Another semi-annual update

So let's see......where did I leave off? I posted up following Kings' CX, my first race of this year's CX season. It's now 7 CX races later (plus one MTB race) and I think that I'm finally getting my motivation back. Not sure where it went, but immediately after the USGP weekend here in the 'Ville my motivation meter pegged on the empty side. Zip. Zilch. Ended up only running once, riding once (the aforementioned MTB race) in a 3 week period. No swim. That's it, two workouts. How do you go from 9 workouts a week to pretty much zero? I don't know, but that's what happened. Fortunately I think I've turned the corner. I'm not quite back to full effort, but I'm starting to want to workout, so that's a big change.

I got my first cold weather ride of the year in today, 26 miles in 35 degrees. 1:25. My toes got cold, but that's to be expected. I usually run the Graber toe warmer things, they work great.

My CX season is coming to a close in 9 days with Storm the Greens which will with all likelyhood be the final CX race at River Road Country Club. I've had a mixed bag of results and currently sit 7th in the Series standings for the Cat 3-35+ group. This will mostly change a bit with my decision to pass on the race in Dayton this weekend, I'm just not interested in spending that much time in the car. I may be able to jump a postion or two if I have a spectacular race at STG and the guys in 5th & 6th no-show, but most likely I'll stay in my current position unless the guys behind me pickup some points.

I've had a couple of good races and a couple of bad. I've been really happy with how I've ridden at times (USGP, both days) and majorly disappointed (SEWay & others). I would really like to put a decent season together, maybe next year.

Here's some quick race reviews;

OVCX#3 Devou Park
The worst race CX of the year. Horribly muddy, off-camber, no fun at all. 17/20

OVCX#5 Harbin Park.
Great Course, great weather. Rode well but didn't have it at the end. Seiler caught me and I just didn't have the power to stay with him. Not to mention he started a minute or so behind me, but his Ironman fitness was just too much. 20/29

OVCX#6 Bloomington
A decent course, great weather, but started at the back and pretty much stayed there. I never really got my flow going and it showed. 5/7

OVCX#7 / USGP#3 / DerbyCity Cup Day 1
Great start, good race, rode well. Wet & sloppy but not horrible. A well-designed course for the conditions. I worked as hard during this race as any I have ever done. 39/99

OVCX#8/ USGP#4 / DerbyCity Cup Day 2
Day 2 of racing and my legs felt it. Another great start, rode a good race, just got passed by more folks than the day before. The course way drier and faster and a lot of fun. 58/95

The Iceman Cometh
This was the MTB race during my "blah" period. It's a 28-mile point-to-point race in Michigan. Nothing spectacular, the course is boring and easy. but it's a big race, with almost 4000 racers this year. I signed up for the Expert 40-44 class. I did this so I wouldn't get stuck behind a bazillion once-a-year racers this event brings out of the woodowork. Good news is that it worked. Didn't have to pass near as many folks this time. Bad news is that last time I raced this I placed in the top-10 in my age group in the Sport class. This time I was one of the slow guys...91st out of 149 in my category.

OVCX#12 Southeastway Cross
I told Scott Bond, race promoter, after the race that I hated him and his course. Only part of that is true, I don't hate him. But I did hate the course. Some of this was because it was part of my return to fitness, the first race after sitting on my ass for 3 weeks. But mostly because I hated the course. Too many tight 180-degree turns with slippery mud in them. No flow, just go fast, on the brakes, turn, accelerate, brake, turn, you get the idea. No fun. 9/10

OVCX#13 Brookside
This is one of my favorite races. This year the weather was fantastic, the course was fast and in top-notch shape. I got a great start and was in great position until blowing the remount going through through the barriers. Somehow when I attempted to remount my saddle wasn't underneath me, so I landed first on my rear wheel, then on the ground. As I rolled off to course to avoid being trampled a bunch of my fellow moved past me and I got to spend the rest of the race chasing them. I caught a few but ended up 7 out of 10. Good news is that I finished with the 2nd place 45+ guy, so maybe in 2 years when I move up the that age-group I won't always be finishing in the back. Of course I could rectify that now with training, but I like the other approach better.

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So I've got 9 days left in my 2009 race season and I'm already starting to plan out my race season for next year. Since none of the road races that I'll do are even planned yet, I'm really looking at my Tri schedule at this point. Memphis in May is a high probability and then I need to find a late-summer Olympic distance event as well. I'll fill in the rest with some sprint events or maybe an Olympic distance event if it was local. We need to be in Michigan the weekend of August 7-8, so I'm trying to find an event in the area either the weekend before or the weekend after so we can tie it into our trip.

Not sure how MTB racing will work out next year. I had plans to race a full season this year, but the weather and scheduling managed to mess that up. East Fork and the Iceman were the only two I managed to get in. The sad thing is that I didn't really miss it. For some reason I just haven't had the desire to get out on the MTB. Even as I write this I've got an invitation to ride on the dirt tomorrow morning, but I'm probably going to pass on it to catch a road ride. What's up with that? Maybe it's that I've tired of having to drive to the trails. Or maybe that I've figured out that I'm not really that good at it. Or I just don't like my mt. bike right now. Either way, not much incentive to ride it.

CX? Full season. Yeah, baby.

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So here's the 2009 race count:

5 Sprint Tris
1 Olympic Tri
3 Road Races
6 Crits
3 Mountain Bike races (Including Mohican 100k & Iceman)
9 Cyclocross Races

Total: 27 races, one less than last year. I may throw in a late-year running race just to match last years total. Besides, I've never done a "run only" race.

All-in-all, not a bad year. I finally won my first race which was, funny enough, my first triathlon that included all 3 events (my first was a run-swim only, the bike was cancelled due to icy conditions). As of the end of this year I'll have done 97 races, beginning back in 2005.

Epic

I'm struggling with this whole blog thing. I like the writing part almost as much as I like doing the stuff I write about. But for some reason, I just seem to forget about the writing part, even though I make it a point to keep up with other folks' blogs.

So here, in reverse chronological order, is what I've been up to:

Kings' CX (Sept 20)
Great race up in Ohio at yet another abandoned golf course. Maybe someday we'll read about playing golf on an old abandoned CX course, but I'm not holding my breath. Good venue with a fun, albeit a little long, course.

Drove up with Ray Smith, the Humana/Cycler's Cafe rep. It was his first CX race, so we spent a lot of time just talking about what to expect and how he could play the course to his strengths. Apparently he listened, as he went from his 80th place starting position all the way up to 9th. That must have been some great advice. While Ray was warming up, Keith Lucas and I grabbed the pop-up canopy out of Ray's truck and set it up right on the course near the start/finish line and the barriers. Great spot, as we could see the hill that everyone decided to slide down due to the lack of traction. It also probably helped that the canopy had a big U of L logo on it, and it seemed that most of the Villians that made the trip came through at some point.

We managed to get the canopy up just in time for the start of the Cat 4's which also coincided with the start of the real rain. So we had a great viewing spot combined with great viewing conditions, so we were set. Heckling is what CX is all about, and the 4's provide so much material to work with, so we had a great time taunting the local favorites, mainly the Red Zone kids that decided to kick some adult butt (little sandbaggers). One of the Sandbagging locals took the win, just ahead of one of the aforementioned little Red Zone sandbaggers. I probably shouldn't say too much, as I really don't want either of them to move up into my category. It was good to see some of the guys I have seen in a while, like Molnar and such. Molnar even looked like he was racing, so much so that I declined to insult him just so I didn't break his concentration.

My race got off to a great start, somehow I've managed to do this lately just to fade later on, and this followed the same pattern. Full speed ahead down a wide-open fairway, around a tree, and then balls-to-the-wall to the first run up. Then the fun started, as at this point we started to get into some stuff that required bike handling skills, traction or ideally, both. I managed to get by on my bike handling skills a bit when the traction was lacking, but also demonstrated my ability to exceed the limits of traction at times. Had a really cool tumble down the big slippery hill (just like most of the other guys) which knocked some things out of kilter so I had to stop to knock things back into place. From there on out it was just trying to keep the bike upright and go as fast as the conditions allowed, but those two goals weren't really complementary. All-in-all I had a good race (for me) finishing somewhere around mid-pack, and an overall great day hanging out with some really fun people. Looking forward to more of the same at Fishermans' Park in two weeks, but since I'm the Race Director this year I suspect it will be more work than fun.

Chicago Triathlon (August 30th)
I've decided that Triathlons are gonna be my other hobby, so it made sense to use the biggest one as an excuse to spend a long weekend in a really fun town. I did the Olympic-distance race and this was my first at that distance, and my first 10k run in years. Finished in the upper 30% so I'm happy and we had a great weekend.

Columbus Sprint Tri (July)
First open water swim (not bad), first crash on the road (not bad considering), and finished the race in the upper half. I'll take that.

Mohican 100k (End of May)
Had fun travelling with Blaine, race went decent, took about an hour off last year's time. Much better weather, accomodations and preparation make all the difference. Highly recommend this race!

Reader's Digest Version

In case you don't want to dig thru the details below, here's what I've been up to:

Riding my bike. Swimming. Running. Hating Spring weather.

3 Tri's, 5 road races, and trying to get enough miles in so as to not totally embarass myself at Mohican again. Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Yeah, I'm no where near prepared. Oh well, I gotta do it.

I think I'm a crit guy - I had a blast and didn't get blown away. We'll see if I still feel that way after the Frankfort/Norton Commons weekend. I do know I still suck at hills. I've skipped a couple of the hillier road races, kinda because of doing Tri's, kinda because I do need to spend a weekend at home here and there, and kinda because I just don't want to get dropped on the hills.

So that's the short version. Keep reading below for the long, boring version. I really need to update this more often, it makes adding the details easier without putting out a novel-length post.

Long Time Gone

So here it is. I tried to out-wait Nevitt, but I just can't hang with the young punk. He hasn't blogged since March 2nd, so I give. He's the champ.

A lot has happened since my last post:
3 Triathlons. Sprints, but still triathlons.
5 road races. Crits and Circuit races, but still road races.

We'll start with the Triathlon stuff:

Tri-at-the Y, Super-Sprint, March 15th.

Won it. Took the overall. In my very first 3-event race. Not sure how it happened, just luck or the result of a good bike split. The 9-mile bike was first, so I got off to a good start. It was a time-trial start, about 5-second gaps. I went 5th or 6th, killed it to get in front and held it from there. Followed it up with a 2-mile run (8:14 pace) then a 300 yd swim. Not sure where they found the 77 people that were slower than me, but I appreciate it. Now to be fair, there were only a couple of other people on tri-bikes and most of these folks were just having fun, but hey, I got a win. Probably be my only one ever. Props to Sean, Kim and Pat for putting on a great inaugural event. I hope to be back next year to defend my title.

Headfirst Performance Tri #3, Sprint distance, April 5th

This was my 2nd attempt at the Shelbyville series and this one was in the right order. My first "real" Tri. And it went pretty much as planned. 400 yd swim in 7:26, good fast bike, and 5k run at an 8:03 pace. Improvements on everything except transitions. Pay attention, you'll see a pattern. Ended up 3rd in the 40-44 AG and 21st male overall.

Headfirst Performance Tri #4, Sprint distance, May 3rd.

Rain. 50-degrees. Not ideal, but fun anyway. This one added 4 miles to the bike for 16 total so I figured that would be a bonus to me. Traffic in the swim put me at 7:38 for 400 yds, 12 seconds off my previous pace. I'll assign that to the traffic. Slooooow T1 followed by 16 miles @ 23.8 mph. my legs were chilly the whole time, should have used some Embro. Slooowwww T2 then turned in a 7:42 pace 5k. Happy with everything except the T-times and the rain. Ended up 4th in my AG due to Sean and Pat showing up and pushing me down a few places. 16th overall (out of 65 dudes).

Now on the the Bike racing.

Long Run Park, Cat 3 Circuit Race, March 14th.

Nice venue, good size group. Rain. Rain. More Rain. And Cold.
This was my first race since Cat'ing up to a 3. I was a little worried about getting dropped like last year at L'Esprit, which ended up happening but only because I let it. Put in a couple of monster pulls which ended up having no tactical or strategic value whatsoever, and managed to find myself at the back with a couple of other guys watching the main group get away from us. At least this time it look a lot longer, was somewhat intentional, and I had someone to ride with. Ended up with a group of 5 right up until the ended. Decided not to contest the sprint because I knew there were others behind us. Except they had all DNF'ed. So I ended up as the last-place finisher in 23rd.

Promotion Cycling Circuit Race, Cat 3, March 21st.

Better weather at this one. Great race, the BC/TL crew worked great together with me, Marty, Logan and General Joe working the front of the group to keep things in check. We covered everything, pulled stuff back and the rest of the guys did a text-book lead out to put the big guy across the line first. Nevitt even got in the attack action. Too bad he didn't blog about it. I didn't get dropped and was surprised to be there at the end. Tried to disrupt's another teams' leadout but that didn't work. Ended up sprinting for 19th out of 42 finishers.

William Tell Gran Prix Criterium, Masters 40+ & Cat 3, April 18th

Up until these races I was not a crit racer. I went to this race with the idea that I'd knock out some of my road racing commitment; do a 2-for-1 and get it over with. I had a blast. The course was almost perfect for me, except that it did have a small incline. It was 2 square city clocks connected at the corners for an "8" shape. Fast, smooth, perfect.
I started out in the Masters race. I've always been afraid of Crits - we've all heard the stories about the carnage and whatever. I did the Norton Commons crit last year, even had a couple of teammates go down hard. But I had fun, so I decided to try it again. I chose the Master's race because I have always heard that while they are blistering fast, they are also very smooth and controlled. C'mon, the youngest guy in the group is 40. So I jumped in and held on for dear life. Fast. Fast. Fast. But I held my own, right up until I thought I was gonna be sneaky. I had been watching Curtis play this little game where he'd get on the outside and attack right before a corner. So when he slid over in front of me right before the fast down-hill sweeper, I figured that I'd snag his wheel and get a free ride. What I didn't know is that he had a tire going soft and was trying to sneak to the back and baby it to the wheel pit for a change. Unfortunately 2 things then happened: The other guys figured it out and attacked, and I didn't and rode his wheel wide through the corner and was stuck watching a gap quickly form that I had no hope of closing. End result? Again, last place finisher.

The Cat 3 crit was just an hour later, so after a spin on the trainer I lined back up. At least I was smart enough to line up in the front row, because as soon as they said "go" it was on. My BC/TL teammate JP went to the front and just drilled it. I was not at all appreciative, but held on anyway. My legs were toast, so my goal was to survive. A break with 2 teammates got up the road on us, but we never let up so it was pain for me. Good news, though, I finished with the group. 15th out of 18 finishers, but I got my first Series points and didn't embarass myself at all.

Fallen Heroes Circuit Race, Cat 3, April 19th.

Fun course, no hills. Rain, rain, rain, but not as cold.
A combination of the weather and this being the day after the Tell City race and Thunder over Louisville contributed to a low turnout. I think we had 13 starters in the 3's. Good race, pretty much us and the Burger crew trading punches until a 2-man break got away with one of us and one of them. Then it was up to 2 loners to chase. OVV and Josh took to the front and worked like dogs, but couldn't pull it back. Both us and the burger boys threw in a few attacks, then kept it for the sprint. Mad dash at the end to get 7th. Probably a mistake as I finished ahead of a teammate or two that may need that one or two points I cost them, but I really wasn't thinking that at the time. Won't make that mistake again.

Bor-ing

Not much going on here. This week was a bust, fitness wise. When I did manage to exercise it was really only half-hearted. The only real thing of interest is that we video'd our swimming this week so we can look at it and see what needs to be changed. I haven't seen the video yet, so hopefully there will be something earth-shattering that comes out that is easy to correct.

It was a busy weekend on the bike. 3.5 hours of team riding with race simulations (plus another hour on my own) Saturday, followed up with another 2:20 of team prep for the upcoming Long Run race. You know, sprint drills and stuff that really hurts and points out just how much faster everyone is than I am. Total of just under 7 hours on the bike covering 125 miles in two days, much more volume than I'm used to. I do need to get used to it to prepare for Mohican at the end of May. Last year I made the mistake of backing off in volume when road racing season kicked in and I'll have to not make the same mistake again.

Racing season kicks off next weekend at Long Run with a 45-minute circuit race. It's a great course. I'm also doing a Super-Sprint Tri on Sunday so we'll see how that goes with tired legs from racing on Saturday.

My first Tri was a bust

So I'm still a Tri virgin. I got up this morning, checked the weather and headed out to Shelbyville to contest the second installment of this year's Max Performance Triathlon Series. It was cold and windy here in the 'Ville, so I figured I was in for a chilly event but a full event nonetheless. So imagine my surprise when I started seeing snow of the roofs of buildings as I got closer to the venue. It turns out they got a nice little dusting of snow and ice yesterday. Nice enough that the bike leg of the race was cancelled. So while I'm no longer a run-then-swim-in-a-timed-competetive-event virgin, but I still haven't done a real tri.

So here's how it went; I show up, go in to get my packet and run into a friend from LBC who is also a fellow Spartan. Go State! We chat for a few minutes and she writes my number on my left arm. I head back out to the Van to change into race attire and run into Sean and Kim, who are putting flyers on cars for the upcoming Tri-at-the-Y. They've decided against participating but will hang out to photograph my historic event. I manage to slip and fall on the ice in the parking lot on my way back into the building, so now that's in the back of my head.

All of us "competitors" are called into the nice, warm humid pool area and given the pre-race speech. Then we head outside to stand in the howling wind and 25-degree temps waiting to start. Someone says go, so I go. I had lined up at the back of the group to stay out of the wind, which was good because it gave me more people to pass and boost my ego. I set off on what I think is a sustainable pace and try to keep it upright. We ran mostly in the crunchy grass along side the road and paths due to the ice on said roads and path. I'd pretty much accepted that I wasn't gonna set a blistering pace, so I just tried to keep my heartrate in the mid 150-to low 160 range. I got passed by a couple of folks but passed more than passed me. Lining up in the back really works wonders for that. I did get passed by a couple of ladies but that's OK, they were faster than me. I was surprised how well I did on the slight up-hills since I don't run outside at all it was kind of an unknown.

I managed to finish the run in just over 25 minutes and made the transition to the pool. I had finished the run with a small group so chaos thus ensued. Fortunately, everyone was pretty cool in the pool except the big bald guy that seemed to insist on swimming right down the center of the lane right at me. I don't know if he didn't get the memo on swimming to the side of the lane or if he believed that he was passing people. Either way, I got through the swim unscathed and uninjured. I was surprised that I actually passed a few folks during the swim. Whenever I came up on someone I just did the breaststroke until I could get around them. Worked well. It opened up about half-way thru the swim and was smooth sailing from there.

My total time was somewhere in the 34-minute range, so that puts me around 9 minutes for 400-yards which is right in line with what I expected. All in all it was a good experience, I'm just disappointed that I didn't have a shot at the bike to make back some time. I don't know where I placed, but it wasn't top-3 in my age group.

Road racing season starts up in two weeks - I'm dreading the move up to the Cat3 ranks, but it will be good for me. I hope.

Race Ready

The title of this post refers primarily to my TT bike. She's totally finished (for now, anyway). She's got a computer - Cateye V2 - and Zipp's and she's ready to go! I'm registered for my first Tri this coming Sunday, a winter-format Sprint: 5k run, 12 mile bike, and 400yd swim. I'm treating this as a learning experience, with no expectations of performance. I will finish, that is the only expectation. I'm leaning towards not running the Zipp's as I don't know the course or how rough it is, but then again, I haven't ridden them since I got the road tires glued on and need to test them out before the first road race in 2 weeks. I'll figure it out.

Other than that, not much is going on which is directly related to the lack of posts. I did manage a 4-hour spin session this past Saturday, comprising of 3 spin classes and the gaps in-between. Not ideal, but then again, neither is being unprepared for Mohican. I need the time on a bike, and spin bikes count in my book.