2007 National Championship Road Race

Evan and I represented Mock Orange Racing at the 2007 Masters National Championship Road Race, in the 30-34 age group. We were up bright and early at 5 AM for breakfast and large amounts of caffeine. We had decided the night before to ride the 20 miles to the race from the condo rather than drive, this turned out to be a good call as it gave us a good long warm-up, including the killer finishing climb that we would do battle on latter that morning. I also have a feeling it intimidated some of the others racers that we were so confident to put in such a long hard warm-up before such a difficult race.

The field was stacked with the best of the best from all over the country in what is known as the “baby masters” category, including a couple of former pros from teams like Sierra Nevada. There were two teams with 5 guys and the rest were ones and twos. Along with Evan and me, there were 2 Hincapie/Disani riders a CT/Ryobi rider and an unattached rider representing NC. We spoke briefly with the Hincapie guys about working together, but there was nothing set in stone. We all new it was going to be a day of survival.

We rolled to the line for the 8am start along with 49 other riders, and we were off on what would prove to be total chaos racing. The course was a “lollipop” style with about an 11k start leg, an 18k loop and the finish back up the same road we started on. The loop was rolling with some steep but short hills and a brutal 1.5k hill that felt like climbing Grandfather or Mitchell. We rolled down the starting segment and saw speeds near 55mph, turned right and started the first of 4 laps around the circuit, there were a few early attacks including one from the winner of the TT a few days earlier, which I covered, but they were all reeled in. After a few kilometers we came to a sharp left and started the first accent up the “big hill”. One of the things that made it so hard was that you hit it without any speed, literally at about 12mph. After just a few hundred meters, there was an atomic detonation in the field; I swear there must have been a mushroom cloud. The gaps were instant and within seconds there were guys strung out all over the climb for 200 meters. I instantly started closing gaps, I noticed two of NC’s strongest cat 1/2 riders explode and abandon the race. I was already resigned to the fact that I was gone as well, but I kept digging and closing those gaps. At the top of the climb, after about 5 minutes I found myself in what was left of the main field, I looked behind and spotted Evan in a small group of 6 or so that quickly latched back on once we started the decent. After the smoke cleared, we had lost 20% of the field!

A solo move had gone clear on the climb, it was Josh Frick again, the winner of the TT, he was soon joined by 4 others including Dave Fuentes formerly of Sierra Nevada. It was a very dangerous move and we chased hard for the next two laps. Each time up the climb we would loose a few more riders. Going up the climb the 3rd time was probably the hardest and I thought we had lost Evan, but he put in an amazing effort to bring himself and a few other back into the field. Just after he had made it back on, about 500m before the feed zone, the entire 5 Star Fish team out of California made a huge surge up the left side. It was a blatant attack just before the feed zone involving the entire team, obviously planned that way. It was a “cheep shot” to say the least and very un-sportsmanlike. Since we were now going through the feed zone at 28mph, most guys, including Evan and I missed feeds, bottles were flying everywhere and I was almost taken out by a renegade bottle.

The un-cool attack succeeded in splitting the field exactly in half, and the instigators were driving hard. Well, I hadn’t made it up that climb 3 times already to get dropped now so I put in some hard pulls and we finally linked back up. It was just before the last time up the big climb and I was sure I was getting dropped, but managed to stay in connection.

Evan and I both got bottles the last time through the feed zone and were in good shape for the long, steep finishing climb basically 11k of steady steep climbing with a few short rests. As expected the race really blew up at this point, there was a group of 9 that went away early, it eventually split into two groups of 4 with one coming back to us. I was in the second group of 9 or so and Evan made it into the third group of 4. The rest limped there way up the finish, mostly as ones and twos.

All we could do at this point was ride our own pace and hope to survive, and we knew that going into the race. Approaching the finish, Dave Fuentes put in a wicked attack from my group with 1k to go, I responded and caught him at 200m to go. There was an immediate counter, I think it was AT Stamp, Fuentes latched onto his wheel and came around him at the line. I was cooked and was rolled across at the tail of our group of 8.

I had just caught my breath and one minute back, I saw Evan charge out of his group of four and got to the line first, he looked really strong and I was wishing I had had that much kick at the end.

We ended up 18th and 21st 3:41 and 4:41 behind the winner. I am happy with our results considering how tough the course and competition was, but still hungry for next year. We both raced well and got some awesome exposure for the team, I only wish we had had our teammate Jay as the course was tailor made for him and we could have delivered him easily to the start of the climb with the leaders. Oh well, there is always next year.

Catching Up...

Ok so I am officially a bad blogger. It’s hard to keep up with the updates, especially when your life is as busy yet boring as mine.

Lately, we have been preparing for Masters Nationals coming up the first and second weeks of July. I have been particularly working on my TT.

Last week was the monthly Lowes Motor Speedway TT in Charlotte. Back in May I rode the 10 mile course in 20:37, about 29.5 MPH average. This time, after a month of threshold work under my belt, I had the ambitious goal of breaking 20:00 (30 MPH). I calculated the lap times, (it’s a 7 lap race around the race track) that I would need to do to hit my goal.

I had a good start the first 2 laps and was right on my mark, but I was seriously hurting from the pace. Laps 3 and 4 I lost about 5 seconds off of my target pace, laps 5-6 I continued to decline, and by the time I started the last lap I was about 30 seconds behind the pace and basically imploded.

I ended up rolling in with a 20:34, only 3 seconds faster than last month. I was pretty discouraged to say the least and I sulked the whole ride home. The next morning I downloaded my power file from the TT and dissected the ride. I found that my average power for the first 2 laps was about 120% of my threshold, then with each lap my average power declined and by the end of the ride my average power was below threshold! Compared to last months TT, my power was about 20 watts lower for the entire ride.

I was instantly kicking myself and reciting 100 times the three sacred rules of the time trial: DON’T GO OUT TO HARD, DON’T GO OUT TO HARD, DON’T GO OUT TO HARD. Had I rode more conservatively, I would have started out right at threshold power and slowly inched up the pace and hammered the last 2 laps. I would have ended up with a much faster ride. Sure I improved my time due to the crazy effort on the first two laps, but I could have been much better, maybe around 20:10 or so if I had rode smarter.

The moral of the story is that you must always stay in control, gauge your efforts based on the length of the TT, and ride your own race. This is especially important when riders are starting at 1 minute intervals and you may be tempted to chase down your minute man. Ride your own race, within yourself, only you can feel the best pace for you and you’ll know when you are going to hard. Of course, HR monitors and especially power meters are an excellent indication, provided you are well aware of your threshold numbers.

Tomorrow is the NC State TT Championships; I plan on racing both the 30-34 and the Pro 1,2 races so it will be a hard day, 80K of time trialing with what looks like only a 20 minute break between the 2 races. Ill try to get a report up on how it went next week.

The Mental Game

Yesterday was the Tour de Moore, a brutally fast 99 mile road race in the sand hill region of NC, it was a good race for me, but more on that later.

The night before the race I drove to Greensboro and stayed with my teammate Craig. Craig's wife is a Sports Psychologist and we had a brief conversation on the mental aspect of cycling. I was talking with her about a problem that I and many of the Athletes I coach have, the ability to remain focused during a race. She told me about exercises and drills that can help with focusing during races.

The conversation lead me to think about many races in the past that I could have placed much higher in had I simply focused on what was going on and remained mentally sharp.

Fast forward to the next morning and the start of the 99 mile road race. The race started out with around 80 riders, including all of the local big hitters and the 3 large/strong teams that seem to control all of the races. Craig and I, being only two strong had a good but ambitious plan. We were going to make sure that one of us was in every break that formed no matter how big or small. It was a good plan and we both raced very well, together we were in no fewer than a dozen breaks. We made the tactical decision not to work in any of them, unless there was a likely chance that they would stay away. After all, we were doing enough work covering all of those moves.

Part two of our plan was to mark 5 riders that we felt were very likely to be in, or cause, the winning break. We did a great job of this, for the most part. At about 70 miles into the race, I was taking my turn near the front covering while Craig was taking a rest further back in the field. Thats when it happened, I lost my mental sharpness, my edge, my focus I am not sure when it happened, or how I was probably day dreaming or focusing on the pain in my legs or my butt or whatever it was. By the time I came back around and decided to participate in the race again, to my surprise there was a break, gone, out of sight! I don't know how I missed it but 3 of the 5 guys we decided to watch were in the break!

Craig rejoined me near the front of the race and we took turns trying to both latch on to attacks and attacking ourselves, anything to get up to that move. Unfortunately, everyone else was either trying the same thing or was riding to keep the rest of the field together (teams of the break riders).

So the best we could do is try for the field sprint, which was going to be tough since neither of us are great sprinters. The run in to the finish was fortunately extremely technical with about 8 corners in the last 1K, a railroad crossing and a hill. We had a good position and Craig was on my wheel with 1K to go. I floored it up the hill as hard as I could, caught a good wheel and expected Craig to come around me at any moment, but he was bumped into the gutter in one of the technical corners. I managed to hold on for 6th in the field sprint giving me a 15th overall.

It was not a bad result and a great day of racing for us both. The moral of the story is that if I had remained focused and followed the wheels of the guys we were supposed to be watching, I would have made it into the winning break, a guaranteed top 9 finish, probably better. In a race with $4,000 in prize money, it was a costly mistake. So practice your mental skills and your focus, make sure you have your "race brain" in gear when you take the line, it makes a big difference.

US Open Gallery

Last Saturday I went with Tonya to watch/support her racing in the US open. It was a crazy day. If the crowds, press, top teams/racers in the country and tough race course wasn't enough to get her going, we woke up the morning of the race with 2 inches of SNOW on the ground! The promoter wisely delayed the race one hour and it ended up being clear, but still cold.

Tony did great, considering the competition, she was a "survivor". Only half of the starters finished and she rolled in a very respectable 38. Her two teammates finished 32 and 34.

It was a great race and we will definitely go again next year where I will once again, without a doubt, be spectating.


Its hard to tell who she is, but anytime you get on the jumbo-tron, you gotta get a picture!

Stay Hydrated

You have all heard me rant about the importance of proper hydration, well some times while in a race you have to go to extremes to stay topped off with fluids.

Last weekend at the Out Like a Lion RR in Albemarle, NC, one of my teammates wife snapped this picture in the feed zone. It was a particularly hot day for March, around 85 and very sunny, so obviously I was drinking allot.

Training With Saul

Recently, PCC Athlete Adam Schildge had the opportunity to get in some trainer time with Saul Raisin from the CA team. Here is a picture.

The Guinea Pig/Coach

I thought it would be a good idea to start posting occasional power files from myself throughout the year so that everyone can start to get an idea of how a power meter is so helpful and how it can help you progress.

Here is the power file from a Threshold Test I did yesterday. Power and HR are shown. Highlighted are two intervals a 5 minute effort and the 20 minute TT test effort. What this shows is that as of now my functional threshold power, or the amount of power I can generate for 60 minutes is around 325 watts. We take a 20 minute TT and subtract a few percent to estimate a 60 minute TT since an hour TT is really not much fun. So I took the 335 and deducted 3%, normally I would deduct 5% but the rolling course I used and the wind made for a small amount off "less than TT wattage". I can adjust this number later through data collected as the year progresses along with more testing, but its a good starting point.

What does all this mean? Well, speed on a bike is very plainly a result of your power to weight ratio, the higher the power in wattage versus the lower the weight in kilograms the faster I can pedal my bike. I weigh around 80 kilograms, so my power to weight ratio at threshold (or 60 minutes TT) is 4.06, or we will call it 4. To put this into perspective guys like Ivan Basso and Alexander Vinokourov are at around 6 to 6.5, a decent domestic pro is usually around 5.7.

So does this mean that since I have to race frequently with domestic pros that I should downgrade to a Cat 4 (a Cat 4 with a 4 or greater power to weight ratio would be extremely competitive and win often)? Well you have to take a look at the year-long schedule of the athlete (this is where a coach is helpful) and take the test results into context.

If you were to look at my year-long training plan, you would see that I am just entering the first build period and have yet to do any real training that would increase my power at threshold. In the coming months I will start to train at threshold and race more. By July, for masters nationals, I should be able to bring that number up to around 5-5.2 (hopefully).

Subscribe to the blog to see how I progress as the year rolls on. Healthy Day!