State Championship Road Race

The drive up to Avon, MN gets long. The drive back is even longer when the race doesn't go your way. Also, since the 68 mile race was the second longest time I've spent on a bike all year, I felt extra beat on the way back. About 25-30 riders turned out for cat 3 race. The route was awesome! Great course, but different than last year. Last year, Avon was not the spot for the Championship, but there was a race there at any rate. As far as the race is concerned, I worked way too hard, stupidly, with nothing to show for it, except a fun time.

To recap how it went down, I will first say that my choice to NOT warm-up was a good one. I never warm-up for road races as I just treat the first lap as the warm-up. After the first lap I thought, "This is it? Four laps of this...no problem." However, after doing what I did, I barely had enough in my legs to get all 68 miles behind me. Any extra miles before the race could have meant a DNF. Anyway, after lap one, a few in the field were nagging and complaining of guys going off the front saying they are just being stupid and causing pain for the rest of us, they're not going to succeed, etc. True, they had no chance and were being stupid, but that's why we race. To take chances, maybe knowing that you are just getting others to chase and wearout so your teammates have a better shot. Who wants a full field sprint at the end? You might as weel go for a no-drop group ride and sprint at the last town sign. Well, I thought it wasn't very painful at all--the first lap anyway. Then four riders (Birchwood, Grumpy’s, NV, MCT) put in a solid effort and got up on the rest of us quite a ways. They started their break at about 1/3 to halfway into the second lap. There were 3 Flanders, 4 or 5 Loonstate, and a bunch of randoms in the peloton, but only a couple (including me) would take pulls trying to pull back the leaders. Flanders and Loon should have been up front pulling the break back. That's what 'teams' are for. Grumpy’s and Birchwood did a good job going to the front and messing things up trying to ensure that their guys stay out in front in the break. That's their job if they have a guy in the break. It ticked me off at the time, but if I were in a break and had teammates in the peloton, I would hope my guys are controlling the pace behind me. Well, finally, during the 3rd lap I went hard and didn’t let up. I stayed at the front, pushed the pace, and pretty much wore myself out. We almost caught the breakaway. Then, during lap 3, leading into the feedzone climb, the peloton swallowed me and spit me out the back without hesitation. The climb isn't very tough and its short, if not for being tired from pulling/leading like an idiot. It's just sort of one of those gradual things that creeps up on you when you don't want it to. I was way off the back. Way off... I almost considered DNF’ing, but then I figured "this is the state race, I am going to try to catch them and stay in it!" Once over the climb and then down the descent, I spent 2-3 miles TT’ing my way back to the group, caught them, then recovered as much as possible. We caught the 4 in the break right after I got back to the group--then 2 more went off the front almost immediately! What the 'F' ! At that point, I said screw it and was just happy to be back in the group. I recovered and I was actually feeling good again. We approached the start finish ending the third lap and I began plotting where I would sprint (for 3rd ?, Top 5 ?, whatever we would be going for). During the 4th lap, at that hill, I fell off the back again. I swear my tires were flat, but they were just fine. All that chasing was taking it's toll. Along with me were a handful of other—some of which were the guys in the first break. Kristy L (double teamer: PCR and Hollywood) handed me a bottle--plain water never tasted so good! So good that I drank up, and tried, for about 1/2 mile, to get back to the peloton, but knew I was done. HR was in the 140's (recovery level), but I felt like I was at TT pace. I bonked. Then I just slowed so us stragglers could ride in together. Soon I was joined by a Flanders guy (the one that was working with me in lap 2 to pull back the break). He pulled me to a Birchwood guy (who soon fell off from us). Then a Grumpy's guy (from the first break) caught up to us as well as a Hollywood rider. We didn’t even try to catch the group. We were only a few miles from the finish so we just road in talkin' about the race and how it went down.

All in all, it was a good time. Worth the drive? Maybe, but it felt good to 'road' race again.
Results

10k Pain and Future Races

It's been a while since I posted anything... Personally...been busy. Recreationally...haven't been riding/training much. This past week was and R & R week so things were low anyway, but I feel like I've been slacking. I had a great run at the Festival Run 10k in Kasson on Aug 11. This was my 3rd 10k--ever. First one was in '02, then next was back in '04, I think. Anyway, I guess I can say I PR'd this one with a time of 41:10. Not the most impressive time, but it was windy and the course is VERY hilly. It's almost entirely on the Sunrise-Sunset trail in Kasson-Mantorville. At about mile 3.5 you're in Mantorville by the river and have to run up the hill on Co 12--then you go left on Co 21 where you get to enjoy miles 4 and 5 which are up-hill all the way to Kasson! Thankfully, mile 6 is completely flat.

I got a good warm-up so I was able to start out pretty fast. About 1/4 mile in I was up about 100 yards on the next 2 runners. About 1 mile in I looked back and saw just one guy. I was at 5:50 for the first mile and 180 bpm! I felt good, but knew I was going to hard too early. I have ran sub-6 min miles in a 5k, but not a 10k. Remember, I don't consider myself a runner. One of the two behind me caught and passed me at about the 2.5 mile mark. He then gained about 1 minute on me and that's how it remained. The top 3 were spaced out right around 1 minute each. Complete results: http://www.rochestertrackclub.com/Results/Results-Detail.aspx?resultsID=46

Because I rarely run that distance, recovery was hard to say the least. It wasn't until Tuesday that I could walk without feeling like someone was beating me on the quads with a bat. Then, my inner left calve muscle was tight, really tight, for a few days. I could ride with out problems, but walking was tough. I gotta take it easy now as I am tapering for the Treadman Duathlon so the runs will be short with some intervals, but nothing too hard. My goal is a sub- 20 minute first run, 22-23 mph av on the bike, and a sub-21 second run. Based on last year and the Apple Du this past May, I think it's du-able if I can recover from the State Championship Road Race this weekend.

Push A Little Harder, I did...

...and so did others.

The 40k (24.8 mile) RASC TT was Tuesday, July 31. Since I haven't raced since Memorial Weekend (well, I did the RASC Spring TT series), I wasn't expecting to PR my time on the course which was 1:05:10 in 2004. Training volume this season has been at an all-time low for me. However, the training I do, I try to keep consistent with hard weeks, R & R weeks, days off, etc. Whatever I've been doing came together well the other night. My goal was to complete the course around 1:07:00. Well, I PR'd it at 1:03:15! I did have the mini clip-on aero bars, but I haven't used them since the Apple Du on May 26 so they weren't very comfortable and I could only remain in that position for a few minutes at a time. I think it was a combination of pushing harder, setting a goal time, the aero position the bars put me in, starting about midway thru the line up--that way I had riders to chase and riders to hold off, and finally, knowing the course because I've raced it about a half dozen times.

Peace Coffee teammate Joe M (known as J-Mo from this point on) equipped with full-on TT gear: bike, helmet, skinsuit, and disc wheel, pushed a little harder as well. He nailed the course in just under 59 minutes. The record is 58:26. He'll get it...

The race series flyer can be found here.