Saturday, May 31, 2008

Almost Time for Trials !



Pictures courtesy of cycling photographer extraordinaire Casey Gibson. Team King is the one on top....that is Anton, Matt, and me.......extra points if you can tell who is the sprinter and who is the endurance guy. Between Matt and Anton that is a lot of quadriceps muscle!
.
This was essentially our last real week of preparation for the trials next week. Now we are in "taper" mode. We did some hard work Tuesday-Friday on the track....well except Thursday when a car ran into the track overnight and they would not let us do a workout....no joke.
.
Honestly the workouts this week are a blur. I know they were hard. We did get 2 motor paced sessions in as well. OK.....motorpacing is relatively challenging. Now: do it on a tandem, with a fixed gear, on the track, in the aerobars, and on a really windy day. Let's just say the learning curve was pretty steep.....but it was an absolute blast. Today we tried to do a 4 KM slightly above race pace with 1 lap on and 1 lap off the motor. That was somewhat of a disaster with the wind....we really got less than half a lap recovery each time....so while we didn't get exactly the effort we were looking for, it sure was hard. Next we did a 4KM effort on the motor the whole time. This went pretty well. The first couple laps were a little ragged, but then we settled into low 21 second pace for most of the effort...until the last couple laps when we fell apart. After a rest we did 6 or 7 KM behind the motor in an easier gear and at a more moderate speed. After this I FINALLY really got the hang of it...too bad the session was over!
.
As far as fitness we now have what we are going to have for trials....time to do some easy workouts, rest, get all the race gear dialed in, and try not to stress too much....which is easier said than done.
.
out for now
.
a2



Friday, May 30, 2008

tour of leelanau

After a week of training on the track in Colorado I flew to northern Michigan for the 110 mile uci road race near Traverse City. I knew the travel would be tough....but after landing in Chicago and sitting on the tarmac for 45 minutes I missed my connecting flight and the day became super stressful. For a while i thought I was going to have to rent a car and drive the 5+ hours the rest of the way....but luckily I got onto an evening flight.

The race course was beautiful....lots of tough hills. I actually RACED at the front for at least a while. I was feeling good and went with the very first attack.....ummmm....not such a good idea. We were looking good for the first hour....riding well, then it started to rain. I managed to get gapped off on the first KOM climb and had to chase back for a few KM...ouch, but no worries....got right back to the front and was able to mix it up a little more....then we hit a twisty/ wet/ pot holed descent. I was still in contact with the group as I passed a teammate right near the bottom. I waited for him and tried to pull him back to the bunch. Just as I was making contact I looked back and saw he was behind, so I slowed again....big mistake. the field was going fast and as it turns out he was not really having any problems....Ryan Gamm came around us and drilled it to get us back on. Ryan pulled off and I went hard up the base of a small climb. Joe was able to jump around and get right back on the group and I ...well....I got dropped. Of course at that point there was only about 50 riders out of the 110+ starters in the field....but still. I chased hard for a bit but was soon caught by a group of about 6 riders from behind. These guys were motoring and I slotted right in. We kept the gap at 15 to 20 seconds for several miles...then the gap blew out and we lost sight of the field.

I had good company with ex teammate Shaun Adams and MTB superstar Mike Simonson. We kept the pace high enough to hurt, but our goal was to make the tight time cut as we knew we would not see the field again until the finish. We rode hard for the rest of the course but still managed to miss the time cut....what a drag to see a DNF next to your name when you did actually finish the race....oh well ...that is what you get when you try to play with the big kids.

The highlight of the day was as our group was finishing up the final steep hill. Simonson and I were going really hard....not sprinting mind you but riding hard for the finish. Just as we got about a half a meter from the line, neither of us wanting the distinction of sprinting the laughing group we both jammed on our brakes and came to a virtual track stand at the line..... I am not sure who won that contest :)

After the race I got to spend some quality time with my teammates....while we were bummed that the team performance was not the best, we did manage to have some fun.

Up at 4:15am on monday morning and back to Denver and the drive back to C-Springs by noon.

Next competition: the Paralympic Trials !!!!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

back on TRACK



I am not even sure if I can remember everything that has gone on since my last post....but I will try.
.
OK, so I went home from CO Springs, did the Rock Hill road race weekend with Inferno (a great team weekend), then did the Cohutta 100 mile MTB race ...(where I finished 16th and which really deserves it's own post)...then did the Airforce uci road race (where I was dropped like a rock), came back to C-Springs for a week of intense track pursuit training with Matt, flew back to Asheville for a whopping 5 days and had a great time doing the 12 Hours of Tsali MTB race with my Kobold / Cannondale teammate Daniel Corum last saturday(where we were 3rd in the 4 person open team category with just 2 riders...hope to do a post on this race individually as well). Got up the day after the 12 hr race, packed and DROVE 2 days (10 hrs sun, 12 hrs mon) BACK to Colorado Springs again,.......which leads us to this week.....keeping up??? I am not sure if I am !
.
Now things are hotting up with our training for the Paralympic trials. We have been KILLING it with our workouts on the track. I have to say in my almost 20 years of racing bikes I have NEVER done this much specific all out intensity work...nor have I put this much energy and sacrifice into preparing for a certain event....and I suppose that is saying something. I am convinced it will pay off.
.
Training for the 4 KM pursuit on the track is quite complicated and specific. I am certainly learning a lot. Matt enlisted Chris Mirabella to help with our training program (husband of famous track star Erin Mirabella)...so a special thanks from my aching legs goes out to him :) > I should also mention the incredible help we have had from Bill Lahman ..who has done everything from airport runs, to lap timing to wrenching for us....not to mention training with Matt. So far this has been a real team effort.
.
Today's bout of pain was a long track workout consisting of a nice warm-up punctuated with a 4KM effort building to 130 rpm or so in a light gear (51x17 I think). Then the fun began with 4x 3KM all out efforts in our expected race gearing. It was super windy and our lap times were not great...but our effort was really good. We finished off doing 2 start efforts from a real starting gate...which was good practice. This workout left us completely spent. We then took about 30 minutes off followed by a 2 hour easy ride up through the Garden of the Gods (pictured above).
.
The picture on the top is Katie Compton doing a serious motor paced track session......
.
Now I need to recover for tomorrow's killer session again...
.
a2

Sunday, May 04, 2008

US Air Force Cycling Classic

Andy is racing in the US Air Force Cycling Classic as I type this, with his team, Inferno Racing.

Read the live report here: http://live.cyclingnews.com/?id=latest