Personal Goals

Given what I’ve seen the other riders on the team do, even just during training rides, I think I’m going to have to set my sights a little lower than upgrading to a three by the end of next season. Especially since I get my ass handed to me on nearly every training ride.

To start of I’d like to focus on just finishing every race with the pack. From there I’d like to look at getting top tens, especially in criteriums. I’m likely to be spit off the back in hilly road races, and Northern California is not without hills. So I’ll have to see how I fare on the open road before I can estimate my ability over longer distances.

I don’t expect to podium any time soon, but I feel pretty confident about greatly improving in criterium racing and doing relatively well in rolling road races. I can’t say that I have the kind of power for either pancake flat or hilly road races, but I’m able to do well on the kind of swooping rollers you see doing Paradise Loop or heading back down Panoramic toward Shoreline from Pan Toll Station.

Training Plans

I expect my schedule to remain relatively stable through next semester. I’ll probably have time for four or five serious rides throughout the week (including a race), the rest of the days filled in with recovery/commute rides to keep the legs loose. To cover all of the bases I’d like to incorporate at least one of each of these kinds of work into four or five rides a week:

• Sprints
• Anaerobic intervals (flats or hills)
• Aerobic tempo
• Hill climbs
• Endurance

Given that I plan to be racing almost every week a criterium would probably cover the anaerobic intervals and a road race could be endurance, though it’s likely to include a little bit of everything.

I’d also like to continue to supplement the riding with one day of strength training and/or running (stairs and trails), either in place of or in addition to one of the above rides.

Challenges & Weaknesses

Climbing. Everyone always says climbing, even good climbers. That’s because climbing is hard. So, specifically I’m looking for quicker recovery after hill accelerations. I definitely move faster upward if I put in short hard efforts, recover, and repeat rather than looking at my bars waiting for it to be over. So if I can recover faster I can hammer longer and more often. I’d like to shave five minutes off my Mt. Tam Hill Climb time.

Skill Development

I’m still at the stage where I consider myself lucky to stay in the entire race. However the things that I have learned have definitely improved my chances. I’d like to see what else I can learn to improve from here on out. The Early Birds and the upcoming road clinic will be a good place to start.

Key Races

With only a handful of races under my belt it’s hard to tell which races I’d like to focus on. However, I’d definitely like to take the few crits I started off with and turn them from simply learning experiences to opportunities to do well. Here’s just a few thoughts on a couple of races I’ll definitely be doing again. I’ll be posting a calendar of the many races I plan on doing as soon as the NCNCA road calendar comes out.

Lafayette Criterium

Not only was this my first race I think it is a hard race in general because of the sharp turns and the uphill finish, it is extremely easy to mash and waste energy. I’m not looking to do well, just to finish and learn some more here.

Albany Criterium

Standard four corner crit, good pavement, two flat sides, one slightly up, one slightly down. I think this is the crit everyone thinks they can win. I don’t expect to win it but I see top ten as a possibility.

Benicia Town Race

Similar to Albany, but the up is a little more up and the down a little more down, and throw in some wind for good measure. This was a fun race and the first race I did relatively well in, just looking to improve on last time.

Team Role

By any measure I’m still a very new racer, so mostly I’m in it to learn from experience and from the more experienced racers. This means doing what needs to be done to get black and yellow across the line first. In races where we have a team favorite to win I’d like to do what I can to protect that racer’s prospects, be it blocking, chasing down breaks, or providing a leadout, given I can keep up with the pack in the first place.

Bonus

Track! The track was fun. I’d really like to see how I do in a race and what kind of track race I can do well in. However, I’m not looking to focus on track racing or take it more seriously than road racing, but it is definitely a lot of fun.

Summary

November 26th, 2007 through December 2nd, 2007. Got sick on Sunday which kind of ruined the whole week. Oh well, I’ll ease back into it at the end of the week as much as I can.

Monday through Sunday

Sick! Colds suck.

Summary

November 19th, 2007 through November 25th, 2007. Last week was pretty solid, did miss Thursday, but put in a good set of workouts. Going to be tough to keep the momentum through the Holiday.

Monday

Commute to school, was going to work out but forgot my ID, so no dice.

Tuesday

Felt like hurling in the morning, so called off the Freewheel ride.

Wednesday

Weekly Dawn Patrol in the headlands. Matt, DP, Will and I did the usual route, this time with sets of hill accelerations. With the cold I was hurting pretty back but felt a lot better when we rolled back through the Presidio. Even with all this hill work doesn’t seem like I’m getting any faster going up.

Thursday

Thanksgiving! This holiday spelled the death of the rest of my training week. Wussed out and slept in.

Friday

Wussed out and slept in. See Thursday.

Saturday

Building Pilarcitos GGP course, manual labor counts as a work out.

Sunday

Back in Nicasio, planned on something short and sweet to keep the legs loose but I woke up with a sore throat and it only got worse from there.

Our day at the track highlighted a couple things for me in terms of racing, both on the track, but especially on the road: not only the need for sheer speed and strength, but also the need for quick thinking and intuition. It’s about spotting the gap and taking it without hesitation.

When my mind turns to tactics I always remember one of the most amazing moves I’ve every seen. I haven’t been following professional racing for very long, so this might not make any top ten lists, but the final kilometers of this year’s Tour de France Stage 18 really got my heart pumping and my mind racing.

Many will remember Sandy Casar as the guy who ran over a dog earlier in the day, but few will forget his winning move. Just inside 3km to go in Stage 18 Sandy Casar came off the back of a four man breakaway to create an immense gap. It seemed in vain as Axel Merckx and the others caught up to Casar with a kilometer to go, but he refused to give up and came across the line with arms raised in victory.

Obviously I’m not trying to report something that happened in the summer as news, but since the winter began I’ve been focusing all my thoughts on training strictly towards fitness (which of course I sorely need). However, now would be a good time to start thinking again not only about racing fast, but racing smart.

Summary

Last week was awesome, time to keep up the momentum and carry it through the holidays and finals into the 2008 season.

Monday

Started off the week, counter intuitively by taking it easy and just commuting today.

Tuesday

Headed out with Mike and the Freewheel guys, meeting Hank at the bridge for a brisk ride up the headlands. While crossing the bridge everyone slowed very suddenly, I braked hard, skidded, hit Travis’ wheel and went down hard on my knee. It hurt pretty bad, but now sitting at home icing it I’m pretty achy but I feel ready for more.

Wednesday

Dawn patrol with Matt, Ben, and Will. We hit the Headlands (again). My legs were still feeling pretty worked from yesterday, and it was early enough that I could still taste some of last night’s dinner as I watched the sun rise over The City. Headed up the (easier) East side of Old Bunker Hill after Conzelman, but still got dropped hard – got a nice second wind about 300-400 meters from the top and gunned it for a nice effort. Same story on McCullough.

h1.Thursday

The plan was for Tempo Thursdays and a my bi-weekly ass kicking by Connor and Travis at the Freewheel. Unfortunately my knee was starting to catch up to me: all stiff and achy. Just taking it easy today and spending a little time on the rollers.

Friday

Commute/recovery.

Saturday

Second official Roaring Mouse ladies ride. Ashley and I headed up to the bridge so I could meet the guys for some hill punishment and to send the ladies off on their ride. Matt, Isaias, Will and I turned off the bike path and headed into Mill Valley to headed up to Four Corners. Ass kicking #1. Then rode down through Muir Woods for the first time, and up our Mt. Tam Hill Climb warm-up route toward Stinson (Ass kickings #2, 3, and 5). From their we hit the five mile climb up Panoramic ending at Pan Toll. I’m consistently off the back of Will, Isaias, and Matt, but at least with Scott newly back on the bike I’m not bringing up the rear.

It was cool of the guys to let us ride at our own pace and do repeats in the mean time, makes the ride seem a lot more friendly. Finally got to Pan Toll, refilled, and went back down to Mill Valley. After a day of getting my butt kicked on hills I did make good time up the lower Conzelman climb up to the bridge (finally the first person up a hill, even if no one gave chase). I also dug deep for the sprint to the Arguello gate (again no chase, but fun anyway) – of course this is indicative of my problem of holding back on the hills for fear of popping completely. Got to learn how to leave more on the road more evenly.

Sunday

Carlos was visiting, no ride; next time when he’s here with his bike I’ll take him out to a team ride.

Ashley has been itching to get her new Cinelli on a real track since the moment she laid her hands on it. We finally had the truck around, so we headed down to the Hellyer Velodrome in San Jose.

Stopping to get cash and gas we were there in about an hour with no traffic, however looking into the future of Wednesday night racing, getting there in traffic could prove tough. We parked and met Ben and the rest of the mouse squad. We definitely had a presence in San Jose that morning: Ben, Matt, Greg, Ashley, and I were all in Mouse colors ready to ride around in circles. Greg, both new to riding and to the mouse had brought his new Leader track bike.

I was skeptical of the Leader frames, having seen the crappy welds in photos on eBay auctions, but it looks a lot nicer in person, especially with some carbon fiber FSA cranks. Ben brought his white IRO Mark V, which made me think that I could get my commuter somewhat track ready with a little effort (and money). And of course Ashley had her beautiful Cinelli Olympic.

After a little fiddling with the rental bikes and milling around the instructor gave a preliminary spiel and sent us off in two groups on a 30 lap warm up which went fairly smoothly until the end. One guy in our group kept taking off which screwed up the lap count and when one group finished everyone scattered. During the confusion one girl with very little riding experience went up to the rail and nearly became roadkill beneath Matt as he was speeding up to catch Ben. Somehow no one crashed, but it put a lot of people on edge for a little while. Fortunately all was forgotten during the next portion of the warm up as we did some sprints.

The fun really started when the instructor put everyone on the track for a twenty lap scratch race; when he said it was like a criterium I saw Matt’s eyes light up. All the riders got set up on the rail, Matt and Ben making their way to the front. It only took them a lap or so to start taking off. I held my own for at least fifteen laps, overtaking most of the field, watching most people drop out before we were even seven laps in. But as I was starting my sixteenth lap Ben and Matt, along with a Cat 3 junior named Nick and a few others lapped me. I couldn’t jump on but I did manage to keep pace long enough to not lose more than another half lap.

Next came the Italian pursuit, or team sprint. Matt, Ben, Ashley, and I joined up against another group of four on the other side of the track. At the whistle we were sent off at full effort for four laps with Ashley in the lead. She went off so fast at the gun that it was hard to keep her wheel and she even gapped Matt and Ben briefly. In the Italian pursuit the leader pulls of at each lap, leaving the last riders of each group trying to catch each after four lightning fast laps. In our first heat we made up so much ground that Ben nearly caught the other rider at the line. Our first pursuit went so well that we went again after a short break. This one went just as smoothly, but we were started to feel the wind in turn four and we lost by about a bike length.

The last event of the day was the Australian pursuit. With riders starting lined up at every other light pole along the rails the winner would be the last rider standing as other riders must pull of to the stairs once they are passed by any other rider. I was feeling pretty worked so I got picked off after only a lap and a half. Matt held strong against the two remaining riders until a 3 lap lead out into a sprint. He made the mistake of pulling the whole way and trying to attack at a half lap to go when the others went to the rails. They came off the rails so fast that Matt was out just before the final turn. Still an incredible effort. It’s so easy to ride so fast on the track that you have to ride that much harder to ride faster than everyone else.

Overall the day was awesome, great training, and educational. I can’t wait to go back and eventually start racing for real. Check out Ashley’s report of her first day at the track too!

Summary

Last week was a let down, so I resolved to make this one count. Finally had my first solid week of the winter.

Monday

Opened up the new CTS Criterium video to give it a try. We got the Time Trial video free with our trainer, and these videos give a great workout in a short period of time, even if riding the trainer indoors is a little boring.

Tuesday

After having to borrow cars and bum rides several weeks in a row, Ashley and I decided we need to get our truck. So I rode out to Sleepy Hollow hitting the Headlands on the way for a nice brisk 30 miles or so.

Wednesday

Took it easy and just commuted today.

Thursday

Ashley, Mike, and I hit the Polo Fields at 6:30am to join Bergen, Will, Hank, and Jay in 45 minutes or so of pacelining. Then Mike and I headed over the Emma’s Cafe to see where the Freewheel guys would be headed. Either we got there late or they didn’t show at all. We headed out anyway getting halfway up Conzelman before a Ranger stopped us at the gate after McCullough telling us it was closed because of the oil spill. Bummer, both for the poor wildlife and for me since I had made up nearly a minute on my best split time up Conzelman.

So we headed down McCullough and back up, then back. Once back Mike showed me several killer bodyweight and isometric exercises in the hallway.

Friday

Recovery/commute again.

Saturday

A day at the track!

Sunday

I wanted to get up early and put in a nice base ride, but I was feeling the effects of my first real full week so I slept in a bit, then studied for a few hours before going out for a couple hours in the headlands. I had been doing good up Conzelman on Thursday so I drilled it pretty hard this time and finally hit 10:30 to the top. After quietly celebrating I dove down the backside hit the beach went up and down Old Bunker Hill (flying this time) and back up McCullough and home. A great end to a great week.