Jack Frost ITT

So...the first race of the season came around, the Jack Frost ITT. I've done this race 5 years in a row now and really enjoy it as an early season fitness test.

This year was the first year I've ridden it when the weather was less than ideal. Temps were in the mid/upper 30's and at one time we had some sleet coming down while I was on the course.

Overall...this race was a mess for me.

It started out before I even got to warm up. I had my bike set up on my trainer, tested it out to make sure tension was right and waited for my time to get warming up. The time came around and I jumped on my trainer and some God awful sounds started emanating from the trainer...blown bearing!

Knowing Russel Cree @ UEF Fitness had some extra trainers for use and he's one of my teams sponsors, I took off for his tent. He had several trainers for use and I was able to get a good warm up.

Off to the start after my warm up things were going OK. Once under way, I caught my 30 second man about a mile into the race...however, I noticed my computer started cutting out every now and then. Seemed to go out for 5-8 seconds at a time and I don't know how many times it cut out during the race.

With the computer problems going on I just tried to pay attention to my HR and push hard to the turn around.

At the turn around I came in a little hot so I grabbed my brakes, but the rear wheel started to lock up and my reactions kicked in and I let off the rear brake and grabbed a bit more front brake...however on my TT bike I have my brakes set up backwards...so I actually grabbed more rear brake and less front brake resulting in me laying down my bike at the turn around going about 15 mph.

Getting up, I had scraped up my hand, my arm and my leg. I gave a "QUICK" glance at my bike and everything looked OK so I started to run around the turn around cone...but that wasn't working so I re-adjusted my pedals and jumped back on my bike.

Under way again...About 10 seconds later I noticed my saddle had turned significantly to the left. So I had to try and grab it between my legs and quickly twist my body to straighten it out. After about three tries I was able to get it into a sufficient position and was able to finish the race strong.

Overall I had a time of 28:29 for a 20K ITT...which all things considered wasn't bad. I was on pace to beat my course record of 27:52 had I not crashed and probably would have run close to 27:45 with good luck. But such is life.

All told on the day: One broken trainer, one set of bib knickers ruined, one broken buckle on my shoe, one ruined shoe cover, a fair amount of road rash. So it was a pretty expensive day on the bike. But on the bright side...I found out the trainer was bad when I had access to others and have time to replace it, my bib knickers were ready to be retired and I was able to replace the buckle with one from an older shoe I had retired. So for the most part I've repaired most of the damage.

At least one race is down and out of the way.

As for the rest of the season...I've still got work to do in getting the weight off. My power is good for this time of the year but I've got 15'ish pounds to lose and I've stalled out for the last 3 weeks or so...so I've got to do a better job of watching my diet over the next 6 weeks to get the weight off.

Next race will likely be Kings Valley, but I might race a Banana Belt race if conditions are good and maybe Piece of Cake if conditions are good.

For now though...time to heal up, drop some weight and add more power to my FTP.

New race season is just around the corner

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on my blog, but the racing season is near, so it’s time to get it started again.

For 2011 I had a total of 627 hours of total training time (outside riding and trainer time combined). I don’t know my actual outside mileage totals but if you take the total ride time it would equate to a little over 12,500 miles for the year.

With the new season nearing, I had a decision to make when it came to my team. I had been considering changing teams for the past year or so, but hadn’t done so because of our Team Time Trial team and a few other reasons … But overall, I just felt my philosophy when it came to racing was different than some others on the team. It also seemed that there was a movement toward Cyclocross being a priority for the team and road racing less so. Since I don’t race Cross…I felt like I was growing farther and farther apart from them.

So with all that said, I decided it was finally time to move from Portland Velo after 4 great years and lots of friendships … and will be racing for Team Oregon this season.  I have several reason for moving to Team Oregon, the biggest of which is logistics since they start their group rides about 6 miles from my home and I can ride to/from the rides for a few extra miles. Other than that, they are a road oriented team (who also participate in cross, MTB and track) with an elite CAT 1/2 squad, of which I don’t plan on moving beyond a CAT 3, but will enjoy training with some of them.

My training is fairly on track right now compared to seasons past with my top end/sprinting power better than normal. I actually set a new 5 second power number (1418 watts) in December during a sprint that I didn’t put everything into and didn’t even realize it was a new PR until nearly a month later. That was also the first time I had held over 900 watts for 30 seconds in a while…So, the light/high rep lifting I’ve been doing during the fall/winter seems to have helped my sprinting.

As far as my weight goes, I’m about where I normally am this time of the year … maybe a few pounds below normal. I started the year at 215 pounds (normally 225-230 pounds) on January 1^st of the year and have lost 7 pounds during January. This is a little slower weight loss than normal, but has me on track to be 190 pounds by the end of March/beginning of April when I start to hit the road races. I’ve really focused the last two weeks on weight loss which is where most of the 7 pounds happened and plan to keep this up for the next two months, which might get me to 190 mid-March, which would be great.

As for my race season…I’m looking at most of the same races as I did last year by competing in:

·         Jack Frost TT (late February)

·         Piece of Cake (early April – Maybe)

·         Kings Valley (mid April)

·         PIR TT (two races this season)

·         Eugene Roubaix (late April)

·         State Championship road race (Mid May)

·         ITT Championships (Late June)

·         TTT Championships (early June – if my new team has one)

·         Eugene Celebration stage race (depending on whether I have time and what type of shape I’m in)

Overall…I’m looking forward to another season, though with a new team. I look forward to seeing many of my old teammates at the races and hope they take it easy on me J