Pinning on the number

There's something very final about pinning the race number on your jersey. At that point there's no turning back - you know you're going to line up at the start and go. Yesterday I raced Pine Flat RR. It was cold and cloudy at the start and stayed that way the entire 3 hours. I felt good the first 25 or so miles of rolling lakeside racing, but the final rise before the long descent to the valley floor saw me spit out the back. I've had early season races where I've been shed at mile 5 so this was actually a pretty good day. The 55+ Masters group I was in was only 14 or 15 strong, but all of them were strong. My peers included multi time national champions and the pace was pretty ferocious. I was riding 3-4 cogs higher on the hills than I would in training. I've got a long ways to go, but then there's a lot left of the season as well. When I was a 35+ Master there would often be 50-80 racers lining up and I would finish 25-30th usually. In the 45+ the fields were smaller and my finishes would normally be mid pack. I even managed 10th in one district road race championship. But now that I'm a 55+ it seems that only the 20-30 guys that were always faster than me are still racing so I end up as often as not DFL or close to it, as I did yesterday finishing 13th out of 14 racers. Well, all the old school coaches say, "the best training for racing is racing itself", and that is what I'm going to do this year.

Race Prep

Besides the many many hours of training there are other aspects of getting ready for a race. First and foremost is prepping the bike. The first race of the season like the upcoming Pine Flat means thinking about any and all maintenance and set up issues that have been on hold through the winter. In the case of my race bike this entailed changing the chain which was getting a bit old and changing out the rear cog set which had at least 15K miles on it. While I'm gentle on equipment in general it's better to go into the competition knowing that everything will work correctly. Also, professional mechanics catch thinks like the cracked, rusted and generally jacked shifting cables that I would never notice till they failed in the middle of a race. The winter tires are taken off for lighter livelier race tires and latex tubes switched out for the butyl. Last, but most importantly I think it imperative to put fresh bar tape on the bike. I prefer white as it is the team leader color and since I'm the only guy on my team in my age category I exercise my imperative. The white tape is a holdover from the cotton tape days where white tape would only look good for a day or two and then start looking grimy. It was about looking good at the start. Some Italian pros go so far as to shine their shoes and spray a bit of cologne on their uniforms for that extra attention to detail, and respect for your peers. I found out today that the new team kit will arrive the morning before the race. This is frosting on the cake to be able to put the new uniform on for the very first race. I'm stoked!

A Valentine's Day Digression

It's not good to talk about cycling all the time. So I thought I'd write about the food and wine I had last night with my sweetie on Valentine's Day. We started by going to see a movie she'd seen already but I hadn't. It was "The Artist" and was fantastic in every way. We had popcorn with the movie and it was the perfect combination. On arriving home I started the soup, a mushroom clam veloute that I've made for years - more on that later. I then put tiny Yukon Gold potatoes in the oven to bake and popped the Champagne, a bottle of Duetz brut. We had some sweet cured olives and almonds to nibble with the bubbly, and it was good. I've always loved Duetz's house style. Some of my fondest memories of early extravagence are of bottles of Cuvee William Duetz. A few minutes later I threw some asparagas in the oven, sauted some scallops, deglazed them with a splash of the Champagne and then served everything up. We opened a bottle of 2007 Campion Edna Valley Pinot Noir and decanted it into the world globe decanter that Heidi had given me just hours before. The flavor revelation of the evening was the combination of the Pinot with the mushroom soup. I guess I don't normally drink wine with soup as I've made this soup so many times in the past and never noticed its effect on Pinot. It absolutely perfected the wine. In aroma the wine was move complex and elevated than I have ever percieved it. And this is a wine I have drunk many bottlles of. The textures on the palate were pure velvet. It was a textbook example of food improving wine. The Campagne and the scallops were of course superb together, but that was no surprise or revelation.

The Long Midweek Ride

If there is one miracle technique for whipping yourself into peak condition it is the long midweek ride. Nothing substitutes for volume and nothing builds volume like taking either Wednesday or Thursday afternoon off and spending it in the saddle instead of at work. The charm of this is that you can fully recover by the weekend and have fresh legs for the long efforts there. This week was a perfect example. Karl, Matt, and I got on the road by 1:30 on Wednesday. We chose a lumpy but not mountainous course and hit it as hard as each of use were capable of. The emphasis was on quantity not quality. We ended up with close to 4 hours of saddle time and rolled back into town just as the sun was setting.

Suffering through

This weekend was one where I spent most of it making deposits into the pain and suffering bank. Friday I did a gym workout combined with a bunch of fixed gear riding that seemed to set up the rest of the weekend in a negative way. Saturday was two hours of tempo riding, but my legs never really opened up. Sunday was spent in cycling hell. A four hour ride with two guys with lots of hill climbing. My legs were tight and sore the entire time and I was the slowest besides. I had active aches in my legs following - very unusual. I'll see how the recovery goes over the next day or two, but my guess is that I need more active recovery in the way of hot soaks and stretching. I think the combination of gym work and the increased mileage is taking a toll. I'm looking forward to a month or two from now when I cut the gym work back to one day a week, and level out the hours to 10-12 a week.

Doubling Down

I surprised even myself last night when after the usual Martini and dinner I togged up, threw leg over the Gitane and headed to the Y for a weight workout. I forget sometimes how cool it is to ride after dark, literally and figuratively. The weight workout went well - my first power endurance session, but what was more remarkable was that I'd done the extremely taxing test TT in the morning. It has been quite a while since I doubled up on a workout. All the coaches agree that you should make your hard days really hard and your easy days easy so at least I got the first part of that right yesterday. No real soreness to speak of today, but I am still coughing up phlegm as a result of the TT. I didn't quite taste blood from that effort, but it was close.