Vance Creek Road Race

This was my first time doing the Vance creek road race. It's in Elma by the massive decommissioned nuclear cooling towers. The engineer in me gets pretty excited at seeing such giant structures even if they are no longer in operation.

The women's 1,2 field was a small group of 11. It started raining before the race and we huddled in the car trying to decide whether to warm up for a 66 mile race. I saw Jen riding the rollers so I decided to spin the legs for a bit. Jen lent me her trainer since mine is broken so I felt obligated to use it.

I've never ridden that course before so I was a little nervous on the wet roads. We zoomed down the hill after the start which was pretty fun. We took the corners pretty slow and I found out that cow dung is really really slippery. I lost traction in a corner and almost bit it. I was really careful after that. I really didn't want to crash in that yucky muck.

Our race had four Wines riders, four racers without other teammates and three Avanti's - Liz, Jen, and Me. On the first lap there were some attacks but nobody for very long except Sirikit. The first time she attacked we all took it pretty seriously and everybody except the Wines girls (her team) helped pull it back. She has been known to attack and stay off for an entire race so we watched her closely. I thought she would have been toasted but she attacked about three more times in the race, very impressive.

I made it up the hill two and a half times with the group then on the third time up Suz attacked pretty hard and my legs started screaming. None of those girls except Jen were at the time trial the day before! Jen and Liz hung on though. Four of us came off the back at the same time. Two riders were just up the road and I was behind one other woman. But the gal ahead of me quit and I couldn't make it back up to the other two. But I did my last two laps alone and finished for 10th. The course was a fun one to ride and I'm glad I kept going. Liz and Jen got 5th and 6th.

The race was fun but I would have enjoyed it more in sunshine!

Green Valley TT

I got third at the Green Valley TT today! I wasn't going to go and then my teammate asked if I was going and I though why not? I'm not a big fan of TTs but I need to ride anyway. I was glad I went. It was a nice sunny day - no knee warmers and no arm warmers. Seems like it was just snowing last weekend....


My TT bars are vintage '80s. I actually got a new pair but my shoulder felt unstable in too tight a profile so I've kept the old ones. It makes me feel a bit funny with all of the fancy updated equipment that everybody else has but it works for me and it's really just for fun anyway.

During warm-up I hopped off of the trainer to stretch and I saw a puddle of water under the back of the trainer. Apparently the fluid was draining out of it. I finished warming up but it looks like I need a new trainer. It's as old as the TT bars so I guess it's time to replace it. Last month it was the rack on my car that broke. One of the mounts was rusted shut and another one was totally corroded and fell apart.

The course is almost the same as the ice breaker TT but a bit longer. We drove the course on the way to the race and spotted our "go for broke point" to make sure we used up all the fuel before the line. The finish comes after a blind corner and I've made the mistake before of finishing with too much left over. I got the turn down pretty good this time - nice speed into it and remembered to shift before and felt nice and strong on the way out. There were these baby bulls(?) at the go for broke point, very cute. Just as I got there Jen passed me looking really strong. She started 2 minutes back. I kept her in sight until the finish and tried not to loose too much more ground. It was good to have a marker to force me to keep pushing. Our team mate Michele took first! She is amazing at TTs.

We hung around for the awards and I got some yummy banana bread that was going un-eaten at the organizers table. Mmmm it was really good especially since I only brought gels for after race food!

Snow

It snowed again this weekend so I rode trainer indoors. It was a great excuse to have Annette over since she is stuck riding indoors anyway with her injury. She brought over about 15 hours of track videos! The time just flew by watching Sprints and Keirins and Points races. We were doing intervals to the Keirins. It was a great workout and now I can't wait to do some short intense racing. Today I saw a motorcycle go by on my downtown commute and was tempted to "grab the motor". Heh heh.

I'm not making this up

I'm not making this up - this is the forecast from the Weather Underground website...

... An unseasonably cold storm system will affect western Washington the end of this week... A strong... cold low pressure system dropping south out of Canada will usher in a colder air mass that will result in unseasonably cold temperatures and plummeting snow levels by this weekend.Daytime temperatures on Friday will be in the mid 40s to lower 50s across The Lowlands and in the upper 20s to mid 30s in the Cascadepasses. On Saturday... daytime temperatures are expected to bewinter like. Daytime temperatures across The Lowlands about thistime of the year are normally in the mid 50s to lower 60s.The snow level will also plummet to near sea level late Fridaynight... thus it is likely that any showers over The Lowlands willchange over to snow or a rain and snow mix. The precipitation willchange back over to rain during the day Saturday. The threat forsnow showers will continue across The Lowlands late Saturdaynight and early Sunday morning.If any clearing occurs across The Lowlands at night... it could allow temperatures to dip into the mid 20s at some locales... especially over the southwest interior. Therefore those with frost sensitive Nursery stock... ornamentals... or vegetables should monitor the forecasts from the National Weather Service closely the next few days.

15 min intervals

I did some 15 minute intervals today - just a little under what I think is my TT power. 205-210. The power jumped around a bit which means my pedaling has gotten sloppy. I got it to calm down by the end of the workout.

I saw a video on U-tube that shows just how slippery the Boat Street Course was...
http://youtube.com/watch?v=h9z2YiWWjT8

Brad Lewis Crit

I finished the Brad Lewis crit today - my first time ever finishing that race.

I have to admit that the previous post about strategy was a hoax meant to baffle my competitors. If you read Jen's blog you saw that we really didn't have a strategy today.

I was being extra conservative for two reasons - one I didn't want to get dropped like yesterday and two it was raining and slick. I need to figure out a happy balance between being overly aggressive and resting. Since it was raining it was a good excuse to hold back and err on the cautious side.

I didn't reduce the pressure in my tires before the race which was a mistake. I had the good 'ol 120 psi that I always use. But after slipping and almost crashing myself a few times I think that I will experiment with lower pressure next time it rains. I was going to move up and do something at the end but after almost biting it I really lost my nerve. I was beginning to think there was something wrong with the bike. But afterwords I checked - nothing wrong just a slippery course.

My teammate Jen rode really solidly. I tried to get on her wheel whenever I could.

At one point in the race somebody was doing what I thought was a blocking move and really slowed down in the downhill corner. Maybe they were just going extra slow but I was already on edge so I yelled at them for being dangerous. I don't really like yelling but if I think it's a safety issue I'm going to let them know.

Luckily for us no one went down this time in our field and it was a safe race despite the rain. Thanks to everyone out there cheering.

Here is a short video of the 3's race after me.

The Strategy...

Volunteer Park Crit

It was a good news bad news kind of day.

Bad news first - Annette crashed and dislocated her shoulder. I think someone hit the curb and four riders went down and it sounds like Annette might have gotten the worst of it. I hope she gets better fast.

Good news was that Jen took the field sprint. Hooray! She went strong up the hill and was in first by the corner and finished strong all the way to the line.

I rode aggressively in the first part of the race and ended up getting popped at 10 laps. The race was really fast right from the gun. The rider I was marking attacked on the third lap and I didn't react quickly enough and took half a lap to catch her. I brought the pack up but then I was wasted. I went to the back to recover and made it through another lap but then lost contact. Then I came around the corner and saw the four riders down. I checked to see that they were OK and then kept going. The refs didn't pull me and when the pack came around I jumped in the back. The rest of the race I hung out there. I heard lots of people cheering for me which was really nice! I had plenty of energy left at the finish but couldn't contest since I was lapped. I'll have to watch the reserves more closely next time and be alert to the screaming lungs before it's too late.

Karen did well and got in the Suz/Jaydeen (sp?) break. But she had the same problem I've had at other races. They were way to strong for her to work with. They ended up dropping her and she ended up back in the pack. Nice effort though. Those two just got back from Redlands and have great fittness.

After the race I saw the Garage team heading up the hill to the park and one guy was carrying a bike over his shoulder while he was riding. Bike racers are crazy!

5 minute intervals

I did a Computrainer ride today to work on focused intervals. Computrainer is great for doing training that you can't easily do on the road when you are dealing with all of the distractions.

My goal was to do 4x5 minute intervals at progressively higher watts. The first one I held at 210 watts. It was difficult to hold the wattage because if you haven't had any feedback for a while your form suffers and you don't realize it. When the watts jump around though you know.

The next interval was 220 and it wasn't too bad. I worked on firing the quads while keeping the legs relaxed.

230 for the next interval. I was breathing harder and tried to establish a breathing rhythm. It reminded me of my days of swimming across lake Washington when I would get a really nice strong rhythm.

Finally 240-250 on the last go-round. At first it was hard but then I remembered what one of my teammates was telling me yesterday about how she learned to mt bike by riding without sitting back on the saddle. You aren't standing but you aren't sitting back either. As I shifted my weight I felt more aggressive, like I was really driving the bike and the watts went up.

I felt pretty good afterwards but resisted the temptation to do more - well just a 10 minute tempo but not too hard.

Redlands Bike Classic

I was surfing the web yesterday and I found the Redlands bike classic which some of the local girls are racing at. (Not me - I'm sticking to the local racing.) And I am just in time for the live video feed of the men's pro criterium. The video quality was not great but it was amazing to see the race from the comfort of my computer. There was a break of four riders going into the final five laps that was holding off the hard charging pack driven by the Toyota team. With two laps to go the four riders had it made - we just had to see who got what place. Final lap, two riders come across the line and then...nothing. The camera died. We don't know what happened to the other two. Was there a crash? No idea, nothing.

Anyway kudos to anyone who braved that race. The riders who train in sunshine during the winter have great fitness this time of year and make for stiff competition.

North End

We went around the North end of the lake today. My legs are still toasted from thursday's sprint session. We avoided the trail and took Simmons hill which is really nice but steep at the top.

There are no local races except the time trial in Carnation and putting on the TT bars for Icebreaker was enough for me. I might do some TT stuff on the track this year though.

I saw that my team mate Jen took first in the Prolog at Willamette! Nice.

Sprints

We did sprints with Annette on Thursday. I thought I was a pretty good sprinter but Annette is on a another level. It was a great experience to learn from her. I'm so glad to have team mates willing to share their expertise and teach others. Now I have to practice and hopefully get to use my new skills in a race.