Treadmill Winding Down

Wow. I don't know where to start. It seems like the past two or three weeks had me on a treadmill at full steam. Things are winding down now, and it feels better.

July 22-23 Owasco Stage Race Report

I loaded up the car in showers Saturday morning with all the time trial gear. Aero helmet, trainer, TT bike, etc. It was warm, but the rain persisted. It let off in the hour before my start time, and I got in a pleasant warmup on the trainer. I was already soaked with sweat by the time the rain started again, fifteen minutes before my start. I packed up the car and headed out on the two-mile ride to the start line, hoping that I wouldn't get a flat halfway there. At my start the rain was pouring down. Buckets. The twelve-mile course was quite hilly for a time trial, but the start was flat and downhill for quite a while. I concentrated on holding a high cadence, especially on the climbs. I felt good and had ripped past two guys by the halfway mark. One was my 30-second man, and the other guy had missed his start time and had started about 45 seconds before me. On a climb on the way back, I pulled past a clump of three more guys, and while that was motivating to catch my 1:00, 1:30, and 2:00 men, I could feel my legs starting to go to rubber. On the final climb up to the finish line, I went to shift into the little ring and the chain got hung up between the rings. I slowed to almost stopping by the time I got it down, and two of the guys I'd passed came by. Ack! I stomped back up to speed and managed to bring them back and put about ten seconds back into them by the finish. I was pleased with the effort and ended up third overall going into the afternoon's circuit race.

The excitingly technical downtown criterium had been replaced by a boring circuit out in the middle of nowhere due to unexpected road construction. The circuit had a sharp little climb in it, not enough to drop me, but enough to take the sting out of the climbing muscles, not good preparation for Sunday's monstrous road race. There was no centerline on the rural roads, and despite the officials warning us about staying right, the pack was almost always curb-to-curb. A downhill section brought us into turn three at 40+ mph, and it seemed pretty hairy in the pack. After a few laps, the hill took its toll and we shed several riders that at least made things a bit safer. I was happy to sit in and not contest any of the sprints, sprinting not being one of my strong points. I lost two places overall due to time bonuses, but hoped to make it up in the road race.

Sunday morning brought beautiful weather and a road race that promised to be brutal, with a total of seven miles of climbing spread over six major climbs, with lots of rollers in between. I felt great at the beginning, and watched the guys around me in general classification closely. The first short KOM was no trouble at all, and I rolled over near the front of the pack. I knew that eating and drinking properly would be key, so I concentrated on that. As we entered one of the towns along the way, the pace car took a wrong turn onto the women's course, and then turned again, completely off all courses and up a steep hill. Our pack followed, but it didn't take those of us who knew the course long to convince everyone to stop. We turned ourselves around and rode back to continue on the proper course. We decided to ride at a "neutral" pace until the lead car got back in front of us. I was in the first couple rows of riders as we hit the steeps of the first climb. I glanced at the PowerTap. Yikes. Our "riding neutral" pace had me at 350 watts already. I tried to chat up the neutral pace thing, but others were getting antsy because of the KOM line approaching in about a kilometer. First one, then two, then several guys took off up the hill. I tried to stay within a reasonable distance while at the same time trying to keep it near my own pace. I popped off the back of the lead group of 25 guys or so near the top. I chased solo for several minutes and finally caught back on during a very steep downhill. It didn't look good though, because I'd spent way too much time at redline and the next steep hill was approaching quickly. I got up over the first steep section of the next climb at the front of the group, but that was all I had. I settled in pushing a hard pace, but it wasn't enough and rider after rider passed. Over the top, I was working with a teammate and a couple other guys, and we spent the rest of the race picking up stragglers and not killing each other on the climbs. I fell off that group on the last three sprinter's climbs right before the finish, to end up about seven, yes seven, minutes behind the winner. I rocketed down the standings from 5th to 16th, if I remember right. Not a good day. On one of the climbs in the middle, our group way off the back, another guy said, "You know, I thought I was a climber until today." He couldn't have summed up my thoughts better. I looked at my wattage report later. It was obvious that on those length climbs, max power over five minutes was the most important number. Mine had been very close to the best I'd seen in training, but not quite there, probably due to having raced the day before. Looking at the numbers which showed me at 4.8W/kg for the critical five minutes of the first climb, I would have normally thought it wasn't that bad, but unfortunately I estimate from the time gaps at the top that the real players were putting down about 5.0W/kg. Oh well. At least I brought home a little cash from the third place in the TT, and some good wattage data I can use in training. That is, don't anticipate being at the front in a competitive cat 4/5 race unless your MP(5) wattage climbing is 5W/kg or better.

July 27-30 Empire State Games Report

Thursday of the next week, I headed out to Rochester for the Empire State Games. A 10-mile individual time trial, followed by a 75-mile hilly road race, followed by a 39-mile criterium followed by a 40 mile team time trial, all makes for a fun long weekend indeed.

The ITT passed uneventfully. I was 38th of the 55 or so guys. The course was pretty flat, but the pavement was concrete, with seams and broken and patched sections throughout. Hitting those rough spots was far from comfortable in the aero position. A fairly strong sidewind was coming off Lake Ontario as well, so the going felt slow. Indeed, my time over 24:30 was a couple minutes off what I felt I could have done on smooth pavement with no wind, and everyone else's times reflected the slow conditions as well.

The light rain at the beginning of the road race quickly turned to a downpour near the top of the big climb at the end of the first lap. As we descended at 45-50 mph towards the run up to the finish line, I curled my lips in because the drops of rain hurt so much. Other guys with contact lenses were squinting with their eyes almost shut to keep their lenses in place. The first climb put me on the back of the pack, getting gapped a little then catching back on. With three more climbs up that hill to do, it wasn't looking good. Since every place counted though, my job would be to hold on for as long as possible, then stay ahead of guys who'd already been dropped. Sure enough, the second time up the hill popped me for good near the top. On the flats that followed, a stronger teammate who'd flatted behind me caught me, and we worked together to catch another teammate and the three of us made a push to try to catch the pack. No go. I popped, then they broke apart on later climbs. I really hoped the officials would pull me after the third lap, but they instead gave me encouragement, so I slogged, legs buckling and back aching, through one more lap to the finish. By that time, the rain had stopped and my bike had dried, and was now making some nasty noises from all the road grit that I picked up. I rolled across the finish, managing to stay away from small groups of riders who had been behind me.

The criterium was on a very short (.62 miles) course. There was one 90-degree right turn at the bottom of a slope, which fed into a gently turning uphill to the finish, followed by two more very gentle and slow turns. Experience definitely played a big part at the criterium. With a strong headwind on the uphill to the finish, I was able to stay in contact by just picking the right wheels to sit behind. I'd rest on the top of the course and the downhill, even letting myself drift off the back of the pack. Into the downhill turn, they'd usually hit their brakes and with the gap I'd let grow, I could always just swoop through the turn at top speed and get right back on the tail of the pack for the uphill without losing any speed and having to accelerate hard. After the halfway point, we'd dropped a huge number of guys, many of them quite a bit stronger than I am. I began to contemplate becoming a criterium specialist. If I could improve my sprint, my experience can usually get me to the front near the end, and I might actually do well. In this race, a pack of really strong guys got off the front, and we let them go, content to try to finish with the most guys at the head of the main pack. It worked pretty well, and we mopped up quite a few points just by being consistent.

The last day brought the team time trial. We divided up into two five-man teams. The course was the same as the individual course, except the turnaround was five miles farther, and we'd have to do the course twice for a total of forty miles, and the time would be taken on the third guy, so we needed to finish with at least three. On the first leg, we were flying. The New York City "B" squad was within sight at the first turnaround, and we passed them just as we were approaching the second turn at the end of the second 10-mile leg, which had been a little slower with a headwind. That's when it happened. I was in my aerobars and a bit cross-eyed from the effort. My brain whispered to me, "Pssst. You know, you're a little close to that wheel." I let off the gas as I came up a little on the left side of my teammate's rear wheel. Still in the aerobars, seemingly in slow motion, I was now drifting back away from him, but at the same time, I was heading a little to the right and/or he was heading a little to the left. VVVWWWIIIIPPPP! My front tire met the left side of his wheel for a split second as I leaned to the right into his wheel. I was sure I was going down, probably right onto my right shoulder for a snapped collarbone as I was still in the aerobars. The wheels released suddenly and I went rocketing off the road, a ways down the bank and into rough grass. Reflexes somehow got me out of the aerobars and I stood and sprinted in the big gear I was in over all the lumps of grass back towards the pavement. My teammate behind me was yelling, and the NYC guys were yelling and scrambling to avoid both me and my other teammates who were in the process of slowing down to gather me up and complete the turn-around at the same time. I'm sure the spectators were entertained by the mayhem. With a nice adrenaline rush, we got back together and were rolling again. NYC got past us as we were reorganizing, but then we passed them again. Farther down the road, one of our guys said he was cooked and popped off the back. NYC came by again, and this time, we just settled in about 100 meters off their backside and held that distance. At the last turnaround, we passed NYC again. A few miles later, our fourth guy who'd been mostly sitting on for a while gave a monster last pull and then popped off for good. Our third teammate soon started taking very short pulls and then they declined to zero length pulls. With just two of us driving the bus, it was purgatory. The bumps in the road now looked like foot-high speed bumps and each one tore a little bit more skin off the saddle sores I'd started during the wet road race and fully opened up the day before in the criterium. Combining the physical effort in those last five miles with the flames in my crotch from the raw skin on bumpy concrete, and I think it was the worst hell I'd ever been through on a bike. If I'd felt that bad during any other race, I'd quickly be off the back and riding my own tempo, but here I was one of two guys left with power to get the three of us to the finish as fast as we could go. There would be no stopping the pain until that thin white line on the pavement passed under the front tire.

In the end, with some great efforts from everyone, the team brought home the silver medal. In addition I brought home another ESG jersey, some pride from working that hard for team goals, some fun of meeting and riding with a couple new guys, and a really bad case of the runs. I don't know if it was the four days of dorm food, something in the water in Rochester, something I picked up from the wet road spray in the road race, or what. I actually think it might have been my guts saying, "Listen here, moron. If you work us that hard, we're going to do something to make you sit down."

After seven days of several long bathroom visits each day over the last week, I was just about to make an appointment with the doctor, when I noticed that my digestion was starting to feel like it might be getting back to normal. I'm putting off a doctor's visit pending the next big explosion, if one comes. I hope I'm through with them for a while.

Luella M. Whitaker Williamson
August 4, 1912 - August 2, 2006

Just after getting back from the Games, I spent some time at home visiting my grandmother. She passed two days shy of her 94th birthday. Her health had been quite good right up until near the end, and for that we were all grateful. She was a fantastic lady and a loving grandmother. I learned so much about how to live and how to love from the example set by her and my grandfather. I was incredibly lucky to have grown up on their farm and to have really known them well. She will be with me always.