Not really, but I saw this word invention over on the blog that always wears a smile and I wanted to use it. Truth is I've been feeling pretty good, but I'm going to force myself to take a little bit of recovery. My training volume has been way up, despite numerous days off, but the intensity has been lacking. My efforts lack direction, so it's time to regroup.
Monday I went over to nearby West Bridgewater and ran the Christopher's Run 5k. It was windy and I knew I wouldn't feel like riding hard, and I needed a run, so this was the easiest way to make sure I didn't totally dog it. Obviously, going in with 300k of hilly riding in the two days prior, expectations were low. The race is promoted by a local club runner who also happens to do triathlons, and was thus stocked with a number of his athlete friends. The course was pretty flat. My intention was to go out easy and try for once to negative split. I think that I succeeded, but not according to the mile markers, which seemed to be way off. I headed out fifteen runners back, and hit the first mile in 6:18. This may have been correct, but the marker lay just past an intersection, where the true mile line may have been in the middle of. The second mile was surely my slowest, yet the split was 5:49. Something was fishy. I know I ran the last mile the fastest, as it was downhill and I even passed a guy, but this clicked off as 6:10, and I finished in 18:54. My average HR was only 155, as of course I was pretty cooked.
Watching the rest of the finishers was the day's highlight. At the early season races like the Raynham 15k and the Paddy Kelly, almost all the entrants are fairly serious club runners. Most are training for Boston or whatever. Now it's summertime 5k season. It's getting hard to find any other distance to race. All the locals come out and "run." Pretty funny. WeeBee has become a totally stereotypical bedroom suburb, and it showed. Dozens of 30-something women trying to look as milfy as possible running with big sunglasses, golf hats, and thin white tops. I guess nipple chafing is not such a big issue when it's only 5k. And of course, this brings out lots of hairy old guys running shirtless even though their torsos looked more 30-pack than 6-pack. Amusing. But gross just the same. You ain't in high school anymore dude.
Yesterday I'd probably have been dumb enough to go to Wompatuck, but I'm guessing it got canceled anyway by the afternoon thunderstorms. So I'm taking it easy this week. It's nice to have no pressure to train. Weird thing is, despite 45 hours in the past three weeks, my weight continues to climb. I'm almost back up to where I was last summer. Now I've got to think about the race schedule for the coming months. The cool weather has kept me running longer than usual. I'd like to give a good effort in a run or two with legs that haven't been par-boiled on the bike. Maybe I can hit one of the weeknight races that are coming up. I missed the boat on the Reggae Ramble, and all the rest of the races in that series filled up too. There are others. Who's going where? This coming Saturday I may hit the Rye-by-the-Sea duathlon. The following week I need to decide between the Balloon Festival and the Waterville TT. I may end up opting for the latter as there are road races every weekend for the next month, and the travel budget may dictate I skip at least one or two of them anyway. And I need some intensity. With crap like this to write, maybe a "rest week" from the blog would be a good idea... Thanks for reading.
since 2006
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Out of the zone
Most of the time when you hear of "the zone" regarding sports and athletics, it's considered good to be "in it." You're fast, you're focused, you're on a mission. This post isn't about that. I'm writing about the other zone, the comfort zone, with respect to training. I don't think it's just me; most of us have certain training routines we've grown used to, and these are what we stick with, clinging to whatever real or imagined benefits these regimens bring to us. There are some positives that come from knowing what you can handle, and how you'll adapt to it. So long as the events which test you are also the same ones you've done before, then your comfort zone training should take you back to wherever it is you go when you race. It's also nice to know you're training won't push you past the brink and into injury, or even just the super-fatigue and accompanying super-low personal productivity that sometimes happens when we train too hard (not that I would know). But what if you want to take things up a level? You'll probably need to do more. Exactly what, well, that's the subject of countless books and online debates. If you're at a loss, you won't need to look too far to find an online coach willing to take your money for some guidance... I'm an unguided type, and I'm not even sure where it is I want to go, but I'm pretty sure that in order to get there I'm going to need to step outside my comfort zone.
When Hilljunkie invited me to go on his annual Six Gaps Ride, I was like "you've got to be shitting me." I'd read about it before, and to me it just seemed insane. I may or may not have ridden 130 miles at a time before, but I've been close (I think I hit 122 on a Jaffrey turnaround with Ted Richards, and I also rode from home to Worcester and back without a cyclometer, then there was D2R2). Ditto for the 14,500 feet of climbing in one ride, as D2R2 numbers are subject to some debate. Regardless, this kind of ride, with long, steep climbs, is not my thing. I have enough trouble finishing the App Gap stage of the GMSR, and that's only two of the six gaps. This ride lies way outside my comfort zone... And Jansen's a fucking animal. So I guess I should accept the invite and go.
In preparation, I started going out and riding a few hours after each road race, Hilljunkie-style. Dougie even came with me last week at Sunapee. I think the motherfucker played possum a little bit too, in order to boost my confidence so I wouldn't back out on 6 gaps at the last minute, ensuring his chance to make me yet another one of his victims. I've probably had more 90 mile days this year than ever before at this point in the season. Five hours is still a long way from eight or nine, but at least I had a decent base. Then I had to come up with a bike. Doug and Brett told me horror stories about Lincoln Gap, allegedly the steepest paved mile of road in the United States, but Punk Ass Colin, in his blog entry about his six gaps adventure, tackled the beast in a 39x27, without traversing. But he's young and strong. Jansen said "something close to one to one" and when someone with his palmares in the hilliest New England races starts talking about, as Reuter calls them, "Nancy-Boy" gears like that, I listen. I know, get to the point - OK, commuter bike, took the fenders off, used normal wheels and 25 mm tires, 30-42-52 standard Ultegra triple and an 11-32 LX cassette. Put on squeaky Look pedals so that I could use my plush padded Northwaves instead of my light, low profile but give me hot foot after four hours Rocket 7s. Ten kg exactly, ready to ride without bottles.
So the ride. Rather than reinvent the wheel and go into great detail about each climb and descent, I'll let you read Doug and Colin's writeups if you want that. I'll talk about our ride. The weather could not make up it's mind so I wore long sleeves and knee warmers, which meant no so-pro bronze farmer tan from this all day ride. I also brought a thin team jacket for the descents. At times it got pretty warm, and other times it was pretty cold. There was a steady wind from the north most of the day.
I'll give myself a "C" for my performance. My climbing sucked. I never got in the groove, and could not hold the fast guys on any of the big climbs. At a certain gradient, I'd have to let go. In the early going, this was planned, as I can't go to the mat in the first half of a long ride without paying for it later. I tried to let these kids slug it out on the first few gaps in hopes of coming on strong over the finishing cols, but that didn't work out. On the plus side, I had no real issues with finishing. I wasn't totally wasted when it was over, and I felt ok today, doing another 90k ride in what turned out to be perfect Sunday weather on the Rt 100-Tyson Road-Rt 106 loop near Ludlow and Woodstock VT.
Brandon Gap we went the opposite way the Killington race went. The only woman on the ride got taken down about 5k into it when Dan Massucco (there's a name from races past) stood up as we chatted and wheels overlapped. Slightly shaken, she got up and proceeded to kick my ass on every single one of the climbs. I was pretty much a back of the packer. Even still, on Brandon I went harder than I wanted to go that early. Then we had a ragged chaseline going past Lake Dunmore. Some of these guys were killer strong non-racer types, you know the kind who speed up by 5 kph when they pull. Twice as annoying when you're next in line... At least I had the satisfaction of watching the worst perp put his foot down on Lincoln Gap. Anyhow, Middlebury Gap sucked for me. I tried to pace myself, but it just sucked. I should have stopped to take off my jacket, but whatever, I never got a rhythm going, and I think everyone on the ride passed me before the top. This isn't even that steep, but I was in my easiest gears. I say "easiest" meaning lowest ratio. Oddly enough, in a perverse-reverse Lemond, it seems that it doesn't get any easier, you just go slower. At least the descent was good, but then we had a prolonged stop while Clara got bandaged up, and my legs turned to stone.
The trip over Granville Gulf was OK for me, my critical gradient never was exceeded. Then we hit Lincoln Gap. I don't want to fall behind, so I deftly take my extra bottle of water out of my pocket and refill my downtube bottle. Then I remove my jacket, no handing on the fairly steep lower slopes. Then I sprint back on to the group. I burned half a match, but I'm on. Then they all pull over to remove their jackets... Fuckers. We keep going, and most of them pass me. Then we get to the infamous Lincoln Gap here we go, take a shovel and start digging your grave now steepest asstest mile in the world. Yeah, it was steep. Basically it looks just like Ascutney. Allegedly it's steeper. Maybe it was. I suffered, but at least I had the gears. My cadence was still low, but I could sit a little here and there. Dougie was at the top with a camera so I popped it in the 52 for the photo op.
Everyone talks about the descents on this ride like they're so heinous. I don't know, they didn't make much of an impression on me. It is funny though, as going down Brandon Gap it seems all fast and stuff. By the end of the day you're used to it and going 70 kph around a blind corner with one hand on the bars and the other stuffing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your face seems like nothing. FWIW, I thought the Tyson Road descent today was more fun than any of them, except maybe App Gap.
Speaking of which, I hate climbing App Gap. Having sandbagged the first three climbs (well, as much as possible), when we left the Lincoln Country Store (where I got a donut!) it was time to get to work. I was under the impression there would be no more regroupings, so I'd better keep up with the leaders. If you read Dougie's entry, then yes, it's true, I'd seen a map and noted a road that cut across from Lincoln and came out 3/4 of the way up Baby Gap, but Jansen was having none of that. So all the way to the valley floor we went, turning north on 17 straight into the wind. I felt good and did a backwards Moninger shuffle, staying at the front of the line for an extra pull. Rutledge on the other hand, I guess doesn't like wind. Whatever the unit of time that 1/100 of a nanosecond is, well, that is about ten times longer than he stayed on the front. Didn't matter, as within a few miles we're on Baby Gap. And these assholes are drilling it. What can I say. I tried. I tried hard, because this being the only one of the gaps I'd previously experienced riding in the direction we were doing them today, so I knew about the 10k or so of flat/downhill between Baby Gap and the hellish end of App Gap proper. Staying on until the flat would mean a ticket to ride across, just like in a race. Sure, I'd be dropped on the numerous switchbacks at the end, but I'd lose way less time. And it was not to be. Just like every other climb, I came off on one of the last little rises before the big flat spot. This time, I even dug down and made the mad, futile chase back to the group, rejoining just in time to blow sky high when they drilled the next rise. Buh-bye. Another solo ascent, with company only coming from behind just in time to girl me by the summit. Mad tuck and psycho descent for revenge. And lo and behold, they were regrouping at the bottom.
This was the last chance to bail out and make it a four gapper. It was probably only about 40k straight back down Route 100 to get to the car, and it would still total a respectable 100+ miles. But we came to do six gaps, not four. The stop was long though. And then they start a mad romp toward Roxbury gap. My legs felt like shit. Once again, I popped on a small rise before the last flat, winding up alone between groups. For some reason, I didn't think these last two gaps were going to be that bad. I guess Roxbury wasn't horrible. It's dirt at the top, but it was fine, except swarms of black flies must have mistook my pathetic carcass for dead road kill. And of course, fifty meters from the top, you-know-who catches and passes me. At least none of the others did. And again, I bomb the fucking gravel descent for revenge.
Out on Route 12a, the group is again stopped for fuel. Fuck that, I'm not letting my legs tighten up again. I fill my bottles and go, taking a head start. I know Route 12a, and it's pretty flat, and I've got a tailwind. I still figure they'll catch me soon, but I've got no idea how long they stayed there. I'm feeling good now, but of course it's flat. I make a wrong turn in Randolph, but quickly get back on track. I hear a freight train whistle. I hope it's two miles long and they get stuck waiting for it. I stop to pee. I get going again, and make it to Rochester Gap road, or whatever it is. The sign says Rochester, 10 miles. I'm guessing it's five up and five down. It starts up. Now I don't feel so good anymore. And here comes the group. In plain English, Rochester gap sucks. Go ride it yourself and you'll see what I mean. The descent though, maybe it's because I knew the ride was almost over, but it was fun. By now it's 6:30 pm, so I'm watching out for deer at 70 kph. I don't want to hit one and drop my sandwich...
And we're done. For me, it was 8:10 ride time, 9:10 total. I had 210k (130 miles) on my odo. Dougie had 7:20 ride time? Damn. And I thought I spent way too much time at the stops. Anyway, I'm pleased that in spite of my Nancy-Boy gearing, I still finished in an hour less than Hans Snowflake did on his attempt last summer. This ride was outside my comfort zone for sure. I'm not quite sure what good this type of adventure will be as race training. I'm hoping that with the easy gears at least I was pedaling at a "normal" cadence most of the time, at whatever power it is I can put out on a ride with 55k of severe climbing in it. Do it again? Yeah, probably, although I've run several four and five gap versions of this through my mind, and think they may be a lot more fun (i.e. possible to ride at closer to race pace with less stops) than the nine hour enduro slog. And if you're wondering how I come up with five gaps, well, it would involve doing a U-turn at the top of one of them. Or we could go completely insane and work Sherburne Pass as well as Smuggler's Notch into the equation and make this a 24 hour affair. But that's someone else's zone. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
When Hilljunkie invited me to go on his annual Six Gaps Ride, I was like "you've got to be shitting me." I'd read about it before, and to me it just seemed insane. I may or may not have ridden 130 miles at a time before, but I've been close (I think I hit 122 on a Jaffrey turnaround with Ted Richards, and I also rode from home to Worcester and back without a cyclometer, then there was D2R2). Ditto for the 14,500 feet of climbing in one ride, as D2R2 numbers are subject to some debate. Regardless, this kind of ride, with long, steep climbs, is not my thing. I have enough trouble finishing the App Gap stage of the GMSR, and that's only two of the six gaps. This ride lies way outside my comfort zone... And Jansen's a fucking animal. So I guess I should accept the invite and go.
In preparation, I started going out and riding a few hours after each road race, Hilljunkie-style. Dougie even came with me last week at Sunapee. I think the motherfucker played possum a little bit too, in order to boost my confidence so I wouldn't back out on 6 gaps at the last minute, ensuring his chance to make me yet another one of his victims. I've probably had more 90 mile days this year than ever before at this point in the season. Five hours is still a long way from eight or nine, but at least I had a decent base. Then I had to come up with a bike. Doug and Brett told me horror stories about Lincoln Gap, allegedly the steepest paved mile of road in the United States, but Punk Ass Colin, in his blog entry about his six gaps adventure, tackled the beast in a 39x27, without traversing. But he's young and strong. Jansen said "something close to one to one" and when someone with his palmares in the hilliest New England races starts talking about, as Reuter calls them, "Nancy-Boy" gears like that, I listen. I know, get to the point - OK, commuter bike, took the fenders off, used normal wheels and 25 mm tires, 30-42-52 standard Ultegra triple and an 11-32 LX cassette. Put on squeaky Look pedals so that I could use my plush padded Northwaves instead of my light, low profile but give me hot foot after four hours Rocket 7s. Ten kg exactly, ready to ride without bottles.
So the ride. Rather than reinvent the wheel and go into great detail about each climb and descent, I'll let you read Doug and Colin's writeups if you want that. I'll talk about our ride. The weather could not make up it's mind so I wore long sleeves and knee warmers, which meant no so-pro bronze farmer tan from this all day ride. I also brought a thin team jacket for the descents. At times it got pretty warm, and other times it was pretty cold. There was a steady wind from the north most of the day.
I'll give myself a "C" for my performance. My climbing sucked. I never got in the groove, and could not hold the fast guys on any of the big climbs. At a certain gradient, I'd have to let go. In the early going, this was planned, as I can't go to the mat in the first half of a long ride without paying for it later. I tried to let these kids slug it out on the first few gaps in hopes of coming on strong over the finishing cols, but that didn't work out. On the plus side, I had no real issues with finishing. I wasn't totally wasted when it was over, and I felt ok today, doing another 90k ride in what turned out to be perfect Sunday weather on the Rt 100-Tyson Road-Rt 106 loop near Ludlow and Woodstock VT.
Brandon Gap we went the opposite way the Killington race went. The only woman on the ride got taken down about 5k into it when Dan Massucco (there's a name from races past) stood up as we chatted and wheels overlapped. Slightly shaken, she got up and proceeded to kick my ass on every single one of the climbs. I was pretty much a back of the packer. Even still, on Brandon I went harder than I wanted to go that early. Then we had a ragged chaseline going past Lake Dunmore. Some of these guys were killer strong non-racer types, you know the kind who speed up by 5 kph when they pull. Twice as annoying when you're next in line... At least I had the satisfaction of watching the worst perp put his foot down on Lincoln Gap. Anyhow, Middlebury Gap sucked for me. I tried to pace myself, but it just sucked. I should have stopped to take off my jacket, but whatever, I never got a rhythm going, and I think everyone on the ride passed me before the top. This isn't even that steep, but I was in my easiest gears. I say "easiest" meaning lowest ratio. Oddly enough, in a perverse-reverse Lemond, it seems that it doesn't get any easier, you just go slower. At least the descent was good, but then we had a prolonged stop while Clara got bandaged up, and my legs turned to stone.
The trip over Granville Gulf was OK for me, my critical gradient never was exceeded. Then we hit Lincoln Gap. I don't want to fall behind, so I deftly take my extra bottle of water out of my pocket and refill my downtube bottle. Then I remove my jacket, no handing on the fairly steep lower slopes. Then I sprint back on to the group. I burned half a match, but I'm on. Then they all pull over to remove their jackets... Fuckers. We keep going, and most of them pass me. Then we get to the infamous Lincoln Gap here we go, take a shovel and start digging your grave now steepest asstest mile in the world. Yeah, it was steep. Basically it looks just like Ascutney. Allegedly it's steeper. Maybe it was. I suffered, but at least I had the gears. My cadence was still low, but I could sit a little here and there. Dougie was at the top with a camera so I popped it in the 52 for the photo op.
Everyone talks about the descents on this ride like they're so heinous. I don't know, they didn't make much of an impression on me. It is funny though, as going down Brandon Gap it seems all fast and stuff. By the end of the day you're used to it and going 70 kph around a blind corner with one hand on the bars and the other stuffing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your face seems like nothing. FWIW, I thought the Tyson Road descent today was more fun than any of them, except maybe App Gap.
Speaking of which, I hate climbing App Gap. Having sandbagged the first three climbs (well, as much as possible), when we left the Lincoln Country Store (where I got a donut!) it was time to get to work. I was under the impression there would be no more regroupings, so I'd better keep up with the leaders. If you read Dougie's entry, then yes, it's true, I'd seen a map and noted a road that cut across from Lincoln and came out 3/4 of the way up Baby Gap, but Jansen was having none of that. So all the way to the valley floor we went, turning north on 17 straight into the wind. I felt good and did a backwards Moninger shuffle, staying at the front of the line for an extra pull. Rutledge on the other hand, I guess doesn't like wind. Whatever the unit of time that 1/100 of a nanosecond is, well, that is about ten times longer than he stayed on the front. Didn't matter, as within a few miles we're on Baby Gap. And these assholes are drilling it. What can I say. I tried. I tried hard, because this being the only one of the gaps I'd previously experienced riding in the direction we were doing them today, so I knew about the 10k or so of flat/downhill between Baby Gap and the hellish end of App Gap proper. Staying on until the flat would mean a ticket to ride across, just like in a race. Sure, I'd be dropped on the numerous switchbacks at the end, but I'd lose way less time. And it was not to be. Just like every other climb, I came off on one of the last little rises before the big flat spot. This time, I even dug down and made the mad, futile chase back to the group, rejoining just in time to blow sky high when they drilled the next rise. Buh-bye. Another solo ascent, with company only coming from behind just in time to girl me by the summit. Mad tuck and psycho descent for revenge. And lo and behold, they were regrouping at the bottom.
This was the last chance to bail out and make it a four gapper. It was probably only about 40k straight back down Route 100 to get to the car, and it would still total a respectable 100+ miles. But we came to do six gaps, not four. The stop was long though. And then they start a mad romp toward Roxbury gap. My legs felt like shit. Once again, I popped on a small rise before the last flat, winding up alone between groups. For some reason, I didn't think these last two gaps were going to be that bad. I guess Roxbury wasn't horrible. It's dirt at the top, but it was fine, except swarms of black flies must have mistook my pathetic carcass for dead road kill. And of course, fifty meters from the top, you-know-who catches and passes me. At least none of the others did. And again, I bomb the fucking gravel descent for revenge.
Out on Route 12a, the group is again stopped for fuel. Fuck that, I'm not letting my legs tighten up again. I fill my bottles and go, taking a head start. I know Route 12a, and it's pretty flat, and I've got a tailwind. I still figure they'll catch me soon, but I've got no idea how long they stayed there. I'm feeling good now, but of course it's flat. I make a wrong turn in Randolph, but quickly get back on track. I hear a freight train whistle. I hope it's two miles long and they get stuck waiting for it. I stop to pee. I get going again, and make it to Rochester Gap road, or whatever it is. The sign says Rochester, 10 miles. I'm guessing it's five up and five down. It starts up. Now I don't feel so good anymore. And here comes the group. In plain English, Rochester gap sucks. Go ride it yourself and you'll see what I mean. The descent though, maybe it's because I knew the ride was almost over, but it was fun. By now it's 6:30 pm, so I'm watching out for deer at 70 kph. I don't want to hit one and drop my sandwich...
And we're done. For me, it was 8:10 ride time, 9:10 total. I had 210k (130 miles) on my odo. Dougie had 7:20 ride time? Damn. And I thought I spent way too much time at the stops. Anyway, I'm pleased that in spite of my Nancy-Boy gearing, I still finished in an hour less than Hans Snowflake did on his attempt last summer. This ride was outside my comfort zone for sure. I'm not quite sure what good this type of adventure will be as race training. I'm hoping that with the easy gears at least I was pedaling at a "normal" cadence most of the time, at whatever power it is I can put out on a ride with 55k of severe climbing in it. Do it again? Yeah, probably, although I've run several four and five gap versions of this through my mind, and think they may be a lot more fun (i.e. possible to ride at closer to race pace with less stops) than the nine hour enduro slog. And if you're wondering how I come up with five gaps, well, it would involve doing a U-turn at the top of one of them. Or we could go completely insane and work Sherburne Pass as well as Smuggler's Notch into the equation and make this a 24 hour affair. But that's someone else's zone. Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Seen at the races
Can you tell it's sweeps week and my ratings are down? Since the nudity ploy failed to generate any extra comments and/or traffic, I'm going further down the low road with an audience participation/reality show combo. Here's the debut of a new monthly feature "Seen at the races." Anything strange, funny, oddball, real, exciting, whatever, so long as you actually saw it at a race. Links to photos acceptable, but not required, especially since I don't have any.
I'll get us started:
1) brand-new looking chain laying in the road (Sterling, first lap, top of hill by start/finish).
This is not Wolfie! And what's wrong with a white kit?
2) Wolfie in a scally cap (Jiminy Peak, parking lot, just before he bailed on the race because it was drizzling)
3) Hot underage chick in a short shorts. (ummmm... some crit)
Thanks for reading.
I'll get us started:
1) brand-new looking chain laying in the road (Sterling, first lap, top of hill by start/finish).
This is not Wolfie! And what's wrong with a white kit?
2) Wolfie in a scally cap (Jiminy Peak, parking lot, just before he bailed on the race because it was drizzling)
3) Hot underage chick in a short shorts. (ummmm... some crit)
Thanks for reading.
Viewer Mail
We've never done viewer mail here before, because, well, we don't get much mail. Today was supposed to feature some delightful bike porn, but I couldn't find the cable I needed to get the pictures out of the camera. Apparently I've been taking pictures with no memory card in the camera, so they're stuck in camera memory. Bear with me. As a weak substitute, we have this question: "PA" from Canton, MA writes -
Well duh. If I were completely naked, that would kind of be crossing the line, wouldn't it?
Thanks for reading.
"How come there are so many half-naked pictures of you on your blog?"
Well duh. If I were completely naked, that would kind of be crossing the line, wouldn't it?
Thanks for reading.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Good Times, Bad Times
ColinR wants a race report from Sunapee. I already provided the briefest of briefings in my last post, but since I like the kid, and this was a category 3 race (where he should be racing, and hopefully will be soon), I'll humor him.
Why did I race the cat 3's instead of the 45+? Good question, with multiple answers. Why not? I'm a cat 3 (still) so it's always a possible choice. Team BOB already had six guys entered in the 45+. That's a lot in a sixty rider field, but typical for us. You'd think we'd be a dominant team, but we're not. I've been voicing my humble opinion to the rest of the club that we're already too big and should not be growing the club by taking on new members. We already have too many riders who want to do well, and conflicts regarding strategy arise from time to time. Rather than continue to try and herd the cats, at Sunapee I decided to just shut up and take action, voluntarily reducing the size of the 45+ team by one member. Besides that, the only thing worse than using up six guys so that one can get 8th is to use up seven guys for it...
Beyond that, Mark Sups has been doing the 3's instead of the 35+, and after Sturbridge he said placing was "easy." I like easy. I've done one or two cat 3 races a year recently, usually Hollenbeck because the master's race out there was too short. I did not find it easy. Most of the 3's now are pretty damn good, and as a group the field seems much better than when I was a senior. That makes sense, as these kids have to go through two upgrades to get out of cat 5 and then cat 4 where many sandbagging lifers make upgrading more difficult. It used to be the 3's where that took place. In the 90's, we also still had many, many riders who'd had a license since there were only three categories. They'd never upgraded at all. The 3 field's were huge, but the quality of the riding wasn't all that great.
How did my race report turn into a gripe and history session? Getting back on course, the 3's at Sunapee do two laps of the 38k circumnavigation of the lake, same as the masters. Everyone used to do three laps, but now only the 1/2/3 race does. I gave brief thoughts to entering that one, but wisely decided it would be over my head and a waste of good form. I say wisely because their lap times turned out five minutes or so faster than ours. The 3's had about fifty starters by race day, as they went against the flyer and let day-of entries in. I nearly missed the start going to pee, then ended up having to participate in the human shield allowing Feltslave to drop his shorts on the starting line and do the same, all while Chris Naimie announced the race instructions. Those Canadians are a classy bunch, and despite the lack of rains, the field behind us had wet road at the start.
The first few miles were sedate, grouppo compacto. Feltslave and I each had no teammates, and we'd made a pre-race pact to cooperate. We also had very limited knowledge of the competition. NEBC had a large contingent, BRC had three or four riders, and SMCC had a half dozen entered as well, so moves by any of them had to be a concern. Not much of one though, as it's pretty stupid to go reeling in moves when you haven't got teammates. GCD commented in his Sunapee race report that he found the course to not be "rolling" as he'd been informed, but instead hilly. He also wonders why more people don't show up for this excellent race. So do I, and I'm guessing it's too hilly for those who've pigeonholed themselves as sprinters (translation - can't climb and are unwilling to work), and not hilly enough for the pure climbers (translation - can't sprint). Personally, my view of this course changes dramatically depending on my fitness level. Having achieved a few top five finishes in the three lap versions way back, when I returned here in 2005 I was thinking the race was a mix of "rolling" (rt 103 and rt 11) and small "power climbs" (rt 103a). With marginal fitness that year, I got FUCKING KILLED before we even got to 103a, and the race seemed like a mountain stage in the tour. In 2006 it did not seem so bad, but I suffered on the "little climbs," still finishing in the money. Last year, well, my eve of race accommodations were upset by a personal disagreement, and I ended up sleeping only an hour or two and got dropped early, so it must have been hilly. This year the course seemed flat. No shit. I'm climbing better, and maybe the Cat 3s are just steadier than the 45+. Our laps times were similar, but there wasn't any ebb and flow, no hard attacks (or even dick waving).
I hope you're happy Colin. You've got five paragraphs already and barely a word on the race. That will teach you to hassle me about race reports next time. Where were we? Oh yeah, somewhere on Rt 11, two guys rolled off on the first lap. Still considering this race "hilly," (remember, got dropped last year...) this was of no concern to me, because in hilly races I generally only worry about breaks that roll off on the hills. I didn't know any of the players, but I figured they were just getting a head start for the climbs. Plus, there were only two of them, and with three stocked teams in the race, at least one of them must have missed this move and would be responsible for containing it. Besides all that, this pair were just dangling out front by ten seconds or so for a few miles.
Well, wrong again honey. The duo extended their lead when the climbing started, and by the time we got back to 103 they were out of sight. Feltslave and another guy had started a nice bridge attempt at the top of the stairstep, but since the group's pace on the climbs was hardly pressured, nobody was gassed and they got reeled in. Heading back toward 11 a belated chase began, and we had decent pace. On 11 itself, we even got to single file for a while. I figured the break was probably gone, but there were only two so the rest of us still had something to race for. Going past the intersection of 103B, into the long hill, I moved to the front to do some posturing and throw in a fake attack to show these kids how weak I was, in hopes they'd ignore any real move I made later on. This turned out to be dumb, because one guy responded with a violent surge of his own, and I tagged on to him up the grade. The field jumped hard to bring us in, and all we really accomplished was disruption of what had otherwise been a decent chase effort.
I retreated to chat with Feltslave, and then on the last "roller" up rt 11 noted a lone NEBC rider coming back toward us. I wasn't sure if he was dropped from the break or whether he was a straggler blown out the back of the 1/2/3 field, but it turned out he was the former. Logically, our pace picked up dramatically as NEBC switched from blocking to chase mode. Didn't matter, as the other guy, Backhouse from BRC, ended up soloing in by over a minute. However, we were lined out heading down 103b, just before the town line climb (IMHO the hardest on the course) and the front of our pack went down in a pileup. I was in the middle and had to brake hard, and got hit from behind, but only needed to put a foot down before wiggling my fat ass through and getting clipped back in. Only two others rolled away with me, with a pack of 18 or so to chase, and what seemed like half the field either on the ground or stuck behind back there. We had about 800 meters to chase before the climb began, and luckily for me the other two guys were in full panic mode and rode like mad. I rotated through, but I was confident in my ability to close this up on the climb itself, which I did.
Now we had just twenty or so riders in a group behind the lone leader. At least we'd have room in the sprint. Rt 103 was a headwind, and nothing went, just a lot of crowding at the front looking for good position. Going into the rotary, Feltslave wisely powered around the outside and led me out nicely into the right hander up the finish road. The pace did not slow though, and I never sensed a good moment to make the kind of attack I've succeeded with here before. At the top of the first steep hump, Feltslave was a bit gassed so I went around him and tried to find the best wheels. It's pretty flat for the last 400 meters before the little pitch right at the line, and it got aggressive and elbowy as we all fought for position, but the pace never eased. I found the wheel I wanted (the guy who'd chased my move on the hill), but still nobody fully jumped. As the road curves around a bit to the right at the end, I wanted the inside to avoid taking the long way around, but everyone else had the same idea. Finally my guy jumped, but then he sat back down, then jumped again, and the sprint was full on. I never got the running room to fully open the cork, and rolled across behind six others, so I got 8th. Basically I got beat. I guess this was the last paying spot, but at the time I still wasn't sure there were one or two remaining in the break, so I never went up to collect. Instead, I put on a dry kit and headed back out for a ride with Dougie.
There you go, a senseless, rambling, not especially informative race report. Be glad I spared you the tale of my social ride on the outer Cape yesterday. Thanks for reading.
Why did I race the cat 3's instead of the 45+? Good question, with multiple answers. Why not? I'm a cat 3 (still) so it's always a possible choice. Team BOB already had six guys entered in the 45+. That's a lot in a sixty rider field, but typical for us. You'd think we'd be a dominant team, but we're not. I've been voicing my humble opinion to the rest of the club that we're already too big and should not be growing the club by taking on new members. We already have too many riders who want to do well, and conflicts regarding strategy arise from time to time. Rather than continue to try and herd the cats, at Sunapee I decided to just shut up and take action, voluntarily reducing the size of the 45+ team by one member. Besides that, the only thing worse than using up six guys so that one can get 8th is to use up seven guys for it...
Beyond that, Mark Sups has been doing the 3's instead of the 35+, and after Sturbridge he said placing was "easy." I like easy. I've done one or two cat 3 races a year recently, usually Hollenbeck because the master's race out there was too short. I did not find it easy. Most of the 3's now are pretty damn good, and as a group the field seems much better than when I was a senior. That makes sense, as these kids have to go through two upgrades to get out of cat 5 and then cat 4 where many sandbagging lifers make upgrading more difficult. It used to be the 3's where that took place. In the 90's, we also still had many, many riders who'd had a license since there were only three categories. They'd never upgraded at all. The 3 field's were huge, but the quality of the riding wasn't all that great.
How did my race report turn into a gripe and history session? Getting back on course, the 3's at Sunapee do two laps of the 38k circumnavigation of the lake, same as the masters. Everyone used to do three laps, but now only the 1/2/3 race does. I gave brief thoughts to entering that one, but wisely decided it would be over my head and a waste of good form. I say wisely because their lap times turned out five minutes or so faster than ours. The 3's had about fifty starters by race day, as they went against the flyer and let day-of entries in. I nearly missed the start going to pee, then ended up having to participate in the human shield allowing Feltslave to drop his shorts on the starting line and do the same, all while Chris Naimie announced the race instructions. Those Canadians are a classy bunch, and despite the lack of rains, the field behind us had wet road at the start.
The first few miles were sedate, grouppo compacto. Feltslave and I each had no teammates, and we'd made a pre-race pact to cooperate. We also had very limited knowledge of the competition. NEBC had a large contingent, BRC had three or four riders, and SMCC had a half dozen entered as well, so moves by any of them had to be a concern. Not much of one though, as it's pretty stupid to go reeling in moves when you haven't got teammates. GCD commented in his Sunapee race report that he found the course to not be "rolling" as he'd been informed, but instead hilly. He also wonders why more people don't show up for this excellent race. So do I, and I'm guessing it's too hilly for those who've pigeonholed themselves as sprinters (translation - can't climb and are unwilling to work), and not hilly enough for the pure climbers (translation - can't sprint). Personally, my view of this course changes dramatically depending on my fitness level. Having achieved a few top five finishes in the three lap versions way back, when I returned here in 2005 I was thinking the race was a mix of "rolling" (rt 103 and rt 11) and small "power climbs" (rt 103a). With marginal fitness that year, I got FUCKING KILLED before we even got to 103a, and the race seemed like a mountain stage in the tour. In 2006 it did not seem so bad, but I suffered on the "little climbs," still finishing in the money. Last year, well, my eve of race accommodations were upset by a personal disagreement, and I ended up sleeping only an hour or two and got dropped early, so it must have been hilly. This year the course seemed flat. No shit. I'm climbing better, and maybe the Cat 3s are just steadier than the 45+. Our laps times were similar, but there wasn't any ebb and flow, no hard attacks (or even dick waving).
I hope you're happy Colin. You've got five paragraphs already and barely a word on the race. That will teach you to hassle me about race reports next time. Where were we? Oh yeah, somewhere on Rt 11, two guys rolled off on the first lap. Still considering this race "hilly," (remember, got dropped last year...) this was of no concern to me, because in hilly races I generally only worry about breaks that roll off on the hills. I didn't know any of the players, but I figured they were just getting a head start for the climbs. Plus, there were only two of them, and with three stocked teams in the race, at least one of them must have missed this move and would be responsible for containing it. Besides all that, this pair were just dangling out front by ten seconds or so for a few miles.
Well, wrong again honey. The duo extended their lead when the climbing started, and by the time we got back to 103 they were out of sight. Feltslave and another guy had started a nice bridge attempt at the top of the stairstep, but since the group's pace on the climbs was hardly pressured, nobody was gassed and they got reeled in. Heading back toward 11 a belated chase began, and we had decent pace. On 11 itself, we even got to single file for a while. I figured the break was probably gone, but there were only two so the rest of us still had something to race for. Going past the intersection of 103B, into the long hill, I moved to the front to do some posturing and throw in a fake attack to show these kids how weak I was, in hopes they'd ignore any real move I made later on. This turned out to be dumb, because one guy responded with a violent surge of his own, and I tagged on to him up the grade. The field jumped hard to bring us in, and all we really accomplished was disruption of what had otherwise been a decent chase effort.
I retreated to chat with Feltslave, and then on the last "roller" up rt 11 noted a lone NEBC rider coming back toward us. I wasn't sure if he was dropped from the break or whether he was a straggler blown out the back of the 1/2/3 field, but it turned out he was the former. Logically, our pace picked up dramatically as NEBC switched from blocking to chase mode. Didn't matter, as the other guy, Backhouse from BRC, ended up soloing in by over a minute. However, we were lined out heading down 103b, just before the town line climb (IMHO the hardest on the course) and the front of our pack went down in a pileup. I was in the middle and had to brake hard, and got hit from behind, but only needed to put a foot down before wiggling my fat ass through and getting clipped back in. Only two others rolled away with me, with a pack of 18 or so to chase, and what seemed like half the field either on the ground or stuck behind back there. We had about 800 meters to chase before the climb began, and luckily for me the other two guys were in full panic mode and rode like mad. I rotated through, but I was confident in my ability to close this up on the climb itself, which I did.
Now we had just twenty or so riders in a group behind the lone leader. At least we'd have room in the sprint. Rt 103 was a headwind, and nothing went, just a lot of crowding at the front looking for good position. Going into the rotary, Feltslave wisely powered around the outside and led me out nicely into the right hander up the finish road. The pace did not slow though, and I never sensed a good moment to make the kind of attack I've succeeded with here before. At the top of the first steep hump, Feltslave was a bit gassed so I went around him and tried to find the best wheels. It's pretty flat for the last 400 meters before the little pitch right at the line, and it got aggressive and elbowy as we all fought for position, but the pace never eased. I found the wheel I wanted (the guy who'd chased my move on the hill), but still nobody fully jumped. As the road curves around a bit to the right at the end, I wanted the inside to avoid taking the long way around, but everyone else had the same idea. Finally my guy jumped, but then he sat back down, then jumped again, and the sprint was full on. I never got the running room to fully open the cork, and rolled across behind six others, so I got 8th. Basically I got beat. I guess this was the last paying spot, but at the time I still wasn't sure there were one or two remaining in the break, so I never went up to collect. Instead, I put on a dry kit and headed back out for a ride with Dougie.
There you go, a senseless, rambling, not especially informative race report. Be glad I spared you the tale of my social ride on the outer Cape yesterday. Thanks for reading.
Monday, May 19, 2008
On Eagles Wings 5K Race Report
Fancy name for a small race. Sunday I ventured down to the land of Gewilli and Il Bruce to race a little 5k by the bay in Barrington, RI. Not that I couldn't have found a 5k closer to home on a Sunday in May. There were several, which of course spreads out the talent quite a bit. The past two weekends I've seen 5k races paying $150 to win end up having an 18 minute plus time take the top spot. Now, not that we're bounty hunters here at solobreak or anything like that, but with twenty-one competition entry fees already paid for calendar 2008, and just $25 from JP and I think $15 from Ninigret to show for it, cash flows have been pretty negative. The idea of winning money in a running race was nothing more than a pipe dream just a year or so ago, but what the hell, now even with my no coach, no plan, no speedwork, one lonely hour of running a week approach, I think I can run a low 18.
Originally the Glastonbury Duathlon was penciled on the schedule for the 18th, but that got nixed for the aforementioned cash flow issues. At $75 to enter, plus a tank of gas to get there, and the 7 am start requiring an overnighter, that idea faded quickly. So, after racing Sunapee in the Cat 3's on Saturday (finishing out of the money), then riding a few hours with Hilljunkie and Dave P. afterwards, my legs were ripe for a running race. A quick scan of coolrunning found a 5k in nearby Norwell paying $300, $200, $100 for the top three. That ought to draw all the best runners. Now let's see if anyone else is paying cash. Score! Barrington was not only advertising $100-$75-$50, but the race wasn't until 1 pm. This gave me time in the morning to straighten the bent derailleur hanger which had left me with about five gears that didn't skip on Saturday, as well as get in an hour and a half test ride to loosen up my par-boiled legs. Plus the course was certified distance. Oops. Pushed it a bit far and didn't leave home until 11:45, needing to stop for gas, and racing to Barrington...
The drive down ended up being a good warmup, because my HR was soaring when it seemed I'd miss the start. No worries though, reg was still open at 12:50 and I got my number, threw my commemorative t-shirt in the car and trotted to the line about ten seconds before the gun went off. As usual at these things, a handful of high school kids went out at a five minute pace (more on that later), only to blow a half mile in. We were running straight toward the ocean, into a stiff breeze. I slotted in right behind a guy who looked like he'd do OK. One guy pulled away from the group. Nobody followed. OK, there goes the $100, which was to be expected. Then another guy started to distance himself a bit, and he was big, offering a good draft, so I went around my guy and bridged up. We hit mile one at 5:39. Hang on.
There was a slight uphill as we approached a 90 degree turn right on the water. Now the wind was from the left. Me and "the Hoff" as I'll call him (because he bore a slight resemblance, and because I saw a rerun of Dodgeball Saturday night) opened up a very slight gap on those behind. The leader was gone, at least thirty seconds ahead. The Hoff ran in the middle of the road, allowing me to echelon on his right. He did not seem to be the least bit concerned about my presence, and he was not even breathing hard, so I quickly calculated that the guy was going to leave me in the dust before this was over. I was on my limit. My hopes turned to third, and I ran alongside the guy to see if I could get him to up his pace just a bit and draw us further out front. It seemed to work.
The race then turned onto a semi-paved goat path across a golf course. The footing sucked, and I was dieing. We hit mile two at 11:37, so that split was slower, 5:58. Returning to normal roads, the Hoff still looked strong and we had maybe ten seconds on the next guys. Then at about the sixteen minute mark he just upped it a little and I was gapped and gassed. The run to the finish was straight. I was looking back, oh yes. I wanted the money. This hurt. Focusing on midfoot striking and just trying to suck it up, I made it to mile 3 at 17:34 (5:56) and the line in 18:10. The next guy was only four seconds back, and he said I had the $50 sign on my back but he could not close it. Turned out the winner and the Hoff were both in their twenties, so I was the first master.
Post-race was rather deluxe, with good coffee, pizza, bagels, and all that. Awards came quickly, but my check was only for $25! Dohhh. Talked to the winner and he only got $75. Maybe they reduced it for a poor turnout. Oh well. They had a prize table too, but I did not realize I was entitled to go up there until after it had been picked over, but I still got another fuel belt (a four bottle this time) and I think those are about $35 retail, so not so shabby. 18:10 was a PR by five seconds, and this was my first running race cash. After driving home I headed out on the commuter bike because I'd installed a new saddle in preparation for using this bike on next weekend's ride, and I wanted to check the position. Got in another 2.5 hours, but not before flatting one of my "bulletproof" Conti Contact city tires from a massive shard of glass, and having it start pouring rain while I changed it. Then the spare tube was a leaker. Had to stop a few times to put in more CO2, which became a challenge as my hands were fucking frozen by the end of this ordeal. Bring on the summer. Thanks for reading.
PS - Oh yeah, speaking of high school runners, I checked the results for Norwell. The Woodsman's (so named for both his golf and Wompatuck off-course excursions) 14 year old son Henry took freaking third male with a time of 17:46. Heidi and Dan provided some good genes!
Originally the Glastonbury Duathlon was penciled on the schedule for the 18th, but that got nixed for the aforementioned cash flow issues. At $75 to enter, plus a tank of gas to get there, and the 7 am start requiring an overnighter, that idea faded quickly. So, after racing Sunapee in the Cat 3's on Saturday (finishing out of the money), then riding a few hours with Hilljunkie and Dave P. afterwards, my legs were ripe for a running race. A quick scan of coolrunning found a 5k in nearby Norwell paying $300, $200, $100 for the top three. That ought to draw all the best runners. Now let's see if anyone else is paying cash. Score! Barrington was not only advertising $100-$75-$50, but the race wasn't until 1 pm. This gave me time in the morning to straighten the bent derailleur hanger which had left me with about five gears that didn't skip on Saturday, as well as get in an hour and a half test ride to loosen up my par-boiled legs. Plus the course was certified distance. Oops. Pushed it a bit far and didn't leave home until 11:45, needing to stop for gas, and racing to Barrington...
The drive down ended up being a good warmup, because my HR was soaring when it seemed I'd miss the start. No worries though, reg was still open at 12:50 and I got my number, threw my commemorative t-shirt in the car and trotted to the line about ten seconds before the gun went off. As usual at these things, a handful of high school kids went out at a five minute pace (more on that later), only to blow a half mile in. We were running straight toward the ocean, into a stiff breeze. I slotted in right behind a guy who looked like he'd do OK. One guy pulled away from the group. Nobody followed. OK, there goes the $100, which was to be expected. Then another guy started to distance himself a bit, and he was big, offering a good draft, so I went around my guy and bridged up. We hit mile one at 5:39. Hang on.
There was a slight uphill as we approached a 90 degree turn right on the water. Now the wind was from the left. Me and "the Hoff" as I'll call him (because he bore a slight resemblance, and because I saw a rerun of Dodgeball Saturday night) opened up a very slight gap on those behind. The leader was gone, at least thirty seconds ahead. The Hoff ran in the middle of the road, allowing me to echelon on his right. He did not seem to be the least bit concerned about my presence, and he was not even breathing hard, so I quickly calculated that the guy was going to leave me in the dust before this was over. I was on my limit. My hopes turned to third, and I ran alongside the guy to see if I could get him to up his pace just a bit and draw us further out front. It seemed to work.
The race then turned onto a semi-paved goat path across a golf course. The footing sucked, and I was dieing. We hit mile two at 11:37, so that split was slower, 5:58. Returning to normal roads, the Hoff still looked strong and we had maybe ten seconds on the next guys. Then at about the sixteen minute mark he just upped it a little and I was gapped and gassed. The run to the finish was straight. I was looking back, oh yes. I wanted the money. This hurt. Focusing on midfoot striking and just trying to suck it up, I made it to mile 3 at 17:34 (5:56) and the line in 18:10. The next guy was only four seconds back, and he said I had the $50 sign on my back but he could not close it. Turned out the winner and the Hoff were both in their twenties, so I was the first master.
Post-race was rather deluxe, with good coffee, pizza, bagels, and all that. Awards came quickly, but my check was only for $25! Dohhh. Talked to the winner and he only got $75. Maybe they reduced it for a poor turnout. Oh well. They had a prize table too, but I did not realize I was entitled to go up there until after it had been picked over, but I still got another fuel belt (a four bottle this time) and I think those are about $35 retail, so not so shabby. 18:10 was a PR by five seconds, and this was my first running race cash. After driving home I headed out on the commuter bike because I'd installed a new saddle in preparation for using this bike on next weekend's ride, and I wanted to check the position. Got in another 2.5 hours, but not before flatting one of my "bulletproof" Conti Contact city tires from a massive shard of glass, and having it start pouring rain while I changed it. Then the spare tube was a leaker. Had to stop a few times to put in more CO2, which became a challenge as my hands were fucking frozen by the end of this ordeal. Bring on the summer. Thanks for reading.
PS - Oh yeah, speaking of high school runners, I checked the results for Norwell. The Woodsman's (so named for both his golf and Wompatuck off-course excursions) 14 year old son Henry took freaking third male with a time of 17:46. Heidi and Dan provided some good genes!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Rock Star
Read this.
Mr. King is now the official #1 D3-pro hombre of solobreak.blogspot.com. Bike racing is fun to watch again. Thanks for reading.
PS - Hey Jammer, I met some of your fans at Sunapee. You seem to have an impressive following too. If you can stay away from the suicidal-college angst downer posts for a little bit, I think I can find a spot for you in the links too.
Mr. King is now the official #1 D3-pro hombre of solobreak.blogspot.com. Bike racing is fun to watch again. Thanks for reading.
PS - Hey Jammer, I met some of your fans at Sunapee. You seem to have an impressive following too. If you can stay away from the suicidal-college angst downer posts for a little bit, I think I can find a spot for you in the links too.
Friday, May 16, 2008
The Circuit Race
Last week we talked about road races and criteriums. This week solobreak steals the "mad props" theme from slowyourroll and others, but instead of directing them at some worthy rider (that's coming soon) we're paying homage to the oft forgotten but always exciting battleground of domestic racing, the circuit race.
I'd have to look in the rule book for the exact definition, but as I recall a circuit race is defined as being held on a course of greater than 2k but less than 5k or something like that. It doesn't matter all that much. If less than 2k then it's a criterium, so that means no follow cars are allowed and the free lap rule would be in effect. That's the only significant distinction. Of course most of our "road races" these days are multiple laps of some loop, but usually it's a long loop that's covered only a couple of times. By contrast, the true "circuit race" generally has ten or more laps. What's the big deal? Simple - if a short course like this has a nice hill in it, then you are talking about one side up, one side down. Since even the best climbers take a lot longer to go up than down, the end effect is it might take five minutes to do the climb and two minutes to get to the bottom. To the competitor, this makes it seem like the entire race is uphill. These are the races feared by the weak and loved by the strong.
I started thinking about this today when I realized many of the New England classic circuit races were no more. Marlboro of course would be the obvious one. This classic was a staple on the Massachusetts calendar for years. The course was an equilateral triangle in what was then a fairly desolate industrial park. One side was pretty flat, one side was a grinding bigring uphill, and the third was the sting in the tail of the climb followed by a short, fast descent. Originally the finish was on the gradual climb, but in later years it was moved to the high point on the course. Many of the races I did here were 18-20 laps of the 5k circuit, in the August heat. I miss this race.
Another short-lived circuit was in Deerfield. Does anyone else remember this one? I'll bet JD does. This also featured a painful climb punctuated by a fast false flat and a quick trip back to the bottom. The original Blue Hills course was also an epic. They used this last year, but for some reason went counterclockwise. They also only ran it a handful of laps, which kills the character of idea. Back in the Dedham stage race days the road was in horrendous condition and we did 18 laps. They called it "Milton-Roubaix." There were no field sprints in that one.
Today's metrowest crowd may not remember Harvard. This was one of the grandaddys around here. It was a 1-2-3 affair, on a 4.1 mile circuit that ran through Harvard center. The uphill portion was later used as the downhill in the Veryfine Grand Prix race that BRC promoted until a few years ago (a fine circuit race in its own right). Harvard was perhaps the race most feared by the cat 3's who dared to enter. It was 15 laps and with a decent prize list, the big motors from around the hood would always attend and put the hurt on the field. This race was always full with 100 or more entries, and usually had less than forty finishers. Sad that it's not around.
You may have noticed that none of the races noted above still exist. Others are gone too - Georgetown, Hubbardston-Barre, Fall River, and I'm sure there are more that I've forgotten. A few have risen to take their place. Last year we had Norwell, not a big hill, but a short, tough, fast race. This year a new race is on the calendar in Newton, on Heartbreak Hill no less. Still not a big climb, but hopefully this will develop. And then there is Fitchburg... Sure, it's part of the stage race. And in the lower categories, the races are very short, as there are many to fit on the day's schedule. The pro-am though, is about 25 laps of the 5k circuit. Some riders call this one of the toughest races in the country. You may recognize this guy winning it in 1992:
photo by jsmcelvery
If you're racing Fitchburg, you might call this the "we want your money and then we want you dead" circuit race. Things can get pretty intense heading into the last corner at the base of the hill. The good news is that for this year they moved the race to Saturday, with the Mt. Wachusett queen stage pushed back to Friday. The FSR circuit is probably the best spectator race in New England, and this way more people will get a chance to enjoy it. I sort of believe if you've seen one bike race you've seen them all, but if you're only going to see one this year, make it this one. It may not be as epic as Frankie and Horner going 25 rounds toe-to-toe a decade back, but the action on the hill will be intense, and the crowd is the best around too. Maybe we'll have the King brothers there this year...
Sunapee tomorrow. Afterwards? Thanks for reading.
I'd have to look in the rule book for the exact definition, but as I recall a circuit race is defined as being held on a course of greater than 2k but less than 5k or something like that. It doesn't matter all that much. If less than 2k then it's a criterium, so that means no follow cars are allowed and the free lap rule would be in effect. That's the only significant distinction. Of course most of our "road races" these days are multiple laps of some loop, but usually it's a long loop that's covered only a couple of times. By contrast, the true "circuit race" generally has ten or more laps. What's the big deal? Simple - if a short course like this has a nice hill in it, then you are talking about one side up, one side down. Since even the best climbers take a lot longer to go up than down, the end effect is it might take five minutes to do the climb and two minutes to get to the bottom. To the competitor, this makes it seem like the entire race is uphill. These are the races feared by the weak and loved by the strong.
I started thinking about this today when I realized many of the New England classic circuit races were no more. Marlboro of course would be the obvious one. This classic was a staple on the Massachusetts calendar for years. The course was an equilateral triangle in what was then a fairly desolate industrial park. One side was pretty flat, one side was a grinding bigring uphill, and the third was the sting in the tail of the climb followed by a short, fast descent. Originally the finish was on the gradual climb, but in later years it was moved to the high point on the course. Many of the races I did here were 18-20 laps of the 5k circuit, in the August heat. I miss this race.
Another short-lived circuit was in Deerfield. Does anyone else remember this one? I'll bet JD does. This also featured a painful climb punctuated by a fast false flat and a quick trip back to the bottom. The original Blue Hills course was also an epic. They used this last year, but for some reason went counterclockwise. They also only ran it a handful of laps, which kills the character of idea. Back in the Dedham stage race days the road was in horrendous condition and we did 18 laps. They called it "Milton-Roubaix." There were no field sprints in that one.
Today's metrowest crowd may not remember Harvard. This was one of the grandaddys around here. It was a 1-2-3 affair, on a 4.1 mile circuit that ran through Harvard center. The uphill portion was later used as the downhill in the Veryfine Grand Prix race that BRC promoted until a few years ago (a fine circuit race in its own right). Harvard was perhaps the race most feared by the cat 3's who dared to enter. It was 15 laps and with a decent prize list, the big motors from around the hood would always attend and put the hurt on the field. This race was always full with 100 or more entries, and usually had less than forty finishers. Sad that it's not around.
You may have noticed that none of the races noted above still exist. Others are gone too - Georgetown, Hubbardston-Barre, Fall River, and I'm sure there are more that I've forgotten. A few have risen to take their place. Last year we had Norwell, not a big hill, but a short, tough, fast race. This year a new race is on the calendar in Newton, on Heartbreak Hill no less. Still not a big climb, but hopefully this will develop. And then there is Fitchburg... Sure, it's part of the stage race. And in the lower categories, the races are very short, as there are many to fit on the day's schedule. The pro-am though, is about 25 laps of the 5k circuit. Some riders call this one of the toughest races in the country. You may recognize this guy winning it in 1992:
photo by jsmcelvery
If you're racing Fitchburg, you might call this the "we want your money and then we want you dead" circuit race. Things can get pretty intense heading into the last corner at the base of the hill. The good news is that for this year they moved the race to Saturday, with the Mt. Wachusett queen stage pushed back to Friday. The FSR circuit is probably the best spectator race in New England, and this way more people will get a chance to enjoy it. I sort of believe if you've seen one bike race you've seen them all, but if you're only going to see one this year, make it this one. It may not be as epic as Frankie and Horner going 25 rounds toe-to-toe a decade back, but the action on the hill will be intense, and the crowd is the best around too. Maybe we'll have the King brothers there this year...
Sunapee tomorrow. Afterwards? Thanks for reading.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Stop Making Sense
That was too easy. If you thought the previous post was bad, well, you should have been with me on my lunch ride. To characterize my performance as "lifeless" would be an insult to more energetic corpses in cemeteries everywhere. Today should have been a rest day, but the weather was simply too nice to let the day go without an attempted ride, or so it seemed.
I can't let this get me down though. Just the other day I had to talk Feltslave off a ledge after he experienced a similar attempted ride. Luckily I've had plenty of opportunity to hone my post-trainwreck soothing skills in the past. Relax, have confidence in your training, you're a great rider, don't be afraid to rest, blah, blah, blah. Convincing, isn't it? Well it's all true and I'm sticking to it.
Everyone's seen the charts and graphs which get proudly posted after a ride with a zillion watts or a million feet of climbing. I'm going one better; here's my Polar chart from today's ride:
.Click the chart for a high res version. The green line is power. Bah-dump-dump. Notice only two spikes in HR. One right at the beginning, where I got grazed by a bluehair in a white Toyota before even getting off my street. I gave chase and even started the rolling lecture before realizing "what's the use?," and besides, if this Barbara Bush lookalike had had a heart attack or just freaked and driven into a house, the road-raging cyclist headlines wouldn't have looked so good. The other spike is near the end when I forced myself to ride up the little switchback off Bay Road in the big ring. Got all the way up to 116. Notice it dropped to friggin' 50 on the descent. Yeah, should have been a rest day. Thanks for reading.
PS - And oh yeah, what do you think of this? By you, I mean everyone, not just Mr. I don't do core Gewilli. At the very least, Mr. Hogg offers a fresh perspective, yet still echoes some of what I've recently tried to impress upon the 'rat (and I say "the 'rat" in the most respectful, non-derogatory way).
Letting the gap open
Today I went from having nothing interesting to blog about to having more than will fit comfortably in one post, all from just a few minutes of surfing. Not that I'm going to just throw together a bunch of links and expect you to re-live my morning by following, analyzing, and commenting on them. Nobody around here does that. The best blog entries are original (btw, check out the article id, heh-heh), but of course an entry that sucks still sucks even if it's original. So we walk the line sometimes between originality and suckiness. Or sometimes just plain dull and uninteresting, like "I went out and rode intervals and then made pancakes and then organized the junk drawer in my kitchen, blah, blah, blah." Maybe this entry combines all these problems, and it's boring, dull, sucky, and unoriginal.
Back to our original (hah!) thought. This morning I read the most recent entry on Dale's blog. What a coincidence. I don't know Dale very well, other than running into him out training a time or two, exchanging pleasantries, and chatting with him for a bit inside the grocery store before the start of one of the GMSR stages. And since Fox 25 is one of the only stations my un-cabled TV gets decent reception on, I watch his wife anchor the news at 10 if I'm still awake at that ungodly hour. Which brings us back to the beginning.
Yesterday at work the kid who I share my cube with told me he's "stuck in a routine" of coming home from the gym at 9 pm (he's pretty big and trying to lose weight), playing video games until midnight, watching an hour of TV, then going to bed around 1 am. I was amazed. For a couple of reasons. One, he's very alert and productive on the job, generally beating me in every day that he's there (he has a travel job so he's gone about half the time). Not that getting in before me is all that difficult. Two, he plays video games for a few hours every night? Now, there are plenty of geeks for whom this would not be the least bit surprising, but this guy is not even a programmer. He seems pretty normal to me. And to him. It's a generational thing, and as Dale quotes Klosterman, I'm "willingly letting ... it open."
What's this got to do with bike racing? Well duh, you never let a break go? Maybe you should. We've touched on this before, as devoted long-time readers will recall. Bike racing is full of old fucks in denial about their chronological age. Nothing wrong with it when we're talking about fitness and competitiveness. That's what competition is all about. Even if they give us age groups... What about the rest of the picture? You know what I mean; you're pushing forty and still pretending to be twenty-three. I won't get into the details, as they're either obvious or you wouldn't understand. Yeah, it's a "lifestyle" thing.
Letting the gap open boils down to this: resist marketing. There's a reason why the 18-35 demographic holds so much importance for marketers, and it's not money. Marketing works on these people. I believe young and impressionable is the common term. I recognize that I have a handful of young readers. At least one or two of them have already demonstrated they're smarter than the average bear (does that mean anything to you?), and are probably more marketing-resistant than most. Good for them. What they're doing reading my crap I'll never quite understand. The rest of you, especially the ones who are old enough to know better who still think you need to have the latest _ _ _ _ _ whatever, get a fucking grip.
I never did get around to noting how Wompatuck is dominated by young kids now. I wasn't aware the two oldest of the thirty Keough brothers had moved on from Coast, and last night I wondered who the skinny guy in the Sakkonet kit who didn't shut up for the entire night, until he went to the front with two to go and won the race easily was. This really was crap. And I've probably managed to piss everyone off. Thanks for reading anyway. Does it feel like sunshine?
Back to our original (hah!) thought. This morning I read the most recent entry on Dale's blog. What a coincidence. I don't know Dale very well, other than running into him out training a time or two, exchanging pleasantries, and chatting with him for a bit inside the grocery store before the start of one of the GMSR stages. And since Fox 25 is one of the only stations my un-cabled TV gets decent reception on, I watch his wife anchor the news at 10 if I'm still awake at that ungodly hour. Which brings us back to the beginning.
Yesterday at work the kid who I share my cube with told me he's "stuck in a routine" of coming home from the gym at 9 pm (he's pretty big and trying to lose weight), playing video games until midnight, watching an hour of TV, then going to bed around 1 am. I was amazed. For a couple of reasons. One, he's very alert and productive on the job, generally beating me in every day that he's there (he has a travel job so he's gone about half the time). Not that getting in before me is all that difficult. Two, he plays video games for a few hours every night? Now, there are plenty of geeks for whom this would not be the least bit surprising, but this guy is not even a programmer. He seems pretty normal to me. And to him. It's a generational thing, and as Dale quotes Klosterman, I'm "willingly letting ... it open."
What's this got to do with bike racing? Well duh, you never let a break go? Maybe you should. We've touched on this before, as devoted long-time readers will recall. Bike racing is full of old fucks in denial about their chronological age. Nothing wrong with it when we're talking about fitness and competitiveness. That's what competition is all about. Even if they give us age groups... What about the rest of the picture? You know what I mean; you're pushing forty and still pretending to be twenty-three. I won't get into the details, as they're either obvious or you wouldn't understand. Yeah, it's a "lifestyle" thing.
Letting the gap open boils down to this: resist marketing. There's a reason why the 18-35 demographic holds so much importance for marketers, and it's not money. Marketing works on these people. I believe young and impressionable is the common term. I recognize that I have a handful of young readers. At least one or two of them have already demonstrated they're smarter than the average bear (does that mean anything to you?), and are probably more marketing-resistant than most. Good for them. What they're doing reading my crap I'll never quite understand. The rest of you, especially the ones who are old enough to know better who still think you need to have the latest _ _ _ _ _ whatever, get a fucking grip.
I never did get around to noting how Wompatuck is dominated by young kids now. I wasn't aware the two oldest of the thirty Keough brothers had moved on from Coast, and last night I wondered who the skinny guy in the Sakkonet kit who didn't shut up for the entire night, until he went to the front with two to go and won the race easily was. This really was crap. And I've probably managed to piss everyone off. Thanks for reading anyway. Does it feel like sunshine?
Monday, May 12, 2008
One more cup
At the risk of violating Colin's sensible guidelines for meaningful blogging, I'm banging this out while taking in one more cup of joe before shaving and heading to work. This is still a bike racing blog, so even though I've got nothing much to say, I want to change the subject from the last post. Also, before starting, I'll note to whom it may concern that I rejected your comment on road races versus crits because its negative tone conflicted with what was intended as a humorous and entertaining post. As most of you know, I'm a cheerful and uplifting sort of spirit, like a ray of sunshine coming through your bathroom window on a chilly day. Warm, pleasant, positive, compassionate, supportive, and all that. We have a theme here people, in case you haven't noticed. Besides that, the comment was completely wrong, heh-heh. Go ahead and love your crits. There are reasons why big league bike racing doesn't involve them. Everyone knows who won Paris-Roubaix or LBL, but nobody knows who won the last crit, because nobody cares. If you can't road race, sorry. That wasn't why I did not publish your comment though. Here at solobreak, we are F.O.Ps, and by that I mean "Friends of Promoters," not the greying folks who clog the aisles at Stop and Shop the day SS checks come out. Saying road race entry fees are "a rip off" implies some form of deception. This is not the case. You have a $4000 bike. Stop whining about entry fees. The only person who is deceiving anyone is the rider who enters a hilly road race and thinks they are prepared to stay in the group, but then gets dropped. Bitching about prize lists? Please. People used to bitch about the prize list at Killington, which was only about $1000 in the lower categories, against a $120 entry. Well, do you know what the police bill was for Killington? Would you believe $140,000? That's what it was. You want a safe, epic race, or another $20 for the tenth place finisher? OK, now back to our regularly scheduled ray of sunshine, warm your hearts, newborn kitten with a ball of yarn programming...
Bike racing this weekend was fun. Originally, I did not plan to do any. Friday night, Feltslave and I played email tag while trying to coordinate our schedules for a big ride, but it did not work out. I wanted to get in six hours or so, even contemplating a trip to Vermont to pre-ride two-thirds of the infamous six gaps route. That got nixed by iffy weather and the high cost of travel. Saturday morning the weather still looked kind of shitty here at home, and being near the coast, the winds from the storm promised to make local cycling a bit too miserable for your hero to tough it out for six hours. Fearing complete wussing out on riding if it rained, I made a game day decision to book it up to Sterling for the road race. The 45+ was only 40 miles, but the 35+ was 48, so that would at least get me a decent floor for the day's training. The race started at 8:30. I got there at 8:20. GCD was working the registration table, and he was like "dude, you're way late for the 35+, the officials already took the start list." Oh well, still time to get in the 45+. Then at the line, Kristen informed us the distance had been increased to six laps, same as the 35+. Cool.
Dougie already covered the race in detail from his perspective as a strong climber at the front of the bunch. All I can add is that we (the illustrious BOB team) lost three of our six starters the first time up the climb. I did not even see the break go, and did not know who was in it until I heard Curley talking about it. I gave some thought to helping with the chase, but when I headed up front on route 12 and saw four guys from Dougie's team lined up in paceline, I felt like I would just be in the way. Besides that, Gearworks and a few other teams had greater numbers than we did. You can read between the lines for the real story...
After the 80k race I felt unusually fresh. I headed up to Nashua with thoughts of doing some shopping, but after a sandwich I made an executive decision to keep the plastic in the wallet and get my fat pathetic ass back out on the bike. The Cronoman had already put in 160k during the morning, so I went out on the familiar roads of Hollis and Brookline solo, gathering up another 70k or so, bringing my day's total to five hours, just one short of the original goal.
Sunday I went to Well's Ave with the Cronoman. Murat's team was out in force, except their leader was absent. There were a horde of CCB riders there too, as well as what seemed like the entire NEBC women's team. Chris Ryan was running the race. If you don't know Chris, he was the guy who kind of looks like Capt Kangaroo and was ringing the bell and screaming "$5 pack prime" until he was hoarse. He has been one of the kingpins running Wells Ave ever since I first raced there in 1986. Then as now, he rode his bike over from his home in Milton. Talk about giving back to the sport. These are the people who make it happen, not the selfish racers who whine about entry fees at road races. Anyway, Wells has a two place $15-$10 prime at halfway every week, and upon this I set my sights. Rather than sitting at the back, I rode aggressively and sat on every move for the first eighteen laps. At 22 to go a couple of guys made a move, and I foolishly drove it up to their wheels. On the prime bell, I was already a bit gassed, and even though I was able to follow the next move, I had nothing left for the sprint and crossed the line fourth, empty handed.
Once I retreated to the field, the winning break quickly went off and that was that. This was fine with me, because I had already got in as much quality work as I thought I needed. I still put in a few more efforts for the remaining pack primes (again not getting them) as well as a solid effort to get up near the front in the field sprint. It was fun, and that's what this shit is about. The coffee is gone, and now I'm late, so thanks for reading.
Bike racing this weekend was fun. Originally, I did not plan to do any. Friday night, Feltslave and I played email tag while trying to coordinate our schedules for a big ride, but it did not work out. I wanted to get in six hours or so, even contemplating a trip to Vermont to pre-ride two-thirds of the infamous six gaps route. That got nixed by iffy weather and the high cost of travel. Saturday morning the weather still looked kind of shitty here at home, and being near the coast, the winds from the storm promised to make local cycling a bit too miserable for your hero to tough it out for six hours. Fearing complete wussing out on riding if it rained, I made a game day decision to book it up to Sterling for the road race. The 45+ was only 40 miles, but the 35+ was 48, so that would at least get me a decent floor for the day's training. The race started at 8:30. I got there at 8:20. GCD was working the registration table, and he was like "dude, you're way late for the 35+, the officials already took the start list." Oh well, still time to get in the 45+. Then at the line, Kristen informed us the distance had been increased to six laps, same as the 35+. Cool.
Dougie already covered the race in detail from his perspective as a strong climber at the front of the bunch. All I can add is that we (the illustrious BOB team) lost three of our six starters the first time up the climb. I did not even see the break go, and did not know who was in it until I heard Curley talking about it. I gave some thought to helping with the chase, but when I headed up front on route 12 and saw four guys from Dougie's team lined up in paceline, I felt like I would just be in the way. Besides that, Gearworks and a few other teams had greater numbers than we did. You can read between the lines for the real story...
After the 80k race I felt unusually fresh. I headed up to Nashua with thoughts of doing some shopping, but after a sandwich I made an executive decision to keep the plastic in the wallet and get my fat pathetic ass back out on the bike. The Cronoman had already put in 160k during the morning, so I went out on the familiar roads of Hollis and Brookline solo, gathering up another 70k or so, bringing my day's total to five hours, just one short of the original goal.
Sunday I went to Well's Ave with the Cronoman. Murat's team was out in force, except their leader was absent. There were a horde of CCB riders there too, as well as what seemed like the entire NEBC women's team. Chris Ryan was running the race. If you don't know Chris, he was the guy who kind of looks like Capt Kangaroo and was ringing the bell and screaming "$5 pack prime" until he was hoarse. He has been one of the kingpins running Wells Ave ever since I first raced there in 1986. Then as now, he rode his bike over from his home in Milton. Talk about giving back to the sport. These are the people who make it happen, not the selfish racers who whine about entry fees at road races. Anyway, Wells has a two place $15-$10 prime at halfway every week, and upon this I set my sights. Rather than sitting at the back, I rode aggressively and sat on every move for the first eighteen laps. At 22 to go a couple of guys made a move, and I foolishly drove it up to their wheels. On the prime bell, I was already a bit gassed, and even though I was able to follow the next move, I had nothing left for the sprint and crossed the line fourth, empty handed.
Once I retreated to the field, the winning break quickly went off and that was that. This was fine with me, because I had already got in as much quality work as I thought I needed. I still put in a few more efforts for the remaining pack primes (again not getting them) as well as a solid effort to get up near the front in the field sprint. It was fun, and that's what this shit is about. The coffee is gone, and now I'm late, so thanks for reading.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
End of Conversation
This is a bike racing blog, and it's bike racing season, so lacking anything else that's politically acceptable to write about (the post about the fledgling NegaCoach Driving Instruction Division and its groundbreaking DWA rehabilitation program got nixed by the legal department, not to mention CC's threat to knock the mirrors off my XBox), we're going to compare and contrast road races with criteriums. For a minute or two anyway.
First up, do we have any readers in this photo? JJ? Colin? Anybody? You're famous! So yeah, criteriums. The 'rat keeps telling us he's a crit rider only, and shuns road races. I get this all the time from some of my mates. Then we have guys like Bret "no blog" Rutledge, who'll traverse New England in search of a hilly road race, but runs for his life at the thought of a tight four corner crit. Are they really all that different? The best riders seem to do just fine in both. Let's go through a day of each in semi-chronological order.
Wake up. If it's a road race, then it's probably somewhere twenty miles outside of East Bumfuck, NY, so the alarm will be going off around 3:45 am. Either that or you're already in East BF at a ranch-style motel and Marro woke you up at 3 am because you were snoring and since he made you turn out the lights and go bed at 7 pm (as soon as the Simpsons episode that he'd seen a hundred times and memorized the lines for ended), he's already woken up hungry and can't sleep himself, so he's got to deprive you of rest too. If it's a crit, you probably went out drinking at the Oriental Gardens the night before, slept in hungover until 10, and still have three hours to easily make the start in downtown [insert name of economically-depressed New England former mill city here].
Pre-race meal. Varies wildly. In general though, if it's a crit, we're talking PB&J and Gatorade, and if it's a road race, some complicated mix of eggs, flour, butter, bacon, and artificial "sports nutrition" mix with hundreds of unpronounceable ingredients.
Parking. If it's a crit, this could get ugly. First you have to find the damn race, which doesn't work out so easily because half the streets in town are either closed for the race or just blocked off because the local DPW had some extra cones and a 12 pack for breakfast while enjoying the race-related overtime. So you troll the neighborhood and look for a closed bank where you can get some shade under the drive-up, and possibly avoid the sketchy dudes collecting cans, and the drunk skank screaming at her man out the window of her fifth floor walkup. If it's a road race, you just follow the directions of the volunteers and navigate across the lumpy field of two foot high wet grass and pray that you don't lose your exhaust system on a rut, or get directed anywhere within 200 yards of Wolfie.
Registration. If it's a road race, it's still the crack of dawn, and everyone will be covered in clothing, hands in pockets, shivering, and nervously jittering up and down because they just need to get to the head of the line and move on to adding their own contribution to the growing stench from the nearby portapotties. If it's a crit, you just pick up your number, humor Rutledge when he quivers about how deadly the course is, and then join Curley examining the prize list.
Warm up. For crits it's easy. If you still had any room to pack your own trainer after Marro loaded in his 250 pound seabag full of worn out clothes and the rolls of duct tape used to hold them together, you set up in the shade, get out your towel collection for standing on, changing modesty, and brow-wiping, and get on with it. Get good and warmed up so that you can completely cooldown while the head official gives detailed instructions to the five guys near her, while the other 95 of us talk about the hot underage chick in the short shorts over on the sidewalk. If it's a road race, you don't warm up.
Race time! Finally we're here. If it's a crit, just fucking go. If it starts slow, don't worry, Marro will soon attack. If it starts fast, just put your head down and wait for it to stop. When it does, resume checking out the hot underage chick in the short shorts over on the sidewalk. Keep doing so every lap until you hear the announcer yelling something about two laps to go. Then move up, find the wheel of anybody from CCB or Gearworks, and ride the train to the promised land. If it's a road race, well, here is where things get a bit different. There are no spectators, so the first few miles will end up being slow conversations about bitchy wives and ugly teammates, or vice versa. Some dork may even ask you about your bike or your wheels. Try to ignore him. Eventually you'll come to a hill. The conversation will stop. This is how you know you are racing. When all you hear are chains going around cogs and fat guys who should have stayed home panting like dogs, the race is on. Put your head down and wait for it to stop. Eventually you'll come to a downhill. Watch out for the fat guys coming back from behind. Figuring out when the race is going to end is a bit tougher than in a crit, because you don't have an overcaffeinated announcer to tell you. Look for telltales signs. That's not a figure of speech, but real signs that say "1K to go" or if it's Battenkill, a big pole (huh-huh) with balloons and a red kite. This time, look for John Funk's wheel if it's available. Once you cross the line, gather your breath and scan the sparse crowd of onlookers for hot underage chicks in short shorts.
Post race. In a crit you go find the local pizza-by-the-slice place and spend your winnings feeding your teammates. For a road race, it's best to pull a Jansen and head back out for another 80k in the hills, because the race just wasn't hard enough. Either way, crit or road race, clean up your saddle area with baby wipes while wrapped in a big towel, and don't make eye contact with Wolfie unless you want to listen to him patronize you for at least half an hour. If this happens, be thankful you'll have something to laugh about on the drive home.
So there you have it, everything you needed to know about road racing versus crits. Maybe next time we'll look at TTs or cx or something. Thanks for reading.
First up, do we have any readers in this photo? JJ? Colin? Anybody? You're famous! So yeah, criteriums. The 'rat keeps telling us he's a crit rider only, and shuns road races. I get this all the time from some of my mates. Then we have guys like Bret "no blog" Rutledge, who'll traverse New England in search of a hilly road race, but runs for his life at the thought of a tight four corner crit. Are they really all that different? The best riders seem to do just fine in both. Let's go through a day of each in semi-chronological order.
Wake up. If it's a road race, then it's probably somewhere twenty miles outside of East Bumfuck, NY, so the alarm will be going off around 3:45 am. Either that or you're already in East BF at a ranch-style motel and Marro woke you up at 3 am because you were snoring and since he made you turn out the lights and go bed at 7 pm (as soon as the Simpsons episode that he'd seen a hundred times and memorized the lines for ended), he's already woken up hungry and can't sleep himself, so he's got to deprive you of rest too. If it's a crit, you probably went out drinking at the Oriental Gardens the night before, slept in hungover until 10, and still have three hours to easily make the start in downtown [insert name of economically-depressed New England former mill city here].
Pre-race meal. Varies wildly. In general though, if it's a crit, we're talking PB&J and Gatorade, and if it's a road race, some complicated mix of eggs, flour, butter, bacon, and artificial "sports nutrition" mix with hundreds of unpronounceable ingredients.
Parking. If it's a crit, this could get ugly. First you have to find the damn race, which doesn't work out so easily because half the streets in town are either closed for the race or just blocked off because the local DPW had some extra cones and a 12 pack for breakfast while enjoying the race-related overtime. So you troll the neighborhood and look for a closed bank where you can get some shade under the drive-up, and possibly avoid the sketchy dudes collecting cans, and the drunk skank screaming at her man out the window of her fifth floor walkup. If it's a road race, you just follow the directions of the volunteers and navigate across the lumpy field of two foot high wet grass and pray that you don't lose your exhaust system on a rut, or get directed anywhere within 200 yards of Wolfie.
Registration. If it's a road race, it's still the crack of dawn, and everyone will be covered in clothing, hands in pockets, shivering, and nervously jittering up and down because they just need to get to the head of the line and move on to adding their own contribution to the growing stench from the nearby portapotties. If it's a crit, you just pick up your number, humor Rutledge when he quivers about how deadly the course is, and then join Curley examining the prize list.
Warm up. For crits it's easy. If you still had any room to pack your own trainer after Marro loaded in his 250 pound seabag full of worn out clothes and the rolls of duct tape used to hold them together, you set up in the shade, get out your towel collection for standing on, changing modesty, and brow-wiping, and get on with it. Get good and warmed up so that you can completely cooldown while the head official gives detailed instructions to the five guys near her, while the other 95 of us talk about the hot underage chick in the short shorts over on the sidewalk. If it's a road race, you don't warm up.
Race time! Finally we're here. If it's a crit, just fucking go. If it starts slow, don't worry, Marro will soon attack. If it starts fast, just put your head down and wait for it to stop. When it does, resume checking out the hot underage chick in the short shorts over on the sidewalk. Keep doing so every lap until you hear the announcer yelling something about two laps to go. Then move up, find the wheel of anybody from CCB or Gearworks, and ride the train to the promised land. If it's a road race, well, here is where things get a bit different. There are no spectators, so the first few miles will end up being slow conversations about bitchy wives and ugly teammates, or vice versa. Some dork may even ask you about your bike or your wheels. Try to ignore him. Eventually you'll come to a hill. The conversation will stop. This is how you know you are racing. When all you hear are chains going around cogs and fat guys who should have stayed home panting like dogs, the race is on. Put your head down and wait for it to stop. Eventually you'll come to a downhill. Watch out for the fat guys coming back from behind. Figuring out when the race is going to end is a bit tougher than in a crit, because you don't have an overcaffeinated announcer to tell you. Look for telltales signs. That's not a figure of speech, but real signs that say "1K to go" or if it's Battenkill, a big pole (huh-huh) with balloons and a red kite. This time, look for John Funk's wheel if it's available. Once you cross the line, gather your breath and scan the sparse crowd of onlookers for hot underage chicks in short shorts.
Post race. In a crit you go find the local pizza-by-the-slice place and spend your winnings feeding your teammates. For a road race, it's best to pull a Jansen and head back out for another 80k in the hills, because the race just wasn't hard enough. Either way, crit or road race, clean up your saddle area with baby wipes while wrapped in a big towel, and don't make eye contact with Wolfie unless you want to listen to him patronize you for at least half an hour. If this happens, be thankful you'll have something to laugh about on the drive home.
So there you have it, everything you needed to know about road racing versus crits. Maybe next time we'll look at TTs or cx or something. Thanks for reading.
Monday, May 5, 2008
Pair of 7's.
Sunday I went to the Westford Road Race to run the 10k. They had a 5k too, and last year it must have been part of a team series or something, because everyone ran that rather than the 10. This year that was not the case. I went because these were certified courses, and I wanted a benchmark at this distance to see where I stood. With the JP bike race in my legs from Saturday, and the beginnings of what seems like sickness in my throat, I headed up in the drizzle. This was an afternoon race, never easy for me with running. I ate earlier and packed just bottles of gatorade and water along with some Clif Blocks. Then I forgot the bag it was all in, so I had nothing for pre-race. Dohhh.
Things took another turn for the worse when I got off the highway in Westford only to find the road into the town center was a significant hill. Where I live in southeastern MA, things are pretty flat. Not in Westford. I guess they have apple orchards there for a reason. The town is hilly. I have no time to drive the course or anything like that though, so I'm winging it. I found an empty bottle in the car and filled it from a bubbler at the school, and picked up my number. The guy who ended up winning the 10k was parked next to me. He was the leanest looking dude I've ever seen in my life. I know that dark skin highlights muscle definition, and this guy looked Kenyan or something, but his legs were more sinewy than any human being I ever imagined. Just unbelievable.
There was not a huge field. My plan was to go out conservative and run a 6:10 pace for the first three miles, then try to negative split. The first mile was slightly uphill. About ten runners went out ahead of me. I stuck to my plan. We get to the mile one marker, which was in the town center, near the finish, and my watch says 4:50. Obviously the marker was set in the wrong place. Then the road starts going downhill. A lot. As it turned out, before I hit the (correctly set) mile two marker at 11:53, we had descended almost 300 feet. Uh-oh. I'm doing the math in my head, but I have to throw my plan out the window. Even though I'm running faster than I wanted to go out, it's not only too late to do anything about it, but with such a big elevation loss, the 6:10 plan was useless.
The third mile was sort of flat, and it took 6:07 for an interim split of 18 flat. Now my thoughts are less on the runners ahead and behind me and more on wondering just how and when we were going to gain all that elevation back. As it turned out, the ascent was pretty gradual and steady. Mile four took me 6:18. Mile five took even longer, 6:30. So much for negative splits. I did pass a few runners however, and nobody passed me, so I think it was the course and not my pacing that caused the issue. The last 1.2 miles also were mostly uphill, and I ran them at a 6:23 pace to finish up in a disappointing 38:27, 7th overall, same as at Jiminy Peak. I should not complain, as I have not run trained hardly at all the past two weeks, and the course was by no means a speedfest. I can't tell from the winner's time, as he obviously just ran as fast as he needed to in order to pick up the $150 first prize. They guy's car was a hurtin' old Escort, so I know what he was at this race for...
Today I feel pretty sick. I was hoping to get my training back on track this week, since a favorable change in the weather looks to be in progress. I haven't run worth shit. I only rode my bike a few hours last week, and for that matter I'm pretty down on hours for the year too. Spring lulls are typical for me, but this year I was hoping to fight it off. So it's time to regroup. Not before having a little fun though... Thanks for reading.
Things took another turn for the worse when I got off the highway in Westford only to find the road into the town center was a significant hill. Where I live in southeastern MA, things are pretty flat. Not in Westford. I guess they have apple orchards there for a reason. The town is hilly. I have no time to drive the course or anything like that though, so I'm winging it. I found an empty bottle in the car and filled it from a bubbler at the school, and picked up my number. The guy who ended up winning the 10k was parked next to me. He was the leanest looking dude I've ever seen in my life. I know that dark skin highlights muscle definition, and this guy looked Kenyan or something, but his legs were more sinewy than any human being I ever imagined. Just unbelievable.
There was not a huge field. My plan was to go out conservative and run a 6:10 pace for the first three miles, then try to negative split. The first mile was slightly uphill. About ten runners went out ahead of me. I stuck to my plan. We get to the mile one marker, which was in the town center, near the finish, and my watch says 4:50. Obviously the marker was set in the wrong place. Then the road starts going downhill. A lot. As it turned out, before I hit the (correctly set) mile two marker at 11:53, we had descended almost 300 feet. Uh-oh. I'm doing the math in my head, but I have to throw my plan out the window. Even though I'm running faster than I wanted to go out, it's not only too late to do anything about it, but with such a big elevation loss, the 6:10 plan was useless.
The third mile was sort of flat, and it took 6:07 for an interim split of 18 flat. Now my thoughts are less on the runners ahead and behind me and more on wondering just how and when we were going to gain all that elevation back. As it turned out, the ascent was pretty gradual and steady. Mile four took me 6:18. Mile five took even longer, 6:30. So much for negative splits. I did pass a few runners however, and nobody passed me, so I think it was the course and not my pacing that caused the issue. The last 1.2 miles also were mostly uphill, and I ran them at a 6:23 pace to finish up in a disappointing 38:27, 7th overall, same as at Jiminy Peak. I should not complain, as I have not run trained hardly at all the past two weeks, and the course was by no means a speedfest. I can't tell from the winner's time, as he obviously just ran as fast as he needed to in order to pick up the $150 first prize. They guy's car was a hurtin' old Escort, so I know what he was at this race for...
Today I feel pretty sick. I was hoping to get my training back on track this week, since a favorable change in the weather looks to be in progress. I haven't run worth shit. I only rode my bike a few hours last week, and for that matter I'm pretty down on hours for the year too. Spring lulls are typical for me, but this year I was hoping to fight it off. So it's time to regroup. Not before having a little fun though... Thanks for reading.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Officer spanks 45+ field at JP
click for photo credit
56 year old Tom Officer kicked our asses and took home our lunch money on Saturday. Pretty amazing and inspiring, since he spotted most of us ten years. Once an animal, always an animal. I was happy with my ride, climbing and finishing well despite an off-week of training that left me feeling fat and bloated by the weekend. The Cronoman also rode strong, but was taken down in one of two dumb crashes that happened in the closing kilometers. There was a lot of shadow-boxing/muscle-flexing/dick-waving up front throughout the race as a couple of the power brokers continually threw little attacks and responses at one another, and in the end all the shucking/jiving/swerving resulted in some overlapped wheels and downed riders. EAM picked himself up and rejoined the field as we turned on to the final climb, but he was a bit gassed from the chase. We got in a good cooldown ride after the race, and stayed dry all day too, which was kind of a surprise after the wet start. I like Jiminy Peak though; this is a good race for me. Maybe I can get another ten years out of it, but T.O. looks like he'll still be going strong at 66 too. Thanks for reading.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Firsts
Blog traffic doesn't amount to much on Fridays, but I'm writing anyway. We'll start with this follow up to the post from the other day: Just as being nice is its own reward, being a hater is its own punishment. You won't need to click to many times from here to find out what I mean. If you find yourself angry and miserable all the time, try not being so angry and miserable...
Tomorrow we're heading out to Jiminy Peak. This was the site of a few firsts for me. In only my second licensed race ever, JP was the site of my first crash. I overlapped wheels with someone and bailed into a ditch at the side of route 7. Briefly knocked senseless, I remember few details of the incident. I got up and finished though.
A few years later JP was the site of my first win, in the MA/RI districts 30+ race. Tyler Munroe drilled it from the bottom of the finish climb. I clung to his wheel. Near the top my chain started making noise like it was going to skip (this was in the friction shifters days). I sat down and knocked it up a gear and started the sprint. I had no choice. I could not believe that nobody came around me. It paid $125. Was probably $10 to enter. Tomorrow I think our race is $55 to win, a few bucks more than the entry. That's ok though, as I know their other expenses have gone up. JP registration is the best in the business too. Prereg only. Single line system, everyones packet is alphabetized and you just go to your letter and you're done in 10 seconds. Not sure why everyone else does not do it this way. The BCA (host club) also sent out a rider info email. There was a note at the bottom about littering and gel packets. I could not believe the number of clowns at Battenkill, Sturbridge, and Palmer who were just throwing shit on the ground. WTF?
This wasn't where I was going with this, but here it is. There is also a race at Blue Hills Sunday morning, right out front here. I don't think I'm going to do it though. May seem weird, but the race is only four laps of a seven mile circuit around the hill, and the hill is not severe enough to make a selection, so I don't see the point. Back in the day (here he goes again...), actually, before I even raced, the old Dedham Stage race went around this loop 11 or 12 times before the race finished at the summit. In fact, I think it was an extended version of the loop that went up Hartland and Forest Road. Then a few years later, when I was racing, we did the present loop, but even then it was about 10 laps. That day was the fastest I've ever ridden a bicycle. I flatted at the bottom of the hill. I got a change, and of course I had no hope of getting back on. The race motos in those days weren't like they are today. This dude had a BMW R75 with the attache-style saddlebags. He comes up next to me and says "hang on." I got the handle of the saddlebag and he guns it. Almost tore my arm off. We're going up the hill at close to 70 mph, and I'm holding my bars with one freaking hand when the Rossin starts the death wobble, so of course I let go of the moto. I had so much momentum I had to go out over the yellow line and rocketed past the entire pack, going right off the front. Jack Davies said to me later "that attack was unbelievable!" Yes it was. Thanks for reading.
PS - Trackrich, not sure if you're doing Blue Hills, but it's a morning race, so you can still do it and easily make theWeston Westford 10k start at 2:20.
Tomorrow we're heading out to Jiminy Peak. This was the site of a few firsts for me. In only my second licensed race ever, JP was the site of my first crash. I overlapped wheels with someone and bailed into a ditch at the side of route 7. Briefly knocked senseless, I remember few details of the incident. I got up and finished though.
A few years later JP was the site of my first win, in the MA/RI districts 30+ race. Tyler Munroe drilled it from the bottom of the finish climb. I clung to his wheel. Near the top my chain started making noise like it was going to skip (this was in the friction shifters days). I sat down and knocked it up a gear and started the sprint. I had no choice. I could not believe that nobody came around me. It paid $125. Was probably $10 to enter. Tomorrow I think our race is $55 to win, a few bucks more than the entry. That's ok though, as I know their other expenses have gone up. JP registration is the best in the business too. Prereg only. Single line system, everyones packet is alphabetized and you just go to your letter and you're done in 10 seconds. Not sure why everyone else does not do it this way. The BCA (host club) also sent out a rider info email. There was a note at the bottom about littering and gel packets. I could not believe the number of clowns at Battenkill, Sturbridge, and Palmer who were just throwing shit on the ground. WTF?
This wasn't where I was going with this, but here it is. There is also a race at Blue Hills Sunday morning, right out front here. I don't think I'm going to do it though. May seem weird, but the race is only four laps of a seven mile circuit around the hill, and the hill is not severe enough to make a selection, so I don't see the point. Back in the day (here he goes again...), actually, before I even raced, the old Dedham Stage race went around this loop 11 or 12 times before the race finished at the summit. In fact, I think it was an extended version of the loop that went up Hartland and Forest Road. Then a few years later, when I was racing, we did the present loop, but even then it was about 10 laps. That day was the fastest I've ever ridden a bicycle. I flatted at the bottom of the hill. I got a change, and of course I had no hope of getting back on. The race motos in those days weren't like they are today. This dude had a BMW R75 with the attache-style saddlebags. He comes up next to me and says "hang on." I got the handle of the saddlebag and he guns it. Almost tore my arm off. We're going up the hill at close to 70 mph, and I'm holding my bars with one freaking hand when the Rossin starts the death wobble, so of course I let go of the moto. I had so much momentum I had to go out over the yellow line and rocketed past the entire pack, going right off the front. Jack Davies said to me later "that attack was unbelievable!" Yes it was. Thanks for reading.
PS - Trackrich, not sure if you're doing Blue Hills, but it's a morning race, so you can still do it and easily make the
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)