Saturday, July 19, 2008

Race Report

Just a quick post today. No pictures.

I had a race today. One month after I gingerly first turned a crank on the trainer and nearly 16 months since my accident.

I drove on down to the local crit racing circuit at Heffron Park. No idea what grade to ride, I decided to start in E and if that was too easy then I'd pull out and wait for the D Grade to start. Well it turned out there was no E grade so I lined up for D grade. On the line I was seeing if I could do a track stand while we were waiting to start. I could. Geez - it's just like riding a bike.

Chatted with plenty of the guys beforehand and had to laugh at Jason Roberts who, when he saw me lining up and checking out the leg, called me "f***ing hard core man". I suppose that's one version of HTFU! Jason is one of those guys that could audition for the Hulk stand in job.

Before that I did some laps of the circuit to remind myself of those familiar bumps and turns. I also surprised myself by being able to do some pedal revs while out of the saddle. It's not pretty and I'll need a fair bit of work on the technique but it's a start.

As for the race, well not all that much to report really. I lasted 5km before being dropped, simply not enough horsepower to manage the (relatively light) surges of the D grade bunch but I'm not that far off D grade standard, so I have a reasonable benchmark to work from. After that I just circulated solo for a good 45-min training effort.

I had a little trouble as the new chain I have on is showing up the state of the chainring and under load it would skip most annoyingly and when I was attempting to pedal out of the saddle over the small rises, the chain would jump - it was hard enough controlling things as it was and it took a bit of care as I was putting my spokes into one guy's dereilleur at one stage. Will need to attend to that. To be fair, I think I'm due for a new race bike, there were that many creaks and groans coming out of this one...

Here are the stats for the day:

Crit Heffron D Grade:
Duration: 47:00 (1:06:06)
Work: 552 kJ
TSS: 96.5 (intensity factor 1.11)
Norm Power: 205
VI: 1.05
Distance: 24.462 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 748 196 watts
Speed: 3.7 44.9 31.2 kph


Entire workout (173 watts):
Duration: 1:15:55 (2:25:26)
Work: 786 kJ
TSS: 138 (intensity factor 1.047)
Norm Power: 194
VI: 1.12
Distance: 35.626 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 748 173 watts
Speed: 3.6 44.9 28.3 kph


We shall see what happens next week!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alex,

I've been following your blog ever since you started posting again after the accident.

This is a huge milestone. Huge. Progress is always such a great thing.

Keep it up,

Justin (Montreal, Canada)

Anonymous said...

Alex,
Absolutely fantastic-can't wait to see you back on the track.
Jays

Lawrence said...

Awesome! What else is there to say?? :-D

Richard said...

Congratulations Alex! I've been reading your blog since way before your accident (I was interested in your power data).

It's great to hear you're back in the saddle, inspirational.

Regards,
Richard.
London, UK
http:/lbrc.org

Nerf said...

Alex,

I've always found your input on FGF to be very valuable. When I finally put two & two together I realized that you had had your accident, what the extent of it was & found your blog. I know what you feel like (well....sort of) since I broke my leg pretty bad almost 2 years ago now. My first crit was TERRIFYING!!! Now I'm almost done with my first season back racing. Results haven't been all that stellar, but I know I have at least a year (maybe more) until I get back to where I was before my crash.

Anyway, just remember that you're an inspiration to more people than you realize!! WAY TO GO!!!

Gilbert
Virginia Beach, VA
USA

Alex Simmons said...

Thanks Guys!

I'll keep on riding and posting. All the support is very encouraging and helps.

Cheers
Alex