Pre 2013 season preparation is under way

Well, the 2013 race season preparations are already fully underway it seems. Working in a bike shop is a hub of activity and gossip regarding all things cycling. It seems like every year folks get excited earlier and earlier about the upcoming season. Maybe this is the normal time guys start getting excited and I just forgot. Either way, there's a lot of excitement, big miles, and hard (probably too hard) riding going on now.

Personally, I think I'm doing a pretty good job so far in not getting sucked into straying too far from my program. My first base period will officially start next Monday. The weather has mostly been good, so it's been tough not to do extra riding.

Anyway, I'm going to do some testing tomorrow, and then it's time to start digging a big hole.

New team bike. Cannondale SuperSix EVO with Sram Red components.

I got a new bike. I think honestly, this is the first completely new road bike I've ever owned. usually it's a cobbled together new frame with used parts. I'm still waiting on a Quarq crank before I start riding it.

State jersey front

State jersey back

I also finally got my state jersey in the mail. The back side is pretty wild.

October-Cross season summary

I guess I could summerize this season as an experiment that went bad. So far the season has gone from bad to worse. For some reason I thought it would be ok to jump straight into the CX season from an extended road season. It definitely hasn't worked out like I had hoped it would, but you gotta do it wrong a few times before you learn how to do it right, at least in my case that's how it usually goes.

I think the first part of my issue is the lack of preparation in getting ready the full body beating you take. Running up hills fast, dismounting and remounting, bunnyhopping, Etc. All things I didn't practice, and it came back to bite me  with constant injuries and poor execution.

The second issue is a lack of anaerobic fitness + full body fitness. I could go pretty good for 30-40 minutes, but after that, I seem to fade pretty fast.

I kept thinking I would improve as the CX season went along, but it's pretty much been the opposite. The Ruts and Guts weekend was supposed to be the peak of the season. I guess techically I finished in the money every day, but not really where I was looking to finish. 19th Friday, 20th on Saturday, and 17th on Sunday.

Anyway, I've been thinking about it a lot, and pretty much pulled the plug on the existing CX season. The main deal is I aggravated my bad knee on the first practice of the season, and each time it gets better, I re-aggravate it from running-jumping etc.at every race I've done.  I did a fun run thing with my daughter last weekend, and it's been pretty sore all week. I really want to start the upcoming road season as injury free as possible.

A couple of photos from Ruts and Guts-

Day 3 at Ruts and Guts

Day 2 Showdown at sundown

I'm pretty excited for the 2013 season. Mentally, I'm still excited about cyclocross. Pretty sure next year I will be better prepared. Right now I'm pretty eager to start up some big mile weeks.

Rivercross at Wheeler Park

 The 2nd race of the season was not a good one for me. The course was awesome, but I had a few issues with my bike set up and never felt like I could get going in any kind of rhythm. I ended up 6th out of 8th, and even went a lap down on a really long course. Definitely not the result I was looking for. It seems like every time I have a really bad race, I start to question my fitness and or race skills. I usually have to drill it for a few days afterwards to make sure everything is ok and I can still put out some watts.
Anyway, the big Ruts and Guts 3 day race is this weekend, so hopefully things will go better this time around. It looks like there's some pretty good competition signed up so far.

My buddy Andy Chasteen was at the races taking pictures. Awesome as always!

OC Criss Cross 2012

Well, the first race of the CX season is a done deal. My race team (Team Undiscovered) put the race on. The course was pretty good. Actually, I thought it was really good. It had a little bit of everything I guess you could say, plus minimal dismounting.  Anyway the weather was cold. I decided to do the Pro 1/2 race instead of the masters race. I guess this year I want to focus primarily on the harder races. I think that gives you the most opportunity for improvement. I might double dip the next few local races and do both races if they're separated a little, but for the most part I think I'm gonna do the 1/2 races.

We got our new black CX skinsuits. I think they look  pretty tough.
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There were only 9 riders in the 1/2 field and I ended up 5th. My bike set-up felt pretty good. I think my pacing needs work. I started too fast, well, at least a little too fast for me. It robs a lot of overall time if you ride too much outside of yourself. I eventually settled in and had a nice epic last lap battle and had to sprint for the 5th spot.

Rob made a video of our race. It really got pretty strung out. That's me sprinting it out at the end.

Here's a video from Rob's bike of the cat 3 race. Gives you a nice feel of the course.

The next race is this weekend near downtown OKC, then the infamous Ruts n' Guts in Tulsa.

Race Report: Bison Classic Road Race

Well, I guess the road race season is officially over. It's kind of ironic that the road season started out the same way it finished. Racing in the rain. Shortly after we hit the road towards Shawnee on Saturday morning, it started raining and didn't really stop the rest of the day. I debated on either doing the masters 40+ race and possibly getting another state championship, or doing the cat 1/2/3 race. The 1/2/3 race was not a state race as this was the age based state race. I decided to do the 1/2/3 race because I thought it would be nice to finish off the season doing a race with a bunch of my team mates.

Before we started, I knew the race was going to be a little weird. There were only 14 riders total. 6 were Bicycles of Tulsa, 2 were Tulsa Tough, and the last 6 were our Team Undiscovered guys. It would have been a totally different race is there would have been some other teams in the mix, but it was what it was. We still rolled pretty fast the whole way, so that was good.

We were basically doing a neutral roll out for a couple of miles then 3-20 mile loops, followed by about a 10 mile return segment. It seemed kind of cold and wet when we started. I was hoping we would go hard from the go just to try to warm up. We did, and the race pretty much started off like I thought it would. There were several attacks early on, and pretty soon the guy I thought would take off did (Justin Remple- Bicycles of Tulsa). He managed to get further and further up the road. I would guess he had a minute and a half before we started to bring him back. It was a little after our first lap when we started a little rotation going into the headwind.

We were bringing Justin in pretty quick, and we kind of made a little plan to let Rob roll away once we got within 5-10 seconds. That didn't work out because as just before we got into position, one of the BOT (Bicycles of Tulsa) riders attacked. The next lap was pretty rough. It seemed like we were always behind the 8 ball. It seemed like every move we were in was bad number wise. There was always 2 BOT guy to 1 of us. Brian got into a move midway through the second lap that was basically like that. I bridged up to his group, but another BOT rider came with me. I think one of the Tulsa Tough riders came up also to join the other Tulsa Tough rider that was in the group.

I guess once both of the Tulsa Tough riders made it into the group, it pretty much neutralized the move because they were the only guys interested in driving the break. Sure enough it all came back together again around the time we were starting on the long road heading west to finish our 2nd lap. It started raining harder at this point in the race, and it was starting to get hard to see. I was trying to peek over the top of my  glasses, which sort of worked. A couple of miles later, one of the Tulsa Tough riders rolled away with a BOT rider. After they got a few seconds up, Rob took off and joined them. They weren't putting much time on us, but the main group seemed content to just roll along really slow. I decided to try to bridge up and 1 other BOT rider came with me.

I liked the mix of the break and tried to encourage everyone to work. Rob, the Tulsa Tough rider (Davis? Hale) and myself seemed like the ones diving the break. John Moore and Ben Silk (both BOT riders) would one or the other take a pull maybe every 4 or 5 rotations, but it seemed like we were putting time on the rest of the group. I couldn't see every time I looked back, and I asked Rob how much time we were up. He told me about 20 seconds. I couldn't believe it, and as we turned north to start our last lap, I saw that it was only 2 riders more riders trying to bridge. It was Little Ryan from our team and another BOT rider, Ryan Fiddler.

It seemed like the break started to stall out a little after they caught on. Somewhere around the 20 miles to go point, Rob was on the front, and had been for a little while. I was almost at the back, and my intention was to roll through and pick things back up. The next thing I knew, Davis, Ben and myself had established a nice little time gap. That was pretty much the race. The 3 of us got organized and took off the rest of the way. I didn't know if Ben was getting tired or he was trying to set himself up at the end as his pulls started getting shorter. The last couple miles I pretty much quit working. I couldn't find anybody as far back as I could see, so it was all cat and mouse the rest of the way.

Davis took off at the 500 meter point and I came around him at the 150 meter point and got the win. We caught a few masters guys in between then and kind of had to thread the needle, but it all worked out.
It was a good day overall for the team. Rob and Little Ryan got 4th and 5th, and Judson and Brian got 8th and 10th. Sarah and Carol also got 1st and 3rd in the women's cat 4 race, so we're all pretty stoked to end the season on a positive note. I've already semi stripped down my caad 10, and I'll probably be riding my cross bike until January or so. We're jumping straight into CX season with the first race this weekend.

Different Route Every Day September Progress...

It's not working out quite like I was hoping, but I'm pretty sure I can say I haven't taken a duplicate route either way all month. The problem is that really, there's only so many ways in any direction out of my neighborhood. Also there's only a few ways to get around some of the local highways. There are a ton of roads that I've gone down that I never have before, which is pretty cool. There are a lot more little neighborhood parks that I never really realized were there.

I have discovered a few new routes that I'll probably work into the daily commute rotation. I've definitely gotten lost a few times. Well, not lost, but caught in a circle of doubling back after running into a dead end. Not too big of a deal, but I'm usually running tight on time, so a couple of times the commute ended up being a time trial.

I've also found a few shortcuts on the cyclocross bike. I think I need to explore a few more of those.

2012 Oklahoma State Championship Road Race.

I guess the race couldn't have gone much better. I ended up making it into the winning break, and won the 3 man field sprint at the end. Right before we started the race, I figured our chances of doing well were going to be tough. There were a few more guys that didn't preregister that showed up. I would guess there were probably around 30 cat 1's and 2's altogether. Most of the in state heavy hitter cat 1's didn't show, but it was a pretty good quality field overall. DNA and the Bicycles of Tulsa team each had quite a few riders. Still, we were going to need a perfect storm scenario for things to go well.

The weather was pretty much perfect, and as we rolled out it took about 10 seconds for the race to get animated. Lots of attacks and counter attacks on the first lap, but nothing going anywhere. The wind wasn't blowing much and there wasn't anything like a big hill to cause any kind of separation. I kind of figured the race was going to end up in a field sprint. I was basically just trying to conserve and sit in, but keep an eye on what was going on. We were doing 5 laps around Draper lake. Around about the time we were hitting the marina area where we started for the second time, I noticed a dangerous combination of 3 riders had managed to slip away.

The 3 riders were Chad Hodges (DNA), Chris Zenthoefer (Tulsa Tough), and Ben Silk (Bicycles of Tulsa). All 3 guys were cat 2's and were on the 3 biggest teams represented. I had to make a split second decision and saw an opportunity as we were catching the cat 4 women group with their lead and follow cars. There was a very narrow alley to jump from the field, through all that, and up to the break. I figured maybe a couple of guys could possibly manage to get through, but not everybody. I jumped as hard as I could, and as luck would have it, nobody came with me. I was in do or die mode because with that combination, I knew it had an excellent chance to be the winning break. Even though the cat 1's and 2's were racing together, there would be a state champion in each category this year.

I managed to catch on, but I was pretty winded. I tried to sneak up on them as quietly as possible and even managed to sit on for a couple of rotations and recover before they knew I was there. It was still pretty early in the race as we still had 40ish miles to go, but even though it was hard, I think it's still easier than the hard surging that would be going on behind us, not to mention a lot less frustrating. There's not much racing that's worse than being in a race where you miss a break with lots of the escaped riders team mates left in the field. You're basically just rolling around and racing for 5th or 8th or whatever.

Anyway, it didn't take us too long for us to get a pretty good gap. The first time we hit the dam, it looked like we had a minute or so. Nobody really gave us any time gaps, so we never really knew. The second time we hit the dam, I estimated we had at least 3 minutes on the field because as we were at the end of the dam, I couldn't see anything as far back as I could see. Everybody worked really well in the break. Nice and smooth for the most part.  A little before we started our last lap, I was starting to run low on fuel. I still had plenty of water, a little cytomax, and a Gu packet. I took the gu and chugged my cytomax, and just as we were hitting the hilly section on the north end of the course, I started feeling better.On our last lap, I pretty much knew we were not going to get caught. I started to go into serious conservation mode and save as much energy as possible for when things would get hard again.

Chad, Ben and myself are more the small sprinter type guys, whereas Chris is a bigger powerhouse breakaway type guy. I knew it would be in his best interest to not sprint with us up the finishing hill, so sure enough with about 6 miles to go he started attacking the break. On his third attack we dropped Ben, so now it was down to 3. There was probably a mile and a half to go when we hit the hilly section the last time. Chris attacked again and I started chasing first with Chad behind me. I really wanted to try to be in the back at the 1 kilometer to go point, but as luck would have it, I was first.

Really, the last mile we overall rolled pretty slow. I kept one eye on Chris and Chad and the other on if we might be getting caught looking behind us. Chris attacked 1 last time at the 500 meter point. I hesitated so Chad would be forced to start first, and he did. This was right where I wanted to be, and at 200 meters I wanted to jump, but that's a long way to go when you're climbing. I guess somewhere around the 150-120 meter point I jumped and went to the right of Chad, and I saw Chad go left of Chris. I could see Chad out of the corner of my eye at first, but I just locked onto the finish line and went as hard as I could. I was pretty worried I would cramp when we started to sprint because every time we would react to Chris's attacks, I could feel it creeping on. I guess the other guys were hurting pretty good also, so it all worked out well. That was by far probably the most painful sprint I've done in a long long time, but it was worth it!

Super Sweet Photo by Biff Stephens

Chris, myself and Chad

Not a bad weekend for the 2 man wrecking crew of Brian Parks and myself!  The last road race of the year is in 2 weeks, then we jump right into some action packed cyclocross racing!

Rough pre state road race week

As of right now, I'm pretty much ready to go for the state championship road race tomorrow. Somewhere around 90% I guess. Monday I didn't think I would be doing any racing. It felt like I had the flu or something as the day went on at work. I rode in, but actually had to get a lift home cause I was feeling so bad. By Wednesday morning I was feeling better. At least good enough to make it to the Wednesday night cyclocross practice.

I thought I had learned my lesson a few years ago about jumping right into hard cross riding without doing some kind of preparation a few weeks before (like running). It's pretty easy to pull a muscle, get injured, or best case be extremely  sore for several days after the cyclocross practice sessions without toughening yourself up first. I figured this year I would just kind of ease into it a few laps at a time in the practice sessions. Anyway, I started the last practice pretty fast and was getting racy with Chris Drummond and B$ and ended up pulling my groin muscle or something. There was a super high speed dismount section and a kind of weird dismount-turn and then run up a big hill section that were killing my fragile roadie legs.

Everything seems ok just riding, but I'm hoping I didn't screw up the first part of the cross season with a nagging injury before things have barely gotten started. It's a lot better today, so hopefully by next Tuesday, I'll be able to do a little light running and see how it feels. I got a couple new sets of tires for the cross bike, so I'm pretty pumped up to give those a try.

Anyway, the road race tomorrow should be interesting. Not sure how big the turnout is going to be, but the 1's and 2's will be racing together. The big difference this year is that the 1's and 2's will be scored separately, so there will be a cat 2 state champion this year. The only riders on the team in the race is Brian Parks and myself. That might make things a little more difficult, or it could be just about right, we'll see.

2012 State TT Etc.

So the state TT went ok. Not good result wise, but personal time wise, it was my fastest 38 kilometers. Normally the state TT is 40K, but this year they shortened the route by 2 kilometers. I'm not sure why. Maybe the parking area to start/finish proximity was bad and too many folks were getting in the way.
Anyway, the last time I did this race was two years ago. My goal then was to break an hour, which I barely did running around a 59:30 I think. This year I went a lot faster. The guy who started a minute ahead of me was my buddy Andy Chasteen, and Rob started a minute ahead of him.

Going out was mostly a gradual uphill into a light headwind. There were a few rollers, but nothing major. I kept timing different landmarks like shadows, signs, and trees, and I was definitely catching Andy. When we hit the turnaround, I would estimate it was down to somewhere around 30 seconds. In hindsight, I think I went a tad too hard on the way out, because I was hurting pretty bad. Mentally I thought since I had made up time, I could just put it in cruise control mode and just keep the same distance and everything would be fine result wise. It didn't work out that way as I lost all the time I had gained, and lost some also.

In the end, Jake Lasley pretty much smoked everybody. Not sure of his time, but I heard it was around  49:00. Will Gault got 2nd, and Rob got 3rd, running a 52:58. Andy got 4th with a 53:00. and I got 5th with a 53:28ish I think. If you add the 2:45 or so that it would take to do the extra 2K, that's still over 3 minutes faster than my last time. Oh well. It's like that line Ronnie Anderson used to say "I keep getting faster, but the competition just keeps getting better".

I decided to do a quick run through Medicine Park and hit the Big Rock climb, and do a Mt. Scott run while I was down there. I'm still not sure if the extra effort helped any or just made my legs sorer today. I did pick up a mild cold last week after the CX practice, and it seems to have gotten worse. I guess I'm gonna lay low and try to take it easy for the next few days. The big State road race is this coming weekend, so we'll see how that goes.

The different route to and from work thing seems to be going ok so far. It's getting tough remembering if I've ridden down a particular street or not yet. I've definitely found a couple new sections that are pretty cool.

I really want to hit the CX practice this Wednesday, but I'm not sure how that's gonna work out as of right now. Even though I went pretty easy last time, I'm still feeling it a little bit today.

CX season starts today!

So I guess today was the official first practice night of the year at the Will Rogers park. The weather was a little hot, but it was still fun. It's amazing how rusty your CX skills get after you haven't done it in several months. I got a new bike to race and ride this year. I decided to sell my other 2 bikes, and get 1 really nice bike. It's a Cannondale Super X. It's pretty light and rides really sweet. Today was the first time I really got to ride it, and so far, I like it a lot.

I didn't go too hard in the practice race. I went hard for 2 or 3 laps, then took it easy, then finished hard with another 2 or 3 fast laps. I did a few little repeats through the 180 switchbacks and dismount section, but I tried not to do the run up and hill climb sections too many times. The first time of the season I run a lot has a tendency to give me some pretty good muscle soreness for several days, and I'm trying to stay somewhat fresh or maybe "not all beat up" would be a better way to put it, for the state TT race this weekend.

There's state championship races for the next 3 weekends actually. The individual TT is first, then the category based road race, and finally the age based road race. There's a weekend off and then it's pretty much cyclocross season after that.

I've been thinking about the route I usually take on my commute to work every day, and I think I'm going to try something a little different this month.I'm going to take a different route to work every day, both ways, to and from work, through the month of September. There's something kind of cool in going down a road that you've never been on in a town that you've lived your whole life in. I like taking different ways  now and again, and it's always some kind of adventure, but I never do it enough.

Anyway, if you're interested in seeing the routes, click on the Strava link on the right side of this page and you can enlarge it to see my route for the day. I may ride extra before my commute starts, but the points between work and home will hopefully be at least 75% roads I've never taken before, and never the same as any other day this month.

Rolling Along

Compared to the last several years, this summer has been about as unstructured as any year I can remember training wise. I guess there's been some routine in the 3 weeks on, 1 week easy, and Monday and Friday are generally easier or off, but that's about it. Not much of any plan so to speak. I seem to be engaged in some kind of epic Strava battle with a few different guys. We keep going back and forth stealing each others KOM's. That in itself has made for some pretty hard interval work. Right now it seems to be a lot easier to get motivated to go after a segment KOM rather than do structured 2 x 20's or 6 x 5's or whatever.
I think the big miles July block has started to kick in because my fitness feels pretty good right now.

There were a couple races I've done this month. The overall results were not great, mainly due to bad timing on my part at crucial times during the races, but I felt really good in both and actually got some pretty good primes.
I decided to pass on the Hotter N' Hell events this year. Just felt like riding around here and avoiding the circus. There's plenty more road racing coming up in September, then the season jumps right into cyclocross. It's definitely starting to feel like it weather wise.

More big miles and high heat!!!!

So I guess with today being the first day that it's not July, it's time for some hardcore recovery. It came at a pretty good time also because today it got up to 112 degrees! I went outside a few times just to see what it felt like. It wasn't really any different than 104 or so, at least not that I could tell.

Anyway, I just decided to do some easy commute to work rides for the last 2 day of the month and not go for the 1500 miles. Maybe next year. I ended up with a little over 1450, which is still about 150 miles over my highest month ever

Big miles July 2012

Some of the dirt roads I hit a couple of weeks ago. They go for endless miles it seems.

We ride these roads a lot during the winter. I've been getting the itch to ride them now. Maybe get some good tune-up rides before the CX season gets going.

I saw this guy when I was driving home today. Nothing like a cigarette on a scooter when it's 112 degrees out

Big Miles July Home Stretch and The Controversy of Strava

I hit the 1400 mile point today, making this my highest mileage month of all time. It's weird how day to day the fatigue feels differently. Some days are pretty rough, but then after a couple of easy days, you're ready for a big ride again. I'm thinking about taking it up to 1500 miles as there's still 2 days left. I guess I'll figure it out in the morning. This summer has been pretty hot so far. I guess it started out ok, but the last 3 weeks have been pretty brutal. It's not as bad as last summer, so I can't really complain too much.

The key, I think, to getting a lot of miles in July is being creative in the time you have available to ride. One way I've found is to start out really early in the morning. I guess you could ride indoors on the trainer, but I'm not interested in that right now. I'm getting a good amount of time in the hot part of the day. Mostly riding home from work. It seems pretty important to spend a few hours riding in the hot part of the day each week if you're going to be doing any racing in it. It makes such a huge difference when you're acclimated to the heat.

A ride I've been doing lately is the The OKC Early Risers Strava Challenge. We did the ride last Summer, but without the Strava part. Basically, It's a group ride that starts really early in the morning and has 3 Strava segments with prizes for the winners of each segment at the end of the month. Next month will be a different route with different segments. This month has definitely been a different group ride experience. It requires a totally different type of strategy to try and get the fastest time on a segment in a group setting. Especially when the group is pretty big. Some very interesting team tactics can be used I guess.

It's really been a fun and different way to do a more "competitive" type fast group ride. There seems to be 3 opinions regarding the whole Strava thing. Either folks love it, they think it's stupid, or they've heard about it, but don't really know what it is. I'm going to go ahead and say I think it's pretty cool. I've been on a few rides recently where some guys were obviously anti Strava. One guy said the whole thing was nothing more than a "dick flexing contest". We were talking about it at the shop, and in general, most spirited group rides are like this with guys trying to drop as many people as possible, attacking the group, getting to the top of any hill first, ETC.  So, due to the fact that it's really been going on since people have been racing bikes and doing unstructured training rides, we've been calling Strava  "digitally documented dick flexing".

It's basically all in fun. I think the DNA guys are really onto something by organizing this into a regular group ride.

Big miles July progress and the after work crit

 I guess the "Big Miles July" program is going ok. I got quite a few miles the first week. Probably more than what I was prepared for, but with the 4th of July being an epic riding day, I couldn't pass it up. I got 117 miles on the 4th, and another 100 miles + on Saturday, the first of 4 strava early risers challenge rides.
The early risers ride is perfect for getting a lot of miles in during the summer. The whole strava thing adds a pretty interesting mix to the ride as well.

I throttled back a little last week because for 1, I was pretty tired and 2, the Wednesday after work crit was this week. I wasn't sure how the race was going to go because even after taking Monday and Tuesday easy, there was still quite a bit of fatigue in my legs. In the end it worked out good as after doing tons of these mid week practice crits, I've never actually won one. So anyway, I got the win on this one. I got into a break with Aaron Highfil and Matt Jones and we kept it rolling pretty good. With about 10 minutes to go, it quickly became apparent that we were going to lap the field. At first I didn't want to, thinking it wound add another dimension to the finish and screw things up somehow. Rob pretty much set it up perfect, and I got into the last corners first with lots of momentum, and I was able to win the field sprint from there.

WKO+ data   Sorry for the weird effect, it's an actual screen shot

PMC chart - after  the summer break, it only took 2 weeks to get my CTL back over 100

This is the cabin we stayed at in Eureka Springs

It doesn't look that steep, but this is the driveway at the cabin. I would guess it's between 150-200 meters long. According  to my phone. it's a 101 ft climb. The average grade is 16.7 %, with the steepest part being  31%.

Climbing the mountain

I've been on a little vacation from anything structured riding wise since the Tulsa Tough. It's pretty much what seems to work for me for the most part this time of year. I originally wanted to do a little more of "not riding", but it didn't really work out that way. It's definitely less than normal, but it's tough to lay off something you really enjoy doing.

I actually did go on a real family vacation. We went to Eureka Springs Arkansas. I did take my bike, but I didn't ride a ton. Just a few Strava segments plus a few I made up.

 I guess from a training point of view, every year I've been racing bikes has been somewhat of an experiment. I've kept pretty detailed training diaries, or whatever you want to call it, since the mid 90's, in addition to power data for the last 7 years. I tried more of a "more intensity - less duration" type program in 2010 and the first half of last year. The result? Well, the race results were not that bad, but nothing to write home about either. I did however, not set any new personal power records. I've said before that there seems to be something, for me at least, in getting more training volume, IE. bigger miles.

Last summer I had thought about trying to do another big miles July, and around the same time, I came across this article from Hunter Allen. It seemed like it made a lot of sense, so I decided to do an abbreviated version for my late season build. I got a lot of miles in July, mostly pretty moderate intensity wise, then ramped up the intensity, and got a lot in August as well. The result from a fitness perspective, I broke several power records that were 2 or 3 years old. My race results were so-so. I'd say the bad ones were due to mainly bad luck. I had flat tires in a few races where I felt like I was going pretty good. There were a few high points though. I seemed to run out of steam midway through the cyclocross season, but at the same time, I did a few more races than I really wanted to.

Anyway, I wanted to give "The Next Level" plan a go for the start of the road season this year. So, the first half of the season is over. I've been trying to decide if the extra work I put in this past winter was worth it, and deciding how I was going to do a report on it. The whole climbing the mountain is a representation of what my chronic training load (CTL) has been hovering around. Basically from late January to early June, it's been well over 100. Historically, I've touched the 100 CTL point briefly, but never stayed there for this long.

It took a while, but I've established 5 new power records so far this year, and had my best time trial times/speeds ever. The rest of the race results, have been not what I'm looking for, but, nothing horrible or embarrassing. Still trying to get over a bad luck streak I guess. I've had 4 race crashes this year. I think on average I have 1 every 2 or 3 years.

The biggest thing I think I've learned is the more miles- training stress you can repeatedly handle, the more you can tollerate the next time around. When I first got into road riding and racing, I was the typical guy asking the experienced fast guys how to get fast. One thing a lot of them told me was that it took several years of consistent riding to get to your potential. I think the thing about that that I understand now is that it takes years to be able to handle a heavy training load (like a 300 mile week) consistently and not break down, get sick, injured, ETC.

I'm almost 2 weeks into my big miles July 2012. Not sure if I'll break my record from last year, but I'm still going to get a lot of miles in. I've already got over 500 for the month. I'm thinking this August will be pretty similar to what I did last year. Big miles July update in a couple of days.

Tulsa Tough wrap up

I'm not going to lie. As I'm writing this, I'm pretty sore. The masters race on Sunday didn't work out very well. I'm not sure why, but I never got really motivated to do Sundays race. I started in the very back of the 60 or so guys that were in attendance, but I didn't think it would be too big of a deal to move up. It wasn't too bad, but I was making most of my progress on cry baby hill. Probably not the best idea in the long run. The first 5 or so laps felt easy, and I probably pushed it a little too hard. It wasn't long before I found myself up towards the front, but starting to get a little winded. I guess if there's a different element to the Sunday Tulsa Tough course, for one it's a hard course already, but with all the folks cheering on crybaby hill, it's easy to over smoke it with the adrenalin and all.

Anyhow, a couple of moves went up the road and I decided to just stay patient and save it for the end. A few more went, and I just got caught out of position and somewhat out of gas. That's one thing about masters racing. The majority of the field may not be stronger than yourself, but a lot of them are salty veterans, and they know how to hit you when you're vulnerable. By the time the last few laps were winding down, I found myself in a group of 15-20 guys, plus a group of 8-12 I think up the road. Pretty de-motivating, but I figured I'd just go for the best money spot I could.

On the last lap I got into a move with 3 other guys. I figured I would just drag race them down the last straight, but in the last corner, some guy panicked on the inside of me and hit his brakes. He started fishtailing and pretty much pushed me wide in corner and I went up the curb and into one of the tent supports. So I pretty much got passed back by all the guys I had some time on and jacked up my ankle. It's not sprained, I just smacked it on my pedal or something. Pretty swollen and black and blue.

Still a fun weekend. This is typically the time of year where I take a little summer break. I think mentally, it would be good, but physically, I feel good.

Here's a few videos that Rob took if you've got a few hours to spare.

Day 1 Friday night - My favorite course

Day 2 Saturday - epic crash at 6 laps to go

Day 3 Sunday - I wasn't in this race (cat 1/2), but it's a nice view of what the riverside course is like with the infamous cry baby hill!

Tulsa Tough day 2

Not a great day today. We had 135 riders today, and it definitely seemed like it. There's always a mad scramble to the start line as soon the previous race is over. I guess some guys took off a little to soon. Naturally, it caused a big chain reaction and everybody rushed to the start line. There were still a couple of girls on the course and the announcer guy pretty much reamed all the cat 1/2's. I'm not sure what they expect to happen. Maybe the race officials should work on staging control a little better. Especially when they overbook the race. Anyway, I started pretty close to the back. I was pretty much doing my normal try and find the best places to make moves and so on. I had gotten up into the top 30 or so, when I got caught up in my first crash of the day. I didn't go down, but I pretty much came to a stop. A bunch of guys got a free lap. I just kept going, but I lost at least 50 positions. The rest of the race was pretty uneventfull. I just tried to conserve and move up when it was easy. It started to get crazy the last 20 minutes. I almost crashed again with 8 laps to go. Some guy crossed over my front wheel and I got sideways and had to put a foot down, but I didn't crash. Right after we got past 6 laps to go, I was railing the outside of turn 1 trying to get some spots. As we came out of turn 2, there was a massive wreck and there was no way to avoid it. I got pretty lucky in that I went flying, but I landed on top of some guy so I didn't get any road rash. Just a few bruises and a mildly torn up, but still race able bike. The free laps stopped at 6 to go, so my day was over. Pretty disappointing. I'm gonna give the masters race a go tomorrow. It starts at 11:55.

Tulsa Tough day 1

Pretty fun race today. In addition to having the most riders of any criterium,(120+)I've ever done, it was also the fastest with a 29 mph average. I dodged a bunch of wrecks. Really, the racing was pretty sketchy overall. My positioning wasn't too bad. Not great, but I think I generally stayed in the top half most all of the race. It seemed like the only way to really move up was surfing through the middle. The last 2 laps were crazy fast. I ended up 38th. Hopefully I'll have some photos and maybe video by the end of the weekend.

King of Moore crit

The view from Rob Bell's handlebars

This is the entire King of Moore crit video. The race and the course are pretty self explanatory. It was a little sketchy in a couple of spots due to being wet in some spots from the rain the night before.

A rider went off the front early and made it stick. 3 more guys took off towards the end. I missed getting in that move, but oh well. I did win a sweet Oakley prime lap and won the field sprint for a 5th.

The big Tulsa Tough is this weekend, actually tonight as I'm writing this. I think I'll bring my camera and try to get an on board video from tonight or tomorrow.

I'm trying something a little different this year. I'm going to do the cat 1/2 races on Friday and Saturday, but the masters race on Sunday.

OKC Pro-Am Classic Criterium

 The weekend started off with the much anticipated OKC Pro-Am Classic. This was definitely a high priority race when I made up my race calender at the beginning of the year. This was the first year for this event, and I really hope it grows and keeps happening every year for a long time because it's a really cool race. The area in Downtown OKC is unique in itself. There's a lot of history on Broadway Ave. - AKA "Automotive Alley". as it's one of the oldest streets in the city. The Midtown area is pretty sweet also. The whole area seems to be growing rapidly with new businesses and loft apartments being added every month it seems.

The DNA guys did a TON of work to make the weekend happen, and I would say they went above and beyond what could have been expected for a first year high caliber event, I thought it was great.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous going into this race. Every day, I ride part of the course on my way to work as it's on my commute route. Ever since I knew about the race and course layout, it was fun to hit that 10th street to Broadway corner really fast and pretend it was the finish, so it was nice knowing extra details about the course. I guess the nerve wracking part was the fact there were so many people I knew at the race. Friends, family, co-workers and such. Once we got racing it was no big deal.

My buddy Judson Copeland took these sweet photos

I would guess there were around 40 cat 2's that started the race. I'm not sure why, but it seemed really hard to find a sweet spot out of the wind. Maybe the way the wind was swirling around the buildings in the area? I don't know, but I do know it strung the field out a lot and the attrition rate was pretty high as a lot of guys got pulled or just quit.

The race was 75 minutes long, so I really wanted to be conservative the first 45 minutes or so. It was pretty tough because the race was pretty active with lots of attacks. I thought the race would probably stay together since the roads were so wide, but that wasn't the case. A group of 2 guys took off very early in the race. I tried to get into a couple of moves that didn't go anywhere. I did get a prime somewhere around the midway point. It felt pretty easy to make passes when you needed to.

Going for a $50 prime

Anyway, I missed the winning move that went pretty late in the race. A group of 4 guys got away, and bridged up to the other 2 guys. Once the field sat up with 2 laps to go, I knew the best there was to get at that point was 7th, well, I didn't know the exact number of guys up the road, but I knew it was at least 5.
The last lap was pretty chaotic. I started pretty far back, so I was in a little bit of panic mode. I was passing guys pretty aggressively. The furthest SW corner of the course was a downhill high speed tailwind white knuckler. I got a really good run coming out of it, passed a few guys, and carried it through to the next corner. I kind of took an outside-in line, and was weaving through traffic making more passes. This is when the biggest bummer of the race happened. My team mate Rob had his go pro camera on, and it looks like as I was coming through, another team mate of mine moved left, which caused me to move left as I was passing Rob and my buddy Andy. I felt my hip kind of clip Andy's bars, and I guess it either got him off balance and he overlapped his front wheel over my back wheel, or I may have just chopped him altogether. I'm not really sure because it happened so fast. Either way, Andy went down pretty hard. It definitely wasn't intentional, and I still feel pretty horrible about it.

I ended up passing a couple more guys, and was sitting about 6th in the field coming into the last corner. I passed everybody and was closing on the last guy, but I just ran out of road and he got me by a few inches, so an 8th place for the day.

This is the entire race as seen from Rob Bell's handlebars. I'm pretty easy to spot with my yellow shoes.

The following day was the King of Moore criterium. I guess it went slightly better. I'll do that race report very soon.

2012 OKC TT series wrap up

After the first 2 races, I wasn't sure how the whole thing would end up. I guess a lot of it depended on who showed up for the final race.

First round results

I got 4th in the first race, but the top 5 or 6 spots were all somewhat close. The series is a best 2 combined of 3 time trial. In the 2nd race, Jeremy Miller, Brandon Mellott and myself were the only guys in the 123 category to show up. I ended up having the fastest time of the day by 1 second over Jeremy.

So, going into the final event, all of the top 6 guys would be there except Jeremy. I knew Will Gault was pretty much out of reach, but just maybe, if I could take 5 seconds off my first time of 16:44, I would pass Jeremy and be right there with Cailean.

Final results

As luck would have it, I ran a 16:36 and Cailean went a little slower with a 16:45, so that ended up getting me 2nd overall in the series!

Power data from race number 3

Speed wise, this was my best time trial ever on this course. I'm really happy about it considering I don't feel like I'm 100% quite yet after being sick. I learned a little trick on Thursday. Well, it works for me, but I went out to Lake Hefner on my TT bike to get a Strava run in, and see how my lungs would handle a TT effort before the weekend. I decided to try a lower cadence to hopefully work my legs more and my lungs less. It ended up working well as I beat my previous best by over a minute. I think the fitness gained from the Joe Martin week and the hard two weeks before that have a lot to do with everything as well.

Tribbey Cinco de Mayo Omnium

I had originally planned on doing a post about how important it is to rest, or at least how I deal with an injury or being sick. I was planning on doing the Tribbey omnium thing since the race schedule came out, but after the Joe Martin race last week, I got sick, and  decided on Thursday to not do the race. There's been a couple times in the last few years that I tried to just train through, or do some races while I was sick. I know some people who can pull it off, but the result for me has nearly always been not good. I think the last time I ended up with a pretty bad case of bronchitis that ended up taking a full month and a half before my lungs could process a deep breath of air.

Anyway, like I said, Thursday was the last day to preregister for the race and as soon as I decided not to race, I was regretting it. Friday I felt a lot better, and as the day went on, I finally decided to go ahead and pay the late fee and race. The Tribbey time trial has historically always been on the same weekend as the Joe Martin stage race, so I've never actually done it. This year it was the TT with a 66 mile road race a couple hours later.

The time trial is a very hilly 26 miles, and the big draw to the race is the huge cash bonus ($2000.00) for the fastest time under an hour. I guess some guys have come close, but as luck would have it, nobody got it this year either. Christian Helmig probably would have got it, but he crashed doing over 40mph and got pretty skinned up. Jacob Lasley also almost got it also. He ran a 1:00:30, and probably would have got it, but he hit the same bad spot in the road that Christian did and went off the road and almost crashed.  I didn't really know what to expect, so I started pretty conservative and slowly ramped it up as I went along. I was a couple of minutes ahead of schedule at the halfway point, but it was mostly tailwind up to that point. When I got to the 7 or 8 mile to go point, I realized I was going to have to average over 30mph the rest of the way to make it under an hour, so I pretty much started cruising at that point. With a couple miles to go, I remembered about the omnium points, so I got back on it hoping I didn't loose a spot or two by a few seconds. I ended up getting a 1:06:36

This is where things start to get a little confusing. I wasn't 100% sure how the omnium was going to be scored, but I assumed it would be by all the times in all categories combined. Just before I started my time trial, an official came by and asked what category I was and what race I wanted to enter. I asked if I could do the 40-49 TT, and if the points counted towards the 123 overall omnium and he replied "yes". I did the masters TT because all the categories paid 3 deep for the TT's and 10 deep for the overall omnium. I figured I had a better shot at finishing in the money in the masters race. So initially I got 2nd in the masters race, but the guy who got 1st for whatever reason decided to move his result to the 123 race, where I think he would be 3rd.So, that moved me into 1st in the 40-49 category. I didn't really understand the logic other than I think he thought he had to do the 123 TT to be scored in the 123 omnium. I was even more confused when I went to get my TT prize money and they said the guy gave up points and money moving to the 123 category???  More on this later.

I have to admit, I wasn't super stoked to do the road race. Towards the end of the TT, the weather was getting really warm. My Joule computer has a temperature gauge, and it showed 91 degrees. Hanging out for a couple of hours and doing a hot, humid, windy and very hilly 66 miles didn't seem like a fun time. I debated on taking 2 or 3 bottles, and decided on 3. I think there were around 30 starters. Rob, Jeremy and I all finished in the top 10 time wise in the TT, so I figured we all had a good chance to get a to 10 finish overall. Once the road race got underway, it didn't take too long to get hard. Within about 20 minutes of racing, the field was already whittled down to around 15 riders. Jeremy got a flat so he was out. It seemed like everyone had Christian marked and he was getting a little frustrated. Meanwhile, a group of 3 riders rolled off the front. I made an error in trying to bridge up solo, only to get caught out in no mans land for a while.

I sat up and let the field catch back up to me, and when they did they were going pretty good. A couple miles later, Christian attacked midway up a good sized hill and blew up what was left of the field. I think 2 or 3 guys were able to go with the attack. I got in a group of 6 other riders with Rob. One by one we started catching guys that were in the break that got popped. John Moore was able to join our group when we caught him, but the rest were all too blown. Basically we kind of just rode the last 35 miles of the race like that. We didn't really race, we kind of just rotated back. A few of the guys who didn't go hard in the TT were pulling through pretty hard, which started to take it's toll and make it tough to stay in the group. Rob and I started to skip our pulls to try and recover. I told Rob if one of us got dropped, we would just stick together and help each other in.

We finally got through all the headwind and crosswind sections, and it was all tailwind for the last 20 miles. Around 18 miles to go I noticed Rob was gone. It was starting to get really tough to stay on a wheel in the tailwind. I felt bad because I told Rob we would stick together and thought about stopping and waiting, but since we were out of the wind, we wouldn't be much help to each other. I picked up a couple of bottles in the feed zone, but with 15 miles to go, I ran totally out of water. I made it another few miles then I got dropped. I rode the rest of the way solo and I guess finished 8th or 9th? Not for sure as I haven't seen the road race results yet.

Anyway, after the race, I was looking for the the wheel truck with Jeremy's wheels. I noticed there was some commotion around the omnium results. I was hoping Rob and I squeaked into the top 10. I was a little surprised to find I got 5th. I was thinking the time trial points would be awarded based off time for all races combined, and they sort of were, but the race officials awarded separate points for each category. So, I got 13 points for my TT instead of just a couple. There were a bunch of guys that were not happy with the results.

I really liked the courses. I heard a rumor they might add a criterium on Sunday next year. Either way, I'm sure I'll do it again. It's also nice to finally have a baseline time on the infamous Tribbey course.

Joe Martin wrap up

The last stage criterium was really painful, but I was able to stay in it. A couple of years ago, I got pulled with 5 laps to go I think. It's really a course where you have to be in a good position. If you find yourself in the very back, it's only a matter of time before you're off the back. I found myself towards the back several times during the race, so I would move up a few positions, but then a couple laps later, I'd be at the back again because the guys I passed got dropped. It's not a good way to race a criterium, but if you're not confident on every part of the course, it's very difficult to get into a "sweet spot" position, and it's even more difficult to stay there.
I started to feel pretty comfortable towards the end of the race, but once we hit 3 laps to go, the pace picked up pretty good and the field went single file and started to get a little strung out. I let a little gap open in front of me and that's all it took. I was able to finish on the lead lap and ended up with 45th.

In the overall GC Rob got 46th and I got 48th. Not much different than our last time here, but I'm pretty sure the overall field was harder this year. I feel pretty good about completing the whole race. There were a ton of very fast guys that got dropped at some point or DNFed. Luck is also an important element at this race and we were pretty fortunate this year with no crashes or mechanical problems.

I'm looking to get in a pretty easy recovery week, or at least the next few days. The last 3 weeks was one of my biggest 3 week builds of all time. Maybe the second biggest. Anyway, there's a TT and road race omnium this weekend in Shawnee, so I should have some awesome form.

Joe Martin stage race day 3

There's a lot of down time at a race like this. Basically all we do is ride, eat, or lay around, which is what we're doing now. The race yesterday went good I guess.  It's pretty much becoming a race of attrition.  We lost quite a few riders, so at the start of the race there were 111 riders registered, and it's down to 75 today. The sprint finish yesterday was pretty hairy. I was in a decent position 3 times, but I kept getting swarmed and shuffled backwards. The last time looked really good. I had a ton of momentum, and would have finished top 10 for sure, but my alley way I was trying to shoot through closed up and I had to hit the brakes. I ended up 23rd.  I'm pretty happy to survive another day. Rob finished in the main field with the same time, and Brian dnf'ed. Rob and I both moved up in the overall GC. I'm sitting in 55th as of now.  Our crit goes off at 3:30 later today. 

JMSR stage 2

The 110 mile Mt. Gaylor stage 2 went ok I guess. Result wise it was pretty close to last year. The scenery is awesome on this route. The wind was somewhat of a factor this year. I think quite a few guys got shelled in the crosswind section before we even got to the big climb.  There was one gnarly wreck that was pretty close for me, but I got through it. The big Mt. Gaylor climb went about the same as last time. I got dropped about half way up and got into a small group on the way down.  I finished 11:50 behind the leader. Rob finished a few minutes ahead of me, and Brian finished a few minutes behind me. So we all moved up some in the overall GC.  Next up the 92 mile stage 3 road race. 

Joe Martin stage race day 1

I have to admit, a few weeks ago, I wasn't super excited about this race. Not that I didn't want to do it, but I guess i was more or less indifferent about the race. Maybe it was because of the nervous not knowing what to expect like when we did this race for the first time in the 1/2's a couple of years ago, or maybe due to the fact that there's several crits in June that I'm pretty excited about.  Anyway, early this past week I started getting more pumped up about it. Also being in a race with a front row seat to all the Tilford-Waddell drama thats been going on seemed pretty intriguing.  We got here a couple hours before our start time, and got a good couple of runs up the course. The whole drama thing went out the window pretty quick when Steve Tilford crashed in a freak accident descending the course. I guess he got a front flat going 47 mph and jacked up his shoulder pretty good. Pretty big bummer.  So our results for the day were close to what they were last time we were here. Rob is in 41st, I'm in 75th, and Brian is sitting 103rd.  Personally I was hoping to go a little faster. The conditions were not great with a pretty good headwind for the last 3/4 of the TT. I did beat my best time by 12 seconds running a 10:29. I felt like I paced it about as good as possible, so I guess I'm happy with it.  Next stage:  110 mile road race with the big Mt. Gaylor climb towards the end. 

2012 NWA Spring Classic

I'm not sure how many times I've done this race. Maybe 5 or 6? One thing I do know for sure is that it seems like it's always been either really cold or rainy or a combination of both. Last year was one of the coldest races I've ever done. This year was about as different as it gets. Driving to the race as the sun was coming up, the temperature was already in the upper 60's. When we were driving home, the temperature was in the 90's, so it was in the upper 80's most of the time we were racing. Not that it was too hot, it was just kind of a shock to the system as the first hot race of the year.

Driving to the race. Lots of bugs on the windshield and getting warm already.

The turnout for the race was huge. It seems like so many races now are pre-register only. This is one of the last races where you still have the ability to register the day of the event. I'm sure if you're the one hosting a race, it's a lot less work to do a pre-register only event, but it seems like it may hurt overall attendance. Anyway. I think there was around 50 riders in the cat 1/2 field. There were a bunch of unknown riders (to me at least), so it was a little different trying to read the race early on. As soon as we took off, we started pretty fast. A Dogfish guy attacked form the gun and within a few miles, he had already established a pretty good time gap. At the time it seemed pretty crazy to me because we weren't going slow. I had my joule still set up to display current and ave. speed and watts, ride time and distance. I think the first lap we were averaging over 26 mph, which is pretty fast for a hilly, curvy road course.

When we started our 2nd lap, I wasn't really feeling it. I'm not sure if it was the double time trial the day before and having to get up super early both days of the weekend, or the fact that this was the last day in another hard 3 week block. Probably a combination of all. I got caught kind of towards the back of the field, and there was one point where I thought I might get dropped. I gradually started feeling better. I think the turning point was when we hit the big hill the second time. I actually felt pretty good going up it this go around, and I'm not sure how fast the group went up it, but I got to the top first. I knew some kind of move was going to get away soon as it seemed like the racing was still really aggressive and it seemed like a lot of guys were starting to get tired.

Brady rolled off the front and had a little gap. I wasn't willing to let it go, so I took off after him. Raton Parmain went with me, and we caught Brady with a nice little gap on the field. A little while later we were joined by a group of 6 other riders. The problem was 3 of them were OKC Velo riders, and that was a little too much for me to keep driving the break. The next move went shortly afterwards, and it was the one that stuck. Rob managed to get in it. There were probably 15 guys in it, but I knew Rob would do ok.

The last lap was by far the slowest. I missed out on a move that a couple of guys made about midway through the lap. It ended up good for them as they finished 5th and 6th.. Rob did good with another top 10 by getting 7th. I won the field sprint of what was left of the main group for a wicked 18th place finish. It was well out of the money, but I think you should finish every race strong. You have to get used to it that way because that's how it's going to be if you finish well.

Going all the way to the line

So, another race report that's taken me almost a week to post, but it's been a busy week. Not so much riding wise. I'm taking an extreme recovery week to try to get rid of all the fatigue that's been in my legs for a while. I'm still working on a post about what I'm trying to do training wise this year. I also finally got my race wheels. Better late than never I guess.

Eucha Tough Road Race

I wasn't really sure what to expect going into this race. It's the first year to have a race in this location, and I'd heard all kinds of different information about the course. I guess once the race was all said and done, it wasn't too far off from what I imagined. The course was really fun to ride. Not much, if any, of the course was flat and straight. It's always a weird feeling  racing something when you have no idea what's over the next hill or around the next corner.

I knew the course had some big hills, and personally, my plan was to try to get in a move of some sort early so I wouldn't have to deal with possibly getting dropped on one of the hills. In hindsight, it probably would have been smarter to conserve and learn the course on the first lap, and race the second. The race started pretty fast. The first section was pretty crazy. Lots of uphill and downhill twisty road. I almost got popped on the first hill because I was a little winded from just attacking. I was at the front when we hit it, but dangling off the back once we got to the top.

The course was basically a long section of road with about a 4 mile loop on one end and a 10 mile loop on the other. The whole circuit was 34 miles and we did it twice. The first time we went through the dam section, I knew the race was going to be epic.  A 1 mile or so 50mph descent followed by a 1 mile climb. The first time through I thought I was going good. It didn't seem too hard. We dropped a few guys, and a few others seemed to be struggling. I tried to get into a few moves again going into the bigger loop, but nothing was working. Two riders were up the road, but only by a minute or so.

Up until this point I felt pretty good, but when we rode backwards up the big hill out of the dam back to the start/finish to complete our first lap, I got dropped a little.  I got into a 4 man chase group, and it took a few miles, but we made it back on. I started to realize how badly I'd timed my efforts, because I was starting to get that bottom of the matchbook feeling. Really, the point where I decided to get conservative was exactly the point when it could have paid off to make an aggressive move.

Anyway, on the last lap, I made it through the climbs on the first loop section, but as we started the first big climb into the second loop section, the best climbers attacked pretty hard and the field blew up pretty good. I got into a 3 man chase group with Chad Hodges and Jacob White, and we chased pretty hard to catch a 6 or 7 man group that Rob was in, but they eventually got way out of sight, so we more or less just cruised the last few miles in to the finish.

I really liked the race overall, and I hope the Tulsa guys do it again next year. I guess team wise, this was our   worst result of the year so far, but the best work out if you want to look at it that way. This was the first race that was harder from a normalized power standpoint than out hard Saturday group rides. I guess it's time to up the intensity another notch.

There's 2 races coming up this weekend that I'm looking forward to. The first of 3 in the OKC Velo TT series is on Saturday, and the NWA Classic is on Sunday in Arkansas. I should have some new race wheels any day now, and I'm REALLY hoping to have them this weekend.

Keeping the legs happy

My legs have been feeling a little tired lately. I guess I've kind of decided to go a little easy this week. I think this is the first time that's happened all season, but on a side note I've gotten in more miles, training stress, ETC. than ever before. Maybe it's due to the fact that it's been raining all week. It's hard to get motivated to ride when it's wet out. I'm pretty sure I've done enough rain riding/racing this year, and it's only been two race weekends so far.

I did get 1 pretty hard ride in this week. I figured it was time to start getting acclimated to the TT bike, so I went out to Hefner and did the Strava thing. I ended up getting the 2 records, but I bet they go down pretty soon. The Strava app is starting to get out of control. I'm predicting by this summer, it gets really crazy.
If you have an iPhone or a Garmin, there's really no reason not to use it.

Anyway, a few of us are going to a road race tomorrow in NE Oklahoma. As far as I know, it's the first year to have a race at this particular venue. I've heard different reports on how hilly the terrain is, but I guess we'll just have to hit it to find out. Looks like nice weather.

Lake Hefner Strava leaderboard