Race Report: Downtown Sanford Crit

Yesterday I did the Downtown Sanford crit. Last year I did this race, too, and got 25th in the 4/5 race. This year, however, my goal was to be competitive in the 4/5 and 3/4 races, held back to back.


Extremely hot temperatures in the 90's made for hard racing, but nonetheless there were about 50 people in the cat. 4/5 race. The race started good, and I didn't start getting that hot until 10 minutes in, when the 2 water bottles I poured over myself prerace evaporated.


Early in the race I attacked, but I wasn't feeling strong enough to get much of a gap and stayed away for only1/2 a lap. The heat seemed to really prevent me from getting away, and also impaired my ability to recover after my effort.


The race was fast after that, 24.9 avg. mph. with a decent hill, and I was in a bad position for a couple of laps after my attack. I rounded the last corner in a much worse position than I had hoped for, sprinted for the line and got 11th.


After that I went to rollout, rode 2 laps and lined up for the start of the 3/4 race. I had some grapes, a gu, and got two fresh bottles for the race, one to drink and one to pour on my head.


I was hoping that the race would start easily, but then the announcer said, before the race even started, "Preme on the next lap!", so I just tried to hang on. But I was feeling a lot better than I expected, although still not good enough to go with a large breakaway that got away somewhere around lap 3.


I was moving to the front when somone on the other side of the pack made an attempt to bridge up to the leaders. I got right onto their wheel without much difficulty, and we caught the breakaway. Unfortunately, so did the rest of the pack, but at least I was now in a good position.


After that I just fought to stay near the front. There were so many attacks and breaks during the race I couldn't keep track of them all, but somehow the 3/4's was almost easier; faster but smoother.


With a lap to go I was in a good position, I think 6th in the pack. After that I did a bad job of anticipating surges and holding my position, but I think now I have isolated that as my main weakness and will try to improve on it. Going into the last corner, I was definitely in the top 13, and then sprinted and got 12th out of almost 50 riders, which I was pretty happy about.


All in all, I was happy with how I recovered for the 3/4 race, how I was in a good position during most of the race, and that I learned how I can improve. I got a 25 dollar gift card too, for being the 3rd best cat. 4 in the race. Congratulations all my teamates, especially to Barney Baxter and Kirk Port in the Masters Tour De Moore Race on Saturday, and also to Terry Huss in the Pro 1/2 race Yesterday. Nice job to Mike Raynor, 2nd and Craig Stewart, 3rd, in the 15-18 race.


During the 40 minute long cat. 4/5 race, I averaged 24.9mph., and then 25.8 for the 3/4's.

Here's some photos from the Downtown Sanford crit...







After the Race with Sam Adamy, Mike Ventola, and AJ Shipley

Training Peaks WKO

About a week ago I downloaded the WKO power meter software. I wanted to try it because it seemed to be much more detailed than the Saris Poweragent software I was using before. Although the downloading process was pretty complicated, the system is very detailed. You can look at things like Normalized Power, Training Stress score (TSS), Intensity Factor (IF), and your mean maximal power curve. It took a little while for me to actually understand these things, but on the Training Peaks website it describes various features of WKO in great detail. Another good reference is the book Training and Racing with a Powermeter.

I tried to copy and paste some of the graphs from WKO, but it won't let me. Below are the numbers from my ride yesterday, and a 2 minute (and 4 second) long interval I did during it.

Here is the data from the entire ride. Look at the huge difference between the avg. watts (101) and the Normalized power(179 watts). Basically normalized power is the power you could have maintained for the same amount of time, for the same physiological cost if you had maintained a steady wattage. If the difference between the avg. watts and NP is big, it indicates that you rode at a really varied pace.


Entire workout (101 watts):
Duration: 1:07:18 (1:27:13)
Work: 403 kJ
TSS: 83.8 (intensity factor 0.87)
Norm Power: 179
VI: 1.77
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 17.309 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 641 101 watts
Cadence: 29 141 73 rpm
Speed: 2.3 117.4 15.8 mph
Pace 0:31 26:06 3:48 min/mi
Hub Torque: 0 217 42 lb-in
Crank Torque: 0 703 112 lb-inPeak 2min (281 watts):

Here is the interval.

Duration: 2:01
Work: 34 kJ
TSS: 6.2 (intensity factor 1.36)
Norm Power: n/a
VI: n/a
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 0.812 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 113 368 281 watts
Cadence: 68 141 89 rpm
Speed: 20.3 28.1 24.2 mph
Pace 2:08 2:58 2:29 min/mi
Hub Torque: 37 111 77 lb-in
Crank Torque: 67 396 270 lb-in

I haven't got a chance to post any pictures from the race on Sunday yet but I'll try to post them pretty soon.

Ion Village Crit

Sunday I did the Ion Village Crit. I was glad to be racing again after doing no competitions for almost a month because of a combination of sickness and some other problems. This race was also special to me because the last time I did it was in 2006. Back then it was only my 3rd race, but now it would be my 73rd.

The course was a nontechnical, dead flat oval loop, not exactly the best terrain for me, but nonetheless I wanted to do be aggresive and get a high finish. After a long warmup I lined up for the 4 race in the 2nd row.

The race started pretty fast and I got in a break on the 2nd lap. I bridged from the pack to the 3rd group to the 2nd group, but we didn't come close to catching the 2 leaders and were caught after less than a minute, having never gotten more than a few seconds ahead. After that I took some time to recover, and over the next few laps I went from a good position to a bad position to an OK position to a good one again. There were some breakaways, but the course wasn't decisive enough to allow a threatening break to form.

With 2 laps to go I was in 8th place. The race was slow but dangerous, with near crashes on each corner. With one lap to go I fell back a lot, and took a lot of risks to move up from then on. On the 2nd to last corner there was a crash, and I narrowly avoided it. But I chose the wrong side of the pack to be on, and was in 15th or 20th around the last corner. Desperate to move up, I went into the corner at over 30 miles per hour and really overshot it. I flew off the road, bunny hoped a pothole, and almost crashed into a fence. Thankfully I stayed upright and rode the last 300 meters by myself to get 39th out of about 50.

Here are the facts from the race

21.1 miles
50 minute long race
25.1 mph.

I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.

A couple days ago I did the Tuesday Group Ride. I have been writing a lot about the weekend group rides recently, but this was my first Tuesday one of the season.

The Tuesday Group ride is traditionally the hardest one, and is nearly always harder than a cat. 4 race. When I got there , I saw a great group of about 15 people. Among others, there was Alexander, a cat. 3, Sam, a cat. 3, Mike, a cat. 3, Mac, a strong masters rider, and Jarret, also a cat. 3. My Dad couldn't take me to it nor ride with me, so I biked the 40 minutes there and back, plus the hour and 40 minutes long ride, for a great 2 hours 52 minutes, on a school day.

The ride started with a shorter than usual warmup. Mac attacked, the group got strung out, and when we caught him we started a paceline. The paceline went from 10 people pulling down to 5 every time, with me being one of them. We took a left hand turn and when the group eased up Mac pointed for me to get on his wheel. I did so and when he attacked, I was right in the draft. We had been going for maybe a minute when Alexander bridged, as did Sam. After that, Mike and another rider bridged, followed by three more, then the 10 of us were altogether again.

We kept doing the paceline until Mac attacked again, followed by Alexander and I. We were caught right before a hill that is known to split the field. Jarret attacked, Alexander, Mac, Sam and I followed. The rest of the pack managed to keep up, and we resumed our paceline.

When we got about 1 mile away from the town-limit finish, Jarret attacked up the decisive hill. The regulars followed him. Sam got to the front and sprinted, Jarret and Alexander fell back, leaving Sam, Mac and I. We sprinted for the line, with Sam winning, Mac second, and me 3 bike lengths back for 3rd.

Our computer isn't working so I can't download my powermeter, but I did ride 55 miles, 2 hours 52 minutes, at an avg. speed of 19mph.