Hello,
I haven't been the at all good about keeping up to date on this (or any other) blog for well on 2 years now. However, it still exists and I find that I have things to share so I'm back at it.
The 2013 season of bicycle racing has been up and running since early March for me. I began my season of racing by traveling to Tucson, AZ for a weekend to participate in the first National Criterium Calendar (NCC) race of the season. It was a bit of baptism by fire for my legs and lungs against the fastest men on two wheels in the country but I hung tough and finished in the top half (41st out of 120 starters).
Back home in Denver, life goes on with 30 hours of work and 5 classes at Metro State University, leaving limited daylight hours for the truly fun part of life, riding bikes. With limited time in mind and a continued desire to have successes in the very competitive Colorado racing scene I finally added some technology to my riding. I now have a Garmin 500 which is tracking both HeartRate and Power output as well as the routes of rides and races through GPS. I have also added structured coaching into my training and racing through Cycles Consulting ( https://sites.google.com/site/cyclesconsulting/ ).
As with any worthwhile endeavor, my racing has had its ups and downs. I started strong in mid March with two 4th place finishes in as many races and followed up the next weekend with a fifth place. The next couple weeks were not so successful and included some frustration, fatigue, and a discretionary DNF. It is to be expected that external stressors in addition to physical exertion can add up and negatively impact performance abilities. Also, it is expected that fitness rises and falls in peaks and valleys. I am now out of the valley and closer to a peak, both physically and mentally and the results followed accordingly.
This past Saturday, April 26th was a race that has been one of my favorites for years. It is also a race where I have come close to a great result in the past but it always evaded me in one way or another. This year was different however. My team had a good showing at the race with 6 riders starting in a decent sized field of about 40 racers. The course was at the Denver Federal Center, which being a governmental entity of some sort (what goes on there is a mystery to me), means that all the roads are closed to traffic on the weekends. That leaves the roadways wide open for a fast and fun 4 mile circuit which has 15 proper corners in it. We were slated to race 10 laps of the 4 mile course for a total of about 90 minutes of racing.
The race was fast and aggressive from the get go, due much in part to the strong riders on my team. Just into the fifth lap of the race a strong breakaway group of 6 riders established itself about 30 seconds ahead of the main field. I recognized that the breakaway had riders that were both smart enough and strong enough to make the move stick and therefore recognized the need to be in the move or to be relegated to race for a best possible 7th place behind them. About three miles into the same fifth lap was the place on the course which had 2 left hand 90 degree corners in rapid succession and the place that I recognized as my chance to break away form the field and bridge up to what I was sure was the winning move of the day. The wonderful thing about corners is that they can become, in essence, free speed. Free as in, no additional energy expenditure; speed, as in the opportunity for less braking and more momentum through a corner than those around you. This can be risky business. Too much speed in conjunction with the wrong line, or poor bike handling, or a mis-timed pedal stroke, or any combination of the aforementioned, can result in a date with the asphalt and some very uncomfortable road rash. So to have the free speed mentality is to walk the line of what is possible within the confines of physics and every once in a while I cross that line and end up on the ground. However, this day that was not the case. I used my free speed to its fullest advantage and quickly followed up the free speed with some speed that took quite an effort to produce. Thankfully, the combination of these speed factors helped me detach myself from the main group and bridge the 30 second gap to the breakaway riders ahead. Now I too was in the winning move.
We 7 breakaway riders worked well together and brought out the gap to over one minute on the main pack behind us. By the last lap we were sure that we were not going to get caught as long as we continued at a the same high pace. I did have a teammate in the break with me until "free speed" got the best of him and he crashed in a corner on the final lap. This is when the tactical battle began amongst the remaining 6 of us. One rider decided to take his chances at a longer solo move and attacked to group with about 3 kilometers to go in the race. The rest of us played the chess game of working just hard enough to keep the one rider within striking distance but not so hard that we were towing around the other 5 chasers. This game of cat and mouse continued into the last 1000 meters and the group of 5 with me in it trailed the solo rider by about 150 meters. I positioned myself in 2nd place in the line of 5, behind one rider for a draft but ahead of the other 3 so that I could more easily get the jump on them. With about 400 meters left in the race I saw the opportunity and launched my all out attack. My right finger went click, click, click as I moved through the gears and accelerated to 41 miles an hour onto the finishing straightaway. My eyes were glued to the solo rider ahead of me, knowing he was between me and the victory but also knowing that he had spent more energy than me with his longer individual move. I came on him fast and overtook him with 200 meters to go, not giving him the opportunity to tack onto my wheel. With a few final turns of the pedals and a check over my shoulder to be sure, I raised my hands in victory and crossed the finish line first!
Here are the data fields of my Speed and Heart Rate for the different durations. There is a link below to the active site which has more information and the data can be manipulated to look at different things.
Here is an active link to all of the data from above. http://www.trainingpeaks.com/av/MD4A74UL7A7AKXFQ2GK365K56E
And here is the "podium" picture.
Racing is incredibly fun and exciting. And when the stars align such that fitness, mental preparation, tactics, and timing can all come together for a win, racing is extra fun and exciting. But to make sure that humility is not lost to me, the finish "podium" at the race I won happened to be a pile of construction dirt, as pictured above. So I guess that makes me king of the dirt for a day, on my road bike.
Cheers,
Drew
No comments:
Post a Comment