Last year I never got out to do Logan's pass even once. This year I hadn't done it, either. So, yesterday John and I headed out to ride Logan's Pass. His wife, Sheri, decided to join us. We were planning on riding both sides, she was just going to do one.
We drove down to Sunrise campground and unloaded. Off we went. The wind was howling - but never from the same direction. Great. We stopped for a couple of pics at the bottom - and then John and I left Sheri and began to ride in ernest. John set a pretty good pace, and I dropped back a bit to get a pic. I guess I shouldn't have done that, 'cause shortly after John decided to do a little interval and hammmered away. We were coming up on a corner and as he hit I saw him rise and just knew what he was gonna do. We kicked the pace from 14km/hr all the way up to 25, and I saw him glance back a couple of times to see where I was. Dirty rotten scoundrel! He's not supposed to do this kind of crap until later!
I kept the gap the same, but couldn't close it. Then I settled in to recover. John gradually pulled away from me. A few times as we came around the corner the wind changed direction and where I'd expected a bit of a tailwind I ended up with a full-on head wind! Climbing grades of 7-12% is tough enough, throw in headwinds of 40km/hr and it gets ugly. There were places I was standing and hammering in the granny just to keep going.
I got a kick out of watching some of the tourists faces as they went by, amazed that anybody would want to do this!
Near the top, about 3km away, I came around a corner and saw a guy standing in the middle of the road, taking pics. I realized that he was taking a pic of me and decided to give him something exciting to photograph. I stood up and kicked it up a few notches. When I went by him I was doing 20km/hr on a 8% grade. (Of course, my HR was at 185) He waved and cheered me on.
I went hard, and when I hit the top I'd lost about 5 minutes to John. I told him there was no way I was going to do the other side today. In checking his HR - his max HR was only 163. I'm in terrible shape!! We hung around at the top for about 20 minutes, and then headed down to meet Sheri and ride with her back up. About 3km down we caught up to her and flipped around. She pushed it hard and made it to the top for the first time ever. Good job Sheri!!
We took some pics of Sheri at the top, and then just as we were getting ready to head out, a cyclist came up from the other side. I went over to talk to him, guessing that he was from Great Falls - turns out he was and we chatted for a couple of minutes and then I turned and headed back. I'll probably see Ron at the Belt Omnium next year, as he's planning on doing it as well. John and Sheri had already left.
Now the fun part - descending! Scary today because of the wicked cross winds, but also a whole lotta fun 'cause I can further develop my descending skills. I caught up to a motorbike and drafted off of him for a bit, as there wasn't any room to get around him, finally hit a section I could pass in, and laid it down, went around him and 3 other cars - that was fun!! (I always love the looks I get when I pass cars coming down a mtn pass.) I caught John and Sheri and we zipped down the rest of the mtn. John and I would stop, wait for Sheri to go by, then chase her down, get ahead, and repeat. Was a whole lotta fun, and we got to meet and chat with some interesting people at the pull outs while we waited for Sheri.
Near the bottom John was up ahead of me, and there was a BMW SUV between us, the BWM couldn't get around John (he was doing 60km/hr in a 40km/hr zone) and I just sat off of his bumper. Finally he got to a point where he could pass and accelerated to go around John - I laid it down and managed to stay in his draft all the way around John, and for a few hundred yards after that - then he laid it down and took off. No matter, our parking lot was right there (I almost missed it!)
Finally, we got to the bottom and this guy in a truck pulls into the parking lot where we're at and drives over to us, rolls the window down and says, "you guys were WAY over the speedlimit!" - I shout back, "Every chance I get!" He smiles and gives us the thumbs up and pulls away. Speed limit was 45mph, there were a few places I got up to 50, but it wasn't particularly fast because of the cross winds (I was on the brakes a whole lot more than I'd have liked.)
In looking at my data afterwards I see that I spent pretty much the entire climb in zones 4 and 5. Hit 180+ many, many times. Maxed at 185 5 times. I've really gotta get doing more intervals and riding more regularly. I haven't been on the bike since the triathlon in Ft McLeod a week ago. That's not good.
School starts this week, so I'm hoping that I can get into a better routine and get some good training miles in every day. If not on a bike, then by running. I've gotta get this weight off!
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Some guys never learn
Guys like me, of course. In July I went into a triathlon having only been in the water twice before, and having run a total of about 10km before the event. It hurt, I wasn't particularly fast, and I wanted to be better prepared for the next one in August.
August 18th. I seriously considered bowing out of this one 'cause I wasn't ready. I had done even less than I did for the Magrath one! I hadn't been in the water once since Magrath. I hadn't run once since Magrath. And my biking time was, well - I think I got out once /week. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting very big things from this one. I decided to do it anyway for 2 reasons. One, I'd already paid the non-refundable entrance fee and figured if I was gonna pay to suffer I was gonna get my money's worth. And two, my twin boys were entered and there was no way I was gonna bow out in front of them.
The scheduling was set up so that I should be able to be done before they started and so I'd get to watch all of their race. I was looking forward to that!
As we were lining up for our start times at the pool I chatted with the others whose expected swim times were close to mine. I was gonna be sharing a lane with a lady who looked pretty out of shape (look who's talking, right?), but she mentioned that she'd completed a half marathon the week before. At least she'd been running!
Finally we hit the water. I konw I'm not going to be able to hammer through this, so I've decided to alternate one length front crawl with one length breast stroke. My lane partner slowly starts to pull ahead of me. (Her name is Dawn.) I see Dawn get out of the water and figure she'd got about 4 lengths on me. I guess I must have lost count, 'cause suddenly there's the kickboard in the water in front of me and my counter is yelling "last lap" - I turn and go hard for the last lap. I'm a little surprised at how much strength I feel I have. I should work at this swimming thing... I'm out of the water in just over 38 minutes. 1500 meters in 38 minutes. Winning time was 20 minutes.
My transition goes pretty good, and I'm off and on the bike. I look down at my HR and am surprised to see it so high so quickly. Oh well, it's nowhere near the red zone right now, so I stay down in the bars and pound it out. 5 km out I catch up to Dawn and pass her. Now the climbing. I can see lots of guys in front of me. One of the really nice things about staggered swim starts is that there's always rabbits in front of me to chase on the bike. I really pour it on during the climbs.
This bike course is really hilly. There's one particularly brutal climb of about 3 km averaging 7% with kicks up to 10%. On a TT bike it REALLY hurts. But, I'm reeling in lots of folks because of it. I can see one of my Headwinds bike club buddies up ahead. His name is Don and he's a good guy - at Magrath he did just the sprint, and then for the last km or so of the run came down to pace me in. I pass him just before the turn around. He had about 6 minutes on me out of the water, so I've made up good time.
After the turn around I want to recover a little - so I ease off slightly. Don comes around me, and as he goes by mockingly calls out, "hey, slacker! Give too much to catch me?" That's all it takes. We're at the bottom of a hill and I stand and hammer hard. I pass him and start pushing for every second I can find. There's more people in front and I start reeling them in, too. I'm feeling pretty good on the bike, and know I'm making up lots of time - good thing, 'cause I know I'm gonna need this gap on the run.
I finally hit the transition area again. My bike computer says 1:11 - not a bad time for this 40km. Later I learn that there were only 4 guys faster than me on the bike - and all 4 of them placed 1,2,3,4 overall. My official time is 1:17 - a total of about 6 minutes of transition time.
The first kilometer of the run was extremely painful. Both calf muscles were cramping badly. I got to the water station a km 1 and took up after cup of water and dumped it on my calves. Cramping went away and I was off. My goad is just a 10km/hr average, as I know I pretty much suck at running. This 10k will make about 30km total running for the year. I used to really enjoy running, and there was a time I turned in 40 minutes 10k's regularly.
I finish lap 1 (5km0 and see Don coming up not too far behind me, I call out to him and we share a bit of a laugh. He catches me at the 6km mark and settles in beside me. What a guy! He's gonna pace me the rest of the way in. We are chatting, which is kind of amazing that I can talk this freely, as my HR is over 170 with a couple of jumps in the mid 170's. With 1.5km to go a friend doing the sprint distance passes us. He chastises us for talking too much and not running hard enough - my HR is at 179.
With 1km to go Don says, "ok, we'll hold this pace 'til the corner, and then kick it up for the final straight away." I agree and when we turn the corner we speed up - it's a bit of a down-hill. With a little over a block to go he kicks it up again - I tell him to go ahead, my HR is at 182 and I don't feel I have anything left. He takes off for the finish. With 100m left I feel that maybe I can close it up, and push myself to sprint hard. I hit 19.8km/hr, and my HR goes to 186, but I catch Don at the line and we cross together. My run time comes in at 59:46 - just under the one hour mark. I broke 3 hours by about 5 minutes.
There's so much room for improvement in the swimming and running that I really think it's possible for me to break 2:45 next year. Just getting strong enough to swim front crawl the whole 1.5km will shave a few minutes off. Transition is another area I know I can shave a couple of minutes off. And, finally, the run. I know I can get my run time down to the 50 minute range. This is the single greatest area I can improve in.
August 18th. I seriously considered bowing out of this one 'cause I wasn't ready. I had done even less than I did for the Magrath one! I hadn't been in the water once since Magrath. I hadn't run once since Magrath. And my biking time was, well - I think I got out once /week. Needless to say, I wasn't expecting very big things from this one. I decided to do it anyway for 2 reasons. One, I'd already paid the non-refundable entrance fee and figured if I was gonna pay to suffer I was gonna get my money's worth. And two, my twin boys were entered and there was no way I was gonna bow out in front of them.
The scheduling was set up so that I should be able to be done before they started and so I'd get to watch all of their race. I was looking forward to that!
As we were lining up for our start times at the pool I chatted with the others whose expected swim times were close to mine. I was gonna be sharing a lane with a lady who looked pretty out of shape (look who's talking, right?), but she mentioned that she'd completed a half marathon the week before. At least she'd been running!
Finally we hit the water. I konw I'm not going to be able to hammer through this, so I've decided to alternate one length front crawl with one length breast stroke. My lane partner slowly starts to pull ahead of me. (Her name is Dawn.) I see Dawn get out of the water and figure she'd got about 4 lengths on me. I guess I must have lost count, 'cause suddenly there's the kickboard in the water in front of me and my counter is yelling "last lap" - I turn and go hard for the last lap. I'm a little surprised at how much strength I feel I have. I should work at this swimming thing... I'm out of the water in just over 38 minutes. 1500 meters in 38 minutes. Winning time was 20 minutes.
My transition goes pretty good, and I'm off and on the bike. I look down at my HR and am surprised to see it so high so quickly. Oh well, it's nowhere near the red zone right now, so I stay down in the bars and pound it out. 5 km out I catch up to Dawn and pass her. Now the climbing. I can see lots of guys in front of me. One of the really nice things about staggered swim starts is that there's always rabbits in front of me to chase on the bike. I really pour it on during the climbs.
This bike course is really hilly. There's one particularly brutal climb of about 3 km averaging 7% with kicks up to 10%. On a TT bike it REALLY hurts. But, I'm reeling in lots of folks because of it. I can see one of my Headwinds bike club buddies up ahead. His name is Don and he's a good guy - at Magrath he did just the sprint, and then for the last km or so of the run came down to pace me in. I pass him just before the turn around. He had about 6 minutes on me out of the water, so I've made up good time.
After the turn around I want to recover a little - so I ease off slightly. Don comes around me, and as he goes by mockingly calls out, "hey, slacker! Give too much to catch me?" That's all it takes. We're at the bottom of a hill and I stand and hammer hard. I pass him and start pushing for every second I can find. There's more people in front and I start reeling them in, too. I'm feeling pretty good on the bike, and know I'm making up lots of time - good thing, 'cause I know I'm gonna need this gap on the run.
I finally hit the transition area again. My bike computer says 1:11 - not a bad time for this 40km. Later I learn that there were only 4 guys faster than me on the bike - and all 4 of them placed 1,2,3,4 overall. My official time is 1:17 - a total of about 6 minutes of transition time.
The first kilometer of the run was extremely painful. Both calf muscles were cramping badly. I got to the water station a km 1 and took up after cup of water and dumped it on my calves. Cramping went away and I was off. My goad is just a 10km/hr average, as I know I pretty much suck at running. This 10k will make about 30km total running for the year. I used to really enjoy running, and there was a time I turned in 40 minutes 10k's regularly.
I finish lap 1 (5km0 and see Don coming up not too far behind me, I call out to him and we share a bit of a laugh. He catches me at the 6km mark and settles in beside me. What a guy! He's gonna pace me the rest of the way in. We are chatting, which is kind of amazing that I can talk this freely, as my HR is over 170 with a couple of jumps in the mid 170's. With 1.5km to go a friend doing the sprint distance passes us. He chastises us for talking too much and not running hard enough - my HR is at 179.
With 1km to go Don says, "ok, we'll hold this pace 'til the corner, and then kick it up for the final straight away." I agree and when we turn the corner we speed up - it's a bit of a down-hill. With a little over a block to go he kicks it up again - I tell him to go ahead, my HR is at 182 and I don't feel I have anything left. He takes off for the finish. With 100m left I feel that maybe I can close it up, and push myself to sprint hard. I hit 19.8km/hr, and my HR goes to 186, but I catch Don at the line and we cross together. My run time comes in at 59:46 - just under the one hour mark. I broke 3 hours by about 5 minutes.
There's so much room for improvement in the swimming and running that I really think it's possible for me to break 2:45 next year. Just getting strong enough to swim front crawl the whole 1.5km will shave a few minutes off. Transition is another area I know I can shave a couple of minutes off. And, finally, the run. I know I can get my run time down to the 50 minute range. This is the single greatest area I can improve in.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Tales of pain
Friday night was a difficult night. My twin boys and I were out for a ride with the Headwinds Cycling Club (our racing club) and Brady had taken off with the fast group into a headwind. Him and John were holding the front - I stayed back for awhile with Michael - I THOUGHT Michael had slowed down to stay with the slow group (he doesn't like to go as fast yet) but had actually been dropped. He was really upset about that (it was supposed to be a no-drop ride.) I had gone up to check on Brady (a bridge that took considerable effort.) Anyway, there was a group of 9 or 10 of running a double paceline. Brady was #2 in line on John's wheel. John stopped pedaling for a second, Brady wasn't paying attention and hit wheels. Almost recovered, but not quite. Went down, I was at the back of the line and got to be the last one to pile in and go down. I ended up with some minor scratches and a little road rash.
Fortunately, one of our riders is a doctor (and an ER doc at that.) He did a quick assessment, and it was readily apparant that one of our number was hurt pretty bad. We decided to have the doc and injured rider hitch hike to the ER to get things going rather than wait for someone to show up (all of our family was 30-50km away, and most were in an area that had no cell coverage.)
They crossed to the other side of the hiway and waited for a ride - nobody stopped. This is on one of the busiest hiways in Alberta (#2 between Lethbridge and Calgary) and a long weekend - there was lots of traffic. Finally I got fed -up with nobody stopping, so I walked across to the other side of the hiway, stood in the middle of the road and started waving my arms.
Amazing - somebody stopped. Asked them if they could run these two into the hospital for me, they said yes, and off they went.
I went back over to check on everyone else - most were okay, bikes were a little scraped (wheels were really out of true) I told everybody that could ride, to take off and head back, we'd wait for someone to come get us. That left me and Brady out on the hiway in the sun. I tried to keep him in the shade of my shadow as much as possible. It gave us time to talk and reflect a little.
The injured rider turned out to have a broken elbow, and Brady's got some pretty bad road rash. What was worse was the night's sleep I got - or rather, didn't get. What I kept seeing in my mind last night was what COULD have happened. Brady, after he went down, rolled out of the way of the rest of the bikes - into the lane of traffic. We were on a busy double-lane hiway (with a nice wide shoulder) - if there'd been a car coming when he rolled out he'd have been killed.
It's amazing how when it's just been me cycling I've never worried about all the things that can go wrong - but now that my kids are out there... it really bothered me Friday night. He was in a fair bit of pain, and we'll changing dressing regularly for the next few days, but he's going to be okay. I've tried REALLY hard not to scare him, don't want it to take him away from cycling, but at the same time, I don't want him to ever roll into traffic lanes again!
That was crash number one.
Next up - Hill climb time trial in Calgary. Now, you might ask, exactly how does one have a crash on hill climb??
John and I were warming up on the hill - it's 1.3km long, and averages just under 10%. Most of it is 8-9% with a short kick up to 15%. The hill is at the park known as "Canada Olympic Park" - it's where the 1988 Olympic bobsled run was held - and it still is the main site for Canada's Olympians to train on. There's ski jumping and skiing on the hill, too.
Anyway, the route down was to take the bobsled path - this is a path that follows the bobsled run so that spectators can line the bobsled run. It's not really a good route for cycling, and everybody was warned at the top to be very careful, it was steep and there was gravel on it. (What they didn't add is that there's some stairs that planks had been put on to allow our bikes to travel.) No problem if you go slow...
John was making his way down, and behind him he hears this older guy yelling "Go, Go!!!" - and son is in front totally out of control. Kid goes flying. Somehow he hits John while flying through the air - John doesn't know what part of the kids bike hit him, but he's got some cuts and bruises to prove he got hit! John jumps off the path and heads down the grass slope (he still keeps thinking he's Lance Armstrong sometimes...)
Anyway - I was really beginning to woner if I ever wanted to be on John's wheel again...
We did the hill climb, and John beat me by 21 seconds. I finished just shy of 6 minutes (something like 5:50) I couldn't walk - I couldn't pedal. I had a hard time getting off the bike to lay down for a minute. My whole body hurt. I definitely did all I could, it just wasn't enough. To put just how slow I was into perspective, the course record was tied that night at 3:19 Of course, maybe the fact that the next day John and I were racing in a crit that turns out to be the Alberta Provincial Crit championships and so all the best racers from the whole province are there might have something to do with our poor showing...
Which brings up the next event. Provincial Crit Championships. John and I had planned at the beginning of the year to race alot of crits. Actually, to do alot of racing period! Yet... it just didn't happen. So we choose, in our infinitely optomistic way, to race our first crit of the year at the Provincial championships.
Because we're such super-dedicated and hard-training guys, the night before we went out for BBQ (btw, we found a place that has BBQ every bit as good as the best Texas BBQ we had down in Texas!) and then went to the hotel to have a not-so-good nights sleep. During our strategy planning over dinner we finally admitted to ourselves that we were going to get our butts kicked the next day. John decided that he was gonna go out in a blaze of glory... might be a blaze the intensity of a flash bulb, and for about as long, but it would be glory! I decided I was gonna try and hang with the pack for the finish.
Before the race things just didn't seem to be coming together for me. Took me forever to get ready - finally got onto the course to see what it was like. The course consisted of 1km. 100m from the start finish is the first corner - a right hadn 90 - at the end of the long straightaway. No doubt this corner will have some crashes - and the organizers knew it, as it was REALLY well padded. Up to a 45 degree corner, then up a little hill. Not much of a hill, but I knew that at crit speeds, and with a few laps, that hill would be the deciding point. At the top of the hill, a sharp 90 RH turn onto some of the worst pavement I've ever been on. Frost heaves, potholes, the whole works. Only 2 fast lines - hard inside, or really wide. Anything in between would risk throwing you off the bike. A quick 45 RH, followed by a 90 LT (again, really rough road, and the best line is only one bike width wide on the inside.) a 90 RH, another 90RH takes you back onto the finishing straight.
I do an extra lap - bad idea, as they're lining up and I end up at the back. That's okay, the announce the first lap will be a nuetral lap, and then as we cross the start/finish it'll be race on. Race will be for 30 minutes plus 5. Off we go. I'm relaxing, pounding back my gel that was half down my mouth when we started. I guess I should have realized that neutral does not mean slow. By the time we get onto the straightaway we're doing over 45km/hr. Then the racing started.
I'm hanging in the back third, trying to work my way up the group. I know I've gotta get further up, or I'll miss the big accelerations. Second lap and as we crest the hill the pace accelerates a HUGE amount - I'm still on the hill as I see... yup, you guessed it, my team mate Johnny burning his whole match book. He blasted off the hill and opened up a 20 foot gap - looked back and dropped the hammer. By the time he hit the finishing straight he was cooking with a good gap. The announcer was announcing that there was an early breakaway and it was john from the Headwinds... he was getting his glory. By the time we hit the hill again the pack had reeled him in and he was cooked. As I passed him I yelled "get on, let's keep this thing going!" He held my wheel for a lap or two, but he was done. A couple more laps and he was pulled. I didn't know that, didn't know where he was until I went by the finish line and here "go Robbie!!"
I get dropped - not by much, I'm just off the back. It's lap 9. I don't want to get dropped. I put everything in and just as we hit the hill on lap 10 I've gotten back on. In checking my stats later, lap 10 has an average HR of 176, with a max of 179 - I was throwing pretty much everything I had at it.
I'm struggling to recover - I burned alot of matches getting back on. As we hit the finishing straight of lap 11 the speed ramps back up again, and I can't hold it. I needed more recovery. I get dropped. Unknown to me, there's been a group of 3 go off the front.
Lap 12 - I go by the finish line - hey, don't they ever change that "time left" sign?? I'm suffering. I'm not far off the pack, they're only a couple of hundred yards in front of me, just around the corner - I might get 'em yet! An official steps out onto the road in front of me just before the corner waving me to slow down... there's been a crash in the corner. I find out later some guy blew a tire out in the corner and took down the front 5 or 6 guys. (minus the 3 on the break.) That little slow-down to get around the carnage costs me - takes me a bit to get back up to speed (I like that corner, as I had been diving hard into it and taking it at 42-45km/hr.) This turned out to be the decisive event of the race. That slowed the pack in general down enough that the 3 escapees stayed away.
I hammered as best I could, picking up pack-fodder drop-offs along the way trying to get them to work with me to survive to the end, maybe bridge back up. Most were way too cooked. 3 guys hung with me and we tried to work together. Eventually there was only 5 minutes left before the final 5 laps and we all realized we weren't going to make it back to the pack. Now it was about survival. That cost us 2 of our number.
The two of us tried to stay away. We heard the motorcycle behind us - saw it on the hill - and hammered for everything we were worth to stay away for one more lap. But, alas, the 3 breakaways caught us and we got pulled - only 2 minutes more and we'd have gotten to the final 5 laps.
My average hr for the race was 174, with a max of 179 (which I saw on two laps - 10 and 14) My average speed was 39.5km/hr. I couldn't hardly breathe. I couldn't walk. I was in pain.
Now that was fun!
Fortunately, one of our riders is a doctor (and an ER doc at that.) He did a quick assessment, and it was readily apparant that one of our number was hurt pretty bad. We decided to have the doc and injured rider hitch hike to the ER to get things going rather than wait for someone to show up (all of our family was 30-50km away, and most were in an area that had no cell coverage.)
They crossed to the other side of the hiway and waited for a ride - nobody stopped. This is on one of the busiest hiways in Alberta (#2 between Lethbridge and Calgary) and a long weekend - there was lots of traffic. Finally I got fed -up with nobody stopping, so I walked across to the other side of the hiway, stood in the middle of the road and started waving my arms.
Amazing - somebody stopped. Asked them if they could run these two into the hospital for me, they said yes, and off they went.
I went back over to check on everyone else - most were okay, bikes were a little scraped (wheels were really out of true) I told everybody that could ride, to take off and head back, we'd wait for someone to come get us. That left me and Brady out on the hiway in the sun. I tried to keep him in the shade of my shadow as much as possible. It gave us time to talk and reflect a little.
The injured rider turned out to have a broken elbow, and Brady's got some pretty bad road rash. What was worse was the night's sleep I got - or rather, didn't get. What I kept seeing in my mind last night was what COULD have happened. Brady, after he went down, rolled out of the way of the rest of the bikes - into the lane of traffic. We were on a busy double-lane hiway (with a nice wide shoulder) - if there'd been a car coming when he rolled out he'd have been killed.
It's amazing how when it's just been me cycling I've never worried about all the things that can go wrong - but now that my kids are out there... it really bothered me Friday night. He was in a fair bit of pain, and we'll changing dressing regularly for the next few days, but he's going to be okay. I've tried REALLY hard not to scare him, don't want it to take him away from cycling, but at the same time, I don't want him to ever roll into traffic lanes again!
That was crash number one.
Next up - Hill climb time trial in Calgary. Now, you might ask, exactly how does one have a crash on hill climb??
John and I were warming up on the hill - it's 1.3km long, and averages just under 10%. Most of it is 8-9% with a short kick up to 15%. The hill is at the park known as "Canada Olympic Park" - it's where the 1988 Olympic bobsled run was held - and it still is the main site for Canada's Olympians to train on. There's ski jumping and skiing on the hill, too.
Anyway, the route down was to take the bobsled path - this is a path that follows the bobsled run so that spectators can line the bobsled run. It's not really a good route for cycling, and everybody was warned at the top to be very careful, it was steep and there was gravel on it. (What they didn't add is that there's some stairs that planks had been put on to allow our bikes to travel.) No problem if you go slow...
John was making his way down, and behind him he hears this older guy yelling "Go, Go!!!" - and son is in front totally out of control. Kid goes flying. Somehow he hits John while flying through the air - John doesn't know what part of the kids bike hit him, but he's got some cuts and bruises to prove he got hit! John jumps off the path and heads down the grass slope (he still keeps thinking he's Lance Armstrong sometimes...)
Anyway - I was really beginning to woner if I ever wanted to be on John's wheel again...
We did the hill climb, and John beat me by 21 seconds. I finished just shy of 6 minutes (something like 5:50) I couldn't walk - I couldn't pedal. I had a hard time getting off the bike to lay down for a minute. My whole body hurt. I definitely did all I could, it just wasn't enough. To put just how slow I was into perspective, the course record was tied that night at 3:19 Of course, maybe the fact that the next day John and I were racing in a crit that turns out to be the Alberta Provincial Crit championships and so all the best racers from the whole province are there might have something to do with our poor showing...
Which brings up the next event. Provincial Crit Championships. John and I had planned at the beginning of the year to race alot of crits. Actually, to do alot of racing period! Yet... it just didn't happen. So we choose, in our infinitely optomistic way, to race our first crit of the year at the Provincial championships.
Because we're such super-dedicated and hard-training guys, the night before we went out for BBQ (btw, we found a place that has BBQ every bit as good as the best Texas BBQ we had down in Texas!) and then went to the hotel to have a not-so-good nights sleep. During our strategy planning over dinner we finally admitted to ourselves that we were going to get our butts kicked the next day. John decided that he was gonna go out in a blaze of glory... might be a blaze the intensity of a flash bulb, and for about as long, but it would be glory! I decided I was gonna try and hang with the pack for the finish.
Before the race things just didn't seem to be coming together for me. Took me forever to get ready - finally got onto the course to see what it was like. The course consisted of 1km. 100m from the start finish is the first corner - a right hadn 90 - at the end of the long straightaway. No doubt this corner will have some crashes - and the organizers knew it, as it was REALLY well padded. Up to a 45 degree corner, then up a little hill. Not much of a hill, but I knew that at crit speeds, and with a few laps, that hill would be the deciding point. At the top of the hill, a sharp 90 RH turn onto some of the worst pavement I've ever been on. Frost heaves, potholes, the whole works. Only 2 fast lines - hard inside, or really wide. Anything in between would risk throwing you off the bike. A quick 45 RH, followed by a 90 LT (again, really rough road, and the best line is only one bike width wide on the inside.) a 90 RH, another 90RH takes you back onto the finishing straight.
I do an extra lap - bad idea, as they're lining up and I end up at the back. That's okay, the announce the first lap will be a nuetral lap, and then as we cross the start/finish it'll be race on. Race will be for 30 minutes plus 5. Off we go. I'm relaxing, pounding back my gel that was half down my mouth when we started. I guess I should have realized that neutral does not mean slow. By the time we get onto the straightaway we're doing over 45km/hr. Then the racing started.
I'm hanging in the back third, trying to work my way up the group. I know I've gotta get further up, or I'll miss the big accelerations. Second lap and as we crest the hill the pace accelerates a HUGE amount - I'm still on the hill as I see... yup, you guessed it, my team mate Johnny burning his whole match book. He blasted off the hill and opened up a 20 foot gap - looked back and dropped the hammer. By the time he hit the finishing straight he was cooking with a good gap. The announcer was announcing that there was an early breakaway and it was john from the Headwinds... he was getting his glory. By the time we hit the hill again the pack had reeled him in and he was cooked. As I passed him I yelled "get on, let's keep this thing going!" He held my wheel for a lap or two, but he was done. A couple more laps and he was pulled. I didn't know that, didn't know where he was until I went by the finish line and here "go Robbie!!"
I get dropped - not by much, I'm just off the back. It's lap 9. I don't want to get dropped. I put everything in and just as we hit the hill on lap 10 I've gotten back on. In checking my stats later, lap 10 has an average HR of 176, with a max of 179 - I was throwing pretty much everything I had at it.
I'm struggling to recover - I burned alot of matches getting back on. As we hit the finishing straight of lap 11 the speed ramps back up again, and I can't hold it. I needed more recovery. I get dropped. Unknown to me, there's been a group of 3 go off the front.
Lap 12 - I go by the finish line - hey, don't they ever change that "time left" sign?? I'm suffering. I'm not far off the pack, they're only a couple of hundred yards in front of me, just around the corner - I might get 'em yet! An official steps out onto the road in front of me just before the corner waving me to slow down... there's been a crash in the corner. I find out later some guy blew a tire out in the corner and took down the front 5 or 6 guys. (minus the 3 on the break.) That little slow-down to get around the carnage costs me - takes me a bit to get back up to speed (I like that corner, as I had been diving hard into it and taking it at 42-45km/hr.) This turned out to be the decisive event of the race. That slowed the pack in general down enough that the 3 escapees stayed away.
I hammered as best I could, picking up pack-fodder drop-offs along the way trying to get them to work with me to survive to the end, maybe bridge back up. Most were way too cooked. 3 guys hung with me and we tried to work together. Eventually there was only 5 minutes left before the final 5 laps and we all realized we weren't going to make it back to the pack. Now it was about survival. That cost us 2 of our number.
The two of us tried to stay away. We heard the motorcycle behind us - saw it on the hill - and hammered for everything we were worth to stay away for one more lap. But, alas, the 3 breakaways caught us and we got pulled - only 2 minutes more and we'd have gotten to the final 5 laps.
My average hr for the race was 174, with a max of 179 (which I saw on two laps - 10 and 14) My average speed was 39.5km/hr. I couldn't hardly breathe. I couldn't walk. I was in pain.
Now that was fun!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
