NCNCA Masters State Track Championships, Day 1

Flying 200m
Match sprints
2k pursuit

This weekend is the NCNCA Masters State Championships (Northern California/Nevada) on our track. Saturday morning was the flying 200 meters, which gave you a time to seed in the match sprints. In the afternoon was the 2,000 meter pursuit.

I've done a number of flying 200s, and my best time was 14.8 seconds (I think), but lately I've been over 15 seconds. Just this week I switched out gears, going to a smaller gear to work on my spinning and leg speed, so since this was just a training weekend and the chance to get some race experience, I left the smaller gear on. I had been riding 85 inches but went down to 81 inches which is a pretty big jump. As a comparison, Donna, whom I can generally stick with in the training races was riding 90 inches.

For the flying 200, you roll out from the start/finish area and do a very easy lap ("floating on the bike"), then you pick it up the next lap and by the end of the second lap, you want to be moving pretty well since the clock starts at the 200 start line and then you haul ass to the finish and they take your time for the 200 meters. My legs were flying and I thought I had a pretty good time, but 15.7 wasn't very good. Not happy with that. But not the slowest gal of the day.

They then seed everyone for the match sprints (best of 3) and there was only one other person in my age group--a Cat. 2 who is pretty darned fast. After the coin flip, she got the low position and I got the high position. My holder was John and he was very helpful in giving me some tips on what to do and how to approach the race. For the first one, I was able to get right behind her and stuck to her wheel like glue, moving up and down, whichever way she would go. She slowed way down and I did too and was able to stay right behind her. She jumped and I jumped right behind her and held her wheel but wasn't able to come around her and she beat me to the line by about 1-2 bike lengths. I was jacked--this was WAY better than I thought I would do!!!.

Second sprint we switched spots so I was high and she was low and I ended up leading her out. John had told me to jump early and try to gap her, so I picked the speed up about one lap in and coming out of turn 2 I jumped hard and got a gap, but she was able to catch me and go by me and beat me. 2-0, game over. But hey, I was second and got to stand on the podium! And won two pounds of coffee and two boxes of energy bars. Mmmm, coffee!! John told me that I had a very good, hard jump and did a good job, so I'm happy. [2nd place in the match sprints, 2nd place in the timed 200]

A long wait while all the sprints finished, then about a 45 minute break with open track. Sat around, ate, drank, rode a bit every 20 minutes to keep the legs loose and then it was time to start the 3K and 2K. They did the 3Ks first, so we had another hour to wait. They finally got to the 2K (just you against the clock, but there are two people on the track--one starting on one side, the other on the other side), 6 laps. By this time it was pretty warm and the wind had picked up a lot. There were two scratches in my age group, so I ended up riding solo. I got a good start, but probably went out too fast. I'd like to see the lap times because I think I slowed down on laps 3-4 and tried to pick it up on lap 5 and definitely picked it up on the last lap. My hamstrings started to twitch and I didn't really want them to fully cramp up. I finished and had to wait until everything was over to see how I did. Did a cool down ride, then got a massage, then we drank a beer and ate some more food. Once all the 2K races were over, they got to the awards and I ended up 3rd in 3:20. Not my fastest time, but not my slowest. I was pretty happy with that. Won another pound of coffee and another box of bars. Yeah!

A number of people told me how well I rode, so that was nice to hear. Today is two more races, so more fun!