Velodrome News and Training Tips


Tuesday, August 15, 2006

2006 Masters Track Natz

What a long strange trip it's been.

That Greatful Dead line pretty much describes my 2006 training/racing season. After 2005 where nothing could go wrong, 2006 started with a bang - a negative bang.

First of all we had the big storm of New Years eve, blowing several large trees down and onto the track at Hellyer. The track was closed for several weeks while the trees were cleared and the fence was repaired.

In February I suffered a medial collateral ligament injury (knee) and spent the rest of the season doing my power work (hill starts) in a brace to protect my knee.

Then the rain started falling.....and falling and falling. I didn't have a complete training week until May, and then when it started to dry out, I started having trouble with my bike. The soft rear dropouts of my aluminum Cervelo were getting so chewed up by the wheel bolts that I had trouble getting the wheel/chain adjusted properly. I never did get a permanent solution to that, but with a little sanding, filing and using oversized washers, I finally got everything working.

June, July, a pretty good 500 meter performance in Portland at the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge and finally the speed was coming - just in time for Masters Track Natz in Colorado Springs. Even that started out with a near disaster. Sometime during the baggage check, my Accel rear wheel was damaged beyond repair. It most likely happened during ther security inspection by careless inspectors. More news to come about that when I finish filing my claims against United, TSA and the company TSA uses for their inspections.

Fortunately, my friend and Friday Night Breakaway Co-Race director, Linelle Northcott, has an Accel like mine and she shipped it to us in COS using overnight USPS. It arrived in good condition and it was off to the races.

We started off with the flying 200 meter tt to seed for our sprint tournament. Besides wanting to seed high in order to race the slower riders early in the tourney, one of my goals was to break the existing 200m record for the 55-59 year age group. At 11.618 seconds, I felt it was attainable in COS, the fastest track in the US due to altitude of around 6000 feet. The person who I thought would be my fastest competitor in both the sprints and the 500 was Bill Zeigler who had won the 500 in COS two years earlier. I had been watching his results from SoCal and we were pretty evenly matched, time wise. His 200 was earlier than mine and he went 11.671. Fast, but not quite the record. I was scheduled to go off third from last, and finally it was my turn. 11.668 seconds. Faster than Bill by .003, but also no record. Very close - .05 seconds - but no banana. No one else was faster, so I did end up seeding first. The actual sprints were the next day, so now I had to wait for our 500 meter tt, our first championship race of the week.

The racing was scheduled in a one session format, starting at 8am, and running until the day's program was done. Made for a very long day, but it also meant no coming and going - hauling our gear back and forth. Pros and cons to both formats, but this one worked out ok.

The 500's were run in pairs and I was scheduled to ride in the penultimate pair. I was a returning National Champion, but I was in the younger age group last year and the current 55-59 1st and 2nd place riders from 2005 were still in this group and were scheduled to ride after me. Again, I felt that Bill Zeigler was my biggest threat and he was again scheduled before me. And again, I have to repeat, what a long strange trip it's been. After all my mechanical, physical and weather related difficulties, culminating with a destoyed wheel, Bill goes to the line and in his first attempt to start, his handlbars come loose. Under the rules, everyone is allowed one restart, no matter what the reason, so Bill and his coach, Eddie B, tighten up his bars and he lines up for a restart. 5,4,3,2,1, bang and off he goes - for about 5 meters. This time the bolt that was loose breaks completely, and his race is over. I couldn't believe it. The irony was almost overwhelming. At that point, I knew I had won my first Championship of the week. The fastest ride up to that moment was 36.9 and the two riders after me simply weren't fast enough to beat that. I knew that I could have a sub par ride and still win. I tried very hard to go as fast as I could, but I think psychologically, not having Bill to chase affected my ride and I ended up with a 36.09, far fast enough for the win, but well off my other goal of the World 500 meter record of 35.5. That, and perhaps making the wrong gear choice for the standing start, kept me from having that once a year, super fast ride. But, the up note was my first gold medal of the 2006 Championships.

The match sprint format this year was the top 8 riders from the qualifying 200's went directly into the quater finals of the tournament. We would ride two up, best two of three races to advance to the next round. The racers are seeded 1st vs 8th, 2nd vs 7th, 3-6, 4-5, so ideally the top two seeds would race each other for the 1st and 2nd place final and the next fastest for the 3rd and 4th place final.

My first ride was against a rider with a 12.7 sec 200, so I was able to win in two rides pretty easily, not having to really push it. My second ride was against Chip Berezny, a very experienced rider with a 200m time of 12.19, so definitely more of a threat. The first ride went very well. Chip took the lead and as we came out of turn two after the bell, I hit it hard, got by quickly and shut it down coming out of four I had so much space between us. Ride #2 almost ended differently. As we started, Chip, who started this ride in the lower position, rolled down to the pole, looked back to see that I wasn't coming quickly, and accelerated very hard. I fortunately reacted pretty fast and went after him, but he now had 5 or 6 bike lengths on me down the back stretch of lap one. I finally caught him at the bell, but when I went to accelerate down the back stretch, I didn't quite have the jump I'd had earlier and Chip matched my speed down the back stretch. Side by side into turns three and four, I finally pulled ahead at the finish line to win by about half a wheel. Way to close and way to hard for a semi-final ride!

Bill also had a couple of tough rides in his semi-finals, having to race Woody Cox who, although not as fast in the sprints, is one of the most competitve riders in our age group and later set a new world record in his speciality, the 2K time trial.

So, ride number one for the gold. Bill drew the bottom start position and took it out pretty slowly, staying between the blue stayers line and pole. I stayed high on the track and picked the pace up a bit. Bill stayed even with me but stayed low, which I thought was odd. Into the bell lap we went and I went even closer to the fence into turn one. Even stranger, Bill continued to stay low. As we got into turn two, I'm almost at the fence and Bill is still below the stayers line. I'm watching him closely and he looks down track which is enough for me. I jump hard from the rail and before he knows it, I'm 5 bikes by him. Ride #1 was over.

I started in the down postion for ride #2. The plan was to lead him out and gun it down the back stretch in the bell lap. He wanted to be in the front again though, so I let him roll to the front out of turn four into the bell. He moved to the pole and was going faster than the first ride, so I stayed with him. Past the bell into turns one and two and I go as hard as I can go coming out of two. I'm past him going into turn three and then he throws his arm up, protesting my pass. According to the rules, the passing rider's rear wheel needs to be clear of the passed rider's front wheel in order for it to be a clean pass. As I rolled past the finish line, far ahead of Bill, the head ref, motioned us both over. I rolled onto the infield warm-up track and pulled up next to Bill, where the ref told us my pass had been clean, so I had won in two rides. Cool! I told Bill that I would never purposely come down on him and he just chuckled and said that I came by him so quickly, the only way he thought he'd get another ride was to protest - kind of like a basketball player feigning a foul. Didn't work and I won gold medal #2.

I had two more races planned for the week. The first was the 2K tt. I had never done one, so I thought it might be fun to give it a try here in Colorado. I was shooting for 2 minutes, 30 seconds after looking at times from two years ago here. I thought that might put me in the medals. I was right, it would have - if I would have been able to do it. The first four laps went ok, and then I collapsed. I just couldn't keep the pace up for two more laps. I ended up with a 2:34.6, 6th overall out of 18 riders, and first among the Hellyer 55-59 group that was also doing the 2K. So, not too bad.

The last event I had a chance to medal in was the team sprint. Three riders. Three laps. Standing start with each rider going one lap and then pulling off. I was teamed with LGBRC teammate, Tim Montagne and good friend and Hellyer sprint king, Dean Haraguchi. Tim was our lead off rider. Based on our Hellyer training and our respective times in Colorado, I thought I was enough faster from a standing start than Tim that I could kind of ease into the start. Wrong! I broke my #1 rule about bike racing - never underestimate anyone. I even casually got set for the start with my pedal lower than I normally have it set, putting me at another disadvantage. When the gun sounded, Tim lit it up! He quickly put several bike lengths on me and it took me until turn three to finally get on his wheel. Not the best way to do the team sprint. When Tim pulled off we were doing 38.9mph, a great first lap. Unfortunately, I had done most of the lap with a diminished draft and it showed in my lap. My speed dropped to around 35mph as I dropped Dean off. Dean's ride was also just ok and we ended up 7th - out of the medals. Arrghh!! On the upside, Tim and I will be doing the team sprint at the Masters World Championships in England next month and I won't make the same mistake there.

All in all, a very good week. I sprinted as well as I have in years, but I still haven't had my once a year, blistering fast 500, so hopefully that'll happen in England. Stay tuned.

A big thanks to everyone who has helped and supported me this year. Especially to LGBRC for all the team support. Linelle Northcott for coming through with her wheel for me. My training partner Paul Yazolino for his great help during my sprint rounds. And of course to my wife Anne for simply being there for me and putting up with my occasional BS.

I should also be adding some pictures from COS in a couple of days. Thanks for reading.


Kevin



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