Jackson Park

photo by gavin

5th '07(cat 4b), 23rd '08(cat 3)

Racing at Jackson Park for the third time I had a lot of mixed emotions. I no longer felt like a noob. With two seasons of CX under my belt, expections to not ride like one were high on my brain.

The race started with the traditional "shitty start" at the back of the pack. With the largest 3's field that I have ever raced in (5o-something?) the first lap was a cluster-fuck. The finish/start straightaway turned left into the corner of a baseball field. On the first lap riders bottlenecked and crashed. I was off the bike and running. The sand was not really sand but a heavy packed dirt that looked exactly like sand. Unfortunately on subsequent laps I would ride this section as if it were a difficult stretch of sand and rode through it successfully only twice.

The first third of the race I spent trying to move around and through the heavy traffic. The legs and lungs felt great. The cornering skills however were horrible. For the life of me I just couldn't hit the corners cleanly. On the off camber corners my foot kept coming off the pedals to stablize. It didn't help that the air pressure on my front tire was way too low, on several occasions I almost rolled the tire and lost traction. I crashed into the tape countless times as a I kept overshooting the corners. Coming around hot in a tight turn after the baseball field I hit a rut in a turn that took many a riders down that day. I hit the ground pretty hard as my bike slid out from underneath me.

My right brake lever was turned inward because of the crash. It took me about 15 seconds to bend it back into place, but in cross 15 seconds is an eternity. I got back on my bike but had lost all rhythm. Some more 3s passed me and then the masters started coming around. I definitely slowed down after that. The second third of the race I spent being passed by masters and a few of the leading women, and trying to regain a rhythm. On the very few flat sections and on the barriers I would sprint to attempt to make up some time. But it was to no avail as any advantage I would quickly lose it on the turns that I was taking like a 4b. The drive to push it slowly waned as I packed it in mentally and shut down my brain.

More embarrassed than anything about my bike handling skills I was lapped on the last lap and managed to finish a lap down on the field. Mentally zapped and upset, my body was feeling great. I barely felt like I had burned any matches and after the race I concluded that outside of the horrible turning I felt great. Knowing exactly what I have to work on (cornering) I am feeling confident for Dekalb. In conclusion, CX '09(so far)= legs there,brain not

New cables!

The Kaffenbach is recabled with some fresh Fizik tape. Tommorow morning the barriers come out for the first time in over 9 months

Hmmm, seriously considering getting a caad 9 cross frameset (made in USA of course) and building it up for cx 2010...

Finally, a plan and a method to all this madness...

So havent updated in a while, haven't done much in the past couple of weeks. The rescheduling of the state championship road race threw the last part of my road season off. I was planning to have a mean peak by the 23 of this month for Oakbrook but that isn't going to happen.

Instead when I found out that the race had been scheduled for September I went into rest mode. The road season has been pretty hard and my legs needed the rest. Over the last couple of weeks I have lost the "punch" or that "kick" that one develops at about this time in August. I do have a pretty strong base though and I am totally confident that in a couple of weeks time now that I'm on the plan with Bob, cross is going to be fast and fun.

the calm before the storm?

With more than half the season gone the numbers are looking good. My midpack finish at fox river has given me a lot of confidence. The training for the last two weeks has been limited. A mid-week practice mtb race, a tuesday night track session and Fox river have been my hardest training rides.

Longer tempo rides and blazingly slow recovery rides have kept me fairly well rounded. Today starts a rest week that will go into a three week raceing phase. I have 6 superweek races planned. Five of those I raced last year with the Elgin course being the only new one.
Im feeling pretty confident with my mid-season fitness. I have never been this strong this early in the season. Hopefully I can stay on track, august should be pretty fast.

Spring Prairie Road Race

On sunday me, isaiah and zach made the drive out to burlington wisconsin for the Spring Prairie road race. This is the road state championships race, and as such WCA gave us chicagoans our own 4/5s non wisconsin field.

The course is about 6.5 miles through rolling country roads with a steepish longer climb right before the finish. The short up and down course reminded me of a circuit race, our field was doing 6 laps. After our neutral rollout the race started on the "big" climb. The pack made its way up very slowly. The course was 4 corners but with enough twisty bends up/down and sideways that one could get away. And they tried for the first two laps setting a rough tempo.

It was obvious that this would be a race of attrition, the pack would lose a couple of guys every lap on the climbs and descents. Although all of the elevation gains were only rollers they were enough to send guys out the back with their breakfast in their throats.

Coming in with good form and fresh strong legs I was able to hang on to the back with isaiah and zach. In the first couple of laps zach got popped out the back. After the first big climb there was a fast descent with a turn into another roller at the bottom. It was around here that I found my way off the back with a couple of riders including isaiah and a spidermonkeyrider. I led them out to a tower racing fellow who was going back also. After a couple of shouts of encouragment from me and others it was obvious that I would have to dig deep into my suitcase of uncertainty to catch back on. With the desperate knowledge that if we didnt close the gap our race would be over I put my head down and got aero on the hoods. Not wanting to wait for anybody else I took a big pull to bring back a couple of back to the pack.

Hoping that I hadnt burned too many matches, the pack settled into a much more relaxed pace for the middle laps. Conversational at times it gave me and a isaiah opportunity to talk about our plans for tommorow, and how surprised we were that we were still here etc. Not having had a great 1st half of the season I used this race to brush up my pack riding skills trying to move up ride more conservatively.

Once we started the bell lap I was feeling confident, at the big finishing climb I was always starting from the ass end of the pack but was able to move to the front half during the climb. I could probably make a big move and move up a bunch of places at the end. I also noticed that I had stayed in the big chainring the whole race except for the finishing roller. Hmm, I thought maybe I should try riding in the small chainring to let my legs rest a little. Big mistake. I shifted down to the 39 while we were on a flat section. My timing couldnt have been worse as the pack descended. A mental lapse cost me big. I went out the back at a bad time. Just as I reached the bottom the pack was cresting the next climb. I tried for little bit to catch up, had this happened earlier in the race I might have had a chance.

So I finished by myself. Upset that a simple mistake made me miss the fireworks at the end I was also feeling kind of good. I had managed to stay with the pack almost to the very end and accomplished my race goal of finishing with the 1st half of the pack. With my legs feeling this good in already I cant wait until August.

woah

Easy ride today up to tower road with the team. Mostly easy endurance pace with a couple of hard efforts. Max-878watts. Highest number ive ever seen on the powertap since i started using it this year, not bad.
tommorow, Spring Prairie