RR: Sprint Tournament #2 (04/25/10)
Monday, 26 April 2010
Sunny, windy and warm (close to 80F later). Drove down w/Mateo. New
Mouse Kit Kat showed up later to cheer.
Once the doctor let me on the rollers about a month or so after surgery, I've been riding the track bike on the rollers a lot, but in the 46x16 (77.63") gear. The last couple weekends I'd upped the gearing into the 80s but I'd decided earlier last week that I wanted to try a bigger gear as kind of a test for my knee and see how a bigger gear felt. Goal was to try 50x15 (90.0"). We got to the track and I warmed up in the 50x16 and just riding around felt OK, but with the wind, I started to over think myself and thought maybe the 50x15 wasn't the best idea. But what the heck, just try it and see how it goes. This was just a day to see how everything felt and get a baseline 200m time.
How the tourney works is that everyone does a timed 200m and then we got divided up into groups and you race head-to-head or in a 3-up against people within your own group.
For the 200m TT, I was about 8th to go so I rode around to stay loose and then it was time to roll off the front from the star/finish line. One lap easy, then I don't know what happened but I spaced out how many laps and Kevin was ringing the bell and I get to nearly the s/f line and think, "*#¥+! That was the bell and I'm going in to turn 1 way too slow! CRAP!" So I picked it up, but was way way too slow going in. Stood up and hit it and got up to top speed late, but took a decent line and was able to keep up the leg speed all the way through the finish line. 15.18 sec. Really??? Last year at this time I was hitting 15.5-16!! So I was pretty darned happy for such a sloppy effort.
200m effort:
So, that put me #3/7 in Group 4.
1st match sprint: Lala (slowed down this week due to a crash last week), Donna Woods (55+ dynamo), me, in that order off the rail.
Since Lala is a lot faster than we are, I knew I couldn't leave it to a short sprint, so I sat back off both of them and in the middle of turn 3, I dropped down, full sprint, fully committed. Caught her off guard but she caught me and came around me in turn 4. Happy with that effort. 2nd.
2nd match sprint: Me and Oscar (kid who has just started racing on the track this year. 16 or 17 years old). His 200m was about 1 second faster than mine.
I led him out and kept it slow the first 3/4 of the lap and then sped up and he was on my right hip the entire time so I knew he'd have to go over me. He got a good jump and I couldn't get up to speed quick enough and he was gone.
3rd match sprint: Elizabeth and me.
She and I raced against each other a lot last year and she has been working hard all winter and spring and has made good progress. We both jumped at almost the same time in turn 4 and again, I couldn't get on top of the gear fast enough so she was ahead of me and stayed ahead.
4th match sprint: New guy Terry and me.
This was maybe Terry's 4th time on the track and a friend of Donna. Since he was new to sprinting, I was hoping the intensity of the day and heat had gotten to him, so I took him long and he had to chase to get back to me and only caught me with about 25m to go. By this time I was tired and it was hot and I didn't have enough to drink or eat and I didn't fully commit to it (well, I did, but let up a bit on the back straight). I made him work for it though and he only beat me by a wheel so I was pretty happy with that.
Once the doctor let me on the rollers about a month or so after surgery, I've been riding the track bike on the rollers a lot, but in the 46x16 (77.63") gear. The last couple weekends I'd upped the gearing into the 80s but I'd decided earlier last week that I wanted to try a bigger gear as kind of a test for my knee and see how a bigger gear felt. Goal was to try 50x15 (90.0"). We got to the track and I warmed up in the 50x16 and just riding around felt OK, but with the wind, I started to over think myself and thought maybe the 50x15 wasn't the best idea. But what the heck, just try it and see how it goes. This was just a day to see how everything felt and get a baseline 200m time.
How the tourney works is that everyone does a timed 200m and then we got divided up into groups and you race head-to-head or in a 3-up against people within your own group.
For the 200m TT, I was about 8th to go so I rode around to stay loose and then it was time to roll off the front from the star/finish line. One lap easy, then I don't know what happened but I spaced out how many laps and Kevin was ringing the bell and I get to nearly the s/f line and think, "*#¥+! That was the bell and I'm going in to turn 1 way too slow! CRAP!" So I picked it up, but was way way too slow going in. Stood up and hit it and got up to top speed late, but took a decent line and was able to keep up the leg speed all the way through the finish line. 15.18 sec. Really??? Last year at this time I was hitting 15.5-16!! So I was pretty darned happy for such a sloppy effort.
200m effort:
So, that put me #3/7 in Group 4.
1st match sprint: Lala (slowed down this week due to a crash last week), Donna Woods (55+ dynamo), me, in that order off the rail.
Since Lala is a lot faster than we are, I knew I couldn't leave it to a short sprint, so I sat back off both of them and in the middle of turn 3, I dropped down, full sprint, fully committed. Caught her off guard but she caught me and came around me in turn 4. Happy with that effort. 2nd.
2nd match sprint: Me and Oscar (kid who has just started racing on the track this year. 16 or 17 years old). His 200m was about 1 second faster than mine.
I led him out and kept it slow the first 3/4 of the lap and then sped up and he was on my right hip the entire time so I knew he'd have to go over me. He got a good jump and I couldn't get up to speed quick enough and he was gone.
3rd match sprint: Elizabeth and me.
She and I raced against each other a lot last year and she has been working hard all winter and spring and has made good progress. We both jumped at almost the same time in turn 4 and again, I couldn't get on top of the gear fast enough so she was ahead of me and stayed ahead.
4th match sprint: New guy Terry and me.
This was maybe Terry's 4th time on the track and a friend of Donna. Since he was new to sprinting, I was hoping the intensity of the day and heat had gotten to him, so I took him long and he had to chase to get back to me and only caught me with about 25m to go. By this time I was tired and it was hot and I didn't have enough to drink or eat and I didn't fully commit to it (well, I did, but let up a bit on the back straight). I made him work for it though and he only beat me by a wheel so I was pretty happy with that.
Actually, I was very happy with all of my match sprints. Super motivated for the next training block! And the knee held up really well!!
Photo by Steve Anderson.
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