Seven Days, Two Time Trials

After not having raced in quite a while, I ended up scheduling two consecutive weeks of time trials, although apart from being time trials, the two races couldn't be more different.  I was really targeting the second race as my "A" race, but the first one is a local one where some bragging rights are on the line...

Highway to Heaven TT

The first of the two races was a short local hill climb time trial up the steepest local hill in the area.  The race is only about a mile long and should take under 5 minutes, but is absolutely no joke.  If done at full effort, it should hurt as bad as any long race.  My story for this race is fairly short and not particularly satisfying.  I decided to do the race on my TT bike since I had to have that all setup for the second TT and my TT bike is about the same weight as my road bike.  This was pretty unusual; almost every one does this race on a road bike.  On this particular day, this choice was probably a bad one.  Overnight, there had been a bit of rain and the course was still pretty wet in spots.  I quickly found out that traction was going to be a big problem as my back wheel spun out like crazy on the first steep pitch when I tried to stand and hammer.  I think this was probably a bit of a problem for everyone, but on my TT bike the weight is shifted forward of where it would be on a road bike, making my traction issues really bad.  I ended up placing a disappointing 5th in my category (Cat 5) with a time of 4:27 and was beaten by a large margin by a local Strava friend.  I wasn't even able to get a best personal time, which was also disappointing.  It was still a fun little race and will definitely give me some motivation for next year!

Interlude: Beach Riding Snafus

In between my two races, we had a week planned at Rehoboth on the eastern shore of Maryland.  It was a very relaxing fun vacation, with some good terrain for practicing for the flat 40K TT I had coming up at the end of the week.  It turned out to be quite the eventful week on my bike.  On my first ride of the week, I was about 20 minutes in to the ride when I heard the sound no cyclist likes to hear.  I got my first flat ever on tubular tires.  I was also embarrassingly unprepared; apart from my cell phone, I had no flat kit or spare.  I called home and was told I was walking (the kids were napping).  After walking a bit, I bit the bullet and decided to try out riding the flat tire; one minor advantage of tubular over clincher is you can ride it flat.  Fortunately, I was riding my "training" race wheel, my rear Hed 3 and had brought a disc to the beach as well.  I did end up gluing on a new tire over the course of a few nights at the beach house, which is quite the fun ordeal.  On my second ride at the beach, my power meter stopped registering mid ride.  After replacing the battery in the unit, I realized when it still didn't work that the little magnet near the bottom bracket had fallen off (after more than a year).  I was again fortunate that I had the spare gear necessary to make the fix, an extra battery and some of the tubular tire glue fixed me right up.  

Church Creek TT

My second of the two races was a 40K TT at Church Creek, MD.  This race overlaps somewhat with the Eagleman course and is similarly flat, but can be challenging due to the winds.  For this race, I had my family along (we stopped at the race on the way back from the beach), so I had some nice photo documentarians helping out.

Here's me at the school where we registered.

We then had to go about 5 miles from the registration to the race start.  My wife took these shots while driving next to me (and scaring me that she was going to drive into head on traffic with my four kids).

Here I am waiting near the start line with the kids (and prizes from boardwalk games at the beach):

 Here's me at the start line and sprinting away:

Check out the guns on that guy!  Swimming may not make me faster, but it does pay off in little ways.

Goals

Going in to the race, I had some vague goals.  From my power testing, I think my FTP is 260+ watts, so I was hoping to average 260+.  I also was hoping I might be in the ballpark of 57 minutes.  Neither of those things happened.  My power meter says I averaged 237 watts and I finished in ~58:30.  On the other hand, I felt appropriately sore afterward and felt like I gave my best effort that day, so I am not upset with the result.  Based on my heart rate average, I don't think I could have given much more, so maybe my power meter was reading low (I didn't zero it or calibrate it that morning; just forgot). 

On Your Left

In my spring TT, I was one of the first to start and ran out of targets to try to pass, which made the motivation in the last half of the race hard.  In contrast, for this race I was one of the last to start and had plenty of opportunity to pass other riders.  At the starting gate, the starter commented something like, "good luck catching that guy" since I had a minute man instead of 30 second man (there were a few no shows that thinned the group of riders who started right ahead of me).  I dead panned that I'd see him shortly.  Five minutes later I had my first pass. Roughly another five minutes and I caught the next guy.  That's how it went for the first half of the race; a pass every few minutes to help keep the motivation going.  Toward the end, it got a bit more bunched up and I could see my next target immediately after passing the previous one.  Maybe its juvenile of me, but I still find that nothing is more fun than passing people. 

Darn Rumble Strips

On the car ride to the race, I pointed out to my wife how many of these roads have these annoying rumble strips on the shoulder right where a cyclist would normally want to ride.  I told her how they come and go and can really surprise you and shake you like crazy on your bike.  Turns out this was ironically prescient.  About 5 miles from the finish, after there hadn't been rumble strips since the first couple miles, I got surprised by a rumble strip (head was probably down looking at the bike computer).  I barely managed to save myself from crashing, with my elbows getting knocked out of the aero bars and my chest hitting the bars.  On the download from my bike computer, you can see a bump where my speed falls and my heart rate skyrockets. That was the rumble strip!

Gotta Go

I was very grateful to my wife and kids for letting me do this race, so the last thing they needed was to stick around bored waiting to see the results of my race.  I met them right after the finish, packed up my gear, dropped off my race timing chip and headed out.  So at this point, I have no idea how I placed in my category.  I assume I'll find out at some point.  There is a chance I won, but it depends quite a lot on who else showed up; there are plenty of folks in the area who have done faster times as a Cat 5 than I did.

EDIT: The race results were published and I came in 3rd place.

Aero Field Testing: Is DZ Nutz?

For the first time this year I had a nice opportunity to do some aerodynamic field testing.  My bike was all setup from a race on Sunday and the weather finally was forecasting a calm day.  I also had a simple position change that I wanted to test out.  As I mentioned in my blog about my race on Sunday, I decided to try out DZs stacked hand position, guessing that it seemed faster.  So I tried a simple A/B/A/B protocol with two laps each on my half-pipe.  I believe I executed all my lessons from last year, never shifting gears, soft peddling, good turnarounds, good settings on my head unit, etc.  My bike setup was much like last year, except I was using a disc wheel this year (which actually made magnet setup easier).  Maybe at some point I'll document photos of the two positions, but for now I'll just describe them.  Position A is my "standard" setup, fairly narrow elbows with my forearms resting on my water bottle and my hands gripping the shifters.  Position B is my "stacked hands" version where I hold my left hand on the top of the water bottle and stack the right on top of that with my forearms essentially touching each other.  For reference I put a picture of my bike and front end at the end of this post.

Results:
My run results looked very clean in aerolab and were quite consistent. Ideally I would have done another couple of runs, but the magnet fell off when I did a faster higher power pass.
  A1: CdA .229
  B1: CdA .218
  A2: CdA .225
  B2: CdA .215
Conclusion: DZ is not nutz!


AeroLab Pictures

Configuration A Run #1

Configuration B Run #1

Configuration A Run #2

Configuration B Run #2

Details:
Bike+Rider: 162.5 lbs/73.7 kg
Temp: 73 degrees F
Dew Point: 46.4
Rho: 1.1850
Barometric Pressure: 29.9 Hg
Wind: NE 3-4 mph
Quarq offsets: -150, -153, -148, -149

Position Pictures

 

 

Columbia Triathlon 2012: Race Report

Yesterday morning, I raced in the Columbia Triathlon as a relay with my wife for the second year in a row.  Just like last year, I took the swim and bike legs of the relay and my wife acted as the pinch runner.  We had a great time at the race and ended up improving our times in each of the three legs.  The field at this race is pretty competitive, so even with our improved times, we only improved a little in overall place and came 6th out of the mixed relays with a time of 2:31:28.

Swim Training/Prep
I've now discussed it in a couple blog entries, but I'll mention it one more time.  This winter I increased my swim volume by quite a lot and saw some nice gains in my pool times and a good result last week in an open water swim.  This last week, some online friends suggested experimenting with various breathing patterns to increase the amount of oxygen you get during the swim.  I tried this out a few times this week during swim workouts and planned to give it a shot during the race.

Cycling Training/Prep
Last year, my goal race was Eagleman Aquavelo, a distance that I had not done well on previously on the bike and thus felt the need to have a lot of cycling volume.  This year, I didn't sign up for Eagleman or any other longer races in the spring and was focusing on increasing my speed on shorter races.  For me, this meant working on my FTP (functional threshold power) during the early season.  The reading I've done on some online resources such as Slowtwitch and the wattage forums suggested some workout (e.g. 2x20s) that were fairly time efficient on the indoor trainer.  I also started using some workout videos from "Sufferfest", which helped tremendously with the motivation to go hard when training inside.  As I did last year, I continued to track my progress using my power meter and GoldenCheetah's performance manager which was again helpful for tracking fatigue and tapering for events.  The reduced volume meant a lower total CTL, but I did see some FTP gains and felt faster on less total bike training time.

Weight
First, a little background story.  After doing well last year, quite a number of people said to me something to the effect of, "Wow, if you could only run...".  This got me thinking that maybe after 15 years of not running and being pretty healthy that maybe a little running wouldn't hurt.  Perhaps I could do a sprint with a 5K run and limit my run training volume (aquarunning?).  If I was going to run, I decided I would try to get as light as I could to limit any stress on my back and picked a 140 lbs as a goal.  In the past I had always raced at about 150 lbs, but I'd been below 140 lbs back when I played soccer in college.  In parallel, I hunted down a good neurosurgeon and setup an appointment to ask a professional how dangerous it would be for me to run.  The busy appointment schedule for the neurosurgeon meant I would have some time to work on the weight before getting his opinion.  In my normal analytical style, I went to work losing the weight by using a spreadsheet to track daily calorie deficits based loosely on the Hacker's Diet.  Here's a nice little plot showing my progress:

As a sort of proof that the world has an ironic sense of humor, I hit my goal weight of 140 lbs on the morning I had the follow up appointment with my neurosurgeon after getting an MRI of my back.  The MRI showed that my L5-S1 disc that I had surgery on twice was probably in ok shape, but that L4-L5 had a minor tear in the annulus and a herniation.  Fortunately, I was asymptomatic, but was told I'd be a fool to run and that my previous regime of avoiding running had probably saved me from additional issues so far.  Oh well, guess I'm not going to run!  On the plus side, being lighter should help my cycling speed on hilly courses like the Columbia Triathlon course.

Race Morning
I'm happy to report that finally my wave didn't go last.  Thank you race organizers.  This year they decided to put the relay wave start roughly in the middle, behind most of the age group men and before the age group women.  I was looking forward to not having to wait so long between transition setup and getting into the water.  I had a pretty good night's sleep and got up at about 5:40, made a cup of coffee to go and drove over to my standard "secret" local spot and walked the couple minutes to transition.  I had the pleasure of seeing some pros run by doing their warmups and gave a little shout out to Yoder, asking if he was going to win again and telling him I was routing for him.  I got to the transition area with plenty of time and did my standard setup: pump up the tires, tape up the holes on the aero wheels, attach the shoes to the bike, etc.  Given my earlier start time, I went over to the swim start early and watched the pros start.  I then had the first of many trips to the portajohn.  I got a bit worried by the third trip, remembering that my son had some GI issues at a party the night before.  It took till about midway into the swim before my stomach had completely settled down.

Swim: 21:34
I mentally had a stretch goal for the swim of 20:00, but thought that sub 21:00 was more realistic (last year I did 22:36).  My masters swimming friend Reg, who is a great open water swimmer, did about 20:00 last year, so my hope was to try to hang with him and see if I could do some drafting.  This worked great for the first few hundred yards.  We started the swim looking directly into the sun and I found sighting the buoys to be really difficult.  I somehow got confused for a short stretch and convinced myself that Reg was going offline.  No surprise, I was the one heading toward the wrong buoy and by the time I corrected, I had lost time and lost sight of Reg.  At that point I just got into a rhythm and tried to race at my own pace.  Once we hit the first turn and weren't looking into the sun, I managed to avoid any other navigation problems and swam the rest of the way uneventful.  I did make use of some of my new experimental breathing patterns (2:3 or 3:4 breathing) and felt pretty good by the end of the swim.  I didn't hit my goal time, but I was told that the course was probably a little longer this year, so it is more reasonable to look at overall place.   The online results don't make it especially easy to figure out, but I think I was roughly 70th out of 1700 vs 130th last year (and 5th out of the water for the relay teams).

T1: 1:39
I felt a little wobbly coming out of the water, but managed to trot over to my bike at a decent clip while taking off the top of my wetsuit.  As usual, I had to yell a bit at the crowd of people in transition to make some room, but this didn't really slow me down.  I had a touch of trouble getting the wetsuit off and had to sit down for a second.  Then I grabbed my helmet, put it on and ran off.

Bike: 1:03:20 (http://app.strava.com/rides/8931934)
The first minor challenge on the bike is to get my shoes on.  I admit that I didn't practice that much this year.  I practiced flying mounts with my shoes already clipped in four times the day before the race, even trying to pick the right spot on the course to start putting my feet in the shoes.  As usual, race day was slightly more difficult.  Maybe I should practice when my heart rate is 170+.  I waited for the first minor downhill section to start and managed to get my right foot in fine.  My left foot I managed to unclip my shoe with my foot barely in the shoe.  Fortunately, the shoe stayed with me and I managed to clip it back in and finally get the thing on my foot.  With that finally out of the way, I was ready to hammer.  I was feeling really good through the whole bike and feel like I made some improvements on my pacing.  In the past, I have had a habit of going too hard on the hills and "burning matches", which I've been advised is not the right strategy for even a hilly time trial.  While it makes sense to go a little harder up the steep sections, you want to keep your effort within a pretty narrow band.  I think this probably cost me a few strava KOMs up the climbs, but gave me a better overall time.  One other change I tried out was to use a hand over hand position based on DZ's position in the Tour of California time trial.  I had briefly experimented with this the day before the race and felt immediately comfortable doing it.  I'm sure I looked exactly like this:

I beat my previous year's time by about 1:30 and ended up with the 19th best bike split.  I was beaten by 12 of the 16 pro men, 5 of the 27 "open elite" division and one 40-44 age group athlete.  Not too shabby!

T2: 0:36
The bike to run transition is pretty easy for a relay.  I ran down the hill into transition, saw my wife waiting for me and ran to her.  She took the timing chip off my leg, put it on hers and ran off.

Fetching the Kids
My job after the bike is to go fetch my kids so we can all see my wife finish.  We live close enough to the race that this is a surprisingly easy thing to do.  I grabbed my backpack of our stuff so that we wouldn't have to come back to transition, walked my bike out of transition and hoped on for the short ride to our minivan parked just outside of the park.  I think I got to our house about 10 minutes after finishing the bike.  When I got home, I noticed two police cruisers parked outside the neighbor's house; apparently someone had tried to break into their place.  After a brief chit-chat about that, I took all my bike stuff inside, uploaded my ride to strava (KOM!), took a shower and gathered the kids into the car.  We drove the baby sitter home on the way to the park and made our way to the finish line with 10-15 minutes to spare!  With all that time to spare, I managed to forget the camera.

Run: 1:04:21
During my wife's training, she asked me one day to tell her a bit about "working through the pain".  I asked a bit more about what kind of pain; working through some muscle soreness or feeling a stitch in your side is what I assumed she was talking about.  Unfortunately, she said it was some knee and back pain.  We don't work through that kind of pain.  She was able to do some short or slower training runs without problems and thought she could make it through the race.  As we waited near the finish and she came into sight, I could see that she was in pain.  She had a grimace on her face and a limp to her stride that told me her knee was bothering her.  I was just hoping she hadn't hurt herself too badly.  Even with the injury issue, she managed to beat her time from last year by three minutes!

Post Race
After the race, we walked (my wife limped) up to the post race food and we found a nice shady spot to camp out for a bit while she recuperated.  I acted as gopher and got her and the kids food and drink.  As usual, the kids loved the treat of getting some chips and other snack food that they usually don't get.  After saying hello to a couple dozen friends who passed by, including an online friend who recognized me from my blog, I realized just how many friends I've made doing triathlons.  There was a variety of emotions, from the friends who were disappointed with their races,  to those who had placed in their divisions.  Overall, everyone seems to have enjoyed the beautiful weather we had and the well run race.

Summary
I managed to improve my swim, not quite to top 50 overall, but still clearly making strides, and I couldn't be happier with my bike.  As usual, I will compare myself with my 35-39 age group with the caveat that I didn't have to save anything for the run.  The guy who won my division (and has won the overall Celebration sprint that I had been targeting for my hypothetical run debut two years in a row) had the best swim+T1+bike time at about 1:27.  My swim+T1+bike time was about 1:26.  As one of my friends said post race (over and over), "...if only you could run...".

A friend who was describing his climbing adventure once told me a story about Ed Viesturs turning around within a few hundred meters of the peak of Everest because he had reached his turn around time limit for a safe decent.  My friend thought this was one of the bravest and smartest things he had ever heard about; to put off your year long goal within sight for safety sake.  I guess I have to be brave and smart like Ed and not do something stupid like run in a race just for some foolish pride...

EDIT: A Few Bike Shots
Someone asked about my bike setup, so here are a few shots, focusing a bit on the front end setup.

 

2012 Centennial Lake Mile Swim: Another 2nd!

 

This morning I did the Centennial Lake Mile Swim, an open water swim held at the same lake as the Columbia Triathlon swim.  This was part of my planned foray into trying out other types of races (bike, swim) than just triathlons which I can't actually complete.  While I've done a number of open water swims as part of triathlons, this was my first actual swimming race since my early elementary school days on the neighborhood swim team.  The long and short is that I had a great race, came in 2nd by .6 seconds, and came in 4th overall.  

Preperation

As I laid out in a previous blog entry, I've done a lot of work on my swimming.  For almost 6 months, with a few exceptions for travel, I've been swimming 5 times a week with my masters team and getting about 20K yards/week.  The previous year, my first doing masters at all, I had typically averaged 3 practices, so this was a substantial increase in volume. During that period I've seen my pool times come down pretty significantly and my swim form and fitness improve substantially.  This would be my first real test of just how much I'd actually improved.  Apart from fitness prep, I also upgraded my equipment in the form of a new wetsuit.  I got a good deal on a used Tyr Hurricane 5, a well regarded fast suit.  This replaced the original cheap previous model year wetsuit I got in 2005 when I didn't know if I would swim more than one time in open water.  I figure after 7 years and over a dozen events it was time to upgrade.  I practiced with the suit early this week and felt really fast.  I also like that it gives me a six-pack that I'll never get naturally.

Race Morning

I had commented in my previous entries on bike racing how much easier the logistics were than triathlon.  This swim was even easier.  The lake is about a 5 minute drive from home and the only equipment I needed was my wetsuit and goggles.  The organizers sent a timeline before the race and just wanted us there about an hour before the start.  This meant that I was able to do our normal weekend morning routine with the kids, which was especially good given that it was Mother's day and meant I didn't have to foist all the childcare work on my wife just to go race.  After helping make "mommy" breakfast in bed, we all had our own breakfast, played for a bit and headed over to the race.

Pre-Race Registration and Sand Play

After parking, the whole family walked down toward the registration tent near the swim entrance.  There was a bit of a line, so I got in line while my wife setup with the kids.  Fortunately, my kids decided that the little sandy area outside the registration tent was an ideal sandbox to play in.  Registration itself was a breeze, grab a little packet with my swim cap, get body marked, get a timing chip and I was good to go.

Swim Friends

The day before the race, the organizers sent out a list of the heats so that we would all know when we were going to start.  Looking at the list, I immediately recognized the names of three of the swimmers in the top few heats (I was assigned to heat four).  Two were swimmers from my masters team, Columbia Masters, and another was a frequent poster on online triathlon website Slowtwitch.  I introduced myself to the Slowtwitch guy (Kevin) and we had a nice little conversation.  Turns out he is coaching one of the other guys I swim with who is doing his first triathlon this year.  I then caught up with the masters team guys as well as a handful of other familiar faces from masters swim practice.  It appeared that Columbia Masters was well represented at this event.

 

Quick Warmup 

After registration, the organizers gave us a chance to get in a quick warmup in the water.  I jumped at the chance since I needed to sort out a bit of a goggle issue.  I had bought a brand new pair of goggles (same model I'd used for a while) on Friday, hoping to eliminate leaks and fog, but at practice found that the new goggles leaked and were foggy.  I managed to try out the new and old pair and figured out that the old pair was going to work better.  It was also nice to get a sense for the water temperature, which felt perfect in a wetsuit.

Strategy

In my last two bike races, there were two distinct strategies.  For one, you wanted to stay in a group so that you could draft and save energy.  In the other, you were started staggered and it was illegal to draft, so you needed to meter your effort exactly.  An open water swim like this can be a little bit of a combination.  It was a time trial start, with heats seeded with faster times first going every 15 seconds or so, which should prevent large groups.  On the other hand, it is both legal and beneficial to draft, so if you can catch up with someone ahead or if you get passed, you can save some energy by swimming right on their feet.  I wasn't sure how accurate my relatively high seeding was; they asked for pool 1650 times and I guessed 20:00.  So I didn't really know if I would be able to catch anyone or get passed, but I planned to try to draft if the opportunity arose.  In terms of effort, I figured that it was much like the bike time trial, try to give the highest even effort that you can hold for the whole race.  Unlike my triathlon swims in this lake, I wouldn't need to bike after, so there is no excuse to hold back at the end.

Start

The swim start was a time trial start done in heats of three swimmers at a time.  I was in the fourth heat, which looked like it was going to be just me for a little while till another woman showed up.  Being early but not first was nice, I got to watch the first heats run in, but didn't have to wait long myself to make the plunge.

What Happened in the Water? 22:43

Racing in open water is a little bit of a weird experience in terms of understanding what is happening during the race.  You essentially live in a little sensory bubble that doesn't extend very far around you with periodic sighting ahead that you try to limit because it takes extra energy and can slow you down.  So you are aware of any swimmers that are within about an arms length to the side or ahead and might be able to tell who they are if they are particularly distinctive (size, suit, etc).  You can also make out where the splashing is ahead of you and make a reasonable guess how far ahead they are and whether you are losing or gaining ground.

After we ran into the water, I was focused on trying to catch up to the swimmers ahead and never saw what happened to the woman who started in my heat.  Based on my result, I assume I got and stayed ahead of her, but I certainly wasn't sure of that while in the water.  By the first turn buoy a hundred yards or so into the race, I could tell I was gaining ground on one swimmer and tried to catch up to him.  A few hundred yards more into the outbound straightaway I caught and passed a non-wetsuit swimmer who I realized post-race must have been my friend Reg.  This was a good sign for me since Reg is a great open water swimmer (at a big speed disadvantage without a wetsuit, but at least in a distinct division).  By the last buoy before the turn around point, I think I had caught one other swimmer, but don't remember clearly.  In both cases of passing, I didn't stay in the draft much since I wanted to do my own faster pace.  At that point, ahead I could see what looked like a pack of splashing that I wasn't making up much ground on.

A key point in the race came when I noticed that the pack ahead was swimming to the wrong turn buoy.  The course went clockwise around two turn buoys at the far end of the course.  The group was headed toward the right most buoy.  I've done a number of other races on this lake with similar layouts, so I knew the course and figured out pretty quickly that they weren't going the right way.  I could see that there was at least one person ahead going to the correct buoy and concentrated on trying to track that person down.  The turn and the backstretch were pretty uneventful. I could see that the group had finally figured out they went the wrong way, but at this point they were going to get to the right turn buoy after me.  I was able to keep the swimmer ahead in sight, but didn't make up or lose any significant ground as far as I could tell.

A final key bit of the race came right near the final turn back to the finish.  The course goes around a small island and then back to the start.  As we got to the island, I saw my new Slowtwitch friend going by on the left.  He started ahead and must have been in the group that went the wrong way.  I finally got the opportunity to draft for a little bit and managed to stay pretty tight onto his feet.  I then noticed that he wasn't taking a good line to the finish going to the far side of a buoy that we didn't need to go around.  I hesitated a little since I didn't want to get DQ'd right at the end, but eventually decided to try to peel off and go the more direct route.  This proved slightly harder than I thought since there was another guy right behind who I almost turned into.  After avoiding him, I headed to the finish.  In the end it probably didn't matter much since I got out of the water just after those two swimmers.  I guess I should have trusted my knowledge of the course, but it can be tough to make those calls quickly on the fly, especially when you think your getting a good draft. Here's the video of me coming into the finish.

Post Race

I had been a bit concerned about how long my kids would last post race and whether I would have to leave before they announced the results.  Fortunately, the organizers had provided a nice little buffet of snacks for the racers and my kids were entertained by trying the different snacks and playing in the sand.  This gave a nice chance to chat with my friends about how the race had gone.

Awards Ceremony
I knew that I had done well, especially by making up some ground on stronger swimmers with some good navigation.  Since there were awards given for two categories, wetsuit and non-wetsuit in each age group, I'll admit that I was expecting to win.  When the announcer called my age group and said a different name for first, I was a little surprised.  While I walked over to get the second place ribbon, it registered that he announced the first and second place times as a second apart!  As I walked away and commented to my friends about how close it was, the announcer said something to the effect that it was actually just .6 seconds.  I guess my 2nd place karma is very strong.

  

Post Race Thoughts
I am extremely happy with the race.  It was low key, easy to do logistically and I had a great time.  I feel like I swam well and definitely can see the hard work paying off.   4th place overall is higher than I had any right to expect.  And 2nd place by small margins seems to be my fate.  In the last year, I have four second places in various races by a grand total of less than a minute (11 seconds, 27 seconds, 15 seconds and .6 seconds).  Next week I get to swim in the same lake as part of the Columbia Triathlon.  Maybe my relay will get 2nd place?

Hercules TT: Yet Another 2nd

Yesterday morning I raced my first individual time trial (ITT) at the C-130 Hercules Time Trial in Dover, DE.  An ITT is very similar to the bike leg of a triathlon, each rider goes off individually and races for their best time over a fixed course and drafting off of your competitors is not allowed.  I raced as a Cat5 (the intro category of bike racing) and placed 2nd, missing the Cat5 win by 15 seconds.  Cat5 can have quite a spread in abilities, especially in time trials.  ITTs don't count for getting promoted to higher categories, so some cyclists who only like to time trial (to avoid crash heavy events for example) stay Cat5.  Also, because of the similarity to triathlons, they sometimes attract strong triathletes who don't bike race much and thus are by default Cat5.

Bike Setup
The only new thing on my bike this year is a new disc wheel I bought used.  In theory this should be a little bit faster than my previous race wheels.  Here's what my ride looked like after a little pre-race wash down and tune up:

 
Race Morning Commute
When I signed up for the race, I saw that it was in DE and thought "that's about an hour away".  A couple days before the race I looked up directions and realized the race was all the way on the eastern shore, more like two hours away.  The race director sent out start times and I had an early start time at 9:03, so I decided I needed to leave at 6am or so.  Fortunately, that early there isn't traffic over the Bay Bridge, so the drive went quite smoothly.  I even followed another racer (obvious from the TT gear in his car) for 30 minutes or so till I needed to stop for gas.

Setup and Warmup
Not having raced like this before, I wasn't exactly sure what to bring and erred on the side of bringing just about all my worldly bike stuff in my little Audi TT.  I was told that lots of people warmup on trainers (which was true), I brought my trainer and a training wheel just in case.  I also had some minor concerns about the race number; I received some advice about how to put it on aerodynamically (spray glue + pins) that sounded a bit involved.  In the end, everything proved to be simpler than I had originally thought.  I put the wheels on my bike, pumped them up to pressure, taped over the valve hole cutouts and the bike was good to go.  I sprayed my race number with the glue, let it dry and stuck it on my tri-suit while wearing it to ensure a nice flat fit.  I then went to the bathroom, took off the tri-suit, added some pins from the inside to secure it (and because the rules say there must be pins).  When I checked in, I had asked about warming up and was told that there was a nice stretch of road the opposite direction from the course.  So after setting up everything I went and warmed up for about 15-20 minutes with a couple of short race effort intervals.

Race Strategy
An ITT isn't very exciting as a race.  Unless you happen to start near one of your competitors and get passed or pass them, you don't have any idea how you are doing relative to the field till the end.  The challenge is to give it your best effort and hope that is enough.  Since we started in alphabetical order of last names, I started second of the Cat5s, behind a half dozen or so juniors, meaning that I would have almost no idea how I was doing relative to the field unless I was getting passed.  In theory, with my power meter on the bike the best strategy is to stay at an even effort of my 1-hour max power.  I'd been given the advice that you need to be careful not to go out too fast, since it is easy to feel good at the beginning and fade.  Instead, I was advised to go a little easier at the beginning and try to crush the last 2 miles.

Race Course
I wish I had brought my camera to the race (pretty dumb for someone planning to blog about it afterward).  This race starts at the Air Mobility Control museum at the Dover Air Force Base in a big airfield with a dozen or so huge planes.  The time trial itself starts out of the back of a C-130.  To give an idea of what that looks like, here is another racer who posted his picture.  NOTE: THIS IS NOT ME!

The course itself consisted of about a quarter mile or so to exit the museum grounds and then an out and back along a pretty flat north-south stretch of Rt 9.  The finish line was a little before the entrance to the museum on Rt 9, so the back leg was a bit shorter (something I didn't realize till the end).

The Race Itself (http://app.strava.com/rides/7923876)
We lined up outside the side entrance to the C-130 in the order we were scheduled to start.  The plane held about 4-5 riders at a time queued up getting ready to start at 30 second intervals.  Since I was one of the early starters, I was in the plane almost right away.  The starter held my bike so I can start clipped in and warns me that the ramp is pretty steep and I'm off.  After navigating the turns and a bus that almost backed into me, I got out onto Rt 9 and tried to establish a nice tempo, reminding myself to take it easy.  I looked at my heart rate and saw I was at 180 bpm!  I figured high 170s was probably sustainable and tried to settle down a bit.  The rest of the race was pretty uneventful.  I passed the guy who went off 30 seconds ahead about 3-4 minutes into the course, which was a little unexpected (I think he was on a road bike).  I then passed another three or four guys on the outbound leg which was pretty motivating.  Near the turnaround, I got an idea of how far ahead the riders ahead were and could see that all but one were way out of range.  My goal for the back would be to catch that one guy.  I took the turnaround a bit gingerly; I think I actually went around the far side of a cone that I didn't have to just to be sure I wasn't cutting the course.  I think the wind was a fairly consistent 5-10 mph from the east, meaning it was a crosswind for pretty much the whole course.  I remember thinking that I was going into a slight headwind on the out leg and hoping to get a helping wind on the way back.  At the turnaround I quickly realized that if anything the opposite was true and the wind was hurting slightly more on the back leg.  I did manage to catch the guy I was shooting to catch on the back leg; he was a junior on a road bike with clip-on aerobars and a road helmet going at a pretty impressive pace for that setup.  I had been holding back a touch in order to be able to go all out with 2 miles to go as planned.  A minor glitch in this plan was that I had assumed the back leg was the same length as the out leg, but it was actually about a half mile short, so I feel like I ended up with a little left in the tank.  I was actually slightly confused at the finish; after passing the finish line I wasn't 100% sure I was really done and still kept going fairly hard returning to the museum parking lot.
  Time: 48:30
  Distance: 21 miles
  Avg Speed: 25.8 mph
  Avg Heart Rate: 177 bpm
  Avg Power: 258 watts

Results: The Waiting Game
I knew from my bike computer that my time was about 48:30 and that would have placed reasonably well in some previous years, so I figured I should stick around to see how I had done.  I put away my bike, packed up my other stuff and changed out of my bike clothes and was good to go by 10 am.  I called home to make sure I didn't need to rush back and then hung out near the registration desk, periodically chatting with other riders who wandered by.  A saw a number of other riders doing post race cool downs on their trainers, with one notable guy a couple cars away lamenting how sore he was.  Eventually, the race organizers brought back the results for the juniors and "preliminary" results for the Cat 5 riders.  Seeing that I had placed 2nd on the preliminary results, I figured I would wait to get my medal, but they wouldn't give those out till there were "final" results.  I figured that wouldn't be too long.  In the meantime, I found out the guy who beat me by 15 seconds was the sore guy.  I wasn't sore at all.  Hmm.  It felt pretty hard while I was doing it, but maybe I didn't go hard enough. By 11:30, I decided I needed to just bail and drove home.  Maybe they will send me the medal if I send them postage.

05/07/2012 Edit: Official Results
The official results were posted after I wrote this entry originally:
https://www.usacycling.org/results/?year=2012&id=982&info_id=47693 
Looking at the overall results, my time was about 28th best of of ~150 racers when you include all categories.  Somehow that doesn't sound quite as good as "2nd".  Also, those results don't yet seem to include the Cat1/2 guys who I would assume all beat me, so my real overall place is probably a bit lower.

Carl Dolan Memorial Bike Race

This year I decided to branch out a little from triathlon and also try a little bit of single event type racing.  I signed up for a bike race and an open water swim, with the idea that I might try some more of either one if I found them particularly entertaining.  This morning was my first ever bike race, the 19th Annual Carl Dolan Memorial, a Criterium (or "crit") race that is located in Columbia.  A "crit" is a group bike race that does a number of laps around a relatively short loop.  Depending on who you talk to, there is an element of danger to riding crits and crashing; riding in a relatively tight pack at high speeds into corners can be a bit dicey, especially with a group of other relatively inexperienced cyclists.  I was also forewarned that unlike triathlons where a sizable fraction of the field is not trying to win, but just trying to have a good race and maybe do a best time, the point of a crit is to win and just about the whole field at least in the back of their minds thinks they have a chance of winning.  As a new racer, I would race as a "Cat5", which is the lowest category of bike racing.  In theory, if you do more races, you can upgrade to higher categories, but everyone starts as Cat5, regardless of their cycling skill level. 

Goals
Never having bike raced, I had no idea how I would stack up to the Cat5 field.  I thought I was likely to be pretty aerobically strong compared to other "beginner" bike racers, but wasn't even 100% sure I wouldn't get dropped by the field.  From everything I've heard, road bike racers (roadies) are pretty serious.  My primary goals for this race were to avoid crashing, to find out what it felt like to ride in tight quarters in a big pack (I'd done some group rides, but nothing like this big and fast), and to figure out how strong I was compared to Cat5 bike racers.  I also had the side goal of trying to get in a good workout (I'm still training for triathlons too).  And of course, like every Cat5, I had it in the back of my mind to win the race!

Bike Setup
Since I bought my new tri-bike a year and a half ago, my old road bike has become mostly my trainer/bad weather bike after swapping aero-bars for normal road bars  I certainly don't baby it anymore; it is pretty darn dirty.  Good thing it is black.  I had a little internal debate about what wheels to race on.  On the one hand, I went to the trouble of buying Hed3 race wheels and some nice high end low rolling resistance tires for my triathlons.  On the other hand, Hed3s scream "triathlete" (not a well respected term among road cyclists) and aren't even legal in some road races (UCI rules don't allow them, but USAC do).  The aerodynamic advantages of nice wheels aren't as big a deal in road races where you spend most of the time in a pack.  Also, racing the Hed3s would mean not having a power meter, which just seemed lame given that I own two of the darn things (a PowerTap and a Quarq).  I would have switched my Quarq to the road bike, but my road bike uses a different type of bottom bracket than my tri bike(one more reason to get  a new bike?!).  After some back and forth, I decided on the Hed3s and think they look pretty cool.  I gave the bike a nice wash and tune-up yesterday to get it ready for the race.  I actually wanted to drop the handlebars a bit, but the spacers were so encrusted with gunk that I couldn't manage it.

Race Morning
One plus side of bike racing vs. triathlons is that there isn't so much overhead.  You just show up with your bike, sign in, maybe warm up a bit, race, pack up and go home.  Still, I was a little nervous, so I made sure to show up slightly earlier than was required.  My race was supposed to start at 8:45, so after some breakfast I left the house around 7:00 and got to the location before 7:30.  Check-in was easy and smooth, although I then spent the next 30 minutes trying to figure out how the stupid race number goes on the jersey.  I literally pinned the thing on three times.  The first two times I was informed that I had the numbers facing the wrong way (up and then right respectively).  While setting up next to my car I had a little chat with a 10 year old (and his mom and dad) who was also doing his first bike race.  They did inform me that it wasn't his first ever race, just his first bike race; he had done lots of triathlons!

Warm Up/Scouting the Course
The race was on a 2.1 mile loop in an office park going clockwise.  This meant that the counter-clockwise loop was empty (except for very light car traffic) and could be used for warming up.  I took the opportunity to do 3 laps to both warm up and scout out what the course looked like.  The loop was mostly flat, with a couple minor rolling hills and one gradual but deceptively long hill to the finish line.  I did one lap relatively hard to both get myself loose and to have an idea how fast I might be able to do solo.  While warming up, I also got to see the junior race going on in the other direction.  It was very spread out, which makes sense given the large age ranges and likely skill levels.  You could tell there was just one real corner to the course; a hard right turn after a gradual downhill section.

Race Start/Lap 1
After a brief intro from the race organizer, we were sent off as a group.  I lined up a few rows back and we were off as a large pack.  For those unfamiliar, unlike triathlons, it is both legal and expected to draft in this type of bike race and there is a huge advantage to being in the pack.  Being inside the pack can save 30-40% of your energy for the same speed vs. riding alone.  Strategically, the way the vast majority of bike races like this are won is to save all your energy by staying in the pack, and then sprinting to the finish over the last couple hundred meters or so.  Sometimes a small group of a few strong riders manage to break away and have someone from the group win, but that is much rarer.  For the first lap, I stayed in the pack and just enjoyed the experience of being in the "peloton".  A pack of 50 riders makes a really cool noise from the inside.  We were rolling along pretty fast by a casual ride standard, but the effort seemed pretty easy still.

Lap2-4:Breaking Away?
After we crested the hill and passed the finish line on the first lap, there was a small downhill section.  I found myself naturally passing the field on the left as I got a bit of a slingshot from the draft.  Against all reasonable race tactics, I decided to take a flyer and see if I could go off the front solo.  With the momentum I had, I got a gap pretty easily and found myself flying along right behind the pace car (how cool is it to have a pace car!).  One big advantage of the solo break; I wasn't at all concerned about any dangers of the corner.  I'm not entirely sure how big a gap I got, I think it was probably a couple of hundred yards.  I then held that gap for about two full laps, which was pretty fun and probably really stupid.  I wasn't gaining any ground on the field and was solo pushing 24-25 mph average for over 10 minutes.  Near the finish of the third lap, I thought the field was catching me, which I was pretty much fine with.  However, it turned out to be just one dude.  I grabbed his wheel pretty easily and enjoyed a little respite.  After about a minute, he does the classic elbow flick and moves over to let me take a pull.  I stayed on his wheel and commented that I wasn't planning on pulling.  He rightly commented that there was no point to staying away then, so I rethought the idea and agreed to work with him.  I thought it was pretty funny that when I came around to pull he asked me not to push the pace too hard.  Seemed a bit confused strategically (as if I am one to complain at that point).  We managed to make it past the corner (so I got three non-group laps of corners) and then a bit past there he said he didn't think the break would stick.  I agreed and sat up; I was looking forward to trying out riding in the pack again anyway and getting back that 30-40% energy savings.

Why did I do it?  While it was pretty dumb from a strategic standpoint and surely left me worse off for the rest of the race, I had wanted to see how strong I was compared to the field (was I strong enough to just ride the whole thing solo? answer: no!) and I wanted to see what it was like to be in a break and how big a difference there really was between solo and pack riding.  It sure does give some appreciation for those Tour de France guys.

Lap5-8: Sitting In
After my stint in the break, I was looking forward to "sitting in"; staying in the pack and saving some energy.  I figured maybe if I rested a bit I could give it another shot at the end.  As with the first lap, I found that riding in the pack was no problem.  There were a couple of very minor scares as inexperienced folks (myself included) jockeyed for holding a particular wheel, but nothing that felt really dangerous.  Even the one corner was starting to feel pretty mundane; there was a wide enough left shoulder that you didn't really have to take the corner that sharply.   I still wasn't racing "smart".  There were two other times that a single guy broke away by a little bit.  Both times, I chased them down.  I believe (although I admit I'm not 100% sure) that the first was for a "prime", which is an intermediate lap prize.  After I caught him and held his wheel, I just stayed in his draft through the line.  I suspect I could have come over the top, but wasn't even sure it was a prime and wasn't that interested in the prime.  I just didn't want someone else to win in a break without me.  Both chase downs were pretty clearly a waste of energy, oh well.

Lap 9: Final Lap
In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best strategy, but I wanted one more try at seeing whether I could hold off the field on a solo break.  About halfway in to the lap, I got a little momentum going and made a jump to get off the front.  At this point, you could here someone yell a little warning "on the right", which I guess is letting the field know someone has jumped.  I managed to gap the field, but seem to have picked up one big dude who managed to go with me.  We hit the final corner, which I intentionally took a bit wide and then grabbed the wheel of the dude who had broken with me.  I sure wasn't planning on leading out someone else to the victory.  At this point we had a bit of a gap, but it wasn't huge.  He was starting to blow up and the field was closing, so I made one more go at it and tried to power up the final hill.  About 400 meters out, the front of the field caught me and I sat up and took it pretty easy the rest of the way to the finish.  It was clear I wasn't going to win and I sure wasn't going to mix it up going for 10th.  Turns out that wasn't a bad decision, although I didn't see it, there was a crash of 3 or 4 guys, including one guy who probably broke his collar bone.

Conclusions
I was very happy with this race.  I didn't win or place that well, but I had a great time.  I learned what it was like to ride at speed in a peloton and found I was comfortable doing it.  I learned what it was like to try a break and learned how hard it really is to make that work.  I also learned that I definitely have the bike strength to do ok in these types of races.  It would be stupid to conclude that I was the strongest in the field and just strategically bad.  For all I know the guy who won is both stronger and better strategically.    However, it was pretty clear that I was plenty strong to compete if I actually used some more reasonable strategically.  I also got a pretty darn good workout in.  For the curious, here is a look at the ride data from my garmin: http://app.strava.com/rides/6794852.

The Keys!
After the race I bike over to my car and start to pack up to go.  Bike in the car: check.  Helmet, gloves, bike shoes in the car: check.  Jersey in the car: check.  Close trunk: beep, the car locks.  Oh oh!  I realize my keys were in my bike jersey and I just locked them in my car.  For whatever reason, I had my cell phone still in my hand, so that saved my bacon (that and my lovely wife).  After a bit of a panic when I didn't get through to my wife at home or on her cell, I wandered around and started asking the organizers about AAA, or the some equivalent car mechanis.  Fortunately, after a few minutes I tried calling my wife and she very graciously volunteered to drive home, get my spare keys and rescue me.  This actually gave me a few minutes to sit around and chat with the other cyclists and even watch the end of the race after mine.  That was pretty cool.  In the end, it worked out fine.

Edit: Video
Just noticed that the winner of my race put up some video from the race on youtube.  It is pretty neat to see the race from that perspective and to see how this kind of race is won.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOKYaThT4dY  You can see me a bunch of times.  I'm the guy in the grey shorts.  You can see me pretty well about 35 seconds in, then 1:20 in, then at 2:20 I pass on the right going for my break, then at just about 4:00 you can see them catch and pass me. 

Edit2: More found photos
Amazing how much stuff there is if you google around a bit.  Found some very nice photos of the race.  Here is a sequence showing me covering the attack I mentioned:

  Too bad that wasn't the last lap!  For more images from the race, you can see: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115936314143919029140/albums/5732008639623777969