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.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, July 5, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
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.
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.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
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).
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