Stay Tuned...

...for a race report from the 2010 Freedom Tour in Stirling, New Jersey.

Scituate Reservoir Time Trial No 1

It's no secret that I can't time trial my way out of a wet paper bag.. and that I do not count climbing hills as one of my strengths. Therefore, what better way to improve than by doing a hilly time trial? The Scituate Reservoir course takes you on a roller coaster ride of about 14.3 miles. There are 5 notable hills, and if I had to guess, this course has about 900-1000 feet of elevation gain per lap. The longest hill is 1 mile, though only the first half is what you would rate as steep. The rest of the hills are about a kilometer or less, and more like punchy rollers than hills. I rode there with backpack because I wanted to wear my skinsuit. Other than that, I was pretty much cannibal with my heavy Powertap rear wheel, though I did at least use my light Easton front wheel. No aero bars or helmet, no disk or shoe covers. There were about 15 triathletes there and 2-3 road guys, including a totally cannibal A.B., with long frame pump, saddle bag and all. Said A.B smoked everyone, including the fastest triathlete with TT bike and disk wheel etc.. That's another story. I called it at the start and it was as predicted.
At any rate.. I was slotted in to go 2nd to last, with the winner of past weeks starting right behind me. Long story short: I had one of the best 1/2 way splits, and I paid a price for it. I went out a bit too fast. I sprinted over the first three climbs in my big ring.. My 30 second follower caught me in my 19th minute at about the 1/2 way point and put another 3 minutes into me by the finish. This is a pretty clear indication that I fell apart like a Chinese motorcycle once we made the turn onto Route 12 approaching the last 2 climbs.. Along the way- yeah I caught and passed about 6-7 people. My time of just a hair over 40:00 is probably good enough for 5th or 6th.. whatever. It was my first try and these guys have been doing this for the past 5-6 weeks. The real objective of this TT was to get some decent data on the power meter, and from the normalized power numbers it's evident that I should definitely stick to sprinting and criteriums, but in fairness, I am down about 3 kg and the power relative to weight is actually more impressive than it looks. Will I go back next week? Maybe I'll decide after the taste of puke dissipates. That was hard. I rode another 160 minutes afterwards for a nice solid 4 hour workout.
Here is a link to past results, tonight's will be up in a couple of days. I can tell you that tonight's winning time was in the neighborhood of 35:30. The time trial starts at 6:00 on Tuesdays and the meeting place is "crazy corners" in Scituate, intersection of route 14 and 102. Most people drive there- parking is ample. It's a great bunch of guys and gals and everyone made me feel very welcome. Try it!
Thanks for reading.

2010 Al Toefield Memorial Road Race 35+

Well I'm working again- this time for more money (per hour) as a consultant. Let's see how this goes. My life is a Dilbert cartoon or something, I swear.
Thought I would let you know. The drought of June is over as of four weeks ago. I went from a block of 0 miles in four weeks (in June) to completing 937 miles in the past 4 weeks. Also- my weight is down to 165! I'm happy about that.
Saturday I went to NY to drop the wife and kid off at JFK (Turkey for 6 weeks). I stayed in NY to race Al Toefield Memorial at Prospect Park. That was a total blast- completely full field of masters, including lots of local talent. On Friday I did 15 endurance/tempo laps around the park (51 miles) as an opener, having taken Wed and Thurs for rest. My sister literally lives 3 blocks away from the park so I rode there (on 4 hours sleep) and lined up to start at 6:30 Saturday morning. We were doing 10 laps of a 3.4 mile course. I cramped up! Halfway through the race I was nursing cramped legs. Felt good otherwise! The big ring hill was pretty easy for me, even though I was using the upstroke to save my quads from seizing up. Four guys were up the road from the gun. I thought they were long gone. I didn't realize it but we caught them, so the final sprint was for the win, not for 5th place. That's not really an excuse for my 15th place, it was a pleasant surprise actually because I thought I was around 20th. Quite frankly, with two two go I was falling apart like a Chinese motorcycle on the climb, and thinking "just get to the finish, you're lucky if you do".. What incorrect thinking!! Leg cramps do not instill confidence though.. so I do not blame myself too much. Final time up the hill, it was pretty mellow. Everyone was watching each other, with the finish only 3 miles away. I pulled myself together! Riding primarily on the left side of the field turned out to be my mistake because in the final kilometer I made it up into the top 20 guys, trying to pick the correct wheels.. when the leadout train suddenly swerved to the right to go around the last guy who took a pull. I was caught out on the left, behind traffic. Fortunately the cramps did not blunt my sprinting instincts because I found the holes I needed to keep pace with the leadout, but totally exposed in the final 400 meters, on the left side of the road. I made up some ground but faded/cramped in the last few meters, where two guys barely pipped me at the line. The prizes were 10 deep, and after the finish I reckoned I was in the top 20. In NY they rarely ever bother ranking anyone who finished after the money makers, so I approached the camera person- extremely friendly dude on a laptop reviewing the finishes, and he offered to tell me where I ended up. That's when I discovered that there was no break up the road. That sprint was for the win. We counted from the winner back and I was 15th guy across the line, out of a full field of 85. In hindsight, I regret not knowing that we caught the break, but the reality of my final lap was that I gave it everything! My heart rate was pounding at 194 after the finish line. Scared myself a little bit actually. The real regret I have is being caught out on the left side of the leadout when the action was on the right. What I learned from this race is that I was strong enough to finish top 10. Maybe the laps I did in the park Friday were a few too many. Maybe getting only 4 hours of sleep was a big factor in the cramping.. Who knows! I'm pleased with this result, much more so than my "also raced" result at the Attleboro Pro crit last week. Now that I recall it, I also cramped in the 30+ race which followed (at Attleboro). Why why why??? I left out the scariest part of Saturday's event- the crashes.. They were spectacular. Parts of the Prospect Park course are very fast- we were going 35+ mph without any doubt on the downhills, closer to 40 when we were strung out. One of the crashes was behind me. I heard but did not see them. Two crashes were ahead of me and it was like an explosion in the field. Bikes and bodies were being launched outward from the detonation- I swerved hard to avoid a bike or a person taking weird bounces towards me. Two other crashed were to my right- in my peripheral vision and very scary because we were cruising at the time.. I felt like hay in a needle stack- and very lucky (skillful?) to have avoided all those falls.
After the race I did 8 more laps of the park to collect myself and cool down, though it was getting very hot. Including my two warm-up laps, I did 20 all together, about 68 miles. Racing at Prospect Park is a lot of fun and it's very well organized. The only thing I do not approve of is that if you're not in the money, you're not ranked- not on Bikereg, not on USA Cycling, not even on Road-Results.com. I love that there is a waist high pile of backpacks at the start/finish area- it is a safer place to be than you would imagine. They have been racing here since the 80s at least. In fact the 2nd time I ever raced a bike was at Prospect Park, back in 1988 (I did my first ever road race in a snowstorm the day before, somewhere near Albany). On a cold April morning at 6:00 am I remember standing in line with my buddy Derek Larson outside a van, where Al Toefield himself (I think) was collecting entries and handing out numbers. A young George Hincapie won that race (combined juniors and cat 3-4s?) and Yours Truly got his doors blown off. Has it really been 23 years since my first bike race?
Thanks for reading.

Good Morning Flatbush!

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2010 Attleboro Criterium Results

For once I decided to do the Pro race first and it made a huge difference. Many of the 35+ participants did not survive the Pro race. I was tested so many times at this event, it hurt immeasurably to hang in there on some laps. I even managed to get off the front for a few with about 5-6 others. That put a lot of confidence in my legs and helped me survive to the ending. I pretty much sat up after hearing the bell lap and just rode tailgun to the finish, nothing left to contest the sprint for 10th place, with 9 up the road.. Team mate Alain snagged 3rd in the field sprint, 12th overall. I'm not in a bad place with form, all things considered. Thanks for reading.

The spell is broken

Recent career path changes have made it possible for me to ride whenever the fcuk I want. If you don't believe me just look at this week's volume: already 338 miles Mon thru Sat. The week before, I commuted to work for five days, logging 150 miles in my first week back from a four week drought of training. So far I'm pleased with my structural fitness relative to the time off. Today's 116 miler was completed with an average of 175 watts, in 6:15 for a relatively easy 18.5 mph average- I avoided putting myself into difficulty and did a proper endurance ride for a change, thanks to my buddy Eric who was with me, training for Ironman. His disciplined approach to riding 100 miles reigned me in and prevented an overuse injury, an incomplete workout and an early ride home for me. We rode side by side the whole time and chatted for hours about life- we hadn't seen eachother since 1989. Tomorrow I will rest but an active recovery ride with my boy Reis is not out of the question. Thanks.

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Update for my 2 readers..

Today marks 29th day since my last training ride. Maybe 22nd, not sure. It was a Sunday. On the bright side, we will be going to MA next weekend so that Reis can go and "smoke everyone", as he puts it.
We are filling the pool and it's almost topped off. Liner has shrunk due to the fact that previous owners let it go empty for two seasons and it may be leaking some place. We also need a pump installed before it turns into a swamp, due to the fact that this house was a foreclosure and they probably sold the pump to put food on the table. Still we swam in it over the weekend after a nice shock treatment turned the water crystal clear. I have a cordless vacuum to keep the small amount of sediment on the bottom cleaned up. I guess we should just enjoy it as much as possible before it (the liner) fails completely. A new liner is $3000 installed. No me gusta.
Work? I don't want to talk about it, but rest assured that I have contingency plans which make certain that I land on my feet no matter what happens. Send me your positive thoughts. Let me say this.. when your livelihood is threatened, bike racing is about as significant as playing with your Xbox or PS3. In other words, you can live without it and not die. I mourn the hopes and plans that are dashed for me this season, but I also look forward to mounting a comeback and seeing what damage I can do at the end of summer. Cyclocross? Maybe it's time to upgrade my cross bike to something that weighs less than 25 pounds..
Thanks for reading.

Every day sort of feels like Sunday night lately, if you know what I mean.. Symptoms of an impending mid-life crisis? Is it time to begin using religion as an anti-depressant? I've refrained from this because an afterlife seems like a cowardly fabrication.. but life is not getting any easier, is it? It's either that or copious imbibing of spirits... Maybe I just need to ride my bike, train, and race as before.. It's been nine days and I feel like an infidel of the cycling gods. So I am religious after all.. Riding, training, racing.. is just how I pray. Amen.
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2010 Mystic Velo Criterium Results

Sorry this is all I had time to get..

It's time get crackalakin..

I have no training program and no list of "A" races, and so it's understandably hard to get motivated for training. The good things I have going for me are a solid base of fitness and 10 days of "rest" (no riding). How can I craft this opportunity into a successful June and July? Racing at Mystic today after 10 days off was not easy, but when is racing ever easy? Still it was encouraging to finish the crit strongly when it mattered. For what it's worth.. I was expecting to have great difficulty, but faith in myself is restored to some extent. The Pro race which followed the 35 race was too much for me- the loss of fitness seems to be primarily endurance- I was too fatigued to do more than 15 minutes of the pro race, but that was averaging some eye popping speeds for several consecutive laps. A lot of guys fell apart and quit. I'm optimistic about the many crits coming up this summer. The spring racing is officially over I think. It's a long season ahead of us.
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2010 Mystic Velo Criterium

It's going to be an interesting day of racing for me tomorrow. Success will be measured by the frequency with which I taste puke. When was the Blue Hills Classic? Two weeks ago? That was the last time I raced and since that day, I have ridden to work a couple of times. Today marks the 10th day that I have not touched the bike. If I go to Ninigret Park tomorrow and race, you will find me tail-gunning at the back of the field, probably with teeth clenched as I give it everything I have. Then afterwards, I'll probably do the pro race for good measure. The fatigue of home buying is so much more than I imagined (this time).. Anticipating the day we close and all of the thought, the fretting, the research, the money needed.. All of these things have made it impossible to have the time, the desire or the strength to train. Wish me luck tomorrow- it will hopefully be the beginning of my next three week build.
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Want to ruin everything?

If you’re interested in wasting/ruining months worth of physical training, lowering your performance at work, increasing your stress and blood pressure to unhealthy levels, or hanging on to your sanity by a thread while being thrown around emotionally like a red-headed step-child.. BUY SOME REAL ESTATE!!!

 

 

Waiting is Torture

We are at our wits end this week. The goal of making an offer to purchase a home, is to close the deal and get the keys, right?. We have been engaged in this process since February. Closing is supposed to happen Friday! BUT it's still not finalized or scheduled. We're dying 1000 deaths in anticipation. The amount of energy this requires is nothing short of immense.

Add to this the stress of selling millions of dollars of contracts- or I should say- the REQUIREMENT of making these sales- while my job hangs in the balance, and you have another ingredient necessary for a nervous breakdown. Contractors are in no hurry to make buying decisions, and again, the burden on me to continue performing while I wait, is impossibly difficult. Imagine a photo finish at Nationals, where you're required to start the next race while the officials decide if you're the winner. Concentration and focus escape me. Understandably I think..

Top it all off with the inability to train on the bike properly for the past couple of weeks due to the paralysis of waiting and it's clear that lighting my fuse is not a good idea right now.

All I need is one win at work and to close on this house and I can get back to feeling human again.
God help us.
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Reset Button

Okay last week was a bust for training- all I did was the Blue Hills RR, and poorly at that. I’m bike commuting this week, and already logged 108 miles in the past 40 hours. Now I think about tonight’s training race at Ninigret and seriously don’t feel like doing it. I hit it hard last night on the ride home, and this morning I can really feel the soreness in my legs. I will probably drive home tonight, skip Ninigret, and resume training tomorrow after work. Sterling RR is this weekend- a race I’ve never tried. I’ll go if the mood strikes, but would prefer to keep my money and do a couple of longish training rides instead. One other option is to go to NYC for a couple of crits, but Saturday’s has a 6:30 start time- Prospect Park. Sunday is the Tour de Parc in Wantagh- a race I did last year with Alain- load of fun on a great course which apparently used to be used for Masters Nationals.

In case you thought it couldn’t be done, I just installed my rear license plate to my new Land Cruiser using VELCRO around the entire perimeter. Previous owner did a horrific job of removing his plate- he ripped it off and effectively destroyed the left hand plate boss- there’s now a gaping hole. The right hand boss has the bolt snapped off in there. I started out by hanging the plate temporarily using speaker wire. Now [with Velcro] it’s so secure I don’t think I can ever remove it without slitting between the Velcro with a sharp knife. I’m going to press my luck and leave the front one off- I’ll keep it in the car. So far so good- my 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser has not disappointed me. The A/C blows ice cold and the suspension is as smooth as a Cadillac. There’s an aftermarket radio and really hokey aftermarket speakers in the doors. They will all be replaced with OEM replacements. I already found the original radio on Ebay- it plays cassettes and CDs. The speakers will be a little tougher to find. I also need to figure out how to drop the spare tire which is clamped underneath the vehicle. There’s a port where you’re supposed to insert a crank and screw it until it descends to the floor. I have a feeling it’s all frozen up same as my previous Toyota pick-up. I ended up cutting away the rusted mechanism with a sawz-all. I’d really rather not have a 275-70R16 wheel in the back of my new truck though. Now that I own this monster, commuting to work by bike is a lot more cost-effective. I think the 60 mile round trip will cost me four gallons of gas. That’s $12 a day! Thanks for reading.

2010 Blue Hills Classic

You know how some guys in New England give you "negative draft"? Such is my race report on Blue Hills. It won't be long before you ask yourself what you're doing here when there are so many more engaging race reports to read..
Let's begin with excuses: it was a highly stressful week, what with the house we're buying, shopping for a new car, career challenges, and no training whatsoever for six days straight.. Needless to say, my head was fixatedupon upon simply surviving and finishing when I lined up Sunday morning. A slow leak in my front 404 required me to take a wheel before starting. Somehow I forgot to take a short sleeve jersey, but was glad to have grabbed a long sleeve one in case it was needed. I got a little warm while racing, but it wasn't too bad.
Fast forward to the final lap (first 5 laps I just sat-in and tried to judge how I felt after 6 days off the bike) bottom of the hill I started looking for opportunities to move up, and did. 1/4 way up the whole field swung right abd the door opened for me to get right to the front, which I did, but not without a nice push from some wise guy who is presumed to have a low opinion of one who sits in all day and moves up with 1k2go. Okay I get it. I'm up there hoping to help Alain or Matt or Adam, that is all. Long story short, I went to the front for 15 seconds, burned the one match I had and shut it down the last 1/4 mile, to finish almost DFL.
Now there's 2 minutes you're never going to see again. Sorry about that.
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Does it bother you to miss workouts?

Two days straight for me. Yesterday was a rest day so I didn't mind so much, but today?! it makes my skin crawl to miss a scheduled workout. Oh well.. tomorrow I'll double down and maybe ride to Ninigret again.. Life requirements have shifted- I'm deeply engaged in some cost estimates to renovate three Providence high schools- 30 science labs total. My bid is due tomorrow and the process has really worn me out together with the major efforts in between to try to close some huge sales of previous bids. The weather is partly to blame too. We're a one car family at the moment and with the not-so-great weather, I've had to drive to work, or else I'd already have 112 miles this week! Fine and dandy- I don't want to be too wound up for Sunday's Blue Hills Classic! Just saying, I hate when life gets in the way of training.. Some quality volume and rest these next three days will prepare me nicely for Sunday morning. .

Do you know why 6 is afraid of 7 ?

The answer is below..
No racing for Murat this weekend, not even any real crazy hard training- I did enough of that Mon thru Fri.. and it appears I've logged 305 miles this week in 17-1/2 hours overall. Not that I didn't want to race TP and Quabbin, I did.. but I really need to bring my A game to the start line of any hilly road race, and this week's volume put me at about a C or D for form, and I'm not that interested in racing myself into the ground and off the back, not to mention driving 2 hours each way and paying $30 a pop for the privilege. I'll save that kind of commitment for the road races that I care about- like Blue Hills. Now if TP and Quabbin were flat criteriums, I probably would have found a way to be there. The risk/reward ratio is a lot more favorable.. You can bang your head against a wall "training your weaknesses" but as a friend recently shared with me on FB:
"Don't let what you cannot do, interfere with what you can do." -John Wooden
That's good advice, IMHO.
the answer to the riddle, per our 6 year old son Reis: "because seven 'ate' nine". He told that one out of the blue today while we were driving home from IKEA. Thanks for reading.

Ninigret No 2

It's not that I won it or anything, so I won't bore you with a race report. The interesting story is that I rode my bike down to the race, then I raced, then I attached my headlight and rode home. 86+ miles in about 4:14. I've done this ride before, and it has always paid dividends the following week. I got home in the pitch black- about 9:15. Previous attempts to do this ride ended up with severe cramping both during the race and on the ride home. Yesterday I did a little better- one calf cramped a tiny bit for a moment and that's it. Added to my two bike commutes to work on Monday and Tuesday, I already have 200 miles in 3 days. Today is a rest day- hopefully a bike path bike ride with my son if anything at all. Racewise- I tend to hold back a bit when I know I need to ride home afterwards. Feeling a little fresh at the end of the crit, I easily took my place in the lead out train and got 3rd in the field sprint. The usual suspects had broken away and had a big gap. Nice big field last night also included G-Diddy in his 1st ever [Wed night] Ninigret Crit. Didn't see him after the start as I think he was tail-gunning at the back, enjoying himself. That's what it's all about. Interestingly, my first 60 minutes riding into the wind down to he race was my CP60 for the day, racing was actually easier than the ride down. Nice tailwind on the way home was thoroughly enjoyed. Thanks for reading.

Bike Racers in the Boston Marathon

I know of two people in there today: J Alain Ferry and Ken Abrams. So far, so good.

2010 Rick Newhouse Criterium Kid's Race

Watch how fast these kids go past the camera!