After a 1 week rain delay yesterday brought an end to the RunFar Time Trial. The conditions seemed perfect, low wind and NOT 104 degrees. The night before I readied my bike by replacing the front tire with a new tire and put on my 11x23 cassette. I was a little worried that I might have sabotaged my race with my lunch. It's not very often that my wife and my paths align during the day for us to meet for lunch, but yesterday such alignment did occur. I very rarely eat out but this would be one special occasion and what do you do on a special occasion, you eat Indian buffet of course. As we left the Indian Palace I was well under the "roll me out" limit so I felt somewhat good that I hadn't over done it. I kept telling myself that the extra calories would come in handy during the race, but knew deep down I was just kidding myself for we all know that carbo loading is somewhat a myth (the time carbohydrate consumption is valuable is 0-60 minutes after a workout i.e. recovery. That's when the glycogen synthase enzyme which controls glycogen storage is most active. Any excess food you eat leading up to the race is going to be passed through the bowels.)
When I got to the veloway I did 3 warm up laps and was quite pleased with the way my legs felt and didn't have any stomach issues so I was as ready as I'd ever be. I rolled up to the start and let it fly. On first 2 miles I thought I might have went out a little too hard so tried to stay around 300 watts for miles 2-4. It's hard to say if this helped, but on paper it looks like it hurt me in the long run. For this 2nd stretch was my slowest time split, my average speed dropped to 21.6 mph, but I did average 299 watts. The time split for this section was 5:32. Looking back at it I rode all the other sections soundly and if I had not had pulled up here I could have crushed my previous personal best time on the course. Actually there's something else that affected my time in this section that might have been more of a factor than my pacing. As I approached the turnaround point I caught 2 other riders and had to slow down to 9 mph well before I would have as I made the turn onto 1826. I caught the 2nd rider right at the turn forcing me to slow again and maneuver around a 3rd rider on the other turn back onto 45. This is what probably cost me the most time on this section.
In the end I beat my previous best time by almost 10 seconds with a time of 19:47 (previous best time was 19:56.6). This last TT I finally held the power that I knew I could hold for 20 minutes. All other times I would try for 300 watts but failed on all other attempts, which left me scratching my head as I've held 295-300 in other 20 minute efforts while doing FTP intervals.
I really like Time Trials and had a kick in the pants doing the RunFar TT's and I already can't wait till next spring when they resume. Next year I'll be shooting for an average speed of 25+ mph. It sure would be nice to have the full time trial set up, dedicated TT bike, aero helmet, skin suit and the booties. I also wish the RunFar results would distinguish TT set up riders versus those riders that do the time trial Eddy Merckx style (regular road bike, helmet and no fancy aero nothing). It would be nice to see how I stack up to the others doing the TT Merckx style.
Here's the breakdown of my efforts this season (Best time splits are in green):
On Sunday's ride I caught up with the Southwest Cycle Sport gang and in honor of my attendance Peter announced we'd go North. He'd astutely observed that whenever I join the group we do the same route. This time we'd head North to 620 and to the Spa in Steiner Ranch [ROUTE]. We rolled out 6 strong, but instantly lost 1 as Greg was not feeling up to the hills and he headed South on Bee Cave Road. This had me a little apprehensive as I've never ridden in Steiner Ranch and my legs were still seathing from Saturdays 3 Sister VO2 attack. I've seen the road from a distance, I'd heard it was a good climb but didn't know what to expect. When we turned right into Steiner Ranch from 620 we soon lost 2 more that left Peter, Joe and me. The ride down is fun, my top speed was 45.73mph. The road starts out as a 4 lane at the entrance and gets narrower and narrower the closer to the river. At the river we didn't stop and site see, but proceeded to keep our momentum up and head back up.
It's aproximately 6.58 miles back to 620 with 869 ft of climbing. We didn't stay on Quinlan Park Road but turned right on Steiner Ranch Blvd and climbed that up to 620. As we were heading up Steiner Ranch Blvd. Peter said it wasn't as bad as the 3 Sisters. Luckily it wasn't but I was waiting for it to pitch up at some point or offer up some type of fight. As it turns out it's just a long climb, 2 miles to be exact. I kept waiting for the knockout punch but it never arrived.
On 620 we made our way down to the gas station at the corner of Bullick Hollow and 620. As we were eating our bars and gels there was a violent explosion and the release of air from my front tire. I had a blow out while my bike was leaning against the ice machine! I replaced the tube and proceeded to air it up and as I was about to take off the CO2 the new tube exploded as well. Upon further investigation I had a side wall puncture!
Joe gave me a new tube and Peter gave me his used gel packet to fashion a boot out of. I folder the packet in 2 length wise and covered the puncture hole. I then seeded the tube in and we put air in, not the fully recommended PSI but about 80-90 PSI. The tube made it back to the shop and I was able to finish the ride.
When you're in a pinch you can use discarded gel packets to boot your tires. If Peter wouldn't have had the packet it would have been a dollar bill.
Popped into the Hugel site to find it's been renovated and the first thing that caught my eye is that the date has been "officially" set for 11/14/09.
I feel better going into it this year, last year I just wanted to get through it, which I did. I'm not going to put any time goals for the ride, however I want to not suffer as bad and at least beat my 8 hour 24 minute time.
My training plan for the next 2 months for Hugel will focus on hill repeats and endurance. I did a tune up route to gauge where my legs were at today with Andy Webb. We did Smokey Valley, Ladera Norte, Far West, Mesa and Mountain Climb. Plus the ride with Jeff through Bastrop State Park entailed 3300 feet of climbing. Both of these rides my legs felt great and is hopefully a good indication of where my training is at. I'm confident if Hugel was tomorrow I'd be able to get through it again, with probably less suffering. Since my legs are up to the challenge there's one thing I want to focus on and that's to drop some weight. Right now I go from 174 to 177 pounds. If I can get down to 165-170 for Hugel that will help my power to weight ratio and not carrying the extra weight up the hills will be a good thing.
To lose weight I'm not going to significantly cut calories as that will more than likely leave me without the energy to complete my training. Instead I'm going to create a small caloric deficit of 200-300 calories per day. I already eat pretty good so at first I thought this would be hard, but it seems like it will be doable. For example I did not have a Latte in the morning. By cutting it out that's about 180 calories right there. For dinner we had pork tacos and spinach salad. By not having tortillas I was able to cut 330 calories there (110 calories per tortilla).
Using the daily plate, it says my daily intake goal is 2599 calories to lose 1 pound a week and 2,099 calories to lose 2 pounds a week. Whose with me for this year's Tour das Hugel?
Ride enough with Roadies and you'll soon find out that there is a certain distain for triathletes on the road. I've heard it several times on this topic the tri-guys are terrible in a group and how they can't climb. I've seen it both ways where there's been climbers and guys that can handle themselves in a pack.
You'd think with as much stereotyping that triathletes get I would be apprehensive about this latest news, but my son Jack (9), is signed up for his first triathlon. The race consists of a 100 meter swim, 2.8 mile bike and .6 mile run. He has the swimming and biking in the bag as this summer he really concentrated on his swimming and joined the Nitro swim team last month. Actually the run probably won't be too bad for him either, but Jennifer is out of commission with an ITB injury, so that leaves me to go out on runs with him. I'm not overly excited to be hoofing around the neighborhood so I'll probably either ride my bike or wear inline skates and skate while he runs.
I foresee many more of these in our future not just for Jack but also Ethan and Zeb. Triathlons for kids at this age are a great way to get into competition and training instead of just focusing on one sport. Also it gives the younger kids an opportunity to compete. USA Cycling races don't start an age classification until the age of 10. Plus finding races that offer a 10-14 year old category is fairly sparse. The triathlons seem to start the kids around age 5 or 6 and here in the Austin area there are plenty to sign up for. Be on the lookout for race reports from Jack and his brothers. Now I have to figure out how these triathlons work and what to expect in the transition area.
Jack at the Driveway Race Series from July
Jack and Ethan showing off their medals from the Driveway Race Series. All I need to do is write Cutters on their shirts and they are set, and no that wasn't planned, it's the shirts they like to ride their bikes in.
Due to the recent rain my game plan going into today's Chappell Hill Bank Classic Road Race was to show up and hopefully the rain would keep the other 49 riders in my category away. At the very least it would dwindle the numbers down and hopefully then I could out sprint everybody at the finish. Of course the weather in Chappell Hill didn't cooperate, as the start approached the sun was coming out and there was very little signs of the rain the days prior. With that plan out the window I'd have to saddle up and go with the plan B.
Plan B was to stay up near the front and see what happens between the last 20 to 5 miles. My main goal was to finish ahead of the wheel truck. Let me get to the meat of this post, what mistakes I made and in the process hopefully it will detail the race.
Mistakes: 1. Didn't hydrate properly: I brought 3 bottles. 1 bottle of Heed (Strawberry), 1 bottle of Perpetuem (Cafe Latte) and 1 bottle of water in my jersey pocket. I also had Endurolytes for electrolye replacement. The plan was to start with the bottle of Heed to get me thru the first hour. At the 1 hour mark take the Endurolytes. The next hour I'd consume the Perpetuem, that should get me pretty close to the finish and if I needed more to drink I would drink the water.
This has worked for me on other races and group rides, but like a dote I got caught up in the race and didn't finish the 1st bottle till around the 1 hour 30 minute mark. I also forgot the Endurolytes until it was too late. At about the 1:45 point as I was countering an attack my left quad started to cramp. Luckily I caught onto the back of the group and was able to sit in and take my Endurolytes. A few miles later I felt fine and thought the worse was behind me.
2. I did too much work at the front. When I was walking my wheels up to the wheel pit before the stop I ran into Scott Dalhover(AT&T/Brain & Spine). He gave me some pointers on the course and some good advice. He said to stay near the front but don't do too much work, he pointed out that the guys that are doing the work early usually don't finish there. He also said I should try to break away somewhere on the last lap.
As it turns out I think I did too much work as I was up front the first 45 miles. I took my share of pulls. There were a few guys that wouldn't pull through at all. They got chastised for their lack of work but still just sat in. I did try to let Bike Barn pull me around as best I can. They had the highest number of riders in the field and seemed to be the most organized. I don't think this was a big mistake I was able to stay with all attacks and gave it a shot at the end.
3. Missed the winning break. I stayed with any attacks and attempts as not to get left out. I especially paid attention whenever a Bike Barn rider would initiate the attack as I knew they were working for someone, I just wasn't sure who they had designated to watch for. Around mile 30 a rider got away and had a 1 minute lead. I tried to initiate a few attacks to see about bridging the gap but I couldn't get anybody to go with me and found a little head wind, more than what I wanted to attempt solo. After one attempt a Bike Barn rider went and he had the legs to get up to the guy who was soloing. I'm pretty sure he caught him. As I saw him go I knew that I missed my opportunity. With the 2 off the front the paced slowed down a bit as Bike Barn wasn't going to pull the pack up to their breakaway rider. It was soon after this point that my quad cramped.
With 5 miles left I felt pretty good and had a decision to make, I could sit in and go for the pack finish and if I was lucky get in the top 10. The other possibility was to leave it all on the course and see if I could go for 3rd place and maybe even catch the 2 that had the minute lead on us. I moved up as the front was still not putting out a hard effort so I easily got to the front. I then stepped on the gas as best I could.
I didn't get the gap that I was hoping for and as I looked back the front of the pack was just a few seconds back. Then it happened, my left leg was in a total knot. It was like my cub scout was practicing his knot tying on my leg. My hamstring felt like it was twisted around my leg, my quad and calf muscle seized up. I was quickly engulfed by the pack and spit out the back. I couldn't apply any power. Everyone dangled just in front of me. The next few miles was absolutely painful, the rollers that I was able to power up with no problems in the big ring had regulated me to shifting down to my 39 and gingerly crawl up. I tried to stand up on one and that was no help, everything started to tighten up, even the arch of my foot was getting into the action.
Luckily I was able to fight through it and maintain 22 mph through the ordeal, but the grandiose notion of a podium finish was dashed. The wheel truck behind me was breathing mercilessly down my neck. The roar of the engine kept me going. I had to push on to stay in front of it. When I got my second wind I started making up time and passed 4 or 5 guys that were getting spit off the back as the pack geared up for the finish.
This was by far my best race to date. I could have sat in and probably made it all the way with the pack, but where's the fun and glory in that. A lot of guys were doing that already, I wanted to give it a shot, lay it all out there. Now I know, I just didn't have it today, but more importantly I learned a hard and painful lesson. More importantly though I feel really good with my number pinning . In past races the numbers have been too loose and flopping in the wind or a corner came unpinned. At registration I snuck off with an extra 4 pins and used them on each of the numbers. The extra pins might weight me down a little but the added aerodynamics of not having floppy numbers makes up for it.
After my 48 hour waiting period I joined the Southwest Cycle Sport team ride on Sunday. It was quite fun to get out after 2 days off and with the drama of the past couple days behind me. We did the southwest route heading out on Bee Caves Rd to 360 to MoPac to William Cannon and then looping through the neighborhoods and coming back out on MoPac/45. When we reached the turn around point we headed back down MoPac. I was sitting about 3rd or 4th wheel behind Peter who was pulling the train along. From the back Jeremy, the current Cat 4 Time Trial champion and on his wheel was John. They passed us like nobodies business. I pulled out from the train when I saw that nobody was going to even attempt to catch the express train. I gave it a good hard effort to catch John's wheel. Luckily I got on and was pulled along at 32 mph. Towards the end John got burned up and dropped out what there was of Jeremy's draft. I moved up to Jeremy's wheel. After a little bit he started to slow up a tad and I moved ahead, that delusion of grander lasted all of 10 seconds as the headwind and the hill just sapped any bit of strength I had and Jeremy passed me back. We finished up the last .4 miles at a more sane pace and waited for the rest of the crew.
Some numbers of interest, when I was bridging the gap to John and Jeremy my max watts was 1052 and averaged 895 watts. Sitting in the draft I averaged 32.3 mph and 293 watts.
The other fun part of this route is the hills on Lost Creek Road. Only John and Greg from the group decided to partake in the hill joy. Not sure about Jeremy, he dropped us all on Southwest Parkway betting everybody back to the start. Everybody else opted for the easy route back to Bee Cave via Barton Creek Blvd. My strategy is to bomb down the hills getting a gap so I can ride up at my own pace. I made it almost to the top of Lost Creek before John caught up to me.
The 48 miles was a good way to get back into the swing of things and as always it's fun to ride with the Southwest Cycling Team.
For Monday Jeff and I decided to meet up in Bastrop to ride through the state parks. It's been almost 2 years since I rode through the park and that was part of Pedal Thru the Pines. You can't ask for better scenery and the hills are great. In fact the total climbing was 2917.98 feet for the 30 miles we rode. I must say this time through the park was a lot easier than what I remember. Jeff showed up sporting his snazzy Bike Pure jersey, very impressive.
A couple months back while at the RunFar Time Trial the Bike Noob asked me why I shaved my legs. I gave the standard roadie reasons about it being easier to clean up after a ride, this is especially so when I ride during lunch in wet weather. I can wipe down and not have dirt and grit encrusted in my leg hair. Getting compression socks on and off is a little easier, no hair pulling. And until recently my best answer was because it's tradition.
That is until recently, a couple months ago while shaving for a race I noticed a lump in my leg. I wasn't too worried about it but would bring it up at my yearly physical with my family Doctor. That appointment was last week, he ordered up an ultrasound of my legs to see what it was.
The ultrasound went down this Friday morning and I'm happy to say that "it's not a tumor", say it again but with a Schwarzenegger accent "it's not a tumor". It turned out to be a blood clot. It wasn't a fresh clot however, it's been in my leg for a little while, not sure if they'll be able to determine how long I've had it. At first my Doctor wasn't too worried about it, he told me to set up an appointment with my Hematologist next week and he ordered a prescription of blood thinners. At this point I was still set to race the next day in the Tour of Austin.
Of course Jennifer wanted to be sure that I was cleared to race, the Doc and me didn't talk whether or not I could race or should be racing so Jennifer wanted the peace of mind knowing that I wouldn't combust out on the road. His Friday office hours ended at 2 so by 2:10 when I called he was gone. Around 4 after much deliberation I called the after hours line and got ahold of him. We talked a bit about it and he said it would be best that I didn't go at race pace, he didn't have a problem with me riding just not at a threshold heart rate for at least 48 hours while the blood thinners kick in.
I was quite bummed that I wasn't going to race, I had high hopes for it. At least a pack finish anyway. I think the course suited me quite well and I like riding out in the Manda area and have ridden and raced out there before. I was contemplating going out to the race anyway and riding it but taking it easy. That way I would still get credit for the race in my pursuit to upgrading to cat 4. A couple things would happen if I did that, more than likely I would not be able to hold back and would go to hard. The second possibility would be that I would get in the way. In the end I just moped around the house in compression socks.
This week I'll get in to see my Hematologist and see what is going on. I've waited the 48 hours and I've been on a couple harder effort rides, not all out race pace, but enough to not be consider recovery or easy rides.
So without shaving my legs I would have probably never noticed the lump that led to further investigation. Who knows what it could have led to. Now I have a new reason to shave my legs and best of all I've won over Jennifer and she does not have a problem with the shaving tradition any more.
September is upon us and that means the UCI regulation regarding publicly announcing rider transfer and new contract negotionations has been lifted and everyone is free to talk and twitter.
You might recall from my Time Trial post on 8/25 how I just didn't seem to have it in my legs. They felt heavy and I was struggling. This has been common on most of my rides the past week or so. At first I thought it was some residual artifacts from the crash as I'm still bruised and swollen on the hip still (yes still, but it is starting to shrink).
Saturday I set out to do a 1 hour FTP test. The way I've been doing it is 20 minutes on my Twin Creeks circuit as this is where I do my smaller 20 minute tests and then complete the Volente Loop. The 1 hour mark should hit at the top of the 3 Sisters. Well at the end of the 20 minutes I was discouraged as once again I was not able to hold numbers I had a few months back. I just felt like I was riding through mud it was a struggle. I almost packed it in at that point, but I forged on to complete the next 40 minutes.
On the rest of the Volente Loop it was more of the same and when I got home the numbers were very discouraging. In essence my FTP has dropped by 30 watts!
Later that evening as I was washing my bike and cleaning the drive train I noticed that when I spun the rear wheel it didn't rotate smoothly. The rear break was rubbing against the rim. I fiddled with the wheel and break and got it to spin freely. At the time I didn't think anything of it. Until Sunday's ride.
My ride Sunday was late in the afternoon, I left at 3:30pm from Williamson County Regional Park. I was at the park for a soccer coaching clinic. I was expecting to spend 2 hours outside taking notes on drills, but spent the time being a demonstrator running through the drills as a player. By the end my left calf was cramping and I was hurting. I haven't had to run like that in ages, it wasn't the running so much but the cutting and sharp turns, my feet aren't use to it and rebelled with blisters. I started my ride already dehydrated and in the first 30 minutes had drank 2 of my 3 bottles. On Parmer I had to alter my course to venture to get more water, via CR 159.
With 3 fresh bottles of water I set out again, my cramping in the calf taken care of with a bottle of Hammer Heed. Heading North into the head wind, which I thought was the culprit for my heavy legs and once again the feeling like I was riding in mud. The thought of the prior days wheel problem I thought I should check it, I found a shady section on CR 258 and pulled over. I spun my rear wheel and once again it was not rolling smoothly and sticking. I messed with the brake to get it unengaged and started to ride again. This time it felt good, until I had to apply my brakes and there was that feeling of the mud again. Once again I hopped off and found the brake nearly fully clasped down on the rim. This time I found that whenever I would apply the break it would not spring back to it's open position. Thus whenever I would "fix" this before the minute I applied the breaks it would start rubbing and catching! I played with the tension on the break and I think I got it adjusted.
After this last adjustment it was like a weight was taken off me. I could feel a difference in my acceleration and my ability to hold my speed and power, in fact the headwind from the North wasn't so bad anymore. I'm not 100% sure if this has been the contributing factor to my lack luster rides the past week but it does seem to hold some truth to it. Not sure how long this rubbing has been happening, at the very least it could have been caused from the crash, but it could have been happening a lot longer. I had a similar problem when I got my PowerTap back from Saris, when I put the wheel back on the bike it wouldn't spin freely the brake was rubbing. I did the same thing as I did Saturday night when cleaning the bike, fiddling with it until it seemed to work.
Now I have my eye on it though so any slight feeling like I'm riding in mud and I'll be sure to check my brake. For the time being I'll keep my FTP lower and I won't go out of my way to do another 1 hour test. I'll see where my numbers are in the next 2 Time Trials and I'm debating signing up for Tour of Austin: Manda Shootout road race, that could give me a good indication where my level is at.
UPDATE:
It turns out I didn't fix my brake problem. It reared it's ugly head again while embarking out to do hill repeats up Far West. I did a quick detour over to Nelo's. It turned out the cable was corroded from sweat and water and wasn't moving freely in the cable housing.
Jack at the Driveway Race Series from July
Jack and Ethan showing off their medals from the Driveway Race Series. All I need to do is write Cutters on their shirts and they are set, and no that wasn't planned, it's the shirts they like to ride their bikes in.
