45 Degrees

Early this morning I went out for my last Tuesday morning group ride with the cycling club here in Rockhampton. It was bloody cold this AM, 7.1 degrees Celsius, although this allowed me to wear some of the cold weather cycling clothes that I hauled all the way over here. Who would have know the tropics get this cold. We had a solid 60K ride and I was able to enjoy the sun coming up one last time. I will be packing up the bikes Thursday and they will begin their journey back to the states on Friday. I had a great time cycling in Rocky, the highlight was definitely the track riding and I will not soon forget the experience. My next scheduled race will be in Long beach in July, but maybe Laura and I will do a little riding while we are traveling in New Zealand.

Back in the Saddle

Today was the first day of the road cycling season here in Rocky for me.  (Last weekend was actually the first race.)  I entered into the B grade field for the race.  It was 51 km and we had a small of field of 14 guys.  The race started out into a tailwind (or as it always is, a cross tail) for the first 10K. We were riding pretty hard and at one point I was wondering if I was going to make the finish. The wind was wicked this afternoon (20-30km/hr) and it was hard to find a place to hide and draft in the bunch.  Especially as we turned around and battled the headwind.
Nothing too exciting happened until we went past the start/finish line and onto the part of the course that we would only race once.  It was rolling with some fairly short steep hills.  A friend who I train with had been putting in a bunch of attacks and was struggling up one of the hills (not that I was in much better shape), and I figured he would last a lot longer in the flat sections of the race than I would, so I dropped back to help him over the top.  Once over we had to catch back on and I pretty much pegged my heart rate doing this.  Back in the field I tried to recover, but after we turned around and came back over the hills again I was having some trouble.  I just kept telling myself to hang in there a little longer.  Again through the start finish line and I had recovered a bit.  I decided to ignore my HR monitor because it seemed to be too high for too long already anyhow.  We had been over this part of the race once already so I had a clue what to expect.  I tried to stay out of the wind and save some energy.
When we turned around for the last 10 K to the finish we received a brutal cross head wind.  This made it really hard to draft as we could really only echelon 3 riders across the road (it was narrow and we could only use 1/2 the road.)  At about 9K to go my friend put in an attack.  I figured what the hell and bridged up to him.  I asked him if we were too far out and he thought we should give it a go.  We went about 4K before the group caught up to us going up a hill.  One guy jumped across the gap as we crested and we held a slim lead for another K.  At this point I dropped back into the peloton to rest. 
As we came up to the next hill I thought it was the last before the finish, with a long downhill on the other side.  I was wrong, I had sprinted up to the guy dangling in the front and then realized my mistake and fell back.  From here on out I stayed in the group.  As we swept down the final hill into the last 1000m, I was sitting 2 to 3rd wheel, right where I wanted to be.  Coming into the last 500 meters we were slowly pulling in the lone rider at the front.  I had told myself prior to the race not to sprint too early as it was slightly uphill and into a headwind.  I did not follow my own advice.  I didn't think we had time to catch the rider up the road and I went for the win at about 300 meters.  We quickly surged up the road and caught the rider, but by then all the work I had recently done caught up to me and I could not longer stand and sprint.  I ended up in 5th place.  Not bad, but I wish I could do it over again.
I was surprised on how good my legs were at the end.  It has been awhile since I could stand up and really power out a sprint at the end of the race.  Maybe all the track racing paid off.  Halfway through the race I thought I was not going to finish, by the end I was one of the stronger guys out there.  On a finial note I have to figure out what my lactate threshold HR actually is.  I spent 45 min of the race above 168 bpm, which I thought was near my threshold, but obviously it is higher.  (Sorry no pictures, the camera battery died.)

Dark

Before we went to Melbourne I was really getting back into the road riding scene here in Rocky.  I think I did every early morning ride for a week and a half, clocking around 400K before most people had finished their morning coffee.  Unfortunately as daylight has begun its yearly recede it has become quite dark at 5AM.  The last ride I was on really was not a barrel of laughs.  The roads generally suck around here anyways and trying to ride them in the dark (bright lights help, but it is not the same as sunlight) sucks.  Nothing like hitting potholes that you can't even see.  So, I am pretty much done with the early morning rides.

This afternoon I went out and climbed Mt Archer.  I went up fairly slow, even though my heart rate was pegged somewhere close to my lactate threshold.   I left our house at around 4:30 and by the time I returned near 6 it was nearly dark.  One thing I have to do is get a better headlight, the other is get out on the bike as soon as I get home from work.  I delayed today because it was so bloody hot.  Or maybe I should get used to riding on the rollers.

2x

Tuesday was my last official day on the track. I started the day off with a bang and went for the AM road ride at 5.  It was still dark when we started riding and really didn't lighten up enough to turn off the lights for another 15 minutes.  The ride is called the angle and is a big triangle.  After we took the last turn we started a pace line and the speed really turned up.  I am happy to say I was one of only 3 other guys who were consistantly able to put down the hammer at the front, the other 10 guys rotated in from time to time.  I think that the track training gave me some speed in the legs as well as some stamina.  The first time I did this ride after 1 month off the bike, I was dropped half way home on the last leg.

So, not having had enough pain for one day, I went to the track in the afternoon.  It turned out to be the last practice of the year.  It had some fun riding up and down the banks and savoring being out on the track for the last time.  By the end of the session my lags were completely dead.  But that was expected.  At least I will not have to keep swapping my pedals from bike to bike anymore.

108

Well today I finally made myself get up at 5AM on a weekend and go for a bike ride.  I am sore and tired now, but happy I finally did it.  We rode out from Rocky prior to the sun rise and were out at the beaches in the early hours of the morning.  My odometer said 108.5 Km when I returned home.  Not bad seeing as I  have not had a ride over 60Km since arriving in Australia.  We stopped at a bakery in Yeppoon a little over the half way point for a little rest and refuel.  I choose an apple pie and a bottle of chocolate milk.  My quads were burning on the return to town, but I couldn't slow up to warm down. I was climbing the last hill 500 meters from my house and was riding next Chaddy (Rock Racing's Glen Chadwick), his cool down was a bit quicker than mine. 

Skipping back to Saturday night, I had a track race.  We had a nice warm up and just as we were beginning our race it started sprinkling.  By five laps into the race the track was too slick and they called the event.  Turnout has been dwindling so it may have been the last race of the year.  Road season is due to start in April.