track racing

So yesterday was my first day racing on the track! I went down to the 7-11 velodrome in Colorado Springs with Nate Schwartz and Steve H. and did their thursday night race series. The way they do it is they have different catagories (A, B, and C, and a women's category) although women could race in any category they wanted to. Katie Compton was there racing in the A category and i wasn't watching too closely, but i'm pretty sure she did pretty well. Since it was my first time at the track, i headed out with Nate after registering to do a few warm up laps and get used to riding on a track with 30 degree banked corners (!). They don't seem that steep in the above picture, but riding around the track slowly, i was seriously worried about sliding down or clipping my pedal. After that, my first race was an 11 lap points race (just over 1k) with points given every 4 laps. Needless to say, my first track race ever didn't go so well with me finishing 3rd out of 4. Next race came after all of the other categories raced that same race was a 1 mile (just over 4 laps) scratch race, which meant that the first person over the line won the race. I got 3rd out of 4 in this race as well, but had a little better feel for riding on the track. The third race was a 5 mile scratch race and they combined the B's and C's categories so there were about 25 guys on the track racing. I placed 6th in this race, which was awesome and i got a much better feel for track racing. We had a pretty good pace line going for most of the laps of the race, which was really fun working with some other guys and really whipping around the track. I figure we probably were doing almost 45-50km/h for this race, and it was really tiring. During the A's race, it started raining a little bit so they called it off and we went home.

All in all, it was a super fun time and i'm going to try to go back next week if i can trade my shift at work for a morning shift. I'll post some pictures as soon as i get them from steve.

sweet ride and sweeter training plan

today me, steven, and herron did the good ol' boulder-lyons-peak to peak-ward-lefthand-backside of lee hill route today (About 65 miles of climbing and descending) and it rocked. I was aiming for a "hard" day today and i definitely got it. I churned through about 2600 kJ (roughly 3200 kCal), and averaged 275-300 watts for the hardest parts of the climb while pulling Herron via my right shoulder because he was too tired or too out of shape or too fat or some other nonsense to keep up with me. Anyways, i ended up bonking right as we were getting to Ward, then had a painful descent down lefthand. there were so many bugs out it was like getting sand thrown in my face the whole time we were doing 40-50mph, and i even managed to squish a few on my legs, face, and helmet (gross!). All in all it was an awesome ride, and was exactly what i needed.

In other news, I've come up with the perfect training plan to have me be at my strongest right at the Manhattan Beach Grand Prix which is going to be such an awesome race, it makes my teeth hurt. I can't divulge on it because it's so effective, but basically i'm going to win on the 29th, so get ready to hear about it. That's all for now. I'm tired.

another missed race

so due to both me not having a car and my roommate's car not starting, i missed another race this evening. i was all excited to get the power data from a real race, but no luck. not sure why racing this season isn't working out at all, but it's getting really REALLY annoying being constantly disappointed by things that i have no control over that are affecting my racing. oh well.

graduation money = bike toys

well first of all, a little picture of the bike carnage from my crash a few weeks ago (the one in the race, not from the car wreck)
too bad. that was a good wheel. i've since bought and am racing on a set of ROL race SL's. ROL is a wheel company based in Denver and they sponsor Team Evergreen, the team i race for. They're a pretty seriously awesome wheelset, and i like them as much as the Ksyrium SL's that I destroyed.

In other news, i got a fair amount of money for graduation, and instead of doing the "wise" thing and putting into savings (BORING!!), i immediately started shopping for and comparing power meters. Some say that training with power is the most effective way to train, and i'd have to agree. Naysayers will try to point out that training with power "takes all of the fun out of riding a bike" but... all you have to do is put the computer in your pocket and forget about it and voila! you're not training with power anymore. I opted for the Powertap SL2.4 because of its light weight and wireless transmission. I was torn between going with a wired version for a little bit less money, but figured what the heck, i never buy nice things, so i might as well buy something nice for the first time in my life. Here it is on my bike:
you'll have to excuse the bazillion spokes behind my bike in the picture, i had it set up next to my townie and mtb. I also bought myself a nicer set of Northwave Aerlite 3 shoes. Compared to the Shimano R-099's i was riding on (which were made for "sport/fitness", and certainly not racing), these are waaaay stiffer, better fitting, and much better looking:
That's all for now.

Upcoming Races:
-Table Mt. Criterium (Tuesday)
-Record Racer TT (Wednesday)
-Glenwood Springs RR (Saturday, hopefully)
-Glenwood Springs Criterium (Sunday)

what a past couple of months it has been

well well, where do i even start. I guess i'll start out by saying that since my last post, i've had an intense case of the flu that took me out of commission (and off the bike) for nearly 2 weeks. I had a horrible crash in a criterium, and ran into the side of a car that cut me off going about 30mph. I'm still recovering from that one. Needless to say, my summer of racing hasn't exactly gone the way that I had envisioned it some time ago. It's ok though, because i've still been training like a madman inbetween being injured and sick, and am now much faster than i was at the beginning of the season.

Since graduation, my only plans have been (in order):
1. Work enough to pay the bills
2. Hang out with awesome people
3. Ride my bike

That's it. No homework, no tests, no projects, no boss, no deadlines, just good times and hard work. My next race is next tuesday evening where i'll ride in the table mountain crit series and hopefully come back with some results to show for my 4 weeks of training without a race inbetween. yuck! I'm off to go climb to ward, descend to lyons, and come back into boulder on 75th. 70 miles in 4 hours? why not.

oh yeah! one last thing... my powertap should be here soooooooon!