May

In the past few weeks I’ve had a couple people ask what happened to my blog. The honest answer is that it’s a lot more difficult to gather the motivation to write about races that don’t go well. The other reasons are that I’ve been more busy than normal at work and I really didn’t think many people read it anyway.

I decided to do a quick recap on the racing since Joe Martin, but first go over what went wrong.

I’m pretty well convinced that I started my taper way too early for Joe Martin. As I’ve mentioned before, I followed the Joe Friel Training Bible for this year’s training plan. The fourth week of any period is a recovery week. That was followed by my 2 week “peak” period in which I probably went too easy thinking it was supposed to be more of a “taper.” The week leading into the race I kept the duration down but the intensity up to try and open up my legs, but I never felt great. Basically, I put in 4 weeks of lower-than-normal duration and probably didn’t get in enough intensity. It left me flat for race day.

After Joe Martin I took some more time off due to all of the hard racing. That, coupled with the 4 weeks before Joe Martin caused a pretty extreme drop in my chronic training load graph. I was expecting my peak to last from Joe Martin to Tulsa Tough, but since I ended up peaking early (because of my early taper) that peak was long gone.

Sand Springs Crit – 5/23/10

This was my first race after Joe Martin. Jeremy got in an early break with some fast riders so I sat back and watched for a while. Park Place ended up shelling Jeremy and the rest of the breakaway. Brad Huff ended up bridging into the breakaway, so that put 2 Park Place Guys and Huff off the front and the rest of the field was together. The break lapped us with 2 laps to go, which meant our lap count was changed to 1 lap to go. Mark Trimble went with about ¾ of a lap remaining but I didn’t react quickly enough. I spent to rest of the lap dangling about a bike length behind him. I think I was too busy watching the lead group in front of us to see who would win and wasn’t focused enough on my own finish. Waddell came around me in the sprint, so I ended up 6th on the day. I didn’t necessarily feel slow that day, but my PE was pretty high and my power numbers sucked. My NP for the hour crit was 285. That type of PE usually came with 315-325 watt races, but I blamed it on the heat that day.

Windy 100 Crit and Road Race – 5/28 – 5/29

This event had a big purse and a relatively small turnout. The crit course was flat and fast, which is very good for Jeremy and Brian. Jeremy got into a 4 man breakaway Waddell (Park Place), Godsey (Kenda), and Leigh (Tulsa Tough). He did a lot of work and ended up 4th on the day. I felt pretty good on the final lap and was in good position. I was sitting on the guy who won the field sprint. Then things started getting sketchy in the second to last corner and I sat up. I guess I didn’t have that killer instinct in me or something.

The road race was 100k on a mostly flat course with a decent amount of wind. I was sitting 2nd wheel when the majority of the field took a left when we should have went right. Since I was up front at the time it meant that when we turned around I was all the way at the back. There was a pretty nasty crosswind in this section. The few who made the correct turn hit the gas and put the field in the gutter. Eventually there was a gap and our entire team was behind it. We all started working, and after what seemed like an eternity we were able to put the race back together…mostly. Matt and Chad of Park Place stayed off the front with one of the Kenda guys. They worked over the Kenda guy and we caught him. The two Kenda guys did nothing but whine and complain the rest of the race. Joey and Jeremy helped set tempo at the front. I was feeling the heat and wasn’t good for much. I tried to help, but it wasn’t worth getting dropped for…especially when I knew the outcome.

If our team would have worked our butts off to pull the breakaway back, as soon as we got within 200 yards Waddell would have bridged up to them and at least one of the Kenda buys probably would have gone with. Our guys would be exhausted from the chase and wouldn’t have had the legs to make it across. Instead of racing for 3rd we’d be racing for 5th at best.

I felt alright going into the sprint, but then we missed another turn. We ended up going through the finish line the opposite direction, but a few of us sprinted anyway. They said it didn’t count and lined us all up and had us do a lap of the crit course to determine our finishing position. In the meantime, two guys that had been off the back of our group took the correct turn and got the 3rd and 4th spot. Joey was 4th, so that worked for us. My legs were toast after that last sprint. I ended up 4th in the field sprint (8th OA).

The team made some decent cash that weekend, but in hindsight it would have been beneficial for our team to do the Texas crits instead. Tulsa Tough proved to me that I needed to race some bigger crits to get out of weenie-mode.

I’ll have some writeups from Tulsa Tough, OKC Crit, the state TT, and the draper duathlons later this week.