I boarded a puddle jumper in Columbia, switched to an MD80 at DFW, and touched down in San Diego to start a new adventure in life on Tuesday. This is my first time being west of Colorado so everything here is new.
My bike had not yet arrived so I borrowed one from my new roommate, Marc and went for a spin down the Pacific Coast. My bike would not arrive 'till Thursday so I spent about 10 hours on the loaner getting to know the coast and the climbs offered in the area. The bike is equipped with vintage Dura Ace 8speed Downtube shifters and a 12-21 block, so it was a quad buster when I went up the 15% grade on Mount Soledad.
Did I mention that there is real climbing out here? How novel that I can embrace my slender build.
Since I am going to be spending a large amount of time on the track I went to the ADT Velodrome today to get certified on the track. ADT is the only world class 'drome in the US with its 250m distance and 45+ degree banking through the turns. It's a cool place; Taylor Phinney, Sarah Hammer, and a host of other riders have won National Championships on the boards there.
I've heard horror stories about the layout of the track and some other things but I wanted to get in and get it over with, and maybe enjoy myself. There were 5 in my cert class, but the one guy left early and missed the meat of the riding. 2 of the people were less experienced so I did most of my riding with this 15 year old kid named Colin; he's strong, smooth, and young and it's great to see kids with talent like that.
My first 5 laps on the actual track were nervous and I may not have breathed, but after a water break and another set of laps on the track I realized I was not going to die (always good when your aspirations involve significant track time). I was able to relax and really start to ride. Our instructor, Andrew, lead us further up the track and then had us do a paceline with Team Pursuit style exchanges. After a bunch of riding Andrew (who was really laid back and funny) ask if Colin and I want to play a game. So we played follow the leader which involved following Andrew all over the track for several minutes; he took us to the rail (+30 feet in the air), dropped us in from the top, climbed the banking, all kinds of crazy stuff. Then he asked if we wanted to do a flying 200. Why not? So I did a flying 200, as I dropped into turn 1 at nearly full gas I felt the gravitational forces pushing me into the track, it was incredible!
By the time we finished, I had put in about 90 solid minutes of ride time, and I have the sore quads to go along. As for the horror stories, I don't know? I loved ADT, I think it's a fun track.
Icing on the cake... Allyson Felix (World Champ in the 200m dash multiple times over, and '08 Olympic Gold medalist 4x400m relay) was at a track meet next to the 'drome and was walking in to get a drink as I was walking out. I said hello, and thought it was pretty cool to have met someone that fast.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Lowes Motor Speedway Time Trial
The Time Trial, the race of truth. I didn't like the truth last year and it kinda threw a kink into my Paralympic plans. Turns out, you get on the team by riding TT's or the track time trials (Kilo & Pursuit). If I want on the team I have to Time Trial. I got a coach this year and he introduced me to Threshold workouts; they changed they way I ride.
The LMS TT is held on the Nascar oval in Charlotte, NC. It's a 7 lap, 10 mile affair that is held rain or shine. It rained tonight, so the track was very wet. I warmed up on the trainer and headed to the start line armed with my Vintage Giro Aerohead helmet, clip on TT bars, a Spinergy RevX front wheel and a powertap/Open Pro rear rear.
I had a good, no nerves start and settled into my aero bars. Aquick glance at the PowerTap showed 300 Watts, too much effort, so I dialed it down to 260 and stayed there for the first 2 laps. I picked up the pace just a little on lap 3 and pretty much rode by feel with the odd look at the PT to make sure things were good. As I started lap 5 I realized my time was looking better than I had hoped so I pushed on. Coming around the final lap I knew I would easily hit my cautious goal time, but making my optimistic goal time would be close. I was looking for 23:10 and coming into the final stretch I sprinted for all I was worth and fell shy of 23:10 by just a few seconds.
I looked at the results and sure enough, 23:17, so I did the math and realized I had actually BEAT my goal time by 7 seconds. About these goal times. The paralympic team has time standards for the different tiers of the team. The highest Tier is the National Team, to make that you need to go 25.58mph, and the Talent Pool is 24.9mph. For this race that worked out to 23:24 and 24:10. My oxygen deprived brain mixed up the seconds so when I realized my mistake I was very very happy. All of my hard work has been validated and I'm getting alright at this Time Trial thing. A very good night for me.
The LMS TT is held on the Nascar oval in Charlotte, NC. It's a 7 lap, 10 mile affair that is held rain or shine. It rained tonight, so the track was very wet. I warmed up on the trainer and headed to the start line armed with my Vintage Giro Aerohead helmet, clip on TT bars, a Spinergy RevX front wheel and a powertap/Open Pro rear rear.
I had a good, no nerves start and settled into my aero bars. Aquick glance at the PowerTap showed 300 Watts, too much effort, so I dialed it down to 260 and stayed there for the first 2 laps. I picked up the pace just a little on lap 3 and pretty much rode by feel with the odd look at the PT to make sure things were good. As I started lap 5 I realized my time was looking better than I had hoped so I pushed on. Coming around the final lap I knew I would easily hit my cautious goal time, but making my optimistic goal time would be close. I was looking for 23:10 and coming into the final stretch I sprinted for all I was worth and fell shy of 23:10 by just a few seconds.
I looked at the results and sure enough, 23:17, so I did the math and realized I had actually BEAT my goal time by 7 seconds. About these goal times. The paralympic team has time standards for the different tiers of the team. The highest Tier is the National Team, to make that you need to go 25.58mph, and the Talent Pool is 24.9mph. For this race that worked out to 23:24 and 24:10. My oxygen deprived brain mixed up the seconds so when I realized my mistake I was very very happy. All of my hard work has been validated and I'm getting alright at this Time Trial thing. A very good night for me.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A little update
Thursday:
My coach threw in an interesting workout that was 3 rounds of "10 minutes at 260W, and every 3 minutes surge at 350W." I did this one with the silly hat I'm borrowing from Mark D.
Yup, a vintage aero lid that looks ridiculous, but makes me faster.
Friday:
I went out and rode from Cycle Center and went super easy as it was a rest day.
Saturday was 70 min on the trainer with an hour at 210W
And today I went out to Hopkins and rode at a pretty good pace for 1:45 in the aerobars. Avg Wattage was 210 and Avg speed was 21.2mph. I'm starting to get the hang of riding in the aerobars and am hoping I can ride a respectable time on Tuesday at the Lowes Motor Speedway Time Trial.
My coach threw in an interesting workout that was 3 rounds of "10 minutes at 260W, and every 3 minutes surge at 350W." I did this one with the silly hat I'm borrowing from Mark D.
Yup, a vintage aero lid that looks ridiculous, but makes me faster.
Friday:
I went out and rode from Cycle Center and went super easy as it was a rest day.
Saturday was 70 min on the trainer with an hour at 210W
And today I went out to Hopkins and rode at a pretty good pace for 1:45 in the aerobars. Avg Wattage was 210 and Avg speed was 21.2mph. I'm starting to get the hang of riding in the aerobars and am hoping I can ride a respectable time on Tuesday at the Lowes Motor Speedway Time Trial.
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