Hubbard TT

There were additional expectations on me this week: I promised McT that I'd throw it in one higher gear on the home stretch this week and churn extra hard if he'd do one more set of something in the gym. It's good to have a friend there to motivate you to push yourself. Gatlin has officially filled that role recently, and quite well if I may say so (and I may - it's my damn blog); but McT's dedication to the sport of bodybuilding has been an inspiration to me for . . . well geez, since high school. Senior year - while changing back into our uniforms in the locker room after gym class was the first time that anyone noticed his physique (to my knowledge). Between taking his gym shirt off and replacing it with his dress shirt, I noticed his muscle definition and said something like, "Damn! McT's ripped!" This was not at all expected from the mild-mannered kid. All five or six guys in our locker row and a few guys from the next one turned to look. Several guys expressed how impressed they were. I think someone might have even encouraged him to flex. :) Anyway there's that. On to the time trial...

Last week was a week for records to be set. The wind changed right near the turnaround so we had a very weak headwind for most of the way out but a wild tailwind on the way back. I felt like I was shot out of a cannon after the turn. This week wasn't quite so great - we had a bit of a barnburner on the way out but it stuck with us for strong headwind on the return. I did indeed upshift (two gears in fact) and put in a big helping of extra effort, working well into my red zone for pain over the last couple hundred meters. However my time suffered due to the wind as well as my lack of concentration and consequent poor aerodynamic form and suboptimal pedaling. 25:05 this week. Not bad for me, but I couldn't help but hope for another improved time.

But the silver lining of my lack of improvement is that I think that this is an indication that I've found my baseline. Or I've hit my first plateau. The uber-easy improvement is over - I'm no longer a novice. From now on, improvements in my time will be harder earned, come in smaller increments, but feel more significant.

There was a dude taking pictures there today. Hopefully he got some of me - especially the one of me crossing the finish line with "AGONY" printed in big bold letters across my face.

Sub 25

Well it was another day for the Hubbard time trial. Gatlin & I were both feeling beat down after the race this past weekend and practicing earlier in the week (plus Gat works outside in this crazy heat), so we weren't really expecting anything too impressive.

But Gatlin got to put his new bike to the test again - his first TT with it, so a first opportunity to semi-quantitatively assess how much it's benefitted him. They just put the aero bars on this afternoon, and the altered cable routing caused some brake tuning issues resulting in his front brake rubbing the rim. Despite this gigantic energy sink and his fatigue (whether real or perceived), Gatlin clocked an improved time from his previous - right around 26 minutes flat. That's about half a minute or so faster than his previous best, I believe. So great work Gatlin! Woulda been interesting if we could have compared your time as-is with one sans-brake-issue, but I bet (based on nothing quantitative [grin]) that it cost you a good 20 seconds.

I also improved my time significantly: 24:49 according to Mike's stopwatch. That's my first ever sub-25-minute ten mile TT. A bit more impressive than the 30 minutes from this spring. :)

Citizens' Crit

Well today was the day - the Idaho State Criterium Championships. Gatlin & I signed up for the citizens' race - the race for people who haven't raced before. Technically I'd raced before - a time trial, but I felt this was the better place for us to be since neither of us had ever done a crit. Crits are tight and technical, and I ride loose & squirrelly.

Last year's citizens' race (I showed up to watch last year) had only about seven or eight racers, half of whom were sitting on mountain bikes. So I figured that Gat & I'd be pretty much alone on the course or with one or two others. But when we rolled up to the line, we rolled up alongside ten or twelve other riders, all on road bikes and all looking fairly fit. Yikes.

Off we went with Gatlin's parents, Mike (photographer of choice for Dan's Folly) & Connie (who said she was gonna blame me if Gatlin crashed - mind you, she tells me this not before registration but ten minutes before the race starts), in attendance. Gat & I pulled up front right off and traded a couple pulls with one other rider. The photo shows Gat (Navy jersey) pulling with me behind him. After about half the race, he & I'd done the lion's share of the work for everyone who was still hanging onto us - five or six people I guess (but I can't say for sure since I was always near the front). Come to think of it, I kinda tucked right in behind people rather than letting more than one or two riders in the paceline get by me. So maybe it was my fault that no one else did any work.

At some point in there, Gatlin hit a pebble or something with his back tire and skidded out a bit. He modulated the brakes perfectly and made a phenomenal recovery. Then I heard Connie's heart start beating again.

Anyway after about half the race was behind us, one guy shot past everyone and I decided the race was too short (20 minutes) to let a break get too far ahead so I pulled out of the paceline and went after him. Caught him in short order too. I figured Gat was still on my wheel but I looked back & he wasn't. Drat. Well that just blew our agreement to stay together. Sorry Gatlin. And of course the dude that shot out decided against his break after just half a lap and slowed back down to 19-20 from the 24-25-MPH pace he'd just set. So I passed him and kept on going. From there, I think I held the lead pretty much the whole way.

And miraculously I hung in at the front all the way to the end. I won the razzle frazzle thing. Gatlin held on for a very respectable fourth. On the way home afterwards though, I recalled that he told me he'd only eaten half a bowl of cereal for breakfast. That couldn't have been enough. With a proper amount of fuel (and without the need to expend extra energy on that recovery), I bet he'd have hung right in there.

But now I've begun to second guess my decision to register in the citizens' race instead of Cat 4/5 (beginners). I figured that Cat4/5 guys would be a bit more aggressive and a bit more under control, and that my inexperience would only have caused problems. However I'm beginning to think that maybe I could have hung with the cat 4/5 riders (at the BACK). I felt about as under control as they looked (we stuck around to watch them immediately after us). If we'd have absolutely run away with the citizens' race, I might have convinced myself that I/we shoulda moved up. But as it was, I only won by a couple seconds at most.

Anyway there you have it. I won a race. You likely won't hear that ever ever again. :) Regardless, it was really fun; and I've been told that the brand new Buick I won is in the mail. :) But I need to thank Gatlin for entering with me. I'd almost certainly have decided against entering again if not for his willingness to come along and to practice with me ahead of time. And to share pulls. :)

Preparing for the Idaho State Criterium Championships

Gatlin & I are preparing to race in a criterium this weekend. Pretty scary - close quarters racing for the first time for me. Not something I'm comfortable with at all, but the field is gonna be ridiculously small and I'll be on the course with only a few others. The bad news is that we'll all be equally underexperienced so staying out of each others' way might be a challenge (until Gat & I put the hammer down and leave all the chumps behind for good).

Gat & I spent Tuesday night practicing. There's your silver lining to the "economic downturn" and "housing crisis." Crits are run on short loops - kinda like the NASCAR or Formula 1 of bike racing. Perfect for practice crits are abandoned subdivisions where they paved all the roads then realized they couldn't sell any houses so didn't build any. And places like that are a dime a dozen around here nowadays. Sweet. No houses = no one entering/exiting the sub = no traffic + ease in seeing around corners just in case; and new construction = new pavement = smooth riding.

So Gat & I raced three short crit races, three laps apiece on a 0.6-mile loop. I won two and he won the last one - I was completely out of gas by that point and Gatlin swept right past me before the last turn. I knew he was gonna make his move there, but I hadn't even the energy to get off my saddle much less to answer his charge. We both maxed out above 31 MPH on level ground. It was unbelievably fun. We almost surely won't hit 31 in the race on Sunday (it'll be longer - ~20 minutes, so we'll hafta conserve more energy), but it should be just as fun. Gatlin's got an edge on me because he ran track in high school so he's more experienced in the whole strategizing thing, which is a giant part of crits (though I did learn a bit from him).

So I'm quite jazzed. I've been grinning like a chimpanzee thinking about it ever since we decided to do it.

Cartwrong

Well I'm off to a wedding in a couple days, so I'll be away from the bike for a while. I came to that realization today and decided to push myself on the way home. So I decided on Cartwright Road. Never even driven it before, but I've heard about it and Google Maps has a terrain map that clearly shows some pretty beefy hills so I knew what I was getting myself into . . . more or less.

Good grief. I was already a bit fatigued after a fairly climb-intensive workout with Gatlin this weekend (When he reads this he'll call me a baby but that's only because he's a punk.), so I knew I wasn't gonna win any races; but I wanted to push myself. And boy howdy did I! Probably the steepest stuff I've ever ridden. By the time I got to the top of the second climb (about 540 feet over 1.3 miles - ~8%), I was gasping for breath and my legs felt like Jell-O. Pulled off right at the top for a couple minutes' rest.

The other interesting part of this ride was Dry Creek Rd, a little further along. I knew when I planned the route that it was a rough gravel road, but I figured it was time for a Roubaix (a road bicycle race including a significant portion of cobblestone and/or gravel roads). Geez, the washboard was terrible. I have a headache now just thinking about it. The loose sand & gravel would have been tolerable . . . downright enjoyable even if not for that.

Anyway it was a good experience (topped off with a planned stop at my boss's house to refill my water bottles), and I'm glad that I'll have a few days to recover.