Velodrome News and Training Tips

2006 Masters track World Championships

2006-09-18T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well let's see. What page in the "Cyclists Book of 101 Excuses" will I find the reason why Worlds didn't go as planned? How about excuse #102 - I just flat ran out of gas.

Even though this year has been full of stops and starts - bad weather, knee injury, bike problems - I was able to bring my game up high enough to win my first two major competitions of the year, the Alpenrose Challenge and then Masters National Track Championships. I came out of Masters Natz at a pretty high level and thought I could maintain that peak for another 4 weeks. It wasn't to be though.

Following Natz I took my rest week as planned but never really got my speed back up. I had a couple of bright moments during the following 3 weeks, but always a little off. I started my taper and run into Worlds optimistic that the speed would come once I got to England, but I then developed a little sore throat just before leaving and the 12 hour plane flight seemed to make it worse, as it moved first into my sinuses and then down to my chest. Yuchh!

The airline then somehow misplaced my bikes so I went two days with nothing to ride and had to face the possibility that they might not arrive at all.

The bikes finally showed up and I had two days to get ready for my first race - the 500 meter tt - but again the speed simply wasn't there either during training or during the event itself. I rode a 37.5 second tt, which isn't a good time for me at Hellyer, much less at a fast indoor track like the Manchester Velodrome. It was good enough for 5th, but that's all.

That was on Monday, so I now had until Thursday to get the speed up for the sprints on Thursday, and it did get a bit faster each day, but not quite enough. My qualifying time of 12.095 would have been a good time for me at Hellyer, but again I was looking for something a little faster indoors. I had gone 11.66 in Colorado missing my age group world record of 11.61 by .05 seconds. I thought that with a really hot run in Manchester, I might yet beat the record, but again, it wasn't to be.

My 12.09 was fast enough for the second seed. The fastest time was 11.79. The Match Sprints at Masters Worlds is run so that everyone makes the tournament and you have to loose two matches to finally be put out. Most of the rides are three ups, but depending on how many people are in the tournament, some folks get two ups. Seeding 2nd, I was one of those folks, getting two up rides through all the rounds to the finals.

I felt good through the first three rounds, winning all of the sprints pretty handily. The final though was a three up with the top seed, Carlos Reybaud (Argentina), and the 7th seed, Patrick Gellineau (USA), who had upset the third seed and last years' champion, Robert Gerard Louis (Canada), to make it into the finals. Pat is very smart rider and his 200 meter time of 12.45 wasn't that much slower than mine, but I felt I had to concentrate on Reybaud as he had finished 2nd last year in the sprints and had also finished 2nd in the 500 meter tt earlier in the week, so he had something to prove.

Sprinting on a 250 meter track requires some different tactics than a 333 like Hellyer or Colorado Springs, and a three race up makes it that much more complicated. It's important to try and control the pace of the race as it can be difficult to pass with the short straights, so I went to the front immediately and started my acceleration from the gun. Reybaud tried to pass me once about 1 1/2 laps into it, but I gunned it enough to keep him at bay and then coming out of turn four into the bell lap, I hit it as hard as I could go. 250 meters to go at the bell.

Going flat out, ten feet from the finish line I thought the championship was mine. Unknown to me though, was that Reybaud had come out of the lane and off my wheel in turn one, and Patrick had taken advantage of the bobble to get on my wheel. Pat said afterward he'd probably done 30 crits this year, and that road fitness was probably the biggest factor as he jumped hard out of turn four and just nipped me at the line - or as the brits say, he pipped me. I beat Pat for the 2005 National Sprint Championships and if I'd had my Colorado speed in England, he wouldn't have gotten by, but I didn't and he did, so the best rider won.

So, no gold medal, but winning the silver and getting on the podium at the World Championships was still pretty cool. We got flowers and then got to ride our bikes around the track with people cheering and clapping. Very cool!

On Saturday, LGBRC teammate, Tim Montagne, and I teamed up with Scott Butler, a very fast rider from Pennsylvania, for the Team Sprint. We had an eighteen team field, with the top four times going into the medal round. I was pretty fried, but we did a respectable time only 2.5 seconds out of first place (52.432sec vs 49.981sec), but also a second and a half out of fourth (50.949sec), so that was it for us.

All in all not a great week, but I will always remember and treasure the moments on the podium receiving my silver medal. The event itself was one of the most professionaly run races I've ever been to, and everyone involved, riders, promotors, officials, support staff, even the hotel folks were incredible. Thanks to all.

For complete results go to: http://www.cyclingmasters.com/2006.results/mon.html

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

Pictures from 2006 Masters Track Natz

2006-08-24T16:55:00.000-07:00

A friend of ours took a ton of really great photos of my racing in Colorado, so I thought I'd share some of them. It is a little weird that they're all of me (my humility statement), but it is my blog, so here they are.

Oh yeah, another weird thing. After looking at the pix, I realized that my memory of my final sprint was very different than what really happened. What I remembered was passing Bill Zeigler near turn three, dropping into the pole and then bobbling out again with him retaking the pole. It appears that I never did get into the pole. Interesting.

This first series is of the 200m tt to seed for the sprints. It was very fun riding a track this fast. I've seen 40+ mph on my speedo behind the motor at Hellyer, but this was the first time I've done it on my own.

This next series is my final sprint with Bill. The first two are coming out of turn four into the bell lap where he decided he wanted the front. From here, he dropped into the pole, slowly bringing the speed up. He stayed in front into turns one and two.

The sprint is now engaged as I start my acceleration coming out of turn two.

Starting to pass going into turn three.

Through turn three.....

......and into four. Riding a little too high here.

Finally down where I should be coming out of four.

Out of four and to the finish. Sure am glad that's over!

The next two photos are during the 500 meter time trial. Both were taken about the same spot on the track, with the first being right after the start and the second near the finish. I started on the back side and finished on the front, so this is somewhere in turn four.

And finally, the obligatory podium shot, followed by a couple of shots of my wonderful wife and "coach". Not everyone gets to kiss his coach. Like last year, her advice was to go fast and don't fall down. Good advise.

Thanks for reading.

Kevin

2006 Masters Track Natz

2006-08-15T09:15:00.000-07:00

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

And the rain finally stops..................

2006-04-22T14:36:00.000-07:00

What a spring.....or lack of. The rain has really wreaked havoc with may training schedule this spring. Constantly juggling to try and get all my workouts in - arghhhhh!

So now it looks as though it's stopped, and I'll see if I can get some kind of rhythm back into my training. I've just posted my next training cycle, starting May 8th. This will be my last, full six week cycle. After that, because of various races, each cycle will only be three to four weeks long.

So, if you're interested, check out the training calendar at the "Training Tips" link.

Kevin

First training cycle of 2006

2006-02-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

Well, the first 6 weeks of 2006 wasn't a complete bust for me, but it's been more of a struggle than I'd like.

First, the New Year's day storm damage kept us all off the track for the first several weeks in January. I did some road work that tried to duplicate my planned track workouts. They went ok, but just weren't the same.

Then, two weeks into the month, while doing my power workout, I tweaked my right knee. The ironic thing is that one of the reasons I do these standing hill starts instead of weight lifting for power work is that there is less chance of injury. Unfortunately, on the penultimate effort of my workout, I twisted my knee slightly to the outside during a big effort and did some damage to my medial collateral ligament (MCL). Feels like a sprain or strain, but it's the kind of injury that heals best when completely rested, something I hadn't planned on doing.....until I got sick the next week. A nasty flu bug put me in bed for two days and basically off the bike for another 10 days or so. I suppose from one point of view, it was a good thing. It kept me from hammering my knee any more. So, I decided to take my scheduled rest week early since I didn't feel well enough to train anyway.

Last Monday rolls around, the day I'm supposed to start my new cycle and I still only feel about 75%. I did the noon ride on Monday, sitting in the entire ride. The ride was only moderately hard, but I felt pretty beat up at the end. Tuesday was a scheduled track day - my first day back since mid-December. It didn't go too badly. Still didn't feel 100%, but the workout went ok until the last 200 meter effort, and I just didn't have the ooomph to do it. So I bagged that and the last three starts I had planned. On Wednesday, I thought I'd try the noon ride again instead of going to the gym. Pretty day, and I needed the bike time more than the lift time. Didn't go well. I rode easy for an hour before the ride, and then ended up bailing about half way up Alpine on the noon ride itself. No gas.

Ok, enough was enough. I went really easy on Thursday for an hour, and then on Friday I actually started to feel a bit better. I ended up doing a moderately hard tempo workout and even though it wasn't very long, for the first time in almost three weeks I felt better.

So, hopefully things will start to pick up tomorrow. My knee is still sore, but I've got a brace coming that will give me 100% range of motion in the bicycle pedaling plane, but no lateral movement or hyperextension, which is what hurts. Keep your fingers crossed please.

Kevin

Track Damage

2006-01-19T07:48:00.000-08:00

Well, January 1st not only brought us a new year, it also brought a storm that did some damage at the velodrome. Several large eucalyptus trees came down, and one went into the track itself, destroying part or the fence rail and boards. Hopefully, we'll get it repaired this week and back on the track next week.

During this interim, I had to modify my workouts a bit to replace the track workouts, so basically I took what I wanted to work and did the workouts on the road instead. Not as good as the track, but it is January, so the difference isn't as important.

Kevin

The start of 2006

2005-12-31T14:53:00.000-08:00

2006! Next year is here. A bit of a new look here. This blog area is going to be for just race reports or other track info. I've put the training calendar and related stuff on a another page. I think it'll be easier to use. The link is just to the left of here. Check it out it you're interested in how I'm traing in 2006. I'll be adding some links to other informational sites as well. Nutrition. Supplements. Interesting studies. That kind of stuff.

I have kept my 2005 Master Track Natz report and pictures here on the main blog site. Kind of interesting.

Kevin

Natz Pictures

2005-09-15T07:51:00.000-07:00

Several folks asked if I had any pictures from Track Nationals, so here are a few. I tried to add them to the previous blog, but I just couldn't them to go in the way I wanted - I just need more experience working with the blog set up. So, anyway, here are some pix.

This is the Major Taylor Velodrome in Indianapolis. A very nice track!

Getting ready for the 500 meter time trial.

5,4,3,2,1....................

And here's what the hard work is all about. Even though I didn't have a great ride, it turned out a-ok.

With my mom :)

Day two - here's some of my support crew: my mom, my sister-in-law Janice, and my beautiful and wonderful wife Anne. Anne was also my coach during the week in Indy, with the best advice a coach can give - go fast!

Day two for me was full of Match Sprints. One in the morning, two in the afternoon, and three in evening. This first photo is just before my first semi-final ride with Bob Pelegrin. Sitting in the "on deck" chairs.

This next picture is just before the start of our first ride. I drew the upper position. John Simmons is holding me. John was invaluable during these rides. Lots of encouragement and good ideas.

"So start, already" In the 2nd ride with Bob, we switched starting positions. I asked John to hold me for a few seconds before pushing me off at the starting whistle. Since the bottom rider is obligated to lead out the first half lap, Bob's coach, Mark Whitehead, is wondering why I wasn't starting.

Finally, off to ride number two.

Our second semi-final ride was VERY close. When I threw my bike at the finish, I was pretty sure I had won, but didn't realize just how close it did turn out. The finish camera decided the outcome.

I thought this was a good picture, not only of another one of the Hellyer trackies, and my friend, Warren Geissert, but also some more of the area around the velodrome - the BMX track is in the background

Ok, on to the sprint for gold and silver medals. Here's Patrick Gellineau and I in the first turn of ride one. A couple of old track butts.

The final win. A little blurry, but I think Anne was just a little excited that I was about to win my 2nd gold medal of the week.

One last podium photo op - the top five 50-54 year old match sprinters at this year's Masters Nationals.

A happy Hellyer crew, from left to right: Mark Rodamaker, 55-59 Match Sprints, Warren Geissert, 3rd in the 45-49 Sprints this evening, but part of the gold medal 135+ Team Sprint team later in the week, yours truly, and Leo Menistrina, 60-64 Points race.

And that's all folks. Thanks for taking time to look at the photos and listen to my stories. As my coach says, go fast, and ride safe.

Kevin

Masters Natz - the long version

2005-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

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