, but two isn't legal. I knew about the saddle, and I qualify for the morphological exception, but I didn't know that my aero bar extensions were too long. I hadn't measured them before because I thought my bike was pretty small, and Jose had used the same setup before. What we forgot to take into account was that he qualified for the aero bar exception and needed it for bars that long. I don't need the bars that long, and I don't even hold them at the ends, but I would have had to take a hacksaw to them to make the bike legal. Since that obviously wouldn't work, I needed to move my saddle back. However, my saddle was already all the way back. Thankfully, I had help. Dan and Andi were there supporting Maura for the TT, and they had a solution for me. They had packed Andi's TT bike as a spare, and her Adamo saddle had more adjustability. Also, since it was a spiffy TT saddle, its nose was designed to facilitate a more forward position, so even though the front of the nose was now far enough back to be legal, my position wasn't much different. And, I found out that I actually like the saddle - not the best way to try out a new saddle, but I was so thankful that I could still ride.

Anyway, we got my bike sorted out and I got in a little more warmup, then it was off to the start corral for good. My bike passed (I knew it would, I'd had it checked again after the saddle swap), then I got to wait for about 10 minutes for my start time. Finally, I was in the start house, ready to go. The holder wasn't great, and I got a bit of a crooked start, but at least I made it down the ramp without falling off of it, and I was off. The beginning of the course actually included a number of turns through a road by the school, and none of that was on the course map in the race bible, so that was a little disorienting. Afterwards I heard other people commenting on that, so I was glad that it wasn't just me who was confused. I had accidentally left my Edge 305 at home, so my bike had no telemetry, but during the race that didn't matter at all, since the course had enough landmarks that I could tell where I was, and I shouldn't be staring at my computer anyway. Once I got onto the straight part, could see my 30-second person up the road. For a couple of miles, I was holding steady behind her, but eventually she started to gain on me. Also I got passed by two people well before the turnaround, which I think was a real blow mentally. Right after they passed me I went harder, but I think I let it get to me too much and I think I lost my focus a little bit. Finally I made it to the turnaround, and I was getting pretty tired by this point from all of the uphill. Shortly after the turnaround, Maura passed me. However, I was still accelerating on the downhill, so I passed her right back. Unfortunately, this went on back and forth for a little while because the course rolled a bit, so on the downhill I would pass her, but she would catch me again on the uphill bits. I was ahead of her for most of the descent, but she passed me as we neared the turnoff to the loop.

That last loop portion of the course was extremely difficult for me. Each little uphill section was pure torture, my legs were so tired. There were a couple of people spectating around the loop, and they cheered me on. I kept going as hard as I could, even though I was feeling awful, and finally made it across the finish line. Once I was done, I was breathing hard for a while, because I was so tired. So even though I didn't do that well in comparison to the other riders, I think I did close to my best effort. I was certainly tired enough at the end. It'll be interesting to see how I do next year, since next year I intend to actually train for races and perhaps specifically the TT. This year's training has been kind of a joke and I knew it.

Emily, on the other hand, had a great TT and got 2nd in the U23's. Obviously she's come a long way from where she was at Madera earlier this year, where I beat her in the TT by a fair margin. So, congratulations Emily, you put in a lot of hard work and it really paid off.

Rant: Bad Drivers

So normally I'm a very mild person, aside from my competitive side, and Jose has even gone so far as to call me docile in the past. But today I'm angry, and I've got a lot of hatred for a certain group of people: bad drivers. I don't have much of a problem with people driving cars (heck, I have to drive occasionally), but I don't think there's anything I hate more than a bad driver. Yesterday, a number of things happened to make me particularly hate bad drivers. First, my new friend Haley got hit by a truck and now has a broken collarbone and a concussion. Apparently she was riding along and a car coming the other direction turned left into her going pretty fast. Apparently they didn't see her, and she said she didn't even see the car before it hit her.

Second, I saw a number of idiot drivers while I was riding home. The first was at the intersection of Marine Parkway and Oracle Parkway/Shoreway Rd. I was heading South onto Shoreway, and here's what I saw. There are three lanes heading south: one left turn/straight lane, and two right turn only lanes. There were two cars in front of me in the left/straight lane, and the one in front had it's wheels turned right. The moment I saw it, I knew what it was going to do, and I've seen it before. They turned right when the light turned green. Luckily, there are a lot of lanes heading West right there, so they didn't cause an accident, but seriously, who thinks it's ok to turn right from the far left lane?!

Several miles later, a similar incident happened, but this one was much closer to causing an accident right in front of me. It was at the Brewster light on Winslow. It's one of those lights that gives each of the four directions it's own green light (with a protected left). There was a car waiting in the left turn lane across from me, and they got their green. Just as they start moving, another car comes around them and cuts them off, turning left in front of them from the middle lane (the one that's supposed to be straight only). I just sort of sat there in shock at the sheer idiocy of what I'd seen. If the second car would have waited 3 seconds, they could have gotten behind the car and still turned left on the green light.

And third, about a mile from home, I almost got hit by a car. I was on El Camino heading south, and I was going probably 15-18mph (I wasn't in a huge hurry or anything). I was thinking about how many bad drivers I'd seen that day and how awful it would be if I got hit by a car. I came to an intersection (apparently it's called Alejandra Ave, and it's just the one road on the right) and I saw as I approached it that there was a Jeep that was waiting to turn right (which would bring it to the direction I was traveling). I saw that they saw me, but since they were pulled forward pretty far, I checked behind me and moved fully into the right lane to avoid the front of the car. What I didn't see was that a car coming the other direction decided to turn left into Alejandra Ave at close to full speed. They had obviously seen (as I had) that there were no cars coming, so they thought that they could take the turn pretty fast. However, they missed the part where I was in the road. I don't even know if they had a turn signal on, though I suspect they didn't. I saw them when they heading straight for me (or where I would be in a moment) about 2-3 meters away. I didn't even have time to scream or yell, I just made a sort of spluttering noise. Luckily, the driver did see me at that point, since I was practically right in front of them, and they braked enough that they were about a meter from me as I finished crossing the intersection, still going about the same speed. After I made it through, I just sort of sat on my bike in shock, coasting for a while. I don't know for sure that they would have hit me if they hadn't have braked (I might have been going fast enough, and my perception of their speed and position could have been off), but it was definitely a near thing and it freaked me out. I didn't know it at the time, but it was almost exactly what happened to Haley.

So basically, I hate bad drivers. And the problem is that as far as I have observed, there are a lot of bad drivers out there. Most of them, in fact. Some are far worse than others, obviously, but there are enough that it's scary out there. There are so many things that people do wrong. For example, the simple action of using a turn signal. Turn signals are meant to be used for every lane change and every turn, and you're supposed to start signaling at least 100 feet before the turn or lane change. At highway speeds, you're supposed to signal for 5 seconds before changing lanes. From my observations (and I see a lot of cars every day) only about 25% of drivers use their turn signals at all. Many of the signals that I do see used are turned on about half a second before the turn begins. Frankly, I am astonished that there aren't more car accidents because of this, but I suppose that most of the time not signaling a turn will not cause another car any trouble, and at least people only change lanes when there's an opening to do so. However, a car that doesn't signal a turn, particularly a right turn, can be very dangerous to cyclists. It is very common for a cyclist to ride all the way up to the white line at a red light, since there is usually either a bike lane, a shoulder, or enough room in the lane to do so. Since cars can pass bikes in lane, bikes can pass cars in lane. However, it is sometimes the case that a light turns green while a cyclist is passing a line of stopped cars. When this happens, most of the time everything is fine. However, sometimes cars in that line want to turn right and neglect to signal, and subsequently collide with the bike that is passing them as they turn. This is also why the driver handbook says that cars should merge into the bike lane 200 ft before turning so as to not cut off any bikes. If the car merges as far right as they can, then they are turning from the right lane and there is no way for a bike to come by on their right. I don't see cars in the bike lane very often, and about half the time that a car looks like it's merged into the bike lane in order to turn, it's really just some jerk who doesn't know what they're doing and they end up going straight anyway. Luckily for me, most cars who are turning right give off turning vibes, which consist of usually being positioned in the right portion of the lane and possibly with their wheels turned a bit, depending on where they are. There a lot of subtle hints that I've learned to recognize as predictors of what a car is going to do, so I'm almost always able to stay out of any dangerous situations. Unfortunately, the too-fast-turning oncoming cars are the hardest to predict, since they're coming the other way at speed so there's a very small window of time in which you can see them and try to predict if they'll see you or not.

Anyway, this rant is winding down now. I know that I'm probably preaching to the choir anyway, but it felt good to get it out. And if anyone reading happens to drive a car at all, this is my personal plea to be a good driver, not a bad one.

Panoche Valley Road Race 5/23/2010

Category: W1/2
Field Size: 5
Length: 67 miles
Place: 4th

This course was torturous, really, especially with our microscopic field. We started out an easy enough pace, knowing that it was a long road ahead and it would be easier if we stuck together for a while. We bumped into the W3 field for a bit (all 4 of them), but we sped up a bit to stay ahead of them. Once the climbing started, Jane Despas took off, and although for a while we could see her way up the road, we never got close to catching her again. The other four of us stuck together and worked together for a long time, especially on the five mile crosswind stretch (and again on the way back for another 5 miles). We did an approximation of an echelon, and it worked fairly well, but we still couldn't really gain any ground on Jane up the road. I worked pretty hard, possibly more than my share, trying to catch Jane, but it wasn't meant to be. When the climbing began again to get back, I got dropped, and I realized that I hadn't been eating or drinking enough - whoops! I ate a gel and felt a bit better, but by that time it was too late for me to catch to two ahead of me. I went hard for a bit hoping to catch back up to them after it leveled off, but to no avail. I let up and eventually Beverly caught me and we rode in together, which was nice because not only was a lot of the way back uphill, there was also a wicked headwind.

It was the longest road race I'd ever finished and I'd worked pretty hard most of the way. Unfortunately, I paid for it afterwords. My back had been hurting from all of the climbing, the way it tends to when I got hard for a long time and do some climbing too. When I finally got off my bike at the car, I realized just how bad it was, since I'd been kind of blocking it out for a while. It felt fine when I stood straight up (in fact, it felt kind of good to stretch it out), but when I went to take off my shoes or bend forward for any reason, it just locked up and kind of spasm-ed and was extremely painful. Ouch! My back muscles were so tight, I'd never felt it nearly so bad before. Luckily it did ease up relatively quickly, after I'd stood for a bit then laid down and rested for a while. By the time we were driving home it wasn't spasmodic anymore, just achy. I definitely wasn't used to the longer distance road races like that, especially with so little shelter from the wind in our little pack, so I'll just have to do some more and build up my stamina.

Calaveras Time Trial 5/22/2010

Category: Open Women
Field Size: 7
Length: 10 miles
Place: 5th

This was a nice course, fairly flat for the first five miles, then a bit of a climb up to the turnaround, then back again. It wasn't very windy, so that was nice. I got a bit of a warmup in, then headed out to meet Jose as he got back from his TT so that we could swap equipment - I needed his aero helmet and disc wheel. The swap was completed with a couple of minutes to spare, then I was off. It was a fun race, and I pushed myself pretty hard, though I wasn't feeling great. I did ok, but it seemed that in our small field we had a lot of fast women! Of the four women I got beat by, I'd previously been beat by two of them (Tyler Stewart - a pro triathlete - and Molly Van Houweling), and the other two were both pro riders and good time trialists (Alison Starnes and Olivia Dillon). Hopefully it was good practice for nationals, though a bit shorter than nationals will be.

Get Ready for Summer #3 5/15/2010

Category: C
Field Size: 6
Events: Keirin, Scratch, Miss and Out, Points
Places: 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st (Omnium)

I decided that it was time to get out to the track again for the last Get Ready for Summer race. I got a ride down to the track from Josh Schwartz, since Jose had to take his mother to the airport for her return to NYC. This week the C category was very small, but it felt much safer than the first GRFS race with that awful crash in the Miss and Out. There weren't enough of us for a tournament Keirin, so we did a round robin instead (all 6 of us raced twice and our points were based on both races). That was a lot of fun, and I got 2nd and 1st in the two rounds.

The scratch race was very short, I think only 15 laps, so I decided early on to just attack. For some reason I really felt like time trialing, so I went and just kept going. There was one guy on my wheel, but I just kept going and kind of hoped I could lose him by keeping the pace pretty high. He stuck with me as we lapped the "field" (the remaining 4 weren't together anymore, so it was kind of sparse), then he edged me out in the sprint. I didn't really mind though because I was having so much fun anyway.

The Miss and Out was very short because there were so few of us, and I was actually unsure of when the race finished, because I went off the front again with the same guy on my wheel and I think another one and I couldn't keep track of when the people behind us got pulled. I think they did ring the bell for us, and I won the sprint that time.

The points race was fun, though it was similar to the other races because the field size was so small and there was a disparity in strengths. I think I won the first 2 out of 3 sprints, and I think I let the other guy take the last one because by then I'd won anyway.

It was a really fun day at the track, and even though my field was really small it was kind of nice to get out there and try some different things. I also applied for my Fast Track upgrade, since as a Cat 2 on the road I'm allowed to upgrade to 3 on the track as long as I pass a written quiz and demonstrate a safe riding style at a race, which I did. So the next time I race on the track, I'll likely be a Cat 3 and race with the B's instead of the C's.

Berkeley Hills Road Race 5/9/2010

Category: W1/2
Field Size: 27
Length: 71 miles
Teammates: Kim and Sam
Place: DNF

I came out to the Berkeley Hills Road Race with Nancy (who did the Cat 4 race and got 5th) hoping to test my strength and see if I could stay with the pack until the finish. Unfortunately, I was out of luck. About 7 miles in, I got a flat going through town. I later found out that it was a rather large sliver of glass that caused a fairly fast flat. Unfortunately, even though the follow car had wheels in it, the car was not with the pack because someone else had flatted shortly before I did. This meant that it took at least a minute for the follow car to reach me, plus another 30 seconds or so to swap the wheel out. Since it was my rear wheel with my PowerTap that got the flat, this meant that I have no telemetry on the rest of my ride. As soon as I got the wheel on, I was off, chasing the pack for all I was worth. Since the pace so far hadn't been particularly fast, I was hoping that I might by some miracle be able to catch them. The pack was in my sight a lot of the time that I was chasing, but mostly on the uphill sections, so even though I could see them, by the time I reached the top of each hill they were long gone. After 30-40 minutes of hard effort chasing, I finally slowed up. Since most of the reason I signed up for the race was to get in a long, hard effort, I figured that it would be good practice pushing myself to time trial for a while. Eventually I caught up with some dropped riders and we rode another full lap of the course (about 19 miles) together. The others kept on, but I was tired from my solo effort and I also was not properly geared for the long climbs on my spare wheel. I didn't check, but I think the wheel I got after my flat had only a 25 or maybe a 26 on it, but with my standard double chainrings I usually need a 28.

Anyway, it was a very disappointing first race as a Cat 2. I really wanted to see how I could do in the 1/2 field and I didn't get a chance to try.

Hair cut 5/7/2010

As I had previously mentioned, I decided a while back that whenever I got my Cat 2 upgrade, I would cut my hair. So, I got it cut yesterday. I'm very happy with it at a short length, but it's still long enough to put in a ponytail. I donated the rest of it, which was probably between 10 and 14 inches (I didn't measure). It's nice to have my hair short again - it hasn't been this short since I cut it last in my senior year of high school. It fits nicely under a helmet, and I won't need to do anything special underneath an aero helmet.

Cat 2 Upgrade!

My upgrade to Cat 2 was just approved! I wasn't entirely sure I'd get it, because there was a rule change recently about mixed category field sizes and how they count towards upgrade points. It's now been clarified to state that in a mixed field, only racers in your category or above count towards the size of the field. This made the field size from Apple Pie go down to a level below a threshold such that it gave me one less point, so according to the new official rules, I would only have 24 points. However, I decided to apply anyway, and it seems that I have been found worthy! Hooray!

LGBRC Cat's Hill Criterium 5/1/2010

Category: W3/4
Field Size: 35
Length: 10 laps
Teammates: Josie, Emily, Nancy
Place: 12th

The course was shaped like a backwards L going clockwise, and directly after turn 3 was Cat's Hill. The hill is only one block long, but it's a 23 percent grade, followed by a false flat, a tiny downhill, a little up around a corner, another false flat, then a long bumpy descent into the final turn. We started a bit late, due to a crash earlier, but when we started it was fast. Going up the hill was pure torture for me, since I'm still fairly heavy due to my muscular build. It hurt less when I was in my lowest gear or two, but my heart rate was sky high no matter what, and the pace never let up so even on the downhill I couldn't recover much. Maybe halfway through (or less) a group of four riders broke away and they gained on the pack pretty steadily until we knew that we wouldn't catch them. I was in the main pack and I know that it was all that I could do to hang on, let alone try to chase. The pack wasn't working well together, but I think most of us were really giving it all we had. Throughout the race, we lost people pretty steadily. I think out of 35, only 19 finished, and I was the last or nearly in the pack at 12th place, so we were pretty broken up by the end.

A couple of laps from the end, I realized that the combination of heat and exhaustion from the hard work was making me feel nauseous, and it only got worse. After the finish, I headed straight for a patch of shade and sat down, since I was still breathing heavily and feeling just awful. I recognized the feeling, having been very familiar with it from crew (especially after erg tests), and I knew that it would pass soon enough. It was the first time that I'd pushed myself that hard on the bike though, and it actually rather confirms what I had been thinking lately, that I've been unintentionally holding back in most of my races so far. I know that I'm capable of pushing myself to the edge, since I did for this race, so I need to get used to doing that again. Also I need to train better and do more intervals, since I realized that I haven't done almost any hard intervals and that's exactly what I need to be better at this kind of race, and even most races. Anyway, it felt good to really push myself, though I was slightly disappointed that I wasn't able to do better in the race. I guess I just need to train a little better, and maybe lose a bit of weight if I want to attempt any more super hilly races.

Since the LGBRC was hosting the race, I stayed after the races to do cleanup duty. We got to take down all of the fencing and such. It was kind of hard work, but I'd had enough time to recover so I was able to make myself useful.

Wente Vineyards Classic Criterium 4/25/2010

Category: W1/2+3
Field Size: 29+21
Length: 50 minutes
Teammates: Josie, JVM, ME, Annie, Rikke, Kim
Places: 7th (ME), 2nd Cat 3 (me)

The course was a flat clockwise 1.2 mile loop. The corners were all fairly wide and not particularly sharp. There were three chicanes, so even though all the real corners were to the right, we still had to deal with finding a good line through the chicanes. One neat thing about the course was that the land inside the loop contained very little except some tall grass, and the announcer was up high enough that he could see the racers on the far side of the course and pretty much the whole way around, so there was always a great commentary going. There was an abundance of Botts dots, but that's pretty standard for office park crits. We did have to cross them more than usual on the chicanes, but still they should have been a minor annoyance. It should have been a nice clean race, but unfortunately, it wasn't.

The race started off at pretty fast pace, and there were a number of attacks. I started near the back as usual, and I wanted to get a feel for how the pack took the turns and really the whole course. Only a few laps in (I wasn't counting), there was a crash. It happened on the first corner, which was really a long sweeping turn, not really a corner, but I saw it before it happened because I noticed that there were a couple of people bumping each other in an attempt to take a line on the inside of the Botts dots on the outer part of the turn. Having suspected that a crash was about to happen, I had time to move a bit to the right and when they went down, I still had to practically slam my brakes but was able to go around the downed riders and catch up the pack fairly easily. Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. Only moments after we were all back together, another crash happened on the first chicane. I didn't see exactly what caused it, but I think someone just moved sideways into someone else and hit too hard and people started going down. I was far enough behind that crash that I was able to brake hard and swerve left around the pile of riders, but it was a little scary to see. I definitely saw one rider trying to swerve left just as it was happening in an attempt to escape and keep going, but then she went down and made the crash take up twice as much room on the road. The pack regrouped again, with somewhat diminished numbers, and the race went on. A couple of people who had gone down without injury took their free lap and got back in, including Annie.

After those back to back crashes, I was hoping the field would settle down a bit and ride a little safer, but it still seemed pretty hectic. I was getting a bit nervy after the crashes, so I wasn't making any moves and was still in the back, so JVM came back and helped me move up through the field by coming around the outside. That lap ME went for a prime, so I just got to sit up front for a bit before people started coming around me. When I started drifting back in the pack, I got almost claustrophobic because people were coming around me at alarmingly tight clearances, and having already seen two crashes happen I was a little nervous. Luckily, I didn't freak out and just held a good line and everything was okay. Unfortunately, it didn't last, because around 25 minutes in there was a third crash, this time just around the second chicane (I think). I was behind this one too, and braked to a near stop in order to miss hitting people on the ground. After that, we all got back together, but they soon neutralized us and we did a couple of laps neutral before they just stopped us. There were two girls that got seen to by ambulances, I think, one in each of the second and third crashes. We were delayed by probably 15 minutes, waiting for the ambulances to clear the course. My team got together and had a little chat, but we tried not to talk about the crashes, just a bit of strategy. We didn't want to think about the crashes because it might make us too nervy.

After the delay, we started back up with only 5 laps to go, due to time constraints. I think people were riding a little more conservatively, due to all of the crashes. Unfortunately, there was one more crash. A girl hit a Botts dot while standing up to accelerate and her front wheel turned more than 90 degrees and she toppled headfirst into the ground. It happened right after the final corner, so after that we couldn't take it very wide because she was still in the road being seen to by medical. I think due to her location on the course, they chopped off another lap from our race, because I'm fairly certain that one lap the cards said 3 to go, and the next it was the bell lap. On the last lap, I moved up through the field a fair amount, mostly by moving up the left side in the wind. I gave the pack a wide berth when I was coming up because there were a lot of other people looking for opportunities to move up and sometimes they'd move left without looking to see if there was someone already moving into that space. Anyway, in the final stretch, which was very long, I basically just stayed by myself on the left, and I was even keeping pace with the front of the pack on the right, but I had burned too much energy getting there. I lost some ground and finished maybe 12th or so. However, I did pretty well anyway, because there was only one Cat 3 ahead of me, and the 3's were being picked separately, so I got 2nd place. When it was over, I was mostly just happy that I hadn't crashed, and that no one on my team had crashed.

Since the race was sponsored by Wente Vineyards, of course the prizes were partially wine. I won $15, a $13 bottle of Wente Vineyards wine (2008 Morning Fog Chardonnay), and a T-shirt (size large). I suppose I should be glad that I didn't win any of the primes that consisted of gift cards for Wente Vineyards, since then I wouldn't even have been able to redeem them. As it is, I think it's hilarious that I won something that I can't legally buy, and that I have no interest in drinking. Maybe I'll just keep it around as a trophy.