Crescendo, Peak, Start Over. A race report... sort of.

My last post was about over-training in order to (hopefully) bring about a peak.

Unfortunately the event I was peaking for, (NY State Master's Track championship) was canceled this year. According to the officials, the reason was too low of turnout but I think it had to do with the bad weather that was predicted for the weekend. New York does not have an indoor velodrome, although one may be in the works. An indoor velodrome would be great, and profitable if they sell food, beer, and allow gambling on site, in my opinion.

Rather than let all of that hard training go towards nothing, I wanted to find a raced suited to my training and found one. It is called the "Freedom Tour" criterium organized by high gear cyclery. It required that I hop on an NJ Transit train to Stirling, NJ then ride 8 miles to the start. It also featured a late afternoon start, which for me is a big plus.

I lined up with 42 other racers, and 25 laps later I was the first one across the finish line.

With my very basic understanding of physiology and training, I was able to bring about peak form. I raced hard, covered almost every move, and somehow still had enough juice to sprint for the finish.

I guess this means it's time to take a rest week, then begin a new 3-week cycle. The $100 prize is much less than what I spend on eating, training, and bike parts but it's the biggest prize check I've ever earned. I still don't think I'll be signing with a pro-team anytime soon (or ever). Just gettin' my ride on, here.

Building Fitness

It's been a hard 3 days in a row of racing.

I raced Floyd on Tuesday night and did not make the break. Wednesday I raced at the track and qualified for the "A" feature. And last night rode to and raced at Rockleigh with several team mates, it felt very hard, was in several moves but not in the two-man break. Got 4th in the field sprint.

My body feels different, happy and tired bike racer.

Training shortcut does not equal Good Result!

Lacking sufficient time for a long ride this weekend I decided to do repeats up the Williamsburg bridge on Sunday night. I warmed up a bit then used 50x17 gearing to get to the first apex where the path splits, sprinting most of the way. I think it's about 600 meters. Monday I did not ride at all, would have been good to go for a light spin.

Raced FBF tonight and felt a little jagged, like I was pedaling in squares. I missed the split and did not contest the intermediate sprints, so my racing sucked.

Maybe this type of training will help recruit some more fast twitch muscles for short sprint events like the flying 200m. NY State Championships start July 24.