Monday, June 30, 2008

quick update: masters road nats

Cara and I are in Louisville, KY this week at masters road nationals. Today was the TT. My individual TT was at about 9am this morning. I was pleased to get 4th in my age group with a time of about 50:54 for the 38KM undulating course. It was raining for most of my ride, but I don't think it slowed me down any. I averaged 343 watts which gives me slightly over 5watts per Kg....about as good as I could have expected today.

At about 1pm Cara and I set off for our tandem TT. We rocked it even though the wind had picked up dramatically. We did 50:43 ! Faster than my individual time ! We have never done that before. The return leg had a serious headwind and the last 5 miles were excruciating.....one of the hardest things i have done in a long time. We had the fastest mixed tandem time by about a minute.

Mission accomplished so far: one podium and a national championship......

Tandem road race is thursday.

a2

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Friday, June 06, 2008

GAME OVER: paralympic trials road TT

Just finished the road time trial for paralympic selection. We rode really well and did 100.9 % of our time standard of 1 minute 17.6 seconds per kilometer. We rode a 17:56 on a tough little course with some difficult turns and hills. Unfortunately it was not good enough to get selection for the team. The hand cyclists and amputees ruled the day. 3 of them did 95% of their time standard! I don't know just what their standard was, but that is incredible. With only 6 male slots for the team and 3 of them "ring fenced" we would have needed to ride about 97% of our standard to get selection . We rode over 28mph average....and honestly no matter what we could have done we would no way have been able to ride fast enough to do 97%! To do a 97% for the pursuit we would have literally had to come close to setting a world record!
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So in the end...after all the hard work and time....training for an event I had never done before (pursuit) and travel, we never really did have a shot at making the team. The way the selection rules are written, and the small size of the team the US had qualified for the paralympics we were fitghting a losing battle from the onset.....of course we did not know this until recently....most of this is new for this paralympics as the uci recently took control of the cycling events and new rules are in place for Beijing.
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I do know that we trained hard and raced well....to the best of our abilities....and for me, the experience was truly amazing.
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I hope to have some pictures and more thoughts up here soon....
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a2

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

4:43 something

That was our time for the 4KM pursuit today. We rode really well..especially for a team that had never done this event before. I was hoping for better, but we rode to our ability and this is what we came up with.
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We did start a little too hard. The start itself was near perfect about 28.0 sec for the first lap....then the big problem: 21 seconds for the 2nd lap!...too fast!!!! We knew this, but the damage was done....we needed to hold speed as long as we could.....and we were doing really well. Lots of low 22 sec laps...then into the 23s ...we made it past 5 to go with good times...then started to pay for the early effort with 24 second laps for the last 3......ouch.
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What an incredible experience though....this event is crazy hard..the focus it demands is complete. During the ride it was like we were on another planet....there was nothing else in the universe except us, our effort and the patch of track in front of us....
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When we finished all I could think was that I did not want this to be my first AND last pursuit with Matt...we have one more chance to move up and make the team.
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Our ride gave us the bronze medal for the national championship....but was 105% of our time standard....so we are still in 4th for the team selection ranking with just the road TT left on friday. We will need to ride FAST.
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No pics from today yet....maybe tomorrow.
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a2

Paralympic Trials Day 1

Today was day 1 of the trials. The pic is Matt and Anton starting the kilo. They had an unbelievably fast start and ended with a 1:06.8 . This gave us a 102% ranking...meaning they were 2% off of the elite standard for this event. 3 riders (one tandem team and 2 individuals) had better rankings so we are now in 4th. This means we have to go FAST tomorrow and friday.
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It was a little stressful for me to be out there watching and not riding. I have to say I was a little underwhelmed by the amount of spectators (look at the throngs of people in the stands above!)..and even by the amount of competitors....but even though the fields are small for the track events the times were wicked fast and the competition is extremely fierce to get those team spots for Beijing.
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After the event Matt and I did a short road ride, then I headed out again after lunch and did some leg opening efforts. I can't say I felt great, but I was putting out the power so I think I will be ok for tomorrow. Conditions were great today....if they are the same for tomorrow we should be able to ride a fast time.
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Hopefully I will be able to put up a good post tomorrow.....but now to bed.
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a2