Race Report: Elkhorn Stage 4

The final stage was a 105mi Road Race that finished in an 8 mile 5-6% climb.  The first 30 miles were mostly flat followed by 3 significant climbs and then a flat run up to the final climb.  After popping off early on day 1, my major goal for the day was just to make it to the base of the final climb in the main group.

I stayed near the front near the front for the beginning of the race and made sure to move up before the first climb of the day.  They drilled it hard up the first climb and I managed to stay with the front group for the majority of the hill.  I started to lag climb and fall back as we approached the top, but only lost a little bit of ground.  The group I ended up in chased back on the downhill quickly and it was time to start the second hill.  The second hill was milder and I didn’t lose contact with the front group.  The third hill was pretty much a repetition of the first one.

The rest of the day was pretty much just a flat ride to the base of the climb and then a matter of spinning up it.  My legs were cramping and I was pretty well drained of energy by the time the climb hit so I did not have a shot at hanging on to the group.  I’m just glad I made it to the climb with the pack.

Elkhorn was a great learning experience.  My poor tactics put me in a world of hurt on day 1 — I certainly wasn’t racing my strengths.  The race put into perspective how weak my weaknesses are and how not-very-strong my strengths are.  I need to work on time trialing/muscular endurance and I really need to think more about tactics.   It was an enjoyable race and I know exactly what I need to work on now — I’ll probably be back next year.

Race Report: Elkhorn Stages 2/3

Stage 2 Time Trial:

Losing 20 minutes on the first day made it very difficult to get motivated for the TT but I got out there, warmed up, and was pretty excited at the line. The first half was almost entirely downhill with a tailwind. I went much too hard and when I turned around to go back up I was pretty much toast. I had nothing left in the tank and ended up putting in a pretty dismal time.

Stage 3 Criterium:

Cancelled due to rain after a few laps.

Race Report: Elkhorn Stage 1

Stage 1 was a 75 mile road race with 6500 feet of climbing. The first 40miles were mostly flat — I stayed near the front and just made sure I was in a safe position. I drifted to the back at some point and a break of 10 got off the front and I didn’t even notice it.

The pace became unbearably slow (~16mph on flat ground) and when I heard about the break I began trying to move up. I was completely closed in with 50 riders in front of me so I moved up the right side on the dirt/gravel. No one wanted to work at all so I started doing some yelling and with the help of a Kovarus rider, the chase began. 10-15 riders were pulling through and I was feeling great until we started to hit the climb and I realized I’d done way too much work. I exploded.

I flew off the back never saw the peloton again. I worked with a few people to get home — ended up rolling through 82nd and 23 minutes and 36 seconds back. Ouch. It was definitely a learning experience.

We’ll see how the Time Trial and Crit go today.

Tapering

I am in the process of tapering for Elkhorn now, and things seem to be going pretty well.  After a month of feeling progressively more worn out, I am really feeling good now.  I did the race ride last night and while my lungs gave me a little bit of trouble at the beginning, I felt fine once I was warmed up.

My ability to recover from hard efforts seems to have improved a lot.  I usually end up testing this out on the race rides by attacking (knowing full well I’ll only be off for less than a minute) and then trying to get back in for the rest of the sprint.  Early on I usually just exploded and never managed to get back in but lately I’ve been able to stick a wheel and sit in long enough to recover.

I’m excited!

Rest Week!

Finally.  I didn’t plan out my training schedule like I should have and I ended up doing about 4 hard weeks in a row.  After two final rough days on the weekend I took a day off.  My legs were still feeling terrible on my ride to class on Tuesday, so I stayed off the bike another day.  On Wednesday I was going to do the local time trial but a huge design project got in the way.  So now it’s Thursday, I’ve been off the bike for 3 days and I’m going to test the legs out on the race ride this evening.  I hope the hard training and hard resting will pay off :o)

Ideally I would have had only 3 build weeks and made the 4th a rest week instead of 4 slightly less intense build weeks.  Plans don’t always work out just right, but I don’t feel like I dug myself into a hole or anything so it should work out just fine.