Saturday morning, wake up when alarm goes off at 6am. Get out of bed just before 8am 🙂 Wash, dress, ride to ‘drome, arriving at sprint training in typical late fashion.

Wonder where a.b’s Dutch and warwych are hiding..?

I notice on the way there my HR seems elevated. Probably to be expected after 3 weeks of almost no riding.

We do some of the usual exercises, including a 2-on-1 exercise with limited gearing. Chasing Wayne, I hit 175rpm and 205bpm HR!!

Strange considering don’t often get that high in races let alone training drills! Don’t spin that fast in races though I guess..

After training, rode to Carl’s and then back to Hawthorn, where I’d left the car the night before. Drove to the ‘drome and watched Geoff do a 500m TT. Hung around to renew

my licence and watch the state TT champs.

Got home with a headache and sunburn..

Headache gets worse and doesn’t respond to water intake.

Headache really bad now and I’m seriously thinking about spewing. Lie down (and I never lie down..I must be crook).

Wake up when ex-gf comes to check on me. Feeling shithouse – go back to sleep.

Wake up early the next morning feeling okay so I head to Glenvale. I take it very easy getting there and arrive before anyone else. Have over an hour of warmup time before the

race. Ride around, stretch, enter C with $10 donation, ride some more. Whistle blows, head to line. D grade leaves and then C grade is off shortly after. The field is smaller than usual – hopefully the pace will be slow.

My goal for the race was to maintain position near the front.

This was something I haven’t been doing, which was stuffing up my chances of winning the sprint.

50 minutes of racing goes bye. ’13’ on the Bianchi must be strong or stupid as he keeps trying solo breaks (from memory he’s strong). Some dude on a Colnago tries to pass on the inside of turn one and is told in no uncertain terms he’ll be put into the gutter next time (not by me, I didn’t notice him until I was most of the way through that turn).

I’m doing okay and do end up holding a good position for most of the race. As expected, the pace hots up with 3 to go..

I’m still in a good position. 2 to go and someone grounds a pedal on turn 3. No crash and I’m not nearby for once!

Last lap and I’m starting to go black around the edges. I’m almost cooked! ’13’ is out wide on the back straight and I try to hold his wheel as he accelerates past the front runners. Three weeks of heavy drinking and buffet breakfasts ain’t doing me any favours now and I can’t quite hold on. The final corner is a bit sketchy on the inside with riders changing lines mid-corner, so I go wide again, to no avail. The pace of the front runners is such that they drag a few more riders with them and I sit up with 100m to go, spent. Usually I’d be annoyed with this result but I was happy about my positioning and I did have enough power for most of the race. Not bad considering my preparation.

I watched A and B and then rode home, deciding not to watch the Bay crit in order to let my already sun-fried brain have a rest.

ADDENDUM – CCCC’s Race Report

For twenty minutes the C grade bunch set a reasonable pace until Adam Mulford broke from the pack. A few laps later Scott McGee, George Greenall and Michael Thomas joined him but all were brought back by the bunch a lap later. Mulford immediately went on the attack again, with Jason Gelsi, Trent Brown, Joel Rogers, Colin Aitken and Dean Stewart leading the main bunch. They were able to bring Mulford back but were soon attacked by riders Spiros Mouzakis and Nick Groves. With the break looking good Stewart, Wayne Andrew, Stuart ‘the Hippy’ Birnie and Thomas bridged and this lasted for five minutes before the bunch realised the danger and brought them back. An exciting final ten minutes ensued with John Groves, Stuart Jacobsen and Mulford attacking in what seemed to be the break of the day. Working well together the break was clear by half the length of the straight before the main bunch, powered by Aitken, was able to slowly bring them back with one lap to go. The third field sprint of the morning followed with Brown fastest, from Andrew and young Tom Gallagher (Inexa). The women were well down the back of the field for most of the race but Monique Hanley and Melissa Kah sprinted into first and second respectively.

I had a glowing commute report all prepared in my head as I cruised in to work this morning. First commute since Dec 17 and with 1/10th the normal traffic levels as most people were still on holidays. Cool!

Then there was P-plater.

Bright blue morning light (for once in Melbourne) and he manages not to see me. In a novel twist, the side-street he was crossing Whitehorse Road from wasn’t on ‘my’ side of Whitehorse, so it wasn’t like I was obscured by the curb/bins/lights as often happens, this guy didn’t look at the road at all.

I didn’t think I was invisible, maybe I am?

You can kind of tell when a car is going too fast or has travelled too close to you to have noticed you. I thought this guy was going to turn onto my lane in my direction but he kept going ‘at’ me, heading for an opposite side-street I was riding past. I was on the brakes and had started turning away from his car when I realised he was going too fast to be turning.

He finally saw me and jumped on the brakes. Luckily he was going from standing start and his green Festiva actually stopped before taking me down. I gave him the use your frickin’ eyes gesture and continued. He was lucky the traffic was light as he ended up parked across the inbound lane.

Still doesn’t get the heart rate up like a good hill and it’s a pity about the glowing commute report.

Open your eyes drivers!

Fixer vs. Team Discovery

Still not 100% focused.. losing time on corners, not moving up the field early enough. At one stage I jumped onto the wheel of “rickster” as he shot up the right. He gave up though and I did a bit of work, but before I got too carried away I checked over my shoulder. Sure enough, the field was too close for comfort. I sat up. With three laps to go I was making more of an effort to move up the field. With two laps remaining, on the second last corner, a rider put their pedal into the ground and lost it. I missed him, but another rider was thrown off and also lost it, crashing into the gutter. I had already gone wide to avoid the first guy, now I had to slow down and swerve around the second guy. All this carnage meant that the field was split, with the bulk of the riders now 30m+(?) in front of me. I chased hard, passing a bunch of separated riders, in order to get onto the main bunch. I got back on, but I’d wasted too much juice at the wrong time to effectively contest the sprint. Came in a bit ahead of mid-field. Bugger.

Aboc Pics:

http://www.aboc.com.au/images/galleries/20041212_glenvale/

http://www.cannibal.com.au/oz/peace.html

“warrwych” found one for the ladies:

www.primalwear.com

I raced C grade. I was shit. That is all.

from: www.weightweenies.starbike.com

Redline Conquest Disc R

Cervelo SuperProdigy album

C grade had 50 riders this week. I’d been off the bike for two weeks with work committments and on trying E3 efforts at the ‘drome on Saturday I felt that I would be spat out the back quickly because my legs were so stuffed from under-use. I just didn’t seem to be able to force my legs up to the required speed.

The first part of the race felt quite easy even though post-race comments seemed to indicate otherwise. Perhaps it was the two week “rest” I’d had? Ha!

I’d had an easy night beforehand with only a single drink (it was hard but I managed.. the hangover from the night before helped curtail my drinking) and an early bedtime of 2.30am 😉

As usual, I wasted energy at the back of the field for a while before moving up. Again I was surprised that I could actually stay up near the front. There appeared to be less breakaway attempts than usual – it was like everyone was having an easy day? The usual crazies chopped and changed their lines mid-corner and mid-straight causing some carnage but I managed to hold it together to secure my best place so far.. 5th.

Maybe if I didn’t do those couple of small turns out the front I would’ve had the juice needed to push through a couple more guys and enter the “money zone”? (Maybe if I took

more care of my body.. and.. blah blah blah.. )

Victory WILL be mine!! Soon.. soon my pretties…

Oh, I checked the stats this morning and the average wasn’t any slower than usual, contrary to my feeling on the day. 40.4kph for 57min. It must’ve been my

brain helping me out me out with some extra dopamine.

I think my HR was lower too so I’m either getting fitter (ahahahaha!) or I was simply better rested.