Our Team Could Be Your Life

So, I started training for Philly yesterday:

Entire workout (188 watts):
Duration: 6:57:10 (7:16:36)
Work: 4714 kJ
TSS: 297.9 (intensity factor 0.655)
Norm Power: 216
VI: 1.15
Distance: 130.769 mi
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 676 188 watts
Heart Rate: 89 178 142 bpm
Cadence: 30 246 84 rpm
Speed: 2.2 37.4 18.9 mph

And of course today, I'm done training for Philly, since the race is Sunday and all. I'm proud of the fact that since I turned pro in 2003, I've been able to race Philly every year. This year, though, was the first year I made a conscious decision not to specifically train for it. Some years I've done huge build ups, some I've done a smaller 10-day training camp type approach. This year, it just didn't seem worth the investment, or the cost to other events.

My first peak of the season was the period including Battenkill and Speedweek, and that went exactly to plan. My 12th place at Battenkill surprised a lot of people, but it shouldn't have. My form has a lot of depth, but we rarely have races long enough for me to show it that don't also include substantial climbing. Replace the big climbs with dirt roads, and you've got something I can show my stuff in. At Speedweek, things started well enough and I was definitely on form, but the stomach flu mid-week ruined whatever chance I had to really perform. Because I had prepared well and knew I had come in top form, it was actually easier to take. Finishing all that training in the 3 months prior and reaching new heights in my fitness gave me a security and peace of mind I've never had before.

From there I had to take a break, and then try to rebuild as best I could. The original plan would have had me coasting off that form for the next month or so, with 3 consecutive weeks of big criteriums: Wilmington, Kelly Cup, RFK Criterium, Tour of Somerville, and Tulsa Tough. The catch was that the 4th week of that stretch was Philly, and at the time, there was serious doubt as to whether Philly was even going to happen. Additionally, Philly is usually "Philly Week," and this year we were down to just one race rather than three. So even before I got sick, I made the choice to focus on those 3 weeks of crits, and show up at Philly with whatever form I had left.

Getting sick at Speedweek changed things slightly. I didn't get all the racing done I wanted so, I had to go much deeper than I should have just to finish, and I needed a lot more recovery after the fact. It really laid me low, and required I took more rest and then did more training in order to be prepared for the next month. That still left me with some choices. In past years, I would have ripped two to three 6-hour days during the week with Philly in mind, and then raced the crits on the weekend. That didn't make sense here, because I knew my best chance for results and prize money was to be sharp in the crits. I could not afford to sacrifice them for training. So my mid-week workouts were in the 3-4 hour range, with training races, group rides, and lots of 2 x 20 threshold intervals with 15-second on/15-second off pacing, specific for criteriums. I also did fewer workouts, making sure I was fresh and recovered before the weekend so I could give my best performances.

It worked, to a degree. Wilmington was my first race back, and I suffered a lot that day. It was clear being sick had taken more out of my than I thought. Just riding around in the field was all I could do, and when the field split with 5 laps to go, I was in the back half of it. I always feel better the second day, though, and Kelly Cup went much better. I was able to go with moves and even make an attack. Tom, Mark, and I had linked up for the sprint, but I went down in a crash at the start/finish line with 1 to go. Mark made it through for 4th place, so at least we had something to show for the effort.

The next week was the RFK Criterium on Sunday, and Tour of Somerville on Monday. RFK was a $10,000 crit on the F1 track next to the RFK stadium in the Capitol District of DC. It had equal prize money for the women, but for some reason, got hardly any publicity. Still, it had a good field, and with a wide open, windy course with some hard turns and long stretches, it was a good course for our sprinters. Ramsey spent most of the day off the front as is his habit, and when it was all back together we lined it up for the sprint.

When we hit the last lap, Tom took us pretty close to the last corner, and Hekman hit out from there with me and Barlevav in tow. We went through the last corner 1-2-3, and I started my sprint as soon as we were able to pedal.

Barlevav came around me at the line to win, I was 2nd, and Hekman held on for 5th after doing the leadout. 1-2-5 in a $10,000 crit is definitely not a bad way to make a living, and we were all pretty psyched about our ride, and what we might be capable of at Somerville the next day.

It's funny how you can do the exact same thing twice and get opposite results, though. It was clear my form was coming back, and the team was really starting to click. We gave a few guys freedom to go for primes and float with moves, but our plan was take over the leadout a little bit early to stay out of trouble, and then leave Hekman, me, and Barlevav to ride the sprint together. That worked perfectly, and we hit the front with 8 or so laps to go.

Kelly, Colavita, and TT1 were happy to have us on the front so soon, but you could still hear the chaos behind us. People were crashing in the battle back there, and we wanted no part of it. At 2 to go, we were out of guys, and the big trains came over the top. The three of us did our best to stay together, and as late as 1 to go were still on the front, next to the leadout trains, with Hekman trying to do the bulk of the work.

We got a bit swarmed in the next few turns, and ended up about 20 guys back coming out of the last corner. Hekman was amazing, though. Once we were safely out of the last turn, he hit out from probably 500 meters away. He took Eric and I up and over the top of the Kelly train, and most of the way past the Colavita train, before finally starting to stall at 200 meters to go, and when the final sprint began. Mark dropped me off in a perfect spot as I switched sides and picked up Colavita as they launched. It was all I had left just to follow, though, and I tried to stay in it hoping Eric was still there and capable of coming over me if I could just get him another 100 meters closer to the line. We had all used our sprint up trying to make up ground with Mark, though, and it was all Eric could do just to come around me for 14th and 15th place. A little more luck and perhaps one more leadout guy, and we might have been sprinting for the podium. Even better, with a hairy sprint like that and Mark riding so strongly, perhaps it would have been better for me to be the one piloting Mark around, so he could have used that long effort to go for the line.

After Somerville, I did one more day of training on Tuesday to make a 3-day block, rested Wednesday, and then flew to Tulsa, Oklahoma on Thursday for Tulsa Tough. If there was a reason not to train for Philly, this was it. 3 crits, $18K, $18K, and $24K, with $15K overall for the omnium. Fuck Philly! And since the races conflicted with Clarendon Cup and Air Force in DC, we were only sending 4 riders. That meant it would be a slightly reduced field at both races, but also that our split was only going be 4 ways. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money.

I already blogged about day 1, where I had phenomenal legs but had all my spokes taken out Ben Hur style with 7 to go, and Hekman saved the day with a sweet 2nd place. Saturday morning we did a promo ride at Sun and Ski Sports in Tulsa:

Sadly, no boobies were signed. However, the mechanic at the shop, Corey Wright, rebuilt my busted PowerTap wheel while we were out on the ride. That was top-notch on his part, and I was pretty excited about it. If there's no data, did it really happen?

Saturday's race didn't go spectacularly for us. We're starting to get used to winning, and we get a little down on ourselves when we don't do something special every time we race. We agreed that Mark should cover less and wait for the sprint, so Dan was off the front as usual for the first 1/3 of the race. When his move came back, I covered a group of 6 that pretty quickly turned into a group of 20, with me being the only guy from the team in the split. It was over 90 degrees that day, though, and I was absolutely suffering just to ride in the move. I kept praying we'd get caught or one of my guys would come across to take some pressure off, but I just kept gritting my teeth and trying to cover the attacks within the break as teams tried to whittle it down to a manageable size. Eventually it came together, though, and I went straight to the back to try and recover for the sprint. I tried to help Mark as much as I could, but he did a lot of it himself with me 5 spots behind him the whole time, struggling to get up to where he was. He finished 7th or 8th, and I was 21st. Meh.

Sunday was the big day, with $24K and a crit course along the river that was like a mini-Philly. You went up 2 steep blocks that some people were doing in their small chainring, through a huge punk rock block party complete with beer feeds and hot girls in pink tights and bikini tops, across a rolling back stretch, and then down a freaking cliff to the final corner and the long, flat, crosswindy start/finish stretch. Oh, and it was in the 90's again.

This was a course I had to hide on and use my skill to get through, both because of the hill and because of the heat. Ramsey was feeling confident, though, and we knew if it was a race of attrition, both he and Hekman were going to rise to the top. Well, sure enough, that's how it went. With about 10 to go, me, Ramsey, and Mark all moved to the front together, and while I was hurting I was happy I had saved all my matches for the finish. Jelly Belly had started setting their train up, and in the 6, 5, and 4 to go window I spent some time in the wind for Mark, trying to keep him from getting boxed in and having to use all his form to correct any mistakes. I came apart all at once at 4 to go going up the hill, and just tried to get out of Mark's way at that point. Simultaneously, Dan was attacking off the front, riding the last 4 laps solo, and winning with just a second to spare.

It was $6000 to win this race. Six. Thousand. Dollars. It's no exaggeration to say I was a little choked up about it. Hekman held on for 7th place after washing out in the last turn and nearly going down, and ended up tied for 3rd overall with 3 other people. Because the two riders he was tied with on points both finished in front of him on the last day, he ended up 5th. That hurt a little, and cost us $1000 or so, but no one was complaining at this point. The boys starting driving home on Sunday night, but since my flight wasn't until Monday night, I stuck around to cash the checks and drink more coffee.

Yes, those are $100 bills.

All weekend we were drinking coffee at Shades of Brown, but I kept hearing about Double Shot as the best espresso in Tulsa. Sure enough:

They also had indoor bike parking, and posters of Shelly Olds from the Proman women's team all over the store. Apparently they'd been hosted by the café owner and done a talk in the store before the races, and of course, Shelly won 2 stages and the overall.

So that brings me up to my big training day for Philly. I traveled Monday, slept in and then worked all day Tuesday. With only Philly on Sunday, Wednesday was the window for training. Dan Vaillancourt from Colavita is not only my training partner in Tucson, but in Maine as well, and he was also looking for his one last big day before the weekend. Despite having been focused on crits all month, this was my only chance to get a ride of similar duration to Philly before the race, make sure I still had some kind of endurance in my legs, take two days to recover and travel down, then open up on Saturday before the big day. It went surprisingly well, based on the numbers above, and I felt better after the 6th hour than I did after the 3rd. Not to mention whoopie pies that required two hands:

At Philly, I'm still debating what my role should be. On one hand, it would be nice to have to freedom to be conservative, try to make it to the last two laps, and see if I can make the split. I've finished the race about half the time, but I've never been able to make the front split the final time up the wall. On the other hand, I have Hekman, Ramsey, and Soladay to work for if I want. Each one of those guys can go the distance, and each one of them could be top 10 depending on how the final circuits go. So to be the guy leading them out for the base of the wall each lap, or going back to the car for bottles, seems like a really important job this year, and something I could do very well. That's where I'm leaning right now, but we'll see what the final decision is when I get some input from co-captain Ramsey.

After Philly? Vacation. I'm putting the bike away for 5 days, I have jury duty on Tuesday, and after 3 years of procrastination, Allison and I finally have our divorce hearing on Friday. After that, I have 2 months, essentially, without too many big races, and I'm going to treat June and July like it's January and February. I'll do Harlem, Fitchburg, and Iron Hill, but basically it's a 2-month ramp up for a month of big crits in August, and the 'cross season after that. Can you believe it's time for 'cross already?

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