Training - Year End 2014

So Strava has this cool thing where you can put your year into a video of sorts.

Here is mine.

Presentation is everything - it's a generic presentation in terms of images and music but it makes it look so much better. It's like some pictures we had taken by a local photographer Matthew Wagner (he's the one that did our engagement and wedding pictures way back when) - instead of just reviewing the pictures the photographer did a presentation set to music. It made the images much more than just a picture, it made them emotional, vibrant.

Or, well, you can see for yourself.

My dad was so proud of me, I'm sure

Photo by Matthew J Wagner

So, like that, is the Strava thing.

My stats for the year are definitely on the lower side of things. In 2010 I did something like 450 hours, it's the only major stat I remember. I did something like 150 hours before the first Bethel, although I think I counted from December 2009 - November 2010. I was light, I was training, and the results showed.

This year was a bit less cycling focused, which was fine. The big thing was looking after Junior, who is 2 3/4 years old now. He's talking, he is learning like crazy, and he remembers obscure things from literally 6 months prior. At the doctor's office he pointed at a jar of tongue depressors.

"Sticks for the mouth."

The last time we'd been in a doctor's office was 6 months prior. I was shocked at his memory that moment.

That kind of stuff really overshadows anything I might accomplish cycling. Racing is fun, of course, but this is the end of my 32nd season of racing. I've been about as good as I can get in the past, I dedicated maybe 8 or 10 years to cycling 100%, and I'm totally okay with racing a bit less than at max.

I spent more time with Junior than getting ready to race this day.

I wouldn't have changed it if I could.

Photo by Matt Stuart, obviously

I did 158 hours this year. I did about 8,000 meters of elevation gain, so 24,000 feet. In terms of numbers it's not much. One rider that follows me on Strava would have done the same hours in 7 weeks; it took me 52.

I got about ten kudos for every hour I rode so that was nice. There are a lot of people that not only follow me but pay enough attention that they give me a thumbs up when I get a chance to ride the bike. To me this means the most. I recognize all the names, they're all people that I've become friends with in one cycling related way or another. Many are distant - I've never actually met them. Some I've corresponded with at length, giving them advice about racing and such.

The kudos they give me is sort of a manifestation of what drives me to continue with my involvement in the cycling community. I've been thinking about this a lot recently, the "why do I promote races" and "why do I offer help to other promoters".

I realized that it's not a business thing for me, although technically I'm trying to make money doing it. My accountant wife would argue from a fiscal point of view that since I'm minimally profitable it might be more efficient to not do any of it at all. She doesn't, of course, because she understands at some level, maybe better than I can define, what cycling means to me.

When I commit to someone to help them I'm committing to that person. I'm floored by the efforts and the results that two promoters make and get, those of White Plains and Tokeneke. Both events are things I wouldn't want to undertake on my own but the two pairs of promoters have gone out and created events out of nothing.

The kicker is that both promoters were first year promoters the first year I helped them. When you think about how much you didn't know when you first started racing, it's incredible to think about how much they accomplished going into these huge, full blown events without any experience promoting a race. The Silk City Cross race was also a first year event when I first helped, and the strength of the Expo team really helped pull together the event.

Anywho…

From a technical/bike point of view 2015 really had very little in terms of changes - no redoing my wheel set load out, no new frames, not even a new derailleur or anything like that. I did get my BB30 shells reamed so my bearings fit properly. This wa the first year my bike was semi-quiet.

Another thing was I got my custom stem, placing my drops properly relative to the bottom bracket (cranks). In 2013 I literally couldn't control my bike in sprints because my weight distribution was off just a bit. In 2014 I had no such problems.

Bike with my favorite wheel set, the Stinger 7/9 wheels.

I didn't realize how significant that was until a few months into the 2014 season. I won a lot of field sprints this year. Apparently the drops being 3 cm lower makes a different. Unfortunately none of those sprints were for a win. Still, though, it's better than last year, where I struggled in the sprints.

My only actual tangible prize this season was getting the bronze medal in the M45+ crit (Nutmeg and USAC).

Podium picture with Junior

With my minimal training I struggled at the limit to just finish races. By August my lack of training caught up with me - I got shelled in three races in rapid succession. At that point I decided to stop racing for the year.

I started to diet. I am lighter now than I was at any point earlier this year. I hope to continue the weight loss, to start the 2015 season at a lighter, more race able weight. I'm not as concerned with fitness, but whatever fitness I gain I want it to move a lighter, more efficient body.

2014 was good but 2015 will be better.

A huge thing for us is that the Missus is striking out on her own starting, well, tomorrow. Her first day will be January 5th, but technically today is her last day at her current firm. Tomorrow she'll be an independent small business owner.

The sign outside their office - the partner Harolyn surprised the Missus with the sign today.

In a parallel thought I need to start working. Being a stay at home dad has been great but it doesn't increase our income; I need to bring in some money from outside of the household. I'd like to stay in the cycling world for a number of reasons. The cycling world is realistically not as lucrative as, say, IT, but it's something that I've been passionate about for literally decades. In that time, as a couple friends pointed out, I've built some solid equity in the community.

However, the reality is that I need to earn money, and that could take form in any of a variety of career paths. Ultimately I don't know what I'll be doing for work.

Because of that I have no idea what my schedule will be like in 2015. This is why I can't think about training or race schedules or whatever. I have no idea what I'll be able to do so I can't plan on anything.  In a way it was sort of like when we wanted to start a family. With the unknown in front of us the only thing I could plan on was not making plans. I went into 2011 and 2012 without making any seasonal goals or plans. Back then I didn't want to share the family plan thing so I didn't say anything on the blog. This time it's not quite so sensitive so I'm okay with blurting it out.

Dieting is unique because it allows me to prepare for an unknown season. I can diet while looking after Junior. I can't do sprints while Junior sits at home or at the playground. I hope to be able to train, of course, but I simply don't know how that part of cycling will go.

I've been saying to people that we're going through a lot of changes here at this house. Change is almost always good, at least in my experience. Change is stressful though, which is why it's normal not to look for change. Therefore it's a bit stressful, yes, but I'm confident it'll be good.

Here's to a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2015!

Training - "Not Enough"

Realistically I'm not going to get posts up at the end of the month so before it gets too late I wanted to go over what I did for the year in terms of cycling.

Basically the theme of the 2014 racing season was, for me, "Not Enough". I didn't train enough, even for me, and it showed when the races started getting harder.

Not quite the end of the year but close…

Full Strava here, with all my rides from May 2012 on Strava

My numbers started well in January. I was doing a lot of trainer work, all JRA type rides with no structure, but things started to come along. I was watching what I ate without "dieting", and I hit my lowest weight for the season at that time.

Then I got sick.

There's a gap in January where I couldn't get on the bike. There was also a bunch of things I had to work out with the Bethel Spring Series so I lost a bunch of time.

By February the Bethel Spring Series stuff was in full swing. Typically I ride just a few times in February, relying on a massive January base. This year I made a bit more time and rode a bit more.

March and April were Bethel. The weather was atrocious, the race really stressful, and I wasn't motivated at all. Normally I don't train much during Bethel due to the extreme fatigue of holding the race. This year I managed some hours, but they tapered off dramatically by the end of the Series. With most of the races I did ending in breaks, I managed to win a few field sprints, but not for any real places.

April meant catching up with stuff that I'd neglected for the past three months and May was a bit more of the same. I didn't do any yard work at all (we live in an association place so the basics get handled but any deluxe stuff we do). In the past years I've gone out and done some minor work and got really bad poison ivy. This year I didn't - the poison ivy was so bad I had goosebumps just walking into our back yard.

By June I was more on track and the CCAP Tuesday Night Races really motivated me. I was doing the B races, mainly with 4s and 5s, and took on a mentoring role. June and July were, for me, really good months. I wasn't strong but I could help others with their racing. My favorites were when Heavy D and Aaron won the B races. I also had a good finish at Nutmeg in the M45+ race, winning the field sprint.

In August the lack of hours caught up with me. After suffering mightily and winning a B race with Heavy D's help, I had a trio of DNFs in quick succession. With no races on the agenda I decided it wasn't worth it to try to train too much.

In prior years I brought my bike when we visited family but this year the bike stayed at home. This meant gaps in the next few months. Also, with Junior being 2 1/2 years old, he really likes playing outside. Therefore my "good weather time" turned into playground time, not riding time.

Finally, in November, with my weight approaching my 2009 crash weight (when I was definitely fat), something clicked. I started dieting the week before Thanksgiving. It's been going well for a little over two weeks. My goal is to continue on for at least the month of December, and if the weight is still coming off, to continue in January.

I did do a ride yesterday, sort of on a lark, and ended up pedaling for two hours. I didn't have much more in me, with my wattage dropping into the 80-90w range at the end of the ride, so that's about my limit right now.

And that's my year.

Goal for 2015 (picture courtesy RTC):

158 lbs, give or take.

I'm even wearing a vest.

From this year 2014, in a sprint where I'm sitting up:

175 lbs, give or take.

Yeah.

Racing - August 12, 2014, CCAP Tuesday Night Race, Bs, VW Drop Off and Field Sprint

Ah, Tuesday.

For me Tuesday has come to mean Tuesday Night Races at the Rent. This year CCAP has been holding the races. The main effect for me is that I can do the B race, now a Cat 3-4-5 race, instead of doing the A race, now primarily a P-1-2 race (but 3s do enter it).

Tuesdays have also come to mean "Junior goes to daycare in the morning". He loves it now, with all sorts of new stimuli present, slightly older kids, and all sorts of fun stuff to do. I can drop him off somewhat early in the morning, leaving me to do errands.

This Tuesday I brought our Golf TDI in for its 30k service. It's a "free" service if you will (I know, nothing is free, but we don't pay for anything when it's done). We knew that we got the car in August three years ago after we found out that the Missus was carrying Junior. Therefore we needed to get the car in sometime this month so we would get in under the "36k / 3 year" window for service.

I brought my bike and my computer so that I could either hang out and type away on the computer (if the service would take an hour or less) or so that I could ride home (longer than an hour service). When they told me that the service alone would take 90 minutes, plus two minor things I asked them to check, I kitted up and rode out.

First Ride

No gloves. One handed.

I realized I forgot my gloves. I'd washed them but I think they ended up in some shirt or something. At any rate they weren't in my helmet, not in my electronic stuff (SRM, phone), so whatever, I could still ride so I rode. I told myself I had to find them when I got back home.

I happened to be riding one handed when I looked down - I think I was checking back or seeing if my key was in my pocket or something. Anyway in normal situations the most stable one handed position is to hold the bars near the stem. This is because you exert less force on the bars, allowing the bike to track naturally on its own. It's safer in general. The only time this isn't the case is if there is extraordinary force on the front wheel, like you're in mud, or if you're carrying something that might get caught in the front wheel like a jacket or a gallon of milk.

1:28 track stand.

I did a track stand as usual at the light. The only thing was this was a big intersection with a lot of different lanes taking turns. The trackstand ended up being a minute 28 seconds long. I thought about putting a foot down a few times and each time I thought, "Oh, it'll be green soon." That went on for 88 seconds.

First truck, sort of.

Tuesday's races get canceled if it rains. The races are about fun and learning in a safe environment. It's not really ideal when it's raining so the consensus has been to cancel if it rains. That's all good but it makes for some anxious moments when the forecast doesn't cooperate.

This Tuesday it was supposed to start raining, but it was hard to tell exactly when it would start raining hard enough to cancel the race. I started feeling drops of water riding back from the dealer so I figured the race would get called. This meant that this would be my only ride of the day.

Therefore I made some efforts.

I followed the first truck, above, at a distance. I held a high, steady effort, starting with a peak 900w jump, the draft significant enough even 80-100 feet back. When the truck stopped at a light and started up again I was too gassed to go with it, even with the truck's plodding acceleration. When I drove to the dealer I shifted into second gear after the dump truck in front of me was already in 4th gear, so they accelerate a bit slowly when loaded.

My teammate Aaron pointed something out to me last week - if I'd been training a bit more I could have pulled and then gotten back into the race. Instead I got shelled. Here I realized the same thing - if I'd been training I could have jumped with the truck a second time.

Second truck.

A second truck passed me and I jumped on again. This was a bit harder, I hit 1000w, and I was already a bit gassed so I needed to stay closer. I tried not to draft "behind" but instead "to the side". It helps even being to the side and I really didn't want to get into any trouble.

Third truck.

The third truck couldn't pull away from me - he passed me as we got into town. Therefore we did the polite, "You first" "No, you first" "No, you first" while he got up to speed. I let him take the lead and followed, trying to stay to the side again. 1100w jump to get going and I lost him when I slowed for a red light that turned green as soon as I backed away from the truck.

Between Rides

I was so tired that afternoon that I struggled to handle Junior. In addition he didn't take his normal 2-2.5 hour nap - he woke up after 30 minutes and that was that. I kept waiting for him to fall back asleep but he was having none of it. When he's tired he's cranky (wait, who am I talking about?) and it made it hard for me to do anything. Finally I had to put him in his bed, as fussy as he was, and tell him that "Daddy really needs to get some things done to get ready to go see bikes."

Junior sat in his bed and quietly read his Cars books.

Normally we try to leave at 4:50 or 4:55 PM. The drive, through rush hour traffic, can be tough, and we sometimes arrive at the course almost an hour later. This leaves me a few minutes to get ready and line up and although I can do it I prefer 15 minutes to get to the line, not 3.

With my distractions and absolute fatigue I hadn't gotten totally packed. With the Missus helping we finally got going at about 5:15. I thought we might even miss the race, but the traffic gods seemed to smile on us as it seemed everyone was on vacation. We even said to each other that the traffic seemed awfully sparse. We got to the race in record time, meaning we barely had to wait in bumper to bumper traffic.

Of course I could feel a rain drop or two on my arms as I got ready.

Normally I'd race for my Cat 4 teammates but, believe it or not, the ones at the race had upgraded to Cat 3 by now. Therefore we were all Cat 3s (it's just that I was a Cat 3 a couple decades longer) and we didn't have a Cat 4 to work for. Heavy D pointed at me and told me, "Dude, tonight you're going to win. We're working for you."

He has a way of saying things such that you don't argue.

I didn't argue.

On to the race!

Race (aka Second Ride)

Start of the race. Heavy D is #959.

Note threatening cloud patterns.

When a race gets called for weather the officials will just ring the bell to end the race in a lap, if they have the time. Earlier this year they had to actually just stop it, the rain just dumped on us in less than a minute. However, with the rain drops falling sporadically I hoped that we'd get at least a bell when they called the race.

If I were to do well I'd have to race at the front.

I'd done this before, in the A race, a long time ago (2010?). We started off, it started to rain, I pushed every lap like it was the last lap, we got the bell a lap or two later, I led out the sprint, and I won. It's the only A race I ever won and I felt like (and still feel like) it wasn't a true win. Part of it were the numbers - in that sprint I barely broke 900w when I jumped and my sprint was something like 800w average. It wasn't a strong sprint per se but I jumped as early as I could because I knew that the others would be distracted by the wet roads and the general unpleasantness of racing in the rain. At any rate I was hoping that if it actually started to rain I could do something similar.

With the wind pretty strong and steady this meant doing a lot of work to stay up front. A bunch of the riders were interested in blowing apart the field so attacks went as soon as the two neutral laps ended. With a blown apart field it makes it easier for those up front to win if the race suddenly gets shortened to "one lap to go".

Guy in green.

I don't know who the guy in green was but he impressed me with his pack riding skills and relative fitness. I say relative because he didn't go and lap us six times (that would be crazy impressive) but he could do everything he needed to in the race. I point him out because I noticed his riding in the first lap or three.

Heavy D chasing.

Heavy D and Nick, my two Cat 3 teammates in the race, did a lot of work to bring back breaks. I am definitely not a break type of person, else the blog name would have been something other than "sprinter of the house" or "house sprinter". Heavy D and Nick, even without decades of experience racing, figured that out pretty quickly when they first raced with me. Therefore they set about keeping the field together.

The whole time I was thinking, "Okay, we might get the bell in two laps, better stay up here."

Drop of rain on the lens.

Someone off the front.

A couple times the pace eased as someone went. In the picture above someone is going off the front, it might have been Heavy D chasing someone. The important bit is the rain drop though - it was like Damocle's sword hanging over our heads.

Gap opening up.

Heavy D could only respond to so many attacks and eventually a group went clear. Fortunately for me it wasn't just me going for the win, other riders wanted to do well also. CCAP's Juniors were super active in the race, pulling like mad. A Bicycle Depot racer, JC, in his first crit, also took massive pulls, following the thought that "If I'm at the front then I probably won't crash".

Gap closed.

Between the Juniors and a couple older-than-18 racers one of the more threatening groups came back to the fold.

Attack on the left. JC to the right.

I moved up a bit too far when the pace eased, sitting in the wind to the right, when someone went up the left side. It was a big attack and I couldn't follow. I was gassed from following moves and couldn't muster up the energy to do a jump into the wind. Note the Bike Depot rider JC riding point.

Splintering front.

Guy in green finally brought it together.

More riders went and the whole idea of keeping it together started to fade a bit. I wasn't sure where Heavy D or Nick were but the race started getting out of reach for me. I certainly didn't have the gas to get going and it seemed like a lot of the field's strength were riding at or off the front. Although some riders came back one guy stayed out there, looking pretty strong.

Then Heavy D rolled up to me.

Heavy D in the house.

He pulled for a massive few laps, keeping the break in reign, a huge steady effort, just trying to keep the game alive for me. To put things in perspective I put in one of the hardest 10 minute efforts I've put down while in this race, while sitting in behind Heavy D. He was realistically putting down an additional 150-200 watts which is crazy.

I had to remember that he lapped the field solo and I was actually chasing once he got clear of the field.

He's strong.

He couldn't quite catch the break but he kept him within 50-100 meters, so 8-15 seconds, give or take. A big effort would close that but for now his massive multi-lap pull kept the sprint in play.

Too gassed to follow a followable move.

Unfortunately I was too far up so I was eating a lot of wind even sitting behind Heavy D. When a move went up the right - and it wasn't super hard, it was more like a hard surge - I couldn't respond.

Heavy D looked at them, looked at me, and got himself going again. You could see the thoughts running though his head.

"Dude, that's the move, go. Yo! That's the move! Go. Go? Can you go? Aw, dang it, now I gotta pull again."

Heavy D dragged me around another lap or so, brought me up to the group, and finally pulled off to seek shelter.

Left side attack.

The last attack of the race went just before the lap cards popped up at 5 to go. A solo move went, I was actually on his wheel, but I was so cooked I chose not to go with him. I eased and slotted in near the front while the other guy took off.

He got surprisingly far off the front, holding about 15 or even 20 seconds for a bit.

Heavy D to the rescue.

Heavy D, watching from the back of the group (he was helping some of the Juniors and newer riders back there), realized that I needed him one more time. He went to the front, yelling at me to stay put, and started hammering again. I stayed further back, for more shelter, and watched him do his stuff. In this mano-a-mano pursuit he seemed to be stronger but it was touch and go for a few laps. Heavy D closed the gap a bit but before he could close it completely he finally blew and pulled off.

Three Juniors - Tom, Nick, and one other CCAP rider, along with the Bike Depot rider JC (remember he was in his first ever crit) and a Cycling Concepts rider, all took turns pulling hard. This kept the solo rider in check.

Finally, with about 2 to go, the gap stood at only a few seconds and the break rider sat up.

Bell lap.

At the bell another Junior, Jon, went rocketing up the road. ERRACE, the blue/red/yellow team, tried to get a leadout going, while a few of us waited just behind.

Turn One, last lap. Guy in green was up here.

I'd spent so much time nervous about the race getting called in a lap or two that I spent most of the race near the front. Therefore I didn't have to do anything to move up - I was already basically in place.

Turn Two, last lap.

At Turn Two it started to fragment. Someone made a big move, countered by two others.

Turn Three, last lap.

At the last turn, Turn Three, I was sitting fourth wheel but it wasn't tight at all. There were little gaps and guys were choosing their own lines. I was hoping that the guy in green didn't have a monster sprint because the gap behind him would spell the end of my race if he did.

Just about to jump. The first two riders just jumped in this picture.

I could have sworn I jumped through a gap but the image is pretty clear - there was no gap since there was no left side rider. Yes, there was a rider to my left, but he was clear of me and slightly behind my cranks.

I jumped hard, aiming to go through the gap to the left of the lead two riders. Big enough gap and no one in the way.

After a few seconds I checked my six (meaning behind me) by looking down.

No one on my wheel.

Check my six.

I went for a bit, about 10 seconds, checking a couple times, and decided to do a broader check. I eased and looked back, right and left.

No one was on my wheel.

I soft pedaled to the line, another 11 seconds.

No one passed me.

175 bpm, after the line.

Sprints happen so quickly that your heart rate climbs for a bit after the sprint. I'd peak at 178 bpm before my heart rate started to drop.

I apologized to the official for sprinting. I'd told her at the beginning of the Series that I wouldn't go for wins in the B race - it didn't seem fair - but she smiled and said that it was okay, it was fun to watch. Plus, as I realized later, my Cat 4 teammates in the race had upgraded to Cat 3, so we were all 3s.

I figured that it some way it wouldn't hurt to actually race so as to "legitimize" any advice I might have given out. For those who keep track of numbers I averaged about 170 watts for the race. I did a jump at 1185w, sprinted for 10 seconds averaging 964w, and did about 15 efforts that broke 600w (three of those were 1000w, 1100w, and the final 1185w jump).

After the race I hung out with Junior. He came running to me, arms extended - how could I not hang out with him? I managed to change, ate a burger and a hot dog (courtesy of ERRACE's BBQ night), and fiddled with an Expo Junior's bike (Jack). It needed a pretty aggressive derailleur adjustment (it got tweaked earlier that night). It was the first time I'd ridden a bike other than mine in a long, long time. SRAM shifters, even. I admit I rode it a couple times without a helmet until finally a light scolding and an offered helmet made me realize that, yeah, I need to set an example.

I'd forgotten my camera so no pictures from me.

With Jack's bike much better, with Junior starting to melt down (remember, he only napped half an hour during the day), we had to get going.

Pin job.

Although the day had started pretty poorly it all got better from the moment we all climbed into the car to head out to the race. I commented to the Missus when we were got home how lucky I am for what I have around me. She's very understanding, even when I'm stressed. Junior is also really understanding, he really, really wants to be good. He knows when I'm serious and he's good about being good when I'm serious about it (and I don't pull that very often, else it's no longer a "serious" thing).

Training - Back Issues

The last couple months I noticed something after my rides - my legs weren't sore. I mean, okay, that's good, right?

Well, yes, and no.

I've noticed in the past 5 or 10 years that it takes me longer to recover from muscle soreness, whether from lifting, riding, or even doing core exercises. I got used to that low grade soreness while walking down the stairs in the morning.

This summer, though, I haven't gotten very sore at all, not enough to notice.

To me part of this meant that I haven't been working hard enough muscularly. If my legs aren't sore then I'm not breaking down the muscle fibers. I understand that it's not always good to be sore, but I'd expect some soreness after harder rides.

So Sunday, when the Missus took Junior out shopping so I could ride, I went out with the express intent of making my legs sore.

I pushed bigger gears, pedaled at lower rpms, and pushed pretty consistently, doing two laps of my Quarry Road Loop. The first lap I stayed mainly on the tops, trying to stay on top of the bigger gears.

There's one little rise, literally a 2-3 pedal stroke "hill", on the loop. It's a little test, insignificant really, but an indicator of where I stood in terms of overall riding goodness.

Sunday I found that I went over it at about 20 mph. In 2010, when I weighed 20 pounds less, I'd regularly roll over it at 24-25 mph. For me this was a concrete example of what weight gain (and loss) does to my riding. I thought to myself that losing weight over the 2014 winter would be a good thing.

I did the second lap mainly on the drops because, frankly, my back was hurting and it felt much better on the drops. I actually rode it pretty well, covering the same loop about 45 seconds faster. The first lap I get a 35 mph running start into the first bit of Quarry Road (because I come off of a descent) so to do the second lap faster was significant. It meant that I pushed the whole time. It also probably meant that I was more aerodynamic in the drops, which makes sense also.

I arrived home pretty spent. My back ached pretty badly - it's really the only thing I noticed when I climbed off the bike. After cooling down and taking a shower I took "inventory" - legs were fine. Back was not, and in fact I couldn't lift Junior very easily.

The Missus noticed that I was favoring my back and tried to cover for me. The fact that I was that bad led me to think about how I haven't done any core work for a year or two. I did core stuff regularly in 2010 and didn't have back issues even with a lot of riding. I stopped, had such back issues in 2013 that I couldn't shovel snow, and in 2014 the Missus got me to buy a snow thrower so that I wouldn't have to shovel.

My thought is that my core strength is so low that it can't support the workload my legs. This is why my legs don't get sore after a race - I can't work them hard enough.

My back, on the other hand, has been bugging me this whole season. Therefore I need to work on my core. This will give me the base necessary to get my legs back into the mix, to work them hard enough to get sore.

The other thing is weight. My bike weight doesn't vary that much between racing and training wheels yet it feels really substantial. To lose six or seven times the difference would be astronomical yet I haven't done it.

When I went out on Sunday's ride I was wondering why my legs didn't get sore after some very hard races. I realized during and after that ride that it went further than that.

So for me the answer is clear.

Work on my core.

Work on losing weight.

See what happens in 2015.

Racing - 2014 Keith Berger Crit, Cat 3-4, 14th

After the thrashing I received yesterday I wasn't keen on the race today. The Keith Berger course, located in East Hartford, favors a longer final effort, something like a minute type effort, not the 20 second efforts that a New Britain or a Bethel requires. Since my minute numbers aren't that good I historically haven't done well here.

We'd spent a bit of time with family after the race Saturday so we got back pretty late, with Junior even refusing to go to sleep until we basically got home.

Sunday morning I woke up with really sore legs. In the last few months, for whatever reason, I don't get very sore. This is in my "1-2 hour a week training" period so I really didn't change much from one week to another. I suppose I don't race very hard (I sit in and hang on) and during my admittedly minimal training rides I go longer and sometimes harder than I do in a race. After those training rides, yes, my legs feel sore. After races, not so much.

The sore legs made me think that maybe I should actually warm up a bit because that helps when I have sore legs. Overall warm ups become more important to me as I train more. If my short rides are two hours and I'm doing 6 or 8 or 10 hours a week I need an hour warm up. If my short/only rides are an hour and I'm doing 1-3 hours a week then I really don't need much. Right now I'm in the latter schedule so warm ups haven't been important at all.

I worried a bit about my lack of speed, a problem I normally don't have. It's not sprint speed per se, it's the "sitting on the wheels in a tailwind section" kind of speed. It's what killed me at Ninigret yesterday and I knew that we'd have one tailwind straight at Berger. I hoped that my lack of speed was from not riding the day before, versus a lack of speed because I've been training just an hour or two a week.

Turning the camera on.

Before the race I rolled around to drop off a bottle, my camera, and say hi to some of the guys. I spoke with two of the 4s, Aaron and Nick. I warned them not to go out too hard, even though this was the "team race" (Expo helped man a lot of the marshal positions and with the hay bales and stuff - I didn't do anything except race and take pictures).

With a "hometown" race (Expo was one of the two clubs putting on the race, although we mainly supplied hours rather than venue experience) the temptation is to fly the colors early. The problem is that when you do that you're done for a bit and usually just as the hometown team collectively blows up the winning break goes up the road.

I didn't want that to happen so I told Aaron and Nick not to do that. With that said, and with a short talk on getting away (Lance, a Cat 3), that was that for any team talk.

The Missus and Junior found me, Junior all excited to see me again. He's at the age now (about 2 years and 3 months) where he gets really psyched to see us again, even if he just saw me a few minutes ago. He doesn't have massive anxiety when we leave either so it's nice. The separation bit isn't that painful now (no monkey-cling and the resulting finger-by-finger peeling him off of me while he screams bloody murder) and he's even more excited to see me when he sees me again. A nice combo.

Junior happy to see me.

We lined up, I sat at the back, the announcer (a racer as well as someone heavily involved in trying to make the sport grow) commented on my stem, and the race went off. The field seemed pretty solid, no real obvious new racers.

The pace was really, really high for the first few laps. I didn't know who was pushing it but I'd told the 4s (Aaron and Nick) not to go hard at the beginning.

Ultimately, as expected, the breaks came back, but only after a lot of hard chasing. Ends up that Joe, a Cat 3 Expo rider that's sort of unretired himself, traded turns attacking with Lance, pushing the pace, flying the colors. So much for that advice!

Joe, a long time racer, knew his limits and he knew that he'd be done quickly, therefore he did what he could before sitting up. Lance, after his forays off the front, drifted back to about where I sat to recover a bit.

During the race there were a few consistent bobbles in the field. Nothing like the rolled tubular from last year, or the clincher blowout that resulted in two pretty injured riders, so it's all relative. I caught a couple of the bobbles on the helmet cam.

Oops. Second turn.

The above was a relatively big bobble, especially since the rider that bobbled was on his own avoiding the curb. The problem was that he didn't need to avoid the curb - he'd have been close to it but not hit it. The resulting bobble was pretty big but fortunately no one went down, even the guy doing the sideways power slide.

The chase back on - I was the third rider after the gap - hurt me. The speed felt extremely uncomfortable but I knew that if I didn't hold on my race might end right there.

Wind from the right on this, the second straight.

Break is already at the corner.

The main crosswind hit us on the second straight, from the front right, which is sort of the norm here. Sometimes I ended up on the right and it felt much worse than in the middle or the left. I actually grinned once when the rider in front of me carefully and determinedly fought to move to the left safely, succeeding just seconds before we hit the second turn.

Another oops, second turn again.

The rider in the middle of the screen is headed directly away from me. Everyone else is heading right.

I've noticed that this year there haven't been a lot of guys cutting the inside, like a conspicuous lack of guys cutting off others at the curb. On the other hand I've seen a lot of guys go wide, too wide, and end up slowing to avoid the curb or falling when they hit it. Because I wasn't in the midst of the bobbles I couldn't tell if it was one or two riders consistently making the same mistake (aka they don't know), if it was a course "feature", or if it was just a "racing incident". I've noticed this at the Rent as well so I'm going to keep an eye out.

Regardless I think there was one crash and two really close calls due to riders almost stacking it up on the outside of the turn.

I found myself consciously slowing approaching a turn, giving myself a gap, and then cornering more along the inside than the outside. I rode through guys that had slowed for the bobbles without having to brake or otherwise waste too much energy.

Basically I'd go into the turn a bit slower, I'd start pedaling usually before the apex of the turn, and I'd be right on the wheel as we accelerated up to speed. Less time out of the draft, room to maneuver if something happened, and reasonable efficiency. It was certainly easier than sitting up near the front, something I have a hard time doing, and I still had a lot of time/room to adjust for bobbling riders. The clip will show that better but I wanted to point this out.

Clawing back on.

No bobbles or anything, I was just suffering.

All the smart riding won't make up for lack of fitness or speed. So although I may have been riding as optimally as I could, I still struggled with the pace. This particularly applied to the faster bit, the back stretch. There I struggled to hold wheels, coming off by some decent distances on some laps.
Ultimately, though, with cornering speeds lower than necessary, I could close up the gaps pretty easily in the next corner or two. This wasn't ideal and I'd rather have been controlling the gaps (aka "tail gunning" or letting the gap go on purpose to save energy), not worrying each time that I might not get on.

Bottle toss.

When I realized it was getting down into the last three or four laps I gave my mostly full bottle a heave. It's one of my two precious Podium Ice bottles so I tossed it near the Missus so she could retrieve it. You can see Junior watching as I tossed the bottle - hopefully he doesn't randomly toss his bottles when he goes for a ride on his bike.

At the bell.

I'm on Aaron's wheel. He's a new guy, strong and savvy. Strong, okay, everyone is strong, but he's a bit more familiar with the bumping and barging of crits because he comes from a motocross background. This is like a few other teammates of mine and they're all good in the turns. This raised my expectations for him and he's met them.

I didn't feel good enough to yell at him to bring me to the front - I think he'd have dropped me - but I felt like the team had potential. Thinking back I should have done something but I don't know what. I didn't know it at the time but Nick, another strong 4, had been close by as well, maybe even on my wheel.

I realized that since we don't race together as much I didn't know how we could best take advantage of our collective strengths. Since the Rents are the only times I've raced with them and we haven't finished together in any organized fashion yet, I had no idea how they'd react to various scenarios.

Even when I have an inkling sometimes people step it up a lot. For example in the last Bethel race, the Zwiedzanie, Joel went to lead me out. He'd blown up with about 300-350m to go the prior week so I hung back when he committed into the wind. I ended up in the wind a bit because he rode off the front of the field, dragging a few riders clear. I worked super hard just to draw even with him and he finally detonated only about 50-70 meters short of the line. If I'd stayed on his wheel I'd have had another 50 feet or so headstart, but since this was only the second time he tried to do something in the sprint I wasn't sure what would happen.

I also felt uncomfortable barking out a command or two because, frankly, we'd never been in this situation. I've been trying to help them win the B race but I either screw up (poor leadout moves) or they get caught in traffic. I didn't have a clear idea of what we could do so it made no sense for me to yell out much of anything at all.

After our race I watched the P123 race. The most active team really impressed me with its road captain barking out commands regularly. They ended up second, their leader simply outsprinted by the rider I thought would win, but they rode a superb race. I didn't see any tactical errors on their part.

First turn of the last lap.

At this point the race, for me, was static. I was just holding position, trying to gather my breath. I had no expectations, no plans for doing anything. Aaron has disappeared to the right. A guy had eased up in the middle, Aaron went right, I went left. After filling a hole or two I ended up at the first turn.

In retrospect I might have been able to move up a bit on the next stretch, after the first turn, but I think I was pretty cooked. I was relying on moving up on the long and wide backstretch so I sat and tried to recover just a bit.

Second turn of the last lap.

Number 812 did a superb job of cornering here. He hit the turn much faster than me and he cleanly slid through the gap ahead of me, ending up virtually on the inside curb. In a less experienced rider I'd have been worried but he did it so well, so smoothly, I was really impressed. I never felt endangered, I never needed to react. A good move. The only problem is that he left a gap - it seems like he was pretty blown.

I fought to stay on wheels but ended up dumped unceremoniously in the wind, in the middle of the group.

The fanning out on the back stretch, last lap.

You can see the typical fanning of the front. I wait for this and move up on the inside, sitting second or third row, gambling on finding an opening. However my legs wouldn't allow me to move up hard so I sat in the wind, a bit helpless. This is where fitness would have made a difference because I wouldn't have been back here, I'd have been 20-25 feet further up, right on the wheels, ready to pounce through an opening.

Third turn, last lap.

You can see that even though they slowed a bit I couldn't close the gap before the turn. This is all energy I had to expend and therefore didn't have for the sprint. I have maybe 20-25 pedal strokes in the sprint, and every hard pedal stroke here made my sprint that much shorter. I was holding about 32-33 mph here, so not ultra fast considering the fact that this was going to decide the race. My heart rate, on review, was about 170-171 bpm and holding steady, which is high for me. This explains why I couldn't move up quickly - I had very little left.

As we exited the third turn I pulled up right behind a few guys. They had slowed hard in the turn, mainly because guys tried to squeeze in from the inside.

Fourth turn, last lap.

I've obviously closed up, mainly because the front guys were slowing or the narrow third stretch made everyone string out a bit. I think the front guy was blowing up and the rest of them were waiting for the corner. I was going a steady 30 mph here, and my heart rate dropped a few beats per minute to 168 or so.

About when I sat up.

When I came out of the corner I did a few hard pedal strokes - my sprint was about 6 pedal strokes long, something like that, peaking at a relatively low 1075 watts. I was at 27 mph when I jumped, immediately went to 35 mph, and that was when I realized there was a lot of real estate to make up in not a lot of time, and in fact I think the winners were basically winning when I sat up.

In addition my jump was too weak to gain on anyone. At Nutmeg last week, when I hit a more respectable 1200-ish watts, I immediately gapped some riders. It helped that I was the first to jump and all that. In this sprint I only stayed even with the others. The rider to the left in the picture above? He was directly in front of me in the turn. Tactically speaking my sprint did nothing to change that.

On review my heart rate peaked at 171 just as I sprinted but only dropped from there. That means my sprint didn't really load up my aerobic system, showing just how little effort I put into it.

I didn't realize it until I reviewed the clip but I passed at least two people while I was coasting and may have pipped a third at the line. This put me at a non-pedaling 14th place, a great place considering the best I've done here is about a 10th (and I sprinted and blew).

For me, then, the finish was a bit of a disappointment. I was so far out of position that I didn't even feel like I could use my sprint, what I had left of it. Likewise, with teammates around but no plan, we couldn't coalesce and use our strength together to try and get a better result.

Junior greeting me after the race.

The Missus was a bit worried when I finally rolled back to the start/finish area. I think I'd coasted past her while shielded from view, so she didn't know if I'd stayed upright on the last lap.

Of course Junior doesn't understand that yet. He saw me and came running over. His first reaction is to grab a tire, then a skewer, then the brake lever. It was great to see his smiling face, his excitement.

I went looking for my bottle, which I saw bounce into one of those bushes there. Comically I couldn't find it, and after some digging around two other riders (father/son, Bethel regulars) came over to help me look. We really dug around a lot (no poison ivy, I was checking) and I finally found the bottle. It looked like someone dropped it in the middle of the bushes, and you had to peel back the layers just right to see it.

I didn't realize it until I watched that Cat 1-2 team work the P123 field afterward - the team needs to race together consistently to get the hang of different scenarios and appropriate tactics. It's a steep learning curve for everyone including myself. Two of my regular Cat 3 teammates last year, Chris and Joel, have backed off a lot from racing and two other regular teamamtes, Bryan and Jeff, have already essentially stopped racing this year. This really depleted our team of a few of our more experienced racers - the least experienced ones have been racing 3-4 years, and the most experienced ones for literally decades.

Of course it helps if I actually train and stuff. If I'm suffering at the back I can't do much at the front.

For training this week was a big one for me (relatively speaking for the last year or so), with four rides totaling 5 hours. Strava says I only did 37 minutes of rolling time at Berger when I really did about 65 minutes, so there's half an hour missing. I rode 6 hours in April, of which 3 hours was racing, and I did 8 hours in May, of which 3 hours was again racing. In June I'd done 4 or 5 hours before this week, bringing my total to 9-10 hours for the month.

My training log; for more info my Strava profile is here.

Considering the amount of training I've been (not) doing I can't be really unhappy with my racing. However to be there and not be able to do much, that's both frustrating and motivating. Going forward I want to be a bit more fit and I want to get the team to gel better. Both goals seem attainable to me, even with regular life stuff going on, so that's going to be focus for the rest of the year.

Tactics - Strava Playback

So the other day on bike forums someone mentioned that Strava lets you playback rides and such. I saw something about this but it didn't seem relevant to me. Meaning I almost never ride with anyone else and the majority of my training rides are indoors on a trainer, so Strava is more a public training diary than anything else.

Then someone said that he "watched" the playback of a race and saw someone stop for a lap and then jump back in, saying it was sort of funny to see it right there in "real life" if you will.

This made the "playback" feature seem a bit more interesting to me because I'm always curious about analyzing race tactics after the fact. Rehashing a race fascinates me because I have some solid data, like my power and heart rate numbers, my "perceived effort" memories, and a better understanding of what was happening around me.

I went to look for the "playback" feature on my Strava pages but couldn't find anything. Google rescued me - it's not really a "feature" yet, it's sort of in testing.

So this is how you do it.

First you need to go the Strava Laboratory.

The Strava Labs screen.

From there click on Activity Playback. This brings you to the Flyby Page.

The Flyby page, with a box up at the top right for putting in a URL.

Based on the name and the notes it seems that Strava put this in place so that if someone rides by you ("fly by") you can look for your activity and any Strava riders near you. I suppose that you could use this to learn about and follow a local rider, see if the rider that blew by you turned off and stopped, stuff like that.

For me, though, since no one rides past me while I'm on the trainer, my interest sits in recreating a race.

To look up an activity you need to go to one of your activities and copy the URL.

For my sake I'm going to use the last Bethel, the Zwiedzanie Bethel. The URL for my activity is
http://app.strava.com/activities/129982402

Copy/paste the URL/address from your actual activity.

I copy/paste that into the activity field in the Flyby Page.

My activity copy pasted into the Flyby box.

This brings up my activity plus a list of riders that were at the same location that day. Each name has three columns. The first is the green "C", for correlation. The higher this number the more likely the rider actually rode with you. For a race if the C is too low then the rider probably did a different category race. As a rule I find that anything over 50% is pretty good, it means they usually rode with me.

The second column is the purple "S", for spatial. This means the rider rode the same roads as you did. Obviously if they did a crit on the same course then the S will be high. I ignore this for race reviews since everyone does the same course, at least the ones I race.

The third column is the red "D", for distance. This just tells you how far the particular person rode. This is a sanity check since some riders will do a couple races or warm up for an hour or get shelled in a few minutes. I tend to ignore this also, but I think it would make sense if you were, say, checking to make sure riders completed a required loop (like in a road race, time trial, or gran fondo). It would help catch out those that sit out a few laps or do a shortcut.

Finally you can hover over each name to get the title of their ride. For the Bethel race I did the Cat 3-4 race so anything with some reference to that gets picked. Those that say M45 or P123 etc get skipped.

For me, then, I check off all the riders whose C value is over 50%, seeing if their activity title matches the Cat 3-4 race. A lot of people put non descriptive titles so it's hard to tell (like "Bethel race"). Obviously I recognize a few names so I make sure to get them checked off.

Then I hit play and see if it makes sense.

Each rider shows up with their avatar/picture in a circle. If you selected one that wasn't racing (or whatever) you can hover over the circle, get their name, and uncheck them from the list.

So during the race you can see things develop.

It also plays in fast forward so it's not an agonizingly slow thing. In fact you need to use the arrow buttons next to the play button to advance a frame at a time, else it's virtually impossible to watch detailed bits of playback.

Tip: the elapsed time seems to adjust automatically so you can sort of ignore it. For example I turn on Strava on my phone pretty early so that it's on when I go to the line. After I turned on Strava I took some podium pictures and such so there's a lot of time where I'm not moving at all, hence the weird time at the start of the race.

Start of the race.

If you do the same event as my example you'll see everyone lined up and waiting as I take some podium pictures. I hustle to the line and we start immediately.

The break develops.

In this particular race a massive break of 14 riders went clear. Since not everyone has Strava it's not clear but it would be cool to see a fully-Strava-equiped field in replay mode.

Field sprint at end of race.

In the field sprint we come close to catching those off the back of the break. I'm leading the charge up the hill and there are some break guys that are already at their cars. Others are blowing up at the line and barely moving.

So that's my short tutorial on Strava Flyby, the playback feature available on Strava.