Monday, May 17, 2010

It's only a flesh wound. . . .


I was doing great actually, on the first first lap, until 7.8 miles in. I was moving up to pass some one on one of the stair step hills, he was a little slow going up the hills. And he moved over to the left to block me causing me to move and hit the guys wheel at my 11 o'clock. Our wheels rubbed and he got up and sprint leaving my wheel unbalanced causing me to go down.

I was in the top 10 at the point and went down when i got up, well recovered from sliding on the pavement I immediately got into the fetal position as the field was still coming up the little hill behind us and I was in the middle of road. I was more concerned about some one running in to the back of me as I had no time to make a dash for the grass.

I got up, did a quick assessment of my self, lots of blood, shin, knee, hips, fingers, arm and shoulder. I took my helmet off and saw the headband was broken. At this time the trailing moto ref said "it looks like you can try and catch back on". with my helmet band cracked i didnt want to risk it again.

I picked my bike up straightened my handle bars and shifters. tried to clip in and pedal and then off comes my rear derailler. luckily it was just the hanger that broke. Well now my bike is effed and I almost 4 miles from the car so I start the walk back.

The pickup caravan sees me and gives me a ride back. I get back and walking over to my car when the ambulance stops me and has me sit down so they can begin to clean me up. I was going to go over to the ambulance after I set everything in my car.

Upon further inspection my helmet was actually cracked in several places, but I was feeling ok enough to drive home after they cleaned my wounds. After being home for about 30 minutes or so I called my wife and asked her to take me to the ER to get checked out.

I wanted to be sure everything was ok, I mean after all Billy Mayes, and Natasha Richardson both died from head trauma and injuries sustained hours after the initial impact.

The ER doc orders a CT scan of me noggin to make sure there is no swelling going on inside and nothing ruptured. CT scan comes back fine. Then the ER techs properly clean all of my wounds, which did me scrubbing them with soap and water, after they were numbed first thank God.

Left the ER after being there for just under 2 hours, relatively quick i thought. When I finally got a chance to review the garmin data, the final recordings of speed at 32 - 31 - 0. I will try to take a screen shot of it this afternoon to post up on my blog site.

As far as current injuries, in the ER it was described as "entire left side covers in abrasions". My shin, knee, quad, hip, top part of my fore arm, bottom part near my elbow, bicep, shoulder, and small chunks of skin missing on my fingers at the bend of the first knuckle where my gloves stopped, along with a few scrapes on my scalp.

Incidently enough almost all of the abrasions occurred on scar tissue from a crash last September in a triathlon when I went to fast into a left turn and hit gravel at the apex and the bike slid out from under me.

I rode my bike to work this morning, felt fine, just a little sluggish after being off it all day yesterday. I am just glad that for crashing at that speed I really only came away with just flesh wounds, it could have been a lot worse.

-jeremy

Monday, May 10, 2010

Life in the pain cave. . .

Happy Mother's Day!

Out at Deep Blue:

Should'a: road tested my bike with the wheel on to find out the tire was rubbing the frame a bit and been more conscience about my warmup.

Could'a: Probably done better as I had 20 more watts in the ITT than the TTT but the TTT was 1:18 faster while I pulled the entire time.

Would'a: Do a TTT again, it is amazing how less it hurts having some one sit on your wheel.

Well a teammate got me interested in Deep Blue, at first I wasn't going to race it because of the long drive, short race to do solo but when he said he was on the fence I said I would do it and drive us if he was up to it. Well after some debate he said ok and so we reg'ed for it. Then the idea of a Team Time Trial popped into my head, never done one thought it would be neat, so I some how managed to talk him in to that as well.

Going to be honest here, I haven't ridden with Luke much before, maybe a few training rides here and there during the off season so we both had no idea how well we each handle our bikes. Him being a Cat 4 for about a season or so, he had more race experience than I and he has been doing well getting consistent results and will soon be a Cat 3. Me, only 11 races under my belt all this season, but I did have a slight advantage over him, I have ridden in 5 TTs before and did 6 triathlons and lots of training on my old TT /Tri rig last year so I knew the style of riding better after his rig was only built earlier this week. So with no practice at this other than a few words about how to start off and the turn around we reg for the TTT.

Well Saturday some wind so kindly decided to move into the area, and it was strong wind with even stronger gusts, lots of wind advisories with 20 - 25mph sustained winds and up to 40 mph gusts. Checking the weather at Port Penn, De. that winds were a steady 30mph on Saturday, and Sunday morning a low in the mid 40s which is half of what is was at Turkey Hill last week.

Well, Luke, Ryan and I arrive a little later than expected after making a pit stop to get some Micy D's and a few detours in downtown Baltimore and then getting confused the few miles trying to find the race, but we found our way and started to get things setup.

As I am warming up I suppose I didn't take it seriously enough or didnt have much time, only about 20 minutes if that I tried to spend as much of that in zone 2 as possible. With a few moments before my start time I switch out rear wheels for my wheel with the cover, and head over to the start line. My time comes and off I go...

Well a few moments into the race I hear something chirp, and then feel it in my frame. While concentrating on trying to keep my bike vertical during the cross winds and head straight with the wind pulling my helmet the chirping is getting really annoying. I knew exactly what it was, on these new fancy pants TT rigs with the rear wheel cutouts and the tolerances being so tight there isnt much room for any type of error. My error was having the limit screws for the rear wheel adjusted for a 20C Conti Supersonic tire I was running at Dismal Dash back in early March. I thought I adjusted the screws enough to compensate for the 23C tire I would be running on the work stand but with weight on the bike it did rub.

During the TT I was passed by my 30 second man a 1/3 of the way in, and kept him in my sight and then passed him back and he passed me back a couple times, we were mindful of no drafting kept our distance and rode on opposite sides of the lane. I noticed that he wasn't using the aero extensions at times and have a feeling this is why I was able to catch back up to him and pass him. After the race I in the cool down area I caught up to him and he said that his left extension came loose and couldn't steer the bike with it and with the winds he didn't want to take any chances.

I also caught up with Luke who started 1:30 behind me and he said it hurt like hell. Well I guess lesson learned this weekend, do shake down rides or ride your TT bike more often because his Vision integrated base / aero bar was not torqued down tight enough and at one point found his aero bars pointed downward and he had to pull them back up.

So with about an hour and half until our TTT we head to the car, chat with a few teammates, fix our bikes, and then sit in the car to stay warm. Luke said he felt his legs were shot and would do the TTT because he said he would and try his hardest to hold on. With a much better warm up this time we head off over to the start line. A quick check for tire clearance and its good to go, although Luke did say he hoped I doubled flatted on way over, we laughed and I said just hang on for the ride. I had no issues pulling the whole time as I wanted some redemption from my ITT.

As we started Luke got to my left to echelon his way out of the wind, which was really impossible because it was just so powerful yesterday. If anything I was more afraid of a gust blowing me into his line and causing issues, but Luke commented at the end that I was very stable and predictable except when the gusts blew us which were just insane. I tried to pace us based off of my powermeter and knowing his wattage so that we could plan for a negative split plus I didnt want to blow him off my wheel a quarter way into the race.

With a couple yells between each other to make sure he is doing ok we make our way to the turn around which was a little confusing as there was a car trying to pass at the same time. On the return trip back I did up the pace a little with the tail wind and Luke would move up on my right and I would push even harder because that meant he was still feeling well. There were a couple times with the last 1/3 of the race where I had to back off to not burn him off and keep things under control. With the last klick to go my HR was finally coming up to the right zone, drooling and snot pouring out of my nose I prayed there wasn't a photog at the end. In the last 200m I really tried to up the pace hoping he would stay on my wheel and he did a great job of it too.

After we crossed the line and started chatting he said he was glad is was over but had fun doing it as the pain was easier to deal with having a teammate suffering with you. He apologized for not being able to pull but was totally cool with me as I was able to use this as a ITT for myself. Turns out the time we had would have put me in second place in the Cat 4 ITT with 20 watts less average and sitting up / soft pedaling a couple times to not drop Luke. Oh well it put us in 7th place according the results on the USAC page which I am fine with.

Some lessons learned, need to re-cable the Dean and get it working perfectly as I want to do well at Church Creek and in the ITT at Tour of Washington County, also I need to get more riding on the TT rig as well to be able to climb, handle, and have my body adapt to the position better.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

The road less taken . . .

When I first started planning my season the Wintergreen Hill Ascent TT was a top priority. In fact so much I tried to plan my one fitness peaks this season around the race. I researched the hell out of the race, looked up previous times and what won the Cat 4 last year, the elevation change, the grade, everything.

Well I also saw a Cat 3/4 race up in Lancaster County, PA that looked to be as challenging. I have done plenty of TTs and gone up plenty of hills, maybe not one of the steepest in the state but enough to compare, Howard's Lick Road in Lost River State Park, Tanner's Ridge Rd in Stanley, VA. With just receiving my Cat 4 upgrade (Thank you Tracy!) Thursday night and having faith in the upgrade I pre-registered for the Turkey Hill Country Classic for the 3/4 race to really see where I stand and it was longer, 92kilometers with three laps up Gamber's wall.

With the recent heat wave and the course which included three trips up Gamber's Wall on the last three laps this was really going to be a race of attrition. This was my first time racing in a field this size, completely sold out at 100 riders. So I had to be very conscience of my pack maneuvering and keep an eye out on things.

While warming up I saw PhillBilly and rode with him a bit as he explained the course to me and warned me that the sprint would start a few hundred meters too early and to ride their draft but basically race smart and stay in the pack.

With his advice I was off to the staging area, and the whistle goes off. Well I found myself in somewhat unfamiliar territory, dead effing last. I didnt have high aspirations as my goal was really to stick with the pack, but after the first couple laps the rolling hills and sprinting out of turns really started to wear on people. Honestly the first two laps I spent at the back didnt bother me too much I was doing a lot of coasting and moving up and down the back with the hills and with a race of almost 60 miles I had plenty of time to make my way to the front.

Well the third lap in I found myself in the top 10 and would often go off the front in a turn if I was able to get my line, I didnt attempt to attack as it was still too early but it was interesting to have the entire pack swarm you in a sprint after you hit a perfect apex and everyone else had to brake for the turn. After a while I think this really helped wear some people down as well with the hills, as some of the turns had hills right after them.

At some point a breakaway goes off the front, two from one team and their teammates were doing what they could to keep the pack from catching them, which ended up succeeding for the first six positions.

Of the nine laps that we had to do the last three included a section of road called Gamber's Wall which at first is very intimidating from the sound but after riding it I didnt think it was that bad, although I think it did separate the group some, but each of the three times we hit I was always in the top five up with the last being first. As we made our way to the descent from there I would do very well considering my size against the larger riders. With another set of rollers a head of us the pack is separated even more by a pack of motorcycles that so kindly decide to make their way on to the closed course. Well I was one of the few that made it through them and everyone else had to sprint to catch back up. On the final stretch the pace picked up and people were sprinting up the hills, I was right there with them. I was surprised honestly, exceeding my expectations.

With the last klick to go the sprinters start making their way up and just like phillbilly said they would start too early with the descent to the finish. I was able to position myself in the top 15 or so and keep with them. As they started to fade I would go around them and found myself on the outside of the pack and in the wind. With the last 200m I just went for it, I had no idea what my placing was but knew I did relatively well as we crossed the line.

After a quick spin cool down I make my way back to the staging area looking for Phil. I find him and he informs me that they have free ice cream, tea, hot dogs, etc. (it was like he came here for the t-shirt and food the bike race just so happen to be going on as well). I tell him how the race went and he was glad I was able to stay with the pack being my first Cat 4 race. We then go grab some ice cream and tea, I tell you what that first bite of peanut butter and chocolate ice cream was amazing after that race.

With a quick check of the results, which were posted insanely fast, literally within minutes of the finish, I placed 17th out of the 48 that they placed.