Koppenberg 2015

Sorry it's taken so long to write this one . . . 

On Saturday, May 2, I participated in the Koppenberg Circuit Race in Superior, Colorado.  I did this race last year, too, coming in 3rd place in the MM40+ 5 category.  I felt like my training has been a lot better this year, giving me a good chance to do well again, this time in the MM40+ 4 category.

The race itself consists of 5.5-mile laps, about half-dirt and half-paved.  The dirt section includes somewhat rough flat roads, and a short but difficult climb of about a 17% grade.  There are usually about two good lines up the climb, with deep, rough ruts everywhere else.

The climb tends to be the defining moment in this race, where everything can be won or lost. In order to have a chance at this race, you really need to make sure you get to the climb early.  If you are too far back in the crowd, there is a very good chance that someone in front of you won't be able to make it up the hill, and have to hop off the bike and run up.  And once someone stops, everyone behind them will most likely have to stop and run, too.

In order to be at the front on the hill, you really want to be at the front at the start line.  It may take a little extra energy to get up there, but it will be worth it.

I arrived at the course nice and early, to give myself plenty of time to get ready.  I picked up my bib numbers, got dressed, and pinned on my numbers.  I got the bike on the trainer and started my usual warmup routine.  It seemed like I still had plenty of time, so everything was going right on schedule.  As I was finishing my warmup, a couple teammates stopped by.  As I was loading the trainer into my trunk, we talked a little about the course, and teammate Brad mentioned that his bike had just broken on his trainer.  Crazy.  So, instead of racing, he would be up on the hill cheering us on.  But that little bit of chatting totally made me lose track of time.  I looked at my bike computer, and saw that it was 9:30, only 16 minutes before the race start.

I quickly put the rest of my stuff away, and rode over to the start area.  Unfortunately, I also needed to make a quick stop at the restroom.  With that taken care of, I made my way to the line, only to find everyone else already there.  I was basically dead last.  Again.  This is the third time I've made that mistake this year.  Other times, I was able to take some time and eventually make my way up to the front and put in a good effort.  But this course was different.  First of all, I didn't have a full race to catch up.  I needed to be near the front for that first climb, in only about 2 miles.  And a narrow road packed with racers was going to make that very difficult.

I managed to pick up some spots during those first couple miles, but nowhere near enough.  I was in the middle-to-back of the group of 60-ish racers when we got to the first climb.  And as expected, that was a big problem.  With thirty or so riders in front of me, someone was bound to have a problem on the climb.  And sure enough, many people had issues.  As one person fell, and then another, the racers behind were forced to stop and hop off their bikes.  And once you're off the bike on that hill, you're not going to get going again.  The only option is to pick up the bike and run, cyclocross-style.  So, that's what I did.  Bike on shoulder, I huffed and puffed my way up the hill.  Once at the top, I saw a number of people pulling off the cyclocross-style mount, but I had never done that before.  As they jumped on their bikes and started cruising away, I was stopped, swinging my leg over the saddle and slowly getting moving.  To make matters worse, once I actually got myself going, I realized that my cleats were packed with mud and I couldn't clip in.  I banged my shoes against my frame a few times, and kept trying to clip in.  I eventually managed to connect shoes to pedals, but it took about 1/4 mile.  I was getting really frustrated.

Carrying the bike on the first lap.  Not exactly part of my plan.  Photo:  Scott Shoup

After getting back up to cruising speed, I pushed hard to catch back up to the group.  I think I moved up quite a bit, getting close to the back of the main pack, but never quite connecting.  But as we cruised around on lap two, I got to the hill in basically the same place as on lap one, behind a whole bunch of people who were having trouble with the climb.  And once again, I got stopped and had to run my bike up the hill.  And once again, I had trouble clipping into my pedals.  And once again I watched the field ride away.  This time, I wasn't able to catch up like I did the previous lap.

And this is how you end up in trouble on the climb.  What a mess.  I'm at the lower left, bib number 534.  Pretty sure this was taken at nearly the exact same time as the other photo above.  Photo:  Bo Bickerstaff

I managed to connect with a few people along the way as we finished this lap, and started the third.  But we were far behind the main pack.  As this point, it was just a bunch of stragglers kind of working together, but it wasn't anything organized.  I don't even know if we were in the same category.  Because we were just a small group, the third time up the climb was much easier.  It's still a difficult climb, and picking your line is important, but it goes a lot smoother when there's no one around you.  I made it up the climb just fine, and kept on cruising.  Again, I connected with a few more people, and made my way to the final lap.

The fourth and final lap was pretty much the same as the third.  Working with a few people here and there, but completely out of contention, and at this point we're all just basically on a bike ride, not a race.  We cruised around, making our way around the course a final time.  Nothing very eventful, and I eventually approached the finish with a few other guys.  I'm not sure why, but we all sprinted even though we were so far off the podium it wasn't even funny.  I ended up finished in 31st place, about 3 minutes behind the winner.

Not an ideal finish, to be sure.  Far from my 3rd place finish last year.  But I learned a valuable lesson.  Well, I hope I learned it.  I thought I learned the same lesson earlier this season, but apparently not.  DON'T BE LATE TO THE LINE!!!  After this mess, I've decided I am willing to sacrifice a few minutes of warmup time to get myself near the front of the line.

Race:  Koppenberg, Circuit Race
Category: MM 40+ 4
Result: 31/66

2015 Denver Federal Center Classic Circuit Race (updated)

Updates below...

After disappointment at last weekend's Boulder Roubaix, I'm happy to report a good result this week.  The weekend's racing got off to a sketchy start with a lot of crappy weather rolling in toward the end of the week.  A few days of snow/rain and cold temperatures caused some issues for Saturday's Clasica de Rio Grande Road Race, particularly because the route included about a mile of dirt road.  On Friday morning, they decided that the dirt section was unrideable, and canceled the race.  Although I'm a little disappointed that one of the few road races in Colorado had to be canceled, I'm not really heartbroken because I wasn't going to be able to do it anyway.  We potentially had a soccer and football game to take our kids to, so I was going to skip the race.  In the end, football was canceled, too, although soccer managed to stay on schedule once they moved the game to an artificial-turf field.  But dry weather on Saturday, and a good forecast for Sunday meant that Sunday's Denver Federal Center Classic was still on.

This is a pretty popular race on the calendar, but this was my first time on the course.  I wasn't able to do this race last year for some reason.  The course is a relatively flat 4-mile lap through the Denver Federal Center complex, with a whole lotta turns.  Probably more turns than I've seen on any other course on our calendar.  I just took a look at the map, and I counted 16 turns per lap.  That's crazy.  I mean, a road race could have a lot of turns, but that might be over like 15 miles or something.  And a crit usually only has like 4-6 turns per lap.  This was just crazy.  You can see the course in my Strava link at the bottom of this post.  I guess I would say that the course is somewhat technical.  There are a lot of turns, and some of them go from a wide road onto a narrow one, which makes things bunch up a bit.  There are also two turns that lead directly into small climbs.  I almost hesitate to call them climbs, because they aren't very steep or long, but they're there.  And the recent weather left a little loose gravel and a few puddles on the course, but nothing directly on the turns.

Another thing the recent weather front left behind was the cold.  At race time, it was about 40 degrees and cloudy.  Not a lot of fun.  But at least it wasn't raining.  I got there plenty early, but it was so cold that I really didn't want to get out of my car.  I took my time getting ready to race, but wasn't too interested in sitting on my trainer in that miserable weather, so I just hung out listening to some podcasts.  I decided I needed to get in at least a little warmup, so I hopped on the trainer for about 15 minutes.  Not sure if that was enough, but that's all I could manage today.  I headed over towards the start/finish line to see the end of the SM4, SM5 and MM40+ 5 race, then got myself ready to go.

Unlike previous races, I put myself right on the front line of the race.  I didn't want to start the race playing catch-up like my last few races.  Once the race started, I decided I was going to try to stay right around the front 10 the whole time.  That's pretty much where I was for the first lap, but I lost a bit in the corners and spent a lot of the second lap probably around 20th place.  That second lap was a "prime" lap, where they offered come kind of prize for finishing the lap in first place.  I wasn't very interested in winning primes, but since the pace was going to pick up, I knew I wanted to be closer to the front.  About 2/3 of the way through the lap, I moved up a bit and was probably somewhere in the top-10 crossing the line on that lap.  I pretty much stayed around that position throughout the third and fourth lap, but dropped a bit again on the fifth lap.  Again stuck around 20th place halfway through that fifth lap, I knew I needed to move up.  As we approached one of the left-turns that led into a small hill, I knew that the group would get strung out and I would be pulled even further back.  At that point the race consisted of about 4 riders in a line at the front, followed by a big bunch, which I was near the back of.  So, as we sped down the straightaway toward the turn, I moved to the left side and sprinted toward the front.  I could hear someone in the group yelling something like "watch out for the dive-bomber!", assuming he meant me.  I think he thought I was going to be going full-blast into the inside of the turn, which can tend to be dangerous.  It's not looked upon very kindly.  But that wasn't actually my plan, so I ignored him.  I pulled around the group, and behind the short line of riders on the front, into 3rd or 4th position leading into the turn.

Happy with my position for the time being, I kept myself right around the front for the rest of the fifth lap, and as we crossed the start/finish line, we heard the bell announcing the final lap.  I was in a good spot, and just needed to stay there for this last lap.  As we wound our way through turn after turn,  the pace picked up, but nothing unreasonable.  A few riders made some half-hearted attacks, but nothing that seemed very strong, and they gave up quickly.

At the final right-hand turn, the pace was picking up significantly, and I made it through somewhere in the top-five.  The group was growing again as we came into the final quarter-mile.  I've been training hard, but I don't have a very strong sprint yet, so I knew I wouldn't be able to out-sprint most of these guys.  So, I started really early, pushing myself to the front of the group as hard as possible.  Coming into the final straightaway, I was at the front of the group with a lot of people bearing down quickly.  Soon enough, I started getting past, but not as quickly as I expected.  My legs were spent, but with about 100m to go, I managed to get out of the saddle.  I tried to sprint, but my legs just weren't working.  I may as well have been trying to pedal with Jell-O.  I actually thought I might fall right off the bike.  I would love to see a video of that finish, because I'm pretty sure I looked ridiculous.

But as stupid as I probably looked, I managed to stay upright as I crossed the line.  I ended up finishing in 7th place, my first top-10 finish as a Cat 4 (not counting time trials).  I am very happy with this finish, and think it bodes well for the rest of the season.  Looking forward to my next race in a couple weeks.

Race:  Denver Federal Center Classic, Circuit Race
Category: MM 40+ 4
Result: 7/39 46

Update:  That guy from the Louisville Crit, Garrick Mitchell from Thump, posted a video of the last lap of this race:

Best Laid Plans . . . 2015 Boulder Roubaix

Well, that didn't go as expected . . .

Today was the 2015 Boulder Roubaix.  This was a gold-level race with a lot of Rocky Mountain Road Cup points available.  Not one of my main goal-events of the year, but a prominent race nonetheless, and one I hoped to do well at.

I put some effort into this one:

• Rode a couple laps of the course a couple weekends ago
• Picked up my race number last night, so I could just concentrate on getting in a good warmup today.
• Ate well last night
• Ate well this morning
• Got there plenty early today
• Put some thought into wheels and tires.  Decided to ride my training wheels (Mavic Ksyerium Elite) and training tires (Gatorskins) since the wheels are pretty much bulletproof and the tires are really tough.  With a half-paved / half-dirt course, this seemed like a good idea.
• I dropped my tire pressure to about 90psi front and rear, instead of the usual 110-120psi, to give me a little better traction on the dirt and soften the ride a little bit.
• For a 90-ish minute race, I figured I'd only need one bottle of water.  But with the rough road, I thought I'd carry two half-bottles, instead of a full bottle.  This would put less stress on the bottle cages from all that bouncing around.  Plus I'd still have some water left if I lost a bottle.
• I warmed up on the roads instead of the trainer.  I thought this would help me get to the line sooner.
• Talked with teammate Keith to discuss a plan for the race, and how I could help him.

And all for nothing.

I started ok, ending up in the middle of the pack for the first few miles.  There was a lot of unnecessary braking, but it was manageable.  And then - ugh.  Flat tire.  Just about 4 1/2 miles into a 37-mile race.  I pulled off to the side and watched my race ride away from me.  At that point, I had all but given up on the day.  Even if I could change a tube in a couple minutes, that would be a couple minutes of hard chasing.  So, I just took my time.  Got my tube changed in about 8 minutes, watching other categories of racers go flying past.  I got back on the bike and continued on my lap.  I still rode pretty hard, but decided my day was done.  I passed a few people here and there, but was sure I wasn't making up any ground on my group.  As I approached the start/finish line, I debated continuing for my second and final lap, just to finish the race, but decided it wasn't worth it.  I was a little concerned about being out in the middle of nowhere and possibly getting another flat.  At that point, I would have to be patching a tube, which I really didn't want to be doing.  So, I rolled across the finish and turned in my timing chip, taking my first ever DNF (did not finish) in a race.

At that point, I was able to hang around the finish line for a while to catch the end of a couple other races, getting to see teammates Keith Collins and Brad Clemmons get 3rd place in their respective races.  Keith was actually in my race, but I guess he really didn't need any help from me after all.  And Brad was in the MM50+ 4 race.

After sticking around a bit to congratulate some teammates and find out how their races went, I sulked back to the car, got changed and headed home, stopping to drown my sorrows in some pizza on the way.  Not racing tomorrow, so back to training and getting ready for next weekend.

A couple thoughts:

• Should I have sacrificed the ride quality, and put the normal amount of air in my tires?  That may have prevented the pinch flat.
• Should I have tried some puncture-resistant tubes?  Almost certainly would have prevented a flat, but they are quite a bit heavier than normal tubes.
• Should I have invested in some new 25mm tires?  Not sure that would have made a difference.
• What if I had just ridden my normal race wheels and tires?

Road Racing - Types of races

After all of last season of race reports, and the first few reports of this season, I figured at some point I should probably describe the different types of races I typically see, so you know what I'm talking about when I do these reports.  For racers, this might seem fairly obvious, but for outsiders I think it might be pretty confusing.  I know it was confusing for me before I started racing.

So, without further ado, here are some descriptions of the types of races I see during the racing season, and keep in mind this is coming from an amateur Masters racer in Colorado, not a European pro or something:

Time Trial:
A time trial is fairly straightforward, which is why I put it first on this list.  Sometimes known as "the race of truth", this consists of a rider racing against the clock.  While multiple racers are on the course at the same time, they leave the starting line at different points.  In the case of my races, the time gaps are usually about 20 or 30 seconds apart.  You ride along a set course, typically an out-and-back or a loop, and get to the finish line as fast as you can.  The entire race is about the racer covering that distance faster than the other racers, with no interference.  There are no race tactics, no drafting, no working with teammates.  It's just you versus the road and the wind.  Therefore, I think success in a time trial comes down to three things:  1) Your strength, and how much steady power you can produce over the distance of the course, 2) your weight, including the bike, since your power output is being used to push that weight around, and 3) aerodynamics.  Without being able to draft or work with other riders, it is up to the individual to fight the wind themselves.  This is often done with equipment and clothing selections.  That is why you see time trialists riding crazy bikes and wearing skinsuits and funny helmets.  It's all about reducing drag.

At the start line, one official controls the clock while another holds your bike steady so you can get clipped into your pedals.  When the starters says go, you go.  Take a few pedal strokes to get up to speed, then get into your aero position and push it until the end.  Typically, you will start off at a hard, but not ridiculous, pace, and slowly pick it up throughout the race.  You want to cross the line with absolutely nothing left in the tank.

Some riders have very specific time trial equipment.  I am not one of those people.  For a time trial, I use my standard road bike, but with a slightly modified saddle position.  I also have clip-on aero bars, which allow me to get into a fairly good aero position on the bike.  I don't have a skin suit, so I will wear my aero road kit, along with some aero shoe covers.  I typically don't wear gloves, although I don't know if this actually makes a difference.  And last fall I bought one of those silly time-trial helmets off Craigslist for $40.  I've only done one time trial this year, and it looks like no one took my picture, so I can't really show you what it looks like.  I won't be doing another time trial until about mid-May, so maybe I'll get a photo then.

Time trials are really boring for spectators.  They leave the start line, then show up again a while later.  There's no real racing action.  As a racer, it's nice to have people cheering you on, but as a spectator, there's just not a whole lot to see.

Criterium:
Criteriums seem kind of hard to understand because there is no set distance.  The easiest way to explain it is that it is multiple laps around a short course for a set period of time, and the first one across the line wins.  Easy enough.

The courses are typically around a mile, plus or minus.  The course is completely closed to traffic, so racers can take up the full width of the road.  The race is given a fixed time.  In my case, it's usually about 40 minutes.  As the race proceeds, the race officials keep track of the group's average lap times, and decides how many more laps to go until the race reaches it's designated time.  Usually there will be an official standing at the side of the start/finish line with cards showing how many laps you have left, often starting with anywhere from 5-10 laps to go.

Most of the race is spent trying to gain position while staying in the draft of other riders to save your energy.  Sometimes you are saving energy for a sprint finish, or sometimes you want to try a breakaway and leave the main pack behind.  While a time trial is about expending hard, steady power for the duration of the event, criteriums are about saving your energy and using that extra power only when you need it.  Maybe you're the strongest rider in the race, but if you're working harder than everyone else, you're not going to win.

Most criteriums also have something known as "primes" (pronounced "preems").  These are laps, usually in the middle of the race, where some kind of bonus is offered for the winner of that particular lap.  These are kind of fun because they tend to break up the monotony of the single group just going around and around for 40 minutes.  Sometimes a prime can be cash, but more often it seems to be a gift certificate to a local restaurant or something.  So, maybe someone in the race knows they aren't strong enough to win the whole race, but they might be able to spend that energy to win a box of Clif Bars or something 15 minutes into the race.  Primes also give the spectators something fun to cheer for in the middle of the race.

Criteriums are great for spectators because the racing is fast and crowded, with a pack of racers coming past every couple minutes.  There is also usually an announcer keeping things interested, giving a little play-by-play on the race.  And I really hate to say this, but there are crashes.  When you have a lot of racers packed into a small course with a lot of corners, it's bound to happen.  Like NASCAR, people won't say they come for the crashes, but you know they do.

There are usually a large number of races throughout the day, with each category on the course by themselves.  With such a short lap, it is difficult to get multiple categories racing at the same time.  Having a timed race like this allows the officials to keep the event moving on schedule.

Criteriums are very popular in the US, because they are easier to organize than other types of races.  Because the laps are so short, it requires closing a minimum amount of roadway.  This means less disruption to the neighbors, and fewer requirements for things like traffic control.  Criteriums are often held in places like office parks that are nearly empty on weekends.  They may also take place on a couple blocks of downtown streets where it's easy to draw good crowds.


Road Race:
A road race is a long race over a fixed distance.  Instead of point-to-point races like you might be familiar with, like watching the Tour de France on TV, these races typically start and finish in the same place.  They consist of a number of laps like a criterium, but the laps are significantly longer.  A race for my category might be something like 3 laps of a 15-mile course.

Road races, at least the ones here in Colorado, sometimes include dirt roads to make things interesting.  Because of the amount of road being used, these races require a lot more traffic control.  That means they often take place on the quieter country roads where traffic management is easier.  That also means dirt roads are a lot more plentiful.

Unlike criteriums, road races often include multiple categories on the course at one time.  Often they will start a few minutes apart, with the "faster" groups going first.  That way, the faster group is on the road, but the slower group behind them has less of a chance of catching up with them and causing confusion.  They will slowly spread apart on the road, but because the laps are so long, the faster group probably won't be fast enough to lap the slower group.

Typically, each category will include their own lead vehicle out in front of the lead group of riders, a follow vehicle behind the end of the race, which can assist riders who have quit, crashed, or gotten a flat tire, and an official on a motorcycle keeping an eye out for violations.

Road races typically don't completely close roads completely.  Often, the road is closed in the direction of the race, but traffic is moving normally in the other direction.  That means the race usually has full access to one lane of traffic, unlike the races you might see on TV.  The race will have a "centerline rule", which means if you cross over the centerline of the road, into oncoming traffic, you will be penalized or pulled from the race.  Even on dirt or unmarked country roads, this rule is enforced, whether there is an actual centerline or not.

The goal:  Finish before the other guy.  Pretty simple.

Circuit Race:
I have seen a couple different descriptions of circuit races.  Sometimes they say it's the same rules as a criterium, but on a longer course, usually 2-3 miles per lap.  Other times, it's similar rules to a road race, but on with much shorter laps.  I don't know.  Around here, I have seen a few races advertised as circuit races, and they tend to be more like shorter road races, not longer criteriums.



Stage Race:
A stage race is an event consisting of multiple days of racing, with your time accumulating throughout each stage.  Prizes are awarded for each race, as well as an overall prize to the winner at the end of all the stages.  This is what you see when you watch something like the Tour de France on TV.

For local amateur racing, like what I do, a stage race will usually include three or four stages.  I most often see 3-stage races, from Friday through Sunday, which include a time trial, a criterium and a road race.  You need to complete one stage to move onto the next.  If you crash out of Saturday's crit, you don't get to participate in Sunday's road race, for example.

Stage races have their own strategy, particularly if you are aiming to win the entire race.  You need to keep an eye on all the other racers, particularly those who seem to be in contention for the overall win.  If you are in a good position for the overall race and you see someone take off to try to win a particular stage, you have to determine whether that person is a threat to your position or not.  There's no point in wasting energy chasing someone who is so far behind you in the standings that it doesn't matter.

Stage races are a fun challenge, and a good test for an all-around rider.  They also tend to be much bigger events, with better prizes, bigger crowds, and racers coming from far and wide to participate.

Omnium:
In road racing, an Omnium is very similar to a stage race.  Multiple stages, with prizes for each race and for the overall.  The difference is that the overall win is not determined by the lowest time.  In an Omnium, points are awarded for your placing on each stage.  You get the most points for first place, with fewer points for each placing.  Maybe on a particular stage, the top 20 riders get a certain number of points.  After all the stages, the rider with the most accumulated points wins the event.

Unlike a stage race, this type of event often allows you to pick and choose the individual events you want to enter.  You don't need to complete one event to participate in the next.  Riders still accumulate points, but it's obviously easier to do well in the overall points classification if you place well in all the events.

As a side note, the "Omnium" is also a track racing event.  I don't really know anything about track racing, but my understanding is that a track omnium has a very specific set of events, while a road-racing omnium can be whatever the organizer wants it to be.

2015 Front Range Cycling Classic - U.S. Air Force Academy Road Race

After a hard race on Saturday at Lousiville, I headed south to Colorado Springs for the US Air Force Academy Road Race.  I did this one last year, too, and it was one of my favorites.  This is a hard course, but really enjoyable.  There aren't a ton of road races out here, but this is one of my favorites.  Certainly the most scenic.

Since this is one of the early-season collegiate races, they focus mostly on the college categories, with a few USAC categories thrown in for good measure.  At these college races, they tend to combine a lot of groups so there are fewer overall categories, and this was no exception.  There were actually three categories I was eligible for: Men 3/4, Men 4/5, and Master Men.  As a Cat 4, I had the option of racing with Cat 3s or Cat 5s.  I looked at the results, and saw quite a few Cat 4s in the 3/4 race, but I'm not sure why.  Maybe they were just looking for an extra challenge.  And Masters Men would have had me racing against my age group, but those open Masters categories tend to be full of ex-pros and stuff, and can be pretty brutal.  So, I opted for the Cat 4/5 race.  Sure, I'd be racing against some younger guys, but at least they'd be closer to my level.

Once again, I got to the race plenty early, to give myself time to relax a bit, chat with other racers, and get ready to race.  First stop was registration to get my number.  Then back to the car to get the bike set up and get dressed.  Overall, an uneventful pre-race day.  With such a long race, I didn't think a huge warmup would be needed.  For something like a time trial or a crit, you need to be really warmed up when you get to the start line, but for a nearly 2-hour race like this, you have a little time to ease into it.

I knew they were going to have lead and follow vehicles for each race, so I grabbed my extra wheels and headed toward the start.  I bring extra wheels to every race, for a couple reasons.  First, if I get to the race and something happened, like a mystery busted spoke or a flat tire minutes before the start, I can just swap my other wheel and be ready to go.  Also, if you get a puncture during the race you can swap wheels, if there is a place to get them.  In a criterium, there is usually a wheel pit.  You leave the wheels at the tent before the race, and if you have a problem, you can limp your way to the pit and swap your wheel, then jump back into the race the next time the group comes around.  In a road race, they often have follow vehicles, usually a pick-up truck where racers can throw their wheels.  If you flat, you pull over, hopefully the follow vehicle is back there somewhere, and you throw on your other wheel and try to catch back up to the race.  In this case, they had follow vehicles, and as I was standing around waiting for one to drive up to the start line, my race was getting ready to start.  There were a number of groups starting at about 5 minutes apart, so a lead vehicle would drive down the road, then the racers, then the follow vehicle.  Then, a few minutes later, the next race would line up to start, with their vehicles.  As I waited for my race's follow vehicle, the earlier groups were taking off.  And no sign of my vehicle.  I asked, and one of the people working said it would be showing up soon.  But I was getting nervous, seeing the entire group of racers lined up and ready to go.  Eventually, I gave up waiting.  I dumped my bike, grabbed my wheels and ran back to my car.  I threw them in the back and ran back to my bike.  I got myself to the start line about 2 minutes before the whistle, and I was at the very back of the pack.  Definitely not where I wanted to be.  That's two days in a row now.  I need to make sure this doesn't happen again.

After that unfortunate start, though, everything kind of went as I expected.  As I said, this is a tough course, with a lot of climbing, and I'm not the best climber.  I'm fairly strong, but I'm also hauling around a lot of extra weight.  The course consists of a 13.5-mile lap, with over 1,000 feet of elevation gain per lap.  There are three smaller climbs on the first half of the lap, with a 3-mile long climb to the finish at the end of each lap.  In my race, we did three laps.  The total race ended up being about 40 miles, and 3,500 feet of climbing.

Although I started at the back, I moved my way up through the group throughout the first lap, ending up probably in the first third of the pack as we started the big climb.  From there, you found out who the good climbers were.  The fast climbers took off, while the rest of us watched.  We never saw that group again.  Throughout the next three miles of climbing, the rest of the pack mostly stayed together.  Although we were strung out a bit, it was mostly a big pack with a few riders popping off the back.  As we came to the finish line the first time, the course leveled out, and eventually turned back downhill.  During this downhill, our chase group consolidated again.  At that point, some people were trying to put on a hard chase to the leaders.  However, my team had a rider, Joshua Gottlob, up there in that group, and I didn't want to do any work that would allow us to catch them.  I didn't know how many were up in the lead group, but I assumed around 10.  That meant that any points and prizes available were up the road in that group.  Joshua is really strong, and I wasn't about to do any work that would allow us to catch his group and ruin his chances of a top-10 finish.

We were riding fast, but without an official nearby giving us info about the time gap to the break, we had no idea if we were catching them or not.  I couldn't see anything ahead, so I assumed there had a few minutes on us.  I had a feeling we wouldn't be catching them, no matter how hard we were riding.  If the lead group was about 10 guys, they would be moving pretty fast, too.

As we climbed the big hill the second time, it was a lot of the same.  We stayed together pretty well throughout, although we got strung out a bit.  Once again, we all came back together on the downhill portion of the last lap.  And once again, it was fast and furious along the flats toward the base of the final climb, with no leaders in sight.

As we started the final 3-mile climb to the finish, I was near the front of the group, and one rider sprinted off the front.  I decided to chase, put in a few hard pedal strokes, then changed my mind.  If he was strong enough to stay away, I didn't have the legs to keep up.  If he wasn't, he would be back in the group before long.  And that's exactly what happened.  A few guys from the CU cycling team moved up to the front and picked up the pace a little, and eventually that rider was pulled back into the pack.  The pace was quicker, but manageable.  I didn't look back, but I assume we were getting strung out once again.  The CU guys were pushing pretty hard.  I managed to stay on their wheel, and eventually another teammate, Mark Bakewell, joined me.  For a while, it seemed like there were a few other guys with us, but eventually it was just me, Mark and the CU dudes.  Mark sprinted to the front of the group, hung there for a little bit, but eventually lost his legs and came back.  But the five of us seemed to be doing a decent job of putting some distance to the other riders.  I was still on the back of the last CU guy, with Mark a little behind me.  But with probably about 500m to go, the first CU guy took off, and the others followed.  I didn't have any legs left, and watched them ride away.  I took a quick look over my shoulder and saw one or two guys back there, but most of the group was still back a ways.  I pushed a little harder, and then the finish line came into view.

Looking at the finish line, I thought I might just be able to roll up there without being challenged.  But in a few seconds, I heard another rider sprinting up behind me.  I assumed it was Mark, and was a little annoyed that he was trying to outsprint me to the line after all that climbing.  But as he went past, I realized it was someone else, followed in a couple seconds by another guy.  Crap.  I didn't really have much left, but got out of the saddle and pushed as hard as I could, overtaking one of those guys just before the line.  I looked back, and Mark was just a couple seconds behind me.

Rolling through the finish, I saw Joshua ahead and rode over to see how he did.  Turns out that lead group had nine riders, and he finished 7th.  Nice!  Looking at the final results, it looks like that group splintered at the end, with the nice of them crossing the line spread out over two minutes.  From there, it was about 3 minutes until the CU guys crossed the line, with me about 10 seconds after that, in 14th place.  I was pretty happy with that result, considering I finished in 29th place in this race last year.

I wish I had some pictures or something to show, but the photogs don't really come out for these long races.  Unlike a crit where the racers tend to show up every few minutes, road races tend to be way more spread out, without a lot of opportunities for exciting photos.  And especially with the race being farther away from the metro Denver area, I'll bet they didn't want to make the long trip for the limited photo opportunities.  Too bad, because like I said, it's a beautiful course.  So, you get a lot of writing, and no fun pictures.  Sorry.

Race:  USAFA Road Race
Category: SM 4/5
Result: 14/74

2015 Louisville Criterium

I think I squandered an opportunity with this one.  Coming off a rest week, I was feeling good and was hoping for a really good result in this race, but it didn't come together the way I planned.

This was my first criterium of the season in a 40+ age group category.  My other crit, at CSU, was an open Cat 4/5 race, so I had to race with the "kids".  In this race, I would be racing other Cat 4 guys, age 40 and up.  For my category, this is a 40-minute race around a 0.8-mile course.  I'm not sure if I've really explained criterium racing in this blog, but essentially it is a lot of short laps over a set amount of time.  You race a bunch of laps until the officials determine your average lap speed, and then with somewhere around 5 laps to go, they start displaying a lap counter at the start/finish line, so you know how much farther you have to go.

I got to the race plenty early, and picked up my number from registration.  After chatting with a teammate for a while, I got dressed and pinned my number on.  I had a bite to eat, and started my warmup.  I probably managed about a 20-minute warmup, continuing to eat and drink.  It was a chilly morning, but I decided I would be working hard during the race, generating some heat, so I would wear the normal kit along with some arm warmers.  Typically during a race, my legs are doing enough work to stay plenty warm, but the arms tend to just sit there, so I like to wear the arm warmers to make sure they don't get too cold.

As I was finishing my warmup, my wife and kids showed up to watch, which was cool.  With two kids in spring sports, it can be tough to manage bike racing, soccer and football.  I sometimes have to miss some races to go to games, and if I do race, it can be tough for them to come watch.  But it all worked out for this race; football had a bye week, and soccer was right around lunchtime, so we could finish the race and head right to the game.  And besides, crits are just fun to watch.  It's fast, the racers pass by every couple minutes, and there tend to be crashes, if you're into that sort of thing.

After the previous race finished, I rode one lap of the course to get a feel for the turns, and got myself in line.  Once again, I was kind of near the back, but wasn't too concerned about it.  Forty minutes is a long time, and I didn't think I'd have much of a problem moving closer to the front within the first couple laps.  After a review of the rules from our race official, the blew the whistle and away we went!

The first few laps were a little sketchy, particularly in the corners as we were still in a large group and had a mix of faster and slower racers.  That means there were people who wanted to cruise quick and smooth through the corners, and those who maybe wanted to take it a little slower.  That tends to mean a lot of unnecessary braking and people who aren't holding their lines.  But after a few laps, the people who aren't cornering well tend to get weeded out, and you end up with a much more cohesive group.  You generally take your laps with that same group for a while . . . until someone decides to make a move.

At some point during that first half of the race, someone took a flyer off the front.  I never saw it happen, so I assume he broke away before I got up there.  At certain times, I could see that lead rider and the lead moto up ahead, but I couldn't tell what team he was on.  In my opinion, a single rider away that early in the race would probably burn himself out, and eventually get pulled back into the group without much effort, so I wasn't too concerned.  But as a few more laps went by, and teammates on the sidelines were yelling out the gap as we rode by, I realized the guy was actually gaining ground, not losing it.  If we were going to be fighting for first place, instead of second, we would need to work together to reel him back in.  I started yelling to the group to pick up the pace and chase him down.  I wasn't going to do all the work myself, so I was trying to get guys to rotate through the front as a paceline.  And here I made my biggest mistake of the race . . .

As I mentioned, I couldn't see who was in the break.  Maybe I could have asked the other riders at the front, but it didn't occur to me.  As we completed laps and sped through the start/finish banner, I could hear the race announcer for a split second.  It's hard to hear exactly what he was saying, but a number of times I heard him mentioning "RealD", another team in the race.  I assumed he was saying that a RealD rider was away in the break.  Looking around, I couldn't see any RealD riders with me, so I figured we should all be chasing.  Unfortunately, misunderstanding the race announcer caused a big problem.  It turns out the leader wasn't from RealD, but from Thump Cycling.  And one of the riders I thought I was "working" with was also from Thump.  I had spent much of the race riding behind him, starting into his seatpost-mounted GoPro.  He had no interest in chasing down his teammate, or helping the rest of us do the same.  So, while I was sitting there getting frustrated that our group wasn't making any progress, the Thump rider was doing exactly what he needed to do, taking it easy on the front of the pack, doing his best to disrupt any plans we had to try to speed up the race.

Out front for a bit.  Looks like I'm breathing pretty hard.  At the far left is Garrick Mitchell, the Thump Cycling guy who spent most of the race keeping us from catching his teammate. Photo: Brent Doerzman

Still out front.  Doing more work than I should be.  Photo: Craig Perez

With a few laps to go, it was obvious that the break was going to stay away.  At that point, it became a race for second place.  I decided to follow through on my original plan, which was to try to take a flyer on the climb at 3 laps to go.  As we started the climb, I got out of the saddle and tried to put some distance between me and the rest of the group.  I'm not exactly sure, but I think I spread out the group a bit, and made it through the start/finish line in second place with 2 laps to go.  I stayed in this spot throughout the penultimate lap, and thought I was doing ok.  I glanced back, and the rest of the field was still there, though.  After the start/finish line, there is a long downhill, and I took the turns as fast as I could.  I could see/feel one other rider behind me, and was hoping it was just us.  But as we made the final turn and began to climb, I looked back, and saw that basically everyone was right there.  And I had spent so much energy during the last half of the race that I didn't have a whole lot left for the climb.  I did the best I could, and I'm sure everyone was somewhat tired, but as we climbed toward the finish line, they started to swarm around me.  I gave it my best shot, but there was nothing left in my legs.  I didn't even have the strength to get out of the saddle for the sprint.  I rolled across the line about a second or two after the 2nd place finisher, in 14th place.

Think this might have been the start of the final lap.  I had broken away from the main pack with this one other guy.  But you can still see the pack back there, and they caught back up quickly on the downhill.  Photo: Brent Doerzman

Post-race run-down with teammates Gordon Smith and Robert Tarrall. Photo: Brent Doerzman

Although the result wasn't what I was hoping for, it was a good learning experience.  Since the race ended, I've been trying to thing of what I could have done differently.  Some random thoughts on this race:

• I needed to be closer to the front at the beginning of the race.  If I have been there, maybe I would have seen the break go away, and known who was in it.  But I wanted to get in my pre-race lap to see the course.  In the future, I won't wait until the break before my race to scout the course.  I'll try to go earlier in the day, between some other races.
• I need to talk to other riders more.  Maybe one of them knew who was in the break.  I was just going by what I heard the announcer say as we crossed the start/finish line at every lap.  I wouldn't have expected the guy's teammate to keep me in the loop about his plans, but someone up there probably knew something.
• Try not to do so much work so early.  Other riders weren't helping, so I was trying to keep the group moving, taking too many pulls and spending too much time on the front.  I mean, I knew this, but I also wanted to try to catch the break.
• When you're at the front of a pack, people tend to take your photos more often.  Stuck in the middle of a group, you end up kind of nondescript, and it's harder to show up in pictures.  There are usually a number of photographers at these things, and I seemed to show up in many more photos than usual this time.  However, the pics I've included here are from friends and teammates, not the pros.

As an interesting coda to this race, I ran into the Thump guy at the Air Force Road Race the following day (report coming in a separate post), and talked to him for a minute while we were riding.  I had recognized him as "Thump Guy With GoPro", and asked if he was at Louisville.  We introduced ourselves, and he mentioned that the video from his GoPro was on YouTube.  I checked it out when I got home.  It's interesting to see this view of the race, and his commentary on his own strategy compared to what I was thinking.  It is also just a good look at what happens inside a criterium.  Enjoy, there is a lot of me in this video.

Race:  Louisville Criterium
Category: MM 40+ 4
Result: 14/56

Hard ride during a recovery week

Even though this is a "recovery week", that doesn't mean I'm doing nothing.  Just less than usual.  In fact, today was a really hard workout.  The idea behind the recovery week is that my overall week will be significantly less stress, but that can come in many forms.  Generally, my workouts this week are shorter and easier, but they still threw one really hard interval workout at me.

TrainerRoad - "Striped"

As you can see, there are a lot of high-intensity, but relatively short, intervals.  A decent amount of stress, but not unbearable. This ended up being a somewhat high stress score (TSS) of 81.  But my last two workouts were only 43 and 20, so extremely low.  And I'm not scheduled for any kind of workout tomorrow.  This easy week, combined with my total rest day tomorrow, should leave me well-rested for my two races this weekend.

Today's Power Management Chart

As you can see from the above chart, my "form" (the gray shaded area) is still going up, even though I worked pretty hard today.  Come back in a few days to see how I ended up doing in this weekend's races.

More recovery

Easiest workout ever today.  It was only 30 minutes of Zone 2 power.  But as I said yesterday, this is a recovery week.  I do some riding, but not much.  As you can see from the Power Management Chart below, my fitness is going down a little, my fatigue is going down a lot, and my form is going up significantly.

Another update tomorrow.

Recovery

In a regular training program, recovery is as important as putting in the hard work.  After beating yourself up day after day, week after week, your body needs some time to rest and rebuild.  Without proper recovery, you will just get more and more tired.  So, a good training program should have some recovery time built in.  My current training program includes three different types of recovery. 

Daily:
After any kind of really hard interval workout, the muscles need some immediate help to recover and be ready for the next workout.  This typically involves fluids, protein, and carbohydrates, and then some stretching and rest.  After working so hard, the muscles are primed to take in these nutrients to aid recovery and rebuilding.  I usually do about three of these really hard workouts every week.  This type of recovery is often provided with some kind of recovery drink, like a protein smoothie.  However, I usually just stick to plain old chocolate milk.  Cheap, tastes great, and I can grab it right out of the fridge without having to bother mixing up ingredients and busting out the blender.  And it contains the 4:1 carb/protein ration that nutritionists feel is optimum for recovery.  My other workouts during the week are less intense, and don't really involve as much muscle teardown and rebuilding, so recovery nutrition isn't as important.

Weekly:
Throughout the week, my training plan is a mix of work and recovery.  My workouts alternate between hard intervals and easier endurance workouts.  So, after those hard intervals, the following day's endurance workout is almost a little bit of a recovery.  It keeps the heart and lungs working, while giving the muscles a bit of a break.  Then, one day per week is a true recovery day, with no work whatsoever.  In my plan, this is typically on Monday.  So, after a hard week of riding, followed by a hard weekend of racing, I take one day off to relax and get ready to start it all again on Tuesday.

Monthly:
In additional to the weekly recovery days, my training plan also includes recovery weeks.  I will do three hard weeks in a row, each building with a little more stress than the previous week, adding to my overall fitness.  Then, on the fourth week, I have a recovery week.  This often includes the same number of workouts, but they are going to be shorter, and somewhat less intense.  My workouts are measured in Training Stress, which I can talk about in another post.  But a recovery week will generally have about half the Training Stress of a hard training week.  I really hate recovery weeks.  After all that hard work, I find it very difficult to rest for an entire week.  I really feel like I need to keep working as hard as possible to continue to build fitness, but I have to force myself to take it easy and trust the system and the training plan.

I am in the middle of a recovery week right now, and it's annoying.  I hate just doing one easy workout per day, and knowing that tomorrow is yet another relatively easy workout.  Today was an easy one-hour ride at "endurance" pace, generally Zone 2 power.  Tomorrow is 30 minutes (30 minutes!!! That just seems stupid!), again at Zone 2.  Thursday will actually be a hard, intense workout, but then Friday is a complete day off.  Per my training plan, my Training Stress for last week was 493, and this week will only be 304.  That's a significant difference in workload.

I am training for two specific "A" events on my season's calendar, and the plan is built around those events.  So I need to continue my training plan based on those events, and don't worry too much about how it affects any of my other races.  So, sometimes I have a really hard week of training followed by one or two races on the weekend.  Even though I will probably be tired for those races, the experience is good, and maybe I can concentrate on helping teammates before my legs explode.

One benefit to recovery weeks however, is that I might actually be in good shape for that weekend's races, even though they aren't necessarily prime races for me.  That will be the case this weekend.  On Saturday, I'll be participating in the Louisville Criterium, and Sunday will be the Air Force Academy Road Race.  These weren't going to be "A" races for me, but because they fall at the end of a recovery week, I may actually have decent form for both of these events, and maybe I can do ok.  We'll see.  Stay tuned.

I'll talk more about this chart in the future, but this is a graph of my training since I started using the power meter in November.

Performance Management Chart (PMC) 3/31/2015

 The Performance  Management Chart tracks my daily Training Stress Score (TSS).  The blue line is my Chronic Training Load (think of it as "fitness").  The pink line is my Acute Training Load (think of it as "fatigue").  And the gray shaded area is my Training Stress Balance (think of it as "form").  The
 blue line shows my overall fitness level, while the pink line shows how tired I am.  When you combine fitness and fatigue, you get form, which should really show how prepared I am for a race.  You can see my fitness generally increases throughout the season, dropping slightly during recovery periods.  My fatigue jumps up and down quite a bit more, spiking during my hardest weeks, and dropping significantly during recovery.  My form is generally opposite of my fatigue.  As I recovery, my form shoots up.  As I proceed through this recovery week, my "form" on the right side of the chart should rise up until I have decent form for this weekend's races.  I may post a new version of this chart every day through this weekend, to see how the graph changes during recovery.

Boulder Roubaix recon

Today, a bunch of us from the Reynolds Roofing / CRJ Racing team decided to get together for a recon ride of the Boulder Roubaix course.  This is a race that takes place in a few weeks on the roads northwest of Boulder.  The course is about half packed-dirt, half pavement, switching between the two a few times per lap.  Each lap is about 18.7 miles, and the Cat 4s do two laps, for a total of 37.4 miles.

This is a very popular race in the area, typically taking place every two years.  I think the team is planning on a large turnout for this event, and we decided today would be a good day to do a recon ride, to take a look at the course and understand what we're in for.

We met at the offices of Collins, Rafik & Jacobson (CRJ), a Boulder criminal defense attorney and team sponsor.  Keith Collins, the "C" in CRJ, is also a Cat 4 racer on our team.  Once we gathered the 12 team members who were riding today, we headed up north out of Boulder, and towards the Boulder Roubaix course.

Pre-ride, outside the offices of Collins, Rafik & Jacobson.  Photo: Troy Reynolds

We plowed through the first lap, a bouncy, windy, pummeling course, with a number of rolling hills and lots of turns.  We gathered at the end of the first lap, with many of the riders ready to call it a day, a couple just tired of dirt and planning to do some more riding on pavement, and three of us, including me, deciding to do another lap.  So Keith Collins, Brad Clemmons and I cranked out one more lap of the course, and finally headed back toward the cars.  It was a tough day or riding, but I think very helpful for those of us planning to participate in this race in a few weeks.

I came to the conclusion that I really don't like riding on dirt.  Especially turning.  I always feel like the bike is just going to slide out from under me.  And all that washboard road is really tough on the body and the bike.  One of my bottle cages actually rattled loose, and I had to get out an allen wrench and tighten it up in the middle of the ride.  I definitely feel I am in shape for this race, but I am a little concerned about my technique on the turns.  We'll see.

Replacement bike - Aerocat R509

In an earlier post, I mentioned that I was riding a new bike this season.  Sometime last fall, October I think, I put my Fuji Roubaix up on my workstand to do a little maintenance.  While cleaning around the rear cassette area, I happened to notice a weird little mark on my drive-side chainstay.  I looked a little closer and realized it wasn't a mark, it was a crack, pretty much all the way through the chainstay.  I have no idea how it happened, but I'd put a ton of hard miles on that bike in the three or four years that I owned it.

You can see the crack right through the chainstay, starting at the little drainage hole.

Another view.

As you can see, that thing is ready to snap right through.  I'm glad I saw it when I did.  If it snapped when I was on the road, that would have been big, big trouble.

I looked online to check on warranty information, and saw that Fuji offered a lifetime warranty on their frames.  All I needed was the receipt, which I couldn't find anywhere.  Fortunately, the local bike shop where I purchased it keeps a record of all that stuff, and they were able to help me out.  Unfortunately, they are no longer a Fuji dealer, so I needed to deal with Performance Bike.  They were happy to help, even though I didn't buy the bike there.  I brought them the bike, and they took care of the paperwork and all dealings with Fuji.

Although the process was fairly easy, it definitely seemed like it was going to take a while.  And I was right in the middle of my post-season (or very-early-next-season) base-building period.  I needed to be on the bike, and couldn't afford to be taking weeks off waiting for my bike to get replaced.  My Fuji was a few years old, and was more of a casual bike, not really a race bike.  So, I figured I would start looking for a replacement, and once I got the replacement Fuji, I could sell it to partly pay for the new bike.

Since I didn't have a job, I still needed to be conscious of what I was spending.  I was looking to spend about $2000, probably less.  I looked on Craigslist, but couldn't find anything.  I browsed around at a few local shops, and was thinking of either a Giant TCR Advanced, or a Giant Propel Advanced.  The TCR was more of a lightweight climbing bike, and the Propel is more of a sprinters bike.  Both seemed to be really nice bikes, but neither one exactly met exactly what I was looking for.  I really wanted to step up to a carbon frame, some higher-end components, and probably mid-compact gearing.

After thinking about it for a couple days, I happened to be on Facebook, and a teammate mentioned that he knew someone selling their old bike: a 54cm Aerocat R509, mid-compact gearing, really nice wheels, and SRAM Force components.  It sounded like exactly what I was looking for.  And it was even black and white, so it wouldn't clash with my team kit like my old red bike did!  Oh, and it fell nicely into my price range, too.

It turns out, the guy selling it was our old team mechanical a few years ago, so he took really good care of it.  I gave him a call, and went to check it out the next day.  He was a great guy, and we talked about bikes and the team quite a bit.  I got the saddle adjusted and attached my pedals, and was ready to take it for a spin.  It rode really well, but the SRAM shifting took some getting used to.  I drove away a short time later with a sweet new bike.

The new bike, out for a beautiful afternoon ride in Boulder the day after I bought it.

Since I bought the bike in mid-October, I've made a few changes:

• The front chainrings were pretty shot.  I swapped out the old SRAM 52/38 rings for Praxis 52/36.
• Replaced the chain with Shimano Dura-Ace.
• New brake pads.
• I got a bike fit which required swapping the zero-offset seatpost with my old offset seatpost from my Fuji.
• And some fresh new white bar tape for the new race season.

Overall, this bike has been a fantastic change for me.  I really love everything about it.  At this point, it's seen two races in 2015, and I've felt pretty good in both.  At some point, I really hope a photographer will get a good shot of me on the bike, but we haven't had much luck yet this year.

After about 3-4 weeks, I eventually got my replacement frame from Fuji, and finally got around to building it back up a couple months ago.  I'll talk about that in a future post.

Training with power

For the past couple years, I've been using Spinervals videos for all my training.  As you can see from past blog posts, I used these videos almost every time I trained indoors.  They have a huge selection to choose from, so whatever type of workout you want, they probably have something that meets your needs.  I was fairly happy with the videos, but it really felt like I wasn't getting the most out of my workouts.

About a year ago, I discovered some software called TrainerRoad.  TrainerRoad is cycling training software that creates power-based workouts by combining sensor data from your bike with your home computer.  I first tried this software last April, and really liked it.  At the time, I did not have a power meter on my bike, so I used something that TrainerRoad calls "VirtualPower".  "VirtualPower" estimates your power output based on your speed from your speed sensor along with known data for the particular indoor trainer that you are using.  Training based on power is supposed to be better than training just based on heart-rate, so it seemed like a good plan.

TrainerRoad includes hundreds of pre-programmed workouts, and also allows you to create your own.  Because I had been using Spinervals videos, I decided to create some power-based workouts in TrainerRoad that could be sync'd with the Spinervals videos.  Fortunately, some users had already done a lot of that, but I found that I needed to create others.  Soon, there was a pretty good collection of power workouts to go along with the Spinervals videos.  I ended up doing that for most of last year.

But I still felt like I was missing something.  "VirtualPower" was OK, but definitely has some drawbacks.  Because it is estimating power based on other data, rather than measuring power directly, other factors can affect the power number.  For example, if your trainer tension is a little different from workout to workout.  Or if your tire pressure changes.  These factors change the relationship of the trainer to the bike, changing the perceived power output.  A way to avoid this inconsistency is to just install a true power meter on the bike.

So, I really wanted to get a power meter.  Big downside: power meters are very expensive.  Big upside:  everything else.  So, I decided it just needed to happen.  And I had just gotten a new bike (more on that in another post), and I decided that I just had to make the power meter happen.  After looking at a number of options, I opted to get a Power2Max power meter.  This power meter is installed on my front chainring, and measures minute stresses transferred from the cranks to the chainring, and converts that into a power measurement, measured in watts.  Therefore, it is truly measuring the pressure I am putting into the bike.  There are other ways to measure this, too, all involving some kind of "strain gauge" somewhere on the bike.  This could be in the rear hub, on the crank arms, or directly on the pedals themselves.

Here is a quick breakdown on power meter locations, and my opinions on the pros and cons of each:

• Rear hub:
• Pros:
• Relatively inexpensive
• Because it is part of the wheel, your power meter can be easily moved between bikes just by swapping wheels.  I only have one bike for training and racing, so this wasn't a big factor for me.
• Cons:
• Limits you to one wheel option to measure power.  If you train and race on different wheels, like I do, this isn't really feasible.

• Crank arm:
• Pros:
• Cheapest option out there these days
• Extremely lightweight.
• Cons:
• Generally limited to specific crank arms.  You typically buy the crank arm from the power meter manufacturer with the power meter already installed.
• Limited to crank arms with a smooth inside face that the power meter can be installed onto.  In my case, I am using Rotor-brand cranks, which have a shaped inside face that won't accept this type of power meter.  I like my cranks, and didn't really want to spend extra money buying a full set of cranks, too.

• Pedals:
• Pros:
• Easy to measure directly left/right power by having one power meter in each pedal.  Most other options have to estimate left/right power balance using various calculations.  This wasn't too important to me.
• Easily swapped between bikes, just by swapping pedals.
• Cons:
• Significantly more expensive than the other options.

• Chainrings:
• Pros:
• Depending on the manufacturer, this can range from one of the least expensive options, to one of the most expensive.  The cheaper options are about $800, and the more expensive can be a couple thousand dollars.
• Cons:
• A little complicated to install.  Probably easier to take to a shop, where they can do it quickly, easily, and relatively inexpensively.
• Can't be swapped between bikes.  With only one bike, this wasn't a big deal to me.

Based on these criteria, I opted for a Power2Max power meter, a chainring-based option that cost about $800.  A good chunk of change to be sure, but in the end, I think the cost is totally worth it.  I use the same bike indoors and out, swapping wheels between training and racing, and the chainring-based power meter allows me to get power data no matter what I am doing on the bike.

My Power2Max power meter installed.  The power meter itself is the thing with the big "2" on it.  You can also see my Praxis chainrings and Rotor 3D cranks.

The next step was understanding how to use power-based training.  To do that, I relied on a couple books.  I won't try to describe everything here, since other people can teach power-based training much better than I can.  These two books taught me everything I needed to know about training with power:  Training and Racing with a Power Meter by Hunter Allen and Andrew Coggan, considered the bible of power-based training, and The Power Meter Handbook by Joe Friel, another excellent book, and an easier read than the Allen/Coggan book.

Some of the best power-training books out there.  Read them.

Now that I had the power meter installed, and had a basic understanding of power-based training, it was time to get to work.  Back in November, I had the power meter installed just in time for the second phase of my Spinervals off-season training program.  The first phase was a lot of base training, for 6 weeks.  The second phase of their program lasts the entire month of December, and is a solid month of hard base training.  Similar workouts to the first phase, but just more volume.  I continued to use the Spinervals videos sync'd with TrainerRoad software, but now I could use actual power numbers.  The difference was significant.

With VirtualPower, I was never sure that I was doing equivalent work every time I got on the bike, because I wasn't sure if my trainer had the same tension, or if my tire pressure was the same as the previous day.  With true power measurements, that was no longer an issue.  If something changed in my setup, that just meant I had to pedal a little faster or slower, or use a different gear, to achieve the power output necessary per the workout.  I continued to train this way throughout December.

After finishing the December phase of the workout, it was time to move to the next phase.  But at this time, I started having second thoughts about Spinervals.  Although they are great workouts, I felt I was missing something.  The Spinervals off-season training plan is somewhat generic, with the same free training plan available for anyone who wants to use it, regardless of their goals.  It involves a lot of volume, and a lot of hard work, but I don't know that it really focuses on what I need.  After using the videos for a few years, it really started to seem to me like they were focused more on the needs of triathletes, not road races.  There are hard workouts, to be sure, but most seemed geared towards long, strenuous work needed for time trials and triathlons, but not the on/off demands needed for road racing, where you need to be able to perform breakaways, catch breakaways, and sprint out of corners and for the finish line.  With nearly 50 videos, there were certainly some workouts that focused on high intensity intervals, but most workouts were based on long, steady hard work.  The free training plan certainly seemed focused on this.

The other problem with Spinervals workouts is that they were created just as video workouts, usually focused on heart-rate training.  In order to use them as power-based  workouts, I would use TrainerRoad with either a premade workout, or make my own.  These workouts were all user-created, and not provided by Spinervals.  The user would open a video, and open the TrainerRoad workout creator, and create intervals that started and stopped in sync with the video, and would have to guess at the amount of power that should be expected for that interval based on things the Coach was talking about.  This wasn't necessarily ideal.

I eventually decided I might need to try something else, based completely on power.  TrainerRoad includes over 400 workouts of all varying intensity, duration and type of work.  And as part of the subscription, they also offer a variety of training plans.  At the time I considering the change, TrainerRoad was also reorganizing their training plans to make sure they were covering everyone's needs.  And based on what they were doing, they were definitely going to provide exactly what I was looking for, right when I needed it.

Around the beginning of 2015, TrainerRoad changed their training plans to provide three distinct phases:  Base, Build and Specialty.  There are a number of options within these phases to allow you to build the plan that meets your specific needs.  And each options is also broken out into low, medium and high volume options, so you can work within your specific time constraints.

• The Base phases are generally all 12 weeks in length.  They offer Sweet Spot and Traditional base plans, depending on how much time you have and how thorough the plan needs to be.
• The Build plans are 8 weeks, and broken out by Short Power (mountain biking, cyclocross, criterium racers), General (road racers), and Sustained Power (triathletes, TT specialists, century riders).
• The Specialty phase plans are really topping-off plans, as a final 8-weeks of work to get you in peak condition for your specific type of event.  These are broken first into Road, Off-Road, Triathlon, and General Fitness options, and then there are further options within each of those categories.  For example, the Road category includes Rolling Road Race, Climbing Road Race, Criterium, 40k TT, Half Century and Century plans.  I understand they also intend to offer a Stage Race plan as well.

I had already completed my base training with my Spinervals work throughout the end of 2014, so I didn't need to worry about that.  I needed to begin my Build plan in January, and so I chose the General Build-High Volume plan.  And once those 8 weeks were completed, I would begin the Rolling Road Race specialty plan.

To plan my schedule, I needed to determine my goal events for the year, also known as my "A" races.  I decided that these would be the Superior Morgul Omnium in May and the Salida Stage Race in July.  Both are three-day races that I feel I could to fairly well at.  So my goal was to be in top form for both of these races.  To do that, I would need to complete the Specialty phase a week or two before the event, so I could taper and be at a top level of fitness, with a low level of fatigue.  So, got out my calendar and counted backwards 17 weeks from the Superior Morgul race, so I could determine when to start my Build phase.  That would give me 8 weeks of Build, 8 weeks of Specialty, and one week of taper.  Based on that calculation, I began my Build phase in the middle of January.

Now here I am in the middle of March.  I completed my Build phase, and am now a couple weeks into my Rolling Road Race plan.  A typical week for me consists of six days of workouts.

• Monday: Rest day
• Tuesday:  60 minutes of hard intervals, focusing on some specific type of power output
• Wednesday: 60 minutes of mellow Zone 2 or Zone 3 riding
• Thursday: Another 60 minutes of hard intervals.
• Friday:  Another 60 minutes of Zone 2/3
• Saturday:  90 minutes of hard intervals.  If I am able, I may join a hard group ride instead, to get some race-type experience in my legs.
• Sunday:  Long-ish 2.5 - 3 hours of Zone 2-3 work, just to work on endurance.

My workouts typically involve me sitting on my bike on my trainer in the basement.  Because the workouts require a PC, I bring a laptop down there to show the TrainerRoad dashboard.  But because staring at a graph of my workout for an hour is really boring, I also generally watch a movie.  I could just put the workout and the movie onto the TV, but what I've been doing lately is doing a 2-screen option from my laptop.  The laptop screen shows my workout dashboard, and the TV shows whatever movie I'm watching.  Audio from everything plays over headphones, so I don't bother anyone else in the house.  In this way, I can hear the movie as well as any of the various beeps and such from my workout that tell me when to start and stop my intervals.  I've found that this setup works really well.  And now because of this setup, I am really able to crank through a ton of movies.

As I said, TrainerRoad workouts are based on power.  The software pulls my heart rate, power and cadence from my bike's sensors and displays them on a "dashboard", along with target power and a graph of the entire workout.  As I ride, I aim to hit the power targets as directed per the workout.  Once I am done, the workout is saved, and I can review my performance data.  In a future post, I will talk about how I use my workout data as a part of my overall training plan.

This is what the TrainerRoad screen looks like.  The bottom half of the screen shows a graph of the entire workout.  During the workout, my actual power is shown as a line following this graph.  At the upper left is my actual power and target power.  At the upper right is my heart rate and cadence.  And in the middle is the remaining time in that particular interval and the total workout time.

This is a TrainerRoad post-workout graph.  The blue is the target power.  The yellow line is my actual power, red line is my heart rate and white line is my cadence.

I'm pretty sure this is my longest post ever.  It seems like I could keep writing about this stuff forever, but I'll have to save some for other posts.  Until next time . . .

A few updates

Just a quick note that there have been a couple changes to this blog today:

• Blog name has been changed.  This used to be called "Fit-Brent", and was a blog that was originally intended to track my attempts to lose weight and generally get in shape.  Over time, it really turned into a cycling blog, including my training and racing.  The blog is now titled "HTFU", which is a cycling term.  "H" is for Harden.  "T" is for The.  "U" is for Up.  And the "F" should be obvious.
• I have changed up the header graphic.  This was just a quick, crappy graphic job.  I need to work on that.
• I made the entire page a little wider.  It just seemed pretty narrow before, and required that I use smaller images than I really wanted.  I am eventually going to go back through and upsize all my images, but that will have to wait a bit.

2015 CSU Criterium

This race was my first real test of the season.  Sure, I did that time trial a few weeks ago, but that's not really a race.  This was my first event where I was actually on the course competing against other racers.  It was time to really see how my training has been working (or not working).

This race was a 40-minute criterium on the CSU campus in Fort Collins.

The day got off to a good start, with teammate Aaron giving me a ride to the course.  The race wasn't super-far away, but far enough that it was nice to share a ride and get to know one of my new teammates.  We got to the parking lot adjacent to the course, and quickly met up with a few other teammates.  We had plenty of time before our race start, so we could relax a little and take our time getting ready.  We picked up our numbers from registration, then headed back to the cars.  A few teammates walked across the street to grab some lunch, but I had brought an almond-butter-and-jelly bagel with me, so I just ate that.  (First time eating almond butter.  It seemed like it should taste different, but at least on a bagel with some grape jelly, I couldn't taste the different between it and peanut butter.)

After getting dressed (first time in the new kit!), a group of us decided to head over to check out the course.  With races going on, we couldn't ride the course, so we just rode the sidewalks, checking out the turns and looking for things like potholes and manhole covers, stuff like that.  This was a tricky course with a few sharp turns, and two spots with turns really close together.  We got a good look at the course, and headed back to the cars.

With about an hour before our race, it was time to warm up.  My warm-up routine is almost always just on the trainer in the parking lot, and goes something like this:  Easy Zone 1-2 spinning for about 5 minutes, just to get the legs moving.  Then, big-ring, big-ish cog for a minute, about 80 rpm or so.  Every minute, step down one cog while keeping the same cadence, for about 5-6 minutes.  Spin easy for about another 5 minutes.  Then, do about 10s of seated high cadence spins, at least 110-120 rpm, and 50s of easy spin. About 3 times.  Then do the same thing again, but with out-of-the-saddle sprints.  Finally, cool down for another 5 minutes or so.  Whole thing takes about 25-30 minutes, and really gets the muscles and lungs warmed up.

After the warmup, we packed up the cars, and headed over to the course.  One last bathroom break before the race.  By the time I got to the start line, plenty of people were already on the line.  The announcer was reminding everyone that they still had about 15 minutes before the start, and maybe they should go take a lap around the course, but he wasn't getting many takers.  Since I hadn't ridden the course yet, I decided to ride past the crowd at the start line and take a quick lap.  I'm glad I did.  I didn't do this race last year, so this was a new course to me, and like I said, it's a little tricky.  After a few minutes on the course, I got back to the start line again, where the announcer was still urging everyone to go and ride a lap.  But no one was moving.  I guess people were really happy with their spots at the front, and didn't want to give that up.  This was a sold-out race, with a full field of 75 racers.  One of the biggest fields of any race I'd been in so far.  I was kind of in the middle, which was fine with me.  This was a 40-minute crit, so I had plenty of time to move up once the race started.

Standing around, waiting for the start.  I don't think you can see me in this photo, but as you can see, our team is well-represented.  Photo: Peg Hallberg

We stood around nervously for a few more minutes, until finally we got the whistle to start.  This one started like most races, weaving around a few people who were having trouble clipping in to their pedals.  Then it was off to the races, literally.  We started pretty fast, and some of the turns were a little sketchy.  This tends to happen on the first few laps of these things, as everyone kind of figures out their lines and gets used to the racers around them.  Over the first 10-ish minutes of the race, I managed to move myself up in the group, so I was probably in the top 20 of the field.  That seemed like a good place to be.

Riding in the pack.  That's me in the yellow and black kit on the right. Photo: Peg Hallberg

At around minute 20, halfway through the race, I decided to move up closer to the front, and try to get myself into the front 10 or so.  As we cruised the slight downhill around the "Oval", I managed to pick up enough speed to somehow end up off the front of the race.  Not exactly where I wanted to be with another 20 minutes of racing to go.  The idea behind racing is to hide from the wind, behind other riders, until you are read to make a move.  So, here I was, at the front of the race.  I'm hoping someone at least got some good pictures.

As we passed the start/finish line, the announcer was ringing the bell to announce a prime.  A prime in a criterium is a mid-race lap where the winner of that lap gets some kind of prize.  They do it to add some excitement to the middle of the race, so it's not all about the finish.  Maybe cash, maybe some swag.  In this case, I heard them say something about a gift certificate.  I assume for some restaurant in Fort Collins that I'd never get a chance to go to, so I wasn't very interested.  But as we pushed on with the lap, with me still off the front, I could hear my teammate Josh Gottlob behind me, encouraging me to push it.  I guess he wanted the prime for some reason.  If I could stay on the front for the next couple minutes, maybe I could help him sprint for the prime.  So, instead of slowing down to get myself back into the pack where I really wanted to be, I pushed on with Josh on my wheel for the rest of the lap.  We sped around the Oval, coming around the turn and heading up the slight uphill to the start/finish.  I push on as hard as I could, dragging Josh along with me.  With about 100m to go, Josh came around and sprinted for the line with one other guy.  From my vantage point, it looked like a photo finish, but I heard the announcer yell the other guy's name instead.  Too bad, I thought we had it.

Josh and I.  I just led out Josh for the prime sprint. Photo: Peg Hallberg

That lap killed my legs a bit, so it was time to rest for a while.  We still had almost half the race to go, so I could ease myself back into the pack to give my legs and lungs a break.  I slowed up a bit, and merged myself into the group at around 20th position.  After another few laps, we started getting the countdown.  Five laps to go, then four.  The pace started to pick up some more.  With two laps to go, I really should have made my move.  But I stuck with the pack until the bell indicating the last lap.  I started to move up a few spots when I could, but the turns were so close together it was really hard to gain position for the first 2/3 of the lap.  We made one final right turn, then headed towards the Oval and a slight downhill.  The pace really jumped at this point, and I pushed as hard as I could.  But I'm pretty sure everyone else was thinking the same thing.  We were really cooking it around the oval and towards the finish line.  I was still embedded in the group, but had two teammates, Josh and Ray, in a good position ahead.  As we hit the straightaway, I jumped out of the saddle, put my head down, and sprinted to the line.  I'm not sure, but I think this was the first time I was actually sprinting in a race.  If nothing else, it was the first time I think I did it well.  I crossed the line, spent, and felt pretty good.  My first real race of the season, and I was right in there at the end, sprinting across the line.  The results posted after the race indicated I finished in 15th, but the results online show me at 16th.  Not sure what changed.  But since I didn't finish on the podium, and there were no points available for this race, it doesn't really matter.

As we cruised around the course one more time to cool down, I caught up with Ray and Josh.  Turns out they finished 2nd and 5th.  We didn't end up on top, but we were right there making a race of it, and keeping things interesting the whole time.  Another racer rode up to me and complimented the team as we were cooling down, and it seemed like the announcers were always calling our name, both in my race and in later races.  I'm sure part of it is the new kit.  The fluorescent yellow and black really pops, so it's easy to pick us out of the crowd.

I'm still waiting to see if I can find any other photos of this race.  I'll update this post if I find something good.

So, another weekend of racing down.  Two races, two good results.  The season is off to a good start.  Looking forward to Louisville in a couple weeks!  Stay tuned . . .

Race:  CSU Criterium
Category: SM 4/5
Result: 15/75