8/15/10: Air Force Academy State RR Champs

Having never ridden out at the AFA, I wasn't sure what to expect from the course aside from the very real potential for a stiff wind. The AFA is the location for the strongest winds in CO and the gustiest winds in the entire country. Plus, the parcours had changed from previous years so the lap configuration was new to all the racers. We'd all be seeing it for the first time on the first lap of our respective races.

The Pro/1/2 race was to be 9 laps of a 9-mile circuit, winding its way around the Academy. Someone in-the-know informed me that overall the course was mostly flat with one long, gradual climb of nearly 2 miles and a second steeper, punchy climb which would take somewhere between 30-45 seconds to top. We would hit this climb just a couple minutes after the first, longer climb.

The token break of 2 riders went away at the gun while the rest of us settled in with little sense of urgency. And it didn't take long for the break's lead to balloon to nearly 5 minutes over the course of the first 2 laps. My legs felt great - very fresh and strong. Accessing the watts was not an issue, but I also realized the race had yet to heat up. It was on the 3rd lap where things started to get interesting . . .

The 2 climbs were smack in the middle of each lap. Our third time up the long climb, a couple riders initiated a blistering attack that immediately shattered the peloton to bits. I was riding in the top 20, so was in a fairly good position to react. As I latched on to the back of the small front group of about 12 riders, I noticed that a couple of the heavy hitters were nowhere in sight. I also went right by one of the stronger Cat 1 riders as he appeared to be wrestling his bike to the ground; he looked really uncomfortable! Covering the attack put me in the hurt locker, but I recovered quickly over the top of the climb and on to the twisty descent before the sharp 2nd climb. On the descent, I looked over my shoulder and there was a sizable gap to the rest of the field. At that point, I figured going with the move was the smart thing to do. Unfortunately, things came back together and we were one happy family of about 60 again.

But, it was clear that the long climb, gradual as it was, would be the stomping grounds for shelling riders on every lap to come. The fourth time up this climb, my bike started making funny noises, like my chain wasn't quite shifting gears cleanly. I shifted up and down through my mid-gears and everything checked out OK. By the time we hit the climbs on lap 5, the noise was so pronounced that it sounded like a handful of marbles being ground together. Some guys around me made comments about how loud my bike was. My bottom bracket was coming apart.

The upshot is that the friction caused by the bearings grinding against one another quickly made it feel like I was riding with a brake rubbing against my rim. I fell off the pace the fifth time up the climbs as my legs got completely overloaded with the effort and increased friction. Luckily, a group of about 6 caught me as we approached the short, steep climb. I fought like hell to stick with them and subsequently had to sit on the back to recover, skipping way more pulls than I took. Miraculously, we caught the small front group of challengers and were back in the thick of things . . . just in time to hit the climbs on lap 6.

The timing could not have been any worse. By this time, my BB was so messed up and my legs were so torched that I got jettisoned immediately. And there was no hope of catching back on this time. As I crossed paths with the front group the remainder of that lap and during the 7th lap, I noticed that the pace had slackened enough where the group remained together until the final attacks on the 9th and final lap.

Me? I was out of the top 20 and, thus, well out of the points. My knees ached, my bike was effectively broken. So, at the end of the 7th lap, I veered off the course and rode up the parking lot to my car. A disappointing way to finish a race that started out with some pretty good promise.

Despite my bad luck, I absolutely loved the course. Definitely challenging enough, even without the wind which, by the way, materialized but never gained its typical gusto. It's a race I'd like to get back to next year.

Ride safe,
Nate

7/25/10: Scott Kornfield Classic

After racing Mt. Evans yesterday, I awoke pretty ambivalent about racing again today, let alone a high-intensity crit. But I wouldn't miss this race for anything, given its significance to me and to the team. Given the P/1/2 race was the last of the day, starting at 5pm, I would have plenty of time to get my legs back and be ready to roll.

Riding over to the race venue, my legs responded well to some accelerations up a couple hills. Good sign. But a 75-min crit would certainly be a different story.

The SKC course is a well-laid out venue with a fully closed off course, twists and turns, Hay Bale Alley where the course narrows to a single lane into a 90-degree right hand turn, and a couple of gradual climbs which aren't too challenging in-and-of themselves but definitely sting the legs over the course of 20+ laps.

The goal was to get Tim Srenaski into "the" break of the day. With members of Fly-V Australia, Garmin, Groove Subaru and other top teams in attendance, it would be pretty easy to determine when "the" break would form. My job would be to ensure Tim got into that break and then shepherd Mahting Putelis around the course until the sprint finish. When the gun went off, a spark went off and I jammed it off the line. Stringing the race out the first 2 laps, I then backed off the pace hoping it would launch some sort of counter-attack and thus let Tim react to it or not. A counter did go off the front and Tim did go with it. A couple laps later, Tim was back in the fold as was the entire break. As he slid past me, I asked if he was OK and he said he was. I left my place next to Mahting and moved back to the front with the goal of keeping things together until "the" break finally formed. On the gradual uphill of the finishing straight, several heavy hitters launched themselves up the right hand side of the road. Tim went with the move, so I accelerated as if I were going to go with the move as well. After about 15 seconds, I slowly let off the gas. The ruse worked. Given my acceleration on the front of the peloton, I'm guessing everyone behind me thought the gap to the break was being well-managed. Instead, the break got its decisive gap and Tim was in it. Great!

A couple laps later, Tim was back in the fold, clearly having an off day. Unfortunately, by that time the 12-man break was well-established and far enough up the road where trying to chase it down would simply waste a lot of energy. I found Mahting and got in front of him, urging him to sit in and save his legs for the end. If another group got motivated and went up the road, I wanted the 2 of us to be ready to go with it. I lost track of the number of guys or small groups that attacked off the front to only lose all the steam literally a couple hundred meters later. It all seemed pretty damn silly, to say the least - just completely unfocused and unmotivated accelerations which served absolutely no purpose. But, in the heat of the race, you don't really know the mindset of each attack, so you just have to react. Consequently, I covered way too many worthless attacks. In looking at my power profile after the race, I noticed no fewer than 34 surges above 600 watts, a dozen of which were in excess of 800 watts.

With 3 laps to go, I pulled up along Mahting and told him that with 3/4 of a lap to go, on a hard right-hander into a sweeping downhill, that I was going to give it everything I had for as long as I could. Mahting has some explosive speed, so my hope was that he would get a free ride into the uphill drag to the finish. As we hit the right-hander into the finishing straight with just over a lap to go, I led the peloton up the left side of the road. If anyone attacked, I wanted it to be to my right. About 50 meters later, a Natural Grocers rider put in a massive attack up the right side of the road. It was so strong of an attack that I felt I had no choice but to go with it. As I bled out my eyes, I finally grabbed his wheel at the precise spot I had planned on attacking on the first place. Looked over my shoulder and saw we had a sizable gap, one worth pressing. I shouted at him to continue drilling it so I could grab my breath and try to help him keep the pace high.

We traded pulls as we urgently meandered around the course. As we hit Hay Bale alley, 2 turns from the finishing straight, we got swarmed by the peloton. Totally blown, the 2 of us sat up and got spit out the back. It was worth a shot. I did notice that as the peloton galloped up to the line, the break's lead has shrunk surprisingly. But it was too little, too late to realistically have any shot at catching them.

We averaged 28mph for the race. I felt surprisingly strong and the legs were very responsive. A great rebound from the previous day's disappointing result at Evans. While our small team executed our plan to precision, it unfortunately didn't work out. Tim felt great in pre-race warm-ups, but his legs clearly betrayed him out on the course. That's OK, we all have off days. Next time, we'll get him in "the" break and he'll make a go of it, just like he has multiple times already this season.

Only one race left - the State RR Champs at the Air Force Academy on August 15th. Till then, ride safe.

Nate

7/24/10: Mt. Evans Hill Climb

Mt. Evans is always "the" race for me every summer. I fancy myself a pretty good climber, so this race tends to be right up my alley. To-date, my worst finish has been 4th. This year would prove to be a different story given my upgrade to the P/1/2 ranks, but I felt I was ready for the challenge. My fitness was coming along very well and the indications were that a sub-1:55 was plausible.

Strange weather met us up in Idaho Springs. A low-lying cloud cover trapped the heat and humidity, meaning things would be uncharacteristically soupy for the first half of the race. The clouds left the impression that it would be stormy "up top," above the ranger station. In fact, above the clouds, the sun burst out and left the top half of the course warmer and calmer than I've ever seen it. From one perspective, this was a great year to shoot for a PR.

The P/1/2 race rolled out at 8:15am and was quite the leisurely stroll the first 4 miles. In anticipation of a wild start (like the Dead Dog RR), I was in my big ring and bolted out of the school's parking lot and up the highway. Found myself on the front of the race and nobody riding with any sense of urgency. I let the watts drop well below 200 (high end of recovery effort) and I was still on the front. After letting the watts drop to 150, other riders got the point and finally came around me. But the pace didn't get any faster for the first 20 minutes or so. Then, things changed.

Fairly quickly, the pace ratcheted up and up and up. I soon found myself pushing north of 300 watts, and oscillating between 270 - 350, depending on the nuances of the road surface. The pace was accelerating, but steadily so. Despite the lollygagging the first 4 miles, we still hit the Ranger Station turn-off by Echo Lake in 52-flat - a good 3 minutes or so faster than I've hit the half-way point. Echo Lake was a bit eerie. For about a 90sec span, the temperatures dropped a good 15-20 degrees as we motored through a low-lying cloud bank. Brigadoon comes to mind. Then, we climbed above the clouds just as we took the right hand turn past the lake, at the Ranger Station and on to the road up Mt. Evans proper.

I was feeling strong, but also sweating buckets due to the humidity. I had a feeling the right thing to do would be to back off the pace, settle in and ride strong to the top. But, in races of this importance, sometimes you have to say WTF and just go with it. The pace was hot enough where a large portion of the peloton had already dropped off. In fact, a fair number of riders wouldn't even finish the race due to being out of the running so quickly. My hope was that by hanging on for "just a few more minutes" that a small group would fall off the back of the leaders and then work together to the top.

It was about 15 minutes past the Ranger Station that I blew up. Right when Peter Stetina and another pro dropped the sledgehammer. That left me riding solo for the final 50 minutes or so. Not fun. The extensive sweating had left me overheated and depleted. In hindsight, I should have taken an extra bottle with me (in my jersey pocket) and also dissolved extra electrolyte capsules in each bottle. This would have done wonders for me. As it is, my body was overextended and failing to make the jump to warp speed.

Some riders believe that you need to go really hard the first half of the race because that's where you can make up the most time. Once you get up past a certain altitude, the lack of oxygen makes it impossible to keep pushing. Well, after this year and even last year (even though I won the race last year), I call BS on that. I've ridden more aggressively the past 2 years in the first half of the race, which left me overextended and fighting to keep pressing. My overall time has suffered both years. While I know I'm faster than ever this year, my final time was a good 6 minutes lower than my PR. In fact, the year I hit my PR is when I recorded one of the slowest first halves of the race at a bit more than 56 minutes. IMO, holding back the first half allows one to keep pressing even when the lack of oxygen continues to build and build above treeline. Maybe that's the approach to take next year. But I digress . . .

Despite falling off the pace when I did, nobody passed me. Nor did I catch anybody else. My place was my place, which ended up being 18th. My worst placing in a hill climb this year and an underperformance. I was disappointed for sure, but at the same time happy that I decided to challenge my limits just past the halfway point. I rolled the dice and lost, but at least I rolled them.

The prospect of racing the next day in our team race, the Scott Kornfield Classic, was not very attractive as I sat on a rock atop Mt. Evans, bent over and heaving as I tried to collect my breath. I wondered if I would be recovered enough to even impact the race or help out Tim and Mahting in any meaningful way. I guess I would find out tomorrow....