La Crosse uphill Time Trial and Criterium

It's later in the day after the Road race, I just got up from taking a nap, and I'm ready to crush it. There is a Time trail now, it's short and uphill. The course goes up a brutal hill called grandads bluff. This photo doesn't do the hill justice, but it does give you an idea of just how hard it is.

 
We are staying with some people who live just a few blocks away from the bluff, so we ride over to the course. Its raining, and there is a chance of thunderstorms so the judges postpone the start by a half hour. My warm up is is screwed up a little bit by this, but nothing I can't handle. I'm racing cat 4's and I'm the first one to start. I still start after all the juniors though, so one by one I watch my team mates go. Finally, it's my turn, and I come up to the line. I tensely wait as the official counts down. 30 seconds... 15... 10... 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!

I concentrate on getting my momentum up, and in my focus to get going I overshoot my speed a little bit. I look down and my speed is at 28kph. Too fast for my sloppy warm up to handle, so I sit down and reign in the pace a little bit as my legs start to burn. After I get over the first little steep section and around the corner I start to speed up again. It's down to about 5-6% now. I feel like I'm pedaling boxes though, so I stand up. Still feels a little bit funny... I shift into my big ring and everything clicks. I go from 22kph to 25kph (12-15mph). I feel really good, I'm completely in control and this hill is perfect for me. I keep on increasing my pace, trying to see how far I can push it before it starts to hurt. It still doesn't hurt, I wonder if maybe I'm not going fast enough... so I keep speeding up.

As I get closer to the top, I can hear people cheering loudly. It's the corner by the bar, and a lot of slightly intoxicated people are making some noise. I come into the corner, and pound up the steep 10% pitch, still in my big ring and spinning. I get to the top and in to the roller section. Downhill, accelerate! 30k, 35k, 40k!  I come into the next rise and concentrate on keeping as much of my momentum as possible. I accelerate off the top again. I see some of my team mates, coming down after their race. "GO JOSEY!" "Aiiiieee!" they shout. Soon I can see the finish line, I put a HUGE effort in and pound it into the finish, going 52kph on a slight uphill! I look down as I cross, 9:14. The record time (set by a national Time Trial Champ) is 8:20! I come back down, feeling very good about my time. Later I find out that I won cat 4's! I also would have placed 6th in cat 3's. The results had my time down as 9:19, which is a little longer than it was, but that's ok.

The next day was the Criterium. I felt a little tired from the previous day, so I did a good long warm up. I lined up with my one team mate in cat 4s, Joe. The official runs us through the rules, and its go time! right off the bat, on the second lap there is a attack. I chase it down, I don't want anyone getting away unless it has me or Joe in it.

At first I'm a little slow to respond on the attacks, but after a while I start to warm up and feel good. Every lap I come around in second wheel. I want to stay up here where I have the most reaction time for attacks, and where there is less chance of crashing. The rest of the 40 minute Crit goes well, I feel strong and reacting to the attacks is easy. A few of them are particularly fast, and I have to dig deep, but I soon recover. Coming in with three laps to go on the 1 mile or so course, it starts to get chaotic. Everyone wants to be in the front, but no one wants to go fast enough to string people out. I try to choose the right wheel, but get boxed in. Coming around the final corner I manage to get a few spots, and I gain a few in the sprint to get 10th by a tire width. However, Joe managed to win the sprint!

Thanks to Joe Horvath for the awesome picture, here is his website.

La Crosse Omnium Road race

Last weekend I did my first road race of the year. "Road race" is a confusing term, it is usually used as a term for bike racing on "roads" in general. More specifically, it means a mass start race that goes for a certain distance (other types include: a Criterium, which is a mass start race done around a short course for a certain amount of time, and a Time trial, which is a individual race where you are timed on a course, usually out and back or point to point). Technically, it has to be "point to point" to be a Road race, if it's on a loop more than 10 miles it's called a "Circuit race". However, most Road races are Circuit races due to different categories racing different lengths and the expenses of closing down large amounts of road. Thus, the term "Road race" has become synonym for "Circuit race" unless specified as "point to point" in amateur racing. Unlike Criteriums (unless the race is a really major one) roads will not be fully closed. The pack is subject to the "yellow line rule", which simply means we have to stay on our side of the road, and not cross the yellow line. this rule is strictly enforced by a official on a motorcycle, who rides behind the pack.

Although there is a Criterium nearly every weekend, not many road races are put on in the Midwest. As a result, I do not have much experience with Road races. This made me a little nervous at the start. At first, the pace was very chill.You could hear people chit-chatting with each other. It's a 43 mile race, and no one will get away, and stay away this early. After the first few miles, attacks start happening. I and a few others react to them, and pull them back. After a few tries, I get away with one other rider.

"You want to go for it?" he says. "Sure." I say, "Why not." We stay away long enough to lead into the long, 45 mph downhill. It's VERY important to be at the front on a fast downhill, especially in the low categories, as a crash can have serious consequences at such high speeds. We get to the bottom without incident, everyone is fine. As we get closer and closer to the uphill, I can detect nervousness in the pack. It's a long one, its going to hurt, people will get dropped, and a attack could get a big enough gap to stay away for the three lap race.

As we reach the bottom of the climb, a rider goes to the front and drills it. If he can keep the pace high enough here, at his strong point, he can put pressure on his competition, shave off the weak riders, and maybe even split the field. However, he misjudged his effort. He starts to slow down, and falls back. this is my strong area as well, so I take to the front and do the pace making for the rest of the hill. I am strong enough to string out the field, and even drop a few riders. Once the front of the pack makes it to the top, we try and organize a pace line to prevent riders who have been dropped catching back on. However most of these riders are inexperienced, so despite my and a few others efforts, the pace line falls apart and everyone re-groups.

The next time up goes much the same, I got to the front and drilled it and some more damage was done to the field, dropping more riders. Once we get close to the third time up, I make a attack, and get away with a small gap, but my inexperience cost me, I attacked in the wrong spot, and was caught shortly. The third time up the hill more riders are dropped, and the field has gone from 60 riders to about 25. I position myself well coming in to the sprint, but a crash happens in the final quarter mile. I narrowly avoid going down as riders go over the bars and get run over by others right in front of me. I lost all my momentum, and I am the last rider in the group to reach the line who avoided the crash. I still place 16th.

Colorado rocky mountain high!

Sixteen hours is a long time to spend in a car. I am very experienced with long car drives but the drive to Colorado always gets me. First off, you go through pretty much the most boring part of America for almost the entire trip. Don't get me wrong, I love Iowa! There is some really amazing (and unfortunately polluted) crick bottoms, groves,  and old homesteads. However on the free way you don't get to see this side of Iowa, just the "new and improved" look, (and smell) of corporate America shoved in your face for 8 hours, which stinks. Literally. Of course, after you get through Iowa, it only gets worse in Nebraska.
However, the last few hours of the drive puts you in eastern Colorado. At first its just cows and empty space. A literal and cultural desert. However our shortcut takes us through a giant protected grasslands, which is absolutely mind blowing. Golden prairie stretched over flowing hills for farther than the eye can see. If we time it right, we even get to see the sun setting behind the mountains in the distance. Once we finally arrive in Fort Collins Colorado, its usually eight or ten 'o clock.

The first day in Colorado, I just did a recovery ride and chilled. We do the the testing right away, on the second full day in Colorado, before my body has time to "freak out" about being at five thousand feet where the oxygen level is much lower than I'm used to. This time, Inigo has moved to a new building, a Wellness center. Its still not fully finished, but as Andy shows me around, I'm amazed. the place is awesome! The first thing I notice is the floating stairs. structural concrete allows them to have no supports, which looks pretty cool.  There is a kitchen classroom for teaching healthy cooking, a fully organic mini-restaurant, a hydroponic herb garden, a indoor running track with paneling around it that changes color from peoples body heat as they run by, windows that let light in but not heat, and a bunch of other really cool stuff that I don't have time to mention. I step into Inigo's office/lab, and look at the familiar memorabilia in a unfamiliar room. Inigo is still getting used to the new set up, therefor things are a bit clumsy, but the whole set up is much nicer.

After we get the Ergometer set up and I change, I get on and warm up. Inigo begins the test. I concentrate on getting into a rhythm. Last time I wasted energy by flailing around and I'm determined not to do that this time. Once I'm in the zone, my perception of time changes. Everything happens slower, but passes quickly. After a while, he ramps it up to a level where it starts to hurt. I just concentrate on keeping my technique smooth. I hear a lot of encouragement, Inigo saying "good job Joey, keep pedaling, dah, dah, dah." Andy saying "come on Josey, great job, your doing really good, stay smooth, keep that cadence up!". eventually it gets to a level were I start to lose my control over myself. I slow down, then speed back up as I try to keep at it. About a minute after this starts, Inigo says "Ok, that's enough, he's done." and switches off the machine. I practically collapse with exhaustion as Inigo keeps my legs pedaling in circles. "Great job Josey! that was a awesome test!" says Andy. "you KILLED it man!".

After I'm changed and cleaned up with a recovery bottle in hand, I sit down as Inigo explains what happened. So the whole basis of this test is I'm measuring the amount of lactate in my blood at different efforts, and comparing it to my heart rate to determine training zones. I start out on the stationary bike pedaling 1.5 watts per kilogram or so (watts are a measurement of how much force your putting into the pedals). Inigo pricks my ear for blood, then measures the amount of lactate in my blood. Then he ramps it up to 2 watt per kilogram, where I pedal that for 5 minutes at 85-95 rpm. He then pricks my ear again, ramps it up to 2.5 watts per kilogram, and so on. I keep pedaling until I get to my threshold. So, you ask, how did I improve? Well, here is what happened. When I reached 3.5 watts per kilogram, I was at half the amount of lactate I had been at last time I tested. So Inigo extended my length in 3.5 to ten minutes, the "big boy length". I then proceeded to make it all the way to the level I did last time, while doing ten minute intervals instead of five. Most importantly however, the amount of lactate that I increased by after each ramp-up was dramatically decreased. I also improved other things, like my Vo2 max and fat/cho oxidation rate, but I won't go into that.
After the test, It was time to let it rip!

I did a epic mountain bike ride with friends:

And then got sick... which sucked... a lot...

However I took really good care of my self (not to mention got taken care of, thank you Dad and Andy!), and recovered soon enough to also do a epic road bike ride. It stinked that I got sick, but I accomplished everything I wanted to, and had another really fun Colorado trip!

P.S, sorry about the red sections, Blogger was glitching out and not displaying those sections of font, so I had to change the color.

Back on the Bike

When I first got on the bike, Things hurt. I could say it more eloquently, but that's just what it is. I was overconfident for just coming off of three weeks on the couch and decided I would jump right back in where I left off. Dad had been riding the entire time I was resting and was in good shape. I can't remember who's idea it was, but we decided to do the J Cook Loop. Despite being a short loop at only a hour and a half, it's the hilliest road we have on this side of spirit mountain and the staple of all our hardest routes. Probably not the best place to start off with right?

The first thing I noticed when I got on my bike was how weird things felt. My bike was alien, unfamiliar. I really didn't like that at all, but I was happy to be biking anyways. We were not going very fast, yet I felt like I was on a rocket! We stopped a few times to adjust my position and some the discomfort went away. I had grown quite a bit since the last time I had ridden, and only now do I realize the cause of that feeling was all the growth I had experienced during my off period. Not some complete loss of my biking instinct. As it was, I adapted to things quickly and by the end of the day almost felt normal on my bike again. I could tell I had lost fitness but I could feel all the raw strength I had gained in my rest period. At every small hill I would stand up and bash gears I had struggled with during my peak last year. Then gasp for breath at the top as my cardiovascular system tried to catch up.

Once I learned to pace myself, the hills did not feel to bad. I was going very slow, but that's to be expected after a off period. After a while though, I started to bonk. I won't go into details, but lets just say it was the worst bonk I had ever experienced... so bad that a mile away from my house I did not think I could make it. Once I got home, drank my recovery drink, taken a nice long shower, and eaten a huge carb-rich meal I felt much better. I decided to try and build things up a little more before trying that loop again.

A month later, much has changed. I have switched to the metric system and now measure my rides in kilometers. Mentally it has been refreshing, allowing me to concentrate on how fast I am going now, not how fast I had gone. I also got my blood tested. While I was low on Vitamin D, most of my levels were fine. However, when Inigo got my blood results, he found that for a athlete my Iron was too low. This was preventing my body from creating enough red blood cells, which was causing my difficulty up hills. Since then I have been taking a Iron supplement, and recently I have noticed a significant improvement. I just did my fastest three hour ride ever, despite feeling a little off. I expect the next one will be even faster.

Building up from almost nothing right after being in the shape of my life was frustrating to say the least. However I am already almost faster now then I was then. Once it's time to race, I will be ready, ready to rip it up.

I had some posting difficulties with this one, I thought it was posted, but it wasn't. Sorry about the delay!

The importance of rest.

Three weeks off. Beforehand it seemed like such a insignificant amount of time, surely I wouldn't be ready to train and race again for entire year after only three weeks? Time is a funny thing though... normally when you do little for a period of time, it passes by fast and passes by slowly when your doing a lot. This is not the case for me when I'm away from my bike. After a week, I find my myself questioning my coaches orders. The first week had felt like a month! Enjoyable as it was, and as much as I didn't want to train yet, I really just wanted to go out and ride. Andy and Dad were firm however, and I relented.

I entertained myself with  some walks in the woods with Mom and the dogs:

Setting up a pimpin sound system:

And Reading some books:

I found myself really tired all the time, even after ten and a half hours of sleep. Dad checked my height, and found I had grown nearly two inches since nationals. "See?" Dad says, "See what your body does when you give it its rest?". For a passionate cyclist, rest can be hard. We feel like we are falling behind, and when we get back on the bike to find we feel like crud, it gets hard.

Rest is improtant though. Our bodies can't keep going and going like some giant energizer bunny on a bike. While I may have regretted it a bit when I got back on the bike and winced at how soft my legs felt, after a week I am glad I have such wise people telling me to park the bike for a little bit.

2011 Season: A summary.

Another season gone by. Every time I begin a new one I have a long list of things that I will be better at, things to improve upon. Each time is like a fresh sheet of paper ready to be written on. When the season is over I always have a hard time keeping things in perspective and appreciating what I have accomplished. Each time I get better and better at taking a step back and seeing my season for what it was. Call it maturity, call it experience, or maybe just a result of my Dad explaining how much I accomplished each season, time after time. This year a lot has changed. I have a coach now. I bike nearly every day and race nearly every weekend. I have grown, improved, and matured in bounds and leaps. My life style has changed from merely unusual, to completly alien. Yet I know I am on the right path. Whenever I stop biking, things feel strange, unfocused, and lazy. Even after 5000 miles and 60 races I find myself longing for the feel of a bike underneath me when not even three weeks has past since my last race.

I had some really great races this year! at Tour of Americas Dairyland I got to experience a week of what my career will be like eventually. Get up in the morning, eat, go race, eat, come back... eat some more, play video games and discuss the race with team mates, sleep, and do it over again the next day (Thanks  Labecki's)!

I did midwest regional camp, where I got to stay in a college dorm with other riders and bike every day, independently, without my parents around to support me. 

(No pictures of this :P)

I was able to sit comfortably in the front of a cat 4's pack going 25-30 mph in the last few crits (a surreal experience).

I had a incredible race at short and fat, where I stayed with the front pack of all the best MTB juniors in the region for a good part of the race, and finished 17th overall out of 800 starter, first in my age class. 

I won my first cat 4 cross race.

Had all kinds of muddy races.

Madison and Fort Collins USGP.

Jinglecross rock.

National championships 15-16

And a fantastic national championships.

I started out this spring not even able to stay in a cat 4s pack for 10 miles, but by the end of my road season I was in contention to podium cat 4 criteriums. I had not even been able to place top 15 in a cat 4s race in cross, but now I am doing better than that in cat 3's, with several cat 4 podiums under my belt. I can time trial 2 mph faster, and sprint at 30 mph. I have joined a new team (ISCorp), made many friends, and been taught by experienced people. In short, I have had the best season yet.

A big thanks to: My parents, for there eternal and essential support, Andy for being the Obi-wan Kenobi in my life, Whitey, Ross, Geezer and the gang at Skihut for all the repairs, parts, and bikes. Last but not least my awesome team ISCorp for all their support!

National Cyclocross Championships 15-16 Juniors, January 2012.

National championships. The big one. The culmination of an entire season of training, how do you handle not being nervous for that? It's a hard question, but one everyone who wants to make cycling the focus of their life has to confront. For me it was perspective. No matter how I did there, I still had a great season and built my fitness. The course was perfect for me and I was peaked, ready to rip it. I did the pre-race on Wednesday to open my legs up. It's a good thing I did as I was not feeling very good for it, I need a good race to open up my legs after not racing for that long.

The morning of the race went really well. I had almost no nerves and was able to get pumped up for the race really easy.  The conditions were really muddy. It was that really thick mud that slows you down, which is ok for me, but I would have rather raced in the greasy mud the day before. I did a great warm up and lined up for the race, raring to go race in the mud. My start was a little lackluster, I lined up behind the wrong racer and got to the first corners around the middle of the 60 juniors in the race. There was a few pile ups on the first few corners and the leaders got away. I stayed calm though and moved up on the hills and technical sections. The race was rather surreal, I knew I was in a lot of pain, but my mind seemed to block all of it until after the finish. The first hill was un-ridable, but the running hurt everyone and so it did not affect me negatively. There was a slight uphill right after the hill in which I was able to gain a lot of places. I flew down the hill into the run up and managed to get some time on the group behind me before the stairs. I failed to ride the sand pit in the the first lap, which costed me a few spots.

As the race went on, my bike started to get heavy with mud. For some reason, I did not think to pit and get a clean bike. It was a mistake which probably costed me a top ten, but there is no such thing as a perfect race, right? after the first lap, I never lost a spot. In the next two laps, I managed to catch 20 some riders and move up to 18th. I gave it everything I had in the last lap to try and catch Ian Mcshane on the last lap, but a slight bobble on the last few corners made me 10 seconds shy of catching him.

In the end I managed to beat a lot of riders that normally place ahead of me and had a fantastic race. I was only a minute out of the top ten, which made my mistake about not pitting all the more painful. I did everything else perfect, which was my goal. I am going to take a few weeks off the bike now. After that I will start building for a fantastic road season in 2012!

A big thanks to Matthew Moses for all the awesome photos! You can check out other great photos of this race and more at http://www.moses-images.com/!