Life - It's Been A While

So it's been a while since I posted, so much so that I actually forgot what I've posted about other than races.

I haven't posted in a while because life has gotten busy. I'm consciously putting away the computer for much of the time Junior is up (both to pay attention to him as well as to encourage me and him to do more "regular" play). Between the two (life, Junior) the blog sort of fell into a comatose state.

I'm going to present some sweeping things; later, I hope, I'll drill down into some of those broad statements and dissect them a bit. I think there will be stuff that I hope will help a variety of people. Some stuff is bike stuff, and perhaps people can learn from that. The other is life stuff and I think that's stuff that people will experience, are experiencing, or will experience. Hopefully someone gets something out of that as well.

Junior

First off, we have Junior, our now 3 3/4 year old son. He's been great, we love him to pieces, and we want the best for him. Part of that means making some changes for his benefit. One of those things has been to cut down dramatically on computer use, at least for me, on the days I'm with him. Before I used to still fiddle around on the computer while he was running around. Now I'd rather interact with him, or do "real life" stuff (chores or whatever). Also, once the computer comes out, he wants to watch whatever - YouTube (toys and such), Netflix (kid stuff), and, sometimes, my own bike race clips (his favorite is "When the racer turns green", my Zwift clip. The computer often sits off to the side now, to avoid distracting both him and me.

Junior, doing a fitting for his cousin's hat (that the Missus knit).

Work

The big thing for me was starting work, back in the summer. I tried not to make a big deal out of it because it was a sales job, and anything I wrote about the job could be construed as trying to sell stuff through my blog.

One thing that I'd never experienced is the massive "parental block" in place at work. Pretty much any streaming video, any motion gif, and anything with "blog" or "forum" or "news" or "mail" in it is blocked. Work specific sites are allowed, local competitors (but a couple manufacturer's sites were blocked for some reason, forcing me to view local competitors' sites to gather data), but overall it slashed any internet browsing down to virtually zilch. This meant no chipping away at blog posts or whatever.

I generally don't post about work and such but the picture below tells you about the job at least.

This car sat next to my desk for months.

Sort of karmically (is that a word?) I sold it yesterday.

Spring Series

Part of the reason for working was to pay for the Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series for this year. The races lost a lot of money, and I was still paying stuff off a few months later. I had to start working, partially to pay those bills.

This brings me to another major thing in my life - the Spring Series. I've been debating internally whether or not I can hold them in 2016. The big question is affordability - if I can't afford to hold the races then it doesn't make much sense holding them. I did a quick and dirty survey to see if racers would pay more (they would). I've promised to do my best to hold them in 2016. Based on the idea of a higher entry fee and the promise to hold the Series, I've informally secured two venues, the third is available (but nowhere near secured), allowing for five weeks of racing. 

Joel stepping into the trailer, 2014 Bethel Spring Series.

SPS

Then another life factor came into play. I'm sure I'll go into this a bit more later but for now I'm just labeling it "significant personal stuff" or SPS. It's significant because my expectation is that the SPS will do the following:

1. Make it realistically close to impossible to race for the foreseeable future, because I won't be able to get to the venue.

2. Make it realistically close to impossible to be at a venue to promote a race, because I won't be able to get to the venue.

3. Make it impossible to hold a job, because I won't be able to get to the office, or, if I'm working from home, I may not be able to get to the computer here.

4. Force me (and the Missus) to make some wholesale changes to our house, something we're starting to do already.

Therefore…

If you look at those things it appears that, first, I have to quit my job, because the race things have to do with next year, not right now, and we're already making changes to our house.

I tendered my resignation a couple weeks ago, effective a week from tomorrow.

I gave them as much notice as possible. Depending on how things go, it's possible that I return there, I don't know. I'd at least like to keep the option open. Plus it's the right thing to do.

(This also means that if you want a Cadillac, Fiat, Alfa, Maserati, Jaguar, or VW, let me know now. I can't promise anything deal wise but at least you'll have a friendly data point on pricing, you can learn about the cars, etc)

Next, it makes it seem virtually impossible to hold a Spring Series. I'm trying to make it possible to do the Series, I just need to figure out how. I'm working on it.

Finally, it's apparent that I won't be racing much this year. This I accept and I've already planned on doing, at most, one race next year. I hope to do that one race (whatever race, even a Tuesday Night training race would be fine) so that I can say I raced in 2016, but it'll be very, very tough to do.

In the meantime I'll have interim racing-related goals - return to my April 2015 weight (or lower), try to ride the trainer semi-regularly, and do some core/other stuff to keep my back okay. I also want to spend some time returning my second bike (the black one) back into working order. I spent the last two years without a real back up bike, and to me that's not good.

Zwift

In a future post I'll do some stuff on Zwift. Basically, for 2015, I managed to avoid training outdoors the entire year. Zwift was a big part of this, motivating me to do some big efforts on the trainer and keeping me fit enough to do some solid racing in the 2015 season. Before Zwift I never did sprints on the trainer and I rarely did "big efforts" longer than than a sprint.

So that's what's been going on here. I'd like to start posting a bit more regularly, perhaps with shorter but more frequent posts. I don't know.

Helmet Cam - 2015 Circuit de Walnut Hill, win

It's been a while but here's the first of what I hope to be a few clips from the 2015 race season. This will be the only one from the 2015 Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series - I was too sick during the first three weeks to have a ride worthy of a clip, even skipping the third week altogether.

This was the first outside ride of the year where I felt good, and only the fourth ride outside since an unusually warm Christmas time set of rides.

I'll let the video tell the story, although the text is here.

Enjoy!

Racing - 2015 Circuit Walnut Hill, Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series

I've been a bit negligent with the blog. I don't know how I'll approach writing about the last 5 weeks since it's no longer timely, but I'll deal with it somehow.

Of course, now that the busy period is almost over, I have something to write about, namely the last race of the 2015 Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series.

I didn't realize it at first but I'd been sick from the first ANSS race on. I blew in the first race after feeling horrible for 3/4 of the race, I stopped in the second after a similar horrific last 3/4 of the race, and I didn't even bother getting my number for the third. The Easter Sunday break, April 5th, worked out great for me as I finally worked through the full blown flu/cold/whatever I had. The process involved a couple days in bed, coughing up blood and such, but finally, like magic, things cleared up.

Training for the last 5 weeks - note that the week before the first race I basically stopped training.

Two more factors. I've been taking part in a VO2 max study in which I've promised to do two sets of 5 to 7 minute intervals each week, about an hour of riding (the one hour long midweek rides above are the intervals). Because of this commitment to someone else's thing I've been good about doing the study's efforts, despite feeling horrible and all that. In fact if I wasn't doing the study I realistically wouldn't have trained very much in March at all. As it was I often pushed back the Tue/Thu intervals to Wed/Fri because I was just too tired/fatigued/sick on Tuesday to do anything. These are very long efforts for me, something I normally don't do.

The other factor is Zwift. It's a new online game type thing that lets you ride virtually with others. Using a "dumb trainer", my CycleOps Fluid 2, along with an Ant+ speed/cadence sensor (I already had it for the 4iiii Sportsiiiis) and an Ant+ dongle (which I had to buy), I could ride on Zwift's island. This had the effect of motivating me to do some unusual efforts on the trainer, namely repeated 10 second max effort sprints to try and win the Green Jersey. Like the intervals above, these 10 second all out sprints are very atypical of my trainer workouts.

Zwift screenshot after my best Green Jersey sprint.

An 8 second sprint is about 1100w sustained on my trainer.

Just before the last Aetna race I also did a couple big efforts to try and get a real KOM time on Zwift island. It took me a solid 1:25 to get up the hill, another effort length totally out of the ordinary for me.

I'll do a post on Zwift so I'll leave it at that for now.

Part of my VO2 max study has me doing some core work. It's both relaxing and super good for my back, so that's helped a lot with both stress as well as just being able to function with a normal back.

I'll do a post on what I did, pending an okay from the testers, so I'll leave that as well for now.

So to recap I've been doing some different training on the trainer, mid-length intervals 5-7 minutes long, some 90 second efforts, and all out 10 second efforts. My core strength is up and my back feels much better than it did at the beginning of May.

As the last Aetna race approached I felt better overall health-wise. The big sign was when I went to get into the shower one day. You know how you have a set spot for the shower controls? You know that, okay, this is where you put it for the summer, this is where you put it for the winter, and if you go beyond this it's too hot.

Well I'd been running a fever of sorts for weeks, walking around feeling cold for weeks. My "normal spot" on the shower control was pretty hot because I'd be shivering whenever I got into the shower.

A couple days before the last race I got into the shower, temperature control set as normal based on the last month of showers, and immediately jumped out.

It was so hot I felt like I'd get scalded.

I checked to see if maybe I set it super hot but no, it was my normal for the last month and change. I couldn't believe how hot I had the shower set for the past month, and at the same time I felt like maybe I was finally getting better because that "comfortably warm" setting was now "uncomfortably hot".

Race day dawned pretty warm. No stresses about snow and such (more on that in later posts) so my morning was pretty relaxed.

It helped that the Missus prepared food enough for a good dozen hungry bike racing type people. I didn't have to worry about food throughout the day, eating twice, snacking once or twice. I had my first Coke since last November (or earlier). The staff were well in the groove of things so in terms of marshaling and registration things moved nice and smoothly. On the other hand I had to do the overall presentations and such so I was scrambling after each race.

Still, though, I managed to get my bike all set, a set of wheels in the wheel pit, pin my number, and my kit on.

The pin job.

I was ready to race.

(The only thing that I missed was that the SRM speed pickup got nudged so the SRM didn't auto-start when the race started. This meant I only captured 12 minutes of data when I looked at the SRM for the first time with basically 5 or so laps to go. That sort of illustrates how little I look at my SRM during a race.)

The Missus and Junior showed up but I barely had a chance to say hi to them before we started the race and we started the race a few minutes late so I could take the Women's podium pictures.

The race situation was that our teammate Stan was in the overall lead but he couldn't make this last race due to work. Therefore we had to try to shut out the second place guy, Mike, from the points. It was sort of tough because Mike is a good guy, a friend, and so maybe we weren't quite as cutthroat as we might have been.

Stan and Mike got all their points in breaks so we figured that the ideal situation would be to keep it together for a field sprint and try to keep Mike from scoring points by having other riders take the places in the field sprint. The alternate plan was if Mike showed up with his normal field-crushing legs (during the series he soloed to a win at a different race, 3 minutes ahead of the field) then we wanted at least 5 guys to go with him and have them all beat Mike at the finish. Heavy D would go with Mike and we hoped that another 4 "better sprinters" would join them. We needed to keep Mike at 6th or 7th place. If he got 5th he'd take the Series from Stan.

To be honest we'd all sort of given up on protecting the overall. When Mike is on form he can ride a whole field off his wheel. We felt more optimistic about preserving the team's overall lead in the team standings.

During one point early in the race I saw Mike moving up, carefully and in a calculated way, broadcasting his intent to attack. Heavy seemed in good position so I moved up hard, let Heavy know that Mike looked anxious, then did a big pull to try and stress the field. Such a move would encourage a break to go and if we could get a big enough group away then we'd had a chance at keeping Mike at 6th place.

Doing my "tempt the break to go" pull, holding 30-32 mph.

I happen to be going through the start/finish area.

Obviously if a group of 5 or fewer got away, with Mike in it, we'd have to bring them back.

Point was moot as Mike couldn't escape. Unbeknownst to us he'd done massive work the prior day at a different race, soloing for a while, bonking, and basically crushing himself for today.

So with Mike mysteriously not soloing away from us the laps counted down to the finish. The field stuck together, despite some strung out times, and things started looking good for the sprint.

And that meant it looked good for me.

This was the first week I felt healthy and the 20 pound weight loss compared to last year made the hill a good place, not a struggle. I held back on the hill most laps - if I made even a little move I'd move right to the front. It felt good and I figured that I could move up pretty hard on the hill on the last lap, get through the last turn in the top 5 or 7, and try to win the sprint like that.

Bell lap.

At the bell I was a bit far back, but that was okay. I felt pretty confident about being able to move up hard between the top of the hill and the last turn.

Getting a bit tight.

Note who's to the right?

Just after the start/finish, when the course curved left, things got a bit tight. I waited behind a Foundation rider (based on the helmet cam video), as the tactical situation seemed somewhat stable.

Green/yellow guy Kevin shows up to the right, this time for real.

I didn't know it but the key to my race showed up as we headed onto the backstretch. It was Kevin of Claremont Cycle Depot, the guy in the green/yellow kit to the right. He'd made the trip down from VT and didn't want to leave without making a go of it. He started moving up hard with half a lap to go.

Foundation rider and Kevin come together.

With a bit of wiggling going on the Foundation rider ended up contacting Kevin who had been following another rider up the right side.

Foundation rider pushing off.

After a little bit of contact the Foundation rider moved off. You can see how suddenly the others gave them a bit of room, with Kevin heading to the right to move away from the contact.

I used that contact to move over to Kevin's wheel.

I almost lost the wheel here as I started to run out of room after getting squeezed from the left.

This actually opened things for me as I ended up on Kevin's wheel. I wanted to be to the right, the wind protected side on the hill, so I could make my move/s. This meant not fighting to stay on the Foundation wheel. I wanted the right curb and Kevin was there so I moved onto his wheel.

Kevin starts to go.

As we hit the hill I was hoping that Kevin would go, else I'd be boxed in. Fortunately for me he started going. At first I just felt relief as I didn't have to squeeze all the way right. I expected him to tuck in just behind the front but Kevin kept accelerating.

Hard.

Rear wheel skip.

He actually dug his pedal, skipping his wheel to the side, and kept going full gas. I closed up over the top of the hill, the bit where I felt best on this course. I was feeling good, letting myself do some work without having to hold back. When I checked the power file after the race I saw that I'd done a pretty solid effort, doing an 800w jump to go with Kevin.

Kevin putting in a big dig.

Instead of looking around Kevin put his head down and kept going. He wasn't just moving up, he was making his last move for the race.

Kevin telling me to go.

Kevin eased (blew?) about 10 seconds after we went flying past the front. He turned to me and yelled, "Go! Go! If you don't go we're gonna lose!"

My first thought was that if I went then he would lose. I looked back and realized that we were just about leading out the field. In a thousand races I'd never have thought of going from the front but for some reason I went. I abandoned Kevin and try to get a gap before the last turn.

The view from Douglas, who was leading the field, as I jumped.

I was just a few meters in front.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

I jumped, the field a few lengths back, and thought for sure I was throwing away the race. I didn't do a full on jump because I figured I was leading out the field. I needed to do a fake jump, just enough to get the speed up, and then do a real jump out of the turn. So this effort was just over 600w, not even as hard as my initial surge to follow Kevin.

Kevin follows.

From the cameraman's point of view it looks ideal here.

He's sitting 3rd wheel with about 20 seconds left in the race.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

Kevin tried to go with me. Later he told me he wished there was one more guy because if one guy stayed on my wheel he'd have been able to respond. The reality is that if someone had been on my wheel I think both of us would have lost. Because Kevin looked like he was just off my wheel everyone figured he'd effectively neutralize my move and no one moved around him to get on my wheel.

Out of the last turn.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

I wasn't totally committed when I exited the turn because I thought everyone was on my wheel. I did another half-hearted jump, this one about 700w, just to get the speed up to something reasonable. I expected everyone to be on my wheel and I was hoping to do a real jump, 1000-1200w, when I had to out jump whoever was on my wheel.

Kevin didn't jump but I did my big jump when I saw I had a small gap.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

The key here was that Kevin didn't make a huge jump out of the last turn. I looked back, saw I had a gap, and realized that I absolutely had to go RIGHT NOW.

So I did.

I did my max effort, which after the three efforts in a few hundred meters, meant a relatively weak 900+w jump. For me, though, it was full on and I hoped that this would make it harder for those closing in on me. In fact I actually stretched out the gap.

I'm actually panicking up there.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

Because I had only 20 or 30 feet when I did my 900w jump, and I knew that the jump was way below my normal jump (1200+w), I figured that there'd be a couple guys that were doing a normal sprinter 1200w jump and closing in on me hard.

I struggled, shifted into the 11T as I started running out of pedal revs, and did a final dying-gasp 500w jump. I thought the imaginary 1200w jumpers were closing in fast and were about to blow by me at the line.

I'm actually throwing my bike at the line.

Still from Douglas's YouTube clip of the race.

My bike throw.

Not great form but I was so redlined I didn't want to crash myself doing a big bike throw.

I should have thrown the bike more forward, gotten my butt back further off the saddle.

At the line I threw my bike, to beat those guys about to swarm me. I was so tunnel visioned I couldn't even look back. I was shocked when no one flew by me, even more so when I looked down and back after the line.

Bike throw, my view.

I'm looking to the left to see who is there.

Looking back to the right.

Where were those 1200w jumpers?

Obviously it worked out for me.

Worked out for my teammate Stan as well. Ends up that Mike had a really hard last lap, getting forced over the yellow line and then later onto the grass. Not only did he not get 5th or better, he sat up before the finish.

With him not placing, with no one else up there from the overall classification, Stan kept the Verge Sport Leader's Jersey. The 10 points I got for winning ended up putting me on the podium for 3rd overall behind Stan (with 15 points) and Mike with 12 points.

It was a great way to finish the Series. I rarely win races, like really rarely, and I basically never win alone (once I did), so to win on that day, in that way… it was good.

Weird, too, to be honest.

I didn't really feel like I won. There was no one around me, no desperate lunge to the line while watching another guy throwing his bike next to me. I didn't get this feeling of "ultimate jump" to launch my bid for victory. It was a series of staggers, sort of, stumbling my way to the finish, winning despite myself.

Only when I saw Douglas's YouTube clip did it start seeming real.

I still have to do some work on the races, get the final overall published, thank sponsors and such, but I needed to get this post up.

Yeah.

And a final note. As a consolation prize Mike got his Cat 2 upgrade based on his incredible results from the last five weeks. So everything worked out in the end.

Promoting Races - Trailer Stuff Again

Although it's been cold and icy out we used the trailer to move some stuff into the Missus's office. I got to the office just ahead of everyone else so I had time to walk around inside the trailer and take a few pictures. I felt pretty good about all the stuff I'd done to make the trailer a better "race event" trailer.

Trailer backed up to the front doors of the office.

One big thing is that I'm much more at ease driving the trailer around. I'd like some lights down low so I can see how much clearance I have when, say, taking a slow turn with a snow bank on the inside, but otherwise I'm much more relaxed when pulling the trailer. I used to be a nervous wreck but now it's actually very soothing and comforting.

I do want to buy a stabilizer / weight distribution thing for the hitch. What it does is basically put a lever on the tow vehicle so the trailer doesn't pull down on just the ball, it pushes down on a long "bar" if you will so the tow vehicle gets loaded more equally front and rear. This would keep the rear of the tow vehicle from getting pulled down (and the front from being pulled up).

It also helps prevent the trailer from swaying in windy situations, typically when a semi passes me on the highway.

On this day, with a lot of running water freezing on the much colder ground, I also thought that getting snow tires for the trailer might be good. It'll be less prone to sliding on snow and in the summer it wouldn't make much of a difference. I run snows on the tow vehicle year round since I only put 1000-2000 miles on it a year and I wanted tires for the worst conditions, aka snow/ice.

One Day Licenses and Annual Renewals go in those bins.

I always lose track of the One Day and Annuals so I got an inexpensive bin set up to hold them. I keep blank forms in two pockets and put the filled in forms in the third. Makes it super easy to keep track of them, and since they're wall mounted it's hard to drop the folder or whatever.

The drawers are for the different categories, for numbers and releases. Put in a filled in release, pull out a number. It's easier to find a release if you need to get it. It's also neater than tossing all the releases into one box or bin.

Tables fold up but I leave them down. Legs unscrew when the tables are up.

Power outlet - the trailer is wired for 110v.

The circle is a little vent. There's one down low in the back, one up high in front. It's for air circulation.

The fuzzy thing hanging is a duster.

Carpe Diem Racing banner.

Carpe Diem Racing has a new site, revamped if you will. This will become the new central site for the events that CDR promotes or works.

Tape.

I have white duct tape for finish lines. The black duct tape is to border the while, but often it's not necessary. It's nice for a deluxe finish line though.

The blue painter's tape is for posting results. It makes it much easier to pull down all the tape at the end of the day. We also post any notes/signs/etc using the blue tape.

Yellow caution ribbon is for marking areas off-limits and such. I have a bundle of 50 cyclocross type stakes for staking out such areas.

Notes for registration folks from the last event we did, the 2014 Silk City Cross.

People inevitably ask about start times and such. We post that stuff between the two side windows so we have a copy and we don't waste 200 pages of paper printing out flyers that get tossed after a few views.

Tie down straps.

There's a bunch of stuff tied down in the trailer. I have more straps ready to go.

Note the lights? There are 12v dome lights, which I had on. There's also four 4' long 110v fluorescent lights which are not on - they're hooked to the 110v circuit.

Poster from the old days.

I wanted to put up a poster or two. This one is real, it was really signed by local star Mark McCormack and his teammate Bart Bowen. Ironically Mark's brother Frank didn't sign it but I've actually raced against him on a day I had the trailer at the race in 2014. I'll have to get him to sign the post if I can get him and the trailer in the same location.

Tables, sewer grate covers, cones, toilet paper.

Promoters can never have enough toilet paper. The day that you think you don't need more is the day that the portapotties weren't restocked and it's 77 degrees and sunny and 200 extra racers show up unexpectedly.

And there's no toilet paper.

I have 3 or 4 or 5 such packages strewn around the trailer and the tow vehicle.

You can see the top of one of the stacks of large cones. There are 10 or 12 in one stack, 13 or 15 in another.

Other things include a camera tripod, ladder, tall step stool, chairs, some other stuff.

Two tents.

Both have a couple broken pieces so I need to fix them up.

We moved a super heavy desk (visible) and two file cabinets on this trip. We stayed well below the trailer's 3500 lbs load limit, and I put the desk stuff over the rear axles. The trailer handled well.

Small cones, gas can, and a fire extinguisher.

After a minor engine fire back in the day I've been a fire extinguisher nut. The trailer has a dedicated fire extinguisher mounted to the wall. Go in the side door, look down and right, and it's there.

Small cones for minor things. I have about 6 or 8 left of the 20 or so original. I have about 6 or 8 left of the 20 or so old large cones. I have 25 new large cones.

I have to get a couple more things for the whole set up. Every year there's a refinement or two that I can do and this year is just like the others.

I'm starting to ramp up stuff for the new Aetna Nutmeg Spring Series. Stay tuned and hope to see you out there!