IBOHUNT

Well done @Heathpack.
I vote you do the 40K. I heart me some 40K's. We only get those 2x a year.

LAJ

Good stuff, @Heathpack. Considering what's going on, it's a definite well done!

Cleave

My plan is to do the 20 Km ITTs in December, January, and February as preparation for the Valley of the Sun Stage Race. I had a good training block during my holiday break from work and had an easier week leading up to this race so I thought I could build on my relatively good December result.

Wrong.

Warm up felt OK. Not good, but OK.

My teammate who has been beating me lately in TTs (a reversal of previous years, but heck, he's 5 years younger than I), started 30 seconds behind me. I knew from the end of my warmup that we had a tailwind on the outbound leg so I tried to take advantage of it. About 5 miles out, my teammate caught and passed me. I kept him close until the turnaround and the headwind.

That's when the bottom fell out.

I couldn't maintain any kind of power or speed. As my teammate disappeared from sight, two other guys passed me. I was surprised more people didn't pass me. I tried hard in the last mile but it was as if Scotty was saying, "I giving it all she has Captain and there just isn't any more!"

My NP was 35(!) watts lower than for the December race. I was 6th out of 6 for the 55+ guys. My teammate was 2nd in his first 55+ race. Spoke with Heathpack briefly after the race -- briefly so she wouldn't see me cry.

Went home after the race to watch the Giants lose to the Packers and then rushed to LAX for a quick trip to Seattle. Went to Roger's Session at the velodrome last night and I felt great. Too bad it wasn't a race day.

Decided to race this weekend since there is a separate 60+ race -- my first one! Will also do the 55+ race and might try the 50+ race. Will let you know how it goes.

Hermes

@Cleave Racing is sometimes just about doing. I plan on doing Piru in the future. Conflicted this time. It is a long drive for us

sarals 

Early Bird #2 Criterium, Mentored the Cat 5 Women's Race

I'm a newly minted mentor in the district, and I am really honored to be able to do this! I attended a New Mentor talk this morning, and then I worked the Cat 5 men's skills clinics, followed later in the day by the Cat 5 women's skills clinic.

And then...

The very FIRST mass start Cat 5 women's race (that we know of) in the USAC was held today at the 30th Early Bird Criteriums. I was privileged to be a mentor in that race. My assignment was to trail the group, picking up stragglers. That was harder than racing, let me tell you! Lots of bursts, constant chasing, some TT'ing, talking, looking over my shoulder, NO time in the pack, out of the wind. And the pack was moving right along! Needless to say, I was pretty happy to be herding the stragglers along, I did get some recovery doing that.

Larry N. did the post race debrief. I was pretty stoked to ride with him, by the way. I also took photos, which are up on the NCNCA Women Facebook page.

Today was one to remember. I am honored to now be a mentor in the district, for road, and to participate in a history making race.

So cool!

Heathpack 

Sweet @sarals. Way to give back.

sarals 

I am completely stoked right now! Full circle? I think so!

shovelhd

Cat4 Women, or did USAC quietly add a Cat?

Hermes

Misseure Commissaire: Category 5 for women was added this year - on Facebook and in the rules. There is always someone who does not get the memo.

Hermes

@sarals Great work at Early Birds. Thanks for helping out.

echappist

+1

Racer Ex 

I did the mentor thing for several seasons. Definitely fun. Logistically hard for me to get down there and I'm not doing the "every weekend" thing anymore.

shovelhd

I'm definitely not a Commisssaire, just a lowly CatB. I haven't looked at the 2017 rule changes, we just finished 2016. USAC sends officials a memo, which hasn't gone out yet.

Cleave

Wasn't originally planning to this race as I don't want to encourage promoters to have races this early in the year, but since I am a newly minted 60+ racer and this race had a separate 60+ race...

tl;dr Did my first 60+ race and finished the 55+ and 50+ races.

Masters 60+
The "new" course is a shortened version of the "old" Ontario Grand Prix course. I arrived just a few minutes after my plan but the registration line was very slow so I didn't have much time to warm up. Except that the race ended up starting 20 minutes late because of a crash in Cat 5 race. It was cold for SoCal even though the sun was out.

The race started nicely with no one hammering off the line. I was worried that some of the winter training champions would set an infernal pace but none of those guys were present. There was a two-place prime ($30 and $20) that they announced before the race started and they rang the bell for it at the end of lap two. Some guys started attacking and I was covering for my sprinter teammate. As we hit the finish straight my teammate was in a good position and ended up 2nd.

Another attack went shortly after the prime. I jumped on, pulled through once, and then we were caught. Almost immediately, there was another attack and this one stuck for a while. They never got too far ahead but what I noticed about this race was we were either going fairly fast (for a bunch of old guys) or we were going really slow.

One other guy and I were closing the last bit of gap to the break. I was on his wheel and we we still a couple of bike lengths behind the break when one of the guys in the break crashed in turn 1. Fortunately he didn't seem to be badly hurt. We caught the break before we finished that lap.

A few more laps of fast and slow and then coming out of turn 2 with 3-to-go, I was on the wheel of one of the faster 60+ racers. He jumped and I accelerated too and then he just stopped. Instead of hitting the brakes I rolled past him and the next thing I saw was a 20 meter gap. I decided to keep going and heading down the front straight another strong guy caught me.

We sort of worked together for the next lap with him doing the bulk of the pulling as he was stronger than I. We got the bell and I glanced under my arm and it looked like we still had a decent gap. I pulled between turn 1 and 2. Coming out of turn 2 my break mate took the lead and then all of a sudden, there was the pack.

My teammate took 3rd and I was next-to-DFL.

Masters 55+
I didn't mention that I was mostly looking at this day a high intensity day of training. This kind of intensity aligned with my training plan leading up to Valley of the Sun Stage Race.

This race started fast and after a few laps and a few attacks, a break stuck. One of Racer Ex's teammates was in the break and once they were out of sight, the pace of the field slowed. Not wanting to get lapped, my (other) teammate tried pushing the pace and I tried to help. I didn't help much as we got lapped just after we got 2-to-go.

Now I was confused as to whether we had 2 laps or 1 lap since we got lapped. As we approached the line the officials were ringing the bell. I just tried to stay out of the way at the back for the sprint. I ended up DFL.

Masters 50+
The biggest problem with this day of racing was that each successive race was noticeably faster. This one started fast and stayed relatively fast. At just about the halfway mark (20 min) I ran out of gas (sort of). I got dropped but I kept going as the official said he would pull people as necessary. I guess it wasn't necessary.

Just as lap card came out I got lapped and I latched on to the very back of the pack. I stayed there until the last half lap when I fell off again. Rolled across the line and later on saw that I was classified as a finisher -- DFL again.

Postscript: I was cold all day. I had a long sleeve base layer and jersey and bib knickers. Also long finger gloves. Never got close to being overheated. Also didn't refuel enough between races but maybe that allowed me to burn a bit more fat. Fifteen days into the new year and I have a TT and 3 criteriums in the books. Quantity, not quality.

shovelhd

Nice racing.

The lap cards always go with the leader. If the leader laps the field, the field does one less lap. Everybody finishes with the leader. It can get tricky when the leader is about to catch the field with the cards showing two to go. If it looks like he is going to catch at the line then I throw the card early and give them the bell. Judgement call.

sarals 

The Bump Circuit Race, MW 55+

I did this race only because it's the first race in the 2017 NCNCA Masters Women 55+ Series, which I designed. Obligated? Yeah, and it was a short race, and even without much base I was pretty sure I could hang and make it a training ride. DFL. And that was on purpose.

I've been battling a stomach/intestinal bug since last Tuesday. I haven't been on the bike much all week, and in the longer term, I don't have many base miles. The back injury kept me from that early, and then the weather has played a big role later. My openers ride yesterday was not good, so I decided that for the race today I'd do the rollout and then cash it in and wait for the podium, which I had to present.

It didn't quite work that way.

I opted for a road warmup rather than my customary trainer warmup. During that warmup ride, I noticed right away that I felt pretty good. In fact, on the drive up to the race, I had none of the stomach cramps or heartburn that I had been having up to yesterday. Still, I knew with limited energy, doing the whole 3 lap 25 mile race was not something I should do. And I didn't plan to!

The field was combined 3/4/5 and MW 55+. I'm guessing the peloton was around thirty all told. In the 55+ field, ALL of the Big Guns, save for one, were there. Climbers, all. I had three teammates in the field, but we'd not discussed any sort of strategy. The notion was our strongest rider, who won the Series last year, would be racing with the other five women who were her competitors, and the rest of us would be pretty much cannon fodder.

On the rollout, I ended up in the front 1/3 of the group, on the left side (centerline rule in effect). I was watching the woman right in front of me pretty carefully, she wasn't displaying solid skills, and I sure didn't want to get taken out. My body has enough dings I'm dealing with right now without adding hitting the deck to my resume. I was fairly comfortable in what was an elevated pace up Patterson Pass Road, and even though my legs were stinging a bit, I wasn't in any kind of distress. However, the rider I was watching made a drastic lateral move to the right, bumping the rider to her right, and I felt I'd exit the group right then. I slid over to the yellow line and drifted back.

I decided that, because I was still feeling quite good, that I'd do a lap, work on some particulars, and then pull the plug.

After that lap, I decided that, because I was still feeling quite good, that I'd do one more lap and then pull the plug.

Next thing I knew, I had finished. I was feeling it a bit on the last trip up Patterson Pass Road, and I was thankful that I was done before I got myself into distress. I was caught by the faster riders in my race just as I turned onto Cross Road for the finish climb (up "The Bump").

In looking at my data, well, surprise, surprise. I PR'ed all sorts of stuff, including the climb up Patterson Pass Road. That's good for me, but competitive I was not, even if I had decided to and had had the fitness to compete. Still, I rode far better than I thought I did. On the flats, I hummed along at 22 to 24 MPH, on the descents I turned it up, and on the climbs I settled into TT mode and paced.

It was a good training ride!

Heathpack 

Nice @sarals! Sounds like you had a good day, and a bit of fun. That's what it's about.

Heathpack 

Well, I have been having a tough time of it lately, lots of backing off on training because of my Mom being sick and then me getting a sinus infection and then having the eye surgery. Plus this was just an emotionally exhausting week for a number of reasons. So I didn't feel in great shape to race and I didn't particularly feel like going. But as of this morning, I was trailing Nemesis by 8 points in the SoCal TT Series. I just needed to head out, try to make the podium & not let her widen the gap too much further. And you never know, she might not show up.

So we load up the car and off we go. I pick up my number and see there is no Nemesis on the list of pre-reg people and she typically pre-registers. Hot damn, this is intriguing. There's one other woman in my category and I don't recognize her name, so I check out her race results on USAC. She is the defending SoCal State Champion in the 60-64 age group. So I've got 10 years on her. I look up her time, she was three minutes slower than Nemesis (55+ women race a shorter distance than under 55s so I couldn't compare her time directly to mine). Beatable for me, I think, as long as I throw out something decent. I compare her time to a local racer who I'm pretty equally matched with, she races for a women's team/club B4T9. She was 1 min slower. Game on.

Ex had suggested that I ride without looking at power today, practice riding by feel. It seemed like a good day for that exercise. But given the possibility of actually winning, I decide I need every advantage I can get and I decide to ride with power after all.

While I'm warming up, B4T9 shows up en masse. I try to figure out who might be in my category and the only one I know for sure I'll be racing against is the B4T9 racer that I mentioned above. And maybe 3-4 other non-B4T9 women I don't recognize show up. I'd guess there were 10 women racing today and I wasn't sure who was who. I'm starting to get interested in racing after all.

I decide on conservative power targets for out & back legs. I get a good start, ride for a few minutes and take my targets down 5 watts, boy this is not fun. I am mega-conservative at the turn. Must. Not. Fall. I do an ok job with the TT. Uneven power. I slightly exceed my power target for outbound and slightly miss it for the return. But within the vicinity of where I decided to ride. Not much left for that final minute but I eke out a little something.

And then the results get posted. Oof on my time. Not good. But good enough to win! Sweet. The SoCal TT Series Just Got Interesting. Nemesis 25 points. Me 22 points. Three races left, two of them at Fiesta Island. Fiesta is where I have my best chance against Nemesis- dead flat and no turns. Let's be clear- I've never beat her. I probably won't beat her. But haha I can chase her and scare her a little. Put her on notice for next year maybe.

And another sweet thing: the militant woman who was advocating riding through our TT earlier in the week is a member of B4T9. She patronizingly suggested I join B4T9 because they have a lot of TT knowledge, I could learn a lot. But the woman I raced against today is considered one of their best and I kind of thought it was weird that I could beat her my first year racing. Aside from logistics (they are based out of Santa Barbara), their relatively weak TT performance was one of the reasons I had decided not to join them. So I'm just happy to say that I posted a faster time than every woman B4T9 brought out today. Take that, patronizing militant TTists-can't-have-the-road-for-15-min lunatic!

revchuck 

@sarals - Great that you had a decent day with all the health challenges you've been having!
@Heathpack - Ditto, but with the life challenges. Plus you're looking pretty spiffy in that skin suit, even though the shoe covers don't match.

shovelhd

Congrats on the win!

Cleave

@Heathpack, "patronizing militant TTists-can't-have-the-road-for-15-min lunatic" was at the race? Who knew? Was this part of Tren starting the race less late than usual?

Heathpack 

No she was not there, just her club, B4T9.

Yes the threat of my old beginner group riding through was a motivator for Tren to move things along.

Great seeing you today. Man, you are gonna get so fast starting in March. Ride ride ride. Jealous.

echappist

congrats on driving home the caddy

quick thought: do i see wrinkles on the forearm of your skinsuit

Hermes

Congrats @sarals and @Heathpack Keep it up!

Heathpack 

Yes its a known issue. Its a men's skinsuit and the forearms are too big on me. However when I'm in the aerobars on a trainer there are no wrinkles. Big question is whether there are wrinkles when I'm out on the road.


I have discussed this with my fitter- maybe I should alter the arms to make them narrower. Risky though because the fabric is delicate. Its an expensive skinsuit and I could wreck it trying to alter it when I'm not even sure the alteration is necessary.


So he says to hold on altering it unless I aero test and we establish for a fact that the alteration is necessary. I have a friend who is a seamstress and works on costuming (for film and theater). She's pretty sure she could do the alteration. She also has an idea for putting in a temporary seam that would tighten the skin suit on my forearms but could be removed during aero testing so that I could test the skin suit in both configurations.


I was also planning on running this by Ex when I see him next week.


This is basically the state of things for women, BTW. There are no high-end skin suits made for women. So you just have to get a men's suit and hope the fit is good enough.


I need to get a new skin suit soon anyway, so maybe we can experiment a bit with this one once it becomes the back-up suit. I sent Bioracer a podium pic from the NoCal State Championship because they had gone to some trouble to Fed Ex my suit to me. First comment the Bioracer guy made is "the forearms are too big on you" and then "congrats!". So who knows? Maybe they will have redesigned the suit by now.