Training - Motivation

Dateline - Jan 18, 2007

(imagine the teletype noise chomping away in the background...)

I started writing this post at the beginning of last year, and although I peeked at it for the next twenty odd months, I didn't have the "stuff" to finish it off.

Now I do.

Yeah, I can say I get burnt out now and then. It's usually a function/result of non-cycling life events or stresses like work, family, personal, etc. But if the other things are under control, or if my escape for those stresses is cycling, then my cycling stays pretty consistent. Once I got into the rhythm of consistent racing when I was a kid, I rode about 50 weeks a year for 10-12 years, taking time off only for sickness (usually strep throat). Somehow, at the same time, I was extremely motivated virtually every month.

Now it's not like that too much.

I figure there are two or three levels of burnout.

An obvious one is where you are physically unable to recover, even after a day or three of rest. This type of physical burnout is difficult for me to attain because I simply can't push like that mentally anymore. The year I turned "Senior" (18 years old), though, was a different story. I started it off by doing well in a bunch of races, and thoroughly inspired, decided that I had to suddenly train 300-400 miles a week to attain my Cat 2 dream. I cranked the mileage way up and my speed dropped way down. I think I finished one race out of 50 or so, and I was slow whenever I got on the bike. I never allowed myself time to recover and kept digging myself deeper and deeper into the training hole. I stepped down the mileage and did much better the next year.

Physical burnout is difficult to handle. You are motivated to train so you've pushed yourself too far. The motivation is the problem - you have to keep it under control, allow the body to recover, and let the body recover before going crazy again. I found it extremely difficult to cut down my training time but I finally used my motivation to do so. Since then I half jokingly say that I've been recovering a lot, i.e. not training. But resting does help if it's preceded by a heavy training schedule, one that requires rest and recovery.

Sometimes the physical burnout is actually a symptom of a real problem. Deep rooted fatigue can be a sign of various viruses and such. I remember reading about various pros losing a season due to Epstein-something virus ("mono") or Lyme or some other seemingly minor inconvenience.

The other types of burnout are usually mental, one where the rider finds it hard to ride or race mentally, even though the body is capable. One is where you hate the bike, don't want to go near it. I've rarely been at that stage but when it happened I just accepted it as how it should be and stayed off the bike. This happened when I had serious problems in my life, beyond a selfish level, like when the shop closed, or when my mom was very ill. These thing transcended anything at a more self centered theme like relationships or school or other more transient things. I never hated the bike but I could walk by it and not think twice about it. I recall thinking that I'd been walking around a bike leaned up near the washing machine for weeks - I was so unconcerned with cycling that I didn't even feel like wheeling the bike elsewhere.

Another level of burn out is when I'm not motivated to train too much. I want to race but I find it hard to go out and do an hour or two on the bike. This type of attitude has dominated the last ten years of my racing - I find it extremely difficult to go and train consistently, even when working through various cycles of peaks and valleys. This happens because of being "busy" and not having time or energy to work out, although I also learned the hard way that a block of 150 hours is about my limit without taking a focused break from the bike. This means I can ride 150 hours in a pretty intense schedule (it took me about 3 months), then I need to take some time off the bike, then I can think about doing it again.

In this type of "mental fatigue" state, I try and allot times to work out, pinpointing nice days, writing off poor weather days for mental breaks. I think group rides are excellent for working through these periods, and group rides like Gimbles basically saved my riding many summers in a row.

Finally there are the days where I just don't feel motivated to ride, even though it might be, say, a nice weather day where I targeted a ride. Since this is the most common problem I have with training, I thought of ways to "fix" it.

I realized I rely on a few things to keep me focused when I feel less than motivated. This works for the second and third examples.
1. Coffee, Coke, etc. Any caffeinated drink with sugar.
2. Music to get my psyched. Videos don't work as well because I end up watching the whole thing and get engrossed in the race itself. This is on a trainer, but I'll play MP3s on my phone through my hands free earbud. I don't blast the music - I keep it pretty low, letting my memory fill in the musical blanks. The combination of memory and the subtle reminders emanating from the earbud gets me psyched though.
3. Try new equipment, or use race equipment. Sometimes I'll go out on race wheels to reward myself on a day where I need to make hard efforts. The light weight and fast acceleration makes it difficult to control myself just pulling away from the first stop sign.
4. Don't try and do mentally difficult things. This means going out to do two or three 30 minute efforts, or to try and get to a certain landmark in less than 90 minutes (a California thing for me). That's very hard mentally. But if I go out to get some sun and chase buses and trucks at three or four spots on my loop, well, mentally it's much more relaxing. Sometimes, if I take a time check at that particular landmark, I'll find that, hey, I got there in 87 minutes, and that was without trying.
5. Mental imagery during the ride. I used to do this all the time on easy rides. I'll do things like practice bike throws at shadows across the road, climb slowly but pretend I'm climbing fast, etc. When I learned hard musical passages on the violin, I'd play them slowly first, get the form and technique down, then accelerate the pace. These easy days are like that, going slow, honing technique, but not actually making the efforts physically.
6. Work on form. Pure cycling form, not the stuff I just described above. I'd focus on pedaling smoothly, no upper body movement, relaxed arms, etc. Keep track of cadence, keep it steady, ride the white line, and time starts to pass pretty quickly.
7. Do a big loop instead of a couple little ones. This is my favorite way of getting longer rides in - if I end up 50 miles away from home, my minimum ride is 50 miles. In the cooler months the shorter days add another motivating factor - darkness. I ride a lot quicker as the sun sets, and time really flies when you don't want it to.
8. Finally, I find that long rides on the trainer have enabled me to churn out some decent amount of time on the bike without getting overly burnt out. Because I've stuck out increasingly long rides on the trainer, I build endurance in a safe and controlled environment. Then, when I finally get outside, I end up riding a lot before I start getting those twinges and such. Time really flies when I'm outside, and I'll find myself doing 2 or 3 hours before I start wondering how long I've been out. I should point out that some of my trainer rides can extend well past a full movie (120 minutes). A regular ride is about an hour, a regular long ride is two hours, and a long ride is anything over 3 hours. This is actual pedaling time since that's what the computer seems to track.

Having said all that, with my job, house stuff, family stuff, Bethel stuff, car stuff, heck, even my back, I've been riding relatively infrequently. The house stuff is especially important since it's unsettling to not be settled.

I figure it's okay for now but this is building my motivation to ride dramatically. Although I'm not riding too much, my "burnout" level is actually quite low.

This means I just have to make time to ride.

Which means... I'm heading downstairs to ride.

After we move the new mattress to our bedroom.

Dateline: 20:48, 15 July, 2009

Yet another Mass Pike Rest Stop post.

This time, on the way to the track, I decided to risk all and go through without stopping (in a previous Dateline I explain that I stop to keep my average speed down). We'll see what happens. As it is, I got in the mail the EZPass statement, the first one with the tolls for the Mass Pike. And sure enough, the statement includes all the actual times. I'll have to figure out exactly how far it is, and therefore how fast I've been driving.

On second thought, maybe I won't.

Whatever, I rushed through because I had spent a lot of the day doing errand type stuff, things like trying to catch two kittens (negatory), clear a gutter (negatory, but I was soaked afterwards), wash the van (check, but didn't do the roof - I need a taller stepladder), eat (two protein shakes, some Chicken Picata from last night, and... um... oh, two hotdogs for breakfast), and, um, I think that's it. Well, pack the car. Drive the van around. Some other stuff.

I didn't change after my last venture into the shop's crawl space, so I'm wearing a shirt I normally reserve for private use - family, PJs, or scrounging around in a crawl space. It's an IT shirt that I got from ThinkGeek:

Yeah, it's a little obnoxious when in a non-IT environment.

I like this shirt for really just one reason. I mean, yeah, it reminds me that I did IT once, and I have some cursory knowledge of such things, but the other is my sister. She asked me what "root" meant, and I explained that it's the default superuser or admin on Linux servers. So if you're root, you're bad.

Like good bad, not bad bad.

Anyway, my sister digested this info, tilting her head, then perked up.

"If you're root, I must be a leaf or something."

So I can't help but think of my sister when I wear this shirt.

For everyone else, though, it's kind of obnoxious. Like I'm a gaming freak or something. People say hi, their eyes travel down my shirt, and then they look at me... differently.

But I digress. (And I just thought, holy smokes, this is going to be a long post... I better type quickly.)

Mass Pike, didn't stop. Yeah.

The reason I didn't stop is I wanted to get some warm-up in before the races launched at 6:15, and it takes me a good 15 or 20 minutes to get on the bike. So I drove all the way to the track, stopped and got gas ($2.69 for 93 octane - at home it's $2.69 for Regular), hit the john, and bought some PowerBar with protein, and a Gatorade (because I used a whole can of Gatorade mix in about a week). With that, off to the track.

I...

Before I go on, I should explain that I'm a rank novice on the track. I mean, yeah, I know a bit about bike tactics, and I'm able to pedal a bike, but that's about it. I have no clue about track racing, none whatsoever. I just fumble along and try and dredge up any old memories on tips and tricks and such.

Think of me as the clueless new racer at a crit. I don't know how my bike really works, I do dumb things every now and then, and I don't even know some of the wrong things I'm doing.

So, to continue, I... pulled my bike out of the car (using the chain holder I received as a present), put in the rear wheel, and adjusted it so the chain was really loose.

See, back in the day someone told me that the looser the chain, the better. That's only half true, but I'll explain later.

I also remembered my Liquid Fence Yard Net (mosquito repellent) and my Cutter spray. I also found out the blood sucking critters don't like oily suntan oil, and since I use that instead of heat rub in the summer, I sprayed it all over my exposed skin. I sprayed the Yard Net around my car, and Cutter on my jersey and shorts.

I walked out to the track with my squishy cooler, one my dad got from his last employer. It's really convenient, holds 6 to 8 bottles, and actually keeps things cool. I had my Gatorade (half gone before I got on the bike), two bottles of ice, two Cokes, and a Rock Star.

After popping a Coke (the second to be saved for the drive home, Rock Star got vetoed - too much peeing) and leaving one bottle of ice out (I forgot water, duh), I started rolling around, warming up. My legs felt really, really stiff, due to a bunch of riding I've done. In fact, my lack of posts is partially due to the incredible fatigue I've felt from the riding. This fatigue hints at my goals for the day - to just ride. I just hoped to make the drive worthwhile.

Then...

They brought the Moto out. The Moto is a small motorcycle, a regular one, with one roller attached to the back. It's used for the Keirin, to pace the field until 1 lap to go, but it's also a great tool for doing a steady warm-up.

It made an appearance a few weeks ago, and one thing I saw the Human Derny (Kurt from CycleLoft) do is skim the roller, making it turn.

I wanted to do that too.

So, with only one guy behind the Moto, I dove down the (slight) banking and took up second spot. And after a few laps, the first guy pulled off.

The Roller beckoned.

I tried to hit it, but my natural instincts were killing me - I'd get literally half an inch from it and my legs just automatically eased. Then we'd hit a corner, so I'd back off a bit (I didn't know what would happen if I hit it in a corner). I'd make another charge at it on the next straight, come within a hair of touching it, then back off for the corner (or is it a turn? I don't know - see? Clueless new racer).

After 5 or so laps of this, I had a small audience following me around. And it's kind of fun being the first rider behind the Moto, so I started feeling bad that I was hogging the spot.

But I had to spin the Roller.

It's like the brass ring on the merry go round, or, um, well, the brass ring.

Finally, I charged up to the roller, eased forward...

And it spun!

Ha!

I pulled up the track, smiling. I think I even made a "Yeah!" fist.

So.... at some point we started racing. Scratch, then a Miss N Out, a 20 lap Points race (4 sprints), a Keirin, and an "extra" race.

The Scratch is hit or miss for me. I either hang in there until the end, then I can demolish guys in the sprint, or they go hard and I get shelled.

Tonight I got shelled.

I also tried to coast in a turn. I asked someone later if I was super sketchy, and he smiled and said no, it was okay.

I don't believe him, but I'll try not to try to coast anymore.

Anyway, I got shelled. It reminded me that I really need to work on going fast for more than 2 laps at a time. It's really, really hard for me to do that.

I almost finished the Gatorade, but I figured I'd want it for later, and so I almost finished the Coke instead. And started sucking on the ice-filled bottle, trying to drink the water slowly puddling at the bottom.

Miss N Out, where the last rider each lap gets pulled. I usually get killed in this, and that's a pity because the last few riders ease after they're left, and then they do a match sprint. And I'd be good at that.

When they started out kind of easy, and I felt reasonably comfortable, I started getting my hopes up. I gambled on staying low, on folks not going too nuts to keep alive in the race, and...

I got eliminated. Dag.

I wasn't even breathing hard.

This boded well for the next race, the Points race, because I was pretty fresh and the other guys, they were kind of annihilated.

Of course, that's all relative. They shelled me in the Scratch race like nothing, so my freshness would be worth only a little.

I rolled with the first sprint, not trying to win, but looking for the inevitable counter. So I was up there as we crossed the line, looking around, alert.

No counter.

So, instead of hiding back in the field, I decided I would train. I had ended up at the front (I accelerated up to the line so kind of rolled past everyone by the turn) so I stayed there and went not-so-fast, but it was all I could do. Three or so laps later, just before the next sprint, everyone took off.

I was off the back.

Now, along the lines of "I need to train", one thing I really need to do is to be a better pursuiter, a better time trialer. So I decided that, "You know what, I really need to train."

And, like a clueless racer, I chased.

And chased. And chased.

10 laps. At least.

I sat up a couple times, just briefly, but I got so vested in my effort that I didn't want to give up. So I kept chasing and chasing. I knew everyone would feel kind of embarrassed for me, but, hey, I'm the clueless racer so I'm going to train.

Imagine my surprise when they announced the results. Apparently I got a point in that sprint, and because I finished, I got 6th.

Yay!

Training is hard, and my 10 lap time trial after my 3 lap time trial (at the front) really cooked me. I pretty much finished off the Coke, and dug into the last bits of the Gatorade.

Then, after watching the As show us how to do it, we did the Keirin race. Scott, a good guy I met the first time I raced at NEV, pointed out that second wheel was the best wheel.

I adjusted that mentally for me. If I can jump hard, I should be okay in third. Fourth would be acceptable but not desirable. Since the positions don't change too much during the 6 laps the Moto leads, it's really the start that's critical.

See, you start from a standing start, held by, in this case, the A racers. And you accelerate up to the Moto's speed, about 18-20 mph in this case. The Moto increases the pace until it's going 28 mph (for the Bs), then releases us on the backstretch just before the bell. So it's all out for one and a half laps.

The last time I did a Keirin, the Moto went to at least 30 mph, maybe higher, and I couldn't stay below the Blue line, about 6 or 8 feet from the bottom of the track.

But with the more casual 28 mph peak speed, it seemed a lot more manageable.

My new favorite holder Brooke (she's an A racer) held me more securely than my CycleOps does, and when the Moto went by, we were off.

I didn't get a great start, I didn't dig super deep into my reserves, and I ended up only fourth wheel on the Moto. Not bad, but definitely not that good. I thought about my ProCycling Manager 2008 game, where you do the Keirin, but the biggest thing I remembered is that if I tried to move up before the sprint, I had no sprint left.

Since that's about as much experience I have in a real Keirin (I sat up in the one I did a few weeks ago), I decided I'd gamble all in the last bit after the Moto pulled off.

As the speed climbed, I started second guessing myself, but committed to the plan, I didn't budge.

The moto pulled off and we went even faster. We flew by the bell, dove into the first turn, and I started realizing that I'd have to jump super, super hard to get by three guys at this speed.

So when we hit the backstretch, I jumped super, super hard. I dug into that reserve I hadn't touched when we started, I looked for reserves in my pinky nail, I mean I totally and absolutely killed myself to get going.

I got pretty much nowhere because everyone was flying.

I hit the final turn in third spot (the guy on the Moto's wheel led out and then blew, so he was out). Scott, crafty rider he is, had been in second spot, but the guy in third was a strong rider, and he came around Scott going down the backstretch, hence my jump doing nothing but drawing me even with the third guy Sam.

I was coming up on them but didn't think I could squeeze between them, like above Scott and below Sam, so I went above Sam. Like way the heck up the track, like I was going to Siberia.

I blew by Scott (he won't mind me saying that because he came up to me after the races and told me he couldn't believe how we went around him), but I couldn't quite get Sam.

I lunged desperately at the line, trying to eek out just another inch or two, then I heard some awful grinding racket coming from the back wheel. I felt all resistance disappear from the pedals, and I heard the distinctive noise of "chain in spokes".

I looked down and yep, my chain came off.

Freakin' clueless racer. Didn't tighten his chain enough.

Another new racer asked me if I'd gone to Kurt's (the Human Derny and pro track rider) clinic on track bikes.

Obviously I didn't.

Anyway, when you tighten a track wheel, you push on the side of the chain while you turn the cranks. If the chain doesn't come off, it's tight enough, no matter how loose it feels. But if it derails, it's too loose.

Since my chain popped back on just using my fingers, my chain had been too loose.

But I got second in the Keirin. Yay!

The encore race was a Handicap race. It's where racers start based on how fit (or not) they are, the idea being that the group comes together between 2 and 1 lap to go.

I started next to the Jamis guy from my first night of racing. For the life of me I can't remember his name, but he's a good guy, out to have fun racing on the track. He's also way more track savy than me, and he's also more fit.

We were the worst of the riders fitness-wise so we started in front. We'd be the rabbits dangling in front of the wolves. After I pulled twice, he quickly realized that, well, I need to train more. I slowed down so much when I pulled that he told me to just sit on.

Guys rapidly approached from behind - they'd started only about 50-80 meters behind us, and there were a bunch of them working together to catch the two of us.

Mr Jamis pulled like a madman for two laps, bringing us to the bell lap. When I looked across the track I couldn't see the other guys because they were so close behind us, and I didn't dare risk taking the time to look back as well, because, you know, I already made so many rookie mistakes I didn't want to go down and take out everyone with me.

I just knew they were there. And my legs were achy, tight, loaded with lactic acid, and I started feeling future guilty for Mr Jamis's huge and about-to-be-wasted effort.

But when I heard the bell, my legs suddenly felt awesome. Ready to sprint. Just aching to go. Something happened, maybe adrenaline, could it be?, but whatever it was, my legs were good to go.

So we hauled butt onto the backstretch, I took a little breath, and BAM I launched. I mean I freakin' launched hard, trying to take off like the planes from the nearby airport.

And there was no one in front of me. Just me and the finish line.

I tilted my head, looked 20-30 meters in front of me, dug in with the front of the bike, tried to emulate the Human Derny as much as I could when he won the Keirin...

And I flew across the line first. By a decent margin. No bike throws or lunges necessary.

Yay!

Now the topper. They gave away martinis as prizes. Martinis! So I got a couple for the missus to try.

Yay!

What's a martini anyway? I've only seen the glasses, but I don't know what they taste like. I guess we'll find out.

Dateline: 20:12, 13 May 2009

Yep, at it again. I actually don't need to lower my average speed tonight - I think I'm at about 65 for the average (the car says I've been doing 63, but earlier it was reading north of 70).

Anyway, this means I have another day of track riding under my belt. I could treat it like skiing:

"I did 21 days this year."

Or, for me, relating to the track:

"I've done six (or maybe seven) days so far."

Today's foray seemed less successful to me. Although I didn't race as well, that's okay - winning or not, ultimately I go to work hard, to explore limits. Today, though, I lacked pep. Felt flat.

We started with the Scratch race, as usual. I learned that this isn't a coincidence - it's designed to be a nice intro to the evening's racing.

I rolled out with everyone else but simply couldn't get into the pedals. I must have been fumbling around for a good 20 or 30 seconds, finally engaging the cleat on the backstretch. A bemused A racer, following the group to warm up, looked on with a slightly horrified look on his face.

With a big crowd, maybe 15 racers in the Bs, the pace should have been high. Instead, it seemed a bit flat. And after a couple riders had some contact (my first experience seeing two riders touch hard right in front of me - and without brakes, it was slightly perturbing), I moved up from my tailgun position.

Then, with a few gaps starting to appear, I moved up even more.

Eventually two guys went off, with a few others chasing. A few riders decided to sacrifice themselves to try and bring back the two man break, but as the laps wound down and the sacrificial riders blew left and right, I realized that it would take a hard effort to make it across, not just a bunch of pulls.

So at 4 to go, I jumped. Bridged. And managed to hide for one turn (the sun wasn't throwing down any illuminating shadows).

The next turn the two guys were looking across the track to check their advantage, and the second guy glanced down and saw three shadows. He quickly looked back, then to his right.

Hi.

I was too tired to wave but I really should have. As it was, the two had been metering their efforts, and as we approached the bell, they drilled it.

I shot out the back.

With half a lap to go I felt like a group of three chasers would swamp me at the finish, so I swung up the track, ceding third through fifth.

Next up - the Miss and Out. Like I said before, it's good to be slightly uptrack (to the right) of someone, then making sure you're in front of them at the line. I did this reasonably successfully last week, running into trouble when we were down in numbers and I couldn't sit on a wheel while sitting one row up the track.

The group rode pretty steadily, in tight formation. I should have sat there and waited out the race. I should have waited for the inevitable break, then bridge up to it (just not as hard as I bridged in the Scratch race).

Instead, I attacked.

Now, unusually, I was on the inside, pretty boxed in, when I went. I never really thought about attacking - my legs suddenly went, I veered into the only opening in front of me, and, as I squirted out into the open, I heard an surprised "Oh!" as I went by someone.

No contact, no weirdness, just some hollering to chase me down.

For the first time in many, many years I can say that I went off the front for two laps. 318 meter laps, but still, two laps. I looked back, trying to count the riders so I could get an idea of how many laps I had to survive, but after counting the last three riders thrice, I gave up.

(Hint - if doing a Miss and Out, count how many start the race before the race starts.)

Four riders separated themselves from the group, and with four riders the cut-off (meaning once four riders were left, the race stopped, and after a couple rest laps, they'd sprint for first through fourth), they were anxious to keep it to only four.

When I got caught, one of the protagonists from last week's racing yelled out, "If you get in after that, you better work!"

Little did he know that I was totally blown. I tried to hang in but couldn't close the gap, and finally, agonizingly, I had to sit up. The two guys on my wheel attacked each other, and the four in the lead rode away.

After that a guy from CycleLoft gave us some Madison lessons. The Madison, done right, looks something like this:



But that's now how we did it.

The important part of the madison is when you throw your teammate into the fray. Since that can be sort of dangerous, it's important to get the basics down. So we started working on that. I paired up with a guy who'd done this before so he was pretty good.

Me, on the other hand, I felt... not so good.

First we worked on sort of a sticky throw, meaning we didn't let go. It was a bit comical, watching guys fling one another forward and backwards. The idea with the hand sling is that one rider gives his momentum to the other, with a slight arm boost thrown in for good measure. Our illustrious instructor mentioned the example that one rider would go from 30 mph (race speed) to 20 mph (relief rider speed). The relief rider, getting tossed into the race, would go from 20 mph to 30 mph.

If you don't let go, though, it doesn't look very interesting. It's like watching kids learn how to play soccer - it's just a rumble around a ball. We yo-yo'd fore and aft, not unlike two guys on a railway hand car, until we had accelerated up to some unmanageable speed.


Next we actually let go. I felt less comfortable with this. I could toss him up to speed fine, but I wasn't smooth getting ramped up. Holding the drops and getting a hand sling didn't jibe well with me. We did a few extra practice throws for me, and then we stopped so they could get the A race Madison under way.

Apparently I looked pretty good though because the announcer, Dick Ring, asked if I'd be doing the actual Madison race. I smiled and declined.

Good thing, too, because I realized at some point that my left crank arm was wobbling around the bottom bracket axle. Jamming an incompatible crank onto said BB was, ultimately, unsuccessful.

I also realized that the frame is French threaded (!!!). French?! What were they thinking? I don't know, but what I do know if that the Italian BB I ordered won't fit. Arg.

Anyway, with that unfortunate revelation, the mosquitoes swarming, the temperature plummeting, and the light fading, I decided to call it a night.

The high point of the night - one of the four in the break in the Miss and Out (actually, he got fourth) called out my name.

"Nice move. Threading the needle."

Wink and a finger point.

I couldn't help but smile.

Dateline 20:45, 17 June 2009, Illustrated

With a lot of time to browse online recently, I've been... browsing online.

One of the things I've been looking for are pictures of the track racing I've done, partly to show the missus, partly because I'm curious about what the races look like from a slightly further "not on the bike" view.

In particular, I don't look around enough to see what's happening in the big picture. I don't feel comfortable doing that just yet - if I look around in the turns, I lose my composure, start going off line. I look on the straights a bit, but there aren't a lot of "straight" at a track. Ultimately I'd do some massive efforts unnecessarily - if I looked around a bit, I'd have realized I had a gap, and I could have eased a bit.

So when I finally found pictures on the web, I hoped that there'd be some of me. And, walla, there were!

Thanks to Craig Roth of the Boston-ish area for use of these pics. For the complete set of pics of the day, as well as tons of other pics, you can go to his Picasa album here. He spent a bit of time snapping shots during the evening, and I'm glad I got to see some of his work.

As a bonus, the pictures were of my one and only helmet cam race on the track so far. I haven't posted the clip yet, and I'm glad I didn't because I'll be incorporating the pictures in it. I meant to film a Keirin or two in August but unfortunately I was off the bike before I could get them.

So here, without any further ado, is a visual capture of the night-opening B-riders Scratch Race. It's like a crit - so many laps, first across the line wins.

I'm at the end of the railing, getting the helmet cam together. I stash my cooler there too, with electrolytes, a Coke, and water, along with some reusable ice-packs from our freezer at home. Brooke is on the right, talking to some teammates.

Brian set a steady tempo for a few laps early on. He accelerated relatively hard a little bit in, with no warning. When he saw the gaps he accelerated even harder. This was during that second acceleration. There are some decent gaps there.

It's hard to realize how critical even small gaps are on the track - unlike a road bike, you can't just shift up and roll the gap closed. You have to work hard to close gaps. I'm closing the gap to Brian here.

My token pull after Brian pulled off. I was tired after following Brian for so long, and having to close a couple gaps.

Two to go - a big effort by the guy at the front. I'm floundering a bit, but confident that things will open up.

Just about bell lap, and sure enough, things have opened up. I'm sitting second wheel on the sprint line, with a father/son pair making a move on the outside.

The move was pretty substantial and could have potentially swamped me on the back stretch. I glanced up track and realized this in time.

In order to protect my position, I move up a touch on the track in the first turn. With no brakes and no coasting, racers tend to be a bit more conservative in close quarters. This is almost as close as it gets for the track Cat 3s and 4s.

Note: the rider in blue, at the top of the banking, is an A rider watching the race. Racing on the track, at least at NEV, is informal enough on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings that you can roll around above the blue line during races. In the A races I'd roll around, watching the moves, taking in rider set-up and positions.

It's a huge disadvantage to ride further up than, say, about where the guy in orange is riding. The blue line is so far up it's pretty much impossible to make a pass without expending tons of reserves. Based on my expression, it seems I'm about to jump.

Jump successful. If I knew I had a gap like this, I would have eased on the way to the line. Instead I made an extremely hard effort to finish off the sprint. A huge waste of energy.

I tend to focus on the goal so I only saw the line. I have to learn to be more aware of what's going on around me. Right now, on the track, it takes a lot of mental energy to stay down in the sprinter's lane, so I don't look around much.

Since track races tend to be short, a typical track day will encompass multiple races. Although you may not need long term endurance to finish, say, a 5k bike race, it does require significant amounts of training to be able to race well towards the end of a day of track racing. One of the tricks to being successful on the track is to meter your efforts, doing as much work as you can to earn good finishes, but not use more than necessary. It's a tricky balance and something I still don't get.

Related to that is the importance to reacting to the "critical" parts of a race. When riders make 100% committed moves, the group usually fragments. It's imperative to follow moves, because if you get gapped off, you're dead. If such moves are made in the middle of the race, it usually means that a number of racers will be watching the finish from the sidelines. I've fallen victim to this several times. If the move happens at the end (i.e. if I'm around at the finish and have something left), then the group will fragment as it races for the finish. You must be able to react to mid-race attacks while still keeping a reserve for the final two to five laps.

The only time this isn't true is in the Keirin, since we only go 1.5 laps on our own. It's basically a fast neutralized race until 1.5 laps to go, and then everyone goes bananas. In 1.5 laps it's hard to totally shatter the other racers' legs.

Later that evening we did a pursuit.

I finished second last or so, about 20% slower than the winner. Here I look like I have an idea of what I'm doing, but it was just the start. Halfway in I just wanted to quit.

If I'd taken a lot off the top in the Scratch race, I'd have been a bit better here. Not much, admittedly, but a little. Also, if I had an idea of pace, it would have helped. You can see the cyclometer on the bars but on that week I didn't have the magnet nor the sensor for the magnet. The cyclometer sat there for show.

The moto for the Keirin.

The roller on the back allows a track racer (especially) to bump the bike without falling. I find it extremely difficult to overcome my natural instinct to get close to it. I did manage to warm up behind it, but never got within a foot of the roller. I watched one of the As, the Human Derny (Kurt) keep tapping it over and over.

The Keirin that night went poorly for me too. Since we had a combined As and Bs Keirin, the moto went a bit faster than I've ever been on the track. I could barely keep the bike down low and sat up, unsure of my ability to control my bike at higher speeds.

On the following Keirin day, a few weeks later, I bumped the roller in the warm up and won both the heat and the final in pretty tight finishes.

You give some, you take some. That's bike racing.

Dateline: 20:45, 17 June 2009

Yep, at the Mass Pike rest stop again.

This time, though, I didn't need any help bringing down my average speed. I think I've seen all of the "reconstruction" of the highways between Hartford and Boston. A long stretch on 93, a shorter one on 90 (Mass Pike), both times the highway down to one lane. A line of asphalt-laden trucks lines the closed lanes on 93, each one adding a few more yards of highway to the paver-thing.

I think it would take only a couple of those trucks to resurface NEV and take it up to something like 28 degrees banking.

I couldn't tell what was happening on the Pike - seemed like they were looking at a bridge or something.

Related to truck things, I passed a Freightliner Hybrid on the way to the track. I should have taken a picture since I can't find one quickly on the Web. It was a big red sleeper with two huge white boxes just behind the cab. Combined they would be about as big as a portapotty on its side, but they were actually two boxes. So a portapotty cut in half. The truck had all sorts of signs like "Experimental Vehicle", "Not for commercial use", and things like that.

Okay, why this obsession with trucks?

Other than calculating how many trucks it would take to haul a small 3,000 ton shipment of supplies - I read this in one of my tank tactics books, and, if they were 18 wheelers carrying 21 tons each, it would be 150 trucks, 60 feet long, so over a mile of trucks - what do trucks have to do with NEV?

I need to be a truck. Say "I need to be a truck."

I need to be able to truck along, do 26 or 27 second laps, lap after lap. It's critical for almost all the events on the track, Match Sprint and Chariot Race excluded. Diesel-like power, steady, smooth, endless and unrelenting.

All that I am not.

Let me explain.

See, I can't go fast for more than, oh, 1.5 laps. That's a problem when most races last more than that, especially when a bunch of them involve riding on your own for part of the distance.

We did a pursuit today, 3000 meters, and I'd pretty much get caught by every single guy out there. Meaning I'd be at least 30 seconds (one slow lap - a fast lap is about 25-26 seconds) behind. I did a 5 minute time, maybe 20 or 30 seconds more than that, for 9 laps. So 35-40 second laps. Other B racers got down to 4:01, so at least 2 laps better than me. Pretty much all of them were doing 27-30 second laps.

I'm just glad I didn't have a time trial set-up, because that would have been triply embarassing. As it was the initial cheers turned into sympathetic "Go, go, go!" type of things. And in a pursuit you can't just sit up. As one guy (the owner of Cycle-Loft, turns out) said to me, "I like the Australian Pursuit because you can stop at any time." The Individual Pursuit doesn't give you that option - you just go until you finish, no matter how pitiful your pedal stroke looks 2/3 of the way in.

Just because I went slow doesn't mean I didn't suffer. I rediscovered the taste of blood in my mouth, the result of breathing really hard and, apparently, bursting some of the air sacs in my lungs. I guess I rarely exert myself to that level because I can't remember the last time I had that metallic taste on my tongue.

Anyway, I figure I won the "Most Potential" award in the Pursuit.

We also did an Australian Pursuit, which is kind of like a free-for-all Pursuit. All the riders start spread out around the track and whoever gets caught is out.

I started well (I can accelerate), caught one guy, sat on his wheel for, oh, a millisecond, then thought I was about to get caught so I went blowing by him. Then, about half a lap later, I exploded.

Two guys streamed by me and I was out. No taste of blood, just numb legs.

Finally, we did a Keirin, complete with motorcycle (!!). We lined up, all being held, and the guy with the moto cruised by us. We all jumped and got on the moto's wheel. I decided I'd be crafty and move back a bit, so when guys started to nudge their way in, I'd let them. Then I'd just jump around everyone on the last lap.

Big mistake.

After 4.5 laps the moto pulled off, and the next 1.5 laps was balls to the wall sprinting.

The pace got so high I couldn't comfortably control the bike. I found myself going up the banking a bit, a good 5-8 feet, and after two of those turns I sat up. My big gear, which I thought would be an advantage, didn't make a difference. Since I couldn't keep the bike down on the racing line, it didn't matter what gear I had under me. Plus I was spinning the stupid gear so fast I couldn't accelerate if I wanted to.

This meant two things:
1. I have to learn how to stay on the racing line at high speeds.
2. When I sprint on my own, I'm not going that fast.
And when I do another Keirin, I'll fight for the 2nd or 3rd position.

The second realization above kind of depressed me because I thought I could sprint fast.

This stemmed from the very deceiving Scratch Race, the first race of the day every time we race at NEV. It's a simple, straight-forward race - first across the line wins. And tonight, with about 17 minutes left on the Nutmeg State Games tape, I had the helmet cam on.

Pressure on. I decided I'd tape only this race, since the Pursuit would be boring, the Australian Pursuit same, and I didn't think we'd do any other races. I decided I'd race selfishly to see if I could do well.

With some horsepower turned off (because they were saving it for the pursuit?), the group stayed intact for the whole 12 laps.

Good for me.

I closed a tiny gap at the beginning, when we were all joking around, but as the pace picked up, the group strung out. Brian, of last week's fame, went to the front and kept surging. The first one caught me completely off guard as I had to close a gap all of a sudden. Then he kept accelerating again and again, really ramping up the pace. But when he finally turned it off, no one wanted to continue the effort.

I found myself rotating to the front and I took a miniscule pull, trying to conserve my legs. Weak, I know, but I know that if I pulled even half a lap more, I'd have been cooked. And I had that camera so I had to put on a good show.

I tucked back in semi in front, but realized I'd blow pretty quickly up there and drifted back a couple more spots.

Then, as the laps wound down, I found myself second or third wheel. I flared out just a bit, moving up on the banking, protecting my forward lane. See, if someone rode up next to me, I wouldn't be able to move right to pass the guy in front. So I moved right in anticipation of needing that lane.

We hit the bell and guys started moving up and around me on the banking. I think I moved up just a touch more, trying to get myself some bike-rocking room.

Then, as we hit the backstretch, I jumped as hard as I freakin' could jump.

I drilled it to the line, even getting out of the saddle on the short main stretch.

A BF member Hocam, who'd made his first trip to the track, kind of indicated that the first jump had done the job. He was also surprised at how I'd made a, to quote a certain Miguel, "renaissance". He said I looked like I was suffering during the race (I was), but that in the last lap I suddenly had a big sprint (I did).

I felt good that I lived up to those famous words.

Now to work on the truck-stuff.

Dateline: 21:49, 6 May 2009

So I'm at some rest stop on the Mass Pike, trying to get my average speed down a bit. You know those tolls where you "get a ticket" then you pay when you get off the highway? I'm convinced that one day they'll hand out tickets.

You know, something like this:

"Hi. So... you got on at 495? And you're here... in 30 minutes? 40 miles in 30 minutes... let's see, that's 80 mph. So your total here will be $1.95 for the toll and $425 for a speeding ticket for averaging 15 over the limit for 30 minutes."

It's not happening, but I tell you, it will.

So I'm here, going 0 mph.

I'm up here because I was up further tonight, at the New England Velodrome (NEV). I came here last year, but I was doing the C/D races, the beginners. Tonight I raced the Bs and watched the As. A little different.

Over the winter I imagined myself getting a nice Jamis Sonik, or at least an aero front wheel, maybe a 49T chainring. I have a 50x15, and it's a monster gear at this particular track. Most guys run a 48 or 49, and they look smooth compared to my monster mashing style.

I didn't stop on the way up to the track, worried about traffic in the late afternoon, and with EZ Pass, I won't know if they're doing my speeding ticket thing until I get a statement next month. My worries ended up paranoia - I got to the track about 40 minutes before the racing started, giving me plenty of time to get ready.

I made one change to the bike so far - I installed a level stem (14 cm flat, not 14 cm pointed down) and one of my precious crit bars. I haven't measured the delta in position but it's significant. I did one practice sprint, and I barely had any rear wheel skip or unweighting. With my weight further back, the bike felt much more stable.

We did a bunch of races tonight - a Scratch race to start, then a Chariot race, a Miss and Out, an Unknown Distance, and finally a Points race.

The Scratch race should be ideal for me - it's a race where the first across the line wins. So it's like a crit on a 318 meter course with two turns. And you can pedal through the turns. I've been undefeated in the two Scratch races I did last year, and Scratch races make for good warm-ups, so I looked forward to doing this one. Unfortunately my legs didn't respond too well (perhaps my day off yesterday had something to do with this) and I sat up at some point just before the line, the race totally lost.

The Chariot race is a one lap drag race. Since I have the monster gear, I typically can't accelerate too well, so I figured this would be a short race for me. Surprisingly I managed to keep in contact with the leaders, but I didn't have the track to come around - we were five wide in the last turn and yours truly was waaaaaay up the track. I sat up for this one too.

The Miss And Out was interesting. I remembered my mentor (albeit for two days of track racing) telling me that you gotta be on the outside in a Miss And Out. You can keep a guy to the inside, then surge past him at the line. The inside guy is automatically boxed in, so he's in a weak position.

So I kept a guy to my inside, surged a bit, and found myself in a group of four. I'd been in the wind for a lot of the race, hanging to the side, and my body started to disintegrate. Tongue parched, legs going wobbly, upper body going numb, I had no idea what was going on. I sat one one guy's wheel and suddenly the other two sprinted around me. I was eliminated (but in 4th place) and the three guys went on to do a match sprint.

Dag.

I like match sprints.

At this point, being sort of alone all day, for the 2.5 hour drive, and then in my own world prepping for the race and then racing, I started doing what alone people do - talk to myself.

I actually said, out loud, "Something's wrong. I have to get a good sprint in."

And so, during a short neutral period, I went high on the banking, got out of the saddle, and positively cranked on the bike. Out of the saddle accelerating, then back on it, pedaling furiously around the last turn. No swinging wide, no problems holding the low line.

Gasping, I sat up and let the bike slow down. I got in another lap, trying to recover, and they called us to the line for the Unknown Distance race.

I wondered, a bit belatedly, if it was a good idea to do a full out, 100% sprint, just before the start of a race. I figured the others were wondering the same thing too, like, "Who is this joker?"

The Unknown Distance is exactly that, a race where suddenly they ring the bell. With more people they have longer races, and I think we had 10 or 14 racers. Not only that, they'd also ring the bell for a prime. My mentor said that Unknown Distance races were tough, and usually you gamble on a lap and just go for it.

However, with a prime lap, I knew there'd be at least one lap to go. Not only that, they forgot to put someone at the bell for two laps, so I knew it was okay for each of those laps. In other words, I could relax a bit.

Nonetheless, I tried to monitor the front. The three guys who won the Miss And Out were obvious targets, and I guessed that they'd ring the bell for the finish shortly after the prime, when everyone was struggling.

At some point the bell rang for the prime, three guys went, and the rider in front of me left a gap. I closed it quickly, waiting to pounce if they rang the bell again. They didn't, but the three guys kept it going, and along with a guy behind me, we pulled away from the rest.

A five rider race is much easier to handle than a 10 or 14 rider race.

We shelled one guy (well, not "we" since I could barely pull, so the other three), so it was down to four. I pulled through once, but then an A racer rolling around said that I shouldn't work, not with two guys on one team in the group. Basically we should let that team sacrifice one guy, and the three of us would sprint.

So when I was supposed to pull again, I declined. Since the guy in front pulled up the track, I followed him, and the two others dove through the big hole we left. As the guy in front of me dove down, with me on his wheel, the bell rang.

Fourth in line, and if someone really drilled it, it would be tough. But I think the guy in second, who I figured was the strongest of us all, he wanted to wait to jump. I had no choice - I had to go early because I was so far back.

I jumped on the backstretch, pulled up to and past the second guy, effectively boxing him in a la Miss and Out. The guy in front was dying, and as I went into the last turn, the race was mine to lose. Second guy finally got out from behind the dying leadout guy but it was too late.

Yay!

I guess my leg opening sprint worked.

I was hoping for something in the Points race. We did 20 laps, sprinting on every fifth lap. Since the last sprint is usually worth more, I decided to sit and watch the first sprint. I did, and a little group detached. It was the two teammates again, from the UD race, plus one of the guys that made that final group in the same race.

I was dying though, just dying. The Second guy from the UD race, one of the two teammates, took off just after the second sprint, dragging another with him. This left me and Second's teammate fighting for third place points.

I heard one guy say that whoever comes out of the last turn first will win the sprint, but the guy I was with looked pretty cooked. I felt cooked too, but I know I can sprint a bit even when I'm cooked. So when he jumped past me on the backstretch, I waited, figuring I'd pass him just before the line for third place points. I'm pretty sure I pulled it off. I actually pulled up to pull out of the race, but he slowed so much that I rolled back down and followed him. He didn't react so I think he thought I swung up because I felt like it, not because I wanted to quit.

Again, an A racer rolling along said that I shouldn't work, so I didn't, not really anyway, for two laps. I let him move me to the front with 2 to go, and led until we both jumped. I led at my speed, good for my monster gear, good for my style of jump. He should have tried to break my rhythm but I think he really was cooked. I led out from the backstretch and took the third place points for the last sprint.

Unfortunately the last sprint wasn't double points so I wasn't top 3, but that's okay. I learned a bit more with my two sprints, more than I knew before today.

All in all a decent night. I was on the bike for about 2.5 hours in total, racing maybe 10 or 15 minutes. I got in some decent sprints, learned how to take the turns better.

And I want to be much smoother. Watching the As, wow, they are "smooth like butta", as one guy once described his bike to us.

So goals for the future: build a lighter front wheel for my bike using parts I have laying around. Buy a couple Campy track axles so I can use my Zipp 440 and a Campy Record Crono tubular wheel I have in the garage. The latter would be a great track wheel - the braking surface is damaged, but the wheel rolls fine.

And get a slightly smaller gear. And learn to spin it well.

Time to get back on the road.

Dateline: 20:31, 20 May 2009

"Hey, how's it going? Um, I was wondering, could I install a crankset right now? ... It's okay if you don't have a free stand, I'll do it on the floor. When am I riding? Um, in about three hours... The track? Yeah, it's about, um, three hours away."

That was me talking, at the local shop.

With that I started my final task before I headed north for some NEV action.

I thought my frame was French threaded (with an Italian name frame, what was I thinking?). Well, the 26.6 mm seatpost threw me for a loop, making me think the frame was built along French standards. And my bleary eyes saw "38" on the bottom bracket cup instead of "36". Today, with clearer eyes, I saw that, in fact, it said 36x24.

Italian thread.

Therefore the crankset I ordered would fit, or, to be precise, the bottom bracket cups I ordered for the crankset I ordered would fit. I'd have pictures but I was in a hurry. I'll take "after the fact" shots though.

Suffice it to say that I figured out a way to uninstall the fixed cup without a fixed cup tool (use a vise to hold the cup, turn the frame), extracted the BB, and installed the cups for the new BB.

Backwards.

So I switched the left and right cups (Italian BBs do that, English ones don't because one side is reverse thread). Installed the cranks. Installed the shiny silver BMX chain. Thought about switching out the 48T chainring for my 50T. Looked at my watch. Nix the chainring swap.

25 minutes later, I left the shop with a virtually new drivetrain on the bike.

Note: I also had new brake pads on the blue car - and, curiously enough, the slight grinding noise while braking suddenly went away. I, of course, installed them today just before I left for the shop. I also managed to do some laundry - including the team kit in my gear bag. I did some dishes too, including the bottle in the car. And, of course, every time I walked by the window with Riley sitting on the sill, I'd pet her because she wasn't her normal skittish self. Of the other cats, Hal was most active. He just followed me around, meowing about all the things that cats meow about.

I got to the track with just a bit of time, maybe 20 minutes, before we gathered for the national anthem. Then it was off to the races - for me, it meant the B's - a Scratch race, a Snowball race, a Madison (!), and then some Match Sprints.

On the warm-up I realized the 48x15 felt much easier than the 50x15, but I was amazed that some of the good riders were using even lower gears (one a 48x17!). I figured I'd be good even with the change from the 50 to the 48 - I'd still have a bit taller gear than some guys.

The Scratch race is just a normal 15 lap race. We started off, me following this guy Will for a few laps. I remember him because last week he pointed out he was using a 48x14. I thought my 50x15 was big, a 48x14 is huge! This week he and I both rolled around on 48x15s during warm-up. Anyway, in the race, when he pulled off, I did a lap at the front, pulled off, and realized that my legs had difficulty spinning the 48x15.

Then someone attacked.

I went shooting off the back.

I simply couldn't spin the gear fast enough. My 175 mm @ 90 rpm road style didn't fit well with the 120 or whatever rpm I had to maintain to stay with the attacks, forget about launching one myself.

About 6 laps in I'd pulled off the racing line, and a lap or two later I was at the car. By the time the guys had sprinted for the finish, I'd removed the 50T ring from the old crank (luckily I did all that work on the way to the track, else I probably would have left it at home). Before the As finished their race my new crankset had my old 50T on it.

I felt a bit better now. At least I felt like I could hang onto the back of the group, if nothing else.

Of course, that's when someone pointed out, "Don't you want the lower gear for the sprints?"

Hm. I think I jump better with big gears. I'll stick with what I know.

The Snowball is an interesting race. It's sort of like an amortized points race. Only the winner gets the points, and on the first lap, there's only one point up for grabs. On the second, there are two. Third, three. And so on, up until 15 laps, where you can snag 15 points if you win that last sprint.

One guy went early and snagged all the "inexpensive" points, but his effort made him pull off the racing line once he got caught (he still got 4th or something). Then two more guys duked it out for a few laps, with me shadowing them, waiting for something, I don't know what, but something.

Then the guy on my wheel shot past me. I tried to go with him, out of the saddle and everything, but he'd gapped me good, and I started to explode, even with my 50x15. I looked back to see who else was there.

No one.

Oops.

I sat up and one of the two guys duking it out earlier rolled by me, maintaining a nice, even pace, one that was absolutely unsustainable by yours truly.

I pulled up the track and stopped.

It seems I'm good for maybe a couple laps (they're typically 25-30 seconds a lap), but when the guys start plugging away for 4 or 5 laps, 2 or 3 minutes, I'm totally cooked.

I spent the next bit of time talking to one of the regulars. He pointed out some of the riders, their strengths, their focus, stuff like that. One guy that impressed me in previous weeks (in the A races) with his staying power had actually been focusing on the Match Sprint the prior year. He definitely had some get up and go, but apparently he decided to do a more rounded program for 09. Still, though, he had this cool as nails disk wheel.

On to the Madison. My training partner from last week wasn't around, so I did some practice slings with the aforementioned Will. But we didn't mesh well with the slings and I almost pulled him off his bike or something. He declined doing the race, so I teamed up with one of the other guys I know there, Scotty.

Now, although Scotty is a good racer (we duked it out last year), we hadn't practiced a single sling, and therefore it was kind of sketchy. It's pretty easy being the slinger (the guy racing up to that point who slings their partner into the race). It's harder being the slingee (the relief rider who gets whipped up to race speed in about 10 feet). It's even harder when you're supposed to be racing other teams while you're slinging one another all over the track.

We got totally annihilated.

I didn't help much - at least Scotty could hang with the boys. I couldn't go more than a lap, but it takes two laps to catch your relief man, so I'd lose us a good half lap each time I got into the race. One lap, fine. Two laps, trouble. Again, that jump from 30 seconds of effort to 60 seconds killed me.

Still, though, we got in some good slings, and neither of us crashed (actually no one crashed). Chalk it up to experience. I figure it'll take a good year or two before I get it down, and I'll need to have a time-trial-y type of rider to complement my very sprinty type of riding.

I just have to figure out how I can sling my relief partner in after just one lap. Or extend my usable power time up to 60 seconds minimum.

Finally we had some match sprints. Nothing too organized, just some semi-random triplets assigned by Tony, the track director.

The first sprint saw me matched up against the guy who could go forever in the Snowball race (he was chasing the winner) and a young rider who was apparently using some low gear. My 50x15 was a huge advantage over the younger rider, and when the other guy jumped, he couldn't go with the move. It took me a few pedal strokes to get on the Forever guy's wheel, and my jump let me go around him on the back stretch. I drilled it to the line but Forever had sat up.

I watched a few sprints while I caught my breath, including one really entertaining one where the resident pro-type rider Kirk actually playfully head-butted a guy trying to pass him as the bell rang. Then he rode his two opponents up away from the sprint lane (the fastest lane, and once you're in it in the sprint, other riders can't be in it next to you). Finally he dropped down to the sprint lane and went for the line. I forget how he did, first or second, but it was great fun watching a good rider having fun on the track (he was another that used a super low gear, so he had to use his guile to help make up for his lack of top end speed).

Then Tony, another good rider using a low gear (and the guy in charge of the track), had me, him, and the aforementioned disk wheel guy go at it. Tony had that low gear so I knew I had to keep the pace higher, but the disk wheel would give the other guy a speed advantage. My only hope was that they'd be using lower gears than me, and I'd be able to get some top end speed that they couldn't hit.

I rolled at the front, aware that Tony's low gear would make it hard for me to match a jump. By keeping the speed higher, I hoped to keep Tony at bay. Then it'd be me and the disk wheel guy. I figured it'd be him or me based on Tony's low gear (and my strategy to use my big gear to my advantage, i.e. keep the initial pace high enough so I won't bog down when I jump).

Sure enough, Disk Wheel went, I went with him, and, no, he wasn't using a big gear. I jumped on the backstretch, passing him on the right. Incredibly Tony was there too, I felt him just behind to my right. Disk Wheel fought back pretty hard, but ultimately I managed to get around him.

I felt better about the second sprint because the one guy focused on sprinting the prior season, so the "win" felt more honorable. Honestly, though, I have a feeling that if Tony had any kind of normal gear on his bike, he'd have walked away with the sprint.

So a few things I learned about track racing:
1. There are Three Three Word phrases that you have to remember:
- Don't stop pedaling
- Stick, Stay, Rail
- Um... I forget the last one.

2. Good riders can spin little gears ridiculously fast. Big gears are a crutch for lack of "souplesse" or pedaling smoothness.

3. You have to practice slings to be able to do a Madison.

4. I like Match Sprints.

We'll see how the rest of the summer goes.

At this point, this week, I have two days of riding, of which two days were racing. My legs feel pretty normal after the wrecking I gave them Sunday. Next up on the riding agenda - the Hartford Crit (Bike Reg link here), coming up this Sunday.


(For those of you with RSS feeds, my laptop touchpad made me publish a post, so apologies for that)

Dateline: 20:28, 22 July 2009

I'm eating salad.

That's desperate, at least for me.

The racing went reasonably well, but once again I felt like a total newb. I learned more mechanical stuff, tried to throw my bike at the line (which, in a road sprint, would involve coasting), and I failed miserably at what I thought would be my best event, the match sprint.

Let's rehash.

First, the day started with some chores, like programming two garage door openers, the keypad and the one in the mirror of the blue car. I felt pretty pleased with myself when the door went up and down like magic. Little triumphs make life good.

I also went to clear out all the cat catching stuff from work, and managed to snag some awesome Panera's food (someone brought in a bag of stuff). I fed Grey, spotted White (the fixed male who really doesn't like me right now), and collected the trap, a carrier, and some other stuff.

I realized that I have a pretty solid fan base at work, probably the most supportive non-family (family includes the missus) family. Kim and Jill, the two daughters, always ask me about my racing. Sincerely, not just politely.

"Make us proud," Kim told me one day, when we were leaving work.
"You can win," Jill said once. I remembered that and dug extra deep in one of the Rent races when I thought about dropping out.

Karen, the mom, has always supported my racing, my leaving early on Tuesdays, the Wednesdays off, and even Saturdays for Bethel and Nutmeg. She's also very thoughtful about my whole mosquito thing, and today she gave me a wristband that has stuff in/on it to repel mosquitoes. For the record, while I had it on, I didn't get bitten on that arm.

I think I'll ask her if she has one for my other arm. And maybe one each for my ankles.

Anyway, it was nice to go to work and get all this support, and it set the tone for the day.

I brought the four kittens home (anyone want some kittens?), set them up in their room, packed up the car, and set off.

(btw, I can't believe it. There are mosquitoes in this McDonalds. And I used Active Wipes to clean myself off so I have no repellant on. This may be the shortest post ever.)

As in, "Okay, tonight I raced and then went home, itching all the way."

Okay, I'm just kidding.

I just got bit 4 times on my legs. Arg. And I am not kidding about that.

Where was I...

I got to the track in good time, put my bike together (rear wheel pretty tight so as not to drop the chain like I did last week), and said hi back to a few people that said hi to me. I realized that I'd forgotten my number so I had to get a new one. I didn't have any cash, just some change in the "ashtray", so I issued a verbal IOU to Tony for $3.

Hey, if Arnold can do it, so can I.

I decided I wouldn't kill myself in the Scratch race since I wanted to do some good sprints. I also wanted to work on holding a line when sprinting, so I did a partial sprint and did all the tricks I know to stay down on the inside of the track. I tilted my head, looked at where I wanted to go, and my bike stayed low. Slower than a sprint, but still, it seemed to work.

On the warmup a rider came up to me in familiar CVC colors. She introduced herself (Kim) and mentioned she knew SOC among other people. Apparently she raced last Saturday and Tony told her to come up for the Wednesday A/B races, not the Tuesday C/D ones. I should have taken note of that distinction, but I sort of let it slide.

We lined up for the Scratch and they announced they'd offer a prime.

Prime!

I needed $3, and if they gave out, say, $1, I'd be less in debt.

So when they rang the bell for the prime, I decided that I'd go for it. I happened to be about 5 back, and one guy kind of went for it, but I came around him and got it. I sat up, deciding to end my race there, but it took a while for everyone to kind of regroup.

Then Kim rocketed out of the field. At some point I totally sat up and went into la-la land, but she basically rolled through and past everyone else. I can't remember how the race ended but she definitely made a good move, staying away for a long time.

I should have taken note, but I was too wobbly to do anything but put a foot down.

I learned I got $2 and some drinks, so I told Tony to apply the $2 to my IOU. I passed on the drinks since it'll be a year or two before the missus and I dig into the martinis I won last week.

Next up, flying 200 meter times. Basically you get up to speed and sprint for 200 meters as fast as you can. This is totally me so I rode around and calculated where to dive down the banking, when to accelerate, and all sorts of planning type stuff.

I watched the Human Derny do a 12.9, shaking his head in disgust at his "poor" sprint. No one else broke 13, although one guy did a 13.00.

I decided I wanted to do a 13.00.

When I got called to go, I got rolling pretty hard. I knew I'd have to jump from some reasonable speed so I could dive down the banking, and really launch hard across the line.

I dove down the banking and POP something clicked hard. My pedaling stumbled a touch, but I kept going. Not really a good jump, but not bad, and I got going pretty good. The final bend came up way too quickly and I drifted way wide. I heard another POP. What the heck?!

I sprinted to the line, pretty disappointed with my effort.

My practice sprint hadn't been enough, and I lost tons of time climbing the track. And the popping noise, similar to a hard shift, distracted me twice.

Ends up that when you lean a bike left, the chain wants to come off the chainring to the left. If the chain is loose, it'll pop.

No duh, right?

Well, an easy way to test this is to hold the bike sideways so the drivetrain is pointing up, and pedal the bike fast. If it's quiet, it's good. If it clicks and clacks, it's bad.

I did that and heard some regular clicking. The chain was trying to drop off to the inside. Getting the chain tighter would eliminate this.

I went back to the car and tightened the chain.

Before I did, though, I rode up to Tony.

"What was my time?"
"Oh, man, you're just like my kids. 'What's my time? What's my time?' They never shut up!"
"Well? What was my time?"
He didn't even look up from his scoring.
"13.69"

Dag.Three quarters of a second slower than the Derny. And he was unhappy with his sprint.

The time was decent though, and it gave me confidence. Too much confidence. My first sprint was a three up, and I led all the way, trying to keep the pace high, wanting to be able to jump in my 50x15. What I did, in hindsight, was to eliminate my strong point, my jump, and make it more of a speed race.

I learned tonight that I ain't got speed.

So this guy Andrew led out and I couldn't come around him. I couldn't believe it. My jump was worth nothing.

Nah-Thing.

(Say it like what's his name... the Italian guy... DeNiro. He's Italian? Or just talks like a gangster?)

To top it off, the third guy, Andrew's dad, almost got me at the line. I kind of panicked and threw my bike at the line.

Throwing the bike means coasting. On a road bike, not a problem.

Coasting on a track bike means doing a header.

My back wheel came waaaaaay off the ground, but nothing bad happened. Well, it kind of thumped hard when it landed, but otherwise nothing happened.

Total newb.

In Match Sprints there's a "second chance" sprint, a "repechage". I think it's called that, but the mosquitoes are driving me insane, so that's what it is for now.

The repechage was a four up, winner goes on. I decided to play it a bit cooler, and not lead all the way. I can't really remember exactly what happened, but I took the sprinter's lane on the backstretch and held off a guy Mike trying to come around me.

This qualified me for the 3rd-6th race. Kim, having won her first heat (by going from the gun for two laps and winning in a super close sprint), and second in her second heat (thus forcing her into the repechage), was in this race. I think we all looked at her to make sure we wouldn't be caught napping when she launched.

Of course, as soon as she did one hard downstroke, we all jumped, and suddenly there were three guys leading out Kim. What's funny is that she did that one downstroke to get everyone going, and it worked. Unfortunately for her she blasted around us a bit early and ended up leading us out. I couldn't get the sprinter's lane so I got second in the sprint, fourth in the Match Sprint. I think I swore out loud in the sprint when I realized I wasn't going to get third overall.

So for all those sprints I got one point in the Omnium.

We went to the Miss N Out, and I decided I wouldn't really contest it. I tried to lose after a lap, but someone had come off so Tony hollered I was still in. I had already gapped myself off the back so I did a little dig to move up. This caused me to accelerate kind of hard, and because I don't have brakes, I had to move past people as I slowed. Suddenly, unexpectedly, I found myself about 5th wheel.

I started thinking "Maybe", but after a couple more eliminations I decided I'd sit up. I felt pretty wasted, and I wasn't interested in doing another match sprint (the last three guys do that).

When I was getting packed up, Scotty came over and we chatted a bit. I told him I was still making newb mistakes, like the chain popping and the back wheel in the air thing.

From the next car over the guy looked up.

"I saw that!"

Great. I'm sure he'll go home and say, "And then there was this guy, total newb, almost flipped over the bars when he threw his bike at the line. Can you believe it?"

So...

I learned more today. How to adjust chain tension on a track bike. Not to coast. Not to throw the bike. And to keep the Match Sprint speeds low before I jump.

And that I have to, have to, have to, have to work on my pedal speed. Because right now it totally sucks. I may have to lower my saddle a touch. I definitely need to do some high rpm work with 170s. On one of the cool down laps I even daydreamed about using some angle bar to make a frame for my rollers - they way Kreitler made them, the front roller is about an inch too far forward when all the way back, and I end up dropping off the back of the rollers all the time.

Rollers and trainer work, for sure.

I should also get more fit. Lose weight. Get stronger.

Hence the salad.

Dateline: 20:33, 5 August 2009

Ah, yes, the rest stop. I didn't need to stop today because I had the (mis?)fortune of pulling onto the Mass Pike directly behind a state trooper. This let me work on my gas mileage instead of rate of travel, so I arrived here averaging just 63 mph but getting 30 mpg (in a car rated 21/26). I'm not an ultra-mileage nut but it doesn't mean I can't do a few basic things while I drive.

Unfortunately there are only a few more weeks before the season closes on the track, so I need to make the most of the remaining sessions.

Fortunately, I can say that I fulfilled that need today. Tonight we did the first of the Goodales Keirin races, along with the standard Scratch race, a Handicap, and a Miss N Out.

I joked with some of the guys about bringing a monster gear for the Keirin because I always seem to be spinning my brains out as we finish, and I am really rough on the track, so a big gear would be useful. Sort of. Jokingly so.

But secretly I decided I really would bring a monster gear - a 53T to be precise, giving me a huge 95" gear (most riders run 88-90", and I'm running a 90"). I'd experiment since I stink at the Keirin anyway, so playing around wouldn't be a bad thing.

However I did do one thing earlier this week - move back to 170 cranks on the road bike. I felt that moving from 175s I use on the road bike (on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday) to the 170s on the Wednesday track bike killed my pedal stroke on the track bike.

Therefore I changed the cranks on the road bike.

I could have changed the track cranks to 175s, but since track emphasizes pedal suppleness, and you can't coast through the bends, I figured that 175s for the track would be a bad idea.

So, yesterday, I race at East Hartford on 170s.

And got totally destroyed.

I wasn't sure if I'd done the right thing, but there was only one way to find out - race on the track.

I got to track in semi-record time so had plenty of time to warm up. I told myself that, like yesterday, I had to learn to suffer once again. I haven't been suffering enough, giving up too easily. Track racing really demands digging deep because the races are so short that everyone goes anaerobic at the end, for longer than comfortable. It's the guys that can fight through it that do well. I'm not used to that because whenever I go uncomfortably anaerobic, I just coast. Or sit up a bit. Or drift back through the field.

I don't dig deep.

I did make a change to the track bike, but it had nothing to do with cranks. I installed the sensors for the cyclometer on the bars (it was just for show for the last month). Curious about how fast we go in a sprint, I tootled around at 17-22 mph for a while (kind of slow in a 50x15, but about as fast as I could go without feeling like I was racing).

Then, with a few minutes left before the first race, I did a flying 200. Well, I did it, but no one was timing me, so it was really just a sprint.

I felt a bit bouncy when I was standing to accelerate, sat through the final bend (that was smoother), and stood up to try and get some oomph to the line (bouncy).

33.1 mph.

That's really not very fast, considering my leadouts on the road bike go 35-38 mph.

However, in one gear, with no shifting, no coasting, and trying to stay in the sprinter's lane... 33 mph is sort of okay. Not great, but not that bad.

Mike T, a sprinter type, pointed out something useful.

"Look, if you're going 33, then the guys behind you have to go 35 or something to pass you."

True.

The bad thing is that both my calves and both my hamstrings threatened to cramp when I jumped. I actually almost cramped when I got off the bike, so I spent the next 10 minutes wondering if I'd just wasted a drive up here. I stretched my calves (they were particularly twingy), praying they'd ease a bit before we raced.

Luckily the As went first, a long 25 lap Scratch race. That was good, more time to stretch, but it implied that we'd be doing a longer than 12 lap scratch race.

"Great", I thought. "A long race on crampy calves."

We Bs lined up afterwards and took to the line for a 15 lap Scratch race. Dick Ring announced that I was the pacer (took me by surprise, I have to admit), so I obliged and rolled us out at some reasonable speed. I did the neutral lap and the first lap, but then guys got impatient and started going.

I think I pulled through for half a lap at some point, making my total 2 1/2 laps, but I was started to worry when we passed the lap cards and they said 11 to go. I had been tailgunning the group, sitting at the back for a couple laps, but 11 to go seemed, well, long. I could have sworn we'd done more than 4 laps, maybe like 8 or 9.

Whatever, I am not too confident in my lap counting abilites so I decided to tailgun a bit more.

Next lap it said 4 to go.

Oh.

I remember counting 6 laps total where I sat at the back, trying to build some reserves. Unfortunately I didn't move up in any kind of expedited fashion, so I was still 4 or 5 back on the backstretch of the last lap.

I tried to move up and spotted a chancy hole just above the sprint lane as we flew into the final turn. Two guys were down low, one guy up high, and I figured I could blast through that gap. But the guy who'd pulled uptrack (usually means he's giving up) seemed to waver up there, and I didn't want to chance a collision.

I went even further uptrack around him.

Usually this means disaster because you lose 1-2 lengths just going up to the blue line, and I was way over that. I didn't stand because I couldn't, so I just tried to goose the bike forward while remaining seated.

It goosed. Like for real. Like I didn't expect.

Not enough, but a good fight. I can't remember if I got third or fourth, but I was up there for the sprint.

I realized two things immediately, before I even crossed the line:
1. Now I know what the trackies mean when they say they can move up a gear. The 90" gear is good but I couldn't quite spin it up like I felt I should be able to. It's too big for me.
2. I can stay seated and do these spurt efforts, accelerating the bike hard without too much body language.

Now, as far as #1 goes, I can't spin well still so even an 88" gear would get me shelled before the finish. I simply can't go fast enough yet. So the 90" stays. But I want to be able to really spin it out.

#2... well, I decided I'd keep that in mind when I jumped for whatever the next race was.

Ends up it was the Keirin, the first heat.

The As went first, and it was really cool to watch. They're so fast, so consistent, and just when you think they have it all out on the track, they go even faster. Crazy.

Anyway, I got so enthralled watching the As that I totally forgot about my 53T secret weapon. It would have to wait. I hoped my seated jump, the practice going around the bends (the first Keirin I almost ended up in the woods), and some pedal suppleness would help me "survive" with the 90" gear, the 50x15.

We lined up, the moto went by, and we took off. I got third wheel behind the aforementioned Mike T, another sprinter type. I didn't know if guys let me get the ideal spot so I was on guard.

I felt that achiness you get when you get on the bike after watching a race (and not spinning around keeping the legs warm). I dug deeper, tried to get through the pain.

The moto accelerated gently for the next few laps, and after 4 1/2 laps it peeled off, leaving us with 1 1/2 laps of racing. By the time the moto peeled off my legs were back to normal, and the lead guy, with a slight gap, took off.

(Incidentally I'd totally forgotten about the crampy calves and remembered it only when I sat down to type this post. Weird.)

I stuck to Mike like glue through the first curve, and I knew we'd get swarmed on the backstretch. The lead guy would blow (that's the "I don't want to race" position, or the "I want to lead everyone out", so whoever gets there usually ends up fried, at least in the Bs).

I tried to counter the swarm before it ever happened. I moved up track just a touch and did my seated jump as we hit the backstretch. Guys did swarm, but I got clear of them and headed into the finishing stretch in the lead. Crossed the line, fighting off someone on my outside.

Yay!

Okay, not a wasted drive.

But that was just the heat. The final would be next, after the As did another race or two.

I decided to stay with the 50x15, forget about the 53, and focus on getting a good position, the seated jump, and blasting out onto the final straight.

Scotty, he of the other TriSpoke front wheel, won the repechage (a race for the non-placers - the top finishers get to ride the final) the hard way, going from the front and, incredibly, winning it.

He was so spent that they held an A Handicap race to give him some time to breathe.

After that we lined up for the Keirin final. Scotty seemed surprised when someone motioned for him to get on his bike. He was still semi-delirious from his oxygen-deficit effort and it took a good 10 seconds for him to realize that, yes, he was racing. And it was a Keirin. The Final in fact.

I decided I'd be in front of him when we got going.

In fact, once we hit out, I found myself in front of everyone except Scotty's teammate. A little too far forward, actually. I started hoping that Scotty's teammate would be able to do a good effort, a long effort, because whoever was on my wheel would be waiting to pounce on the backstretch.

Scotty's teammate spun the roller on the moto a couple times, so that gave me some hope. He was obviously a lot more comfy behind the moto than me.

The moto accelerated like normal and with 1 1/2 laps to go, he peeled off. Scotty's teammate was already out of the saddle and accelerating when the moto left, and we went ballistic to the bell, everyone glued to our wheels.

I did a jump to end all jumps to try and decide the race on the backstretch. I blasted into the last turn and, thought I had it, and suddenly there was someone to the outside, going really fast.

I lunged at the line and managed to hold the lead by a hair.

Yay!

I turned and looked. It was Sam, the guy that destroyed me in the Match Sprints last time I was here. Apparently he was on my outside on the first heat too.

Max speed in both Keirins: 33 mph. Hm. I think the cyclometer was a good idea. I guess the crank thing was a good idea too, at least for the track.

We did the Handicap race next, where we start out around the track for a 6 lap race. I'm not that strong so I was given a sort of forward position (i.e. the strongest riders start at the back, about a third of a lap behind me). Scotty lined up with me, and his teammate was in front of us.

We launched, Scotty quickly bridged to his teammate, me glued to his wheel, and we went really, really fast for a couple laps. Then we all got tired, we regrouped, and everyone started hammering.

I had to ease. I hadn't been shirking my pulls, and after I pulled off at 2 to go, I realized I had gone pretty deep into my reserves. I came off a lap later.

Fifth, behind a solo winner (we never caught her) and the three guys that shelled me on the last lap. Max speed - an amazing 34 mph.

Okay, not as "Yay!" as the Keirin, but promising. I pulled, I could go reasonably fast at the front, and I didn't give up until I was actually off the back.

This was good.

The last race was a Miss N Out, where the last rider is pulled each lap until three remain. Then they do a 2 lap Match Sprint. Historically I am horrible at this race and I've never made it to the final.

Tonight, because it was getting dark quickly, they decided that instead of doing a couple recovery laps, the last three racers would simply race an extra two laps for the finishing order.

Being very, very clever (heh), I counted the number of riders in the group before we set off.

Eight.

Minus three for the final 2 laps meant five riders would get pulled.

A strong guy went to the front and pulled for a while. He plugged away for a few laps. I think two, maybe three riders got pulled.

Then, spontaneously, with no planning, no forethought (apparently I used up my cleverness when I counted to eight), I launched a pretty serious attack. Actually I surged a bit to make sure I was third, but when I realized that I'd be passing the second guy, I decided to keep going and launch off the front.

I went pretty hard, focused on turning well in the turns, head tilted, drive the bar down, turn from the hip (I learned that today from another new guy on the track who, unlike me, actually bothered to learn something about track racing before trying it), and made a go of it for a lap.

I looked back and almost fell off my bike. I was actually clear of the field, like majorly clear.

This was like an A race attack!

That seemed promising, but then I remembered something. Usually the early break gets caught, and the group smashes said attacker into the ground.

Oh boy.

I tried to keep my form good, tried to remember that even if I slowed a bit, the guys behind had to close that gap, and no one was "resting" because you can't coast on a track bike, and they were still fighting amongst themselves to stay in the race.

"33 means 35 to pass", so I tried to go fast enough so that guys would have to really hurt to catch me.

I heard Dick Ring announce the last of the racers had been pulled, and it was two to go when we hit the line. I got around the final turn and looked up.

Two to go.

Holy smokes, I was dying.

My vision was going grey... or maybe it was the fact that I was wearing sunglasses at night, but whatever, I was just dyyying.

I made it for a lap but I started getting weird on the bike. I couldn't stay low, nor smooth, and I couldn't breathe enough air. I eased, hoping it would help, but it didn't.

The strong guy, who pulled for the first few laps, blew by me. I pedaled lamely. The other guy blew by me. I crawled to the line.

Third.

Yay! Sort of. I mean, yeah, it was an inspired effort, totally unlike my character. I thought of Abdujaporov winning a mountain stage in the Tour, that kind of mismatch.

I realized something afterwards: If I didn't ease up, it would have hurt exactly the same.

Therefore, next time, I won't sit up.

I got invited into the clubhouse after the races, snagged my prizes (more martinis! Yay!), chilled with the crowd for a few minutes, and split.

Man, I really want to work on turning over that 50x15 really fast now.

Heh.