Yesterday was the State Championship TT. I was training to peak for this event, had built up a new TT bike, got a tri-spoke and disc wheel. I had high hopes to win, unfortunately that didn't happen. I did manage to beat last years time by a little, but not as much as the money I spent should have bought me. 1:01:50, good for 5th place. I'm content with the placing, but really thought I could go faster than that.

It rained the whole time I was on the course, I took it a little on the cautious side through the turn arounds, cause my #1 goal is to keep the rubber down. We started into a headwind, and I went out hard, averaging 27.5mph on the first leg, turned back with a tailwind and held that pace till the turn, stood to sprint out of the 2nd turn and my calves cramped up bad. Sat down and spun back up, but only got to 23-24, and slipped to 20 for several parts of that leg, with my overall average down to 24.8 at the 3rd turn. With the tailwind and guts I was able to crank it back up over 27 for the last leg and through the finish. I crossed the line my quads hurt like I've never felt before. I made myself spin down a bit but it was bad, I could barely walk afterward.

The quad pain was in a different spot than my normal riding, the bottom near the knee. I think this means I didn't do enough really hard miles in the TT position before the event, and these muscle groups aren't as strong as my normal riding postion. Without a power meter, my guess is that I made less power, but the more aero position compensated to put me about where I was last year on my road bike. I certainly worked harder this year. I hope I can train more on the TT bike and make up the difference. I can ride as fast as I need to to win, I just can't hold it for 40k straight. I think that means I need to suffer more in training :) On the bright side, I road about 50 easy miles today, and my legs are starting to loosen up.

Raced Allen Park today. This was my first crit this year, and I forgot how intense they are. Very aggressive, lots of accelerations, lots of swerving and bumping. My plan for today was to launch a solo breakaway off the start. After watching the masters and 3's I had second thoughts and decided to roll it similar to Cedar Creek, but use a different tactic for the sprint. Sadly, 2 people successfully got away from the group, and surprisingly the 3 or 4 teams that had multiple members didn't want to work to chase it down. I tried to get off and bridge a couple times, but everyone took the opportunity to ride the train. With no one else in the pack I wasn't going to chase down the break just to roll through off the back. When I couldn't get clear I resigned myself to a sprint for 3rd.

This time I stayed on the outside, and dropped to the back with 2 laps to go. On the last lap I just ramped up my speed and cruised up the outside and kept passing as many people as I could before the line. I managed 9th, which I'm very happy with from a pack sprint, especially with 2 places gone to the break. I get Michigan Challenge points, but just outside the range for USAC upgrade point and money.

Little late on this report, but it's been a busy week...

Sunday was the Tour of Cedar Creek, near Muskegon, which was the State Championship this year. 3 laps for 51 miles of a fairly hilly course. Saturday night crazy storms rolled through, woke us up, tore out many trees in our neighborhood. that made getting up at 4:00AM to race a little rough, and I wasn't sure if the storms would stay away long enough to race anyway.
The start was a little delayed as they tried to clear dirt from the road where it had washed out in several places. We started with wet roads, and it started raining about half way through the race.
Being the State Championships, there were several full teams out all gunning for the title. It was a tough fast race. My strategy going in was to find a break, or go solo if it looked like it might work, or if all else failed go hard and fast way early, and hope to ride away from everyone in the final km. Unfortunately our sprinter who was supposed to take the sprint after that effort, didn't make it to the sprint. So it goes.
The break never materialized, and I stuck to my plan. There was a crash at the last corner with 2k to go. I was right behind it, but avoided it, and took the window to attack. About 15 of the 55 or so starters were able to respond. Sadly I didn't have enough left to ride away from anyone, and by the time people came around me I couldn't jump back on enough to contest the sprint, so I rolled through with 13th. Overall I'm happy with that. I learned another lesson. Last time I went too late, this time too early. Once I realized people were on my wheel and we were clear of the peloton I should have made someone come around rather than pulling that last mile.
The big story of the day was the 6 crashes. 3 of which were in that last 2k. I'm happy to have stayed upright. Furthermore, had I not been leading out the pack, I could very well have gone down in one of those.

Had a good, if unsuccessful, race at Frankenmuth yesterday. The road race was 3 laps of a 15.5 mile circuit. The pace started pretty slow, and I stayed up front watching for break aways that never happened. A couple small ones went and were immediately shut down. I went off the front a few times to try to set one up, but backed off when nobody joined me. I did get one off with 3 other people that looked like it might work, we were fast and working together, but then one of the guys decided to not pull through, broke the rhythm, and it slowed up a bit. I think the pack was going to chase down anything that moved anyway. At that point I decided to drop back a bit and sit in until the finish. I tried to stay up front in the last miles, but at the end people came around the outside, and the others up front didn't go with them. Unfortunately this finish had no room to move, so you were kind of stuck wherever you were.

Anyway, I raced hard, finished 16th. I think I picked up some tactical lessons for the field sprint, and definitely confirmed that if I can get one to stick, I want to be in a break away. I can work the whole race and still finish strong, and if I'm going to do that I want to not carry 50 guys with me.

One request from fellow racers who might read this: If you are up front, or in a break, and a paceline gets going, either commit to working it, or stay out of it. This isn't a training ride, you can't jump in and out of a paceline. That is, unless your goal is to frustrate people and break up a move.

I prepped really well for this race, at a big carbo-licious meal Friday night, got 8 hours of sleep (amazing given the 7:30 start time), had breakfast, had Accelerade & Accel Gel for during the race.

The course was really tough with the hills, as I knew it would be. Many people were off the back before the end of the first lap. They made the race longer this year, and by the 5th lap, the field was shredded. This is when a break took off, and we really got on it trying to chase them down. Unfortunately this is also when I blew a tire at the gravel turn around. I was up front working on the chase, tired, but definitely able to work for another 12 miles.

I'm really bummed I didn't bring spare wheels or at least a tube and co2. I didn't know they would have support trucks, and thought empty pockets were worth the risk. I was wrong. Anyway, once I lost the pack from a tube change I would have never gotten back on. A wheel in the truck and motor pacing back to the pack would have been a different story.

So, on the bright side I think I have my fuel issues figured out. I do know I need to fit in more interval training, but I was right in the mix. Mechanicals happen.

It's been an interesting couple weeks, I think worthy of an update to serve as a future reminder. My slower than expected time at Willow was followed by getting dropped on a training ride I usually dominate last Tuesday, at a pace that was slower than usual. Clearly I was doing something wrong.

I took a week off with just a couple easy rides to work, and went back for our Tuesday race sim last night. I feel much better. I was able to throw some attacks, almost win a sprint, hammer the hills, and finish with everyone. Rest is good.

I did notice I still ran out of gas a little over 1/2 way through the 50 mile ride. I recently switched to an energy drink mix that has no carbs, which is clearly not working. On top of that, I haven't been taking any gels or eating anything on the rides. As the distance and pace picks up, that can't last.

With paces between 20 and 35 mph (avg > 22 including warm up and cool down) on a hilly windy course, I figure I burned around 2500 calories on the ride. My base metabolic rate is about 1750. I pretty consistently match my intake to burn, but need to remember to ramp up for hard days, eat during the ride, and eat afterward (that part's always easy to remember)

Disappointing day. Maybe it's sad that I'm no longer happy with top 10 finishes, but I'm not. It was crazy windy today, and most people were slower than last year. That said, this was the first race on my newly built TT bike, with tri-spoke and wheel cover, and I hoped to be faster. I was 20 seconds slower than last year, 31.38 for the 13 miles, good for 6th place in cat 4. The top 3 were under 30 minutes this year, just crazy fast. I knew I was in trouble when Tim Best blew past me, but my legs had nothing left.

Very strange today, my heart rate was lower than usual, but my legs just didn't have any more strength. I wonder if the heavy (for me) running schedule I've added to my bike training has negatively impacted my performance? On top of that, I just finished the bike build yesterday, and hadn't had any time to train on it, though it's the same set up I used for Fisk, just with gears added, so that's a lame excuse.

I've now tried bolt on wheel covers, and a Zipp 900 disc, and really don't think there was any difference, and neither really felt faster than my normal race wheel. The tri-spoke I think does help.

Anyway, if I really want to win races, I need to put in more work. I'm not racing again until Kensington, so I've got a few weeks to lay on the work and still rest up before the race. Time to start 2 a days!

I raced off road today for the first time in 2 years. It was interesting, my strength and conditioning is much better, but my handling skills are a little rusty. They decided to spring a surprise on everyone and run the course in the opposite direction this year, so it was like racing a course I'd never been on before. I raced sport class, and came in 6th with a time of 56.11 minutes. My previous best on this course was just under 59 minutes, so I feel pretty good about that time. I was hoping for the win, but just didn't happen. I was about a minute off of first place. That close on a race like this and it's hard not to look back at where I could have shaved seconds off, but there's not much use in that. I'm just happy to have set a new PR and to have not crashed :) I forgot how much of a full body workout MTB is. My back and arms are very sore tonight.

Cameron, Tim and Dennis were there today. Tim raced Expert and took 4th, Cam was with me and took 4th, Tim raced Beginner and took 1st! He's a cat 3 road racer, but this is his second MTB race, and the first he DNF'd, so he really was in the right category, though he crushed the field by over 3 minutes! He's moving to sport now.

Saturday was a beautiful day for racing. 60 degrees and sunny, couldn't ask for better. We went into this race with a very organized plan to set up for the final sprint, unfortunately plans don't always work out. A break went off on the first lap and stayed close for a couple and we figured it was going to get dragged back, especially since there were no Wolverines in the break, and they had a good number in the peloton. After 25-30 minutes they were 1/3 of a lap ahead and pulling away, nobody wanted to chase.

I tried to get a little break going, and nobody would work.

I talked to the other guys up front and stated the obvious, if we don't work together to chase that down, the top 5 spots are gone. Nobody would work.

At this point I figured if I'm going to do it alone I might as well go alone, so I went off the front for 1.5 laps, but with the headwind I just wasn't going to make the distance. The break was about 1/2 lap ahead at that point, so I drifted back to the peloton. In retrospect if I had just stayed on it at the pace I was riding I might have grabbed 6th with that move. One of my teammates came up and we traded off hammering a fast pace at the front for the rest of the race to try to narrow the gap, but it was too late and too little. On the bright side, I think that effort contributed to the finishes we did get. Loren won the sprint for 6th, and Tim came in just behind for 11th. Bo, Mike and I finished right there with the peloton.

After a long and cold winter, the 2008 racing season has finally begun. Last year's early tropical spring was clearly a fluke, cause it's still nasty cold out. It's nice to be back on the bike, whatever the weather.

I raced Waterford Hills yesterday (1.2 mile circuit, closed auto race track), and took 9th in the "B" race. The pace was slower than last year by a couple mph, probably due to the cold, and lack of training everyone has had over the colder winter. No major attacks, just a mellow race. I was on the inside coming into the finish, and got boxed in. I'm trying to figure out how to win sprints this year, and I learned some lessons about where to be and when to go. If I can stay top 10 consistently, some of the sprints will fall my way.

Today was the first time trial, Fisk Knob. I took 1st place in the fixed gear category! This is a hilly 17 mile course North of Grand Rapids. The punchline is a huge climb to the finish. Traditionally this was a fixed gear TT, so I decided to give it a shot. For those readers who don't know, fixed gear means one speed, with no coasting. I picked 53x16 for the race, and it was perfect. I was never limited on the downs, and was able to muscle up the hills. I averaged almost 23mph, about 1mph faster than last year on a lighter geared bike. Some interesting points: That's the hills here usually have me 2-3 mph slower than I do at Willow (the next tt on the calendar). The top overall time this year was 2mph slower than last year. I feel really good about improving over last years time. The times aren't posted, but last I saw I was 21st overall.

This weekend was a great start, and I'm feeling really good about the season.