I started my preparation for the 2005 Track National Championships pretty early - last October of 2004. My 2004 results had shown a continued improvement in my 'chosen speciality', as Phil Liggett would say, the 500 meter time trial. The 500, on the surface, looks like a pretty simple race. From a standing start, you have to accelerate up to speed as fast as you can, then maintain that speed for the remainder of the distance. The reality is, like most races, even a short event like the 500 can be broken down into separate pieces. In the case of the 500, for me, these pieces are the start, the standing to seated transition, maximum speed and long speed. In addition, in order to be able to train each of these pieces, there needs to be some endurance work. A three hour track session may be composed of very short individual efforts, but you need the ability to recover completely between efforts to make them work correctly. Each of these pieces can be trained separately, and then put together as the season progresses.

I won't go into detail here, but my training schedule is designed around a six week cycle - five weeks of work, then a rest week. So, starting last October, I worked on each piece of the 500 using that schedule. Every cycle I increased some aspect of the program - more track days; greater number of sets; bigger gear, etc.

In March, we started the Hellyer Sprint Tournaments. Sprinting is my favorite part of track racing. Since there's a lot of cross over between the 500 and the match sprint, the sprint tourneys were great training as well as being great fun. They allowed me to try things I wouldn't be able to try during a race, as well as fine tuning my 200 meter time trial which is used for seeding in any match sprint tournament.

Starting in October for a race the following August gives one a feeling of "oh, there's lots of time to work on this or that." Even as I started my race season with the sprints in March, there always seemed like lots of time especially since the improvements kept coming - a little faster here, a bit better start there. Then July rolled around and it was nearly time to put all the pieces together. I had set my goal for the 500 at 36.5 seconds. I had done 37.0 once before in 1996 when I was preping for World's, but the fastest I had gone since was 37.52 at Districts in 2004. I felt that 36.5 was a realistic goal. New training. New bike. New wheels. New aero helmet. All would add up to going faster. Just prior to going the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge in Portland, I did a 37 flat in practice. Right direction, but not quite there yet. The AVC races didn't go quite as well as I wanted, but it was mistakes that cost me, as I was going pretty fast.

Then came our District Championships, or more correctly, The Northern California-Northern Nevada State Championships, wherever that is. Districts took place about ten days before Natz, and finally the speed was there. I did a 36.47 second 500 and a 12.08 200 for the sprints. I knew now that I could actually win in Indianapolis if I could repeat my 500 meter ride.

Indianapolis has typical midwest weather in the Summer - hot and humid - and August in Indy is one of the worst. Not this year. We arrived in Indy to one of the mildest weather periods I've ever experienced there. (I grew up in Indianapolis, leaving in 1969, vowing to never live there again) Temperature in the high 70's and low 80's. Humidity at 50-60%. Windy, but otherwise great weather.

With racing starting on Tuesday, 8/23, we flew in on the Saturday before. I had arranged to rent a road bike to use while there, so on Sunday, after picking it up, I went to the track to do a light workout. The Major Taylor Velodrome is similar to Hellyer, but has steeper banking and a rounder shape. On Monday, I did a short, but very hard workout to get my legs ready to go fast. Everything felt good. I was ready to go.

Racing started Tuesday morning with the 200 meter time trials for the Match Sprints. All of the age groups did the 200 Tuesday morning, with their sprints scattered throughout the week. Mine were to be the following day. My 200 went well - 12.119 seconds - pretty much the same time as my ride at Hellyer the week before. The second fastest 200 was 12.336, so I became the first seed. Seeding is important because the faster seeds race the slower seeds in the first round. This year, only the top six riders actually made the tournament for the championship. The Hellyer group had three riders that finished seventh, and didn't make the cut. The sixth rider in my groups did a 12.9 200, so he would be my first ride the next morning. But first, my main event, the 500, Tuesday evening.

My group was the very last group to do it's short time trial. Before us were all the other age groups, both men and women, 500's and kilo's. The evening program started at 5pm. My group started around 8pm. The main reason I rented the road bike was that I was concerned about this late start. It's hard to warm up 3 hours before a race and then stay warmed up, so about an hour before my ride, I took the road bike out to the parking lot and did some hard jumps. I felt good, but the weather had slowly gotten worse as the evening progressed. Not normal Indy worsening, but colder and windy. I was actually chilled through my rubberized skin suit which is normally like being in a sauna. I was in the 7th of 13 heats, two riders per heat. I started on the front stretch. We weren't actually racing each other, the clock being the real competition, but having two riders cut down on the time needed to run the events. 5, 4,3,2,1 and I'm off. Unfortunately, I immediately knew I wasn't on a great ride. The start was very sloppy, and I never did quite get up to the speed I wanted. I finished with a 37.600. Needless to say, I was pretty aggravated at myself. Over a second slower than at Districts. I'd say the weather might have contributed to say, maybe a half a second. I think I would have been ok with a low 37, say 37.1 or 37.2, but definitely not a 37.6.

Now I had to wait for 6 more heats, or 12 more riders. Up to that point, the fastest ride had been in the low 39's, and as each ride went off, that stayed the norm. With one more pair to go, no one else had gone below 39, so I was assured of at least a bronze medal. The last pairing contained Bob Pelegrin who had finished 2nd in the 200 and Bill Bedwell who was 5th in the 200. Bill finished his 500 in 38.478 and Bob in 37.770. I'd dodged the bad ride bullet and won anyway - my first National Championship! Receiving the gold medal and the stars and stripes jersey on the poduim was very cool. To top it all off, my mother, who had never seen me race was there to see the race and the awards. It doesn't get any better than that.

My first round match sprint was the next morning. I had to race Chip Berezny, a very savvy racer from the east coast. I made a small mistake, not entering the pole lane on the back stretch in the bell lap with enough speed and Chip jumped around me, but I was enough faster that I got back around him in the turn to win by a good margin.

Bob Pelegrin, the 2nd seed was beaten by Bill Bedwell in their first ride so Bob had to go back through the reps to re-enter the main racing.
The winner of the reps races the 1st seed - me - so I ended up racing the 2nd seed in the semi-finals rather than the finals.

Unlike the first round, which is a one ride, sudden death, the semi-finals and finals are best two of three. Both of my rides with Bob were very close, with the 2nd being a photo finish, but I won by about the width of a tire. So, on to the finals for the gold.

In the finals, Patrick Gellineau was my competition. Patrick was probably the most experienced racer there. Years of racing crits and the track, and several National and World Championships under his belt, Patrick was a formidable opponent. Pat led the first ride, slowly picking the pace up and moving down from the fence in the third turn of the bell lap. As he accelerated down the back stretch, he stayed in the middle of the track rather than the pole, so I jumped hard to his right, passed him going into the turn and that was that. One down. The next ride I stayed high in front until we were in between turns one and two on the bell lap. The plan was to either keep it high and jump down from turn two, basically a 200 meter time trial, or force Partick to jump underneath me, at which time I'd use him as a lead out into turn three. Good plan, but foiled by some great riding on Partrick's part. He did jump underneath in turn two and again he stayed high going down the back stretch. This time I bit at his tactic and tried to go underneath him into the pole. He immediately moved into the pole himself, effectively shutting down my acceleration, and then he jumped hard. I caught him, but couldn't quite get by him at the finish, so it's now one a piece.

Before the last ride, I told myself that I was quite a bit faster than Pat, so I needed to just keep it simple and use that speed advantage. I drew the bottom position, so I immediately went to the front and started a slow but steady acceleration. Coming out of the fourth turn into the bell lap, I dropped into the pole while continuing my acceleration. Into turn one, then two, and then I jumped out of the saddle as hard as I could. It was enough. I won the 3rd sprint by over a bike length, and my second gold medal.

So, that's it in a very long nutshell. I'm still not happy with my 500, but very satisfied with the sprints. For next year, I'll work on increasing my speed even more and trying to be more consistent in the time trial. We're planning on going to Master Worlds as well as Natz next year, so hopefully with more work and the experience I gained this year, I'll add a World Championship jersey and another stars and stripes to the one I got this year.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin