so long afternoon sun, hello morning chill

42F is truly the wake up call everyone should experience. as i roll out of my garage with my additional clothing options: leg warmers, long sleeve winter jersey with arm warmers on top, thermal booties, thermal vest and long fingered gloves, i am reminded that even bundled up you still feel the 42F.

coffee, hot shower and two hours later, i'm still feeling the chill on my body. i really enjoy these morning rides, less cars, less people, just me and the bike and the forty degree morning air.

racing in late fall

workouts, cold air, dark afternoons and the weekend race with the club. had good power numbers and most importantly finished mid-pack with ease, if i really wanted to move up i knew i had the reserve to do so.

back to the race, did a few efforts, worked with a few team mates learned some new tricks that i shall off-line. i had a blast, looking forward to the next few events.

and then the sun disappears

with only 5 more days of sunny afternoons, the realization of riding in the mornings before work has kicked in. have to get a red bike light so those who haven't had their coffee intake won't slam into the back of me. gotta get out the thermal layers, leg warmers and long fingered gloves.

as cold as it gets i come to enjoy it...i know sick in the head, but riding the rural roads alone, there is something to that. of course it takes me all day to warm back to normal human temperature.

this crit has a hill

race: Vacaville Grand Prix
category: 35+ Masters 4/5
field: 61
conditions: warm, 80s at 9a
time: 16 laps
team mates: none

course: is 1.1 miles in length, a good series of right left turns before you approach the climb. the climb is similar to Benecia

goals were simple: finish with the pack and stay seated on the climbs,
which basically equals, don't get pulled and don't blow up on the climb.

Arriving early I was surprised to hear that the event was running on time. My race starts at 8:50a while I was warming up I was watching guys get off their trainers at 8:30a, I stayed on for another 10 minutes opening the legs for the amount of climbing necessary to finish 16 times up that hill.

From the start we shoot off with speed, nothing horrible just guys fighting for position for the tight right hand turn and good placement on the first climb. It ended up being pointless since the hill was closed for traffic, there was plenty of room to go around those blowing up on the incline. In past years that would normally be me.

For most of the race I sat in the middle, we go fast we slow down we go fast again only to slow down to a crawl on some of the tighter turns, only with four to go did we start to build up speed, while I swear I was in the middle I suddenly was on the back, that's because a good 20 guys were gone from the race. I moved myself back up just in time to watch a Davis guy shoot up the hill, I revved up and moved up to the front middle.

With one lap to go I was sitting in about 30, we were all strung out, there was several attacks on the climb it was all I could do to just hang on. I moved past a few guys on the flat right before the line, finishing the day in 24th.

For those interested in the power data, I attached the training peaks snap shot of yesterday's race. In cycling peaks I was able to take off my warm up and cool down which my normalized power ended up at 287.

short term memory loss

short term memory loss was in full affect in my races at the davis criterium. i raced both the 35+ masters 4 and elite 4s while the e4 have a reputation for craziness it was the 35+ 4s that were not recalling the last lap. it was a combination of solo crashes, pedal scraping and overcooking the turns. somehow i survived that race taking 44th. waited for 2.5 hours for a fast e4 race, full field came in 48th.

odd feeling... i was physically ready

before I show up to the start line with a good feeling that I would last the entire race but most of the time I finish the race but towards back of the pack. The gas tank would just dry up and I be fighting to get that 60th place.

here's how it went on Sunday at the Burlingame Criterium

Memorial Day Criterium announcer tells us that there is a delay due to a crash in the last race, we'll get you guys started as soon as we get the all clear. Since I'm towards the back I take advantage of riding some loops to keep the legs warm, after 10 minutes of that they finally tell us the rules of the road and start the race.

Knowing that the majority of the guys are anxious to get warm, I knew that there would be crashes, yep on lap 2 or 3 we had 2 crashes in the back stretch, one was a solo and the other involved at least 5 guys, after finally being neutralized the pace finally became reasonable. Sitting comfortably towards the back, but still able to see the front of the race waiting for the surge. The surge finally took place with 6 laps to go, I figured okay I'll play along moving myself up to the mid-pack, with 4 laps to go Steven Woo (LGBRC) puts in a huge attack to get himself to the front, I wait for the Synergy train to get organized and hop on board. With 3 laps to go I'm sitting in top 25, as we hit the final lap, I have good position to get my goal on top 30.

As I enter the final turn a Synergy guy bumps into me and proceeds to lean on me for quite some time, I tell him "take it easy - hold your line" and slowly he returns to his original line, afterwards he thanked me for being calm and instructing him how to keep it upright.

Back to the finishing stretch, I get a good draft from some guy, as soon as he starts to fade I go around him to find Mr. Zig Zag, I pass him on his zag and without getting out of the saddle I power through the finish line, knowing that I got my goal of top 30 but now I'm thinking I got top 20.

Place 21
Avg HR: 157
Avg Watts: 202

the fitness is returning

tuesday night's goal was to stay with the B group for every lap, no matter how painful it was going to be. the first few times up the climb were painful as the climbers desperately tried to create the break, about 6 laps into it they did. now that we had 2 guys in the breakaway, i immediately positioned myself up front to block, but this meant i was in the wind possibly jeopardizing my chances. what you do for teammates!

but this week I did it, I lasted all 15 laps with a lot of help from my team mates. i glued myself behind scott, todd and maurice and derrick shouted out encouragements, whew I needed every last letter on the last time up the hill.

i even broke the 1000 watt mark, scoring a 1019 on one of the climbs.

next week, i'm going for the same goal, stay with the pack and perhaps give a few others a chance to block some wind.