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...