Success Through Excess

Gateway Cup, Day 1

2010-09-04T13:28:00.002-05:00

I just followed Dan Holloway’s attack.

He's the 2010 crit national champion. He attacked at Gateway cup last night. I chased down his wheel. After I caught him (like 5 sec later), we were still doing 32+mph on a slight uphill for about 30 seconds.

Yeah, I didn't last very long with that breakaway.

He managed to stay away for a little bit, though. He got reeled in with 5 laps to go, but still won the sprint. Needless to say, I went to bed with some terrible leg cramps.

The course was 4 corners with wide lanes, but the high straightaway speeds made it difficult to move up unless there were periods of slowing down. I chased down a break, and even spent 1/2 lap in a break (see above). In all, we averaged 28.5mph for 85min of racing. Being so active at the front of the field took a lot out of me, and I was completely flat in the last 15 minutes. I forgot that I’m not as fast as I used to be.

With that in mind, I really love racing. I’m glad I’m “back.” This whole full-time job thing sure puts a damper into training. They should just throw me in with the masters, already. Sheesh.

2010 Criterium National Championships

2010-09-04T13:23:00.001-05:00

I’ll start off by saying that I’ve been averaging about 5hrs/wk of riding since I got a job in late June. I took a lot of time off since my disappointment at Collegiate Nationals, where I flatted in both races at critical times.

Crit Nats was in Glencoe, IL this year, a race I won as a cat4 my first year of riding. I had to race in the cat1/2 field, so it wasn’t quite the same.

I have to make this brief, since I basically forgot how the race went by now. I remember a couple crashes in a downhill, off-camber, right-hand turn.

With 1/2 lap to go, right before a medium-grade, uphill riser, some guy about 8 bikes in front of me pulled over and started puking. We averaged 28mph, which was very surprising.

I got 20th in the sprint after having to close down a gap in the straight before the last turn, but I guess 7 people were off the front. Sad, because it was an awesome sprint. Surprisingly well considering I haven’t been riding much.

ToAD day 1, and other updates

2010-06-18T10:36:00.003-05:00

My laptop broke awhile ago (early May) and it's STILL not fixed, so doing anything on the internet is nearly impossible. I really want to post pics of the last few days of California (Mt. Diablo and Mt. Hamilton were both amazing).

Since California, 4 weeks ago, I have only ridden my bike half a dozen times. That's 1-2x/wk for the past month. Yesterday, I suffered for it.

Tour of America's Dairyland, Day 1, Shorewood crit:
90min crit and no big names preregistered. Then, when I show up, I see Rahsaan Bahati, Chad Hartley, Andrew Crater, Cole House, and a bunch of other pros. 135 people took to the start line. This is going to hurt.

The thing is...it didn't hurt. Well, it shouldn't have. We only averaged ~27.3mph. I'm not sure my powermeter was correct, but it said I only averaged 232w -- 20w lower than collegiate nationals. The only difference is that this one hurt a lot more. The hardest part was that I started in the very back after forgetting my gloves in the car and making it to the start line as the national anthem started. The yo-yo effect was terrible -- having to accelerate from 10-35mph between every turn and straight.

I worked hard to move up, but most of the time I was in the middle of the pack. Three times I was able to move up to the top 10, but I couldn't stay there. After I got there, they would attack and I wouldn't have much left to stay there. Or, even worse, the other two times they sat up and I would get swarmed on both sides.

With 2 laps to go, however, I made my way to around 30th position. They pay 20 deep, so I was sitting good for my situation. I started to cramp and there was a mass slowing in the field -- which was timed perfectly. But, then I got swarmed and physically couldn't fight for my position. With one lap to go, I was around 50th position, so I stopped wasting energy (and a possible terrible leg cramp), and cruised to the finish at the back of the pack. Well, I thought I was at the very back, but I finished 80th. Basically, a non-result.

To be honest, I don't have the fitness to do this right now. I would have done a lot better (who knows exactly how much) if this was in May -- right after collegiate nationals or California.

The good news is that I really enjoyed it, and I'm starting to like my bike again. Maybe I'll train for the Gateway Cup in September.

California pictures, day 1-4

2010-05-24T13:00:00.006-05:00

Day 1: Forgot my camera

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Albino alligator.

California training camp, days 1-4

2010-05-24T10:46:00.007-05:00

Nick and Ryan are cat 3's from Milwaukee. Ryan has an aunt in Palo Alto, so he invited us to stay and train for a week. We were suppose to catch the Tour of California, but it headed a bit too far south by the time we arrived. Instead, we just rode our bikes. We landed on Wednesday, which is day 1. I won't disappoint on pictures, so I'll post them all separately.

Day 1:

We took a quick spin to recover from a 5hr flight. It was basically 45min gradual climb to reach Old La Honda Rd, climb for 20-30min, then mostly downhill back home. I think someone told me that to be competitive in the cat 1/2 fields around here, you should aim to be under 18 or 20 min. I felt like crap the whole way to the climb, but managed to climb it in 19m40s. I'm guessing 18min is the cat 1/2 standard. Here is a screenshot of Nick's Garmin ride file. The green is elevation, the rest is his own training data (HR, speed). Ryan felt like crap and had to stop 2/3 of the way up and roll home.

Time: 1hr 48min

Kilojoules: 973

Day 2:

Today we did a little more climbing. We went up Kings Highway, which was about a 5min longer climb. Ryan stopped at the top of Kings Hwy because he again felt terrible. Nick and I then descended down La Honda, rode north on Route 1 along the coast into a brutal headwind, climbed the backside of Tunitas Creek, and back home. Tunitas was suppose to be some 6mi hard climb, but the last 3 miles were a super easy 3-4%. That was a relief.

Time: 4hrs 49min

Kilojoules: 2909

Day 3:

Ryan finally started to feel better, so we all got to do an 80mi ride. This time, Nick and I learned not to go north on Route 1, so we decided to take a flat road (Canada - Can-yah-da) north to 92/San Mateo Rd, south on 1, east on Alpine Rd. I don't have the Garmin profile image, but it was a pretty cool climb. All the climbs here seem like the same gradient.

We came back during rush hour, but the downhills were pretty fast. We could often keep up with 40-50mph traffic.

Time: 4hrs 53min

Kilojoules: 2908

Day 4:

Rest day. Ryan really wanted a rest day, Nick wanted to take it easy mid-week, and my knee was hurting. So, we went to San Francisco to some famous museum, watched a movie in the planetarium, and spent $40 each on some of the best sushi, ever. I think I gained 5lbs today...

Day 5 was an epic 7 hour ride. Look for the post on it tomorrow or Wednesday!

California, here I come.

2010-05-18T00:28:00.004-05:00

I think the past week has been the biggest emotional roller coaster of my life. I:

failed to finish both Collegiate Nationals races due to flat tires
quit riding my bike for nearly 5 days
decided to try riding, but hated every second of it. 3hrs @ 14mph. Sweet.
signed a lease to a new apartment in St. Louis
bought a new road bike
graduated from UW-Madison w/a B.S. in mechanical engineering
raced Wheels on Willy, where I somehow got 12th/110 starters

I leave for Palo Alto, California on May 19th until May 30th. I will try to take a lot of pictures, enjoy the bike again, write on my blog every day, and see the Tour of California. In the mean time, here are some pictures.

My new bike.

The kitchen in the new apartment, looking from the living room. This
might be a sweet place to live in a non-college town, for once.

Random picture of Christian VandeVelde winning the crit aroundthe square
during superweek (when it meant something). At 17yrs old. Siiiiigh.

Nationals update

2010-05-10T08:27:00.002-05:00

Sorry for not updating after every race. To be honest, I wish this weekend never happened.

Road Race:
The Friday road race around Blue Mounds was going really well for half the race. It was raining, in the low 40s, and the whole race was cold and miserable. I stayed with the group two times up Blue Mounds, and only about 30 of us were in the lead peloton, with everyone else dropping out or getting dropped. This was phenomenal for a non-climber like me. 2.5 laps into the 5 lap race, though, I got a flat on my front tire. I stopped and neutral support came up to tell me they ran out of wheels. Awesome. Not only that, but now I had to ride 5 miles in this freezing cold rain on a flat tire since no one offered me a ride. FFS.

Crit:
The Saturday crit is what I cared most about. I started near the front, stayed near the front, and felt really strong. With 8 laps to go, we were doing well over 30mph average. I rode Matt Brandt's wheel up into the top 15 riders. Riders were pulling off as soon as they hit the front, meaning I would have been delivered to the line right at the front. I felt really good, I wasn't tired, I wasn't hurting, and I was ready for a really good finishing sprint.

With only 2 laps to go, my front tire flatted. 2 laps. I've been training for the Collegiate Nationals crit for 2 years -- even more in the past year since UW was hosting it, tapered/peaked only for this race, knowing I could do really well. I was in perfect position. Brandt even wound up getting 3rd place.

Really, I feel like quitting this sport. I put everything in my life on hold for this. Everything was strained and suffered because I wanted to do well in this one race. And I didn't even get to finish it because of a flat tire. I will now never know what could have been in this race. I wish I could explain to anyone how much this hurts.

TTT
After being extremely disappointed from yesterday, I really didn't want to race. Since we registered, my fiancee sort of made me show up to this race. It was only 3 of us. You needed to finish with 3 (of a possible 4 starters) to be timed. So I raced. Bleh.

I borrowed a friend's TT bike. I've never ridden a TT bike before, and never raced a TT/TTT before. I got there an hour early, set it up 1000 times, kept checking with tech-inspection to make sure I was legal, then rode the TT.

Julio and Heile were on road bikes. Heile broke his Campy shifter and had to get a neutral bike setup and going. We lost out on at least 4-5min of riding. I know 2 teams passed us, and after we started again, a 3rd one passed us only a couple minutes later.

We finished with a time of like 44ish minutes. This was a 19mph average, I believe, which is slow than any of us could do solo on a road bike for less than 20 miles. It also put us in 12th place...of 12. The actual TTing part was strange. Not sure I ever want to do that again.

Thanks for tuning in, and sorry for the lack of updates. I really couldn't care less about bikes, right now.

Collegiate Nationals is here!

2010-05-06T21:10:00.002-05:00

Cheer for me! I'm wearing race #59. It'll be a nice 39 degrees and raining at the start...and we start by doing a 5min descent.

obligatory overdue update

2010-04-23T10:25:00.001-05:00

The past couple weeks have been super busy. I started an anaerobic training block right after spring break, which allowed for a nice 5-6hr “rest” week. I then built it up to 11 hours, and this week will probably come out to 18 hours on the bike. I have another 3-4 days of next week of more hard riding. I was shooting for 30hrs in a week, but it looks like it will be closer to 25hrs.

I’ve pre-ridden the Blue Mounds RR course at least 40 times since I moved to Madison, including racing it once last year for Tour of America’s Dairyland. I did it again on Wednesday, and it never seems to get any better. It just always freaking hurts.

(it looks like Africa!)

The topo map is deceiving. The gradient actually averages 7-9%, with a 12% kicker. Not sure why that picture is off by a few percent. Oh well, everything hurts the same when you’re racing up it.

I’ll update a lot more in the coming days. I have collegiate nationals on May 7/8/9 and then I leave for Palo Alto for the Tour of California on May 19, 3 days after graduation.

My first P/1/2 race

2010-04-12T08:54:00.003-05:00

This race was awesome, and there were some fast people there.

Jim Stemper (Kenda Pro Cycling) and Brian Rach (ISCorp), both whom I stayed with in Tucson, were there. An awesome sprinter, Chad Hartley (Kenda Pro Cycling) was there. Thirteen IS Corp riders were there (Matt Busche from RadioShack rode for IS Corp as an amateur). I have looked up to most of these guys for the past 2 years, so it was nerve-racking finally riding with them. I think I counted about 70-75 riders at the start, but was told only 62 at the finish by an official. Not sure if that’s how many finished or how many started, though.

I was worried, though. Would I do something stupid in front of them? Most knew this was my first P/1/2 race coming up from the 3s.

The course had two real turns, and two small risers, with a good amount wind. No brakes were necessary, but apparently they use brakes in the P/1/2 field, too.

Hartley said he averaged 270-something watts, but he was a lot more active than I was and he has 10lbs on me. Mine was about 230w, with 263w normalized power for the 55min. The thing I noticed – I could respond to every attack and recover within seconds. I wasn’t tired, even when it got really hard at some parts (Peak 60s = 551w). In the end, I sat 15th wheel with 1/2 lap to go, and we were doing 31+mph.

I sprinted up to a line of riders coming up on my left, took a small gap to take second wheel with 300m to go. The guy pulled off right after the turn, leaving me with a 200m, uphill, upwind sprint. A few guys gained on me, 1st won by half a bike length, but 2nd-5th were within 6 inches of each other.

4th place (of 62+) in my first P/1/2 race. Awesome.

North Carolina: Day 8

2010-04-04T20:03:00.001-05:00

Today was my second and last hard day on the bike. We went to Blue Ridge Parkway, and I finally got to finish it with no knee pain or anything. The first pass is a 10.5mi climb where I averaged ~280w for an hour. Then a slight downhill for 3mi, with another 4-5 mi climb at the same wattage. There were 5 tunnels that were pitch black – it feels like you are just floating, as you can’t even see your hands, let alone your wheels, bars, or the road.

I started the day dead last by about 10 minutes. I caught up to the 12 person B’s group by the top of the second climb, as they took a minute to fill their water bottles. Then, I proceeded to bomb the 9mi descent at 42+mph average, with one person still able to hold my wheel.

Starting the second climb was a big pain. After descending for 9 miles, I am terrible at warming up. Everyone caught and dropped me by 50-200m (it split up) before I re-warmed up. After I felt better, I attacked again, averaging only 250w for another 13.5mi up a mountain and over a couple rollers. I finally hit 6100ft of elevation, where we rested for awhile. It was 90 degrees today, and the sun was killing us the whole time. The thin air at altitude was still in the 70s, so I got burned really bad.

I hit the descent hard, then climbed the 9 miles with K.Hess at ~220-230w, not wanting to go any harder.

Finally, the last 9mi descent came. I went down as hard as I could, again averaging over 40mph. I passed 2 cars, and nearly passed a third if he wouldn’t have taken up both sides of the road and generally acted dangerous. The tunnels were pitch black, and at 40mph, REALLY scary. But, they were tons of fun since I came out alive and unharmed.

My powermeter said I averaged 700w up the first climb, and that my peak 30 minute power was 1070w, even after zeroing it at every downhill. Hmm, this thing is worse than I thought.

North Carolina: Day 5 and 6

2010-04-03T07:39:00.005-05:00

Day 5:

Day 5 was a rest day, so I went to a local coffee house and hung out for some 4-5hrs.

Day 6:
Cherohala is the penultimate day of not only spring break, but of my whole season. Depending on where you start your watch, it’s about 60-75min of climbing, reaching a peak altitude of 5400ft. Afterwards, there is a 20min climb up Stecohah Gap (and a 4mi 1-3% grade up to the climb). Throw in some super-steep rollers, a few extra miles on the end, and you have 100mi day in the mountains.

With about 20 people, the ride started slow. Then really fast. Our 60s pulls were over 500w, with a constant rotation. In the draft it was right at threshold. We stopped at the ranger station 7mi from the climb where we dropped off our warm-weather clothing in a support vehicle.

Then, we hit Cherohala. For me, hard. For the first 20min, I averaged 310w and there were still about 10-12 of us in the group. People slowly started to fade, and 3 went up the road – a cat1 from Kelly Benefit, Stoveken, and Dave Z. Our group started to fade, so only Brian of my GDVC team, Cook, Gehling, and I were left. Cook got dropped, Gehling pulled away, which left Brian and I to finish together at the top.

I averaged 290w up the climb, which was surprisingly good considering my circumstances. Now I just have to drop another 7lbs and I might be a decent cat2.

North Carolina: Day 4

2010-03-30T13:11:00.001-05:00

Today was another day of crappy weather. We started at 11am, the rain started at 11:05am, and it didn’t stop until 5 minutes after we got home. I seriously have the best luck, ever.

We were going to do Junaluska to 7-11. Junaluska is a 4mi climb at a steady 6-8%. Not hard, but it seemed to drag on forever. I was on my 4th day of riding, I was feeling miserable, but I needed to do one more day before a rest day.

So, Tank, Cook, DZ, Jamie (a cat1 from Virginia who drove down for a few days), Dallas, Pat H, and I headed for Junaluska. We killed it on the way there, got soaked, lost feeling in our feet, and then turned onto Junaluska Rd for the climb

Cook attacked, Pat H and DZ followed, and I went my own pace. I averaged about 265w for the 35min climb, which was surprisingly high after yesterday’s ride and feeling like I wanted to pass out all day. We cut the ride short, skipped 7-11, and made it a 2.5hr ride.

Since this was yesterday’s ride, today is technically a rest day. Tomorrow (Wednesday) is Cherohala, which is an awesome 60-75min climb that is super hard. It’s always made into a century to add to the pain. Hopefully, my powertap will be working again by then. I’ve had to replace the battery 3 times in 3 days, and this most recent one was giving me tons of problems with power readings (eg, reading 73w when I’m drilling it up a mountain, or 470w while coasting).

Edit before posting: My left knee really hurts. Thank God today

North Carolina: Day 3 and 4

2010-03-29T22:41:00.001-05:00

Day 3 – Backside of Wayah Rd:
Day 3 was the most brutal day I’ve ever had on a bike.

There was a threat of rain all day. It was suppose to downpour and potentially hail, with a high of mid-50s. Rides weren’t leaving at 10am like they normally do, many people skipped, and finally, a few rides went out. Rain would intermittently pour and then switch to sunshine.

The faster group that I ride with left at 11:30am to do the backside of Wayah. It started to downpour right at the start, and the radar looked terrible. I skipped it, knowing how bad it was last year when I had to descend the front side of Wayah in the pouring cold rain.

Time passes, and it stopped raining for a few hours. There was still a threat, but whatever, I needed to ride. Actually, it looked like it would pass north of us and I was going to head south. By 2:30pm I hopped on my bike and went on a solo ride up the backside of Wayah, thinking it would be about 4hrs. I wore a long sleeved base layer, leg warmers, booties, and brought a rain jacket. Here is the chronological order of events:

0-1hr: gorgeous weather, dying of heat. Think about taking off leg warmers, roll up base layer sleeves
1-2hrs: some on/off rain with mostly sunny skies, but started to drizzle at 1:45. I got lost for about 45min by taking a turn too early.
2-2.5hrs: pouring rain that turned into pea-sized hail. Yes, hail. I got completely drenched, and it hurt like hell.
2.5-3hrs: climbed the backside of Wayah in a down pouring rain, lost feeling in hands and feet
3-4.5hrs: the top of the mountain was a cloud, and I couldn’t see more than 10ft in front of me for the first 10min while descending
4.5-5hrs: pouring rain finally eased into dry air, but the sun set and the moon was out. Hands and feet were purple; I couldn’t shift or hit the brakes.

Most. Epic. Day. Ever. I had double, blurry vision, I was nauseous, I had frostbite, and everyone told me, “I look like death.” I would give nearly anything to take that ride back.

Day 4:
I’ll actually save day 4 for tomorrow since tomorrow is a rest day. Check back then!

North Carolina: Day 1 and 2

2010-03-27T18:39:00.001-05:00

Day 0:
Stephanie faxed in my paperwork. My interview went really well last Friday that they extended me an offer on that Monday. Awesome! I had Steph fax in the paperwork with my signature, so I officially have a full-time job this summer. It starts June 21, 5 days into Tour of America’s Dairyland. Wow, I’m going to be a grownup. It feels unreal.

Day 1 – Front side of Wayah.
I spent 14hrs in a car with no sleep. Compounded with 5hrs of sleep the night before, I was running on sub-empty. So, to fix this problem, I went for a 3hr ride.

It wasn’t hard, really. Only 210w average, 150 TSS, and 50mi. A few harder efforts were thrown in, but the last thing we wanted to do was blow our immune systems on the first day, get sick, and ruin the rest of the week. It was a 7.5mi climb with two descents, averaging 7% gradient.

I got home, went to bed at 9pm (which is only 8pm back home), and slept for 11.5hrs. It would have been more, but the rest of the crew from UW-Madison got into town and made a lot of noise. 11.5hrs was reeeeally nice.

Day 2 – Fontana Dam:
I almost got arrested today. More on that in a minute.

Today was the first real test of the legs. Apparently, yesterday was harder than I thought. I had 4 days completely off the bike due to 2 exams the previous week, so it may have been a shock to the system.

We did 80mi, 3000kJ (roughly 3000 Calories), in just over 4hrs of riding. One of the stronger riders this year, Jon Cook, attacked up one of the climbs and I killed myself to stay on his wheel. Fontana Dam is by far the most scenic ride of the week, and it was perfect outside. We even got to stop and take off arm/leg warmers to work on the tan.

When we got to the Tennessee border, the road was blocked because of a rock slide a mile ahead. They blocked it 10ft in front of the “Welcome to Tennessee” sign, then had a metal barricade another 50ft after it. I wanted to say I crossed into Tennessee, so I went between the plastic construction cylinders and turned around long before the metal barricade.

(last year Fontana, without the construction barricades 50ft behind it)

The metal barricade had a construction worker and a cop. About 10 seconds after I turned around to head back down the mountain, they called for me. Okay… I preceded to get my head bit off by the construction worker. I told the construction worker to chill out because all I wanted was a picture next to the state border sign. They then threatened me with, “an instant trip to jail” for crossing the construction cylinders.

Cook said I should have done it because the club would have bailed me out and it would have made a great story. It would have also been another 40mi less of riding that day, and many more hours in a dirty chamois. Gross.

Tomorrow it is suppose to rain a lot, so it may be a short ride or just cancelled.

North Carolina Spring Training Camp: Day 1

2010-03-26T09:54:00.001-05:00

I made a pretty foolish mistake. I had an exam on Wednesday and another one Thursday, before leaving 30min later to North Carolina. In my rush, I forgot my digital camera and my Garmin 705. CRAP. But, I have an iPhone and a powermeter this year, so it should still provide some awesome data.

This will be my third year here. 2008, 2009, and this year, 2010. At this same time in 2008 I was a cat4, in 2009 a cat3, in 2010 a cat2. Each year I wound up doing pretty well in each category the following summer. Pro/1/2 is a big step up, and I need to make up all my results by June 20.

Why, you ask? Because I got a job! I just signed the agreement form. I will be working for an engineering company in St. Louis for a year, then in Richmond, IL (near Lake Geneva, WI) for a year. A career! I’m going to be a real adult :x

So, check back every day for the next 10 days for my updates. I’ll share some hopefully cool power info, stories, hard training, and (crappy) pictures. It’ll be a lot of fun.

Weather map:

My goals:

31+ hours of riding in 9 days -- 4.5hrs/day, with 2 rest days and my first day here being really easy since I’ve only had 5hrs of sleep in the last 60 hours
Climb Cherohala in under 1hr (AP > 270w) – after 40mi ride there and another 50mi home for 110mi, total. Depending on where I start the timer.
2 days over 100mi -- A 100mi ride here is ~120mi back in Madison, and probably 130 back in Chicago.
*Not get injured* -- #1 importance
Get a sweet tan

It sounds somewhat easy, especially for a cat2. However, I will be doing 2-3 mountain passes per day, which is not easy to do.

à bientôt!

DePauw race weekend, 3/13-3/14

2010-03-14T20:16:00.001-05:00

Road Race:
Saturday wasn’t a good day. It was pouring rain, cold, muddy, and generally miserable. The climbs were all big ring and weren’t bad enough to separate the field, so it should have ideally been my race to try and win. It nearly always comes down to a sprint finish. Even better, this was the first time I wasn’t sick in two weeks.

But that didn’t happen. There were a ton of attacks at the beginning of the race. I joined in on two of them before the hills started. My first 10 minutes averaged 320w, the first 20 minutes averaged 300 watts, and the first 30min were at 290w. Then, I blew up. It was really dumb of me to try and work so hard at the beginning of a race that never ends with a breakaway. But, I didn’t want to miss out if this was the first time it would happen when all major schools were represented (Marian, Lindenwood, Lindsey Wilson, and even Northwestern).

So, I decided to do a couple more laps in the pouring rain by myself. I did an hour at 252w average (22mph) before the cold got the better of me and I dropped out. This was the first ever race in which I was dropped. Sad. Actually, not too sad. Only about 25 people finished and there were at least two pretty bad crashes, one needing an ambulance.

Criterium:
Four people from UW did the criterium on Sunday, and most of us opted to skip it. It was wet again, but this time there was a 180 degree turn that didn’t look too appealing. I’ve done rainy crits with 180 degree turns before and they never end well.

My sincere wishes go out to Randall, who was doing his 2nd race weekend, in the Men’s C field. Randall was taken out during the finish line sprint, causing a concussion, a broken collarbone, and face lacerations that needed stitches. He didn’t know where he was for awhile, and he still doesn’t remember the race. Luckily, he was discharged from the hospital after a few hours, and a UW-Milwaukee rider offered to drive him home right away. He’s in good spirits, but head injuries cannot be taken lightly.

Needless to say, most of us were extremely cautious for the races this weekend.

No racing next week because I have a job interview that involves a plane ride, hotel stay, and an all-day interview. Then, I will be blogging every day while in North Carolina for spring break!

Lindsey Wilson Collegiate Races, March 6-7, 2010

2010-03-08T20:04:00.001-06:00

Road Race:
This weekend went pretty well. The road race on Saturday was 75mi – 25mi per lap -- and it was the hardest course in the midwest circuit. It had a ton of long, steep hills, with a final hill that hit 18% for a few minutes of climbing. Obviously, this was not my course. So how do I, as a sprinter, approach this race?

Breakaway within 10 seconds of the start! A Lindenwood and a Lindsey Wilson (LWC) rider took off, and I chased them right away. It took me 5 minutes to chase them at some 330w. We lasted 18 miles before 2 more LWC, 1 more Lindenwood, and a Purdue rider caught us. I held on another 20mi before the original LWC rider and I got popped on a steep hill. I’m surprised I lasted that long.

So, I soloed for another 17mi before being caught by a chase group of 6. I hung on for dear life for a few more miles as this break caught the original one, and more people were dropped from the original break. I finally got popped on another hill. Eventually, 3 more people caught and passed me near the finish. In all, I spent 30-35mi of this race completely solo, in no-mans-land between the winning breaks. The good news is that I finished in 12th place. 220 TSS, 220w average power, and one extremely difficult race. Stoveken and Dallas worked hard to help block, and popped on the last hill, I believe.

Criterium
The Sunday crit was 60min, with a really short (15s), steep hill that was an off-camber turn. Stoveken was suffering from knee pain, so he didn’t race. Fowler stopped with 10min to go.

I was doing terrible for most of it, as the day before nearly slaughtered me. 25min into the race, I felt like dropping out. 2 minutes later, a guy from Purdue fell right in front of me I slammed on my brakes, nearly endoing over the bars, before riding off the road and slowly tipping over. I took a free lap and felt terrible for another 15 minutes. After that, though, I started to feel really good. My legs just stopped “feeling” – pain, power, good, or bad. I had this for maybe 10 minutes until the finish. I was positioned too far back and boxed in on the final turn, but managed a 21st place. One out of the points…ugh.

If the race would have been another 15-30min, I would have done really well. I just kept getting stronger. Oh well, it was still good training. I definitely felt a lot better than last weekend. Hopefully next weekend, which should end in two sprint finishes, will be really good for me.

Murray State collegiate race report

2010-03-01T14:30:00.002-06:00

I looked back at my old post, and apparently I had some big news coming sometime around Feb 10th. I can't help but laugh because I have no idea what it was.

Maybe it was a job interview that went pretty well. Who knows. However, I did get a VO2max test done. It basically told me that I should keep on my engineering degree and not get any ideas about going p-r-o. The numbers are confidential, though.

Road Race:
Anyway, Murray State University was the first collegiate road race of the season. It was awesome. The road race was an easy rolling 64mi with one 45 second steep hill that we had to do 4 times. An 8 person breakaway went on the 2nd lap, all of Marian dropped out because they didn't have anyone in it, and the rest of us suffered for another 32mi.

I felt decently strong, staying in the top 20 or better at the top of the hill. After the break went, I was top 10 or so on the hill. I have absolutely no anaerobic ability right now, so I'm surprised I could do that.

Coming into the final sprint, my quads locked up with a terrible burning/cramping pain. I averaged 300w for the final 30 seconds, which is laughable. Actually, what was even more laughable was that no one passed me. Apparently, we were all exhausted. I got about 20th out of 62. Jon and Julio were dropped on the last hill, unfortunately.

Average power: 196w
Normalized power: 250w
Max power: only 1080w
Avg speed: 23.5mph
4x45sec hill repeats at 475w average (525w for first one)

Criterium:
After the course moved, we were terrified it would be on the same, terrible, 16 corner course as last year. It was actually on a super-fast (no brakes) L-shaped course with an uphill finish. Marian was fresh, Lindenwood and Lindsey Wilson were strong, and UW only had 3 people.

Jon and I went for a 1.5hr ride before the crit. The race was pretty fast. I think we averaged about 26.5mph, which is solid for a February race. I was doing pretty well until 3 laps to go when I realized I was way too far back -- maybe 50th position. I tried moving up, and was in about 25th wheel when 5 guys randomly decided to try cyclocross practice, swinging to the far left and hopping onto the grass. It happened a few bikes in front of me, so a some of us had to slam on the brakes. There was only 1/2 lap to go at this point, so trying to win was pointless. I caught back up just in time for the sprint, where my legs again cramped up. Not a problem, though. By then I was around 40th place, so there was no use sprinting anyway.

Jon dropped out because he was feeling sick. I'm excited that Julio made an awesome come-back, placing 15th and scoring a few points for the team.

Average power: 226w
Normalized power: 261w
Max power: only 1100w
Avg cadence: 102
Max cadence: 140 (cool!)

Mid-winter Progress

2010-02-10T20:34:00.001-06:00

It’s February 10th, and there is still a full six weeks of winter left in Madison. Actually, it’s more. But, there is a good chance I can ride outdoors frequently enough to consider indoor training over.

I have taken three power tests since August. One in August; one in December; and one In February (today).

In August, I put up okay numbers. Obviously not as high as mid/late June or early July, but good enough. to make me happy with a decent w/kg that might let me survive a P/1/2 race (and a VO2max that would let me feel semi-comfortable).

Back in December, my power test was grim. I dropped 19 watts on my FTP from August. Then, I took 2 weeks off the bike. Ouch.

Today, I retested my numbers. I’m 10w down from my August numbers. Since it’s only Feb 2, that’s pretty good. The good/bad news is that collegiate racing starts in just three weeks. The number isn’t good enough to be very competitive, and my VO2max power dropped a lot. The good news is that racing starts in three weeks, which means I can ride my bike outside for a change.

My next update will be in a few days, with some really exciting news. Then, I’ll update everyone with my progress in a couple weeks. I just started riding my bike consistently, and I will be getting a true VO2max test done in the next couple weeks.

Good luck training!

Tucson, day 10

2010-01-14T09:40:00.004-06:00

I forgot to post this last night. But here's a cool picture from my bedroom:

Today was a 4hr ride with 2 pros and 2 cat1s.
Ryan Baumann (Bahati Foundation)
Tom ? (Mtn Khaki),
and the two cat1's from RideClean: Jared and David

It was a Big Square variation. Up the front side of Gates Pass, Big Square-ish loop, then up the backside of Gates Pass. I won a town line sprint, which was sweet. It came out to 1100w for 15 seconds, 900w for 20sec, with a peak of 1350w.

We averaged 20.3 or 20.5mph (depending on whose computer you looked at) for just over 80mi. IF=0.75 for 4hrs, which puts me at a nice 220 TSS for the day...whatever that means.

I will post once or twice in the next 5 weeks. After that, collegiate racing starts at the end of February, so check back the for regular posts on races! Ciao!

Tucson, day 8 and 9

2010-01-12T21:23:00.002-06:00

Day 8:
Another rest day. My knee was really, really hurting. I popped so much ibuprofin, glucosamine/MSM, and other random crap hoping that something would work. The good news is that I am no longer pushing the envelope of overtraining. TSB is back to -38, from -44. I learned the point at which I crack is about -76. 3 more days and I would be dead.

Day 9:
Knee hurt for the first 30min, but I managed to do a 3hr ride without dying. Knock on wood, but I think it's back to mostly normal. Long-term tendinitis would be devastating to my bid at collegiate nationals.

CTL: 72
TSB: -44 again

Sorry for the boring post, today.

Tucson, day 6 and 7

2010-01-10T20:45:00.002-06:00

Day 6:
Rest day on day 6. My knee is starting to hurt, so I took the day off, popped some ibuprofin, and rested. It feels like a ligament moves over my knee at ~160 degree bend. It's also a quick, sharp pain. I'm hoping it's just an overuse injury (few days off), and not full-blown tendinitis (few weeks off).

Hopefully it will be better tomorrow.

Day 7:
Knee felt OK, actually. It still made the funny ligament movement that is worse than my left knee, but the pain is gone. I went for a quick ride to test it out.

After 3 hours, it still felt good. So, I decided to make it a 4.5hr ride. Bad idea. Right around the 3.5 hour, it started to hurt again. Crap. Luckily I was fairly close to home, so I gimped back lightly at half the speed as my way out there.

Unfortunately, no good pictures from the rides today. But, David had to be picked up from Mt. Lemmon because it was getting dark. So I drove up to mile 14 and took a picture overlooking Tucson, during a sunset. Awesome.

night time

daytime

Tucson, day 4 and 5

2010-01-08T19:05:00.006-06:00

(As a reminder, you can click on any picture to enlarge it)

AWESOME! My legs finally came around and I'm feeling strong, again. Yesterday was really tough on me, but my legs pretty much went numb to any soreness or pain.

Day 4:
Rode with Kevin Berger, Ross White, Jesse, Dave, and Ben. The six of us did "Big square." It isn't exactly a big square, but it's similar. Go straight for 10 miles, turn, go straight for 5 miles, turn. ZzZ. Well, until we hit this at mile 49, 56, and 61:

Yes, it was that steep. It burned...but I took some picturs at the top of it.

And look what I got! That would be a tan. Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic; I'll get another one at the end of my trip that is actually higher quality. Because I know you all care.

Grand total of less than 4 hours, over 73 miles. Only 2100kJ, though. I did a decent job of drafting. 185 TSS and CTL is now 65.

Day 5:
I actually did Mt. Lemmon to the very top. All 25 miles. Woe is me; I had to put arm warmers on at 6500 feet because it got chilly!

It took me 5 hours, including some riding around the neighborhood when I was done. I needed a 5hr day. Granted, 45 minutes of that was descending an average of 38mph. Top speed was only 46mph, though. It's a steady gradient for most of it, with a few small climbs.

Hi from 8000 feet! I was getting vertigo looking over the cliff.

CTL is now 69. Steadily climbing, just like the roads around here!

I almost forgot to post the route information:

8200 ft!

Tucson, day 2 and day 3

2010-01-06T17:52:00.006-06:00

What it looks like from the back of the house.

Day 2 was finally relaxing. It was busy, but not in a bad way. I went for a 4 hour ride with Jim Stemper (Kenda) and David Nguyen (new rider with whom I drove down). We went straight to Mount Lemmon, went up, went down. David went back home, and Jim and I attempted a 2nd time.

Ow.

Day 2

I didn't make it. I practically stopped breathing after 3 hours, and later realized it was because my asthma inhaler died on me, so it didn't work. Only made it a couple miles up before a low-40s, short, overweight lady passed me. It was time to quit after that, so I just waited for Stemper to come back down the mountain so we could ride home. I still burned over 2300kJ.

David's bike

Went to the grocery store, cooked, and attempted to create a food log. I have to eat ~4500 calories a day to prevent myself from losing weight. This is a lot harder than it seems. I only managed to cram in 3100cal yesterday...trying to do better today.

Day 3, today, was sweet. I was feeling better, so I tagged along with Jim Stemper on a ride. We did 2.5hrs on rolling terrain, and then he wanted to go up Mt. Lemmon again. Great.

Day 3

I made it to mile 7.5 before he rolled back down to catch me. I think he went to about mile 9. We rolled home for a 4.25hr ride, 2500+ kJ burned. One more harder day tomorrow, rest on Friday, then the Shootout on Saturday. I wish I could be hitting 250+ TSS/day, but I suppose this is safer. I'm just not in shape right now.

Running totals:
Day 1: 2hrs, 100 TSS, 54 CTL
Day 2: 4hrs, 197 TSS, 59 CTL
Day 3: 4.25hrs, 203 TSS, 64 CTL
Total: 9.25hrs, 500 TSS

Tucson, day 1

2010-01-05T10:08:00.003-06:00

After a 26 hour drive, we finally made it to Tucson. It's a different kind of "pretty" out here. There is no grass, everything is brown and rock, and the architecture is a little strange (to this midwesterner). But, I really like it.

Here is the sunrise, and some misc pictures from the drive down. I didn't get any from my ride today, but may do it in the future. I went for a quick 2hr spin, which was a traffic nightmare. No power file from it, since it was just a "have fun, spin the legs" kind of ride.

Total training time to date: 2 hours

Tucson and engagement

2010-01-03T09:08:00.001-06:00

Two big things in this post. The first is that I got engaged.

The second is that I will be trying to update my blog every day while in Tucson. I hope to climb a few mountains and hit 30-35 hours of riding for the 10 or 11 days I am there. Oddly enough, my only goal is to not go over budget with the trip. We’ll see how that goes.

Check back starting Monday night (Jan 4th) for my first entry. We’ll be getting there around 2pm, so maybe a quick ride before it gets dark. I’ll be posting my power and GPS files, too.

Tucson, AZ soon! Check for daily updates!

2009-12-24T12:14:00.001-06:00

In less than two weeks, I will be in Tucson, AZ. This will be my first time in Arizona, so I’m excited. I’ll be going with two guys from the UW cycling team, Joel and Dave. I will also be meeting up other friends and people: my roommate Kevin, Ryan Baumann, Ross, and a bunch of others in the area that they know. I’ll have about four days of riding with them, and the rest of the time it will be just Joel, Dave, and me.

I leave Madison on Jan 3rd and return Jan 15/16th. I’ll post pictures, my rides, and misc blog entries relating to my training week. Hopefully, I can get something up every one or two days. It’s about ten days long, so I’m hoping for at least 40 hours of riding. It should be a solid start to this season’s training. Let’s just hope I don’t burnout when I come home to the trainer for the next two months.

Other than that, I’ve been busy with finals and other engineering projects. I did a 20min power test on the trainer yesterday. Not sure I’ll be doing that again for a loooooong time.

Check back Jan 4th for updates!

Influence of Acetaminophen on Performance during Time Trial Cycling

2009-11-18T14:37:00.006-06:00

Since this article is still in press and I'm one of the few people who can get it (hi Andrea!), I decided to do a brief overview of this study.

Influence of Acetaminophen on Performance during Time Trial Cycling
ALEXIS R. MAUGER, ANDREW M JONES, CRAIG A. WILLIAMS

n=13
10mi (16.1km) TT on CompuTrainer
two groups, double blind.
VO2peak = 65 ± 5 ml·kg-1·min-1, 13.6 ± 3hrs week-1 of training
took either 1.5g acetaminophen (ACT) or 1.5g (dextrose) placebo (PLA)

Setup:
3 tests over 3 weeks max. TT was separated by 7 days from VO2max test. TT's were separated by 2-7 days.
week 1: Vo2max test
week 2: TT
week 3: TT

Results:
Times:
ACT: 26 min 15 s ± 1 min 36 s
PLA: 26 min 45 s ± 2 min 2 s

Power:
ACT: 265 ± 12
PLA: 255 ± 15)

HR/Blood lactate:
ACT: (B[La] = 6.1 ± 2.9 mmol·L-1; HR = 87 ± 7 %max)
PLA: (B[La] = 5.1 ± 2.6 mmol·L-1; HR = 84 ± 9 %max)
No RPE or perceived pain differences.

Notes/Comments:
Power and BLa were both higher in the ACT group.
Subjects thought the ACT condition was "easier" despite no change in RPE or pain scores.

Authors also omitted data for each individual. This is annoying, as it would have been a simple chart that told us if PLA was first, ACT was first, and who did ACT (or PLA) first...or if someone could have done two ACT or two PLA trials.

Finally, I would have liked all participants to do a baseline TT test and then do a double blind with ACT/PLA to see if it improved their test. This would have been more useful and controlled than alternating between ACT/PLA, as some improvements are to be expected the second time on the computrainers as subjects were more familiar with indoor riding.

Teach for America results... Accepted? Rejected? Waitlisted?

2009-11-18T14:01:00.004-06:00

A few people have emailed me asking why I didn't update my blog on Nov. 10th, which was D-day for the Teach for America decision.

The main reason is because I do not have a complete answer, yet. I received an email stating that the admissions committee recommended my acceptance to Teach for America, but I am placed on a waitlist due to a few uncertainties. There are less positions to fill this year across America due to the economic downturn. The email continues, saying that I will receive updates on January 21, March 8, and April 19.

March and April are really late. I will be interviewing for jobs as early as February, which means I have to decide whether to accept engineering offers or wait for TFA. Hopefully I will have that decision by January 21st.

What am I doing in the meantime? I am visiting a TFA-Milwaukee classroom. He is a friend-of-a-friend named Adam. Basically, my friend is in eastern NC for his second year in TFA. His friend, who apparently also went to UW-Madison, is teaching English in Milwaukee. I will observe his class for about 3hrs in the morning, and then possibly visit another TFA corps member who is teaching math at another, more urban, school.

I'm deciding if emailing TFA admissions with what I am doing would be beneficial or not. I am working hard to have a firm "yes" to my acceptance, but I do not want to sound overly-zealous for telling them that I visited a TFA classroom. I'll see what Adam things, and possibly email my recruiter.

I'll keep everyone updated. I really want this!

Teach for America. My final interview.

2009-10-15T23:18:00.008-05:00

So my life is busy. It's difficult. But it's fun, in a weird sort of way.

Last month, I applied to Teach for America. It involved a 500 word letter of intent, a resume, and answering some basic questions. If you were accepted through round one (the recruiter said about 80% pass), you were granted a phone interview. You read two articles relating to the achievement gap and talk mostly about yourself. I've heard it's a pleasant experience. The final step is an all-day interview.

I was lucky. They passed my application right through to the third and final process, bypassing the phone interview. I was especially glad. I poured my heart into that letter of intent.

So here I am, 5 days until my all-day interview. I have to read and analyze a couple articles, then prepare a 5 minute lesson. The instructions are ambiguously detailed. 5 minutes; any grade level; any subject. There is a lot of between-the-lines interpretation on that one.

I've been toying with a few ideas, but shall keep quiet with them.

If I am accepted, why would I be a good teacher in schools that struggle to close the achievement gap?

Dedication. Perseverance. If cycling has taught me one thing, it's that success is achieved through excess. Excess is putting in more than the minimum and more than what is expected. Getting back up when you are down, trying harder, being more dedicated. Set high goals and work hard to achieve them. It's an athlete's dedication that will make him a strong, capable person. Combined with my propensity to lead and teach by example, I believe joining Teach for America would be the perfect place to utilize my skills.

With that being said, I would quit riding competitively and dedicate my life to a cause in which I truly believe: the educational achievement gap. America is only the 13th greatest nation in the world. Really, 13th? This is unacceptable. How do we improve it?

By far the best way is through education. If the trickle-down effect worked for anything, it would be through education. We've been failing our children for too long. First I present an article in 2002 on poor education marks for the US. Again in 2005. Have we learned? Well, here is another article from 2008. It's no surprise that America continues to slip down the ranks for the "greatest nation." An uneducated, and often unemployed, populace does not make for a great nation.

So as I prepare to do my day-long interview, I can't help but think about how nervous with anticipation I am. It is a life changing experience -- one that I hope will positively influence me in the same way I wish to influence my future students. Dedication. Perseverance. Success through excess.

Teach for America and a career, oh my...

2009-09-24T21:41:00.009-05:00

Edit: This was unpublished as of 9/24/09. For some reason, it never went through. Sorry it is a little late.

September 24, 2009:
These past 2 weeks have been up and down. I had a career fair, in which I spent 10 hours over two days talking to recruiters for companies and giving them my resume.

I managed to land an interview at one company. In fact, it was the one where my girlfriend's dad and granddad both worked for decades. Sweet. The interview last Friday went really well, he was genuinely impressed. I got an email this Tuesday saying sorry, but they were going to pursue other applicants graduating in December because they don't know their economic outlook for May 2010, yet.

Bummer. I really wanted the job, but I suppose that it understandable. They will hopefully be at the career fair next year. Either way, I will be contacting them for an interview.

The up-side is that on Friday, I also had to turn in the Teach for America application.

Round 1: letter of intent, curriculum vitae, 20 questions (x10), some survey stuff, etc
Round 2: phone interview to learn more about the applicant, and see if they continue to...
Round 3: daylong, in-person interview, selected applicants participate in activities including a five-minute sample teaching lesson, group discussion, problem solving activity, and personal interview

I got an email a couple hours ago:

Congratulations! It is with pleasure that I invite you to Teach For America's interview day. We enjoyed learning about you in your application and would appreciate the opportunity to meet you in person. You have advanced directly to the final interview stage and will not be participating in a phone interview.

Upgrade!

2009-08-19T09:20:00.003-05:00

Well, it happened. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not, but I will no longer be competitive in races.

That's right. I am officially category 2: packfill for the P/1/2 field. The good news is that I'm one step closer to my ultimate goal. I have one season to make it to cat1. I guess I should start riding my bike in the winter.

Previous winter training from Dec 1-Apr 9:

(click for better quality)

So I averaged 4-5hrs/wk, with 1 week completely off the bike, and 2 more weeks where I took 5-6 days off the bike. The only thing that saved my season was a 30hr week in Austin in January for Winter Break and a 25hr week in March for Spring Break. The following 2 weeks after spring break I took off because of tendinitis.

If I can consistently ride 10-12hrs/wk on my trainer this winter, I might actually be fast and make my goals: at the top for collegiate nationals and cat1 by the end of the year.

Will it happen?! Stay tuned...

2 new HMB studies

2009-07-31T12:43:00.004-05:00

My library at UW-Madison finally got me the copy of "Effect of HMB on the Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation (OBLA) and VO2 peak in Endurance Trained Athletes." Apparently, someone from UMass had to scan it and send it. Thanks to both parties for going through the hassle! I will also look over, "Effects of β-Hydroxy-β-Methylbutyrate (HMB) on Aerobic-Performance Components and Body Composition in College Students." This will hopefully be shorter than my last HMB post.

Effect of HMB on the Onset of Blood Lactate Accumulation (OBLA) and VO2 peak in Endurance Trained Athletes:
Note: Basically, HMB is a metabolite of the Branch Chain Amino Acid called leucine.

Setup: 8 cyclists in a double-blind study. Averaged 34 years old, 163lbs, 5'10", 13% body fat, and 63ml/kg-min VO2max, category 2 and 3 cyclists. 2 week supplementation periods of 3g/day (HMB, Leucine LEU, or a control placebo CON) followed by 2 weeks with nothing. Repeat for a total of 3 periods, one for each substance. They measured OBLA defined as VO2 at 2mM blood lactate, VO2max, and time to VO2max. Subjects consumed 4 capsules, 3x/day =12 pills/day. Each had 250mg of the supplement, for a total of 3g/day.

Findings: After analysis, the authors found that peak VO2max was unaffected by HMB. Lactate accumulation peak was also unaffected. HMB did result in a greater time to reach VO2peak. VO2 at OBLA increased ~9% with HMB and LEU was 2.1%, and 8% higher lactate threshold. Blood glucose was significantly greater with HMB. Basically, BCAA may spare body proteins from catabolism, which may allow for greater training adaptations and more rapid rates of recovery.

Basically, HMB is found in leucine, which is a BCAA. Some studies showed that long-term BCAA supplementation can have positive effects on aerobic performance (eg, 40km TT, triathlon, reduced blood lactate in a wingate test). Other studies found BCAA did not increase VO2, LT, or maximal lactate. The difference are in the amount of BCAA given.

The author supposes that HMB could be the reason for the BCAA success (instead of just leucine, which has to be metabolized into HMB), and that higher dosages are required to see improvements. 3g of leucine didn't do anything. 3g of HMB did something.

Finally, practical applications are discussed. "Whether the increases in OBLA are great enough to influence performance is yet to be determined. Plasma glucose and FFA [free fatty acids], as well as RER [respiratory exchange rate] data, indicate that HMB supplementation did not influence substrate metabolism to any great extent. It is important to emphasize that this is the first study to investigate the effects of HMB in endurance athletes, and further research should be done to verify these findings as well as to elucidate the mechanisms of HMB."

Cost: I looked up how much this stuff costs. You can get it here for $21+shipping. At 3g/day, it will last you 10 days. That's approximately $2.50/day, $17.50/week, $70/month! Holy crap!!!

***Note***I didn't review the second one because I got tired. I will probably review it in the next couple days.

New personal best

2009-07-30T14:43:00.005-05:00

I am TERRIBLE at testing with a power meter. Seriously, if it's not done in a race, I can't do it. Pushing myself to the limit is impossible...other people have to push me there. I guess that's why I'll never have to chance to go P-R-O :p

Anyways, I set 2 new PB's.
1min power: 650 watts. The first 30 seconds were at almost 800 watts, and the last 30 seconds were at only just above 400 watts. Horrible pacing, oops! 6.70w/kg
5sec power: 1290 watts. Mind you, this was after I did 5x2min hill repeats and 1x30sec sprint. I think I remember borrowing a power meter last year and hitting 1359 watts for 5 sec, which would put me at 20.28w/kg, but I can't find the file. So, this will have to do for now.

I haven't done a 5min or 60min test for about 5 months, so maybe I will do that next week after I finish with the Tour of Elk Grove.

Oh yeah, I weigh 67kg.

click for a better quality

Effects of [beta]-hydroxy-[beta]-methylbutyrate (HMB) on muscle damage after a prolonged run.

2009-07-24T15:18:00.007-05:00

Initial disclaimer: I am a mechanical engineer, not a physiologist. Thus, I only claim to know how to read and interpret scientific literature and not specifically physiological or metabolic adaptations. Simply, I often know when to call on the B.S. meter, but not necessarily am I always correct or know the reasons. Thus, it is completely my opinion and has no professional merit. I could be wrong, I could be right, so please leave comments and your own opinions, especially if you know more than me.

I am going to take a look at the paper: Effects of [beta]-hydroxy-[beta]-methylbutyrate (HMB) on muscle damage after a prolonged run. A. E. KNITTER, L. PANTON, et al

The question is, is HMB helpful for an endurance athlete, such as a cyclist?

Here is what I interpreted, and my questions and concerns.

Set-up: Subjects (n=13) were paired according to their 2-mile run times and past running experience. Each pair was randomly assigned a treatment of either HMB (3 g/day, n=8) or a placebo (n=5). After 6 weeks of daily training and supplementation, all subjects participated in a prolonged run (20-km course).

HMB lessons Creatine phosphokinase (CPK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) activity. "However, Kuipers (15) has noted that CPK activity does not necessarily reflect the amount of structural damage done to the muscle. Because plasma CPK responses after a similar bout of exercise may differ between individuals, some researchers have concluded that fiber damage is not necessarily reflected in proportional increases in CPK activity (15)."

Thus, did HMB simply reduce the your body's ability to produce CPK/LDH, or was there, literally, less muscle damage (this one is for an Ex. Phys.)? Secondly, isn't small muscle damage a big reason muscle is built in the first place? Thus, shouldn't muscle damage from exercise be appreciated, in the sense that it will make you stronger in the long-run? Or, will this allow the ability for someone to undergo MORE training with equal amounts of muscle damage compared to someone who does not supplement HMB? Is muscle damage even a limiter in endurance sport?

Also, "...both groups performed equally well in the prolonged run, the larger increases in enzyme activity in the placebo-supplemented group suggest that they sustained more muscle damage as a result of the run." Since they were on this supplement before the final long-run test, we can conclude that there was no performance increase due to HMB. The HMB did not make one faster.

The authors say, "HMB may help prevent muscle damage or help regenerate a damaged muscle more quickly, which is evident by less CPK leaking from the cell membrane."

However, the second conclusion stated by the authors is that, "the differences seen in CPK levels may be attributed to differences in lean body mass between the two groups due to gender. The placebo-supplemented group tended (P < style="font-weight: bold;">LDH response to exercise does not necessarily mean muscles were more or less damaged. In another study, no significant changes in LDH after a 45min downhill run were observed (Schwane et al.)(23). LDH changes may not even matter...

Authors conclusion: Dietary supplementation of 3.0 g HMBday in individuals undergoing intense endurance exercise resulted in decreased CPK and LDH responses after a prolonged run. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that HMB-supplemented subjects experienced less muscle damage or that the HMBsupplemented group could have sustained a similar amount of muscle damage as the placebo-supplemented group but recovered at a faster rate.

My conclusion: HMB may limit muscle damage due to weight-bearing exercise. It was not shown to increase performance in the final test of a long-run, but did show a lesser CPK/LDH response. Thus, as an endurance sport-based supplement, it may not be useful. Would I use it as a runner? Inconclusive. Would I use it as a cyclist? Not without further research. Up next, I will read two more papers on HMB. One will be for aerobic performance, and another will be specifically for cyclists (as soon as my library tracks the paper down for me).

Sources:
15. Kuipers H. Exercise-induced muscle damage. Int J Sports Med 15: 132–135, 1994.

23. Schwane JA, Johnson SR, Vandenakker CB, and Armstrong RB. Delayed-onset muscular soreness and plasma CPK and LDH activities after downhill running. Med Sci Sports Exerc 15: 51–56, 1983.

Superweek: update/Racine

2009-07-24T10:48:00.003-05:00

Long Course Update:
For the power junkies: I averaged 216 watts for the 75mi, over 3hrs 10min.

Normalized Power (NP): 268 watts.
Peak: 1329 in the final sprint
Peak 10s: 806w in the final sprint
Peak 5min and 10min power were both 300w.

Racine crit:
Racine was a crappy course. I told myself last year that I wouldn't do it again because the pot holes in the back section broke spokes, cause saddle sores, and jar you to the bone.

Apparently, I remembered this while registering, but not in practice. I drove over 2hrs to the race to find that I wasn't preregistered. UGH!

I raced anyway, since I was there. I didn't have any warmup and I didn't remember the course too well, so I wanted to pull the pack through the back stretch where the pothole was.

Well, I got a gap on accident, so I just went with it. For 3 laps I held 298watts and 25mph before getting caught by the peloton. At some point during the second lap, I had the crazy idea that I could just lap the field real fast and sit in for the rest of the race. Hah!

Anyway, apparently a few people were not ready for that "fast" of a pace right from the gun, so they dropped out within the first few laps. That was cool.

About 35min into the race it started to rain. I don't do brick corners with painted crosswalks on a crappy course in the rain. Suffering on the bike is fun. Suffering from a crash is not fun. So, I dropped out, too.

Good thing I did. Exactly one lap later there was a crash in the first turn. I didn't see it, but apparently someone wiped out on the white painted lines.

Superweek: Milwaukee road race (long course)!!!

2009-07-22T20:43:00.008-05:00

Today's race hurt quite a bit. It turned out to be a 75mi road race on a surprisingly hilly course. It was a 17 lap race, with each lap 4.2mi long. The second climb hurt a lot because of a 1mi southward headwind before the hill (on Lincoln Memorial Dr. "LMD"). Oh yeah, I got a PowerTap yesterday, so now I get to play with power.

Of course, I had to do some stupid stuff like attack off the front. Thrice.

The first time was with 10 laps to go. Right after the feed zone was a downhill S-turn that, honestly, I was the best at descending. I would always open a gap, never hit my brakes, and wind up having to wait for everyone after turning on LMD. This time, I just went as hard as I could, and tried to hold 300 watts as long as I could. I would push to 400-450 on hills, 200ish on downhills, and 300 on flats. I lasted 5mi before getting caught. These numbers make an engineering major super happy. I love being a nerd :)

Many more breaks went and were reeled in within a couple miles.

Then, a 5 person break went off the front with 5 laps to go. Right then, our race was neutralized so the P/1/2 field could pass. It instantly got 2min on us. Ugh.

5 off the front.

No one was working to bring it back, so I attacked again into the descent, got a gap, and held it for 30s before another rider from Purdue bridged up to me. We worked together for a lap before getting caught with 3 to go. It was such a good move and now I was exhausted. Crap!

As soon as we were brought back in, another attack went off the front. Only one guy went, so after 2 minutes, the gap was closed as he died into the stiff headwind.

I knew this was my last chance. I only had 2 minutes to recover, but I had to go anyways. So I did. I attacked into the headwind and drilled it at 350 watts for 4 minutes before the Purdue guy bridged up to me again. We both laughed as he took over the front to share the work.

We then worked very hard to bring back the leaders. He would drag me up the hills and I would pull on the flats/headwind sections. With 1/2 lap to go, we caught the 4 guys ahead of us (the 5th was way off the front by now).

1 up the road, 6 of us in the chase.

We did one rotation before Purdue attacked. I went with, and only 2 guys from the break stuck with us.

1 up the road, 3 in the first chase (me), 3 in the second chase.

Going up the second hill, a DePaul rider made a smart attack and held it to the line. The 3 of us stopped working together with ~1km to go because we wanted to be fresh. Another rider from the back bridged up somehow, but later admitted he was dead.

1 up the road, 1 up the road in a chase, 6 in the second chase.

With 400m to go, Tony Carfang (IIT) made a solid attack that no one went with. I was sitting on the wheel of Purdue, who was sitting on the wheel of a Ski Utah rider. With 350m to go, Purdue jumped. I held his wheel as we tore past Tony at 200m to go.

With 150m to go, I jumped off Purdue wheel to the finish. We had a 1-on-1 sprint to the line. I threw my bike as hard as I possibly could over the line.

It was a photo finish. I won the sprint for 3rd place.

Courtesy John Wilke of peloton-pix.com. Check out his website; he does awesome work. Click on the picture for better detail.

Stats:
Distance: 74.7mi
Avg Speed: 23mph
Total Time: ~3hrs 15min
Avg wattage: ~200w
Energy/Calories: ~2700kJ/Calories

As soon as I get a cable for my powertap, I will download the data to show you my best 5s, 60s, 20/30/60min power, NP, and TSS (for anyone who understands what I just said).

Superweek: Tour of Holy Hill, Hartford, WI

2009-07-17T19:38:00.002-05:00

I finally had a decent day on the bike. It seems like I should stop classifying myself as a sprinter and more of a sprinter-from-a-breakaway.

~48-50mi road race with rolling hills. A couple little ring climbs, with a slightly uphill (big ring) finish.

Breaks went and got pulled back. Finally, a threatening break left that had Jon Cook (Wheaton Franciscan) and Marc Howe (GearGrinder). Marc's won a lot of races in the 3's field this year, and took 2nd overall at America's Dairyland.

Wheaton was blocking, physically, on the front. Since someone already got pulled from the race, with no warning, for crossing the yellow line, it was impossible to bridge.

Finally, on a small climb, enough room opened up for an old friend of mine, Tony from IIT (now CU-Boulder) to try and bridge. He got 10 seconds and I took off to join him. No one chased us, and we worked together for about 5 minutes. Eventually, 3 more people bridged to help us out.

Unfortunately, Tony got popped when one of them attacked. That left 4 people in the break, 4 people in the chase (including me), and 27 in the field. The four of us worked together to bring back the break, and we were so close. At one point, we were only some 20 seconds back.

Everyone decided to stop working, so on the last lap, I attacked twice. I tried dropping everyone, and had some success in dropping 2 of the guys, but couldn't hold it.

1km to go: I pulled off my rotation and sat on the back.
500m to go: I sat 3rd wheel.
150m to go: I started my sprint
0m to go: no one near me :)

So, I took 5th overall. Why do I only do well in pretty hilly road races that are long and/or suffer-fests?

P.S. I'm sick of Superweek and after this year, I will never do it again.

Arlington Heights

2009-07-14T23:46:00.003-05:00

I really, really like this course. It was technical and fun -- the shape of a figure 8, but less boring than most courses.

And, again, I sucked a lot. I will spare you the crappy story other than I'm not even tired from the race. I couldn't even sprint because everyone was blocking after bonking. wtf.

New tactic tomorrow in Bensenville, so I will report how I do.

Superweek schedule

2009-07-13T15:58:00.002-05:00

I forgot to give out my July/StupidWeek schedule, so here it is:

Sat, July 11 Champaign, IL
Sun, July 12 Champaign, IL

Tue, July 14 Arlington Heights Criterium New Race! Arlington Heights, IL
Wed, July 15 Ray Basso Bensenville Criterium Bensenville, IL
Thu, July 16 - Daytime Lake Front Road Race (Short Course) Milwaukee, WI
Fri, July 17 Hammer Nutrition Tour of Holy Hill Hartford, WI

Sun, July 19 The NorthShore University HealthSystem Grand Prix Evanston, IL
Mon, July 20 Wheel&Sprocket Whitnall Park Road Race Hales Corners, WI

Wed, July 22 AltoLab Lake Front Road Race Milwaukee, WI
Thu, July 23 Racine.org Criterium Racine, WI

As you can see, I am off today (Monday). By "off," I mean "off the bike." It's a day for a lot of work -- I've been in the library for the past 5 hours studying for the LSAT. That is 2.5 months away.

Sweet. This is the most fun I've ever had over summer break.

Logical reasoning is not reasonably logical.

Day 2: Tour de Champaign; Champaign, IL

2009-07-12T20:18:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick and easy race report. Because, really, who wants to read a cat3 race report if he didn't do well?

27mph. Fast, but easy. Caught behind 2 people who almost crashed out in the final sprint. 2 man break stuck. 8th in the field sprint, so still in the money.

Good news is that I felt great all day. Bad news is that I didn't win. Lame sauce.

Day 1: Tour de Champaign; Champaign, IL

2009-07-12T09:59:00.000-05:00

After not raining all day on the drive down, champaign decided to open
its skies. Luckily, it stopped right before my race. Unluckily, it was
still super-wet.

But, I gave the race a try. Bad idea. There were at least 3 crashes in
the first 20 min. Every turn has a ton of paint for crosswalks, and
many metal sewer grates. To make matters worse, I just noticed that my
tires are officially too worn down, and a metal bead is showing
underneith.

Wet concrete+wet paint on street+meyal sewer grates+metal
tires=disaster.

My back end was sliding in every turn. After a bunch of people crashed
in front of me and behind me, I decided to call it quits. I don't need
to lose any more skin.

Ryan Law, ex-teammate and the guy I drove down with, crashed himself
out on a metal sewer grate. He snapped his $200+ carbon bars. Ouch.

So there it was, the most unexciting race report ever. That's ok, I'll
kick ass for day 2.

Sent from my iPhone

Downer Ave, 6/27 and Carl Zach classic, 6/28

2009-06-29T08:10:00.002-05:00

The reason I'm combining these is because I gave up on the series 5 minutes into the Downer's Ave crit. There isn't much to report when you give up.

The reason is that I had to make up an 8 point deficit even to make 3rd place in the overall. Honestly, I could do it. When I took over 2nd place, I made up 8 points in 2 crits. I could easily make up another 8, and I was excited to do so.

Downer Ave:
Downer's started and I now have the most painful saddle sores (you're welcome..I know you wanted to know!) Probably the only thing more painful were my legs. My leg cramps from yesterday were still there. It left me with quite the paradox. Sit down to put down less force so that my legs don't hurt (ow my ass), or stand up so my ass doesn't hurt (ow my legs).

The first 3 laps averaged some 29mph. After that, it slowed down a little, but not much. It was also a sketch fest. There were a couple crashes and enough new people to make the race EXACTLY like a Superweek race. Who the hell likes to do sketchy superweek races? Not me.

On top of this, they were throwing away tons of primes -- like $350 worth, plus free messages. The course had a copious amount of pot holes, cracks, and tar. Why is Downers so popular?

So, 5 laps in, I decided that this was a retarded race. I spent the whole 50 minutes wishing I had pulled out the lap before. I didn't try for the sprint, but only to stay near the front. I think I finished 15th of like 50+ people. Mike (CA Pools) finished like 5 ahead of me, and the series was officially over.

----------------------------

Carl Zach Cycling Classic:
Since I didn't care about this race, except to finish, I went for primes. I picked up $50, and that was pretty much the story of the whole race. There weren't that many people (maybe 27?), so it was a pretty easy race. 3 crashes happened and all were because of retarded reasons.

The first one, someone locked his brakes and slid out. The next one, Adam McClurg (sp?) from LAPT attacked a corner and took himself out. A 3rd one was when someone got pinched in a straight section, 20m after a turn, and went over the bars. I ran over a full water bottle in one of them, but kept myself upright.

There was a sprint, but I mostly stayed out of it. I think I was top 15, definitely not top 10. The organizers missed my name/number, but I missed the protest period. Granted, that sent me to 5th in the overall (by 3 points), but I could care less. What is the difference between 4th and 5th, when they only give prizes to top 3? So, I won't fightt it.

Anyways, that was a fun series. It was run MUCH better than StupidWeek. Every race was on time, results were always posted within 10-15min, and the courses were nice. There were also, on average, at least 3 less crashes every race. Although not completely the fault of superweek, their crappy courses encourage some crashes.

I will probably have one more post about the Tour of America's Dairyland before I take a week off. After that, it's on to superweek.

Greenbush Road Race, 6/26

2009-06-27T08:45:00.003-05:00

Today was a tragedy. After being tied for 2nd place and knowing this course well, I thought I would have a chance to at least hold onto a slim lead.

But I failed.

I feel like Valverde from last year's Tour de France, where he lost all his hopes of GC or podium on one stage after getting caught behind a field split.

Today's road race was the exact same one as collegiate season in April. It has a couple decent hills, with the finishing 9% grade hill that has a 4% top, lasting a solid 1-2 minutes. A 6 person break went up the field with every team represented (except, of course, me). Marc Howe of GearGrinder who was sitting in 4th place, and Jon Cook who was in 5th place, were both in it. Since there was no one available to chase, it escaped.

Mike of CA Pools and I were stuck in the pack. Since we were tied, we kept attacking each other. It reminded me of the 2007 TdF where Contador and Levi would endlessly attack Rasmussen on the mountain stage. He would launch an attack, it would get pulled back; then, I would launch an attack and I would eventually get pulled back. Now repeat the process. For 45 miles.

After that, we were both dead. We slaughtered the field in the process. Only 21 people finished the race. Mad props to Brian Krueger, a GDVC rider doing his first cat 3 road race, for putting in some hard efforts at the front of the field.

With 15mi to go, the real attacks stopped. Anyone who tried to attack from that point wasn't able to do it hard enough. They wound up just pulling the field for 15 seconds before quitting. Mike and Joe (Verizon Wireless) tried pulling in the break, but it was far too late. No one else could help, including me, because we were just too tired.

Coming up to the final hill, my legs cramped really bad. Marc of GearGrinder took 1st, Jon Cook of Wheaton took 4th, Mike Gatz of CA Pools took 10th, and I only took 14th. Since road races are worth double points (40 points for 20 riders), I completely lost 2nd place...and 3rd place, and BARELY have 4th place.

DAMN IT!

Here are the standings for the overall:

Dave Paquette Team Wheaton Franciscan..181
Marc Howe Team GEARGRINDER..............137
Mike Gatz CA Pools.........................................125
James Pradun Great Dane Velo Club............117
Jonathan Cook Team Wheaton Franciscan..116
Scott Rosenfield Nova Cycle Sport................107

Since only 2 crits are left (20 points for top 20 riders), I may not even take 3rd place overall. What a way to ruin my season. Forget upgrading to cat 2 this year.

Sheboygan crit, 6/25

2009-06-26T21:52:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the incorrect day on yesterday's post. I don't even know what day of the week it is, anymore.

Sheboygan was a sweet location. Unfortunately, it was a pretty crappy course. A 4-corner crit with pretty bumpy/torn up roads...the second worse one of the series. Turn for was super narrow with a slight shoulder that had a 1" lip leading into it. The shoulder quickly curved back into the street, meaning you had to get over before hitting the curb that was directly in front of you. This made it a problem while getting squeezed every few laps.

Either way, it turned out to be a good race. There were no crashes again ("crash" 3's are losing the "crash"!!!), which was nice.

It was also pretty fast for a cat3 field. We averaged 27mph for the 50min crit, and I averaged 85% of my max HR...far too flat and fast for a breakaway to stick. The race was pretty uneventful other than a few attacks. It was a typical midwest crit.

The cool part is that I was now only 4 points away from 2nd place (Mike Gatz of CA Pools). No doubt, I stuck on his wheel in the last 5 laps. And those 5 laps were HARD. The announcer gave away 3 primes on 4 to go, 3 to go, 2 to go. They were big for the series -- $100, $70, $40.

Coming into the final turn, miraculously no one crashed. It was a long, 350m sprint from the corner and Mike was sitting 15th wheel -- not where we needed to be. But my goal wasn't the win in this race...though looking back, it should have been. I got up, sprinted around a rider in front of me who died, and took 10th place. Mike got 14th place.

This gave me the 4 points I needed! Since we both now have 103 points, and I had a better placing this race, I took over 2nd place! With a 60mi road race and 2 more crits, I have to be on guard to defend and extend my lead.

Fond du Lac crit, 6/23?

2009-06-25T23:23:00.001-05:00

I'm on the road, so this will be a short update.

FdL was, thus far, the crappiest course of the series. It was better
than almost all of the Superweek, which says a lot about that series.

I was interviewed by a local reporter, which was cool. You always have
to be vague and careful about wht you say; being misquoted would sucks.

Only some 35ish people showed up to our race. It was a short, 0.6 mi
course with tar-filled cracks everywhere. It doesn't help that I'm now
battling some saddle sores.

The race was slow, but after yeserday's epic race, I was hurting a
lot. It was hot, and luckily everyone else wanted to go slower. A 4
person break went off, and it was the only break to succeed in any
crit this series.

In the final lap, I forced way to the front. Mike Gatz from CA pools
tries to attack with 1/2 lap to go and blew up, givinge the chance to
make up 3 spots on him. I got 5th in the field sprint, 9th overall
again. It put me to within 4 points of 2nd place in the overall...sweet.

The race was only 25.3mph. My average heart rate was low at 83% of my
max, despite feeling like a hard race. The good news is that I was in
the money, closer to 2nd in the overall, and recovered for Thursday 's
race.

I'll post again tomorrow from the road.

Sent from my iPhone

Day 5, Fon du Lac Road Race, 6/23

2009-06-24T07:50:00.005-05:00

I've officially concluded that I do really well in races that are complete suffer fests. My first example of this was during the first hot day of the year in the Midwest, 85 degrees (mind you, it was low 70s leading until this day) during the 80 mile Regionals road race. I got into an 80mi breakaway, the first 35mi with 2 other people, the next 15mi by myself, the next 15mi with 5 others, and the last 15mi by myself. I had run out of water in the last 20 miles. I suffered in the 1/2/3 field, and got 6th place. That was officially the hardest race of my life.

Today was the second hardest day of my life. 95 degrees, no clouds, 60% humidity, and a 60mi road race.

To top it off, I was the only person in the field who did a 60mi breakaway. Right from the gun, a 6 man break went off the front. There were too many people with no one wanting to work, and we eventually dropped a Wheaton Franciscan rider, sending Wheaton into a hard chase. Wheaton has a guy (David/Sarge) leading the overall. After we were caught, Sarge and his teammate, along with 3 other guys, made a solid break.

I was spent and couldn't chase right away. Two guys, including a Beans & Barley rider, were trying to chase them back, while I sat 4th wheel. Accidentally, the Beans guy got a 20m gap on the field while doing a hard pull. I jumped hard, told him to hold my wheel, and drilled it for 45 seconds as hard as I could. It was up a hill, and as we crested the top, I looked back to find the peloton some 15 seconds back. Beans and I worked together for 10 minutes before eventually being joined by CA Poools and GearGrinder. The 4 of us worked together for another 10 minutes, then the Beans guy sat on for the rest of the race.

The lead group dropped 1 guy, who went backwards as we passed him. They then dropped another guy "Orange guy", who joined our 4 person break, making it a solid 5. He didn't want to work much, either, but insisted that he was going to go for the sprint. Bad move, but he looked tired enough that we could drop him.

Nonetheless, we continued going hard until 1.5mi to go when we all started playing cat and mouse games, averaging about 12mph. We finally just asked the Beans rider to just pull until the last turn at whatever pace he felt like -- because even 16-17mph is better than 12.

After the final turn, there was 300m slightly uphill, then 200m downhill to the tailwind finish. Beans led, followed by CA Pools, then me, then Orange Guy, then GearGrinder. With 520m to go, GearGrinder attacked. CA Pools chased (with me on his wheel) for 15 seconds before catching GG's wheel. GG went hard another 15s before blowing up. By now, we were about 300m from the line. CA Pools drilled it, hoping to drop me on the include -- which he almost did.

But, he didn't. I wasn't sure I could come around him, but with 200m to go, I thought that if I just got a wheel in front of him he would stop sprinting.

At 100m to go, I jumped and got half a bike length on him. As I predicted, he stopped sprinting and we rolled into the finish. I got 4th place.

60mi breakaway!

Road races are worth double points, so I moved from 7th to 3rd in the overall. CA Pools, Mike Gatz, was ahead of me by 9 points, so now he is only ahead by 7 points.

Stage results:
1. Ted Hanes (unattached)
2. David Paquette (Wheaton Franciscan)
3. Jon Cook (Wheaton Franciscan)
4. James Pradun (GDVC)
5. Mike Gatz (CA Pools)
6. Marc Howe (GearGrinder)
7. Doug Bailey (unattached)
8. Mike Jenich (Beans & Barley)

Overall (Series Points):
David Paquette (130)
Mike Gatz (87)
James Pradun (80)
Nathan Longley (66)
Jon Cook (62)
Marc Howe (59)

Day 4, Manitowoc, WI 6/21

2009-06-22T15:13:00.005-05:00

I was pissed off after driving by myself for 2.5hrs and getting caught in a 35mi detour that had a detour-from-the-detour. Checked in, dressed, warmed up, got on the starting line.

23 people. Lame. A 0.6mi flat square with 23 people and no one who wanted to go fast. It was like track racing with a final sprint that was ~175m long. Damn, I should do good in this race!

No more slacking off in the final lap. No more starting the final lap in 5th position, losing 10 spots in the last 2 turns, then failing to try with my sprint. This time, I'm going to stay up front, be aggressive to hold my line, then sprint as hard as I can. I want to repeat last year at superweek -- hit 99-100% of my max HR in the finish and kick some ass! Lets do it!

So the race was remarkably boring and slow. We averaged 26.5mph, but it was super easy. Other than 1 or 2 laps, I stayed in the top 5 the whole race. A couple attacks, a solo break that almost sticks, and my hamstring is hurting...the same one I pulled last year while sprinting in SuperWeek. Whatever, suck it up and race.

3 to go and Wheaton Franciscan is at the front, drilling it for the main guy (David, aka Sarge) who is leading the series. I'm on David's wheel. Perfect.

1 lap to go and I'm sitting in 6th wheel, Dave is in 4th wheel. Still perfect positioning for the 175m sprint.

1/2 lap and 2 turns to go and the crunch is on. People force themselves to the front. It's 9 wide on the back stretch. I hold a decent wheel.

1 turn to go, I lost 10 positions. I start my half-assed sprint and don't even try. 11th place...out of 22. One out of the money. Guess who won? Sarge won. Ugh.

What. The. Hell.

I've pretty much given myself an ultimatum. Start trying or quit bike racing. I don't care if I win or not, but if I'm not even going to try, why the hell should I even race?

Max heart rate, 92%, average of 83%. This was a "tempo" ride...

I adjusted my cleats and saddle so my hamstring hurts less. From now on, I will stop being a pansy. I will race my bike like I used to.

Day 3, Giro d'Grafton, 6/20

2009-06-21T20:18:00.002-05:00

I retract part of my previous post. The finishing accident was not caused by one of the brothers.

I love Grafton. I got 6th here last year, in my 3rd cat3 race ever. I knew how to win it. Today was relatively uneventful, though. Some attacks, some chasing, and a sprint to the finish. I doubt a breakaway will stick in this field, especially since it didn't stick at Blue Mounds.

Anyways, two laps to go was called and things heated up real fast. Come around again and didn't hear a bell. I didn't realize it at the time, but I chalked that up to being in the zone and focused on what I was doing. But, I later came to realize, it was the announcer's fault.

Average speed for the last lap was about 28mph and I was sitting really well in the field. Coming into the final turn, the guy in front of me apparently blew his load sprinting to get near the front because he never stood up to sprint. Shit. I got around him, started sprinting, held a wheel and was sitting around 5th (I think). 20m to go and the announcer screams "ONE LAP TO GO!" WHAT?! That was the sprint! I sat up, thinking I blew it. A bunch of people passed me and I got 9th place...only to realize that the announcer screwed up.

Sigh. I would probably have been top 5, but I don't think I would have won it. For some reason, I haven't been going hard at the end of the race when I really need to. I'm just being a pansy and not suffering. Max heart rate was only 93%...sigh. Major props to Chris Arndt for winning that one.

Overall, it was a slow race. 25mph, averaged 86% of my max HR, 86+ degree temperatures.

The good news is that there were no Padilla brothers, and nobody crashed. Not a huge coincidence...

Day 2, Waterloo Criterium 6/19/09

2009-06-20T20:19:00.007-05:00

WHAT A SHITTY RACE.

Two Guatemalan (?) brothers showed up to our cat3 race and took 1st and 2nd. That's totally cool if they deserved it...but one of them definitely didn't.

The course would have been great. It was a fun crit course with a small hill that had narrow pavement, then a fast left-right-left "S" turn that ended in a 400m sprint.

I was feeling good, so I went for a tire prime, but lost it after sprinting too early into a headwind. I misjudged that one...oops.

About 30 minutes into the race, I was sitting 4-wide on the far left side of the course, with 3 others to my right. Lets call me rider #4, the guy on my right #3, then #2, then #1 on the far right. Two riders came in flying on my left side (call them #5 and #6), with clearly not enough room, as the road quickly narrowed. The #5 guy directly to my left (IS Corp) started to bounce back and forth between the guy #6 on the far left and me. My bars got tangled between #3 and #5 and I caught air somehow. #6 peeled off to the left and hit the brakes in order to avoid the inevitable crash. Just then, #5 went with him, except OVER the bars. I somehow managed to stay up...somehow. Here is the aftermath of IS Corp #5. Ouch...I hope you're feeling alright and don't blame me for that one :(

I wonder where I got this from?

On the final lap, one of the brothers did something absolutely retarded. Before the "S" turn, he was sitting about 20th back -- too far to win the race. So, he sprinted into the turn while about 5 guys were already going through it in a normal apex fashion, basically dive-bombing it. He cut off a bunch of guys and forced a couple off the road. One guy hit the outside curb so hard that he flew over the bars and THROUGH two trees that were only separated by some 5 feet. Totally could have been paralyzed from that.

He did win the race in a close sprint. But, after putting his hands in the air, he swerved to one side, stuffing a rider into the metal fences...AFTER the finish line. The guy went down hard, landing on his shoulder, and sending him to the hospital with a broken collarbone. TWO CRASHES in less than 1/4 of a lap! WTF.

Average speed 26.3mph, I didn't sprint to a 9th place. I'm too pissed to talk about anything else, so here are some pictures I took from the P/1/2/3 women. Click on any picture to make it larger.

ToAD, Day 1: Blue Mounds Road Race

2009-06-19T09:15:00.006-05:00

It was a tough day, but not my hardest on the bike. Luckily, it was only a 44mi road race, which is was nothing compared to some of the 70-80mi road races during collegiate season. The 70mi road race was collegiate nationals in Colorado, so the climbing was brutal.

No doubt, the climbing here was brutal. There were 4 distinguished climbs:

Town climb onto County Road F (12%, 0.7mi)
Pinnacle Rd (13%, 0.6mi)
Blue Mounds (7-12% up and down, 3.7mi) -- the bad part is a solid 1.2mi
Mounds Park (14%, 0.8mi) -- Only done on the last lap, RIGHT after Blue Mounds, 4.5 straight miles of climbing!

This race had ~40 people, of which 28 finished. It was neutral through the Town Climb onto F (climb 1). All attacks right after neutral were too early and since it was followed by a 1.5mi descent, nothing happened. Everyone went hard up Pinnacle (climb 2), which shed a couple guys, but most people made it over. A couple 1-2 person breakaways formed, but there were enough of us who knew the course, so we never bothered to chase them. 1-2 guys will NOT survive on a course like this.

Blue Mounds (3) was terrible and a few people under estimated it's length. A couple strong guys knew it, so they hung back a little bit. The strong guys who didn't wound up cracking and falling back into the group.

But, it was definitely hard enough to split the field in half. 21 guys made it over together, and the rest of the group was off on their own. 10-12 guys abandoned on that climb. I hit 97% of my max HR and my stomach turned to stone. Eating was difficult after that.

Click for bigger image

The climb into town hurt (1) like hell, but everyone's legs hurt at that point, so we all stuck together. The people who didn't know the course realized its difficulty, so they went easy.

Pinnacle (2) was a huge attack that split the 21 guys in half again. I got caught up in the back, as a few masters riders had slipped into our field and didn't give it their all, creating a gap. WTF? When we got over Pinnacle, we all worked together to catch back onto the group.

Click for picture of me (I'm in orange)

Then came the final climb up Blue Mounds (3), followed by Mounds Park (4). I paced myself up Blue Mounds, a little too easy. I only hit 92% of my max HR, thinking I would slowly pick off the riders who cracked. Unfortunately, only a couple did. I made it to the top, hammered up Mounds Park with another rider, and then out sprinted him for 15th place. I only hit 92% of my max on that one, too, and 95% in the sprint.

Shit, I should have gone harder on the climbs the second time around. Oh well, I was still in the points! 15th place, 28 finishers, ~40 starters.

Stats:
44.15mi
20.3mph average (including an 8 mile (!!) neutral start)
81% average HR
4000ft of climbing

Standings (top 20):

David Paquette	40
Jacques Cartier	38
Julio Padilla Miranda	36
Curtis Bice	34
Waylon Janowiak	32
Al Urbanski	30
Mike Gratz	28
Jonathan Cook	26
Darrell Kohli	24
Chad Bishop	22
Garret McAllister	20
Marc Howe Team	18
William Champion	16
David Moyer	14
James Pradun	12
Henry Loud	10
Nicholas Frye	8
Justin Dyszelski	6
Daniel Penner	4
Chris Arndt	2

In the cat4's, Dave Ziehr from UW-Madison got 2nd.

In the P/1/2/3 women, Devon Haskell got 2nd.

In the Pro/1/2 field, Matt "Flip" Busche won by like 2 minutes over 2 Kelley Benefit Strategies riders. Frank Pipp (Bissel) was 4th, Guy East and Ryan Baumann (Trek-Livestrong) were 5th and 9th, respectively.

Matt Busche

Guy East

Steve Scholzen

Tour of America's Dairyland, Day 0

2009-06-17T22:07:00.006-05:00

Good news! I will do daily updates to my blog during the Tour of America's Dairyland. Exactly what is ToAD?

It's an 11 day series of 10 races. Here is the schedule and a short blurb on them:

June 18th: Blue Mounds, WI - I ride this area all the time. 44mi, the biggest hills in Wisconsin, and a 18-20% grade climb at the finish...after doing a 7min climb at 7-9%...twice. 100% guarantee that there will be a breakaway in some form. There won't be a peloton at the finish of this race. I'll be happy to break top 10...with the hopes of making top 15. Jon Cook will win this race. http://www.peloton-pix.com/ <--scroll down to the first video to see a preview.

June 19th: Waterloo, WI - Technical with a small leg-breaking hill in the course. Similar to the state crit championships, this one is sure to end in either a crash or a fast sprint.

June 20th: Grafton, WI - Grafton is SWEET. In my 3rd cat3 race ever, I took 6th place in a field sprint. Truly my style of course, and I hope I can win it this year.

June 21st: Manitowoc, WI - A short flat square that will end in a field sprint or a crash. Hopefully the former.

June 22nd: Rest Day

June 23rd: Fond du Lac, WI - 60mi road race through a 10.5mi/lap rolling terrain. The biggest hill is about 50 feet high. Should come down to a nice field sprint.

June 24th: Fond du Lac, WI - 60min crit in a super short, flat, 4 course crit. It's clockwise, which probably means there will be a few crashes. Cat3's don't know how to turn right.

June 25th: Sheboygan, WI - Another crit, medium-length, clockwise. Another sprint finish, for sure.

June 26th: Greenbush, WI - Almost identical to the UW-Milwaukee collegiate road race. A couple short, steep kickers with an uphill finish. Not my style of course, but it's super-fast. Will there be a break? Probably not. But, this probably has the second best possibility (outside of Blue Mounds).

June 27th: Milwaukee, WI - Downer's Ave, borrowed from Superweek. I crashed here last year on the first lap on the straightaway because some buffoon went down and took out the whole field. Here is the only picture I will have of myself in cyclingnews.

June 28th: Waukesha, WI - I don't remember this, but it was in SuperWeek last year. Should be another fast one coming down to a sprint.

Look for the updates starting tomorrow!

WI state criterium championships, 6/13/09

2009-06-14T13:02:00.006-05:00

I made the mistake on Friday. 1.5hrs of recovery riding with 5x30sec intervals in the mix. The problem is that this was my first sprint workout.

Background:
You see, I've always been a sprinter. I've always been naturally good at it. As a change for this season, I followed the advice to, "train your weaknesses, race your strengths." So I did lots of tempo, threshold, and long aerobic intervals. I limited my anaerobic and VO2max efforts to the ones that naturally occurred in the early-season collegiate races. Not a bad idea. This amounted to about 2-10min of anaerobic work per week, and 30min of VO2max per week..depending on how hard the races were, the work I did, and if I was racing at all.

I then reduced my VO2max/"build" phase from 4 to 2 weeks. I completely eliminated anaerobic work and sprint workouts, hoping that racing would get me into enough shape.

Last week, while still pushing far over-reaching, I managed to crank out an impressive 60sec power. Great news since I haven't been working my anaerobic capacity at all.

On to the race:
A 60min crit with a small kicker that lasted about 20 seconds. I felt awesome the whole race. I could go with all hard efforts; I kept up with everyone up the short hill and when everyone slowed down, I was able to keep going and push forward over the hill.

The down side: those Friday intervals hurt, a lot. In the end, my sprint was just "average" with the stronger cat3 riders. The upside: I can be stronger getting into position for the sprint.

Anyways, I got stuck behind someone who didn't jump coming out of the corner. I came around him and then got guttered during the sprint. Oh well, my taper is going perfectly for the Tour of America's Dairyland. That's the important one.

Pictures:
I also inherited a Nikon DSLR, so I started dabbling in photography. Here is my album:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jpradun/

WI state road race championship, 6/7/09

2009-06-07T17:46:00.004-05:00

Today was a great race through Spring Prairie, WI. Great, but not worth the $32 for preregistration...

Anyways, fFor the cat3's, it was a 65mi race with 6.5mi long laps, plus a neutral rollout. The course was slightly rolling, so a big ring was used the whole way -- except for the feature climb. The short, 1min long, steep hill that went creeped its way to 14% at the top, followed by a 100-150m jaunt (false flat?) to the finish line. Including neutral roll-out, we had to do this hill 11 times. Ow.

Needless to say, I decided last week that this road race would just be training for my Tour of America's Dairyland (TOAD) peak. My fat ass thinks sprinting is way more fun than steep, hilltop finishes.

I sat in the top 10 the whole race while attack after attack happened. I found myself, at lap 6, in a strong break. With a strong chance of sticking it out, the 6 man break was slowly reduced to 3 of us, then back up to about 50 of us as we were caught. No one wanted to work by the time we were down to 3...including me.

So, back we went. XXX was off the front all day (65mi breakaway at RR state champs? hah). It was funny until the last lap when Luke (chicagobikeracing) went off the front with another guy. Everyone in the field looked at each other like they had just heard a duck's quack echo or something because there were a mass of confusing stares over who the hell was going to chase. The general concensus was to just shoot for 3rd place.

Me? I was just happy I made it over that damn hill more than once. I cramped up really bad (in 4 different places on my legs, wtf?) on the last lap so could only pull out a 12th in the "field sprint" for 14th overall.

Crit championship next weekend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nationals Pictures!

2009-05-14T10:39:00.006-05:00

The final stretch before the start/finish line. 2nd pre-ride day.

Kitting up, making sure the numbers are on right.

Sunset from my hotel room.

D2 crit, early breakaway.

Post-race 3hr ride.

The lurking mountain.

Base of the climb.

AWESOME!

This is where they dropped me and put on 30sec almost instantly.

ciao!

Day 5 - Collegiate nationals criterium

2009-05-13T22:09:00.003-05:00

75 minutes of extremely fast racing with about 120 people left no time for just about anything.

The course this year was better than last, so I am told. Apparently, turn 1 had been fixed, which wasn't saying much. It was still very bumpy and the road narrowed from 3 lanes to one before opening back up to 2 lanes, then 4 lanes.

It was a long course, about 0.9mi/lap AND HOLY SHIT IT WAS FAST.

We averaged about 29.5mph for the race. After a hard 70mi road race the day before, plus being at 5000ft, this was pretty much torture on my legs. Luckily, I held on.

It started out with a 5 lap sprint, ended in a 5 lap sprint and only 2 laps were below 26mph. My sprint was a "whopping" 35mph -- which is ultra slow. Good enough to pass a couple people, but not good enough to win if I were at the front. The reason is because I hit 35mph four different times in the race. I hit 33mph another 12 times. No breakaways stuck..the closest one was with 5 laps to go, before Univ. of Vermont quickly pulled it back and set up their sprinter.

What goes through your mind when you are at the front and think that it would be fun to drive the pace to a nearly 30mph average?

Anyways, I was far too tired and sore during the race to move up very much. In the end, I think we dropped some 35 or so people. I finished 57th, right behind Kip Spaude from Lindsey Wilson and Adam Leibovitz (took 3rd in the RR) from Marian College. Dallas finished 27th, Jon Cook dropped out. Frye couldn't start because we were only allowed 3 starting spots.

After that, a bunch of us went on a group ride. 3 cat3s, 2 cat 2s, the rest cat1, plus 2 guys I don't know. 3 Purdue, 3 Michigan, 1 IIT, 1 CU-Boulder, 2 guys I didn't know (locals?), and me. We went up some massive 11mi climb that topped out at 8000ft. A local said was nearly exact to the Pyrenees. Sweet!

I'll post a ton of pictures in the next day or two.

Nationals Day 3 and 4

2009-05-08T20:31:00.003-05:00

Day 3 just involved studying, checking in, and a short ride on teh 2nd half of the course.

Day 4 was the 70mi road race with a couple pros, 1s, 2s, and 3s. The "neutral" rollout wasn't very neutral. It was a sprint right from the start and lots of fighting for position and wheels. 2 miles after the rollout ended, the first crash of the day happened right in front of Frye and me. The road narrowed, people got squeezed, and went down in front of me. The two of us slammed on our brakes and forced ourselves around it, so we didn't go down!

The first hill was about 2 min long and didn't shell anyone. The second one was 9.5mi into the race and extremely difficult. It was about 5min long and kicked up to 14% at the end...and everyone went hard the whole way up. Most of us got dropped, I hit 98% of my max HR and held it for almost a minute. When I got to the top, someone pulled over and started throwing up on the side of the road. I almost joined him.

There were 4 groups after that, and I was in the 3rd. It took us another 30mi to catch the 2nd group...right during the feed. We turned into the 30+mph headwind and there was an attack...and that was the end of most of us.

We had a group of 20 that took it almost to the finish. We slowed to about 12mph at mile 55 and someone would attack and he would get past. This happened 4 times before I attacked with another guy. We held it for about 6-7mi before getting caught on an uphill when the group finally decided to work together.

And off the back I went. There were only 3 of us left, and we took it to the finish line. I won the sprint of the 3 of them, and finished 75th.

Dallas got 41st, I got 75th, Frye was told not to head to the finish line because the next race was starting? He still got to finish. Jon Cook had a bad day, an asthma attack, and dropped after about 15min into the race.

We're going out to dinner, so I'll post pictures later.

Nationals: travels (day 1 & 2 of 6) -- LOTS of pics!

2009-05-06T19:58:00.015-05:00

Tuesday 5/5/09:

Kelley Hess, Jon Cook, and I headed to Colorado after classes. Hit up a coffee shop and started our 14hr trek to Fort Collins, home of Colorado State University.

After driving for some 9+hrs (10ish after stops), we finally stopped in Kearney, Nebraska. Home of the...well, who the hell knows what Nebraska is good for. Anyways, we passed out for 5hrs, showered real fast and left for the second leg of the trip.

The most noteable thing in Nebraska?

Wednesday 5/6/09:
Luckily, we only had to travel 5hrs today. We left around 9am CST and got here at 1:30pm MST after stopping for lunch at Chipotle. We did see one of the craziest things. 10 seconds before we hit where 80 and 25 crossed, we looked across our lane and a semi-trailer had flipped over. There was smoke everywhere and the tires on the truck were still moving. Some people slammed on their brakes and went to help the drive. Holy crap! It was ultra windy, so he probably took the turn too fast, caught a burst of wind, and blew him over. That was nuts.

A hill! Oh wait, this is Wyoming. Whatever.

I see mountains!!!

We got the the hotel in Ft. Collins, checked in, pulled up the road route, and then drove to the Hilton -- the official hotel for collegiate nationals. We can't afford it, so we just drove there so we could ride our bikes to the course.

And, that we did. We rode the 1mi or whatever it was and hit up the first half of the course. It's hilly. Like, really hilly. Two guys from UC-Davis caught up to us and rode for a little bit. One of them was no other than Adam Switters, who rode for Rock Racing for 2 years before going back to school. Apparently, he has a teammate from Bissell (Paul Mach) who is suppose to be stronger. Those are just 2 of the pros racing this weekend.

There were 2 fast downhills, and it was a breeze hitting 45mph without pedaling or trying. Cook says the downhills will be closer to 55-60mph during the race. One of them has a 60 degree turn at the bottom. AWESOME.

Anyways, even during warmup I am suffering. We're at 6100+ feet, and I can really feel the altitude. I think my heart rate at one point was at 95% of my max during the warmup. During the race...this will suck. We ended the ride after 1.5hrs so as not to induce too much fatigue.

Tomorrow we will preview the 2nd half of the course. In the mean time, I will work on drowning myself with 2 gallons of water. It's too easy to become dehydrated here.

Peace!

Day 6 - Blue Ridge Mountains, Day 7

2009-04-15T15:31:00.006-05:00

OW. BRRR. OW. That's pretty much it for Blue Ridge Mountains.

After driving about an hour to get to the base of the first (of 3) climbs, we unloaded into F-ing cold weather. It was around 35 degrees at the start. Much of the first climb is in shadows, and elevation changes from 2200 to 5800ft.

I went up and down the first 2 climbs. I started up the 3rd, but was too tired and didn't want to kill myself any more than I already was. I turned back around and headed home. It still wound up being a 4hr ride, and I went further than last year despite being (arguably) more tired.

I raced up the first part with Brian Stoveken, hammering it the whole time. We descended, and started up the 2nd climb. We were sort of confused because there was no food/water/support at the top like there was last year...and was promised this year. Oh well, carry on.

2 minutes after we start climbing the second portion, the Pain Train is in sights behind us. Brian delayed the inevitible, while I gladly sat up and waited. We eventually caught Brian. I kept up for awhile and decided to take it easy, so I sat up after about 7 minutes of climbing.

I got to the top about 5min after the pain train, and by the time I was ready to go again, they had a 2min head start down an 8mi descent. So, I bombed it as hard as I could, catching them right at the bottom of the 3rd climb. That's basically when I called it quits.

Day 7 I went on a nice recovery ride. Well, it was nice for the first 20 minutes. Then, my knee started to really bother me. I turned around after 30min and cruised at 10mph back home. It REALLY hurt by the end. Shit... After that, we goofed around, lit a fire, and hung out.

Oh yeah, I have a confession: I walked the climb back to the cabin. My first time ever walking a hill. Ugh. With that being said, I sat out the next 2 weeks with tendonitis.

Flying my RC helicopter.

Oliver (photographer) was amazed, haha.

Since that concludes my spring break, I now get to start blogging about collegiate season. Look forward in the next couple days for me to go over some awesome races!

On the way to Cherohala, yesterday.

Day 5 - Cherohala

2009-04-09T10:09:00.006-05:00

Just as a reminder, all of my pictures are click-able to blow them up.

Sorry for so many delays, but I'm trying! I've been ultra busy with school.

Cherohala was just as epic as last year. I started with the Freshie Pain Train, led by a few cat1s. It was mellow 30mi ride to the base of the climb, after which we stopped for a pee and food break, then hammered up the top.

I took a long video with my new video camera, so I will try to get some of that uploaded, soon.

It wound up being ~1hr to 1hr 15min climb from 1997ft to 5400ft over 13 miles. All but a few minutes were solo because I had gotten dropped by most people, and a couple fell back behind me.

The whole team regrouped at the top to take a team photo. We dressed for the extremely cold descent -- putting on rain jackets, 3 long sleeved jerseys, leg warmers and tights, neoprene booties, and winter gloves. I went down the slope with our German exchange student, Hendrik. We averaged 42mph for the 13mi, with a max speed of 48mph. Now if only I could do that on the flats...

We regrouped at the bottom and stripped back down to shorts and arm warmers and continued to finish our ride. It was our century day, so we headed towards Stecoah Gap, which topped out at 3155ft and averaged ~9% gradient for 2.5 miles. It was a long drag -- about 5mi of 2-3% gradient before kicking up. We went home and finished at 95mi, so I rode around for 5mi to make it the full 100mi. Awesome.

Afterwards, Hendrik and I joined a couple people to do a cold bath on the legs in the 40 degree water.

You have no idea.

Hendrik knows how cold it is.

Dip #2 of 3. It doesn't get any better until you're completely numb.

Day 3 and 4 - rest

2009-03-28T10:06:00.003-05:00

Day 3 was just a rest day -- and easy (as easy as you can get when you leave on top of a mountain) 2hr recovery ride. We went a whopping 26mi in 2hrs, including some 40mph downhills.

Day 4 - Backside of Wayah
I LOVE THE BACKSIDE OF WAYAH! After it rained the first 3 days, we finally got to ride in sunshine. Shorts and a short sleeve jersey, baby! Maybe that's why I liked it so much. That, and it's a sweet climb.

The route to the backside is really nice with some cool scenery. Dave, Rachel, Yvonne, and I headed out together. Yvonne scheduled a rest day, so she turned around after about 30min. The route averages about 1-2% for 35 miles, with a few (read: many) kickers around 9% gradient. Then, the real climb comes.

It is a 7-8mi climb (depending where you start it) that averages ~11% with one "shallow" section of 9%. It's just a 45min suffer fest, really. It has some awesome switchbacks, and just keeps going up and up. I love this climb!

After finally reaching the top, you bomb your way down a 15min descent, climb for 10 min, descent for 5 min, climb for 15 min, and descend for 45min. No news after that, except that I did a dip in the 40 degree river! Woo!

Day 2 - Fontana Dammmmm

2009-03-27T11:17:00.003-05:00

Backing up to yesterday to show how hard I went, here is my HR data. It was a 2x15min effort, killing myself up to 97% of my max HR. Bad idea to start out this week.

Last night, Freshie Steve Scholzen posted a ride through Fontana Dam with an add-on up the back side of Tuskeegee Rd. It was an 82mi ride through the prettiest areas (imo) we ride through, followed by the hardest climb (to me) in the area. It was a light rain all day, with some points definitely soaking wet; rain jackets for the whole ride…again.

So, the “Freshie Pain Train” left at 10:30 cycling time (=11:00am) doing the reverse direction of what I did last year. The first 60 miles were great – there were a few stragglers, and poor Julio just didn’t have the legs, so he was suffering. There were a couple hard climbs. One at Fontana Dam was 8mi long and 8% average, with a 15% kicker at the end. No doubt this was a hard one.

At mile 60, 3 guys (including Julio) left for the easier way home – a constant ~3% grade for 25mi – while the rest of us hit Tuskeegee in reverse. I, for some reason, hit a wall. I was getting dropped from then on whenever the road turned upwards. My legs were killing me and my heart rate was sky rocketing over everything. I definitely rode too hard yesterday.

The good news is that Tuskeegee backwards is a lot easier than forwards. It was about 1 mile total and “only” ~16% average gradient. It was, however, much more constant; there were no switchbacks at 24% this time. Despite being trashed, I still made it up without walking…though the thought definitely crossed my mind a few times. Don’t think it was easy – much of it was at 40 cadence and 3mph while in my 39x25, and 93% of my max HR. The ride down the front side was scary as hell. I think I completely melted my brake pads.

After that climb, the rest of the ride didn’t seem so bad, though there was one really steep hill that nearly rivaled Tuskeegee, except much, much shorter.

CTL is now 72, up 10 points in 2 days. Nice!

Saturday, March 14, 2009 CAR ACCIDENT!

2009-03-15T18:36:00.001-05:00

We left Friday at 1:30pm CST and arrived at 4:45am EST (~14hrs). It only took three driver changes, which twice made me the driver. Lots easier than the 20hrs to Austin.

On the ride here, we stopped for gas somewhere in Kentucky at about 12am. We got back on the same entrance and there were about 50 cars and semis parked in the middle of the road, on the shoulder, in the ditch. No cop cars, ambulances, or fire trucks. A few people were running around through the median of the expressway. There was a bad accident – one car was a complete pancake while an SUV was trashed, and a semi had damage on the side of it. In a 3 lane express way, they blocked the left most lane/left shoulder. The middle lane was full of debris and people, and the far right shoulder was stopped with cars and trucks – many of them out of the car. On the other side of the road, tons of cars were stopped and people were standing on the highway.

It happened no more than 5 minutes early – exactly when we would have been driving through there. We could have been the ones in the accident. Holy crap. We skirted our way through the debris – car parts were scattered in every lane for hundreds of feet. A dozen or so people were surrounding the drivers door of the smashed car – not looking horribly concerned, which was hopefully a good indication that nobody died.

As we drove further through the debris, a semi on the other side of the road was jackknifed and sideways in a ditch, blocking the far right lane. Our window was down when we suddenly heard tires screeching on the other side – an SUV driver who wasn’t paying attention was in the process of doing a 360, spinning out. When we finally cleared the junk in the road a few hundred feet later, a First Response truck was just showing up, and then a firetruck. Wow.

The groups that left at 3:30pm and 6:00pm said the highway was closed and they were detouring all cars. It was closed for at least 4 hours.

When we finally got in at quarter til 5am, we found some random beds to sleep in, and passed out for 3 hours before the day’s ride left. I pulled an all-nighter in the car while everyone else slept. Awesome. We did Winding Stairs Rd and then the front side of Wayah Rd, an ~10mi climb. It was raining all day, with temps in the low 40s. I broke a shifter cable and had to do a few 7% climbs in the 39x12. A few dogs chased, which made it all the more exciting. A couple people went hard, so I tried following. There were a few 10-15min intervals above FTP. I definitely went WAY too hard today…dumb mistake. I’ll just take an extra recovery day, and I should be OK.

Pre-Spring Break Stats:
CTL: 62
TSB: +19
Notes: Didn’t ride for last 6 days. 3 midterms, hw, and a project due this week.

Today’s Stats:
3.5hrs, IF=0.81, TSS=230, CTL=66, TSB = -2

MWCCC, Murray State 2/28-3/1

2009-03-10T12:50:00.006-05:00

This weekend was at Murray State in Murray, KY. It was raining off-and-on all day, which made some races dry, and some soaking wet.

My race was 64mi long over 4 laps (16mi/lap), so you can guess the weather we got to experience. That's right, ALL OF IT. 35 and hail up to 40 and sunny. Most of the time, it was just rain.

This was my first A's race. That's P/1/2/3. Luckily, no pros this race, but a couple guys who will go pro. I was aggressive and got into a few breaks right away, but none stuck. We had 5 guys in the race, one of them took 3rd overall at nationals/2nd in the crit. He was our man, but our only goal was to get someone in every break so that we could at least finish at the top.

After many attacks, 3 people got up the road by about 60 seconds. Strong guys, but too many teams not represented in the break for it to last. The most promising break came with about 30mi to go. It started as a chase with 5 people. Unfortunately, I was one of them.

We averaged 28mph for 10 minutes. OWWWWWWW. One person was dropped after 5 minutes, while another random guy bridged up to us, keeping it at 5 people. After 10min, I couldn't pull through, so I sat on the other wheels.

Apparently, this pissed off one really strong rider from Marian. So, he attacked our break and soloed to the other 3 people who were now only about 20 seconds ahead. WTF, how do you attack a 28mph break and make it stick?! He eventually won the race, but screw those details.

We slowed down since he was basically the powerhouse of the break and eventually got caught after our 15min was up. Getting caught was my favorite part of the race.

Fast forward to about 20 miles to go and there was a crash in front of me. I narrowly missed it, but had to drop a foot. One dude went to the hospital with most of his kneecap missing. Eck. I tried catching back to the peloton for the next 5min, but they would get 200m away and then someone would attack. Finally, someone from the crash bridged up to me and we worked together to finally rejoin the group. By "we," I mean mostly him since I was gassed from that breakaway.

With 1 lap and 16mi to go, it started to hail. I had taken my sunglasses off because it was dark and they were fogging from the temperature and rain changes. The hail hurt, so I went to put them back on my head...and out of my hand they fell.

Crap.

I stopped to pick them up and did a 14mi solo ride to the start line to finish in 19th place. Yes, 19th place. Of the 60+ people who started, only 25 finished, including a few people I passed who got flats, and the few who survived the crash.

I averaged 22mph for the whole race. While I was in the group, we averaged about 24mph. A few people took pictures and they said they would get them to me for spring break, which is in 2 days!!! I'll post them soon.

Day 4 - Palo Alto, CA

2009-03-06T10:46:00.006-06:00

Today we finally got to watch the race. It was cool. Even cooler was the ride beforehand.

With rain ALL FRIGGEN DAY, it was one for the storybooks. At least it was 55-60 degree rain. So, we drove 3.5 hours Occidental, CA, passing through the golden gate bridge. We eventually got to see the end of stage 1 of the Amgen Tour of California.

Anyways, we got to Occidental, which is a really crappy town. It was pouring, Ryan was having bike problems, and we got a late start. Nick decided to drive behind us and take the day off. So we instantly climbed up a massive hill without a warmup, in the rain. Did I mention it was in the rain? That sucked.

But as soon as we got to the top, it stopped raining. We descended, took off our rain gear, and had flat terrain for the rest of the day. We rode along the Pacific ocean, enjoying some amazing views. We had a tailwind for much of the ocean section, so it was no problem averaging 25mph.

Ryan started to get tired, as he was on day 5 and had an extra day of riding before I got there. He decided to pack up and go to the car; they wanted to head to the stage. Since the race didn't start for awhile, I asked if I could just motorpace it for awhile. They said sure.

So, we motorpaced. It took about 15min of Nick dropping me after thinking I could somehow manage 35mph the whole time, even on uphills. Eventually, he figured me out and we were able to continue for another 30 minutes, for a total of 45min of motorpacing.

It was badass. We averaged 30mph, and I totally killed myself doing it. After awhile, my legs started shaking and I just couldn't turn the pedals anymore. By then, it started pouring again and I was soaked and cold. I felt p-r-o for 45min, haha. I packed it in, got dressed, and we drove to the finish line for the end of stage 1.

We got there just in time. There was absolutely no parking, and the crowd was 3 deep around the circuit course -- in the pouring rain! Right as we found our spot in the least crowded area, the riders JUST started to come through for the first of 3 laps. Nice!

Landis attacked off the peloton, but was caught.

Mancebo was off the front. Nibali from LiquiGas and another rider were able to bridge, but Mancebo took the sprint from the 3 man break, winning the stage.

Right before Mancebo was caught, he was enjoying himself with the spectators. One of the guys across the street loudly cheered at him with a "woo!" and Mancebo yelled "woo!" right back at the guy, much to the amusement of everyone around us. I caught a picture while he was doing it.

Day 3 - Palo Alto, CA

2009-03-06T10:20:00.003-06:00

I feel really bad I haven't updated this when I said I would. I will try to do so more often, especially now that collegiate season started!

Day 3 involved seeing the Saturday pre-ToC race that was open to a lot of people. I forgot where we were at, but it was only a few miles from the base of Mount Hamilton. So what would any logical cyclist do? Skip the 45min crit and go ride to the top of the mountain!!!

We were joined by two other people, who are both Norcal locals. One previously lived in the Milwaukee area before moving, which is how we knew them for the ride.

So we climbed, and climbed, and it never really ended. I don't remember much except that the 3rd part of the pass was closed, so we could only do the first 2 passes. So I did the 2nd pass twice. I also remember that they were basically intervals, and that the two cat3 locals were basically toying with me up the mountain. The riding out there is at least a category difference. A cat3 there is a cat2 here. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

We came back just in time to see the start of the P/1/2 women field, with a $5000 purse. We cheered for Madeline, but it was her first race of the season, the beginning of her training camp, and she unfortunately got dropped. More on that in my first collegiate season post. So we stopped cheering and went inside to eat at a burger joint through the mens P/1/2 race as it started to get cold by then.

And finally, I didn't take this picture, but this was from the top:

Courtesy Michael Svihura, http://www.svihura.com. Visit his site for awesome pics.

Day 2 - Palo Alto, CA

2009-02-14T23:25:00.011-06:00

The weather decided to be bipolar today. Apparently, God got bored at work and decided to mess with California. The forecast was for rain all day, starting like, yesterday and all the way through next week. The hourly forecast looked like this:

8am: rain, 9am: rain, 10am: rain, 11am: rain, 12pm: rain, 1pm: rain...etc

So we head out the door at 10:45am and there are a couple white clouds, but mostly blue skies. Wtf? Anyways, it was really nice out and we all commented how we overdressed.

Off we went, first to Palo Alto Bicycles to pick up a new rain jacket and rear tire for Nick (he flatted yesterday). Ryan picked up gloves. Most of the clothing here was in the $200-300 price range. Assos vest? $240. Decent bibs? $250. Their cheapest bike was about $3000, most expensive in the $15k+ range, and random Lightweight wheels scattered around the store -- $4500-$6500/pr. They told us a good route that we could take that was only about 30mi long, but stayed close to home. I didn't think there was enough climbing, so I changed it a bit and made sure we went up at least one mountain.

So we left, and this time there were still blue skies and a random white cloud or two. Except, it was raining. Like, not a sprinkle, but rain. How does rain fall from blue skies?

And we continued to Kings Mountain Rd. It's a ~30min climb that is steeper than Old La Handa. I liked it a lot. It was prettier, as there were a couple openings to see across the surrounding city. After giving Nick and Ryan a head start while I took off my rain coat, I killed myself up this climb. I think I did it in 26min. Using online formulas to check for average power, it was around 3.9w/kg the whole it. Not bad considering my legs were tired.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it stopped raining while we climbed, and 30+mph winds came through.

We descended down Skyline for 10min at around 40mph. It was great, minus the winds that nearly blew me off the bike a few times. At the bottom, I went to take off my new Trek rain jacket. Note that this is the first time I'm wearing it. I look down and the zipper broke! What's worse is that it's a "fancy" zipper, and will only go up and not down. There's a little lock on the inside that the pull tab releases in order to go down. So I ripped it off...that is definitely going back to the Trek store.

Continue with our trip for another 2 miles and we were getting hungry. It was around 5pm, so we stopped at a grocery store to get some deli sandwiches (Chicken Chipotle Panini!). We take nearly 30min cause the people behind the counter sucked. We finally walk outside and...

You guessed it, pouring rain. Like, pouring-pouring rain. Within 5min the rain had seeped down my tights, through my booties, and soaked my socks and shoes. Thank God for that Trek jacket....sigh.

So instead of continuing for another 2hrs like we wanted, we just went home to shower and dry off.

Yes, mountain. Ow.
Max speed: 40.1
Avg HR: 69%
Avg HR for 25min climb: 87%
Avg power (calculated): ~250 (took it easy with pictures)
Total time: 3hrs 20min

I'll post as much as I can. This is hell week for me.

Day 1 - Palo Alto, CA

2009-02-13T20:20:00.005-06:00

Preface:

Ryan (L) and Nick (R) both rode for me (C) on Endeavour for the 2008 cat3 season.

Current CTL: 65
Current TSB: 0

Today was a nice day for riding. With a chance of rain, temps in the 50s, but mostly sunny -- it was looking great. I was able to borrow a friend of a friend's roommate's bike. Ha! Basically, Ryan's friend has a roommate who is letting me borrow it. Anyways...it's a sweet Scandium bike with dura-ace. Really light, really twitchy. It has a 25mm front tire and 23mm rear, which is awkward to get used to, having never ridden 25's.

So, off we headed down (or shall I say, up) Old La Handa Rd. Unfortunately, my Garmin was set to auto-pause if I went under 4mph. Which I did. A lot.

Anyways, I got to the top in 20min. I didn't know that, according to Mike (Cruzer2424), 20min is what most people shoot for, 18min is a decent time, and 15min is what the pros do it in. If I would have known people track their times, I would have tried a lot harder and not stopped to take pictures (that didn't all turn out). I think I'll go back before I leave.

We descended for a solid 15min because the roads were still soaked from an earlier rain -- and no sun gets through the forest part. Pine needles + wet roads + borrowed bike = not good. Anyways, I took some super-safe, sweet pictures on the way down as the roads got dry.

Pic from backside of Old La Handa Rd.

We kept riding down La Handa, and then rode up the Pacific coast for awhile -- stopping for some pics at the beach. We back tracked, stopped at a convenience store, and missed Floyd Landis by 20min. Damn! But we did see a few cyclists out on the roads. Two women and a guy came up, and one of the ladies rode pro for Tibco "before getting pregnant and having a baby." Note to self: no babies...

The reason it's called the Gold Coast.

To prove I was there :p

So we continued to Tunitas Creek, which is the first mountain in stage 2 of the Amgen Tour of California. It started to get really cold, but the climb made it warm up quickly. By the time I got to the top, 45min later, it was raining. The other two guys, Ryan and Nick, both joined me some minutes later...we were lost. Two iPhones and two Garmin GPSs and we didn't know where to go.

I think this is Tunitas Creek on the way down at the top. Who cares, its pretty :)

Lo and behold, who shows up? That guy and two women who were both heading back near the Stanford Campus. By the way, Stanford is beautiful and I'm going to law school there. I hope. I digress. They let us follow them home. The only problem is that I was waiting at the top for 25min before we left...in the rain. I was freezing and couldn't feel my fingers. Take that, 40mph rain-descents!

OMG I WANT TO LIVE HERE! Why couldn't it have been like this later in the ride. Oh yeah,
Landis was here 20 minutes ago.

We finally made it to the ground where it decided to stop raining. Which was great, because as we were going to turn and ride more, it started raining again. WTF?

Anyways, here are the usual stats:
20min up Old La Handa Rd (rumor has it, this is approximately a 60min 40K ITT)
45min up Tunitas Creek
Total time: 4.5hrs
Total dist: 65mi
Avg speed: 14.7
Max speed: 39mph

I don't have a power meter, but here are the estimates:
Norm power: 203 watts (IF: 0.72)
TSS: 233
Current CTL: 69
Current TSB: -18

I'll post lots of pics tonight. Sorry for the delays!

Pics are posted from the past 3 days!
http://flickr.com/photos/jpradun

Day 0 - Palo Alto, California

2009-02-12T10:29:00.005-06:00

Itinerary:
4:15p-5:15p: Madison to O'Hare
7:35p-10:45p: O'Hare to San Francisco

I now remember why I hate traveling on planes. I got to my gate after getting to the airport at 3pm for my 4:15p flight (security was quick!). No delays were posted until I got there and the new scheduled departure time was at 6:15p. That would put me into the airport at 7:15 and 20min to catch my next flight...cutting it very close.

10min later and they changed the departure to 7:15 and that was the end of that. The guy from United was cool, though, and sent me on Northwest Airlines to Minneapolis, then to SFO, arriving at 11:15pm PST.

Enough with the boring stuff. There were two awesome guys on the plane to SFO sitting next to me. One was a middle-40s dad with two teenage kids, raised in white-suburbia. Another was a mid-30s puerto rican guy raised in Humboldt Park (Chicago) back when it was truly ghetto.

We talked the whole way about everything. Sports, bikes, people, etc. The mid-30s guy had like 6 mini-Skyy Vodkas and Pepsi. Then he bought all 3 of us a round. And then, another round. Holy crap!

I'd love to tell you stories of what we talked about because most of the time we were laughing. But, I don't remember much at all.

Anyways, 11:15pm and my flight lands. Ryan and Nick, both former teammates from Endeavour, picked me up. We went to his Aunt's house, which is where I will stay for the next few days. This place is sweet. Their architect-son helped design it -- everything is modern. It's been featured in a few magazines for its beauty, functionality, and overall awesomeness. I'll try getting pictures later.

Until then, be ready for the tons of pics and stories from my rides!

I lied, I will be updating my blog!

2009-01-23T08:43:00.002-06:00

It won't be every day, but I will be updating my blog soon. I am going to the Tour of California for 4 days (Feb 12-15th) and maybe riding a lot down there. Why am I going? Like it's that hard to figure out :)

It's fun
It's warm
I get to watch a pro cycling race
I get to go further west than Austin, TX (never been west before)
I get to ride my bike...outside...in California

So I will take lots of pictures, ride lots, hopefully get some autographs or at least relax for a few days. My blog will be updated when I get home, as I won't have a computer while there.

James

Poof goes the laptop

2009-01-22T12:15:00.003-06:00

I may not post again until collegiate season, which starts the last weekend of February. This is due to two reasons:

1. School, work, riding obligations. There's lots of it now, nothing much is happening in my life.

2. My laptop went "poof." Well, I'm not sure, exactly. It won't charge when I plug it in, and the tech guy at my school said it is either the connection to the motherboard or the power adapter. The good news is that it could be only my power adapter, which will save me the cost of a new laptop. The bad news is that I almost lit my apartment on fire when the adapter started throwing sparks everywhere after burning through the wire.

I'm not sure I will tell anyone about my training or numbers from now on. We'll see, though. I'm super-anxious for spring break, though. 7 more weeks! :(

James

Winter training camp totals

2009-01-16T19:58:00.008-06:00

The numbers are somewhat staggering, and I learned a lot about me and my body. Here are some overall stats:

Total ride time: 35hrs 15min
Total distance: 600mi
Total kJ/Calories: ~18,000
Total TSS: 1708
Total Ascent (climbing): ~30,000ft

Max wattage: 1359 watts
Max Speed: 51.0mph
Average IF (Intensity Factor): 0.69
Average Speed: 16.8mph (including recovery rides)
CTL Ramp Rate: +21
Highest TSB (training stress balance): -69! Holy shit!

What did I learn? My break point for over-reaching is about -60 TSB. After this, I get sick. I can hit -69 TSB fairly easily while still being (relatively) strong, but afterwards I will be trashed. What's this mean? I can do 2 4.5hr rides, a recovery ride, and then 4 more 4.5-6hr rides before getting sick -- or approximately 15,000 Calories in a week. This is higher total TSS (training stress score) than the first week in the Tour de France, but lower overall stress. The difference is that the pros have a higher threshold power, so averaging 200 watts for 5hrs is a lot less stressful on them than it is on me -- thus, a lower TSS. In other words, ~85mi for me is ~105mi for them.

I uploaded 34 new pictures to my flickr account for you to look at, taken from Lindsey's camera.
http://flickr.com/photos/jpradun/

Thanks for reading! I will start my blog again the last weekend of February for the start of collegiate season. Nationals this year, baby!!!

A 10min hill we found in a suburb close to our hotel. It averaged 6%, and I was pacing a truck going 40+mph on the way down. The truck had a sweet road bike in the cab and he was waving out the rear window :)

Austin, TX training camp, day 8, 9 and beyond.

2009-01-14T12:49:00.004-06:00

Finally, my computer is back up and things have slowed down around the apartment. I'll try to write this in present tense, so apologies if it comes out as past tense.

Day 8:
Today was a nice 2hr spin to clear out the legs. I would like to call it a recovery ride, but it was the hardest 120-150 watts I've ever had to put out. A few of us just cruised around the area, looking at some massive, gated homes and expensive communities. I didn't take any real pictures, as it was basically stuff we've already seen. In 2hrs, we only covered 25mi with an average HR of 59%. That's right, not even 13mph and I was dying. The great news is that we went to two awesome places: KirkLee bikes and the Salt Lick BBQ.

Brad Cason invited us to peek in his garage to see how KirkLee bikes are made. Joel, Orion, Tim, Lindsey, and I went to check it out. I can't tell all the secrets, and pictures were not allowed, but it was awesome. He starts by designing the bikes in SolidWorks (I get to learn the program this semester, sweet!) and sending it off the have Easton make the tubes to spec. After receiving the tubes, he wraps his own "lugs" (not really lugs, though) using a tube-to-tube method. In the end, he bakes it and is left with a super-strong and super-lightweight frame. He can either than paint it (simple jobs) or send it out for custom, fancy work. His wife's bike is going to a handmade show tomorrow (Sunday).

After that, all eight of us went to Salt Lick for some tasty BBQ. Most of us ordered the combo platter, which had sausage, pork tenderloin?, and bbq beef briscut, along with beans and 'slaw. It's Lance's favorite, Draye recommended it, Brad Cason recommended it, and someone I consult online recommended it -- all saying it's the best BBQ in Texas.

I didn't have any other BBQ in Texas, but simply put: it was the best. For sure the best BBQ I've had and the sauce tasted amazing (that's what she said!).

Our final night in Austin, having some drinks at the Salt Lick.
(clockwise, front-left: Orion, Joel, Charlie, Dave, Jon, Me, Lindsey, Tim)

Day 9:
Today was our last day. Jon, Charlie, Joel, Orion, and Dave all had to leave at 6am. Granted, they were over an hour late -- no surprise -- but it was still dark. Tim, Lindsey, and I decided to leave closer to 6pm so that we didn't arrive in Madison at 2am. So, we went out for a 50mi ride. I flatted after 7.5mi, shredding my tire in the process. We booted the tire as best we could and decided not to risk it -- we would head home to get a new tire and try again.

So, I solo TT'd it back home, averaging 250w (mostly) downhill -- about 25mph for 15min, or 28mph for the last 10min. I started to change the tire, when Lindsey and Tim pulled up to help me finish it off while I went for a bathroom break.

Instead of doing our 75mi as we wanted, we cut it short in favor for some intensity. We found a really cool local hill that took 10min to climb. I set a 5min power of 313 watts, which is impressive considering I just finished riding almost 35hrs for the week. We raced up it the first time and Tim legitly beat me (thanks rubbing that in, Tim ;) ). I hacked up a lung, we stopped at a gas station for 30min to drink some slushies, and did it again.

That is when the cough started. I'm officially sick and somewhat overtrained (if that's even possible to do in one week).

Anyways, we went back to the car, changed, and started to 25hr drive home. It took like 17hrs to hit Schaumburg, where we unloaded, showered, repacked the car, dropped off the powertap (thanks Vince @ Village CycleSport), and picked up my girlfriend, Stephanie. I drove the last 130mi home, which took 5hrs due to a heavy snow storm that just hit the area. There were like 10 cars stuck in ditches. I hate winter; I hate the cold.

We dropped Tim off in Beloit, WI and finally got to Madison, where I promptly passed out for 10hrs. Sweet.

Beyond:
After getting home, the greatest thing happened to us. Someone decided to turn on fridge power down "to save energy" over winter break. Of course, the fridge completely shut off, spoiling alost $200 in food. Needless to say, my apartment smells FABULOUS! 3 week old rotten chicken and beef from the freezer, anyone?

So, we cleaned it out as best we could (it still reeks), ordered a pizza, and Steph, Lindsey, and I ate at Toppers pizza.

After that, I went to update my blog and of course my power cord is barely holding on -- so it won't hold a charge. This 17" beast of a computer only gets 20min to the battery, so it didn't work to well.

Finally, yesterday night (Tuesday) the greatest thing happened to us. Another advernture began after a deathly-terrifying scream from Steph that nearly gave me a heart attack, and definitely woke up every neighbor within 2 blocks. She saw a dead mouse in the corner.

Except, upon closer examination, it wasn't a mouse. It was a bat. And it was still alive. It was kind of cute, actually.

Cute!

We called animal control, who said they would come get it this morning, and to just cover it with a bucket. We thought it was dying because it barely moved when you poked it.

But, when I tried to sweep it from the corner to put a bucket over it, it flipped upside down...then started flopping around until it righted itself. That was cool. UNTIL IT STARTED SCREACHING AT ME WITH ITS MOUTH OPEN AND TEETH SHOWING!

AHHH!! WHAT THE F---!!@!

This CREEPED ME THE F--- OUT! I thought I would get bitten and die of rabies, so I screamed like a little girl and ran to another room. When I came back, it was still there with its mouth open, but didn't move. I grabbed a bucket and tossed it on top, then put a huge book over it until morning. Nothing like hearing a bat trying to crawl out of a bucket. All. Night. Long. eck.

When the animal control guy came, he nonchalantly opened the bucket, smash-grabbed it with his fingers and put it in a yogurt cup. Like it was really that easy, or something. Ugh.

Well, that's it for my adventures of my winter break cycling camp. Tomorrow, I will post my tally for hours, TSS, distance, speeds, etc. Peace out!

James

Update!

2009-01-13T10:30:00.004-06:00

Sorry for not posting last night. Yesterday was a disaster.

After having a good drive back from Austin, TX to my hometown in Schaumburg, IL, the snow started falling. The 130mi drive from Schaumburg to Madison took 5 hours.

After that, I found that the fridge stopped working over break, s everything smelled like crap.

As I write this, my computer is refusing to charge, and my battery is about to die. What is wrong with my computer?

I'll be back later today to finish the post, I hope.

updated tonight

2009-01-12T14:43:00.000-06:00

I will update with day 8 and 9 tonight. It was a long drive (and I'm still not back in Madison), and I won't have internet access for more than 5min until later.

James

Austin, TX training camp, day 7

2009-01-10T09:34:00.014-06:00

Today was just short of epic. Charlie missed out on the Johnson City loop on Tuesday due to a campus tour, so he wanted to go. We did a similar route, with a slight twist in the route about 60mi into it -- shortening the ride to 95mi (oh damn?). This time, though, we didn't get lost.

Jon Cook, Dave, Charlie, and I went for the 95mi, but I only finished 80 of them. 3 miles into the ride, I flatted. No problem. I replaced the tube after not finding anything in the tire, pumped it up, and...nothing. The tube I used was previously patched and the patch wasn't sealed properly. So I borrowed a tube from Charlie, pumped it up, and...nothing. We finally used a CO2 to get the pressure up. But, air was leaking out of a big gash in the tire that only showed while at 100+psi.

So I called Joel and Orion, since they were taking an easy day to ride tomorrow's (Saturday) ATC group ride. They picked me up, drove me to where the other guys were (they continued on) and then rejoined the group.

Since it was a long ride and we were destined to get back 5min before sunset, assuming everything went correctly, we made it a hard TTT (team time trial) the whole way. I took over for 10min to spend some energy and keep the group going. The first 5min were at 307 watts, and the overall 10min were at a weak 271w. Man, I'm getting tired.

The only other noteable power was 2hrs into a ride I was finishing a pull at the front when we saw a townline. We all went for it and the only person who was close was Cook, who couldn't get around me. "It was too much of a headwind, man." That's ok, he would randingly attack a hill, dropping all of us and making it hurt like hell.

The rest of the ride was fast. 2 people pulled while 2 others drafted and we rotated efforts. We had a strong headwind near the end, so we did a rotating paceline for the last 90min.

I have some awesome news, though. I hit 30hrs of riding this week, so far. I am still here Saturday (rest day), Sunday (~107mi ride), and Monday (3hr ride) -- so I think I will try for 40hrs of riding for the 9 days we are here. 5hrs over my goal?!

We went to 6th street later that night. A trip to Mohawk to see some live music during Freeweek, some really weird people (Keep Austin Weird!), and finally to meet up with Brad Cason of KirkLee bicycles (at Mohawk's). Brad is an awesome guy; he's helped by giving us ideas for rides this whole week, as well as food recommendations, and cool stories. It was sweet to finally meet him. I forgot to bring my camera to take pics, but maybe that was for the better. "Ecclectic" is too conservative a word for the music scene.

Stats:
Time: 4:06:00 rolling (4:36:55 total)
Max: 1100w
Peak 5s: 1052w (townline sprint)
Peak 5m: 307w
Normalized Power: 220w (IF: 0.778)
Work: 2659kJ
TSS: 246
Dist: 76.26mi
Avg Speed: 19.0mph
Max Speed: 41.3mph

Bonus:
Total saddle time: 30.01hrs
Total TSS for trip: 1500
CTL ramp rate: 21
Average IF: .684
Total miles: About 510mi

P.S. Sorry for failing in the picture department. We were going too hard most the time, and we already did this loop, sothere wasn't much time or reason to do many. There was a true southern sunset, though.

P.P.S. For those of you in colder climates, I had a t-shirt on until 2am. 68 degrees was the low until that point.

http://flickr.com/photos/jpradun/

Yes, it was that windy. Look at the trees.

Sweet moonlight close to home. I think that's Charlie's helmet on the left?

Too windy to get a clear picture, but the clear skies and
blue/pink sunset fade were nice.

Austin, TX training camp, day 6

2009-01-08T19:39:00.003-06:00

Today was a fun, rough day. We drove to Dripping Springs to do the Lance Armstrong Foundation charity route. It was 90mi, but after a short cutoff for a gas station, about 85mi. The temperature was 81 degrees today. I would say it was hot when we had a tailwind, but I'm not going to complain since it is snowing in Madison/Chicagoland (4-6" this weekend? :evil laugh:).

The roads were rough for the most part, but it was in the prettiest area, so far. There was barely any traffic, which was a nice change. All of our butts hurt, though. I'm too tired to think about what happened, but 7 of us went out (Joel is still sick). Lindsey and Tim split early to do 70mi while 5 of us did 85mi at a high pace. We averaged 19.0mph after they split, 19.3 after our 2nd stop, and took constant pulls through the "gateway to the hill country."

In other news, I've lost a ton of weight. Anyways, tomorrow will be our 4th day in a row of hard riding. In the mean time, here are a couple pics. More can be found at my flickr page (posted below).

Tan!

We think of some retarded stuff on 5+hr rides.

Gorgeous!

Gorgeous again!

Gorgeous again, again!

Austin, TX training camp, day 5

2009-01-07T21:17:00.007-06:00

Today. Was. Hard. 82mi hilly miles after doing a century was not easy. Tim asked if he could write a blog entry for me, so being the nice guy that I am, I said yes.

The View from the Back The designated fat kid’s account (Tim Grady)

First off, don’t leave the window open at night, even in Texas, and especially while tired. The first battle of the day was waged in my sleeping bag… Hmm, that didn’t sound quite so dirty in my head. After overcoming my inertia to get up and start preparing for the ride things went quickly and we were soon at Jack and Adam’s Bike Shop. They are a high-end tri shop, so I lost about half a liter of fluid drooling over sexy bits of carbon, respectfully clothed in brilliant paint with a clear coat, for protection.

After a short while James’ friend-of-a-friend, Draye, showed up looking very Euro in his white Velossimo team kit. He and the big kids hashed out a plan for the day and we set off.

Being the high maintenance gal that I am (Lindsey says James and I are “such girls”), I was soon at the side of the road with a flat. My tire was sliced through with a penny-sized shard of rusted metal. My knight in shining armor was soon there to change the flat and put a couple patches on the inside of the tire—thanks Lindsey (I could have done it, but she just kind-of took over).

Once that mess was over with, we were on the road again without much trouble, for a bit. Then we came upon some roads that looked like they came off the set of 1974’s Earthquake (James’ note: Tim just searched for “Earthquake movie” on google for this reference…), complete with wheel eating cracks a few hundred meters long. These crevices in the pavement put Madison’s capitol square to shame.
After 20 or so miles we stopped at a gas station for the usual party: get fluids in bottles, get fluids out of bladders, complain about aches, and buy candy. I bought two bars, one of which I ate at the gas station, and the second found its way into my back pocket. This would be a good time to mention that the temperatures were in the low 70’s, more on that later.

A ways after the gas station we reached the “hammer zone”. All the big kids started to hammer and some kids tried to hang on for as long as they could. Being the designated fat kid on the trip, I passed on this one and took the time to spin out the legs before regrouping at the end of the “hammer zone”. Lindsey hung back with me since she spent yesterday on an epic century.

Plenty of other stuff happened including some epic climbing and an additional hour of
riding after we drove back to the hotel, and Lindsey getting wasted off of half a Smirnoff, but this is “getting too long” (that’s what she said) so I am going to finish it here.

Keep the rubber side down.

Lindsey’s Aside:
For the record I took over the flat changing because I am much more efficient than most guys I ride with. Not to be a control freak as Tim would have you believe.

James’ note:
The “hammer fest” was one of the coolest 10min of hard riding, and wayyyy too hard for January. Later in the wall, there was a wall of a climb we went over…literally, a wall, at 67.5mi. Look at my screen shot to see it. Also, if I listen to CyclingPeaks, I am only a 30min recovery ride from being overtrained :) My CTL is already at 72, and my TSB (Training Stress Balance, aka CTL-ATL = freshness) is at -49. With that being said, I am going for a 90mi ride tomorrow in Dripping Springs.

I posted the pics again to my flickr page, but here are a couple good ones.
http://flickr.com/photos/jpradun/

Yes, that is a wall. Yes, it hurt.

View of the city coming over a hill.

Yes, that is a boat garage. This house was surrounded by a moat.

Beautiful scenery.

I GOT A TAN!!!!! I accidentally put my bibs an inch below my normal tan line.

I forgot to post my stats.
Stats:
Time: 5:00 rolling (6:40:xx total)
Max: 866w
Peak 5s: 790w
Peak 5m: 287w
Normalized Power: 199w (IF: 0.704)
Work: 2580kJ
TSS: 245
Dist: 81.7mi
Avg Speed: 16.5mph
Max Speed: 47.2mph

Austin, TX training camp, day 4

2009-01-06T20:54:00.017-06:00

Today was sweet, to put it simply. Jon, David, Lindsey, and I headed out, through Dripping Springs (omg Lance?) to Johnson City. I am really busy today and Lindsey is bored, so I told her to write my blog for me. This is what she sent me:

Lindsey’s version of today!!!!

This morning started out with some rain and a delicious bowl of oatmeal. By 10:00 Jon and David had showed up and we all got ready to ride. James, Jon, David, and I all had a century ride out to Johnson City planned so we left around 10:30 after the rain stopped. The others did anywhere between 50 and 70 by themselves. Our route took us on a quiet winding road towards Johnson City. The first 40 miles didn’t have any gas stations or rest stops to refill bottles, so by the time we got to Johnson City I was ready for some fluids. During this time apparently James was having fun with his power tap and found that in order to drop me on a flat he had to put out 330 watts for 45 seconds before I lost his wheel. Why he felt the need to find this out I don’t know…dick move James, just wait until I’m more experienced and can drop your ass!  Anyways, the ride out proved to be a bit hillier than I was used to on the trainer and I was pretty excited when James told us that the way home was even hillier. By Johnson City around mile 40 we had already done over 2500 feet of climbing.

On the return route, we encountered some nice downhills and one climb that kicked my ass, although I was somewhat impressed at myself that I wasn’t dropped as badly as I had thought I was. It was about a 24 minute climb that had a really nice steep part that lasted about 3 minutes and was an absolute wall. I was really tempted to get off and start rock climbing it instead of trying to pedal my way up it. The rest of the ride wasn’t too bad, and involved some really nice flats where we probably averaged around 24-25 mph. Overall it was a pretty successful ride although we’ll see how my legs are feeling tomorrow.

By the end, we put in 6100ft of climbing in 6hrs of riding. A few 15-18% grade hills and some long, fast miles made it a tough, but fun, day in the saddle.

Stats:
Time: 6:00:11 rolling (7:15:xx total)
Max: 1036w
Peak 5s: 763w
Peak 5m: 248w
Normalized Power: 204w (IF: 0.723)
Work: 3400kJ
TSS: 314 (epic!)
Dist: 103mi
Avg Speed: 17.3mph
Max Speed: 40.3mph

I posted WAY too many pictures, so I will create a flickr account and upload them so everyone can see. However, here is a sample of the better/notable ones.

http://flickr.com/photos/jpradun/sets/72157612218650395/

Awesome scenery, everywhere.

Gorgeous.

The picture does no justice to how steep this wall of a road was.
You can tell the picture is angled upward, plus the slope.

The only "over the hill" I'd like to go over.

The skies cleared up after the rain, leaving some cool clouds.

Austin, TX training camp, day 3

2009-01-05T15:29:00.010-06:00

Someone requested more pictures, so you will be happy for this post. We'll start with a picture of the disaster we call "home" for the week. Here is our extended stay room, filled with 5 bikes and 5 people. It looks a little cleaner now that we finished our rest day and moved stuff around. Tim sleeps at the foot of the small bed, so we would have to rearrange everything before bed so he could sleep. Joel sleeps between the two beds.; Orion and me in the far bed; Lindsey in the close bed.

This is clean compared to my room at home :)

On to the bikes. Today was a nice, easy recovery ride. With a 100% chance of rain, we decided to go out for an hour for an easy ride. This was by far the coldest day of our trip, with a high temperature of 37 degrees. Cold + rain = not fun, so it was a short one. The good news is that every driver (and person) we've encountered so far has been really, really nice.

We woke up late, ate a late breakfast, and a few of us leisured out the door to ride at different times. I went for a 1.5hr, ~20mi ride around some really yuppie neighborhoods to scope out my post-graduation house :) Most of these are gated communities or houses.

My future pad in a gated community overlooking a nice landscape.

Another picture of my first house.

Welcome to Austin!

By the time everyone was done, it was 5pm. Dinner was then cooked/served, and we all rushed out the door to head to a couple bike shops. The first was Austin Bikes on 5th street, as recommended by Brad Cason of KirkLee bikes. The shop was sweet -- and massive. They sold Scott, Orbea, Moots, and some other nice stuff. The cheapest bike was $2500, and the highest was "if you have to ask..." We talked to Sol for some good ride options, one of which we will do on Tuesday (tomorrow). No pictures, because they have a website with some good ones.

With 20min until 7pm, we bolted to Mellow Johnny's. We talked with the staff and we were given a tour. Since I don't want to spoil the experience for anyone else, you can go there yourself. It has some of Lance's bikes, 7 jerseys autographed by him from his 7 tours, a pink and a yellow jersey signed by Alberto Contador from the Giro and Tour. There was a bunch of other stuff, too. The cool news is that Ryan Baumann, a friend who signed with Trek-LiveStrong (ala Taylor Phinney), will be here on Thursday doing some PR/testing/training. Maybe we can meet up and ride some great routes...

Awesome scenery.

More cool stuff.

The scenery that my dream house overlooks in winter.

$4 million homes? Probably...

Anyways, the exciting news is that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be 80-100+ mile days. Tomorrow is 105mi to Johnson City, Wednesday is with a cat2 friend-of-a-friend we just met, and Thursday is another hell day, possibly with Brad Cason. Friday is a recovery day, Saturday and Sunday are hard-as-hell group ride days.

It's not worth posting my powermeter or Garmin data, as it was a boring 20mi ride. But, here are some pics of the terrain we ride on, along with some shots of Tim Grady and Lindsey Durst.

The final pics:

Austin, TX training camp, day 2

2009-01-05T08:35:00.008-06:00

The group of 8 people are as follows:
Jon, Charlie, David, Lindsey, Orion, Joel, Tim, and me (James).

An addendum to yesterday. I had a funny but almost tragic moment while coming home in the dark. We were hauling ass down a street near the capital building in the dark with no lights. I saw a bike path, pointed it out, and hopped on. The other three people were going to hop on at the next entrance.

Suddenly, I saw what looked to be construction about 200 feet in front of me. I slowed down a tad and soon realized that only ~50ft in front of me there was an orange mesh fence across the road. I slammed on my brakes, skidding for the last 30 feet and nearly going over the bars from so much front brake. I stopped -- just in time. My front wheel literally hit the fence and rolled into it a couple inches before stopping. That would have sent me over the bars with a nice face plant into the concrete...eck.

Today was great, and we did our first planned ride without screwing up (too much). Three groups were made with a 45mi route (2 people) and 65mi route (5 people). I'll tell you about the third group that split off, later. The 8th person, for people counting, stayed home after getting nauseous after breakfast.

We all were doing a similar route, with one having a cutoff and another having an extension to get the respected distances. One person in each group had a GPS with the route preprogrammed.

The first 20mi were ridden together. Jon Cook (I call him J.C.) and I pulled almost the whole way. Orion and Tim split off after that to do the shorter distance, while the 5 of us continued on. Tim almost wrecked on a fast downhill after experiencing some speed shimmy, so he wanted to take it slow after that.

I wish I would have taken pictures of how gorgeous it is out here. I was enjoying it far too much to remember to take pictures until the very end. But, here is a crappy shot when we were almost done:

Anyways, the route had a couple nice hills. The notable ones were a 5min 9% climb and a 2min 18% climb that peaked at 21%. The downhills were fast, as we consistently saw 45-50+ mph.

After hitting 50mi, the 2nd group split off and when home to finish the day at 54 miles in 3hrs 22min. J.C. and I kept going to explore the area. We hit some awesome roads, got lost, re-found, and pushed each other pretty hard. By the end, the 4th hour into the ride, we had a hill that lasted for 6.5min, peaking at 18%. We were dying and thought about walking our bikes. Somewhat ironically, my peak 5, 10, and 20s power for the ride were hit on this climb.

Here's another crappy picture I took last second. Why do I always wait until there's construction to take them? I promise I'll be better in subsequent days:

Finally, I installed my powertap for the ride, so some of you are probably looking for the numbers. Here are the stats:

Time: 4:31:10 rolling (6:05:11 total)
Peak 5s: 749w
Peak 5m: 249w
Normalized Power: 200w (IF: 0.71)
Work: 2559kJ
TSS: 225
Dist: 72mi
Avg Speed: 16mph
Max Speed: 51mph

If anyone wants specific .wko files or anything, post a comment or email me.

Lastly, post a comment if my blog is too long or too short, or if you want to hear more or less about something. I'll try to make it as readable as possible.

Austin, TX training camp, day 1

2009-01-04T18:44:00.007-06:00

Day one involved driving 20hrs from Madison to Austin. That sucked a lot. I drove about 10hrs and the other two people drove the other 10hrs. I managed maybe an 30-60min of sleep.

Anyways, that's not the fun part of the trip. The fun part is that when I arrived, IT WAS 81 DEGREES!!! No more 16 degree temps like in Madison, whew. Eight of us are here from UW-Madison. Two cat3's looking to go to collegiate nationals, a few cat4s, and a few cat5s.

We checked in after some delay and went out right away for a short ride. I never planned on riding under 60 miles, so we had to quickly find a decent ride that is only 40 or so miles. That was a terrible idea.

We found a 50mi route, heading east, that started 5.5mi away. It was a horrible first 10mi of the ride, as most of it was in really busy traffic and highways. We needed to make the route a lot shorter so we cut a few corners. Bad idea. We got horribly lost and it quickly got dark. Four of us TTT'd it back to the hotel while four others waited at a gas station for us to pick them up in our cars.

We played with the GPS on an iPhone and on my Garmin to find the hotel. 4.5hrs (1 in the dark in the city) and 60 miles later, we finally found "home." Ugh.

Here are the stats:
4.5hrs, 60mi
2100 feet of climbing
A weak 13.5mph average because of so many stops

The good news is that Austin is still beautiful.

Winter training camp!

2009-01-01T13:14:00.007-06:00

I leave for my winter training camp tomorrow, 2 Jan 2008. Check-in is the 3rd and we stay until the following Monday. So where was I last year and what are my goals for this year?

Compared to this time last year, I am approximately 25 watts more powerful. My 2008 peak was approximately 290 watts, and I am fairly close to that now, in January.

2009 Season Goals:
Top 10 - Collegiate Nationals (crit) A-race
Top 20 - Collegiate Nationals (overall) A-race
1st - Any Midwest Cycling Series cat3 race A-race
1st - Overall Midwest Cycling Series cat3 race A-race
Top 20 - Any SuperWeek P/1/2 race (if it's still around) B-race

Winter Training Camp Goals:
35hrs of riding in one week
Raise CTL (Chronic Training Load) from 54 to 80 in one week
Update my blog every day, with pictures

I'll keep you updated!

Blog will resume in February

2008-08-26T10:08:00.004-05:00

I don't have the time or patience to update my blog every day or week. I will resume postings for collegiate road season in February -- the most exciting racing of the year.

I may throw in 1 or 2 updates before then if I decide to do a mountain bike race. We'll see.

Until then, au revoir.

Glencoe Grand Prix, solo break.
Taped leg to preventing the
reopening of old scabs. Thankfully,
I was ahead of the crashes.

Detailed averages for superweek

2008-08-08T11:51:00.010-05:00

Here are the stats of the superweek races I did:

	1 Blue Island	2 Olympia Fields	3 Richton Park	4 Bensenville 1
Distance	40.52mi	31.31mi	35.28mi	26.11mi
Time	1hr 33min	1hr 13min	1hr 21min	1hr 2min
Avg Speed	26.1mph	25.5mph	26mph	25.2mph
Top Speed	38mph	37.3mph	36.7mph	31.9mph
Avg HR	85%	82%	80%	74%

	5 Bensenville 2	6 Humboldt Park	8 Waukesha	9 Evanston
Distance	29.08mi	32.56mi	24mi	21.46mi
Time	1hr 8min	1hr 20min	55min	48min
Avg Speed	25.6mph	24.2mph	26.2mph	26.6mph
Top Speed	39.8mph	34.4mph	35.7mph	38mph
Avg HR	82%	77%	81%	76%

	12 Whitnall Park	13 Racine	14 Kenosha	15 Downer Ave
Distance	35.86mi	44.68mi	40mi	1.7
Time	1hr 26min	1hr 44min	1hr 28min	4min
Avg Speed	25mph	25.9mph	27.1mph	25.5mph
Top Speed	38mph	34.5mph	36.3mph	30.7mph
Avg HR	82%	82%	77%	64%

And here's a pic of my 5 stitches for good measure:

Day 15 & 16, Downer Ave, Milwaukee, WI

2008-08-05T18:58:00.003-05:00

Downer Ave was promised to be the best racing yet. It was voted one of the top 5 criteriums in America for the past 5 years...or something like that.

In reality, it was a big letdown. The course was safe enough. Turn 1 was 90 degrees, turn 2 was a tight 60 degrees, turn 3 was 90 degrees, and turn 4 was a soft 120 degrees. This made for a half-assed rectangle, or a triangle with an edge cut off. On the inside of the course, there was the "Great" Belgian beer fest. A half-assed one. Bleh.

So how did the race go? GREAT!!! 1.5hr drive to get there, they delayed the race by 1.5hrs, and I had to get home by 7pm for Venetian night in Chicago...which I missed.

The first lap was sketchy. My bike wasn't shifting right and people were barreling into the turns right from the start. As we were about to finish lap #1, ON THE STRAIGHT-AWAY, everyone slammed on their brakes. Next thing I know there are 2 guys laying on the ground in front of me. I became the third. I jumped over a bike, landed into another one, and went over the bars.

I abandoned the race. If you can't make it 1 lap in a sketchy field without a crash, it's probably not worth staying in the race.

I did get my picture on cyclingnews.com. I am on the bottom right with a bandage on my right arm. I managed to get by the Turin rider's bike (red jersey), but ran over the Mack rider's bike (red/blue), which sent me over the bars.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos.php?id=/photos/2008/jul08/superweek08/superweek0817/downer-tjcrashcrop

This isn't how I wanted to be in cyclingnews.

There is (real) good news, though. There was a crash in the last lap of Downers Ave that I probably would have been in. I took Sunday off, which should have been the Chicago Criterium. The good news from that is that there was a pretty bad crash on the last turn of the last lap. Jesus, people. Learn how to not dive-bomb turns.

Day 14, Kenosha, WI

2008-08-01T10:49:00.002-05:00

The Wheel and Sprocket crit in Kenosha was one of my more favorite courses last year. It's also the only Wisconsin Superweek race in which I participated this year that was a repeated from last year.

It's a flat, four corner course with a mini switchback between turn 1 and 2. The road is nice, there are no bad bumps or cracks, and the turns were wide enough such that you did not have to brake in the turns. Of course, the crash 3's did brake sometimes.

We actually raced the full 40 miles and averaged 27mph. After the first lap, I wanted to test my legs after yesterday's bad day. I attacked and held a solo lead for 3 laps before being caught by someone who bridged, and later by the field another lap later. I averaged 28mph for the first 2 laps, 25 for the 3rd and 4th. I maintained my position the whole race, and was able to join 3-4 breaks that wound up not sticking. I felt good.

There were 3 crashes, that I knew about, during the first ~35 miles. Nothing too bad. The last 5 laps or so got bad. I was caught behind a sketchy rider and passed him on the next straight. Sure enough, the very next turn, he crashed out a handful of riders. With 2 to go, people swarmed to the front and the pace got fast. One person went down while trying to dive into a turn where he shouldn't have been. Unfortunately, that served him right at the expense of a couple other guys. 2 more crashes happened in the last lap somehow, while I was sitting around 15th position.

During the final sprint, a bunch of people crashed right before the finish line on the left side of the road. I swerved right to avoid it and sat up, not wanting to repeat what happened to me at Evanston. A few people who didn't let up passed me at the line, but I still managed 14th. Hell of a lot better than another crash.

In all, 3 ambulances had to be called for the ~4 crashes that happened on the last lap. Go crash-3's!

Pictures 2/2!

2008-07-31T18:05:00.003-05:00

Part deux. More will come soon!

Pictures 1/2!

2008-07-31T18:03:00.003-05:00

Here are a bunch of pictures taken from the weekend before superweek, as well as some additional superweek races.

Day 13, Racine Crit, Racine, WI

2008-07-31T15:10:00.002-05:00

The Racine crit had the makings of a good course. The only problem was that the
backstretch had a ton of bumps that resembled mini curbs that either had to be
bunnyhopped or smashed into. It sounds like I'm complaining about the courses a
lot, but this year really had a big decline in course quality.

Needless to say, out of the 65 laps/45mi that we did, none of them were fun. With
30 to go, my front wheel snapped a spoke and I got a loaner Zipp 404 from the pit.
It was pumped up to some ungodly high pressure which made turning a little hairy
for the rest of the race, as my front wheel would slide in almost every turn.

I felt like crap pretty much the whole race. It was hard. My legs hurt. I sucked.

OK the truth comes out, I sucked it up this race. An 8 man break got away and no
one chased. My teammate was in it so I had no reason to help. It finally held 25
seconds on the field. With 4 to go I tried to escape the field and managed to stay
away for a lap before getting caught with 3 to go. I was gassed, so I decided not
to contest the sprint. 28th of about 65.

Day 10, 11, and 12, Whitnall Park RR, Hales Corners, WI

2008-07-30T12:15:00.002-05:00

Day 10 was the Tour of Holy Hill in Hartford, WI. Still very sore (torn up knees) from Evanston's crash, and completely out of the series, I took the day off.

Day 11 was in Cedarburg, WI. I was preregistered for this race, but debating if I should do it. Still sore from Sunday's race in Evanston, I was iffy about the race. By the time I showed up, it was raining. That just about solidified my decision. I asked to have my preregistration switched to Whitnall Park the following day.

Whitnall Park was the 2nd "road race" of the series. I skipped the first one
at Holy Hill because of injuries. The only thing resembling a road race today
was the rules, as no free laps were given. The course had rolling hills covering
2.3mi per lap. One "hill" was about 15 seconds long at 5% grade and everyone
was complaining it was hard.

Thank God for spring break in the Smokey Mountains.

The race was surprisingly difficult. Others attacked when I was least expecting,
and didn't when I was most expecting. I wanted to stay up front, so I covered
more attacks than I probably should have. I finally got sick of it near the end,
and the next attack that went wound up sticking. Damn.

I think it was only one guy, but he soloed for the last couple laps. Smart move
on his part.

Coming into the last turn I was sitting around 8th deep but probably 30 back --
there were people 10 wide into the turn. I kept having flashbacks to the last
time I went down, so I wasn't very aggressive. Since I'm no longer contesting
1st place in the series, I'm not going to take as many risks as before...just
hoping to finish with some money. I had more power than most, albiet not all, on
the final hill leading to the finish. So, I sprinted past a lot of people, found
a good wheel and held it to the line for 14th place. I'll take $30 over a crash.

Tomorrow is a real crit, so hopefully I will do better. Power hills aren't much
fun. I'd rather do a long mountain or a flat race.

Day 9, Evanston, IL

2008-07-29T10:03:00.003-05:00

Last year, my best result was a 13th place in the cat4 field, and it was at Evanston. It was also my only "crash" last year. A group in front of me got into a pileup and I was able to avoid it. I started to pedal away from the crash when a bike from behind took out my rear wheel, putting me into a slow-motion crash. Not even a scrape from it.

This year, I was not so lucky. My family came out for my 30mi race -- mom, stepdad, girlfriend, my cousin and his wife. I made it the whole race, except for the last straightaway. There was a massive pileup coming into the final sprint, sending many people to the ground.

I was unfortunately near the back of the sprint -- about 12th position and gaining a lot of ground. A few people went down in front of me and I was swerving to the right to avoid the crash. The two guys in front of me (to my left) tangled up and crashed. One of their bikes hit the barrier and bounced back into the road. It hit my rear wheel and sent me flying off the bike at 38mph.

A friend was taking a video. I show up between the 9th and 10th second in the blue kit, after being hit by the yellow guy's bike. My teammate shows up at the 11th and 12th second and hits the guy head-on after he stands up. I suffered a few really bad scrapes, and ripped open my previous scabs. That hurt like hell. My mom was hysterical.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jfs55TB9srg

Day 8, Waukesha, WI

2008-07-21T10:59:00.003-05:00

I'm writing this 8 days after the event, so it will be short as my memory isn't too great of it.

A teammate, Jason, showed up. Our team manager, Randy Roth, paid for the entry fee. It helped out a lot and was really nice of him.

The course was suppose to be the most fun, with a crapload of turns including some really tight ones. It was perfect for a breakaway that I never got into. Fortunately, though, none stuck. They threw many primes at us -- a few $25, a $100, and a set of track wheels. I didn't go for any because I was concerned with making up ground in the overall. Bad move.

There were many crashes, but I luckily wasn't in any of them. Coming into the last straight before the final sprint, I was poorly positioned. I sat 17th wheel with the field strung out single-file. The guy in front of me sat up from complete exhaustion and opened up a huge gap. By the time I closed it, I had 2 seconds to recover for the sprint. I only was able to pass 4 riders, finishing right next to my teammate in about 13th position.

I've decided to make a single post with all the stats for the races, so look for that in the next few days.

Day 6 & 7, Milwaukee, WI (30mi)

2008-07-18T09:09:00.013-05:00

Today was the Shorewood crit. I don't remember exactly how long it was, but it was 45 laps and about 32mi. The racing finally caught up to me and my legs were tired. I felt physically fine, but my legs just wouldn't turn. But, alas, I will race because it makes me happy. Oh yeah, and because most of the people leading the series were racing and I was still sitting 5th in the overall, despite my crash 2 days ago.

The course was a nice idea and would have been great if the sidestretch wasn't so bumpy and filled with holes and unsmooth road. To make matters worse, it was uphill and someone attacked it every single time. 45 hill repeats, woo! Also, the last turn had cones that riders had to go around in order to avoid a big pothole that was there. The finish line was a winding downhill sprint. Not my favorite, but fast finishes are good finishes. There was no need for brakes on the course except after the downhill into a fairly sharp right hand turn that started the uphill portion of the course.

A typical lap entailed a sprint up the hill, recover for the rest of the lap. A few times the pace would string out for a couple laps, putting everyone single file to chase a break. Baraboo did a good job catching one of them.

The pace didn't get tough until about 2 to go when everyone tried jockeying for position. Coming into the final turn, I was again sitting in great position -- about 10th. We were two wide again and flying into the turn. The guy on my outside squeeze me on the inside and bumped me into the cone. Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem. But, the cone got sucked up into my front wheel. Despite not having my hands on the brakes, my front wheel came to an abrupt stop, sending me over the bars. I landed elbows and chin first, and slid for a good 20 feet on my knees and elbows before coming to a stop.

I was winded and coudn't breath for a couple minutes, all while laying on scorching hot pavement. That was scary. Luckily, I didn't hit anyone else and no one hit me. The bike was OK, too. 45 hill repeats and a DNF. UGH.

The bad part? I split my chin open and they had to give me 5 stitches on the side of the road, and I got HORRIBLE road rash. Worst night of sleep, ever. I will post pictures on Saturday/Sunday when I get home and can upload them.

Day 7 - I took today off to recover from the pain. Glad I did because the course looked hard.

Day 5, Bensenville, IL (40mi)

2008-07-18T08:52:00.008-05:00

The course was run counterclockwise and the red finish line was about 250ft closer than pictured.

I cannot post stats until I get home. I don't have my computer at the host house where I'm staying.

Today was easier than yesterday. I guess my legs started getting used to the fatigue. The race played out much like yesterdays race, at a somewhat easier pace. A break of 3 or 4 got away near the end. Few people chased and got pulled back into the peloton, but the pace was never driven to catch them. The lead hovered between 10-30 seconds, a reasonable gap to pull back.

With 4 laps to go, a spectator shouted that they were about 15 seconds away. A few people took off and chased, dragging everyone with them, and then sat up. There still isn't very much teamwork in the 3's field. Tomasz bridged the gap by himself and caught them. With 2 to go, I dragged the field for half a lap and got the break within 75-100 meters. I pulled off and no one wanted to close the small gap, which made me kind of mad -- they again extended their lead a little bit. On the last lap I was sitting about 10th wheel coming out of the 2nd of 3 major turns, right before yesterdays crash. I tried to stay on the inside because yesterday's memory of being taken out haunted me. I follwed the wheel in front of me, and we both drifted back to about 20th position.

Losing positions sucked, but luckily there was no crash this time and the long sprint started from the last turn. I gained a few positions, swung wide, started my sprint, and gained a few more to finish 12th. 2 of the 4 people in the break got caught at the finish line.

With 5 laps to go, the guy who took me out yesterday said, "Sorry about yesterday. Take that wheel and I won't take you out this time." I said it was okay and that shit happens...that's racing.

Day 4, Bensenville, IL (40mi)

2008-07-15T19:38:00.008-05:00

Today was suppose to be a great day. Last year I did well. This year, the course was going to be pretty nice. I was feeling strong, well rested, and ready to go.

The course wasn't horrible. There is a small flattened curb with a bump that transitioned into the street or back into the paved course. The bump leading back onto the course was slightly uphill with a sewer grate on the inside part of the turn, which made it somewhat more dangerous.

A small breakaway went and managed to stay away the whole time with a 20-30 second lead. A few people tried to bridge unsuccessfully. With 5 to go a chase started, the field went single file, and we managed to bring them pretty close; but, not close enough. With 2 to go the pace picked up extremely hard. I fought my way to the top 10 positions, not wanting to get too close with the long, uphill, upwind sprint that surely many people would get burned out on.

Unfortunately, I couldn't tell you if that's how it played out.

I don't think there was a single crash in the whole race until the last turn of the last lap. I was probably 8th position as someone a few bikes ahead of me took the turn too hot and slid out. The guy on my inside panicked to avoid the crash, swung right, and rode me right into a rock garden. I banged up my knee and hip, tweaked both wheels, the bars, and bent my derailleur into my spokes. Otto Wentz, founder of SuperWeek, bent my derailleur back out as I put my chain back on. I finally got up as the field came back from their cool down lap and finished the race.

Tomasz was cool. He apologized for taking the lead from me like that, saying he'd rather earn it. No need to apologize -- crashes happen. It just sucks that I didn't get any money or points out of it after all that work. Hell, I probably would have done the same thing XXX did.

Day 3, Richton Park, IL (40mi)

2008-07-14T22:57:00.009-05:00

Thank you Matt Smith (puffer fish) for taking and posting these photos on flickr! They are from the Olympia Fields crit, yesterday. The crash was from the red/white jersey squeezing in the left side and bumping into baraboo, who leaned into the crash.

This race was cut short to 35mi and 50 laps. Placed in the south side of Chicago, again, the race was again in a crappy neighborhood. How crappy?

Someone started throwing eggs at the riders in the cat3 field. Two guys got hit in the head/helmet, and shoulder. WTF?

Other than that, the course was smooth and fast. A lot of new, fresh riders showed up which made the field more difficult. Many breaks went, but all were pulled except for one that went with only a few laps to go. Two people got away and held it. Damn.

I was way too far back in the final corner (about 25 back), so I had to go early for a long sprint. I passed a lot of people, but not enough. 9th in the sprint and 11th overall.

GOOD NEWS, though. I took 1st in the overall cat3 standings! Sweet!

Edit: I forgot to include the stats for the day:
Distance: 35.3mi
Time: 1hr 21min
Avg Speed: 26.0mph
Top Speed: 37mph
Avg HR: 80%

Day 2, Olympia Fields, IL (40mi)

2008-07-13T20:17:00.011-05:00

Thank you Matt Smith (puffer fish) for taking and posting these photos on flickr! They are from the Blue Island crit, yesterday.

It was suppose to be a 1mi long course and 40mi, but the promoters cut the course in half (No Eros Dr) and made the race only 30mi long. It turned out to be the worst course I have ever raced in my life. We did 65 laps in a housing development, with steel slabs, boulders, concrete, and trash just off the curb -- injuries from crashes were multiplied. This showed, as there were about 5-6 crashes. One person broke his arm and another his collarbone, a third falling over the curb and smashing right into a pole. There were many more bloody bodies. Yesterday's race was fun compared to this.

To the race. There were 65 laps and 30mi. It was a strong headwind coming into the finish, and no breakaways stuck for most of the race. With about 10 laps/5mi to go, Tomasz of WDT did a solo breakaway that managed to stay away to the finish...wow. It left the rest of us chasing and unorganized, but the final 5 laps got hectic. Someone crashed in turn one. A little later, I attacked on the backstretch with the hope of catching Tom, then slipped back and drafted for the last 4 laps.

With 3 to go and the pace picked up again and didn't slow down, stretching almost single file the whole way. 2 to go and I was sitting around 30th and getting tired. I forced myself to move up the field into the strong headwind that few others were willing to do. With 1/2 lap to go I was sitting 15th and nearly maxed out, ready to fall off my bike. I took a deep breath, told myself that I've done this dozens of times before, and relaxed. Coming into the final turn I was sitting about 10th and boxed in on both sizes as the sprint started. There was almost no way to move up, but I dug deep, weaved between some 9 riders and squeezed between 2 guys at the finish line. I won the field sprint again! 2nd place, $90, and tied for first in the series!

Stats:
Distance: 33mi
Time: 1hr 13min
Avg Speed: 25.5mph
Top Speed: 37.3mph
Avg HR: 82%

Day 1, Blue Island, IL (40mi crit)

2008-07-12T00:59:00.005-05:00

Day 1: St. Francis Hospital Blue Island ProAm (40mi/40laps)
Today was a great reminder why I hated this race last year and told myself I would never do it again. Set in a crappy neighborhood (south side of Chicago) and surrounded by White Sox fans, this race screamed "disaster" from the start. The course is a simple 1.0 mile rectangle with four turns, which is about as boring as it gets. But, I race because it makes me happy.

Even though it was boring, they made the best of it and the race organization was good -- as to be expected in SuperWeek.

How did it go? GOOD! There was a field of 70 registered riders. There were many attacks for the first 12 miles with a few sticking for a lap or so. Finally, a break of 5 went and got about 600m. A teammate tried to bridge and I thought he made it so I stopped pulling and started sitting in. Apparently, he was pulled in and I never saw it -- never bothered to chase them. The field of 5 went on to win by over a minute, with the winner soloing off the break.

That left about 65 people to duke it out for 6th place. There were some attempts to bring the field back. I took a pull on the front on lap 16, pulled off, and the field attacked. Not cool. I made my way back up to the front and remained between 2nd and 15th position. With 3 to go, the pace picked up and I forced my way near the front.

A teammate tried to lead my out with 1 to go, but I got squeezed and lost his wheel with 1/2 lap to go. He sat 3rd coming into the final turn and ramped up the pace. I sat 7th wheel behind Tomasz of WDT, a marked strongman in the cat3 field. With about 200m to go, he pulled out of the train to go for the win. I held onto his wheel, pulled out with about 100m to go, put my head down and gunned it. Threw my bike on the line and took the field sprint for 6th place by about a bike length! Sweeeet! It was nice knowing my training and tapering worked out just as planned. Hopefully next time it will be for the win.

I'll post pics as soon as I find some.

Stats:
Distance: 40mi
Time: 1hr 32min
Avg Speed: 26.3mph
Top Speed: 38mph
Avg HR: 85%