Last night the weather was a bit wet, so I opted to stay dry and train in my basement on my rollers. I know.....it is a bit early to want to train in the basement, but hey, I didn't want to get wet, and it was a bit cool out. I didn't feel like putting on some of my cooler riding gear.
Anyways, I only rode for 1hr 15min. and tried to do some sprints. This doesn't work properly on rollers. I tried to stand and do one that didn't work, and I kept playing with what may work best and what I came up with was to do them sitting and play around with the gearing, so I wasn't shifting.
I managed to get it figured out, not producing the watts that I can outside, but hey I am doing these sitting down. Still a workout right? I do have to say that you could only try do produce enough power with my roller set up. What do I mean? Well, I have Kreitler rollers system and the drum size is 2 1/4"dia. with the head wind. Having the smaller diameter drum and the head wind gives me more resistance to produce higher watts.
Workout went well, need another big fan though.
Kind of wish I was racing Gateway Cup this weekend, but will be missing it this year and hopefully do next year. My mom is flying in from Arizona today and will be seeing her this weekend. My little bro turns 22 too this weekend, so will be celebrating that too.
Thanks for reading and sorry for wasting your time.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
2011 Goal Met
Sunday August 21st was my third Race the Lake expierience. The day starts very early, alarm went off at 3:45am, I get out of bed and started preparing my food and drinks for the race. Then I put all my stuff outside sipping my coffee and waiting for my ride (Ryan Pokorny). We were on the road by 4:30am and up at the races in Fond Du Lac @ 5am. We parked by some other team mates, and then we went and had them mark us with our numbers.
We lined up @ 5:40am and were off by @ 5:50am. This is third time doing this race and this year is the slowest start so far. We were going so slow that wave 2 caught up to us. I am not going to complain becasue you won't catch me going to the front and do any pulling, well at least not until we are passed High Cliff Park. This is the dredded climb about half way through the race. I didn't loose any bottles this year, I put 2 in my jersey pockets and one in my down tube. This kept my seat post cage open, this is the one that it falls out of. I did run someone's bottle over in the race. Once we were passed Oshkosh I put a bottle in the seat post cage and put the other bottle into the middle jersey pocket.
I saw one really bad crash that I was able to avoid, by just squeezing through a hole that openned up at the last second, otherwise I would have been in that pile. I knew I had a team mate by me and hoped that everyone made it through ok. Before High Cliff they ramped up the pace a bit and one of my goals for this year was to make it up the climb with the main group. On the climb I kept it in the big ring knowing that if I would put it in my small ring that I would be going even slower up the climb. I kept passing people and mentally telling myself to keep pushing, I was with a very small group at the top, but we managed to catch back onto the main field. I am going to say that this is close enough to the main field on the climb and say that my "GOAL" was met. I guess there was a group of 6 that got off the front after the climb.
The rest of the race was pretty fast and I just raced smart for the most part. There were a lot of surges and guys trying to start a chase group, but nothing was working. At one point I did feel strong enough and was in a short lived pace line. Getting towards the end of the race it was a very big field, probably close to 80 racers and I was a bit concerned on how this was going to finish out. Crash or no crash? I made it through the last two corners up right and started sprinting, well, if that is even what you would call it after 90 miles in the saddle. Not an impressive sprint, but I did pass people before I crossed the finish line.
I finished 39th overall, 6th in my age bracket, my time was 3:25:23.7, and my average overall speed was 26mph. All in all race went very well for me and I am really excited on how I finished. Coaching really helped, so I would like to thank Jeff Melcher at Cycling Form and Fitness for his service.
We also placed 2nd as a mixed gender team!
Down side, Ryan was involved in that one crash and didn't finish the race, his was smashed with a chain ring and need stitches and may need a MRI if he doesn't get any better in about 3 days. So, I hope he recovers quickly!
What is next, don't know, just going to have some fun!
Later
We lined up @ 5:40am and were off by @ 5:50am. This is third time doing this race and this year is the slowest start so far. We were going so slow that wave 2 caught up to us. I am not going to complain becasue you won't catch me going to the front and do any pulling, well at least not until we are passed High Cliff Park. This is the dredded climb about half way through the race. I didn't loose any bottles this year, I put 2 in my jersey pockets and one in my down tube. This kept my seat post cage open, this is the one that it falls out of. I did run someone's bottle over in the race. Once we were passed Oshkosh I put a bottle in the seat post cage and put the other bottle into the middle jersey pocket.
I saw one really bad crash that I was able to avoid, by just squeezing through a hole that openned up at the last second, otherwise I would have been in that pile. I knew I had a team mate by me and hoped that everyone made it through ok. Before High Cliff they ramped up the pace a bit and one of my goals for this year was to make it up the climb with the main group. On the climb I kept it in the big ring knowing that if I would put it in my small ring that I would be going even slower up the climb. I kept passing people and mentally telling myself to keep pushing, I was with a very small group at the top, but we managed to catch back onto the main field. I am going to say that this is close enough to the main field on the climb and say that my "GOAL" was met. I guess there was a group of 6 that got off the front after the climb.
The rest of the race was pretty fast and I just raced smart for the most part. There were a lot of surges and guys trying to start a chase group, but nothing was working. At one point I did feel strong enough and was in a short lived pace line. Getting towards the end of the race it was a very big field, probably close to 80 racers and I was a bit concerned on how this was going to finish out. Crash or no crash? I made it through the last two corners up right and started sprinting, well, if that is even what you would call it after 90 miles in the saddle. Not an impressive sprint, but I did pass people before I crossed the finish line.
I finished 39th overall, 6th in my age bracket, my time was 3:25:23.7, and my average overall speed was 26mph. All in all race went very well for me and I am really excited on how I finished. Coaching really helped, so I would like to thank Jeff Melcher at Cycling Form and Fitness for his service.
We also placed 2nd as a mixed gender team!
Down side, Ryan was involved in that one crash and didn't finish the race, his was smashed with a chain ring and need stitches and may need a MRI if he doesn't get any better in about 3 days. So, I hope he recovers quickly!
What is next, don't know, just going to have some fun!
Later
Monday, August 15, 2011
Menasha Crit. 8-14-11
What a beautiful day! I headed up to Menasha with my coach Jeff Melcher from Cycling Form and Fitness, we did the M1,2,3 race. Weather was perfect, not crazy winds and temperature was perfect. The venue was great, they had food and beverages for purchase, a pace car and a stage with podium boxes(for a WCA race that is nice). The O2 guys did a great job!
The course was flat with one false flat straight, was a nice course with good roads.
I haven't raced since T.o.A.D. and that was back in June, so I was brushing up on some of my pack skills before the big race this coming weekend (Race the Lake). Not, that it was a big pack by all means with only 22 or so racers in my race.
The race was very tactical with guys trying to make a break work, guys were constantly attacking and chasing and finally one got away. It definitely takes the right combination to make it work. I did my fair share of trying to bridge and was successful a time or two, but I was getting tired. I also spent quite a bit of time on the front too. Didn't do a great job of stacking zero's.
If you find your self on the front, I find it positive, because that means your fitness is good enough to be there and you are riding/racing fast enough to keep other racers from coming around. When I was on the front I was staying with in myself, so I was trying to race as smart as possible without completely blowing up.
Anyways, back to the race, so there were attack after attack, until finally a small group of four where of the front and then there was a chase group and they didn't succeed and where all absorbed back into the main pack of about 18.I was on the front of the main group for a lap or two around 5 or 6 laps left and this is not where I wanted or needed to be. So, what did I do you ask? I started going slower and slower until finally someone attacked and then I jumped and got into someones draft. With two to go I was in a decent position and had a good position again with one to go. The last lap was relatively slow for half of it and then it took off, I was kind of boxed in when guys started to jump, but I did manage to pass a couple before the finish line. I finished well (10th), that is a best for me in this classification, so I am very pleased with the results from myself and my coaching. Jeff finished 7th and was in the money.
Up next is Race the Lake, this is August 21st and it is a 90 mile road race around Lake Winnebago.
The course was flat with one false flat straight, was a nice course with good roads.
I haven't raced since T.o.A.D. and that was back in June, so I was brushing up on some of my pack skills before the big race this coming weekend (Race the Lake). Not, that it was a big pack by all means with only 22 or so racers in my race.
The race was very tactical with guys trying to make a break work, guys were constantly attacking and chasing and finally one got away. It definitely takes the right combination to make it work. I did my fair share of trying to bridge and was successful a time or two, but I was getting tired. I also spent quite a bit of time on the front too. Didn't do a great job of stacking zero's.
If you find your self on the front, I find it positive, because that means your fitness is good enough to be there and you are riding/racing fast enough to keep other racers from coming around. When I was on the front I was staying with in myself, so I was trying to race as smart as possible without completely blowing up.
Anyways, back to the race, so there were attack after attack, until finally a small group of four where of the front and then there was a chase group and they didn't succeed and where all absorbed back into the main pack of about 18.I was on the front of the main group for a lap or two around 5 or 6 laps left and this is not where I wanted or needed to be. So, what did I do you ask? I started going slower and slower until finally someone attacked and then I jumped and got into someones draft. With two to go I was in a decent position and had a good position again with one to go. The last lap was relatively slow for half of it and then it took off, I was kind of boxed in when guys started to jump, but I did manage to pass a couple before the finish line. I finished well (10th), that is a best for me in this classification, so I am very pleased with the results from myself and my coaching. Jeff finished 7th and was in the money.
Up next is Race the Lake, this is August 21st and it is a 90 mile road race around Lake Winnebago.
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