Winners never quit

It’s one of those phrases you see on “motivational posters” about the place. I’ve never really had such posters hanging up. I suppose I’ve never really felt the need to have such things to motivate me, although some of them are quite good pictures.

I certainly never ever thought I’d be in one of those pictures or be someone to inspire others.

Nevertheless, I seem to have found myself in that position – after a friend and mentor sent me the picture above.

I’m not hard to pick out of course (just play spot the carbon leg) but for those interested – the shot is of my race winning sprint in the Eddie Salas Cup on 8 May 2011. It was an A-grade Masters circuit road race at Sydney’s Eastern Creek raceway. 60-70 starters. There were over 200 racing that day in all grades.

It was a cold morning (for Sydney about 6-7 C) and a foggy start. The race was the usual affair with break attempts, counters and so on. I bridged across solo to one such break, which I thought looked dangerous, but it was brought back.

A cool foggy morning, and the pace was on...

Then with about 25-min to go, I just knew I was feeling good and said to myself that I had a threshold effort in me for the balance of the race. There were some riders up the road. So I decided on the last hill before the main straight to push hard off the front of the chasing group. Only one rider (Matt from Sydney CC) was on my wheel, so I put my head down and buried it. He worked with me but eventually faded so I kicked on and finished off the bridge across solo. It was about 2.5-3-min effort at 350W.

The bridge across, Matt was suffering, I was ready to launch again.

Now I was there I had to consolidate, which I managed OK, then did some work with them to establish the break – they were riding hard. Since two of us had either club or team mates in the group behind, we had a combination that just might stick. I knew that if we got caught, all it would mean was my team mates being dragged to the front of the race and being in a great position to finish it off – being in a team makes such a difference to race tactics, it’s way cool to race this way.

The break, and rolling off after a turn

Once I was convinced we were not going to get caught, I started to reduce my workload, while the other two kept pushing hard. Fine by me, I just sat on (mind you my NP for the final 30-min of race was 331W so it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park).

Then the finishing straight was upon us and I was very patient, waited as long as I thought I should, gave myself some room to run at the wheel in front and gave it what I had.

I won. By about 10cm. That’s enough. :-)

Winners are grinners they say.
Eddie Salas finished 4th - he's on the right in the blue and my team mate Matt 5th.

Massive thanks to the rest of Team Turbo Studio. We might have stern looks on our faces in the promotional shots (a la the Sopranos), but we sure smile when out there racing, and especially when we have the podium stuck to the soles of our shoes.

It ended off a great week with four big races, some really good form and my third race win of the year.

I wrote in my previous post about the UCI World Cup road race. Well in between that and the Eddie Salas race I raced the UCI World Cup Paracycling time trial on a technical circuit at Sydney Olympic Park.

It was 4 laps, which meant riders from various categories were on the circuit at the same time. Technical suited me as I’m a pretty decent bike handler but it meant some interesting tactics were needed. Whenever I came up behind another rider, I would surge to get past them before the next corner as most of the other riders were too slow through the turns and would hold you up.

In the end I placed 7th overall and was the fastest of the three Australian C4 riders, 4-seconds faster than National TT champ and Aussie squad rider Ryan Hughes. I was second fastest Aussie overall behind Michael Gallagher in the C5 category.

Average Power for the 32-minutes was 320W, so that’s not too shabby at all and I was very pleased to have had the opportunity to race my first international UCI paracylcing event, and to race well and be competitive.



But back to that picture.

It’s never been my objective to inspire others – I simply love racing my bike, so do what I can within the constraints of my life to improve my own performance and to race. I've had plenty of support as well from many people. Still, I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in the four years since my accident and amputation. If that inspires others, that’s pretty cool I guess and I can live with that.

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World Cup – Road Race

Today I raced my first UCI World Cup event – it was a ~75km road race with C4 & C5 para-cycling categories combined. Being held at the Eastern Creek Raceway and Western Sydney International Dragway circuit, (similar but not exactly the same as the circuit used last year for the World Masters Games) meant I had some home town knowledge of what I was in for since I have raced on both these venues.

What I didn’t know of course was how the competition would be. I knew one of our Aussie riders – Michael Gallagher – would be pretty hard for anyone to beat as he is a world class athlete but other than that, I wasn’t really sure of the field.

Conditions were good: cool, dry and sunny with a south to SW breeze. Sure made for a nice change with the rain we've had lately. I did 6 turbo session in the previous week.

In the end I came 4th in the C4 category, and my compatriot Ryan Hughes 3rd. Michael Gallagher came 2nd in the C5. That was perfect as the Aussie team plan was for Michael (C5) and Ryan (C4) to finish as high as possible and gain extra points for the world championship qualification places.

I had good legs today and some pretty decent numbers:
Ride time: 1:54
Normalised Power: 302W

When the race was pretty fiesty, I had a 30-minute NP of 327W.

The Italians dominated, and after the opening lap the fireworks started with plenty of attacks and counters. Eventually the break formed with 3 Italians, Michael Gallagher and 2 others. Since Mick was up the road we had no real reason to chase, next job was to get Ryan Hughes placed as high as possible, so helped him out here and there. My legs were good today – I sure felt pretty good.

I thought about going with the Italians early but they were very strong and it was a very tough place to be burning a big match. When the chase to the main break attempt was on, someone baulked as we were closing in and that didn’t help. Then a rider (the Canadian I think) crashed in front of me at the left hand turn entering the main raceway. That took all the momentum out of the chase. After that it was a training ride for next 4 laps, then in last 1.5-2 laps the group started getting frisky looking to get the minor placings.

I chased down one break by the British rider late in the race, and was about to do it again when the call was to let him go as he was C5. I certainly had the legs to go if needed.

Heading into the finale I was getting ready to go to front to give Ryan a lead out along with Mitchell Gourley from St Kilda, when the Italian for some reason let a gap go for Ryan and Mitch, and so they went for it with about 1.5km to go. I then just sat on the Austrian, Italian, and the American (Sam - of course! I said g’day during the race and asked his name) until the sprint as they were now chasing the Aussies. Fine by me.

Sam the American opened it up at top of straight, the Austrian was cooked and the Italian had nothing left or couldn’t be bothered (they were both on the front a lot today) so I went and eventually overhauled Sam down the long finishing straight, was catching Ryan and crossed line as 4th placed C4, and 8th overall.

Pretty darn happy with that. I’ve gone from having a lower leg amputation to a World Cup result in a bit less than 4 years.

Time Trial is on Friday. It’s technical and well I’ll just let ‘er rip and see what happens.

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little things matter

This weekend I’m on Australia’s “Sunshine Coast” in Queensland where the national paracycling road championships are being held. Sunshine Coast? It’s pretty much been raining since I got here yesterday after 15 hours of driving from Sydney.

Today was the individual road time trial. The races were run over a flat 4km section of road that was closed for the event, making an 8km out ‘n’ back course, the number of laps depending on race category. All paracycling categories, including handcycles, were competing today. Those handcycle guys and gals are pretty amazing.

My race (Mens C4) was a 24km ITT which was three laps of the flat S-shaped course. That meant five U-turns. There was a decent southerly wind blowing today (20 km/h) making for cross winds mostly, but short sections of near block head and tailwind. Here’s the course map:


24C, 1024hPa and 85% relative humidity.

And below is the power, speed and cadence trace (click to see a larger image). As you can see by looking at the speed line, the wind really had an impact.


So how did I go? Well the power was OK and about right for my current form. I pretty much just tried to keep a 3 in the hundreds column on the power display and let the legs tell me if that was about right. As is typical legs felt way too good early, plus pushing into cross-head wind, resulting in a solid start.

Average for the 35 minutes or so was 304 watts. Normalised Power 305W.

At halfway I started to struggle and power dropped a bit for the next section. I was focusing on keeping a rhythm as much as I could and use the short tailwind section for a very slight recovery, knowing that I would probably be able to find something for the final leg.
I just needed to hang in there.

Hang in there I did, and I lifted for the finale (ouch – that was hard) but it was worth it.

I took Silver, 1:13 down on the winner (Ryan Hughes) which is what I expected given the gap between us in the Individual Pursuit earlier this year. I thought about a minute or so would be about right.

But I only took silver over bronze by 1/100th of a second! That’s the equivalent of the width of one’s hand over 24km. 0.00045%. Now that’s what I call a slim margin.

Sometimes the little things matter.

Go Turbo Studio.


Road race tomorrow.

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Point scoring

Let's race! Say, a State Points race championship - masters 45-49.


All you need are one to two dozen hard men. Toss in one current masters world champ, one former world champ, and bike bling as far as the eye can see. Carbon wheels and frames galore. One carbon leg. I'll be screwed if they ever bring in a carbon tax.

80 laps, sprint every 10 (2.5km).

Go hard. Sprint. Blow. Recover. Cover. Grovel. Sprint again. and so on. Watch your position, keep tabs on the score for yourself and others.

Finish 4th.

These races are a whole 'nuther world of pain.

Not really much of a race report because, well, I can't remember all that much they are so effing hard!

I made a very early attack and it was on for (not so) young and old for rest of the race. 18 listed starters, I think a couple of DNS. We were nudging 60km/h for most of the eight sprints. Field too good to allow a break despite many attempts.

You are on your limit, recovering from one sprint, covering counter attacks, grovelling to stay in at times, planning the set up for next sprint and having to do the maths along the way to work out who's got what points and what wheels you need to attack/cover.

Here's another pic to show off my leg and the sexy new Turbo Studio team race kit.


Peak power: 1184W
NP: 299W (it felt harder than that though)
About 25-26 minutes of purgatory.

Damn that was fun.

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Déjà vu

2007 was the last time I rode a Team Pursuit. My team won that day and set a new state record time in the masters' age category. Indeed two of the pics that line the top of this blog are from that day.

I wrote about our 2007 effort in this popular post which looked at Maximal Accumulated Oxygen Deficit using the power meter data from team mate Phil and myself.

Well as most of you know, a few months after that race I had my accident and the subsequent leg amputation.

Yesterday I rode in my first Team Pursuit championship since then. In between times I coached our squads while I made my recovery on the bike myself.

Well we won again and set a new state record time (2:21.379). Phil was also in the team and we both have power data from the event. Déjà vu.

There was one main difference this time - in 2007 we were in the "younger" age category, this time the "older" age category (three youngest riders 150+ years). I suppose another five years does that! It also means the event this time was shorter - 2000 metres compared to 3000m for the younger category.

Interestingly, the power output for each was similar.

In 2007 I averaged 397W in the final.
In 2011 I averaged 411W in the final.

Leg? What leg? More pretty convincing evidence that a lower leg amputation need not be an impediment to cycling performance.

Here's a pic of the power, speed and cadence trace from yesterday's final.


Cadence maxed out at 126rpm, and averaged ~ 119rpm during the "cruise" part of the event. I rode a 51x14 gear (nominal 98").

Here I am with Phil (left) with whom I have been riding Team Pursuit events for the last 10 years. Sneaking into the shot is John Crouchly, a good buddy and former coach of some Aussie Olympic track riders. I had the pleasure of coaching John himself helping him to a win in the State individual road time trial championships in 2009 as well as get him started into the world of training with power.

Our club had five teams riding and our good buddies Peter, David, Alan and Crouch picked up the bronze in our division with two cracking rides a couple of seconds behind our team, the all ages team placed 4th and the 2nd all ages team had a good qualifier setting the early standard. The girls also rode well to get on the podium.

What else can I say? I think I've made a pretty good comeback.

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Form = Fitness + Freshness: Take 2

A few weeks ago I posted about gaining some form after a race win in a local crit.

Here's take 2.

Yesterday (Saturday) and Friday I raced the Aussie national track cycling championships in the para cycling categories at the Dunc Gray Velodrome here in a blazing hot Sydney. There are only two events for individual para cyclists - the time trial and the individual pursuit. So I enter both. For my para category (C4) that means a 1-km time trial and a 4km individual pursuit. Ouch.

The day before that I had to go through reclassification. I was first classified in 2009. I suppose there was a slim chance my leg might have grown back since then.

Not having raced the "kilo" before, I just went at it hard but keeping a fraction in reserve on the opening lap. The kilo is raced as an individual, whereas in the pursuit you are racing on track at same time as your opponent (starting on opposite sides of track).

I finished the kilo in a 1:16. My opponent rode a 1:15. I was 1 second in front after 750m but my fade in the final lap saw my opponent overhaul my time. Happy with that. Much room for improvement from me, so something to think about for next year. A little more than a couple of week's notice of getting a ride might help...

The next day we had the individual pursuit. Here's my power trace:



















Just power and cadence showing.

Stats:
Average Power: 363W
Time: 5:08
Place: 2nd

Again I was pretty happy with that. My 5-min power/weight ratio was an all time personal best pre- and post-amputation, and the time was 4-seconds faster than previous national record. My opponent though had a fantastic race, going 4:58 and setting a huge new PB for him. Nice work Ryan! :)

CTL: 96
TSB: +8

Once again, Form = Fitness + Freshness

Next up - Team Pursuit later this month.

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Form = Fitness + Freshness

It's one of the Pithy Power Proverbs that came along with the introduction of the Performance Manager Andy Coggan introduced to so many of us in 2006.

Five years on and it still works.

Example:
In the last couple of weeks I've been bouncing around with a Chronic Training Load (CTL - "fitness") above 100 TSS/day (see link for an explanation of these terms) but had some external life stresses and work commitments (like refurbishing and expanding a growing indoor cycle training centre amongst other things) which combined saw me "crack" a little in training. Not badly, just enough to know it was time for a little recovery.

By cracking a little I mean being unable to successfully complete a scheduled hard tempo session within a desired power range a couple of times and one endurance ride that was a bit of a grovel. One bad day isn't always a sign, but 2-3 examples not far apart is something usually worth taking a closer note of.

So I shut down the session the second time it happened and had a rest day the next day. It is also very hot and humid when I get to train which likely did not help, and combined with insufficient sleep, well the signs were all there.

So an extra day's rest, combined with a few no-bike days due to coaching work commitments saw a sharpish drop in Acute (recent) Training Load (ATL) and a corresponding rise in Training Stress Balance (TSB - "freshness").

On Saturday I had my regular squad training group (which I run) and said to myself that if I feel OK, I would go race in the afternoon.

As it turns out, I did feel pretty good in the morning, so I decided to line up for a crit that afternoon (at Sydney's Heffron Park).

I win.

Which is always nice of course. A good way to start the year off.

Winning move was made when I attacked with a bit under 3km to go.

A few things to note for day of race:
- FTP: 295W - my last TT in December was @ 297W (38-minutes)
- CTL: 96 TSS/day
- TSB: +19
- NP*: 300W (50-minutes)
- AP^: 257W

Race was not overly hard, I was pretty well in control most of the time. I had a solo break mid-way but that failed due to a rear puncture (was given a replacement wheel and allowed to rejoin main group).

The final 4-minutes of the race was a new
all-time best 4-minute W/kg.

Now ordinarily I wouldn't expect to feel so good with TSB that high. Neutral to somewhat positive TSB yes, but at +19, sometimes you feel underdone or legs are a bit claggy. Not today.

Fresh and Fit. Toss smart into the mix and well, wins are there to be had.


By the way, I know it's been way too long since I've posted. It's just been a very busy 12-months. All good stuff and I hope to be able to get back to more regular posting. I have a backlog of items to write about!

A super full year of events coming up in 2011. So much happening on the coaching, training and racing front, I will endeavour to keep y'all updated!


* Normalised Power
^ Average Power

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Where the blogging heck have I been?

Collecting race winnings at Heffron Park, that's where!

In reality I've just been really busy with lots of stuff and blogging has taken a bit of a back seat for a little while. There is much to write about, just not so much time to do it lately.

So what's new in the Zoo? Plenty!!

Business wise I've been busy with the opening of a new indoor/outdoor cycling training centre here in Sydney - Turbo Studio. Click the link for a peek.


We opened this month and all is going really well. Some are now finding out just how effective a focused power-based indoor training session can be. It suits riders of all abilities as all sessions are set relative to each rider's individual fitness level. That's the great thing with the Computrainer's Multirider set up. And I've been designing the sessions with Erg+ software and next week we are looking to add the real erg videos to the sessions for some extra fun.

Training and race wise, I've been going nicely since the new year ticked over and I cleared a knee injury in December. Threshold power is back to around 300W and I've done three races so far this year, two others were washed out/canceled due to the pile driving rain we've had in Sydney during February.

So it's been three crits so far, all at a local crit circuit, Heffron Park.

I won my first race on 16 January by a country mile and the next week I raced the Australia Day crit (26 Jan), where race promoter and handicapper thought I should be bumped up a couple of levels and race with the likes of Stuart "Computer" Campbell.

Not quite sure how the A grade riders get to race B grade (this is an open race) but nonetheless I hung in there. I suspect I was lucky to be allowed to start at all but that's another story ;-)

That race was ~ 45-min with NP of 319W, Average Power 294W. I was digging hard at times but it was good fun.

Winning the sprint at Heffron

On Saturday just gone, I raced up a grade at Heffron and after the usual opening flurry of attacks (one of which I calmly closed down), I saw two guys attack into the wicked northerly wind and thought to myself "they look the goods", so I took off after them. Nobody followed me.

I then spent the next half lap bridging across and then the three of us decided to work together with the bunch following at about 30 metres. We all committed and the gap began to grow, until after a hard five laps or so I think we cracked their spirit and so we settled into a grind to the finish, never really letting up the pace until the final lap or so. I initiated the sprint, kept it clean (line wise) but was overhauled about 20-metres out and settled for second place. Still getting used to my new level of sprinting. As they say, when in doubt - lead it out.

Longer race this time, ~ 52 min with NP of 319W and Average Power 302W. So fitness is coming along nicely and I look forward to the State Points race championships this weekend coming.

Also keeping me busy is preparations for the Team Pursuit championships. I've been my Club TP coach for a few years now. This year is a little different. I am actually going to race it this year. I'm really happy about that as the TP is my favourite bike race. And it would seem I definitely have the legs for it this time.

As for other training related items, I have a few things banking up to write about - one an item on Quadrant Analysis and maximal force velocity data and another on the relationship between performance in individual pursuit and power/CdA ratios. And another is to finally do the write up and pictures about my completed prosthetic racing leg.

And I hear a whisper about a wind tunnel in Sydney.....

All good stuff. 'til next time folks, safe riding!

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Legs on fire!

Well, sort of.

At least that's how it felt racing last night at the Central Coast Track Open. It's been a few years since I've raced this carnival (for obvious reasons), that the ever energised Paul Craft of RAW Track fame organises. It's always been a favourite - all the good stuff you get from a country track carnival without having to travel too far - it's about a 90-minute drive from my place.

When I say good stuff, I mean you get value for money races. Lots of events, something for everyone and the usual Crafty entertainment value. Shame you can't say that for many of the events hosted in the city.

I went up early this year as they were desperately seeking extra commissaires for the junior carnival which was being held in the afternoon before the senior carnival. So I spent the afternoon checking junior gear rollouts and standing (sometimes sitting) in the sun making sure all the little tikes behaved themselves out there on the track. It's fun watching 'em go round.

Once that was over I pulled on the Bicisport skinsuit, pumped up the tyres and got out on the track for my warmup. Looking at the program I had been given a mark of 195 metres, which put me at the top of the C grade field. I think in days gone past I'd be closer to the 90-110 metre mark and in the B grade group.

For those not familar with what I mean, in Australia we have a form of track racing called a "Wheelrace". Riders line up on the track at their designated handicap mark, the gun/whistle goes and the winner is first past the post after a designated number of laps. So in theory all riders have a chance to win since the fastest riders have to complete a greater distance. The rider(s) off zero metres is/are called the "scratch" marker(s). So in this example, when I race the wheelrace I start 195 metres in front of the "scratchies".

Now what also happens is you can't have everyone who's racing the carnival on the track at the same time, so heats are run to determine who qualifies for the wheelrace final. There are many ways to do this so I won't bore you with the details.

Just before that race was the opening scratch race, which I came second in after a bit of collusion between two Bathurst riders prevented a fair sprint - with one deliberately blocking me for his mate (the winner also qualified for the wheelrace final). Collusion is not legal in track racing but the comms didn't pick that one up. Generally doing things like working hard to pull a mate along is OK but deliberately blocking another rider is a BIG NO NO - you must contest the sprint. I had a seriously good lunge at the line despite only getting to poke my nose out at the very last second. Damn I thought, the legs felt GREAT!!

Wheelrace heats were run as graded wheelraces and in my heat I was the next to last marker but I won my heat (and a few $ for my effort) by passing all riders in front of me. I think the extra motivation from the scratch race finish spurred me on this time. And good legs.

After the scratch race and wheelrace heat, there were Kierin heats, which I placed 2nd in to qualify for the final (three went through to final).

Then we had one of Crafty's special races, the "miss n out handicap". Simple race, riders roll out and every lap the last rider across the line is eliminated, except that in this case the A, B & C grades start at different points on the track. So in the opening laps a few A graders get eliminated early until they catch B and/or C grade. Once it comes together it reverts to a standard miss n out. Our race came together reasonably early so I did what I always do and be attentive to position in the bunch while other (often much stronger/fitter) riders get eliminated behind. In the end I was 4th last rider eliminated, with the remaining riders being the A grade road runner dudes. Once again, nice work legs.

Right after that was the Kierin final! I came second by about a wheel. And a few more $. Petrol money really.

Then the Wheelrace final. That wasn't so good as I had a slight mishap with my cleat off the start, which cost me too much distance to the riders in front and I couldn't make it up, so I retired gracefully and called it a night.

So six races with one win, three seconds, two finals and a 5th in the miss n out. And a few $ for my efforts.

On fire!!

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WTF is happening??

Ok, it's been a while and posting lately has been slow.

That's actually a good thing - I've just been really busy. I have lots to update on, so I'll get to it all. Eventually, LOL.

I had a fantastic trip to California to ride the countryside around Santa Rosa, participate in Levi's Granfondo and also deliver a seminar on training with power. So I'll get to those in separate posts later.

I also have been doing lots of training leading up to the UCI World Masters Track championships which were held last week. I had a really good championships, riding a good pursuit time and making the finals of both the scratch and points races. More on that later too.

Here I am am up front and personal during my Individual Pursuit last week:


I rode a 3:54 3km pursuit, which is about 6-7 seconds slower than my all time PB but it's still my 3rd fastest time ever. My average power was 375 watts.

Also, as part of the training I did some aerodynamic field testing, mostly for wheel choices, so I'll report on that too!

And some cool stuff on the coaching front as well..... like I said, I have been busy.

Ahead I have a really solid block of training in front of me as I prepare for the Track nationals in early February in Adelaide.

And more cycling performance experiments to perform.

And to finally finish off the leg - with an aero fairing.....

Also I go to Adelaide in late-November for a week long Cycling Australia coaching development course.

Stay tuned folks!!

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Crocs, toads & mozzies...

OK, my first "season" is done. I finished it off with a trip to Darwin, in Australia's Top End, to compete in the Oceania Para-cycling road championships.

I finished that event with Gold medals in both the Time Trial and the Road Race for the LC2 category.

I also picked up a few dozen mozzie bites for my trouble, which have been persistent little buggers, itching for quite some time since getting home.

A few things about Darwin have changed in the 15 years since I lived there in the mid-1990s (but not all that much really - certainly not as much as locals would have you believe).

Firstly, you now see dead cane toads on the road. Next thing is part of the reason why you see dead cane toads on the road is because everyone is busy looking at the personalised numbers plates which seem to be on every other car, and clearly aren't seeing the toads they are running over.

Other than that, yeah there's a few more buildings, especially around the port area, more new apartments everywhere, some new hotels and some more shops here and there (like at Nightcliff).

Some things however, never change. The drivers pretty much exhibiting the same sloth like reflexes at traffic lights for instance. They'll run every red light under the tropical sun but take forever to start when the lights go green.

Then there's the NT News, the local paper. It is unique in Australia and the front page headline was typically a story about an animal (often crocodiles), alchohol and or sex. Extra points for combining all three.

Well here's the front page the first morning I was there:

Which was followed up a couple of days later with this little gem:

The fact that this latter one appeared the morning after the Commonwealth Government handed down probably the most talked about public budget in decades which appeared on every front page in the country, except the NT News. Well, that's if you ignore the "budget" reference to the photo of the python squeezing the life out of a possum!

Anyway, for the record, some power stats and comments from my racing over the last couple of weeks:

National Paracycling TT Championships (LC2):
Hilly course
Duration: 0:38:57
Average Power: 264 watts
Normalised Power: 276 watts
Place: 2nd (~2.5 minutes)

National Paracycling Road Race Championships (LC2):
Very hilly course.
Duration: 2:10:17
Average Power: 225 watts
Normalised Power: 271 watts
60-min mean max NP: 286 watts
30-min mean max NP: 308 watts
Place: 2nd (38 seconds down)

Oceania Paracycling TT Championships (LC2):
Duration: 0:52:27
Average Power: 264 watts
Normalised Power: 269 watts
Place: 1st

Oceania Paracycling Road Race Championships (LC2):
Duration: 1:52:34
Average Power: 216 watts
Normalised Power: 262 watts
Place: 1st

1st 46-min riding with Michael Gallagher (LC1 - categories were combined) before he finally cracked me:
Average Power: 225 watts
Normalised Power: 288 watts

Note: Michael also rode the open elite TT the next day. He won that.

Of all those rides I am most pleased with the National road race. That was a very tough course and I put out personal best power, and very nearly stole a march over my far younger and lighter competitor.

So, 11 months after I first tried to pedal again, and just over two years since my accident and 23 months since my amputation, that's not a bad start for my first season.

Planning for the season ahead has already started. I'm having a couple of easy weeks first though.



Thanks to Ron Bonham for the photos

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Brutal but good

Just back from a brutal road race - the National Paracycling championships being held in Murwillumbah - over same course as used for the Junior U19 men and women earlier in the day.

I am now officially tired and sore. 2nd again (4th overall in combined category race). Hard to combat those skinny kids! But I was close. They got away on the biggest climb on 1st lap of 4 (with 4 climbs each lap the last one is ~1.5km at 7-10%). Knowing there wasn't much point burying myself just to get dropped by them again, I sat up and waited for the leading tandem pair in the blind category who were only 50 m behind me and they towed me round the next three laps. It was hard enough hanging onto the tandem!

We were making ground and on the last lap (in the rain) and had them in sight, and on the penultimate climb, I said "thanks" and decided to make my move. I got to within 30m of them at the base of the final climb but couldn't quite bridge and had to watch them ride away bit by bit, so I probably finished maybe a minute down. Shame, I reckon I'd have done them in the sprint. This is same guy who won the TT by over 2.5 min, so I had a good ride but I sure needed that tandem!

Still, I was giving away 20 years and 20kg on these guys, so all up I'm pretty pleased with that effort.

2 x Silver medals at Nationals is good going less with than a year back on the bike. :D

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Silver Bullet

Well, not exactly bullet like!

Para-cycling road nationals on at the moment. TT was yesterday and road race tomorrow.

TT was good, I came second in my category (LC2) which given the hilly course I was pretty pleased with. About 2-min down on winner though, so some time to make up.

Other news of course was Jayson Austin's record breaking hour ride on the weekend, setting a new mark of 48.317km. I'll have more to write up on that in coming week(s).

That's all for now folks!

Cheerio

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New Skool

OK, a follow up to this earlier post ("Old Skool") about a local time trial (TT) I raced last month on my normal road bike.

On that ride I completed the not quite 25km undulating Calga TT course in 42:55.

I also referred to the importance of the 3 P's of riding fast TTs (well as fast as one can go):

1. Power to the pedals
2. Piercing the wind
3. Pacing the course

With power meter data, the environmental conditions known and some special mathematical wizardry, I am able to quantify each of those three Ps from my ride last month:

1. Power:
My power average was 264 watts (normalised power 268 watts).

2. Piercing the wind:
I estimated a Coefficient of Drag x Frontal Area (CdA) of 0.334 m^2. The lower the CdA, the faster you go for the same power output.

3. Pacing
My Pacing Optimisation Score was 0.990, which ranks between "excellent" and "best in class" and means that in order to attain "best in class" level of pacing, there was another ~ 13 seconds of time savings to be found on course. Those savings can be found by dosing your effort carefully on the course depending on the terrain.

Of these 3 P's, the biggest gains (in a month) were going to come from improving #2: Piercing the Wind.

My pacing is already pretty good (but always room for improvement).

As for power, well that was a bit of an unknown for a couple of reasons, one of which I'll get to in a moment. The other reason was I recently had a bad head cold and needed a full week off training. That's never a good thing when you are training well to improve your power. If you have a good amount of training behind you, it often doesn't hurt your power much, provided you allow yourself to recover properly and don't start riding hard too soon and end up prolonging the illness.

So what about piercing the wind?

After my Old Skool post, a generous offer was made by a former coaching client of mine to loan me a TT specific bike (for a while until I can sort out my own rig). That was an offer too good to refuse, so last week the bike arrived and yesterday was my first and only chance to work on getting the set up right. It even has a Powertap power meter so that was a big bonus :D.

So it was off to Centennial Park for some time riding and making adjustments to the saddle position, the bars, arm rests and so on until I felt I could ride the bike OK. Main challenge was being able to pedal without the prosthetic hitting my arm on the upstroke. It's really annoying. I got it to a stage where it was hitting slightly but not enough to ruin a ride. I will have a solution for that, which I'll write about in another post (some news coming about my new legs).

Sometimes when you go from a road bike position to a TT bike position you can lose some power as you are not used to the different joint angles and so on. Typically you are looking to maximise your aerodynamic gains without much sacrifice in ability to produce power (in the end it's maximising speed that matters). That can take quite some time to optimise as you need time to adapt to the new bike position. I didn't have that luxury as the TT was today.

Here's the loaner bike:


Bike has an aero bar set up and 38mm deep carbon rims, so not a complete aero set up (which would have a rear disk wheel and a deep section front wheel). Also, I am not as yet using an aero helmet - I used the same standard road helmet as last time as well as a skin suit.


So what happened this time?

Conditions today were very similar to last time: calm to very little wind with the same air density at 1.179 kg/m^3 (different temperature, barometric air pressure and humidity between each day but all the variations cancelled each other out to end up with air that was the same density). In other words, the two TTs can be readily compared.

My race time was 41:14, which is 1 minute 41 seconds faster than last month.

So how did the 3 P's compare to last time? Here are the numbers (with previous month's TT numbers in brackets). They allow us to assess how much each component of the Three Ps contributed to my extra speed.

1. Power:
Average: 263 watts (264 watts) - basically the same power
Normalised: 269 watts (268 watts)

2. Piercing the wind:
CdA: 0.286 m^2 (0.334 m^2) - a 14% improvement

3. Pacing the course:
Pacing Score 0.991 (0.990)
Time lost compared to Best in Class pacing: 8 seconds (13 seconds) - so a 5 second improvement through better pacing


So it's pretty clear that the vast bulk of speed improvement was due to my improved aerodynamics, all achieved simply because I was using a bike that enabled me to ride in a much more aerodynamic position. Now if you ever wondered why some riders obsess over aerodynamics - well there's your answer!

Just to put the aerodynamic changes into perspective,
that's over 4 seconds per kilometre faster for the same power.

The nice thing about this is that there are more aerodynamic improvements to be made, and one would hope that my fitness will improve and that I'll have more power available once I adapt to the TT position. As for pacing, well I seem to have that pretty well sorted.

One final comment on the day. Last time I experienced some problems with my leg fitting becoming loose and painful in the latter stages of the TT. I didn't experience the same problem today. I packed extra foam into my leg this time and conditions were a little cooler which more than likely meant less sweat build up inside the leg liner. It still works loose gradually over time but it was much better today and no significant pain.

My next TT will be at the end of April, when I tackle the challenging Mooball TT course in northern NSW. That is part of the 2009 National Paracycling Road Race Championships. Should be a hoot (although I wish it were a flatter course).

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Championship Comeback

This past weekend, I participated in the NSW State Masters Track Cycling Championships. I say participate as I was not really likely to pose a threat to the podium in any of the three events I entered.

On Friday night was the Time Trial, which for my category is a 750 metre (3-lap) blast around the Dunc Gray Velodrome. Pretty simpe event really. Once the starting gate releases your bike, you go as hard as you can until you complete the 3 laps.

I was hoping to break 62-seconds.

Just before my final warm up I went to put on my leg but something was wrong, the cleat was twisted out of place.

Thinking it was just the lower clamp bolt that for some reason was loose, I got on the bike to get the cleat angle right and have a buddy tighten the clamp for me.

Except it didn't look too good to tighten.

That's when we discovered a stress crack/fracture in the lower clamp on my prosthetic bike leg attachment which meant the lower clamp-cleat section was completely loose (you could pull it off the end of the pylon). Wasn't there day before.... I know, I gave it a good look over and clean.


Managed to carefully tighten the bolt enough so the section wouldn't move with hand pressure at the same time as to not widen the crack anymore. But I gotta say, it was at risk of major fail in the TT. Bugger it I thought. You came here to ride. If you crash, so what? I've had worse.

But it didn't fail, although I was probably a little tentative out of the gates.

I ended up going better than a 62 with a 60.646 second ride. I figure if Chris Hoy has to do 4 laps to my 3, I'm in with a shot!!

The track time trial is not my natural event but the post-accident Alex is rediscovering all things bike, and so I'm going back to riding a range of events rather than necessarily specialise at this time.

Besides, this year is all about re-building a broken body.

Fortunately, I was able to find a spare clamp on an old "foot" I had in the cupboard, so that went on the leg and all is good again. Who'd have thought you'd need spares for your leg! LOL.


Next up was the 20km Points Race on Saturday afternoon. Now this is my natural event but nowdays I have an unnatural body. So what would happen? I stuck on a pretty tall gear (for me) - a 96.4" (50x14) as I was pretty sure I would need it.

Small field of 13. Still some class riders with world and national masters champs amongst them. Mission: well just get out there and race, and what will be will be.

So with that in mind we rolled out, and before long the first of 8 sprints (which are every 10-laps of the 80-lap race) was on in earnest. Hang on, what am I doing at the pointy end? Hmmm, OK well you're in the slot, so roll with it. 2 points - hey the race has only just started and you're on the board already!

Then it started to get interesting and most of it between laps 10 and 70 is a bit of a blur. But one by one the laps ticked off and I was still there. More than half didn't finish, being spat out the back. I did end up losing a lap (and 20 points with it) along with a small group when the bunch was split. In the end, only 6 riders finished and I was thereby placed 6th, equal on points with Tony from Canberra. Somehow I even managed to help out a couple of team mates along the way. That was fun. Hard but fun.

So after that lot, I had to back up for the 3km Individual Pursuit on Sunday morning. Of course I had crunched the numbers and set myself a, for the time being, challenge of going 4:06 for the 3,000 metre event.


I did a 4:10 but that's all I had in the tank. I would liked to have ridden faster but legs doth protesteth and I knew I had to just run what I brung.

But then again, it was a 4-min power PB so one can't be too harsh on oneself.

It was good to be back.

(and before all you power meter freaks out there are worried about me not posting any data - fret not - I'll have some more techno geekery analysis to share in the next installment).

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Old Skool

Time trialling is a popular part of the sport of cycle racing. The "race of truth" is deceptively simple. Ride a set course by yourself and try to finish it in the shortest time possible. Fastest time wins. Easy.

As always with this sport, there are a number of elements that go into riding the fastest time you can. But in essence, they come down to the three P's:

1. Power to the pedals
2. Piercing the wind
3. Pacing the course

If you don't address all three "P's", you are riding sub-optimally from a "least time" perspective.

Power is all about the training you do to improve your fitness and your ability to ride harder. The power and training part of the equation is something I've written lots about on this blog.

Piercing the wind is all about the aerodynamics of your bike and especially your position on the bike. Given this is about the physical elements that resist our forward motion, I also include a few other items, like having the best tyres for the lowest rolling resistance and an efficient drivetrain so power is not "lost" between the cranks and the rear wheel.

Pacing is the skill part of the equation and is all about knowing how hard to push yourself at various times on the course. Pacing is something I've also written quite a bit about (but not here on my blog), and for which I have developed some mathematical modelling. I'll write a bit here about that one day.


Anyway, what's all this fancy pants maths got to do with "Old Skool"?

Well last weekend I rode a TT. It's our "local" TT run by the NSW branch of the Australian Time Trials Associations (ATTA) which is held on the first Sunday each month on the Calga course, about an hour's drive north of Sydney.

I decided to get back to doing some TTs for a few reasons. Firstly, since they are a race against the clock, once you have set a time then you have a benchmark for improvements. In essence you are racing only against yourself. They are an excellent fitness marker, especially when you are measuring your power output.

Secondly, I have also decided to race the paracycling national road championships (late April-early May), which includes a road TT (and a road race). So getting some similar length TTs under my belt seems like a good idea.

Finally, as I keep on with my return to the bike, I need to rediscover the type of competitive outlets that will better suit my new "body". So going back to riding many different types of events is one way to re-learn all about that.

Anyone who's ridden a TT, or even just watched one, will know that many riders use special bikes which are designed to improve the aerodynamics of the rider and bicycle. Much thought goes into this as it can result in big savings in time for the same physical effort.

However, some riders decide to ride TTs "Old Skool" style, meaning they use a standard road bike with standard wheels and helmet. No special effort is made to improve aerodynamics. That's what I did last week.

For some fun, below is the graphical summary of my ride and pacing analysis.



There's a bunch of stuff on there I won't go into today but in essence it shows the course elevation profile (it's an out and back course, with the first half mostly climbing) with elevation data obtained via two methods I won't describe here now, and two lines showing power - the yellow line is my actual power output (a 40-second rolling average) and the green line is a theoretical optimal power output for that segment of the course. By comparing the two lines you can see how well or otherwise I dosed out my effort along the way. So thats the Power and the Pacing elements.

There are also a range of other numbers shown, one of which is an estimate of my Coefficient of Aerodynamic Drag and Effective Frontal Area (CdA), which is a measure of how well (or not) I slice through the wind. Thats the "Piercing the wind" element.


OK, so how did I go?

Time: 42:55 @ 35km/h.
Average Power: 264 watts
Normalised Power: 268 watts

Not too bad given it was on standard road bike, helmet and wheels and the constantly up 'n' down Calga course. That placed me 25th out of 45 riders.

I was hoping for more like 270-280W (my first 20-min were at an average of 277W and holding myself in check) but I struggled with my prosthetic leg getting loose after about 15-20 minutes which saw 2nd half power fall somewhat and quite a bit of stump pain in the latter stages. My stump was very sore afterwards.

But that was exactly the point of the exercise - to find out the issues I face and need to fix when doing this sort of an effort. On a course like Calga, which is never flat and the power is somewhat more variable as a result, then the leg does tend to work loose a bit more quickly than say on a flatter road or on the ergobike where the effort is far steadier.

Main thing is to work on a solution for keeping my leg packed firmly in the socket during a longer hard effort. Otherwise it hurts and more importantly, you lose power. Maybe I needed to use more foam packing (which is what I'm doing at the moment). I probably didn't put enough in. Then there is the socket itself, which my rehab doc and prosthetics specialist says no longer fits properly (I have lost weight and my stump has changed its shape and volume again).

Of course I am also getting a special cycling leg made up, thanks to the generous donations and fund raising by the track cycling community here in Sydney. That is now being planned. I have the appointment to recast my stump on 2nd of April and from there we can begin the production of a new leg socket and a new general purpose leg. I can hardly wait!

So at the Calga TT next month I may be able to borrow a TT bike and see what difference it can make to my time. The analysis above shows a CdA of 0.33m^2 (square metres), which is very high for anyone doing a TT. Certainly riding on a TT bike I would expect that number to be much lower. Even at a modest 0.28m^2 (certainly readily attainable on a TT set up) I could expect to ride that same course in the same conditions (wind, temperature & air pressure) at the same power about 2-minutes faster.

We'll see.

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Team Pursuit Championships

Bicisport Team Pursuit Medallists.

14 February 2009.
22 riders.
6 teams.
3 race categories (Masters all ages, Masters 150+, Elite Women) .
1 Manager.
1 Coach (me).

2 months of weekly team preparation rides (with a break over Christmas / New Year).

When you have 22 riders all wanting to ride in Team #1, it makes for a challenging task to sort out the right combinations.

We had seasoned team pursuiters, some that had barely ridden the track before, strong riders that didn't have the pedigree in team pursuiting, seasoned team pursuit riders with form that needed to pick up, sprint oriented riders, roadies, track enduros, riders from several geographies. We had it all.

Then, once you settle on the combinations, you then need to work on the contingencies. Who are the subs to go up if a rider drops out for some reason? What is the best order of riders in a team? Where are the weaknesses and how can you minimise their impact? All good fun.

Somehow we pulled it all together and at the end of the day:

35 teams entered Championships.
6 Bicisport teams rode.
5 qualified for finals.
4 medalled.
2 Silver.
2 Gold.

2 x Championship record times set in men's qualifying and one again set in final.
Inaugral Women's event (qualified both teams for Gold final)

Bicisport now holds the State record time in both Men's masters categories and Women's elite team pursuits. For a club of ~ 75 riders, I reckon that's pretty impressive.

Cracking rides by all teams. Not a foot wrong all day. While I shouldn't pick favourites, the one that stood out for me was not the record setting rides but Team 2's qualifying ride, which saw them post 4th fastest time and qualify for the bronze ride off. Getting 2 teams into the finals in an ultra competitive category was really a highlight. They missed out in the final, getting nailed by a strong Sutherland outfit. Not to say the other rides weren't worthy, they were all tremendous.

Congrats to the Tuggeranong express train that took out the all ages final by 0.3 seconds. It was a cracker of a race and went down to the wire.

Nice work team!

Special thanks to Stuart Lane for being there at training every week to fill in the gaps as needed.

Coach exhausted.
Coach wants to ride it next year instead.

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3rd in line

I've been a bit busy of late, so my posting rate has slowed somewhat.

I was supporting some clients and buddies at the World Masters Track Cycling Championships last week as well as doing some other stuff. I'll write a bit more about that another day (it was a very successful championships for my club, my buddies and clients). Despite the "busy-ness", my training continues and so today I took myself down to Heffron Park for a criterium race.

Signed up for D-grade and it seems there were enough for a separate D-grade bunch today. Not sure how many we started with, maybe 12-15 riders. A moderate North Easterly wind kept the pace down on the back half of the circuit. It was a nice afternoon (race starts at 5pm), sunny and ~ 23 C.

Race is 14 laps of Heffron's 2.04km circuit.

Something new today - I bought a new leg liner during the week - that's the compression liner that goes over my stump and has the metal pin at the base that secures my stump into the socket. My existing one is tatty, worn and with holes appearing and getting bigger. So I swapped the pin over to the new liner and wore it in the race today. It would seem that cycling is quite tough on the liners.

One liner @ $1000 thank you very much. Ouch! So my first one only lasted a handful of months. It would seem the strategy is to have multiple liners, so that you can rotate them and allow each one a chance to recover properly before using it again. It looks as though I better save a few more pennies and get some more liners. That also means some getting extra pins sorted as well.

We keep learning....

So with the new leg liner on and a 20-min warm up on the circuit out of the way, I head to the start line and off we go for a 14 lap adventure.

I finished 3rd. Didn't want to leave you in suspense now, did I :)

Not entirely sure what to expect of myself, basically I was just there to see how I would fare. Pace was fairly steady, which was fine by me. A few surges by some enthusiastic souls who seemed to like riding into the wind. That was OK and at one point a lone rider put on an effort down the main straight. Seeing that nobody was going to go pull them back, I decided to try myself and it wasn't that hard to close the gap. They didn't last long anyway and soon we were together again.

So I just kept my nose out of the wind, noggin side up and never really had to work all that hard. Indeed at times I was just seeing how much soft pedalling/coasting I could do at various times, practicing basic race skills.

I unintentionally unclipped my prosthetic leg from the pedal a couple of times and I'm not entirely sure why, so I'll need to look into that. Since the pace wasn't on, it never really was a problem - I was able to calmly clip back in, but in a harder race it sure wouldn't help matters.

There weren't many left by the end, maybe a half dozen.

Stats:
Duration: 50:19
TSS: 83.7 (intensity factor 0.999)
Average / Norm Power: 220 watts / 240 watts
Distance: 28.566 km
Cadence (max/avg): 109 / 86 rpm
Speed (max/avg): 50.5 / 34.0 kph


So given I didn't rate that as a super hard race and I had an IF of 0.999 for 50 minutes, then it would suggest my fitness is going along OK.

I'll probably have another crack in a couple of weeks.

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Season in Review

For those interested, here’s a pic of my PMC for the season:

Endurance build phase – pretty good
Transition / mid season racing – all good and had some great form

Race prep phase – getting harder to continue CTL build with the lift in intensity. Some training/racing interruptions (mostly unavoidable) in latter stages of phase saw an unintended mini-peak for State Champs.

Final race prep (hard!), taper and competition yielding great results.

Recovery period now for a couple of weeks.

The end of the beginning...

I’m calling the National Masters Track Champs the end of my season. In reality there is no start/end of season any more, just a change of season. Focus now moves to road events and getting ready for the World Masters Track Championships in October.

So how did I go for the season?

Goals (Actual Outcome):

• October 2006: Credible performances in State Masters Road race (7th place) & Criterium (4th place & big power PBs). Very pleased with form.


• March 2007 PB in Individual Pursuit at State/National Masters Track Championships (PB at both Championships by 2.2 seconds and > 6 seconds in competition). Nice work, especially at States!


• March 2007: Improve on 2006 Points Race performances of 4th at States and crash at Nationals (4th at States but took a lap on the field and Bronze medal at Nationals). Sensational!

Other notable performances along the way:

• September 2006: 1st ever win in Div 1 Friday Night Track Racing
• October 2006: Member of Bronze medal winning team in State Team Time Trial Championships
• November 2007: Winner B Grade open Brindabella Crit
• December 2007: 1st B grader at Open Heffron Pudding Crit (only B grader left standing actually)
• January 2007: Member and Captain of winning team at State Masters Team Pursuit Championships – 1st ever State Championship win
• All summer: Multiple placing in track opens

Personal stand outs were the National Points Race result, the Team Pursuit and Mum coming along to watch me win the Brindabella crit and Dad visiting and seeing me race the track for the first time ever.
Me on the podium with Stuart Vaughan (Left) and Graeme Albon (Centre):

Other items to note:

• MAP (+11%) & TT power (+17%) lifted nicely - as measured per tests although pre-comp numbers not tested so quite possibly better than that.
• Mental approach better, more positive than before.
• Training overall significantly more consistent than before.
• Training specifically tailored to event demands and personal power profile.
• CTL peak (100 TSS/day) much higher than previously attained.

So in essence, I attained all goals set and had other success along the way. So it’s pretty hard to pick faults with that lot!
What can I improve? Lots but that’s between coach and I at the moment ;)
Other activity:

• Cranking up the coaching business and becoming an RST Associate Coach.
• Guiding Tanya’s comeback. Seeing this cancer surgery comeback kid win two National championships, a silver & a bronze was pretty special.
• Performance Manager Beta tester and associated learning.
• Starting/maintaining blog.

Looking ahead:

My racing goal(s) for remainder of 2007 remains the same:
Make the Points Race final at World Masters Track Championships
and
continue to improve on my IP performance.

I am convinced (for some reason) that continuing to improve my IP will make me a better all round rider (even though I’m not a naturally gifted IP talent). Around the same time as the Worlds are the State Road and Crit Championships. Also, making the #1 TTT squad for the State Club TTT Champs would be nice. And have a great time racing along the way.

Beyond that, it is likely I will continue to focus on the same events at the State, National and World championships through 2009.

A great season and another step up for me – thanks to everyone out there for their encouragement and support. In particular my coach (Ric Stern), all my training buddies at Tempe who were all willing me along last week, fellow competitors for keeping me honest, my friends, workmates and family who put up with this strange obsession of mine, and Andy Coggan for his influence on many things.

Looking forward to the next phase of my cycling development.

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Bailing Out

So what happened in my crit?

OK - I'm back home, back to work (thud) and still getting back to normal. So, some time to update what happened....

On Saturday afternoon I raced the National Masters Criterium championships, held in the town of Bacchus Marsh, Victoria (about 90 minutes drive North West from Melbourne). But before my race there were plenty of others, including Tanya's race in which she rode exceptionally well in a decent sized and quality field (which was good to see) and she finished up winning the Bronze medal. All that aerobic training paid off! That capped a great week for Tanya after her Gold medals at the track in the Derby and Scratch races and Silver in the 500m TT.

So my race was looming and as always I start right at the front of the field. These races can be all over red rover in the first lap if you are not attentive.

Here's a map of the circuit:

The orange shows the circuit used and arrows indicate direction. The double corner at the right (Grant St end) was the trickiest - not overly technical but with riders taking some interesting lines it made it a challenge. Certainly any race finishing in a bunch sprint would mean position exiting these corners would be critical.

I kind of figured that made the race a bit of a lottery, so I decided the best thing to do was what I normally do in these races and stay at the pointy end as much as possible, keeping in the top 10 riders and make sure I was going to be in any serious break. I pretty well managed to do that for most of the race.

Several riders attempted to force a break but there were enough willing workers to shut down any attempts (including one by yours truly) but no-one would keep an effort going. Lots of other shadow boxing along the way but nothing was sticking so it was going to end up in a bunch gallop, hence positioning was going to be critical.

With a lap and a bit to go, I was 6th wheel, pretty well perfect position to move up to 2nd or 3rd wheel before entering the final turn and to have a great shot at the sprint. I hit that double corner for the 2nd last time and, well, I left just enough space for someone to attempt an inside run (my mistake), got a bump and had to take evasive action, skipping up and over the side of a strategically placed bail of hay covering the street sign and gutter.

It was a pretty funky maneuver which entertained the crowd and would have made any MTBer proud but the end result was I was now about 15th wheel with a lap to go. Sod it!That's no man's land I'm afraid and by the time I got to exit that last corner the sprint was already well and truly on and 50 meters up the road.

Did I have the legs? Who knows? Nevermind.

Race stats are nothing to shout about - to be honest I didn't think it was all that hard a race.

Crit Nationals 31 March 2007:

CTL:_________80.2
TSB:________+23.8
Duration: ____42:38
Work: _______731 kJ
TSS: ________72.3 (intensity factor 1.009)
Norm Power: 313
VI: __________1.09
Distance: ___30.03 km

_________Min__Max__Avg
Power:____0__1190__286__ watts
Cadence:_23___128___95__ rpm (includes zeros)
Speed:___4.5__54.8__42.3_ kph

What now?

Well they say there's no rest for the wicked. Well since I'm not wicked, I get a couple of pretty easy weeks before it all starts to wind up again in prep for the Worlds in October!

A bit of time to do a season review, sort out the forward race calendar and fix all those things that need fixing. Including a PT track hub that's toast I think....

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