Great ride. Lots of people showed up. We had close to 30 or so. I thought it would be bigger, but a lot of the guys who usually meet up with us out by the golf course weren't there.
As we were climbing in one section early and heard the unmistakable sound of cleats hitting the pavement. I yelled "RIDER DOWN!" The group sat up for a second....then laid into it.
It was Ara. He got boxed in or something and hit the deck. I floated back to see who it was and saw him rocketing back up to the group. many of the team members floated back to help but he didn't need it. In the end it just left a bunchof guys off the back at a bad time for them. Ara even told them "don't wait for me (save yourselves)."
Speed wise is was slow to wind up. I was planning on leading all of the 4/5's that wanted to ride slower by taking all of the short cuts. I was 1/2 way through the first turn where I was supposed to go straight for the shortcut and missed it. That's when it started to get a little faster.
I was hanging pretty good, but found myself in the wind swinging around in a weird middle section trying to hold on. I held for a while but then my mind just said, "save it" so I sat up and coasted back.
That was when the group hit McDonald Rd and they were GONE. We ended up with a group of stragglers. Alien3 from the penny rd ride was with us. He told me CyLoew had gotten a flat and was out a long ways back (oops....). He said he felt bad for not stopping, but we all know what kind of ride it was. I still felt bad I didn't stop even though I didn't even know until many miles later.
Colorchange, RR, myself, alien3, and some tri guys made up this group. I was feeling good and was looking to take some hard pulls. We started kind of rotating well. I was pulling at 400-500 watts when on the front. We were hauling butt around 30mph all the way down McDonald. We took a shortcut and ended up in front of the main group for a majority of the ride.
Some of the tri guys weren't pulling through and when they did they weren't really pouring it on. That ended up with myself and RR and Colorchange doing a ton of pulls. We ended up really tired by the time we got back into the wind. We started a constant rotating 2 line paceline. Even that died after a few miles.
The group caught us and we motored on in the big pack. Nice. Hit Townhall in the group. It was like a gun went off. Those guys attacked it like date on prom night.
The rest of the ride found alien3 and myself limping back. We made it back into the group when we got back into town. Nice ride. Fast, but it has been faster. Fun. 40+ miles. Even with the soft pedaling in town I averaged over 20mph for the whole ride. Haven't looked at the power data but I am sure it is brutal.
CyLowe and MJH2 came rolling in together. Nice move by MJH2. He's always been good like that.
Now...trail ride with little P this morning. Hit the shop in the afternoon...racing in Madison tomorrow and hopefully Sunday as well. Here's to a good and safe weekend for everyone!
....oh yeah....and check out my site. Click on some of the advertisers links if they interest you...hopefully you know why. Custom wheel build quotes, etc.
Showing posts with label mridan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mridan. Show all posts
Friday, April 17, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
ABD TT#3 Report
Another round of beating your head into a wall is over. I am happy to say I have made no gains over the last couple of months. That said I have found that have made no losses either. Meh...here's the pics. That's all any of you care about anyway...
Showed up early enough to see JAnd do his run.
Cheering section - L to R - JF, Little P, Mrs. P
GO JAND GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time for us to go. Clipping in for torture....
"Hi...I'm f'n nuts!"
Reset the computer....and.......3.....2......1.....GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I burried my head for the first 5 minutes. I didn't look at the screen because I knew I would go too hard if I saw I was behind in order to catch up....or if I was ahead in order to maintain position. So I didn't look.
I was rocking out to a mix of punk and metal. Total "kill everyone" kind of stuff.
I hit my normal wall about 4-5 mintes in, but pushed through. I looked up to see I was behind...by a lot. JF was in front of me. Honestly he's got the chops even though he's new so I really didn't let that bother me too much, but I was at least gpong to try to pull him back.
Up until now I had been running about 270W. I shifted and started bringing around 300W in the second 5 minutes.
"OOooooo"
With a During the last set of 5 minutes I started to crack. I made myself take it easy for 1.5 minutes. Rode easier than I could just in hopes of recovering to finish strong. It kind of worked, but not really. I tried with about 2.5-3 minutes left to stand and go at it. I was within "50 or 60 feet" of JF when I did. When I stood...so did he. That just told me he wasn't going to just hand anything over.
At first I felt bad because I figured he thought I was standing to sprint to the end, but it was way too early for that. I was just hoping to get a quick jump to turn over the distance between us. Turns out when I stood I didn't upshift so my power dropped. Ooops. I sat back down to compensate, but by then JF had taken the opportunity to lay down some power.
I tried to stand and sprint at the end, but I didn't have much. Not the usual punch I have. When done...I felt like puking. So...I did it right. I definitely left some out there though. Just couldn't tap into the deep well if that makes sense.
Shoot me.
Seriously...shoot me.
JF took the win in style. The guy is a naturl athlete that will accel at this cycling thing with no problem. I keep telling him the only thing that will limit how far he goes is how much time he wants to spend on it. He won't be a 5 long and will be a 4 even shorter.
This time he won the CM 19-29. He also got to pick up his medal from the previous TT
To top it off I still owe him a beer to make up for the last $5 from registration I owe him. Will it never end?
So...I ended up 13th out of 28 who took the start out of Cat 4. Furthest up in the field so far, but 2 seconds slower than my last one on the "Flat" course. I did beat Rob Jungels...by like 7 seconds...which just means there is a story there. I'm guessing he had something go wrong or he was doing it as a recovery in street shoes and blue jeans.
Tuesday night at the shop we're doing the mother of all indoor trainer sessions. We're down to 1x45' at threshold. Those sessions have made it easier to race already. They have convinced me that I can ride at an intense effort for much longer than I thought I could.
Congrats to JAnd, JF and everyone else who went out there (MRIDan). Nothing like paying $25 so you can sit in one place and turn yourself inside out for 16 minutes.
Almost time to shave the legs. Mrs. P is thrilled.
Showed up early enough to see JAnd do his run.
Cheering section - L to R - JF, Little P, Mrs. P
GO JAND GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Time for us to go. Clipping in for torture....
"Hi...I'm f'n nuts!"
Reset the computer....and.......3.....2......1.....GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I burried my head for the first 5 minutes. I didn't look at the screen because I knew I would go too hard if I saw I was behind in order to catch up....or if I was ahead in order to maintain position. So I didn't look.
I was rocking out to a mix of punk and metal. Total "kill everyone" kind of stuff.
I hit my normal wall about 4-5 mintes in, but pushed through. I looked up to see I was behind...by a lot. JF was in front of me. Honestly he's got the chops even though he's new so I really didn't let that bother me too much, but I was at least gpong to try to pull him back.
Up until now I had been running about 270W. I shifted and started bringing around 300W in the second 5 minutes.
"OOooooo"
With a During the last set of 5 minutes I started to crack. I made myself take it easy for 1.5 minutes. Rode easier than I could just in hopes of recovering to finish strong. It kind of worked, but not really. I tried with about 2.5-3 minutes left to stand and go at it. I was within "50 or 60 feet" of JF when I did. When I stood...so did he. That just told me he wasn't going to just hand anything over.
At first I felt bad because I figured he thought I was standing to sprint to the end, but it was way too early for that. I was just hoping to get a quick jump to turn over the distance between us. Turns out when I stood I didn't upshift so my power dropped. Ooops. I sat back down to compensate, but by then JF had taken the opportunity to lay down some power.
I tried to stand and sprint at the end, but I didn't have much. Not the usual punch I have. When done...I felt like puking. So...I did it right. I definitely left some out there though. Just couldn't tap into the deep well if that makes sense.
Shoot me.
Seriously...shoot me.
JF took the win in style. The guy is a naturl athlete that will accel at this cycling thing with no problem. I keep telling him the only thing that will limit how far he goes is how much time he wants to spend on it. He won't be a 5 long and will be a 4 even shorter.
This time he won the CM 19-29. He also got to pick up his medal from the previous TT
To top it off I still owe him a beer to make up for the last $5 from registration I owe him. Will it never end?
So...I ended up 13th out of 28 who took the start out of Cat 4. Furthest up in the field so far, but 2 seconds slower than my last one on the "Flat" course. I did beat Rob Jungels...by like 7 seconds...which just means there is a story there. I'm guessing he had something go wrong or he was doing it as a recovery in street shoes and blue jeans.
Tuesday night at the shop we're doing the mother of all indoor trainer sessions. We're down to 1x45' at threshold. Those sessions have made it easier to race already. They have convinced me that I can ride at an intense effort for much longer than I thought I could.
Congrats to JAnd, JF and everyone else who went out there (MRIDan). Nothing like paying $25 so you can sit in one place and turn yourself inside out for 16 minutes.
Almost time to shave the legs. Mrs. P is thrilled.
Monday, February 2, 2009
ABD TT#2
Everyone has been asking me how the TT went yesterday. Funny thing is I don't really know. I didn't have a clear goal going into it and therefore even after having seen my results I don't know if that was good or bad.
In general I guess I have maintained my fitness. I finished mid pack cat 4 again.
JF - a new member to our team decided to give it a shot. He has had a road bike for a while, but really hasn't put much time in on it for quite a while. He's in good shape, but doesn't have a lot of saddle time. In essence I was more excited about watching his ride than my own. I love seeing new people get involved in the sport and I have a feeling he's going to end up loving racing.
So here I am a 'semi-trained' cat 4 (only because I fast-talked the upgrade with a lot of talk of cyclocross and TT's) and JF just about beats me. I took the time to manually record his power profile and plot it against my own after the fact.
If you know what you're looking at you'll see that with a little aerobic conditioning/threshold conditioning this guy can possibly kick a lot of cat 5 (and 4)ass this year. I should have savored my victory while I had the chance.
Here he is warming up before the TT (on the right). The guy ont he bike on the left is another BF member mridan. The guy who looks fast standing still is Andy Skeen.
In the pain cave - there's cobwebs, bats, and scary things. Time to clean it out and makes it a nice home. You'll be spending lots of time in there.
Beat. At this point I am guessing he was debating puking. This is a good thing.
After he was done I went over and caught the end of Julie's race. She put in a hard effort as well. She was especially pleased that her picture was being taken right after she finished.
mridan was up next. I wrote his power down as well and shouted as much encouragement as I could. I think he too has been bitten by the competitive bug.
All in all a good TT. Glad I did it. Now...Tuesday night will be me running the Bicycle Heaven trainer class. 2x25'@threshold. Hmmm....need to put together some tunes...
In general I guess I have maintained my fitness. I finished mid pack cat 4 again.
JF - a new member to our team decided to give it a shot. He has had a road bike for a while, but really hasn't put much time in on it for quite a while. He's in good shape, but doesn't have a lot of saddle time. In essence I was more excited about watching his ride than my own. I love seeing new people get involved in the sport and I have a feeling he's going to end up loving racing.
So here I am a 'semi-trained' cat 4 (only because I fast-talked the upgrade with a lot of talk of cyclocross and TT's) and JF just about beats me. I took the time to manually record his power profile and plot it against my own after the fact.
If you know what you're looking at you'll see that with a little aerobic conditioning/threshold conditioning this guy can possibly kick a lot of cat 5 (and 4)ass this year. I should have savored my victory while I had the chance.
Here he is warming up before the TT (on the right). The guy ont he bike on the left is another BF member mridan. The guy who looks fast standing still is Andy Skeen.
In the pain cave - there's cobwebs, bats, and scary things. Time to clean it out and makes it a nice home. You'll be spending lots of time in there.
Beat. At this point I am guessing he was debating puking. This is a good thing.
After he was done I went over and caught the end of Julie's race. She put in a hard effort as well. She was especially pleased that her picture was being taken right after she finished.
mridan was up next. I wrote his power down as well and shouted as much encouragement as I could. I think he too has been bitten by the competitive bug.
All in all a good TT. Glad I did it. Now...Tuesday night will be me running the Bicycle Heaven trainer class. 2x25'@threshold. Hmmm....need to put together some tunes...
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