Some More Hardware - 2nd Place

Today was the Patriot's Trail Road Race and the weather was OK - no rain but a little colder than expected. We had a group of 30 riders in the 35+ race and we did 1 lap or 45 miles. I felt pretty good today and coming off of my 4th place finish in the crit, I felt I had pretty good legs.

The race was uneventful until halfway through, my cable decided to stretch beyond the point that my front derailleur needed to move the chain to the big chainring. Finally, after 10 minutes of spinning in my 36 x 13 on the flats, the chain decided to move over. Good thing we were past all of the climbs and I made sure that my fingers stayed away from the thumb button on my left shifter.

With about 500M to go, a guy dropped his chain for the second time in the race, and the pack went in all directions. This allowed one guy to get away unnoticed as we later found out. At 200m, we had the full road and I took full advantage of it. I sprinted past 10 riders and ended up taking 2nd by a few bike lengths. With second in the road race and 4th in the crit, I managed to take 1st in the Omnium as well. All in all, a pretty good weekend, and I owe it to my coach - Dave Morris, my new steed, and the racing smarts I've acquired over the past year.

Next up are two crits in Charleston on the 19th and 20th with the 20th being the SC State Crit Championships. If this weekend is any indication I should be in top form by the 20th.

Old Town Criterium - 4th Place

The weather cooperated somewhat for my race but the roads were saturated which made an already technical course as it pertains to the last two turns before the finish even more difficult. I decided to swap out the trusty Continental GP4000's for a new set of Vittoria Open Corsa's and this proved to be a mistake.

The field had about 30 riders for the 15 lap race and things started out rather slow for crits. The pace did pick up for the first prime and then leveled off for the rest of the race. A guy attacked just as we crossed the start/finish after the second prime and he ended up staying away for the remainder of the race. He benefited from having 4 other teammates in the race that slowed the pace and blocked.

With less than a 1/4 mile to go, I attacked up the right side and passed 10 riders just before a hard 90 degree right turn. I took the corner at 30mph on wet pavement and my rear tire started to slide. I managed to right the ship only to have it do it again on the last right turn towards the up hill finish line. These two slides cost me my gap and as I started sprinting for the line (in too high of a gear I might add), I got passed by two riders less than 20' before the finish line. 2nd place was mine to lose and I did it with the help of Vittoria and the burn in my quads!!

45 mile road race tomorrow starting from historic Brattonsville, the site where the movie The Patriot was filmed.

5 minute intervals

Plan called for 3 sets of 3 @ 5 minutes on 1 minute off with 4 minutes rest between sets. I started out a little too high on my first set of 3 intervals and I decided to dial back the second set of 3 by about 15W. On the third set, I decided to bring the intensity back up but shorten each interval by 1 minute as I still had some residual fatigue from my 3 hour ride on Saturday. The shortened rest period between the intervals - 1 minute is a killer but it definitely pays dividends on race day!

3 hours never felt so good

Training plan called for 3 hours with at least 40 minutes of threshold and VO2 work mixed in. The ride today was my longest since my first race of the season on March 1st. I was getting a little concerned that my backside might be getting soft with only interval rides lasting no longer than 75 minutes.

Threshold work

I set the trainer up on the back porch this morning and banged out 3 @ 12 minutes on 5 minutes off at 292W, 291W, and 285W. I changed my pacing on the third interval and just couldn't get the wattage up to the 290W target.

I changed my handle bars (moved to Deda Newton shallow drop) and saddle (Selle Italia SLR Kit Carbonio Flow) on my training bike in order to match the configuration on my race day bike. The saddle is amazingly comfortable but one negative is the limited fore/aft adjustment due to the carbon rails. I probably need to switch to a zero setback seat post and this should get me closer to my normal riding position.

I've started noticing some play in my right Ergo shifter and this is causing me issues when moving up the cassette. The additional play in the paddle is acting more like a trim device than a shifter. Looks as though I'm due for an overhaul on the shifter as it is over 2 years old and 15K+ miles.