Against the Clock

Beautiful Morning

2011-08-12T16:45:00.007-04:00

This morning was beautiful. The break in the heat and humidity ever so welcome. I've said it before and continue the practice...my commute is not a race, it is not a training ride, it's just a ride. I respect the 17 stop signs through Alexandria. I am patient with slower riders, walkers or runners, waiting until it makes sense to pass. I take pause, exercise caution, in areas where I know other riders have a tendency to be a bit irresponsible.

Today had some very good examples. When I ride in, I cross the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (the I-95 crossing of the Potomac River). To connect to Royal Street to cross Alexandria, I go down alongside the bridge and under it. I don't bomb that descent for two reasons. One is the very tight left hander at the bottom into a path with jersey wall separating directions of travel and chainlink fence on the other side. Not enough room to take it with a lot of speed The other is that I regularly watch others come out from there too fast, swinging their right hander wide as if there was absolutely no way a rider could be coming the other way. Sure enough this morning, one such rider came blasting out of the right hander. I watched it from halfway down the descent.

As I cleared the narrow trail - construction is on going and the slapdash pavement they threw down is lumpier than packed dirt/gravel was - two commuters who can only be described as Freds rolled past me. They aren't aggressively blowing through the stop signs, they aren't riding fast enough for that, but they aren't slowing at all either. I am amused, as their pace doesn't distance them from me much while I respect the stop signs - no I don't full stop, but I do slow significantly. I look ahead and shake my head. He's wearing brown corduroys (or so they appeared to be) without having rolled up the right leg. No it's not getting caught in the drive train, but it's getting very greasy. Doh! She's got her capris on, her helmet at something of a jaunty angle.

Beyond them, I see that they're working on the road, narrowing it to one lane, with a solo flagger working the traffic control. The Freds are a few bike lengths beyond the intersection, waiting for the flagger. I chuckle as I clear the stop sign and move into the service road proceeding unhindered by the construction and the flagger. Strange, they never caught back up to me.

At the far end of Alexandria, I opt to stay on the road rather than ride a small section of trail that is narrow, the foliage isn't cut back and it has a fair number of root heaves. I stop at the red light where I'll make my right turn to hook up with the Mt Vernon Trail a block down and parallel the GW Parkway along the river for a while. It's a no turn on red intersection because you can't see what's coming - angle of the bend in the road and landscaping give you no sightlines at all. No problem. I grab my bottle. A Porsche Carrera pulls up next to me, windows down, sun roof open. "Swap you for a day," I offer. The driver chuckles. "I don't doubt you could handle this car, but I don't think I could handle your bike." We chat about the weather, how many miles my commute is, that sort of thing. Both of us are simply enjoying the fabulous morning. While we're chatting, one cyclist, then another, opt to go around us, ignore the no turn on red sign and ride away. Well, they sure showed me! After all, I was having a great time, enjoying my ride and the day and a chat with a random stranger...surely they're decision to ignore the red light, no turn on red and the risks to themselves and others was the right way to go. After all, the second one made it all the way to the next red light before I caught up to him.

Apparently

2011-06-07T11:36:00.005-04:00

I'm an anomaly as a bike commuter. I see it in the looks I get from motorists, cyclists, runners, joggers and walkers. They simply don't know what to do when they encounter me and my patience.

Unlike too many of my fellow bike commuters, I actually wait for a reasonable place to pass slower traffic. This morning I rolled at a nominal 12mph for a quarter mile behind a woman on a townie who was clearly doing the best she could until we cleared a particularly windy part of the trail then passed her when I had good sight lines for oncoming traffic. I could tell she was nervous, probably a combination of fearing that I would pass her at an inopportune moment and just that I was behind her.

Runners and walkers often respond to my "on your left" with "thank you." Is that announcement really so uncommon?

Perhaps more amazingly, I respect the 17 stop signs on my route through Alexandria. Yes, many of them are Idaho stops, but some are track stands. Most motorists look at me with confusion when I urge them to take their turn at the 4-way-stop, their expressions seeming to say "what? you're not going to damn near give me a heart attack by blowing through the stop sign assuming that I'll yield to you? Inconceivable."

I don't care when other commuters blow past me, just shake my head at them when I see them blow a stop sign then swerve to avoid getting hit by the car that has the right of way proceeding through the intersection. No doubt they think I'm a wuss for exercising care around cars. That's ok, I know they're morons. ;-)

I know that when I'm exercising patience waiting for a reasonable place to pass on the all too narrow MVT, and they're behind me and I'm slowing them down, they think unkind thoughts about me. That's ok too, as the feeling is mutual.

We simply don't understand each other. Many seem to be out to set a new personal best on their commute and display many of the same aggressive behaviors that auto drivers do. This annoys me because I'm cycling to work to get away from that behavior pattern. So I just don't get why others ride like that.

I'm sure they are equally stumped and unable to understand why I'm simply enjoying my commute. Then again, I don't know that they identify me as a commuter as I don't look like one - I ride a race bike, wear team kit and carry nothing beyond the stuff in my jersey pockets...no backpack, certainly no panniers (I don't own a bike with eyelets to support such things), so maybe they're really thinking, "stupid racer type doing warm up or cool down on my commute route...go somewhere else, get the f out of my way." Oh wait, there's that auto driver behavior again...

I'm happy to stay an anomaly, thank you very much. Perhaps there are some others out there like me, but I haven't noticed them as yet.

Flashback

2011-04-27T11:59:00.004-04:00

This blog has been sitting idle for about a year....it's simply been a matter of time more than anything else. Too much to do and not enough time, so the blog gets left behind. But riding to work yesterday made me think about it as I had a flashback....

So there I am cruising along the Potomac on the Mount Vernon Trail, North of the airport and closing in on the ramp to the 14th Street Bridge, passing various riders, runners, joggers and walkers and just enjoying the morning. A rider headed the other way sports "Bikes USA" jersey and my brain takes a big leap backward in time.

The late 90s. I'd just started graduate school to get my MBA, adding to my load of working two jobs. After a few months, I realized I needed something to break things up and my thoughts went back to one of the greatest joys of my youth - riding a bike.

One weekend I drove over to Bikes USA and looked around. I wasn't sure how serious I was about returning to riding, so I didn't want to spend a lot. I decided on a Gary Fischer Hybrid that they were touting as a "sport utility bike." The cost was, well, let's just say I probably spent more on text books for some of those grad school classes. By the time I added in the necessary accessories - helmet, pump etc, it probably exceeded a textbook bill, but not by a lot.

Out I went, onto the neighborhood trail. It isn't long 6 miles maybe, with one hill (ok, I thought it was a hill at the time). After that got a bit dull, I went across the river to the Mount Vernon Trail. Every time I went out, I admired the riders on the road bikes. I envied their smooth, seemingly effortless pedal strokes and vowed that one day I would be like that too. I knew by then that cycling would stay in my life, the passion of my youth rekindled.

My brother gave me toe clips for Christmas that year. And shortly there after I learned exactly how fast I could come out of them to save myself from a fall when I hit a patch of ice over by the powerplant. I wasn't put off by the near disaster. Instead, I started thinking about SPDs. I got those a couple months later and only fell once on the first ride due to having trouble unclipping.

I rode a supported metric century and started thinking about a road bike. 9 months after getting the hybrid, I spent time visiting half a dozen bike shops, test riding until I found the bike that spoke to me. Part of me argued it was idiotic - I was spending the cost of a class on a bicycle! But the rest of me knew it was money well spent, at least as well spent as my education. I own several road bikes these days.

I realized on that commute yesterday morning, as I cruised along the river (now on my way to the office) that I was doing it with that smooth, effortless beauty I had envied back at the beginning.

Gotta Ride

2010-03-07T21:38:00.008-05:00

Riding today really wasn't up for discussion - it wasn't a matter of I should do it because it would be good training, nor an ought to do it because I haven't had the option of riding outside for quite a while. It was a simple matter of must do it. Riding today was an absolute must - I needed to get out, I needed to get some sun and fresh air, needed to ride my bike when it wasn't clamped into a trainer. Needed sweat to evaporate naturally instead of spilling into my eyes while the fan failed to motivate it to evaporate.

It wouldn't have mattered that I had a new bike to take out on its maiden ride. Or new shoes to test out. But I did. Also new were the team bibs and team jersey.

The route is one of my favorites and I'm still trying to figure out how to hold a TT on in. I rode hard, I rode easy, I tested out the bike in a variety of ways, I chatted with this rider and that. Shook my head at Nancy...what is that tri penchant for absurdly low cadence? And 4 layers? Today?

Late in the ride, the fact that I've been on the trainer for the last month (25-30 miles typically) started to show. Ok, so I also fubared and didn't grab my bars (those of us with tree nut and peanut allergies really have to be careful about food!) so I was probably underfed a bit and I know I didn't drink as much as I should have. Flippin' stupid rookie mistakes. But no biggie, I can just dial it back and cruise the last handful of miles at a relaxed pace. All good cause I'm out riding the bike and getting adapted to it and the SRAM shifting system (love it!).

And then the strangest thing happened. I'm riding along - the rest of 'em are still in sight - and the road wraps around a farm field. In the middle of the field there's a deer. Just standing there. It was so still at first I thought it was a practice target. But no, it was a deer. And it watched me for a little bit and then decided I was a viable target so it started running at me, constantly adjusting its course as I pedaled along. I'm thinking WTF? Before it gets to the far side of the pavement, I decide it's time to dig beyond my fatigue and dig out some pace. Maybe this deer has talked to that squirrel that bounced off my front rim last year? No collision happened, happily my upping the tempo put me ahead of the deer when it crossed the road. But damn, what was up with that?

The rest of the ride was uneventful. Blake drifted back to make sure I was ok, which of course I was, but it's nice to have someone notice when you come off the back of the group.

Hats off Benny Budd (service manager) for the build on my bike and Chris Richardson for his meticulous attention to detail in tweaking fit and cleat placement. You guys at Bike Doctor Waldorf rock!

First win of the season

2010-02-15T21:19:00.004-05:00

I scored my first win of the season on Saturday by laying down the best time of the Cat 3/4 women in the GamJams TT Throwdown (computrainer racing). It was suggested that maybe having built the course for the competition I had a better knowledge of it that others, but really, I only rode it once after it was done. And in truth I didn't have the best of days on Saturday - too much stress from the ice moguls of the road between my house and the main road. Bottomed out, got stuck had to shovel to get unstuck. High stress. And then everything was way off schedule when I got out to HPC, so the nutrition window was exceeded, another stressor. And I really prefer racing when I'm fresh, which means first thing in the morning, before anything else has had the chance to get in the way. So I had all the excuses lined up and ready to go...and then I didn't need 'em. Not a bad place to be in February, though I guarantee you that by the time I need to peak (August) my time on that same course will be much faster.

In truth what I did was use it as training anyway. I know I can go fast, really hammer, on the flats. But I'm just not a climber...so I tackled the course with the mind set of killing everything that was an uphill - be it 0.5% or 2.6% or the big finish of 8% - and just doing my best to hold on in the flats.

It was fun and maybe next year more people will give it a try. Better than driving to NC only to have one race canceled due to snow. :-)

What do you do with a snowy day....

2010-02-06T16:56:00.004-05:00

I surfed around and found a couple of particularly amusing xtranormal videos.

Gotta love this one on powermeters:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryBA39A_LjI&feature=related

And for all my officiating friends, gotta love this one....
http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/5741913/

Neglected...

2010-02-02T21:16:00.003-05:00

This blog has been totally neglected for more than six months. But it's going to become un-neglected.

2009 and 2010 is already one month old. Where does the time go? But it's gone. Time to move on. Forward always moving forward.

This weekend some of the local racers (and non-racers) are going to tackle the TT course I built for the GamJams TT Throwdown. Methinks some folks will connect my name with some curse words before the weekend is done.

Next up Stony Creek...

2009-06-19T19:47:00.004-04:00

Tomorrow's training ride. Just enough to keep the legs going, not enough to mess up Sunday's TT.

&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/md/-brandywine/906124545467166061"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;22 mile Brandywine Route&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;br/&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://www.mapmyride.com/find-ride/united-states/md/-brandywine"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Find more Bike Rides in Brandywine, Maryland&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;

One Helluva Week

2009-05-11T12:05:00.009-04:00

The weekend went pretty much ok. Got in a nice ride on Saturday, even with that nasty gash in the tire. Working BikeJam was a good experience for me. I'm still a rookie at some things as an official, even though I work a lot of races I've never been a pit ref for a race where the pit actually had business. It was a great learning experience and now I know how to do the job really well at future races. Some of it was easy - races that stay together don't require much in the way of scoring - how many times do you need to write down "F" for field? Some of it was hard. And we had a great time over at Lisa's post-race. I didn't get home until after 11pm... good thing I can nap on the train going in to work on Monday morning.

Monday morning the hamstrings bitching about spending most of the day Sunday standing around was an omen of things to come. Rest of the day was ok, no big excitements, nice pleasant yoga class. Tuesday all hell broke loose with the race scheduled for Saturday that I'm Chief Ref for.

Tuesday evening was a bright spot though, cause I was riding the Ordu and really enjoying it that evening. The Serotta was over at the shop getting the new, narrower bars put on. It was a good evening.

Wednesday saw the continuation of the thrills and chills relative to the race. Two days of emails, phone calls, conferences calls and careful considerations led us to conclude the race had to be postponed. Pain in the ass for all but the risk of someone getting hurt was too high, better to race next month and have safer conditions.
The whole thing was really draining. I actually had to have my chiropractor wait to work on me while I finished up the last phone call with the promoter. Thankfully he's very active sports-wise (coaching his kids' teams stuff like that) so he was totally sympathetic when I explained to him why I was being ever so rude as to be on my cell phone at that moment.

Whew, got all that behind me. Though I ended up staying up late just to unwind. Legs were feeling progressively better as the week went on. Thursday... always a good day at the point, big bunch lots of options for pace. But by the time I got there I was tired and unmotivated. But I knew that if I found some folks to ride with, I'd be fine. The bunch was big and I debated joining in...sometimes when it's that big it's just a little too sketchy for my tastes. I pulled into the parking lot, picked up Kenny and did a lap with him. We did a little ring spin lap - lots of fun. Pulled in to the lot again to hook up with Angie and some others. But then Iris went by riding with 2 others - a woman with a CapHillBikes jersey and a guy. I was chatting with an NCVC rider and decided to chase on to that little pace line. I had no trouble doing so and when I got up there I noticed the NCVC guy had come along for the ride. I went to the front near the end of the lap and easily rode away from the group. Then let them pass and hooked back on for the next go round. It was definitely a busy night at the Point. Probably 80-100 cyclists total (not all in one bunch), walkers, runners, skaters, and of course cars and tour buses. Definitely a night to ride very heads up....

The woman with the Cap Hill jersey (turns out her name is Lindsay) was on the front, then Iris and then me. I don't know if the guys were still with us behind me or not. I don't much worry about who is behind me, I stay focused on the important stuff - what's going on ahead of me. So we come around the point and Lindsay picked up the tempo. No problem. We were right at the speed limit (the powertap download shows it as 24.9mph) when disaster struck. There was slow traffic ahead, we took the left lane - why not, we were going the speed limit. But then the car in the right lane that was going slow decided it was going to come into the left lane to get around some walkers (I believe there were 3 walking side by side sucking up the entire right lane) and didn't bother to check that it was safe to change lanes. I know I yelled out, but I was third wheel and the guy had the windows closed....

Lindsay reacted well, did her absolute best to swerve to avoid the collision, smartly slammed on both brakes so she didn't endo, but still hit the car - her right side taking the impact. He was going slower so he stopped first. His driver's side mirror, the one that he should have used!, broke away when her hip hit it. Mama Duck mode kicked in, even though I didn't know her at all. I stopped. I stayed with her. I checked over the bike. The cops came. I told them what happened. Iris told a different story. I shrugged when the cop told me that. I couldn't explain the difference. I just know what I saw from my perspective. Thinking about it now, I write it off to the fact that she probably isn't as hyper aware when riding as I am so she didn't have a clear picture, maybe she was riding a bit too much head down too.

The good news - rider and bike appeared to be pretty much ok. Still, we sent her off to the hospital in the ambulance so she could get checked out well and maybe some heavier duty pain killers. She's got to be hurting a lot today. Manny took her bike so it'd be safe - the cops offered to lock it up, but well, folks don't understand what bikes mean to cyclists (nor do they necessarily understand the actual dollar value).

I know the driver didn't do it on purpose. It was an accident. And I think it really scared the hell out of him and his family, I really hope it did and that he'll be a better driver because of it.

It was comforting to see how the cyclists responded...definitely a sense of looking out for our own. And yet by the time I got home I was deeply depressed. I'm still depressed today. Not sure why. Certainly not the first mishap I've seen. Maybe it's just the sum total of the week's events. I don't know.

Hopefully the weekend will go great - ride tomorrow, race Sunday, ride Monday. First I gotta get out of this funk.

Random Thoughts

2009-04-02T13:33:00.005-04:00

After the evil agonizing ride of a couple of weeks ago, I'm very happy to say that all is right between me and the bike. Our differences are resolved and we are a harmonious team once again. This is a good thing.

They've posted up the schedule for Master's Nationals. I'm glad that I will get my racing done in two days now instead of having to be out there for a week. Still have to get out there ahead of the TT. It's a new course, so a pre-ride is absolutely necessary. And that ride will get the drive out of my legs (though I plan to drive with my recovery tights on!).

I am happy to know that I will not be doing the Tour of Washington County Stage Race. It really wasn't any fun last year and there's absolutely no point in doing it this year when it's time based. I probably wouldn't make the time cut from the RR to even get to the TT and Crit, so no need to waste the time and money.

"Think about it - how long would you last doing intervals with no rest?" (I won't name names on who typed that but some of you might recognize it.) Stuff like this cracks me up. Intervals with no rest aren't intervals, it become a sustained effort when there's no rest. Like duh. How long would you last doing a sustained effort? Most of us do it for about an hour or so in the form of a 40km TT. It's not really what the author of the statement was trying to say, but that's how it came out. And that amuses me.

Hamstrung

2009-03-24T12:50:00.003-04:00

I had this great plan for last weekend. Finally I had a weekend clear - no concerts to work, no concerts to attend, no races to officiate. Just the bike club annual dinner that I could always skip if need be. So the plan was to ride, a lot. A nice 60-miler on Saturday and then drive out to KA for the Sunday ride. Even the weather was willing to cooperate. It was going to be a weekend of cycling indulgence that I seldom get.

Mid week training - check. One visit to the gym. Check. Massage and chiropractic adjustment. Check. An excellent schedule to lead up to the weekend. But oh no, couldn't have that happen, nope, not an option. By Friday the legs weren't doing all that well - especially my hamstrings. My hamstrings tend to be tight - that's part of me. I do yoga and stretch to try to keep them from getting too tight, but they have a will of their own. So I went out for a lunch time run - at a very easy pace - to see if some movement wouldn't improve the situation. It didn't seem to make things any worse but didn't improve matters either.

On to the massage... oh yeah, those hamstrings were not happy campers. Lots of work to try to clear the congestion. Off to the chiropractor...yup tight, tight, tight. At least my midback was happy to pop back into alignment.

Saturday morning, things were not improved to speak of - the hammies were still complaining. I went out and rode my bike anyway. Never have I suffered as I did. No time trial, no hilly road race, no crit, nothing, had ever had me hurting on the bike the way I was on Saturday. It was manageable for the first 30 miles or so. But then things started to get significantly worse. Over the next 20 miles or so, I felt every muscle in my upper legs engage in an effort to compensate for the hamstrings until I reached a point where they all were worn out and sending pain signals. Never before had my legs hurt so bad. I dropped off the back of the ride - sometimes it's best to suffer alone.

I reached a point in that solo suffering where I was ready to be done with cycling in any way, shape or form. Never would I lead a ride for the club, hell, I'd resign as treasurer. Never would I train or race, ever again. Had there been a dumpster in sight, it might have turned into a re-enactment of that scene from Karate Kid where Daniel (not yet Daniel-san) while cycling was run off the road by the bullies on their motor bikes and battered and bruised as a result tossed his bike in the dumpster loudly professing his hate for the machine.

Then I moved beyond it ignored the physical pain, set aside the emotional pain, rolled up to the stop sign where the rest of the group was waiting and sat on the front, pulling at the agreed pace for the last few miles of the ride. The weekend's riding was done though - I knew there was no way my hamstrings would be recovered such as to tolerate a hilly ride out of KA the next day. I was figuring that if I could once again touch my toes by sometime on Sunday, I'd be doing great.

The effort took so much out of me that I spent a lot more hours asleep than normal - both over night and taking a nap on Sunday. The pain had mostly faded over night but walking seemed to be as much effort as my legs were interested in doing. I didn't argue. The recovery day did its job and I'm all better now. The 4 mile run at lunch yesterday went without a hitch (though I think it's time for new running shoes) and yoga did its magic. I guess the true test will be tonight on the bike, but I don't doubt that the legs will be fine, even happy to pedal. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I managed to push the mental barriers back a bit so that I'll be able to suffer more effectively in competition.

Flatlander in Western Maryland

2008-12-28T18:57:00.005-05:00

It wasn't that far into today's ride out of Kelley Acres that I asked RB why it was that I'd traveled 75 miles to suffer such as I was suffering a climb up a narrow little gritty, damp road somewhere in Frederick or Washington County. It was really a rhetorical question, we both knew why we were cycling up the hill. I do it because it supplies the element that is missing from my riding in Southern Maryland - long climbs. It's not that our roads are truly flat down here - not like the Eastern Shore and Delaware. But our hills (which are the product of streams cutting valleys while making their way to the river) are short, measured in fractions of a mile, and steep, more often than not going into double digits on the percent grade. So the long climbs that happen out West supply something that is missing from my training. But the distance involved to get to that sort of riding means I don't do it all that often. And so I end up feeling like a Dutchwoman cycling in Belgium.

The downside is that because of that, I'm always last, well almost always, so I feel bad cause folks are always waiting for me or riding back a bit to check on me. They're always nice about it, but it's gotta suck for 'em.

Part of the problem today is that I was tired. Today was my third ride in as many days, and I haven't ridden three days in a row since August. Tough on the old body. And of course it's not like I come home from rides and just sit around. I've been busy with working on painting and cleaning up and fixing things up in the utility room. As far as I've gotten looks great.

So my days have been pretty much get up, ride, come home, lunch and clean up, spackle/sand/paint, make dinner, then another round of spackle/sand/paint. There's some cleaning involved too. Toss in doing some laundry and cleaning up the bike and the days are long and tiring. In all, pretty hard on the old body. So tonight I'm taking it easy. After the ride I got some lunch then stopped by the Container Store to get stuff to improve the storage situation in the utility room. But I'm not putting it up tonight....or doing anything else. Just watching the House marathon and blogging a bit.

Weathering the Weather

2008-10-29T14:37:00.005-04:00

Hains Point is a really cool place at times. Last night was one of those times. Yes, that's right, while the lightweights, wannabes, and generally weather intimidated stayed home yesterday evening, I rode my bike at Hains Point. It was totally awesome, because I had the place almost completely to myself. While I was getting ready I saw a couple of cyclists, never saw them again. One skater, but he didn't stick around too long. At the time I pulled out of the parking lot on two wheels, a runner headed out the other direction. I saw him a bit later... one lap and he jumped in his suv and took off. He had appeared to be a more serious distance type runner than that... guess the wind was too much for him.

I layered up with all the good stuff - my addidas bib tights, my assos jacket, the cold weather gloves, booties, a nice wigwam knit hat to keep head and ears warm. Everything that is particularly good at blocking the wind. Pretty much the only part of me exposed to the wind chill was my face. And I stayed warm. My face got colder on the descents at Skyline a couple of weeks ago. The wind was amazing. There was only bits of tail wind, that was fun - look, 90 watts and I'm going 20mph! Of course that was on the channel side. Over on the river side, well, if you ever look at the trees on that side, you know the angle that the strongest winds blow from. I didn't have any amazing watts numbers this ride, because I was spending a lot of energy controlling the bike. Picture this - sit on your bike, straighten out your right arm, shift your body to the left of center and sort of hunch over your left arm and lean into the wind, really lean into it. Then the bike mostly goes straight, only occasionally getting pushed toward the curb. But remember, don't have a death grip on the bars...that just makes it worse when the gusts hit! I played with the gears - spin with the tailwind, grind into the headwind, flip it next lap, forget about it the lap after that, just keep going. Six laps - I told myself the first lap that if I did six, that would be good. So 76 minutes and 6 laps and I called it done, enough was enough.

Maybe the watts numbers from my legs weren't impressive, but it was a rare total body workout on the bike. I was having muscle spasms along my rib cage last night from the effort my core, and all my other upper body muscles, had to put out. And it was good for my head. There's something about going out and training when the weather is challenging to make you feel stronger and tougher mentally. And it will give me lots of ammunition to toss at the guys when next I see them. "I was here Tuesday, where were you? You let a little wind keep you inside? Wimpy, wimpy, wimpy." Probably won't be tonight when I see them, though, cause it's still a bit breezy and chilly.

Catching Up

2008-10-12T21:16:00.007-04:00

The race season is over, and still I don't have much time to write. At Turkey Day the best fun was drag-racing a tractor - it didn't have a trailer attached, but it was still good fun, out accelerating it in a block was cool, good to know that I could still accelerate, even in the heat, even after 2 weeks without the bike. (maybe I'll get some pix from Europe up sometime). Kevin was on the moto with the race and commented on it the next weekend at Charm City.

Charm City was a good time. Lots of fun overall and really the judging went smooth. C3 was really happy with it all. It was quite a different scene than the two Cross races I worked last year. Both of those had much smaller fields. The first field was insanity in a way - 100 men, 40 or so women and a handful of juniors. But we sorted it out well. Not a single complaint about the results. Helps to have 5 sets of eyes on the line for a field like that.

Last weekend was awesome. I was Chief Judge for both Cross races - BCA on Saturday and Kelley Acres on Sunday. Stayed at Kelley Acres overnight between the two events. Helped Megan finish up the layout of the cross. It was wicked cool - nothing I'd want to race though. Not ready for that sort of stuff without pavement. Maybe next year I'll give cyclocross a try. But first things first. Winter training then road season. And next road season will be different....

Wow, this blog is really boring...but that's pretty much how my life is. Just like most other folks my life is mostly boring routine.

Got my new toy - my powertap wheel. Have the TT bike set up to check it out tomorrow. Haven't been on a bike or done anything athletic - other than turning the church around after the concert last night - since Thursday. Then again I haven't been feeling particularly well either. Friday was the worst - nasty ass sore throat. Feeling better now, but it took its toll last night....ok, so last night totally sucked, but that's life. Good help is hard to find and I'm still looking. The new kid is nice, but he's clueless. I just don't get why people can't manage to follow straight forward instructions. "We have to put everything back exactly the way it is, so make sure you know where everything goes. Use your camera in your phone if need be." What's confusing about that? But I'm not going to carry on about work...or me...or being human...though there are some people who don't seem to think that I'm entitled to be human. I know that I promote that misconception because I don't show my personal weaknesses to others. That's how I am and thus I pay the price of others thinking everyone else's feelings are more important than mine.

Ah well, such is life. I am what I am. Take me or leave me. Love me or hate me. The choice is yours and I don't give a damn what your choice is, because I don't live for the approval of others any more. I've seen too much, been burned too often. I know your values and your standards fall short of my own, so be false if you want. Be disloyal. I won't play your game. I refuse to be false. As the lyrics go - I'd rather you hate me for what I am than love me for what I'm not. I'm ok, I'm good...all things happen for a reason and this life is transitory. There is only the now. The future is unknown and the past is over, a done deal. So breathe deeply and focus on the moment. Some moments will be good. Some moments will really suck. And some moments will be boring as hell!

Maybe I'm The One....

2008-09-16T22:03:00.006-04:00

Maybe I'm the one who's a schizophrenic psycho, yeah.

I don't think so...of course probably that's true for anyone be they sane or not. Most psychos probably don't know they're psycho. But in my case, I don't think that I'm crazy... I'm just someone of very high intelligence stuck in a world populated with people who ain't too bright....but that's not a big surprise. If you google "average IQ" you find out that the average IQ is around 100. My IQ tests out in excess of 150...so I'm 50% more intelligent than the majority of people...so pretty much, relatively speaking, the rest of the world is dumb. The real problem is that the media preys on the not-so-bright populous, programming their little brains into thinking they're smart, into thinking their ideas are original. I know someone who is the perfect example of this. Probably has an average IQ, maybe a little above average - 110-120 something like that. But she seldom has an opinion of her own. She is constantly taking someone else's opinion as her own. One person says "gosh, X is really swell, such brilliance," and suddenly she's parroting the same opinion. Hasn't seen/read/or had any experience with X herself, has no clue about X, just someone else's notion of what is swell (or horrible).

You're the one, you're the one who is the schizophrenic psycho.

Positive Spin

2008-07-24T08:57:00.007-04:00

It's a difficult thing to try to find the upside to things, to put a positive spin on all that happens in life and it's even harder when you decide to take up the sport of bike racing, which is so much more unfair than life. Maybe that's a good thing (ah ha, the concept arises straight away!)...maybe the fact that you have to deal with the unfair nature of bike racing helps you to better deal with the unfair nature of life.

Like the young, innocent Dave Stoller in "the" cycling film Breaking Away, competitive cyclists learn early on that "everyone cheats." OK, lots of folks are generally honest, play by the rules and confine their cheating to simple things that are acceptable in our culture, like exceeding the posted speed limit while driving their cars, not correcting a small error made by a clerk or a computer that gives them a small discount on something. But in business and in competition, there are many who cut corners and break the rules (whether written or unwritten) on a regular basis. Whether it's pros who dope (in virtually all sports) to gain advantage or amateurs who sit out a lap but accept a place in the results anyway. In such cases, the only positive spin you can find is to know that you raced honestly, that you didn't feel any need to cheat.

The unfairness of the sport is simpler than that. Crashes are part of our sport. You try to avoid being involved or causing any, but they happen. So your race can be over because of someone else's f-up. Perhaps the most unfair aspect of this is in our criterium rules - which allow persons who get tangled up in a crash to rejoin the race with no penalty. But if you manage to avoid hitting the pavement or landing on top of another rider and are simply delayed by a crash, you are left to attempt to catch those who were ahead of the crash or suffer off the back for the rest of the race. And in the true spirit of competition, those ahead of the crash will often speed up when they hear the clatter of bikes behind them. What could be more unfair?

So you accept that the sport is unfair and move on because there's an upside to it, a positive spin: You love to go fast on your bicycle. You love the challenge of competition. You love bicycle racing.

The Hop

2008-07-21T11:11:00.005-04:00

This is actually going to be a timely race report. Yesterday was the race formerly known as the Bunny Hop. They went cutesy and flipped it to the Hunny Bop, but it just doesn't sound right, so "The Hop" is my take on it. It's only about 5 miles from my house so I actually get to ride to the race.

Hot and humid and generally nasty is how to best describe the weather. Unlike Saturday, where the humidity was a little lower, Sunday brought a hazy blue-grey sky. Oh well, what do you expect in mid-July here in the swampland?? I'd gone ahead and registered for two fields, even before I knew for sure that I wouldn't have to set aside my racing to fill in as Chief Judge. Happily Caitlyn stepped up to do that, so I got to race.

Lisa took care of all the support stuff - number pinning, setting up the canopy, etc. I seldom bother with the canopy when I don't have her along as support... too much hassle for too little return.

First up was the women's 40+. There was an immediate crisis in that somehow the BikeReg page information got entered wrong and there was a 30-minute discrepancy in the start time for the race. In the end the officials were nice enough to recognize that most of us don't download the official flyer, we rely on the data entered into BikeReg and honored the later start time. That gave us 30 minutes of warm up on the course. I couldn't tell how I was going to feel in the race. The warm up felt crappy - which is how it's supposed to feel...get all that crappy feeling out before the race. I decided to race the Cane Creeks, though I'm still not totally happy with the behavior of the front wheel so far as airing it up goes, it seemed to air up pretty well. They're great wheels and it's good to use them for more than TTs.

I raced hard in this race. I wasn't worried about saving anything for the next race. I did my best to help chase down early break attempts, throw a scare or two into the field, and, of course, recover in between. It was a fairly fast race. Cat and CK were racing as well, but we didn't have any sort of team strategy planned. Cat took 2nd in a 2-place prime. CK finally got away in a small break between the leaders and the field. I moved up to the front to disrupt the chase at that point. Cheryl Osborne did her best to be helpful by calling out to me as I made the move up the outside of the field that I had a teammate in the break. I knew that, but nice of her to let me know in case I hadn't known. Sometimes you can miss important stuff like that and inadvertently chase down a teammate. CW was doing most of the chasing so I did my best to discourage that activity. Once the message got across, I eased up a bit. No one bothered to take over or chase any more. Gabanski decided to attack into the first turn on the bell lap. Well, I couldn't let that go - a matter of personal pride - so I dragged the field around the backside to catch her going into the final turn. It cost me a place or two in the field sprint, but it was worth it to turn up the tempo one last time. I'm fine with having finished 9th, and really happy that CK took 4th.

There were some squirrels in that field though. One woman, wearing BBC colors, didn't even know enough to have her inside pedal up when taking a turn. So I had to teach her that before she crashed herself (and maybe others) out of the race. Dana needs to learn how to hold her line....she was all over the place. In Linh's case I think she's just too small to be able to have good control over the bike.

I could go cliche here and suggest that they both need stronger cores, but "core" has gotten to be sooo annoyingly cliche...suddenly a "stronger core" the answer to every athlete's woes. Ain't no doubt, you need a strong core to race a bike well because the core is how you isolate the leg power and translate it fully....upper body motion is wasted energy. But I'll argue that you need some arm strength too - we're not talking bodybuilding here, just enough arm strength to control the front end and to bunny hop a bottle or other hazard as need be. So do your crunches and get some dumbells and do some bicep and tricep work.

Post-race, I didn't waste any time getting back to the car and sitting down in the shade. I downed a bottle of water right away, then started trying to dry off a bit while I took in my recovery bottle (Recoverite with Endure added in). In the shade with the breeze, it was halfway nice. Lisa's car took some bumps and bruises though as the canopy had gotten blown into it during the race. She'd set up the trainer, but I never did use it. I had the on course warm up (plus the ride over) to prep for the first race and I was thinking that for the 2nd race, rest and recovery were paramount. Not like my muscles were going to get physically cold in 95+ degree air.

I had thought the second race was a Women's 1/2/3...but it turned out to be a 1/2/3/4 with the 3s racing for a separate prize list. I wasn't thrilled about racing with 4s. And of course the younger racers would have fresh legs so it would undoubtedly be a challenging race experience. What the hell... I could always pull out if it seemed too sketchy. I had no clue how I would feel. Two warm up laps and let's get it on. I hung on for dear life for two thirds of the race. I had enough to hang on but nothing more. Not sure what happened with Eva, it seemed as if she got curbed by Marni - that is, it looked like they'd both ended up going really wide on the second turn and Eva just ended up hitting the curb and getting dumped into the grass. Didn't look serious but I told Matt there was a rider down when I went through start/finish. A lap or two latter, Marni & Jen Maxwell almost took each other out. And then there was some movement farther up in the field - sideways movement that almost took some folks out. I think it was a combination of heat and fatigue causing these near misses rather than aggressive racing. I popped when there was a surge for a prime lap. Matt gave me a couple of laps to try to chase back on then said I was done with my "noble effort" as he called it. I was ready to be done, I had nothing left. I wasn't the first to get pulled, and I know several folks simply abandoned the race long before the pulling started. End result - 22nd overall, 9th among the Cat 3s. The race was a little more than 1mph faster than the 40+ race had been. And the average temp was 101!

Overall it was a good race day....not a bad way to finish up with crit racing for the season as there are no more crits in MABRA and I think I'll go do the TT in VA on Sunday instead of driving to PA to do crits. The TT will be better relative to Church Creek.

Decided to add some extra fun to Church Creek by hooking up with Tania and Amy to create a 3-woman team for the TTT competition. And then, if I'm feeling really crazy, I'll drive down the Chesapeake for the final PLT TT. Be a hard weekend but also the last of my racing until Turkey Day so what the hell?

End of the Week

2008-07-18T10:21:00.004-04:00

Still rambling because it's been one of those weeks.... work has gotten to be very annoying. But I'm not going to spend a lot of time bitching about it, won't change anything. Let's just say that it's time for my boss to retire....she's never been totally connected to the real world and the disconnect is getting greater with each passing year. And she's showing signs of aging illness - she doesn't remember stuff and that means she has a tendency to be annoying to someone like me, who has a really good memory - I don't need her to nag me about stuff, I know my job, I know what needs to get done when. She's always been a micromanager but its getting worse and worse. I've tried to get it through to her that the constant "have you done this, what about that" conveys a sense of distrust but she has no self discipline, no ability to stop herself from doing it. 'nuff said.

Trained at Hains Point Tuesday. That was fun. Liked the efforts and Chicken and Goat were good for my mental state as they both reminded me that I'm plenty strong enough to stick in any race. Goat kept raving about what a steady wheel I am. They sat on my wheel for a couple of my efforts. Goat sprinted at the endof one, professing that she couldn't waste a lead out like that. I cited old school... It was a Giovanni Lombardi effort on my part.

Officiated Greenbelt on Wednesday. The C race was the biggest they've ever had with 39 starters. The B and A races where challenging in that once the A race passed the B race, they didn't open up much of a gap. In the end we had to prime them a couple of times in a row just to open enough space for the Bs to have a finish sprint that wouldn't run them into the back of the As. Never could prime the Bs because of their proximity to the As. Like having Sarnacki as my 2nd official there - he's a nice guy and relaxed about it all, which is as it should be at Greenbelt.

Thursday it was back to post-work training. An unexpected rain storm delayed that ... I spent more than 30 minutes sitting in the car waiting for it to clear up. Met a guy named Rick from NCVC who had flatted on his way over from Arlington, eventually gave him my spare tube as his patch didn't seem to be holding. The efforts didn't work out quite as planned but I got some good work in. Then I caught up with Diane who was doing essentially big gear spinups. So I did a couple of those with her. First one I did on 53x13 and second I did 53x12. It was fun.

Bunny Hop should be fun on Sunday. I haven't raced it in a couple of years because Mahler in Philadelphia takes priority. But this year no conflicts so I'll race twice and see if I can manage to have at least one decent race. Still debating about the long drive and expense (hotel!) of PLT #2...maybe, we'll see...probably would be good for me to do it as it's a couple weeks before Church Creek and if I don't it will have been over a month since I've done a competitive TT.

I want to cast around and see if I can find 2 women who are somewhat close to me in power and TTing skill to team up and do the 3 person team time trial at Church Creek. I think it would be fun to do. Of course I'll be tired from doing the ITT but so what...it'll only be 1/3 of the work for the ITT, right?

Ramblings

2008-07-12T21:29:00.004-04:00

Mid-summer, mid-race season, whatever you want to call it... strange time of the year in a lot of ways.

Things are quiet at work, which is good. Gives me a chance to catch up on some things and also the chance to maybe get ahead on a few things for the fall.

My boss has this odd concept that getting emails from people who have already bought tickets will sell more tickets... I don't agree, it's another case of preaching to the choir. What we need to do is get new people in the door. Once you have them, it's a different ballgame. Sure, emailing folks about concerts won't be a bad thing, but mostly it'll just be a reminder to them to do something they had planned on doing anyway. People who like the Christmas concert or the jazz concert are not going to suddenly turn in to string quartet fans, so emailing them isn't going to do anything in that regard. But she doesn't seem to have a good sense of how people look at things...she's stuck in her own little world that isn't totally connected to reality. But enough about work....

I wasn't going to race last weekend. I was still feeling fried both mentally and physically from Nationals... but eventually I decided why not. I got to the race way early...early enough to see Brandon win the Cat 3 race. After the kids races, I jumped on the course and did about 20 minutes of warm up. I wasn't feeling the race and my legs were not happy. It would pass, I told myself.

A lot of the 1/2 team showed up, so my initial plan of more BAR points by racing the smaller field went out the window. Hell, Sarah Caravella showed up. I knew it would be fast, so I made sure I got some efforts in my warm up, but still the legs felt like sand. And it was friggin hot! Seems strange not to be acclimated to the heat by mid-July but it's been cool. Only one race weekend in June was hot. Even in Kentucky the weather was relatively cooperative to my physiology. Gotta get used to the heat so I'm ready for Church Creek in a month.

So they cranked up the speed and I got shelled... didn't take long. And I debated about continuing, but I hoped that maybe when I got lapped I could jump back on. I fought my way forward, passing others who'd gotten shelled after me until I got up to Eva. The two of us worked together until she flatted. Then I was on my own. Later Eva & I hooked up again, a team mate gave her a wheel to swap out for the flatted one.

I definitely wasn't feeling great, but had a few good laps. I went into TT mode in the finish line stretch against the wind. Most frustrating when I was turning 25 into the wind on my own but couldn't close on the field when they were in sight. Then again I had turned faster than that on Thursday into the wind at HP...maybe I shouldn't have put out such efforts on Thursday....

I stopped sweating on 6 to go, but rationalized continuing because I figured I'd not actually do 6 laps..they'd catch me again. Hefler was driving the tempo with a little gap off the front. But it's not a course for a solo break. A break with 4-6 might work but not solo. Turn 2 was such that if I'd had any doubts about my ability to take it, I'd have withdrawn from the race. But as long as I felt in control, I continued....and at 6 to go, not even 6 miles...not a problem to finish.

Cheryl had a damn good race but popped at 3 to go, so she and Eva and I continued together. We collected up Sheila as well for the bell lap. We urged Eva to cross the line first. I had opted to race 1/2/3 rather than 3 so it didn't matter to me. Only Tracy and I had the guts to register for the 1/2/3...all the other 3s did the 3. I figured it didn't really matter. Of course I could have picked up some BAR points if I'd done the 3. But what the hell, I don't actually care about BAR points or any of that stuff. I just want to go out and race to the best of my ability on any given day. And on Saturday, that wasn't very good. I was officially last in the 1/2/3 field, but not last in the full order of finish. When we picked up Sheila, we were all lapping her. But I could have been 10th among the 3s instead of 17th in the 1/2/3.

Now the Road Race for this coming Saturday has been canceled. I was sort of looking forward to it just to get a break from racing with the 1s & 2s, even though I don't like road races. I've offered to help officiate on a new date in September rather than race it.

I'm hoping the guys doing the TT down in Richmond on Saturday can swing 2 start times for me to make it worth the long drive - it's only a 24km tt. Otherwise, maybe it's time to go ride on Skyline Drive. Probably not the best thing the day before the race formerly known as the bunny hop, but maybe it would be a good thing relative to Church Creek.

Nationals Crit

2008-07-04T17:08:00.002-04:00

Last race of the week. On the roads in the infield of Churchill Downs. Interesting location...sort of cool, but at the same time not. You can't even see the roads we were racing on from the "real" race course. But a nice closed course, wide roads and easy turns made for a tactical course rather than a technical one. Of course, with 9 of us and only 1 team with 2 members in the field, tactics weren't quite the order of the day either.

When we arrived at the parking area, things were a bit confusing but we sorted it all out. The bad part was getting there just as they were taking someone from the 35-39 field out by ambulance....never the sort of thing you want to see at a race. Rode to the infield to check out the situation and found Robin, Leslie J & Wendy. Leslie J had gotten taken down at the finish by the women sent off to hospital. Leslie was banged up with ice on hip, hand, elbow and a bloody nose. Bike not so good - busted zipp 404, busted front brake (caliper was no longer attached to the head tube), busted saddle, and given the situation with the brake, a suspect fork.... Hard to enjoy the silver medal after that.

We had nine signed up for ours. Small fields can be problematic. Generally you don't have to sweat safety as much, but they can be hard. We did 40 laps, even though the original info said we were to do 39. What's one more lap?

Michelle Scharf, Peachtree Bikes out of Atlanta, went practically from the whistle, getting a gap right away. After a couple of laps, I decided I'd try for the solo bridge. No trouble getting a gap on the field but I just couldn't get enough out of my legs to get up to her, so I sat up. I knew I'd pay for that early effort, even with a warm up, my body tends to prefer such efforts much later in the race. I was racing with some fools though, they responded when Tracy Tolson looked around and said "who's going to chase that down?" by chasing after Michelle. My answer would have been: "You want to keep the stars-and-stripes jersey, you go get it."

Michelle got reeled in and the race went on relatively quietly for a bit. Then Tracy, who'd spent no energy thus far, made her move with Tamara Bessette joining in. I was still recovering at the back of the field and the responding surge left me behind the chase. I didn't panic. I rode hard and waited to see what developed.

Ended up with a mostly useless rider on my wheel, she tried to help but every time she went to the front the pace dropped off a good bit. I only did it when I was really feeling the need to catch a little recovery. I could hear the commentary and knew that soon Tracy and Tamara would be coming up on us...it definitely sounded like they would eventually lap the entire field so I made my plan to get back to where I belonged....with the primary field.

The moto came around us and I got ready. T & T came along, warning which side they were passing on and I jumped on quickly. No problem sticking with them. I told them that I would work if they wanted me to, otherwise, I'd just stay out of their way. No response. I think that they couldn't believe that I was able to stay with them. Guess they've never had their race legs arrive a few laps into the race before....

My plan worked and we arrived at the primary field. Now I at least had a fair chance at a bronze medal. The catch was made coming into the finishing stretch and we hadn't even made it to turn one when suddenly disaster struck. I saw a bike a couple in front of me waver...no reason why that I could see. That bike caught Tamara's front wheel...down she went. I was on her wheel, but moved right, swerving around her while the rider who'd been to my left (Webcor) slammed into her and went down.

Tracy had been ahead of the crash so she took advantage of the situation, gapping the rest of us again. I tried to get to her, but just didn't have enough, neither did Michelle. The two of us worked hard anyway, trying to close the gap. The officials botched it when they returned the crashed riders to the field, returning them to Tracy's wheel instead of the back of the main group.

Personally no issue with Tamara being put in up with Tracy, she had the silver medal at least but deserved a shot at the gold. But no one else should have gotten that. And to be precise about it, neither should have Tamara, but like I said, I got no issue with that.

By the time it all shook out, some Wells Fargo woman ended up between T & T and me & Michelle. Don't know how that happened as so far as I know she was in the group T, T & I caught before the crash and she certainly didn't bridge up to Tracy, she'd have had to come around me & Michelle and I know we wouldn't have missed that happening. Maybe she got tangled up in the crash and got put back in with Tamara and the woman from Webcor.

So in the end Michelle and I were working hard for the other two medals. I botched the finish, responding a hair too late when Michelle jumped going into the final pair of turns (almost a single 180 but not quite). I came damn close to closing the gap but couldn't quite catch her before we got to the line. Close enough to be assigned the same time. :-)

The officials said that our race was the fastest of the day. We had a dry course, which was not true for the earlier races (some of whom raced in the rain) but got a lot of Kentucky wind in our race. Somehow I didn't expect it to be windy here, but it sure is.

Nationals RR

2008-07-03T08:30:00.003-04:00

After the TT, we ate at the buffet at the host casino, Ceasar's Horseshoe. Decent buffet for a decent price. By the time we're done, Kay & Jeff are just packing up the tandem. They've managed to repeat their bronze medal...beating those who beat them last year but new competition snuck in ahead of them. Still a good job!

After chilling for a bit, we drive over to check out the road race course. It doesn't look good for me at all. The car is down-shifting on the hills....bad sign for a non-climber whose just buried herself in a TT. Oh well, do it anyway. The park is beautiful and the course is in decent condition for the most part.

Get there with lots of time but can't get focused. Don't want to get on the trainer. Walk over to Wendy who should be on the course but isn't. She decided to be a DNF instead of DFL. The opposite mentality of mine. I can't bring myself to quit, no matter how badly I'm doing. She can't stay in if she's not in contention. So we know ourselves and act accordingly.

Eventually I roll around some, but not a lot. I ride to the start line when there aren't any racers coming through and wait around to see how it goes. Leslie Jennings finishes 2nd in her race. They send the 40-44s off and call us to the line. Then have us stand around for 7 minutes while they get confused about whether or not we're all on the line. Tracy (Huber) Tolson shows up with fresh legs. We look at each other and know who is going to win the race.

I make it through the first lap without getting totally kicked, but that's about it. The climbs are for climbers, not for sprinters...and my legs are too damn tired to push the big ring up them to keep up. Oh well. Maybe fresh legged I would have done better. Still I finish, riding with two other women who both ride away from me on the climbs on the final lap. Such is life. No surprise Tracy did indeed win it.

Hopefully the crit will be good.... but I'm finishing this up on crit morning and it's raining. Rained a lot overnight but the radar picture looks to be clearing so should be done raining and well into drying up by my 12:15 race.

Nationals TT

2008-07-03T07:50:00.002-04:00

Ok, so this is a few days late, but hey, it's been a busy week already. The drive out to Louisville was nice. A peaceful umpteen hours mostly on cruise control through the hills of Western Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to get to River City (aka Louisville). Only downcheck for the drive was dinner. Visited a regional chain called O'Charley's cause it's something we don't have back home and it was handy off the Interstate and it was getting late. Probably would have been good except the food arrived at the table room temperature. I ordered a baked pasta dish and got a plate of tossed pasta that was room temperature with a handful (literally) of still warm shrimp. No baked pasta at all... and I had ordered it in part because I thought that a baked pasta would have to arrive hot by the nature of its preparation. Someone needs to learn how to cook what's on the menu there....which reminds me, I think I should visit their website and log a complaint. The manager didn't charge us for anything but the appetizer, which had been served hot and was quite tasty.

On Sunday, we took at easy, no rush to get out the door. I checked in with Jeff and Kay. They were headed over at about 9am. I was looking at more like an 11 am time frame. Ended up pre-riding the course with Wendy and Robin. Nice course. Windy out there though. In fact it's been windy every day here. After the pre-ride, we head in to town to do the packet pick up thing. Need to eat sends us to a restaurant in the hotel for a late lunch. Good food and it turns out that Tom Vinson (USAC) and the Chief Ref are sitting at the next table. After we're done eating I stop to introduce myself and we chat for a bit.

Packet pickup goes without a hitch. I notice that USAC has decided not to enforce the rule about the height of the turned up ends of TT bars as I see plenty of folks with those tips sitting above their saddles being told their bikes are fine. Bad news, they want frame numbers on the TT bikes. But they won't fine us if they're on the seat tube.

Race morning goes just fine. Up and out to the course reasonably on time. Daniel and Rhonda arrived just before us. We set up the canopy for both of us to use and leave it for Jeff and Kay to use for their warm up as well. The warm up does its usually job of getting the crappy feeling of the first few shots into Z4 out of the way. I debate about the disc wheel because it's so windy, but decide to go for it anyway. Maybe I should have used the deep rim.... I'll never know.

In the chute, bike check no problem up course. I chat with the official briefly. These folks all know Jim Patton. Into the start house and wait for my hold. Hold started out seeming ok, but by 10 seconds to go, it was feeling unstable and leaning to my right and the short steep ramp is making me very nervous. I almost bail out of the hold but suck it up. We hit zero and I start to pedal but something doesn't feel right and I just hang there for a second and then I'm on this steep ramp with no momentum, no real motion at all, and thus no balance. Off center from the lean of the hold, I go down the ramp at an angle, come off it before the end into large loose gravel. I go down...cursing as it happens. Instinctively, I roll so that I take the fall on the back of my left hip. I feel the gravel as it scrapes my left calf. I get up in a rage, cursing and knowing that this error has cost me a medal. I'm off and flying as fast as possible.

Not surprisingly, Lorraine passes me fairly quickly, as most of the 30 seconds between her and me was used up in the mishap. She shouts encouragement as she goes by. Later she would tell me that from her perspective in the start house, my mishap was "horrific." I struggle to shut out the pain in my calf, which is bleeding, and my hip and find my rhythm. Gotta settle in. Gotta calm down, focus and settle in.

The road has lots of bends in it and little rises here and there but for the most part I keep Lorraine in sight. And then the positive stuff starts happening. There are other riders in sight, riders to catch and pass. I botch the turn around, too narrow, should have spent a lot of time practicing the U-turn, but mostly I think I was hesitant because of the mishap at the start. But Lorraine is not that far ahead. I keep going hard. Sometimes the wind gusts from the side, pushing me toward the center line. Maybe the disc was a mistake...too late now. Finally I don't feel the pain in my calf any more. I continue to drive the pedals. Good rhythm, good steady effort.

By the time I reach the finish line, I've managed to close the gap on Lorraine some, but of course I can't get back the time lost at the start. I roll around for a bit then return to the tent. I talk myself into spinning out for a bit but the pain has now returned so that doesn't last too long. I wash off my calf. Time to change and pack up. 6th... f'ing 6th. Ok, not bad given the situation, but I definitely would have been on the podium had the start gone smoothly.

I don't get why they had such a sucky ramp. Last year's ramp was awesome. The year before's was horrible. You'd think they could get some consistency going. To be honest, why do they bother with a ramp? Most of us don't see a ramp for a TT outside of Nationals...why not skip the ramp? This will certainly be my recommendation. Go ahead, use a ramp for the Elites...they probably see a lot of ramps in stage races and stuff. Let us poor old masters just start on the pavement like we do the rest of the time.

The woman who won my age group is a TTer...doesn't do anything else to speak of. So that's cool...sort of. I accept that there are those who simply don't want to do pack racing, but really, you aren't a true road racer if you don't pack race. I could probably do better at TTs if that was all I did, but I'll stick with the whole package. I'll keep suffering through Road Races and enjoying Crits as well as doing TTs.

The big question now is can I have a higher training peak for Church Creek in August?

Prepping for Nationals

2008-06-26T14:13:00.003-04:00

It’s been a very strange week so far. Monday I was totally fried from the weekend’s racing. Yoga felt really good. Steve is so passionate about his yoga, he is constantly learning and training, so our class never gets old or stale as he’s always injecting something new. Sometimes it’s entirely new and sometimes it’s just a new way to look at how we do a pose or a new way to get in or out of a pose. Very stimulating on an intellectual level while the work of it all helps undo all the stress I put on my body on the bike. We did some different twists and I’m still feeling it in my intercostals.

Tuesday thankfully Pierre was willing to spend a couple hours of his birthday giving me a massage. My legs were in pretty decent shape. As always my psoases were problematic. And my back definitely needed some work because of the TT bike, but overall my body’s in pretty good shape and the position on the TT bike isn’t crunching up my neck or anything like that. So all good.

Went to ride with friends I seldom ride with yesterday evening because I just needed to spin the legs to clear the last of the massage out of them. Two flats made the ride take longer than planned, so I was later than planned getting over to Arlington to deliver the Ruby to Gen. She’s a very nice woman, I think she’ll be a real asset to the team in Fitchburg. And the Ruby will get used, which is important. I really considered keeping it as an emergency back-up sort of bike but that’s silly. It’s a great bike and deserves to get used.

So today I’m actually supposed to wake the legs up and do some efforts. Not the monster effort originally scheduled, but some stuff to get everything firing right as I won’t be on the bike again until Sunday. I have the TT bike, since it’s first up in competition next week.

I’ve been attending to some Chief Referee stuff this week as well. Events in August and September are already starting to get their flyers together, etc. I also find myself looking at my rule book to clarify some of the questions that came up over the weekend. There was some poor language in the technical guide (not done intentionally I’m sure) that left folks asking about why they couldn’t do the next stage when they had a mechanical that prevented them from completing the first stage. The rule book is clear where the technical guide wasn’t:

1A30. A stage race is an event with a common entry, run on consecutive days, comprising a sequence of road races (i.e. individual road races, time trials, criteriums), in which the overall results are determined by cumulative time or points. There are normally individual and team competitions. Riders must successfully complete each stage in order to be eligible for the next one.

And there you have it. Didn’t complete Stage 1, no Stage 2. Sorry, them’s the rules and them’s the breaks. But that’s not what the technical guide said….it said that you had to compete in and complete each stage to be eligible for the GC.

What made it confusing was the fact that the promoters did allow non-GC riders to race in 2 of the 3 stages. Personally, I think that if you’re going to let someone just race Stage 3 (and potentially affect the outcome of the stage AND the GC), then you should go ahead and let someone who had mechanical issues prevent them from completing Stage 1 go ahead and race Stages 2 & 3 and simply not be included when figuring the GC. What’s the difference? They were figured into the start times in the first place because they committed and ponied up the money for the Stage Race. Another reason not to allow non-GC riders race single stages.

Catching grief from a variety of folks about my racing of late, which has pretty much sucked. But I also know that these last couple of weeks what’s been in my thoughts is not fear but an unwillingness to risk a big ugly crash that might take me out of Nationals. I’ve spent all winter training with Nats as the goal… no local race is worth jeopardizing that in my book.

I haven’t even started to pack for the week in Louisville. But I’m not the type to pack way ahead. And I’ll need to get all my team kit clean tonight anyway. And I won’t start packing the car until I get home tomorrow night...

Tour of Washington County

2008-06-23T16:48:00.002-04:00

Tour of Washington County

I got talked into doing this race…what the hell. But I’m so far off from past years schedules so far as racing goes that it probably wasn’t a very good idea, or maybe it was. Who knows.
Stage One was a rolling road race with one hill that was my undoing. It was visually deceptive – appearing to be shorter and shallower than it turned out to be. So I botched it on the first lap because I didn’t drop to the little chain ring. I got up it, just, but the toll it took on my legs that early in the race was a heavy price to pay the next time through. I had no problem getting back with the field after my error, but the next time through even on the small ring, my legs were trashed. Amanda botched it on that second lap, making the same mistake I did but then adding to her error by trying to change rings and dropping her chain, which caused folks to go down or have to stop and walk to the top of the hill (too steep for a mid-climb restart).

I had to slow way down to get through the mess as the wheel van and the ever annoying Bega who seems to think that it makes him (and his team) cooler to follow the caravan with a car. It doesn’t. This forced me to go around on the wrong side of the road, which didn’t make me happy but I didn’t have a choice, the road was blocked by the vehicles. Then it was a hard ass chase to try to get back to the field and I couldn’t quite stay connected. Every time I got close they seemed to surge ahead. So then it was the suffering off the back thing. Cheryl Osborne and I rode together the rest of the race, praying that they’d send us back early. Some of the cows started racing us, I think I out sprinted them but maybe Elsie caught me at the line. Cheryl starts talking about wanting to own a cow.

It was hot – the course has absolutely no shade on it! Another lap down, only three more times up that frigging hill. Cheryl gets up it faster than me, but I do down the other side faster.
Next thing we know there’s Robin on the other side of the course – riding back…quitting! So we yell at her to turn around and finish with us. We slow down and wait for her to suck it up and ride with us. So then it’s a threesome, working our way through the course. Up that damn hill again and there’s Michele, turning off the course to watch. Oh no, misery loves company, get out here and finish with us!

Happily we get the news that we’re going to be finished a lap early…such happy news. Cheryl speaks up and says that since I saved them one at a time I should be the first of us to cross the finish line. I’m feeling totally wiped out by this point. “If I can get up the last hills, sure.” I manage to find it in me to do as they wish and get up the finish hill ahead of Robin, just barely.
Then comes the debacle of the results…round one. I did my best to try to control the influx of stuff getting to Lew. And I’m happy that I’m not actually officiating this thing…little did I know how much worse it would get by the end of stage 3. An error got through that we never got off the results our out of the GC. Turns out the culprit short-cutted a course at some race last fall, so we now have her pegged…she can join the lady who took the subway during the NYC Marathon and the woman I read about who swapped timing chips with her husband so ‘she’ could qualify for Boston Marathon. I don’t get what people get out of doing stuff like that.
Cooled down with Lesley then helped sort out the results some more and finally got outta there. We found a nice place across the street from the hotel – Benny’s pub. I got a salad, sweet potato fries and a Loose Canon on draft. Then we went over to the hotel checked in, brought in what we had to, took showers and chilled. Ended up taking a late afternoon nap.

We walked next door to Barefoot Bernie’s for dinner. There was a table of folks from Artemis already seated and a table of officials. Lesley stopped at the Artemis table while I went over to chat briefly with Kevin and company. We both ordered crab cake sandwiches. Lesley subbed in a baked potato for the fries while I opted for the sautéed mushrooms.

Then it was back to the room for the evening. As time went along, I had an increasing level of pain in my right leg. First it was just down around my heel and ankle as happens sometimes when I’ve really been ripping up on the pedals – usually because of hills. Same thing happened at Christiana last year, except last year the pain was immediate and cleared as the evening went along. This was the opposite, coming up many hours after the race was done and getting worse until I hurt all the way up to my hip. Made for a bad night’s sleep – took forever to get to where fatigue overcame pain.

Up and out to the TT on Sunday morning. I wasn’t feeling particularly great for the previous day’s race and the bad night’s sleep. I knew Janet Olney (an excellent time trialist) was starting 30seconds behind me so my plan was to try to hold her off as long as I could and then minimize how much time she put into me after she passed me. I was happy with the end result even though I only just squeaked into the GC points for that stage. Made me really wish that the full Boonsboro course TT were happening later this season. But the group was really competitive and my time relative to others wasn’t what I’d hoped for. Bike felt good even if I didn’t. I was sweating like a pig, like I always do in that helmet, and my nose was running like crazy…sweat and snot everywhere…lovely. Not!

Back to the hotel for showers and a little something to eat. But not enough. I should have had more somewhere, but didn’t really feel like eating. Debated a lot about doing the crit, wasn’t sure I wanted to but the more I tried to talk myself out of it the more I knew I needed to do it. The pace was set hard at the start by women who didn’t do the TT…since I’d started with my gas tank empty, it didn’t take long to toss me off the field. I didn’t mind when Lew told me I was done. So I got a fresh bottle of water, sat down next to Dave Brown and family and watched the rest of the race.

A break happened with most teams represented and then in a truly awesome move, Janelle did a solo bridge up to the break. It was classic, text book. So that put Kenda into control the chase mode along with C3, CycleLife, Hub, HumanZoom, and Artemis. Then Sonja rode away from the break at 8 to go. It was an awesome move. Between passbys of the race, I chatted with Brigham about the course and where he should be coming out of the final turn. I commiserated with Andreas who went down in the final turn of the bell lap of his crit – lots of road rash, but worse still it meant he missed winning the GC by a couple of points!

It took until 3:15 to get out the women’s results in a way that made reasonable sense. There were erroneous bib numbers and people missing initially. Finally though we called it done. By then it was almost time for the Cat 4s to race, so I hung around with Christina and Sonja and Jen Chang (whose oatmeal craisin cookies were totally awesome!) watching Brigham and Lance race. They both raced well, always in excellent position (something I really should do more often myself!) throughout the race. Jorge got a gap on the field late in the race – by then the field was a lot smaller. But he must have misread the lap count and thought the race was over because he seemed to sit up coming into the bell lap…. So when they came out of the final turn, he’d been swallowed up by the field. Brigham was right there, third wheel and he went with a good wheel, but couldn’t get around that guy… official results show that Steven Kendall nipped him at the line. But even 3rd place was enough to get Brigham the GC win.

It was a good day, a good weekend and I think that if they do the race next year it’ll be better with some of the kinks worked out of it all. Hopefully they’ll listen to us and not allow non-GC people to race with GC people. There’s a lot about cycling that is unfair, no need for the promoters to make it even more unfair.

2008-06-09T11:57:00.002-04:00

Time is at a premium so the blogging has slowed dramatically…so rather than back up, I’m just going to get to this past weekend and not worry about trying to write about the big officiating weekend other than to say I survived it all and while it was all good, I’m glad to be done with officiating for a while.

On to the races. First back-to-back race weekend of the season for me. I’m way late starting this year and it feels really strange, but that’s how things go and for me there’s a lot more to life than bike racing.

Just to put a little perspective on things for the weekend, we start with Wednesday of last week. I went to see Neil – my totally awesome chiropractor early so I could get across the river before the traffic got bad. Then I killed a little time before meeting up with Susan and Pierre. We rode over to the W&OD where we met up with Jeff & Kay on the tandem, Cat and Tania. We headed West for a 4-hour ride. I was fearful of this ride. With my schedule what it has been and is, I’ve been doing 90-minute or 2-hour trainings. 4 hours is a big jump in time on the bike. I started out ok but got my head in a bad place fairly quickly once we exited the trail and started hitting the roads in Loudon County. Pierre came back for me and talked me out of turning back then talked me out of the bad place. After that I was good for a while up until we got beyond the 2hour mark. Then my legs wanted to know where the hell the car was, ‘cause it was time to be done. Another rough patch that lasted about 15 minutes or so that Pierre worked with me to get through. Then the legs-like-sand feeling went away and we picked it up and got back to the others once more. When I ran out of juice to do any more Z4 at the 4 hour mark I didn’t fight it. We were on the trail and getting close to the end, so I just put away the big ring and took it easy on me for the last 20 minutes. Mostly I did ok though. I did almost all the climbs in the big ring – 53x21 seemed to serve me quite well for the most part. I think that for me on shorter climbs like those relying on my power works better than relying on my leg speed. I did my best to stay seated as much as possible, as that’s always best for climbing. In the end it turned out to be the longest ride I’ve done in over 2 years as I have a tendency to do 3-3.5 and call it enough.

Took it easy with Z2 on the TT bike Thursday to start getting used to the new saddle – put an Adamo on to see if it’ll relieve the discomfort. Friday night I had two bikes to get ready so I called the hot walks between the metro station and the office enough for the day and spent the evening setting things up for the crit on Saturday and the TT on Sunday. Plus I had to pack the officiating kit to deliver to the Crit on Saturday as well. So I took the Sable, not ready to beat up the Milan like that.

Travel went ok except for having to go into town and come back out because of construction around the WW Bridge. That was enough to delay my getting to the race a little bit. But it took no time for us to get the finish line set up, etc. Then it was time for me to get ready. I got in a few warm up laps and some time on the trainer. It was very humid, foggy at the start of the day. When the sun came out and burned off the fog it got hot fast! Even with a race at 9:30am, it was nasty. But I survived the heat and the race. It was a fairly fast race – average was 23 and we didn’t slow down too many times. CycleLife and Artemis were definitely there to race. We were a small squad – me, CK, Anna, Tania and Cat. Tania’s crank came off part way through the race. I was mostly hanging on for dear life – seemed to have enough in me to stay with the main group and go with every response to attacks but not anything more. I did wind up a good sprint – hitting just under 34mph at the finish. Almost rear ended Anna cause she sat up just past the finish line and I was still carrying a lot of speed… Cat and I went out on the trail with Tania and Amy (NCVC) for a “cool down” ride post race. Don’t know if it was on the race course or on the trail, but the HRM recorded 107 as max temperature for the morning. Then it was time to get home, eat, shower and get ready to head down to Chesapeake for Sunday’s TT.

Happily Aldona was set to drive so I got to chill out and rest my legs some during the drive. We made pretty good time. Had dinner at Joe’s Crab Shack – not bad for a chain seafood place. Then we picked up some organic breakfast burritos made with egg whites and turkey sausage for the morning (our room had a small fridge, coffee maker and microwave in it). Didn’t sleep all that well but that’s the way life goes. Since I sleep alone in a quiet space it’s always hard for me to get a good night’s sleep when sharing a room with someone. I wonder if Aldona knows that she sometimes calls out in her sleep….

Hunger woke me at 4am. Never got back to sleep. 6am and it was already 80 degrees. Warmed up some, but didn’t have much energy and the heat was really bothering me. HR did not want to elevate. 2nd TT in a row where I’ve had trouble getting my head in the game. Raced but didn’t have a good race. Knew I was going slow, couldn’t get my HR up even when I could get my speed up. New saddle has shifted my position – I’m sitting way forward in competition. End result is that my triceps started screaming at me. I sucked it up as best I could but not one of my better efforts. HRM says it was 92! In the end about 1mph slower than a year ago. Ok so it was 20 degrees cooler last year and I was able to get my HR up but still I’m now struggling with a sense of being slow and not going to be ready for Nationals. Of course I wasn’t DFL and I almost caught Ruth Stornetta – she started 2 minutes ahead of me and finished 2 seconds ahead of me – but yesterday’s result is a far cry from last year’s 2nd to BJ by a couple of seconds. Gotta put it behind me and get my head ready for Church Creek this coming Saturday.

2008-05-28T09:39:00.001-04:00

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve blogged. A bunch has happened….but it’ll come up in chunks.

Worked as an official at the Fort Ritchie Criterium on May 10. Very nice venue. Started out rainy and chilly but got nice later in the day. All the racers raved about the course. But what a long day! First race at 8am, last race finished at about 5:45pm. And it was almost 2 hours to drive to the race, so that meant on the road at about 5am. McDonald’s doesn’t even serve breakfast that early! By the last race of the day I was brain dead and hard pressed to function fully. I’m not sure how many crits I will want to work in the future because of the fatigue factor. It was a good crew – me, Lisa, Jim Patton and Lew Strader, with John K. on the moto. Lots of fun over all. Technical issues arose from our attempts to be fully digital with results. The promoter used an algorithm to assign bib numbers, so when we tried to sort for results, things got all out of whack. And they were bringing us files that didn’t have the race-day entries. Jim handling the typing side of things. I guess eventually I’ll get a notebook computer so I can have it along with me for doing similar work.

As a woman racer, I was definitely annoyed by the fact that there were lots and lots of men's races (many with relatively small fields) but only one women's field. More races need to be like RFK!

Lisa & I stopped in Frederick for dinner. Nice brew-pub with decent food and good beer. Then we strolled around the historic downtown and checked out a couple of galleries before driving home. Didn’t get home until after 10pm. It was an exhausting day.

My original plan for the 11th was a bike ride and then make a nice dinner for mom for Mother's Day. Instead my brother and his clan came over for a few hours. I think we all enjoyed the visit - good to see the little ones as they change so fast when they're toddlers. But I had really been hoping for a quiet day. Not that cooking wouldn't have been demanding in its own way, but it would have been low key and a different kind of fun. Oh well.

Mahler 8 - Philadelphia Orchestra - May 3

2008-05-05T16:34:00.003-04:00

I’d been looking forward to last Saturday night for more than a year. Ever since the Philadelphia Orchestra announced the season. Eschenbach concluding his 5-year Mahler cycle with Mahler Symphony 8. It was going to be bittersweet, as it was also going to be the last time I’d see him conduct the orchestra as its music director. But oh, what a glorious way to go out! So-called the “Symphony of a Thousand” because it takes almost that many performers, it’s a monumental work. Composed in two parts – the first in Latin “Veni, creator spiritus” and the second in German, the final part of Goethe’s Faust – the work calls for an oversized orchestra, 3 adult choruses, a children’s choir, pipe organ and 8 solo vocalists. Because of the expense that goes with an undertaking of this size, this work isn’t performed very often.

90 minutes of Mahler, what could be better? I hadn’t focused on who the scheduled soloists were, so I was surprised and delighted to see that James Morris was the bass. The choruses overflowed out of the choir box and into what would have been audience seating. The stage was extended to make room for everyone in the orchestra, including the 4 harpers, and the children’s choir and 7 soloists to fit.

Mahler doesn’t ease you into this monumental work. He throws you in the deep end from the opening chord – with supersized orchestra, chorus and organ all involved. They decided to project translations, the way the opera companies do, rather than print them. While I don’t care for the visual distraction in some ways, it’s better than the rustling of paper that happens when you do printed translations. They were also recording the performance for future release on the Ondine label. The down side of announcing that to the audience is it seems to bring out the coughing more than ever. Also the concert went out live via the internet around the world.

I can’t begin to describe in words what it was like. It seemed almost as if one more performer would have been too many somehow, that the sound would overwhelm to the point of loss. There are times when more is too much. As it was, the perfect balance, the limit of sensibility, it was moving in ways that cannot be described or communicated – you had to be there, you had to experience it live. I’ve heard the work performed elsewhere – the Cathedral, the Kennedy Center, but those spaces leave much to be desired acoustically, so much gets lost along the way. This was different – I could hear so much. The sound wasn’t simply before me, it encompassed me, making me part of it though I made no sound of my own, I became one with it.

I didn’t really care for the tenor, a last minute substitute for the ill Vinson Cole. He was a little too worried about his diction and missed some of the subtleties and nuances that should have been there. The baritone was not strong enough to avoid being covered by the orchestra in a few spots. Mr. Morris, on the other hand, had no such difficulties. The women were all wonderful – each distinctive in her tonality that I didn’t need to look to know which was singing. The 8th soloist, the 5th woman, sang from upon high – in the 3rd tier behind the orchestra – an angelic voice from heaven. The antiphonal brass was in the 2nd tier in the house right corner, just over our shoulders and up two levels.

Maestro Eschenbach did his usual – he presented an interpretation of Mahler that was astounding. Every conductor puts his/her own twist on work. If it’s one they have a special affinity for they put a lot into it. Eschenbach clearly has a deep personal connection to Mahler. Never would one get a simple reading of Mahler from him. He put some unexpected adjustments to tempo and emphasized in unexpected places – but in ways that worked beautifully and made the symphony work in spectacular fashion.

I didn’t let myself think about the fact that this was his grand farewell. Oh he may be conducting a couple more weeks before the season is done, but nothing like this. Now, two days later, I can let the sadness of his departure, the musical loss, enter my mind and heart. The state of the art of the symphony in this country is continuing to dwindle as major orchestra after major orchestra struggles to find competent leaders and here Philadelphia had one and they’ve lost him.

May Metric Ride

2008-05-05T12:15:00.001-04:00

As is a tradition for OHBike, the first Saturday in May is the “May Metric.” We used to do it as a supported ride, but now the supported metric century is the Rural Legacy in June. So now, we just do it as a club ride, offering various distances (100km, 40miles and 26miles) at various paces. Because of the weekend’s plans, I offered to lead the 40-mile route at a fast pace. I didn’t have any takers to join me. But that was ok, as others needed the cue sheets I’d run off. So I rolled out with the next fastest group that was planning on doing the full metric. Five of us rode together for the first 10 miles, keeping a comfortable pace of 18 or so. We stopped at Merkle Wildlife Refuge and regrouped.

I had about 10 miles to go before we’d split apart, so I opted to ride a little slower to spend some time riding with Blake, Jan, Carole and Walt. There was a fellow – don’t know his name – who had been working hard to stay with us, but he didn’t want to do the 65 so he said he’d go with me at the split. As we turned into North Keys, he told me not to worry if I dropped him on the hills, he’d just wait for the next group of 40-milers to come along. I did pull away from him on that little hill (I can remember that seeming to be a big hill once upon a time!), but I figured he’d catch up with me on the descent down Cross Road Trail. I was right. That road’s condition is getting beyond “bad” and into “seriously dangerous.” It’s great where they put the new bridge in, but on either side of that new section, the road is really torn up. I dropped whoever he was on the climb up out of the stream valley. I almost had an incident on the climb, as I hit a spot that was sand/fine gravel and it grabbed my front wheel and I started to get mired in it. Fortunately I tend to climb only just barely holding the bars, so it was easy enough to apply a little pressure and break free.

As I approached the turn onto Cherry Tree Crossing, my day took a turn for the worse. An old geezer in a big sedan (you know the type, they drive Lincolns and other similarly sized vehicles even though they don’t need the capacity for any reason at all) was waiting to pull out of Cherry Tree Xing. I signaled my turn, watched the guy coming the other way who was making a right into CTX as I slowed and knew that it was possible that the old geezer was going to do something stupid. As I started to make my turn, the old guy started to pull out. I yelled at him as I grabbed the brakes for an emergency stop. My left hand, more used to making that squeeze than my right, gripped tighter and the rearend started to come up to create an endo…. I shifted my weight around quickly turning it into just a fall onto my right side with my elbow and hip taking the impact. Fortunately it was a slow speed thing, so no shredded shorts, no torn skin. Just some raspberries and bruises. I got up, yelling at the moron about looking for traffic and obeying stop signs then headed on my way. The drive train was ticking a bit so I opted for the shortest route back to the car and then headed directly to BikeDoctor to drop it off to be checked over and adjusted to clear up the noise. Didn’t see anything concerning, don’t think anything took real damage, just got a little bit out of alignment.

It’s the first time that I’ve gone down on the bike since 2004, so I guess I was due. I’m sore and I’m bruised, but that’s the extent of it, so I count my blessings and look forward to the next ride.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

2008-04-28T11:17:00.006-04:00

Yeah, my brother and I used to love to watch that movie. But this isn't about the movie. It's about the time trial this past weekend.

I debated with myself a lot about going to do this 40km TT in Carlisle, PA on Saturday morning, but I finally signed up for it on Friday morning. Friday evening, they sent out the start times, then sent them again, starting everyone 10 minutes earlier! 10 minutes doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot when you have a 2.5 hour drive and you need to get there enough ahead to have at least an hour before your start time. I started to email the promoter asking for the Chief Referee's contact info so I could bitch accordingly...and that was when I figured out that it wasn't a sanctioned race. This did not make me particularly happy, but so be it.

I was focused on Friday evening. Lot to do and a need to go to bed early. Step one was get the bikes ready. Drove myself crazy looking for the 'crack pipe' adapter for airing up my disc wheel. Eventually I realized I'd put it some place I could find it - not in my gear bag as I'd thought but right in the pump! Getting better at the wheel swap on the horizontal drops, but since I have a car plenty big enough, no reason not to take a 2nd bike to warmup on the trainer with and have the Ordu ready to race. I decided to take the Ruby because it's also 10-speed that way if I thought the conditions were such (ie rainy) that I didn't want to race the disc I'd have a rear wheel I could swap in relatively quickly. So I packed the car up with bikes and gear and went to bed relatively speaking early. My alarm clock was set for 4am.

I awoke at 2:30 and rolled over, telling myself to enjoy another hour and a half of sleep. Maybe I drifted off for a little bit, I'm not sure. But 3am and I was awake again and it seemed unlikely that I'd fall back to sleep. So I read for a bit, checked the radar imaging for possible rain, did my morning stretch routine. Finished packing up and headed out. Is a bad night's sleep better than no sleep? I wasn't sure, I'm still not.

The upside to driving at 4am is that there's almost no traffic. Unfortunately, my car - now 11 years old with 183000+ miles on it - is slowly dying. One of the big annoyances now is that the cruise control no longer works. I don't know if it's the switch or something else, but it's probably not worth the money to have it fixed. I don't notice it much because traffic is too heavy around here to use it. Around Frederick, I started encountering pockets of fog. This was the kind of fog that I tend to refer to as "ground fog" as it seems to be in the low-lying areas, like it's coming up out of the ground rather than down from above. In spots it was thick enough to require cutting back on speed a bit.

I stopped in Thurmont to pick up a breakfast sandwich and use the restroom. Back on the road and more fog. But as sunrise approached, conditions began to improve. I'm always happy for an uneventful drive. Arrived about 630, tail end of my target window, but acceptable. Got unpacked, set up, picked up my number, signed off on their waiver and started to warm up. Already I know I'm not in a good place for a TT. I don't want to put on my music, this is not a good sign.

A woman from Sturdy Girl racing parked next to me. I helped her out with the loan of a trainer skewer when she discovered that hers wasnt in the car as she had thought. Ken Johnson was the next car over. He didn't know the course at all. Lots of DC racers - Ace , Mike & Spencer from Latitude, bunch of NCVC guys.

Dona & Helen are parked across the aisle from me. Half an hour into the warm up they announced that they were going to delay sending the first rider off until 8am, so that more of the fog would burn off. I opted to get off the bike for a little bit to delay the rest of my warm up. Then they pushed first rider off to 830.

By this time, my head was pretty far afield from racing. It had become an expensive, long drive for a training TT. This is very bad as time trials are hugely about mental state. I warmed up some more. Then decided I needed to ride, not be on the trainer. Pack up the Ruby, trainer, etc. Got on the Ordu and tried to get my head into the game. I knew I didn't have any gels but was too distracted to bum any off anyone else. It never even occured to me. Finally it was time to ride to the start - about 1.5 miles away.

I was the next to last of the women to go. Only Kathy Watts was behind me (wildblues). The TT starts out up hill - it's not a big hill and it's sort of a stair-step thing. I take off and wonder how long it'll take me to catch the novice TTers. Margaret Kilby is doing it - I've been faster than Margaret for a couple of years, so I'm confident I'll catch her at some point, she's only got a 1minute head start on me.

I start out strong, looking to get my HR up where we want it to be. It doesn't want to go there. It wants to settle in around 175. I realize shortly after I start off, that I haven't checked the seating of the speed sensor on the fork and it's gotten nudged wide, so I'm not getting any speed data. It only takes a moment out of position to reach down and fix that. Once I clear the initial hill, I can see Candace who started 30seconds ahead of me. I know that I'll catch her eventually. But I can't get in a groove, can't find a rhythm. I pass Candace and tell her to "keep it up."

Tim Barry (Clean Currents/DC Velo) passed me, then some guy from New York. I watch as all the sudden they seem to slow down a lot. I hit the same hill and watch my speed plummet while my legs do the hard work. For once my HR approaches target. But it doesn't stay there. I push on even though my brain already knows that it's not going to be the result I want. After all, DFL is not going to happen now that I've passed Candace, so it could be worse.

I see Helen, Margaret and Dona bunched up together up ahead and know that I'll pass them. I'm clear of them by the 10km painted on the road. Now it's just me against the clock. By 15km, the fog has gotten really dense. More like cycling in a cloud. The temperature drops. I get cold. My riding goes to hell - I can feel my form slipping as my shoulders complain about being crunched up by the bars and the saddle introduces new levels of pain.

I can't see very far ahead of me. I flip up the visor on my TT helmet as it's covered with condensation. That helps some, but now exposed to the fog, my glasses start to accumulate condensation as well. I can't see if the road is going to go up, down or turn - visibility is at most 100yards. I know the turnaround is coming fairly soon - but I worry about missing it because I can't see those who have turned around ahead of me on the other side of the road. Ok, that means visibility is more like 50 feet or something. Yikes!

Kathy catches me at the turn around, which looms out of the fog abruptly. Oh well, it'll be second place. Could be worse. I'd gone into the event hoping for 64minutes. I started out pretty much on that pace - 8minutes for each 5km. But even a few seconds off the pace adds up over 40km. I end up having to push my glasses down my nose a bit to be able to see at all. Good thing I can see ok without my glasses - not great, but well enough, especially with the limited visibility.

The way back, my HR is way low and nothing I do gets it up. I stop worrying about it and just do what I can to keep my speed up. Some NCVC guys pass me. I ride back out of the fog and start to warm up again. Strangely, Mahler 8 comes into my head. When I ride TTs it's usually a pop song in my head, something with a good rhythm for the effort. But this ride, nothing is there. TTs are about suffering, a lot of suffering, but this day, the suffering is getting in my way. Maybe that's why the Mahler got in my head.

In the end, I had a good time - only 90seconds off my target - and that was good enough for 2nd place, but it sure was ugly.

Even though my body is still adapting to the new bike, and a new saddle is a definite must before any more competitive efforts, I like the bike very much.

2008-04-25T09:14:00.002-04:00

Last night was a great training session. I checked in to make sure that sprints were still a good idea two days before a 40km TT. Coach said yeah so I met Lesley for sprints. We were both behind schedule. The difference is that she rode to Hains Point and I drove. So I got 8 minutes of warm up before the first sprint. She won that one easily. Her suggestion was to sprint on both sides. I've done it before so I agreed, knowing how tough it is. 2nd sprint I won, no sweat. 3rd sprint went to her again - that side was into the wind, so not surprising really. 4th sprint got just a tad dicey because the bunch came up on us and the first guy was not the best of bike handlers. It was a photo finish and 33mph! Then we sat up and did a single sprint a full lap later - last one for the night. I botched it - should have eased back one gear instead of going one gear harder. It was Lance and Jan... she jumped and I was on too big a gear to respond quickly. Then Lesley headed home and I continued to ride as I only had 45minutes in and the plan was for 90. I was just relaxing in Z2 when the bunch came around me again - big bunch last night 40 riders or more. One of the Rt 1 guys yelled "Come on, Mimi!" and I took the bait, though by the time I got up to their speed I was at the back of the group. Still it was good to respond and at least know I could jump on as the wind up took us up toward 30mph. I was happy that I could do that and not be redlining. I stayed with them around the recovery side - turning 23/24 in Z2 with the help of the pack, which was way cool for me (usually my HR runs a lot higher). But I decided I wasn't going to do any more so when they ramped it up, I sat up. Finished up my 90 minutes in Z2. I'm still amazed at the new numbers and how they translate on the bike.

I'd been hoping to get out for a run all week. Monday was too nasty with the rain, Tuesday and Wednesday it just didn't happen, so I hatched the plan to run after my ride last night. That way I'd avoid running in the middle of the day when it is hot and I'd see if I could do a "brick" more comfortably than the last time. So I put the bike away, changed from cycling shorts to running shorts and dumped the cycling jersey. Doron was just finishing up her ride so I walked over to talk to her briefly. She's going to do the National Du Championship on Sunday without having ever done a Du competitively before. I tried to talk her into running with me, but she decided not to. Oh well. I ran on my own, nothing major, nothing brutal. Just 25 minutes with an average pace of 8:55 minutes. The important thing was feeling pretty good in the run. Of course in a Du I wouldn't be standing around for 10-15 minutes between getting off the bike and heading out for the run. I'll work on trimming down the transition time in due course. Think I'll have to spend money on one more bit of non-team clothing and that's at least a pair of tri-style-bike shorts, the type that one can run in without being hampered by a large chamois.

One thing I did notice, getting on the Serotta after two consecutive days on the Ordu. The saddle is a lot lower on the Serotta. When I first got on it, I felt like I was sitting in a hole. I'll have to talk to Pierre about that and see if maybe I should drift the Serotta saddle up just a little bit.

I kept debating with myself about tomorrow's TT. I'm gonna have to get up really early. But I really feel the need for doing a competitive event. So I went ahead and signed up and I'll just suck it up and get up at 4am. The nice thing is the drive should be pretty easy that time of the day. And I'll be done with the TT plenty early to get to Lisa's in Cherry Hill with lots of time for a shower and time to chill before we head into the city for dinner and the concert. Can't wait for that - Sibelius and Bruckner, yeeha!

2008-04-24T13:53:00.003-04:00

Yesterday's training was the evil, dreaded, hated Zone 2. Yeah, I'm strange that way. Other people love Zone 2. I hate it. I can tolerate it if I have distraction - like some one to ride & chat with - but it really takes a toll on me. It makes me tired, really tired. Being Wednesday, I was on my usual routine. Drive from work to the chiropractor - get my hips stretched and adjusted and my mid-spine realigned - then ride out the W&OD trail to train...or in the case of last night - suffer Zone 2.

The first part of the ride was ok - a fellow from the British Embassy rode up next to me to admire the Ordu. He was riding a 3-year-old Orbea (road not TT). So we chatted about is 33-mile each way commute that he does only twice a week because of the distance. He was from Liverpool - raced when he was a young man then got into rugby which meant he needed to bulk up a bit. We talked about the relative obscurity of cycling in England as well - not like football. He said soccer just to make sure we were talking about the same thing. And we talked about riding in the winter. I don't have much of a sense of the winter weather in England so that made for easy talk. Much colder in Liverpool in the winter than here, but they don't get snow like we do (well, some years we get snow). So he has his winter cycling gear shipped over from England and stays suitably warm. Just before he split off to finish his ride home he observed that the Ordu would probably fit him. I just laughed and told him I had no doubt I could out sprint him if he made a move for the bike. Made the first 30 minutes of Zone 2 perfectly bearable - ok I wasn't watching my HR that much, so I'm sure there was some Zone 1 in there too, we were taking it easy.

On my own after that and with the traffic on the trail thinning out nicely, I got into the TT bars and picked up the pace. I got into a groove on it. Really love the bike. The old, oversized Jett saddle is a definite improvement for comfort on the bike. No need for an ice pack between the legs. Could do better still. And I'm anxious to see if the saddle is far enough back to pass the TT jig.

I was still heading out to Leesburg when Alvin passed going the other way. Turned around at Leesburg and headed back to Reston. Kate was headed out when I passed her. I turned around to see if I could catch up with her but she was in an effort and I wasn't going to do a genuine TT effort to catch up with her, so I turned around again and finished the ride back to the car.

I was curious so I got on the scale with the Ordu with the Aksium's on - 2lbs heavier than with the race wheels on. I'll have to put the Ascents on to see how that configuration weighs in.

Tonight is sprints so I swapped out which bike I have. One thing I noticed is that the rear wheel to top of saddle is taller on the Ordu. This is evident when I put the bike in the trunk. The Ordu wedges in tightly. The Serotta has a little bit of room to spare. This will be a very important dimension to look at when it comes time to replace the car.

Adapting

2008-04-23T10:10:00.006-04:00

I was all set to register for Saturday's short TT in Cape May when I got up this morning. But when I went to the BikeReg page, I discovered that the event had been canceled. I really wanted to do that one. Short, fast and furious. Oh well. Change to the back up plan of doing the 40km TT in Carlisle PA instead. Makes for a lot of driving on Saturday but it'll be ok. Now that the leaky radiator hose has been replaced the car is running great.

I'll still get to Lisa's in Cherry Hill in plenty of time to enjoy the evening. We've got tickets for the Philadelphia Orchestra. Really looking forward to the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Bruckner 6. Eschenbach is conducting so it'll be an excellent interpretation. We've got reservations at Tir na Nog - great beer list there and I'm sure the food will be fine. Lisa's bummed she won't get to see me race yet, but at least she'll get to see the new bike. :-)

Last night was the first time on the Ordu with the Aksiums on it. The difference in rolling resistance is noticeable but that's ok. Working a little harder to move the bike in training isn't a bad thing. Warmed up with Ellen, Mona and Diane. Always good to see them. Ellen seems to be really stoked about racing this year.

And Mona really wants to buy one of Lisa's paintings, which is way cool. This will be the 3rd piece she's sold this month with the guy who bought Slava, Sonja & Christina buying one and now Mona. The cellist is hanging in my office - looks good up there.

Hard workout - seven efforts: 1 min, 2 min, 3 min, 4 min, 5 min, 1 min, 5 min. Equal rest on the 1 minute efforts, half rest for the rese (rounded up to the nearest minute). Got up to the top of Z4 no problem. The old jett saddle is an improvement over the selle italia that came with the bike, but it's still not ideal because it's the wrong size. The fun came in blowing past the tris on their TT bikes when I did my efforts.

Stopped and chatted with a couple of the speed skaters (Ron, who I've gotten to know over the past couple of years and a new guy Aubry) then pulled them around for a lap. The sound of their skates behind me sort of simulated the sound of the disc wheel. Aubry asked me to take him up to 19mph, so I did, actually settled in right around 19.5, which kept me at the top end of Z2. We took it easy through the 2-way section until we got back to where they'd park then chatted some more about skating, training, and racing. Turns out Aubry was right on the same HR I was give or take a beat, but for me it was Z2 and for him it was a hard effort.

It's good to start getting into the summer routine of riding outside and enjoying going to Hains Point. By August it'll all be old, but for now it feels good to adapt back into this mode. Though it takes some time - lots to do, training takes more time in ways and less in others. Usually more time on the bike but it takes a lot less time to get to the Point, so I'm usually home between 8 and 8:30 instead of just leaving f'ing Vienna at that time, which is the case when we do computrainer class out there in the winter.

2008-04-20T20:25:00.002-04:00

The weather really sucked today. Heavy rain, light rain, t-storms. Grey and dreary. Totally unmotivating. Add to that the depression of not racing today and the fact that it's the end of a rest week (which means sore throat and runny nose as a general rule) and, well, I was anything but productive today.

I changed the wheels out on the TT bike for training purposes. New adventure that horizontal drop out and the extreme slack in 39x12 to make it all work right. Better that than the alternative, which could lead to blowing the derailleur off the bike if I were to lose track of where I was on the 53. Not like I'll ever use 39x12 as a riding gear. Seems to shift fine, so no worries about adjustments other than opening up the brakes a bit to accommodate the thicker brake pads. Now that I have the Mavic Aksiums that came with the Ordu, I can have the Ascents checked over and worked on as needed. Put an old Terry saddle on the Ruby and consigned it to the trainer for now so I don't have to keep swapping wheels around. Cleaned up a little bit around my bike area. Sorted through some stuff and bagged up stuff that needs to go out in the trash.

Finally got on the trainer for a little while. It's so hard to get on the trainer once consistent outside riding starts, even on a bad weather day. After spending so many hours on the trainer all winter, the last thing I want to do is get on it now! But I did it for a little while, figured something was better than nothing. Nice to know that I can sit on more watts now and still be in Zone 2. Not what Susan wanted me to do, but I just didn't have it in me to simulate a 20k TT. If I'd been able to ride outside, it would have happened. But not inside. Just couldn't go there. Spin stupid zone 2 for a bit and call it good enough.

Jeff emailed - they finished first in the tandems at the TT and it didn't rain but was very windy. I still believe that it all happened for a reason. Just like listening to your body and learning when to say 'enough' and when to push through, I had to make a judgement call with the car and firmly believe that I made the right call.

I'm debating getting up early tomorrow and going to the gym for a change. Haven't been in a few weeks and I miss it. It's not far, shouldn't be a problem with the car. Just have to check the coolant level before I go. I'll take the car in tomorrow and tell them where the leak seemed to be and see if they can fix it. The car is so old that hoses are starting to fail from dry rot. It's starting to cost too much to keep the car going, time to start shopping for a new car, it'll be a summer filled with driving and I don't want to have a problem on the way to Nationals or something like that.

Listening to Mahler 8 right now, getting it back into my head in detail for the concert on May 3. Maybe I should be focusing on Bruckner 6 for Saturday night. It's not a Bruckner I know well. Sunday I'll drive back and pick up mom then head into the city to hear Choral Arts do an a capella concert at National Presbyterian Church. Joe Holt is conducting. Hope I get a chance to say 'hi' to him. Haven't seen him since the series at the Holocaust Museum.

Cape May is flat and fast so I think I'll put the 11-23 on the disc for Saturday morning. Tempting to do Carlisle instead because it's a 40k where Cape May is only 12km, but Cape May is better so far as all the driving goes. And the short TT will let me really crank it out. Never done one so short so it'll be an interesting challenge. What do I ramp it up to and try to hold? Betty Tyrell did it in 18:43, so that's about 24 mph. I will have to try to hold 25 or better, if there isn't a brutal headwind. If I have a headwind/tailwind situation, I'll play it by ear, try to really crank it up with the tailwind to compensate for headwind.

Part of me wishes I was racing more in May and the rest of me likes the fact that it's a gradual build up to racing both days every weekend in June except the last one. Couple of TTs, couple of crits... no RRs in May. Even though there have been some headaches, I'm enjoying being Chief Ref for the RR at the end of May. That'll be a busy weekend as I'm also working CSC - I'm totally stoked (and totally terrified) about that. I know I'll learn tons from Judy Miller. And I'm looking forward to being Chief Judge at the Ft Ritchie Crit in Cascade. I know I won't race forever but I don't want to lose my connection to the sport and officiating and coaching will keep me connected for ever.

Already heard from the Rt 1 Velo folks about what I can do to help out as a CR for the Greenbelt Series. I know I can cover them after Nationals. But June is up in the air. May isn't an option. I'm not going to take off from work early to officiate up there. But after that I have Wednesdays off so it's easier. But if Susan wants me out on Skyline or something like that to prep for Nats in June enough driving is enough! We'll see how it comes together.

Getting Philosophical

2008-04-19T17:01:00.005-04:00

I'm trying to be philosophical right now. Things happen for a reason. First it was the headache of getting the bike. Resolved that faster than I thought was possible. Had a great test ride and signed up for a TT right away to put it and myself to the test.

Had an awesome training ride today. Went out for a ride with mostly strangers, but I knew the ride leader - Carole - and it was just the right type of ride. It was a simple out and back, 45 miles and a fast course - only a couple of small hills - pure big ring route. Little more uphill on the way back than on the way out. Excellent prep for the TT.

Out was a little sketchy. Some of the people didn't know how to ride a paceline. So we were slowing and surging with changeovers at the front. Other than that, I felt good. I was relaxed and turning a good cadence. The one hill that split the group up a little bit was a quarter mile 6%. I eased back a bit to wait for the couple of folks (including my friend Carole!) who came off the back on the hill. Then we did our best to catch up with the rest of the group. When we got close, I went to the front once more to finish up the catch. I got to the group, looked over my shoulder and the others weren't there! Oh well, we were almost to the turnaround.
We stood around by the water and chatted for a bit before heading back.

I decided I'd take the front initially when we got back to the main road, I didn't want someone to set too fast a pace initially after standing around for a while. So I set a comfortable pace. Eventually I passed on the front and was surprised to find that the line was short several riders. The guy on the back of the group was out of his league. He was throwing everything he had into trying to hold pace and couldn't do it, gaps kept opening up. And he was throwing himself around so much that he wasn't keeping his bike steady. When the next rider came off the front, I let him get in behind the squirrel.

Fortunately we soon hit the hill going the other way and that shelled off the squirrel and a few others, bringing the lead group down to five of us. We all knew what to do and the ride wa smooth sailing from there. One of the guys was tired, so his pulls were short, but that's cool. Better that than staying up front and letting the pace drop. The rest of us were feeling pretty good and taking reasonably long pulls.

I decided to dial it back for the last 2 miles, as a short cool down. Everyone else seemed to think that it was a good idea because they dialed it back too. The end result was a Zone 2 average heart rate and a 20.1mph average. Perfect for tomorrow's TT.

So I sit here at home now, when I should be in Harrisburg, chilling before going to dinner and then getting a good night's rest for the TT. This is where I have to get philosophical. My 11 year old car with 182,000+ miles on it decided to develop a coolant leak. I was about 20 miles from home when the low coolant warning lit. I got off the Beltway quickly and stopped an an auto parts store to get a gallon of coolant. The car was dripping coolant. A hose with a leak. The only sensible decision was to return home. So that's what I did.

And I tell myself this happened for a reason. That I'm not meant to race the TT tomorrow. And happily my car didn't over heat and I'll get it fixed on Monday. It's time to start looking for a new car though, can't have this continuing. I'm bummed. I am so ready to race. But hey there's always next weekend. Do I do Cape May or Carlisle?

First Test Ride

2008-04-17T21:40:00.003-04:00

Happily the workday went by quickly today. Traffic was cooperative too, so I got to Hains Point promptly. Wanted to do the full deal so I even wore my skin suit. Gotta do something about the front wheel - still having issues with the valve extender leaking too much air, but I got it up to an acceptable pressure.

I guess I was a bit hyped about the new bike, at first my heart rate was running high, especially when I got down on the aerobars. So I watched the speed and gearing to stay in Zone 2 for my warm up laps. I'm still getting used to the new numbers from last week's VO2max test.

Don't have the cadence sensor working yet, but I think I know why it's not, so I'll get that taken care of before Sunday. Since I don't quite have the resources to add a power meter yet, I compete looking at heart rate, speed and cadence, so I know what I'm getting in return for my efforts.

Then it was time to see what there was to see. I did a couple of one minute efforts, one on each side. On the channel side it was 50 seconds to go from 15 to 25. On the airport side it was 45 seconds to go from 15.6 to 27.7. After opening up my legs, my Heart Rate was a lot more cooperative.

I took care to make sure I didn't get tangled up with the sprint bunch. It was a good sized group and they tend to ride stupid too much of the time. One of the worst habits racers seem to have is cutting over in front of folks they've passed quickly. Not too bright. It'll scare rookies and some of us who are on a training schedule could be about to jump....

Then I moved up to a 2.5 minute effort and then a pair of longer efforts, one 5.5 minutes long and the final effort 6 minutes long. Even when I was cranking out 25mph and sitting on my target HR of 180, I didn't feel like I was killing myself. Ramped up some extra at the end of the last effort..first had to slow down to deal with auto traffic and cyclist/runner/walker traffic. Once I cleared the Tourmobile, I ramped it back up to finish strong...jumped up 5.5 mph in 15 seconds....seated.

The bike is sooo smooth and repsonsive. The bars are really comfortable. But I think we may want to take another spacer out from under the stem....we'll see. And there's nothing like the sound of a Zipp disc.

What has to go is the saddle. Definitely need one with a cut out to relieve the pressure being put on some rather sensitive tissues. I'll put the old jett on for Sunday and go from there.

There are a couple of women who may give me competition on Sunday. Barb Grabowski si good, but I think I'm better. But it's early in the season so f she does beat me, I'm ok with that. My goals are later in the season... Nationals in July and the MABRA championship in August.

It's a TT Bike!

2008-04-17T10:23:00.010-04:00

Of course there was the last minute stuff at work in the final half hour of the day. Why is it that happens any time you have something you really want to do right after work? So I leave about 10 minutes late which means that by the time I get to my end of the subway and take the bus to the commuter lot, it's already 6:30pm. Traffic was thick and slow most of the way to the shop. Happily I was only a couple of minutes behind the scheduled 7pm and Chris was finishing up with a couple of triathletes when I arrived.

They already have the bike in the fit area loaded into a trainer and I admire it for a few moments before using the changing room to put on my bike shorts. When I come out the triathletes are standing there admiring my bike. Fortunately they were standing far enough back that the drool didn't get on the bike.

I got on the bike and started pedaling. The first thing I had to learn was that the front derailleur is a friction shift. So I can totally adjust the position of it, but have to watch out not to over shift if I'm going from ring to ring, as I can readily generate chain rub by swinging it all the way out. Chris had the bike set up from the numbers we'd generated the previous week. I wasn't sure about the spacer stack on the steer tube, it felt a little high.

He finished up and came over. We fixed up the cadence sensor and topped off the tubulars then I pedaled again. He checked all the angles and was satisfied. I pedaled some more and he suggested that we get a little crazy. I was pretty sure what he had in mind and I said "yeah, let's go for it." So off came the stem and out came a spacer, moving me lower. It felt great.

There was just enough daylight left for a quick little test ride. It's the only bad thing about the location of his shop - no handy test-ride type roads at hand. I did a quick loop around the parking lot then went across the road (the very busy Leonardtown Rd) to a short straight road that led to some industrial type places. The takeoff was smooth and I got up to speed happened quickly. I ran the drive train all the way out, 53x12 turned smoothly. The bars are awesome and the fit feels great. When I got home, I checked the weight - 17.5lbs with the disc wheel. That's a couple pounds lighter than the Serotta was in TT configuration.

As you can see, the frontal area is very minimal. It's going to be fast. I'm anxious for the end of the day today so I can go ride this new bike and see how it really feels. Even with only the short bit of time on it last night, I think I'll be looking for a new saddle right away.

I can't wait to race it on Sunday. Don't know the course, but from the times from last year it looks like it must be fairly flat. It'll just be good to do a TT again, since the last one was back in September.

Plan B

2008-04-16T11:06:00.005-04:00

Plan A for my new TT bike seemed like a good one. Sure I had decided to buy without a test ride, but I was ok with that decision. I ordered the bike in mid-November through our sponsor shop. And I was excited about the cool design of the bike and the prospects a genuine TT bike promised. After all, last year I made it to the podium at Masters Nationals using a road bike with TT bars and wheels. How much faster would I be with a bike meant for TTs? Hopefully enough to get a Gold at Nationals.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of April, the bike still hadn't arrived. Specialized can't tell me when they will come through with the bike - sometime between May and July. Unacceptable as the Masters National Championships are at the beginning of July. Maybe folks who were just buying a new TT bike are ok with the incredible delays, but I can't wait any longer. I've already changed the road bike I was using for TTs back to road configuration (put the drop bars back on, etc) and plan on using it as my pack race bike. I needed a Plan B

This is nothing against our sponsor shop. Not their fault that Specialized sold bikes they couldn't deliver. Not their fault they don't carry another brand of TT bike that would fit and could be delivered promptly (Trek's estimated delivery was mid-June and besides, the geometry of the bike is wrong for my body).

Plan B. Different bike, different bike shop. I went on Tuesday last (8 April) to see Chris Richardson down at BikeDoctor Waldorf. If I stay in Maryland, it's the closest bike shop to home and I do go down there from time to time to get stuff when I'm down that way. But it's not like I'm a regular customer. None the less, Chris has always been sociable and one time even offered to loan me his cyclocross bike if I wanted to give that part of the sport a try. When I explained my situation to Chris, he was more than willing to help out. Ok, so that's what a bike shop does, sell bikes, but he was willing to do everything quickly and he really knows his stuff. We went through the whole process of looking at how my body is designed and how I have my fit set up on my road bike and then how I fit on a TT bike he happened to have in the shop. That bike wasn't the right fit, but it helped us narrow the choices down to two bikes that would fit the best - Cannondale and Orbea. The phone call to Cannondale was not good news - they'd just shipped the last of their stock in the approriate size the previous Friday and didn't expect more for at least 3 weeks. They could check around with shops to see if someone had one in their shop, but couldn't give us an idea on how quickly an answer would come (and the answer could be no). Next phone call. Orbea. They had the right size Ordu frame in stock. Decision made. Place the order. We set a tentative appointment for final fit for April 16.

Orbea shipped the bike on Wednesday the 9th. I dropped off my race wheels, the TT bars, brake levers, pedals and other miscellaneous stuff at the shop on Sunday after a three hour ride a bit South of the shop. I called Chris on Monday morning, just to make sure he knew I'd dropped off the stuff. He did and was confident the bike would arrive in Tuesday's shipment and that we would be able to keep our planned appointment for the final fit.

While I was making dinner Monday evening, my phone rang. It was Chris calling from the bike shop. The bike had arrived about half an hour after we talked and they'd checked it over and built it up that afternoon. Now that's what I call service!

So tonight after work, I'll go down there for the final fit and bring the new bike home. It looks totally sick in photos, like a bicycle version of a stealth bomber. Maybe I won't show up on radar. I really hope that this all happened for a reason and that this bike is the right bike for me. Only time will tell.

Never Say Never

2008-04-16T09:49:00.019-04:00

Never is too finite a term and seldom applies to the real world. So other than to admonish folks not to say it, best off not using the word never. I'm going to try to adhere to not using it, because I've found myself reversing that decision more often than not.

I told my coach I'd never run as cross training, that I was drawing the line on that one. WRONG! Not only do I run regularly now (once a week or more), I occasionally go out and run a race. I ran a hilly 8k on Saturday in Greenbelt. I didn't post a brilliant time, but it was close to what I expected of myself. And hey, only 3 women older than myself had better times. And the fastest was only about 2 minutes faster. Maybe I'll run it again next year and do better. In the mean time, I'll probably do a couple of other runs during the course of the year and maybe even combine running and cycling and do a duathlon. So much for never running.

After being less than totally satisfied with my team bike in 2006 (don't get me wrong it's a nice bike but not aggressive enough for racing), I swore I'd never buy another bike I couldn't test ride first. WRONG! I decided to throw that idea out when I ordered a bike specifically for time trials in November. I rationalized it away - if I really hate the bike, I can sell it off at the end of the season. Besides, I was ordering the top of the line - a Specialized S-Works Transition - so it should be fast and that's the most important thing in a TT bike. So much for never buying a bike that I hadn't test-ridden first.