Author: kennettron

I had a terrible race today; and was the maddest I have ever been after a race. I hope I didn’t upset any of the spectators.

After a good warm up, I was feeling terrific. I lined up as quickly as I could at the start, but somehow managed to still be stuck in the back quarter of the pack. The 5 corner race course was narrow, and it included a 180 degree boulevard turn that required rolling through at about 3 miles an hour. So when I looked around at my position at the start, I knew that I was going to have to work hard to move up once the race began. We started. I clipped in. The guy in front of me did not. It was too tight to get around him. As 20 people went around me on all sides, the guy in front struggled to clip in, and when he finally did, I found myself at the very back of the pack. 2 laps in and I had barely moved up. And gaps were forming. I began passing people and bridging gaps, but the main field kept increasing their lead on the broken tail end of the peloton. By now we were 15 minutes into the crit and a 2 man break had formed. They had already opened up 30 or 40 seconds on the main pack, and were closing in on me and the other couple guys that were desperately trying to catch back on. We did not work together very well. One of us would pull for a half lap or so, then the next guy in line would sprint ahead, trying to bridge the ever increasing gap himself. We were 25 seconds behind the main field when we were pulled off the course; the two break away was almost a full minute ahead of the main pack at this point, and they were about to lap us. I don’t know how the race ended because I didn’t stay to watch.

Today was wet and cold. But mainly fast.

In the still-dark morning, Tony, Mike, and myself drove to the race course in Tony’s tiny red Toyota truck. The bed was packed with wheels, bikes, and backpacks, which left only a tiny space in the rear seat for Mike to cram himself into. As we approached the race course, which is situated about half way from Corvallis and Eugene, it began to rain. In the period of 20 minutes, the temperature dropped at least 15 degrees. Rumors of snow on the finish climb began circling the covered basketball court where about 40 people sat on trainers, protected from the increasing rain.

Luckily enough, it stopped raining for the start of the cat 1/2 race.

Right from the beginning, the pace was high. Feeble attempts at breaks went and were reeled back in by the power house teams–Hagen Berman’s, CMG, Livestrong, and others. For the most part, the roads out there were clean and had few potholes. Trees lined the wet road. I can’t really explain the scenery in more detail than that because during the hilly, 43 mile, hour and 45 minute race, my eyes were glued to whatever wheel was in front of me.

The first true pain came at the middle climb. 1000 feet at a very high speed. We tore around the sharp corners and riders began dropping off in groups of five and ten. I had made the mistake of starting the climb near the back of the peloton, and paid for it by the end of the climb. As I passed struggling riders–myself struggling as well–I glanced down at my computer and saw 23mph. At one point I looked down again while I was “soft pedaling” during a slight decline in the gradient and saw 350 watts. I was well above 400 watts for the majority of the climb. A gap formed and I watched, helplessly, as about 15+ riders began the decent without me. But I was in a small group of other guys and we caught back on with a few minutes of work.

By then it was getting very windy and it began raining and sleeting. A break got away with about 10 guys. All were eventually caught.

The next half hour was a blur. I was in pain during the short climbs and sucking wheels like Hoover vacuum cleaner. We approached the final climb and the pace went up through the roof. I managed to stay with the pack though, and eventually began passing people. I thought there were 2 or 3 miles left in the race, and was making progress on the lead guys. The speed was fast, but not super fast. I was at about HR 185, around my threshold, and figured I could hold that pace for at least 2 miles. As I rounded a bend, I was shocked and very disappointed to see the finish line 50 meters ahead. I sprinted past a couple more guys and finished in 21st place–13 seconds behind the lead guys. There were no 3k or 200M to go markers, and it messed me up big time. Now I am sitting in 16th overall, 49 seconds behind the leader. Whatever.

I rode down to the start, freezing my ass off, and got the truck back up to the finish line for Mike and Tony. Mike had been dropped after being in a break away in the 3 field and Tony had been dropped from the cat 4/5 field during the 1000 foot climb.

We began the long trip home. It was a loooonnnnngggg car ride back to Eugene–3+ hours. On HWY 99, just leaving Junction city, we noticed a polite elderly redneck in a white truck (redneck according to Tony) pointing to the back of our pickup. We soon realized that something had fallen out. Tony pulled to the side of the highway, along with the elderly man in the truck, and he said, “you boys lost a wheel.” Each of our stomaches sank, praying that it wasn’t OUR wheel that flew out the back of the pickup on highway 99 at 70 miles an hour. It was my wheel. I let out a calm, but angry “FUCK.” I started running back down the highway as the other two guys got back in the truck and headed down the other side of the highway. It began to rain harder.

After running for a good 15 minutes, I caught up with Mike and Tony. Apparently Mike’s brand new Zipp had flown out also, but they found it in perfect condition. My wheel was nowhere in sight. Now I was getting worried. The wheel wasn’t exceptionally expensive. Just a cheap, factory built open pro. But there was an SL 2.4 power tap hub in the middle of that wheel. I let out a somewhat louder “FUCK!” I was very mad.

We spent the next 3 hours driving up and down the road, going all the way back to the race start. No luck. We stopped at Arby’s for an overpriced sandwich. We were bonking at this point in the drive. Tony and Mike had long since given up hope, but I wouldn’t take no for an answer. Because there is no way I could afford a new hub. We got out and began walking in the grass and garbage along the side of the road. Tony headed back to the car. Mike turned back to the car. I kept going, and saw a cool piece of rubber pipe that looked like it would make a good blackberry whacking stick. I went over to it and there, sitting in plain view on a slightly raised clump of grass, was my wheel. Victory. I grabbed it and ran with it along the highway, holding it above my head, yelling for joy as cars blared their horns.

The wheel was destroyed, but the hub was fine. Finally the long day seemed to be over. We could now go back and EAT. And rest. Coming back into Eugene, we were following a big, black SUV. The driver rolled down their window and threw a piece of trash out. We all gave a, “oh come on! WTF mate?” Deciding it was our one chance to catch up to a litterer (being in a car as aposed to riding bikes) we thought it would be a good idea to flip the driver off. As we pulled up next to him and gave him the finger, he rolled his window down to have a word. I rolled my window down and we argued for a few seconds, while still driving. I noticed that he had a big wad of spit saved up in his mouth and was pretty sure that he was about to spit at me, so I saved up a bit of my own and when he did spit, I let fly as well. He drove off and we all had a little chuckle. A few minutes later, when we came to a stop light, we saw him across from us a couple lanes over. We waved at him, which provoked him to get out of his SUV, walk across two lanes of traffic, and attempt to open Tony’s diver side door. I got out, thinking he was going to hit Tony, and we “got all up in each other’s face’s.” He was a big guy, about 6’4″ and 250+ pounds and looked like a linebacker. He said, “nobody spits on my car.” To which I replied, “uhhh, YOU actually spit at US first…after littering.” The guy didn’t care to hear my logic and attempted to shove me. I stepped to the side slightly and gave him a shove back, not really believing this was happening because of a small piece of litter. The light turned green and he returned to his car. Maybe next time he’ll think twice before littering. Probably not.

We stopped at Life Cycle to get a replacement wheel and Gild (my coach) heard what had happened and was furious that I would risk getting in a fight, especially in the midst of a stage race. I guess it was a bad idea.

Anyways, Geoff gave me a wheel off his bike and did a tune up on my shifting (thanks Geoff) before we finally got home and ate. And ate. And ate.

Kennett

PS I didn’t proof read so sorry for the gramatiical erors.

This morning I went out and did some 24mph intervals in the 39×15. It was sunny and I felt good, finally. The intervals felt easy and my legs felt fresh. Later in the day, I went into the shop one last time to make some more changes on my 5 speed TT bike. It’s called the 5 speed because it has 5 speeds. Big gear, bigger gear, bigger gear, bigger gear, and biggest gear. The front derailuer doesn’t work and the rear deraileur only shifts 5 of the back 10 gears. But none of that mattered during the race because it was completely flat and the only gears I needed were the big ones.

After a good warm up in the humid and comfortable late afternoon air, I rolled up to the line, prepared to enter the pain cave. I glanced down at my legs, somewhat shaking with nerves, and noticed the teaming number of small bugs plastered onto my legs. They were dead on impact and stuck in the oily stuff I had smeared on my legs for “protection against cooling down”–whatever that means. I took 15 big breaths of air, gulping it down like a free diver in preparation for an 8 minute and 48 second dive. I let out a slight grunt as I sprinted off into the wind.

I started out too hard, averaging about 650 watts for the first 45 seconds. Then, I didn’t go hard enough during the next 5 minutes while I recovered from my initial excitement. I watched, helplessly, as I saw my average watts go dwindle down. 630. 615. 599. 587. 545. 520. 490. 470. They got all the way down to 410 by the time I got to the final minute and a half of the course. As I entered the last of the 6 kilometers, I passed my 1 minute guy, but not my 30 second guy. By now I could see a neon yellow school sign, which I had remembered was very close to the end. I stood up and began sprinting, and without even having to reach down and shift up, my 5 speed shifted for me, somehow realizing that I needed that one extra gear.

My sprint lasted way too long, signifying that I hadn’t gone hard enough earlier on in the TT. I looked down at my AV watts after I crossed the finish line and saw 420. 10 shy of what I thought I wanted and 70 shy of what Gilad wanted. Realistically, I think I could have done 445 or 450 today, but messed it up in the beginning by going too hard and then not going hard enough when it counted. It was painful nonetheless. I took 24th out of about 75 riders.

I went on a 40 minute cool down ride later in the night and ate a feast of chicken and pasta at Tony’s.

Time to go to sleep; tomorrow’s going to be brutal!

Kennett

Yesterday was a shit ride. To be more accurate, I was shit yesterday ON the ride. It was one all out effort up Mcbeth, some intervals, and then a 5 mile all out TT with 15 second sprints every minute. I rode with Will and he kicked my ass during the intervals. I was feeling like crap, and my mind was not in it. So, for the first time in over a year, I quit the workout early. I was very upset with myself when I got home. A word of advice: NEVER quit a workout early. That advice is mainly for myself when I read this blog later this year.

I went back out to finish the workout after taking a nap and going to class. It felt good to finish it. I got about 9 hours of sleep last night. And today I took a 2.5 hour nap. I think my grogginess and spaghetti doughnut legs are gone now. Just in time to burninate tomorrow’s prologue.

Today Tony, Aaron, and I went for an easy hour spin. We previewed the crit course for the Willamette SR and zig-zagged in and out of traffic and parking lots playing a game of hide and seek with Aaron. He’s just too easy to tease.

Tomorrow is burnination. 6.6k all out. 430 watts here I come, bitch.

Kennett

After my one class today I went for an easy ride for an hour. It was sunny, which was a nice change from the snow and hail, and rain of last week. The most eventful thing that occurred during the ride was that when I was waiting at a stop light, my heart rate got down to 52 in a matter of seconds. After the ride I went to Life Cycle and began putting together my new bike: a Cervelo R3. Yeah, you heard me right. Cervelo R3. Now I have NO excuses for bad races.

The Monday night workout–which is comprised of running, plyometrics, and a lot of core work–was easy today. Although, I had to fight pretty hard to hold back the tears when Gilad and everyone started making fun of my stick-like calves. Apparently I have tiny tiny girly calves, which was made apparent because this was the first day it has been warm enough to wear shorts during the Monday nighter. In my opinion, having small calves just means less rotational weight.

We woke up at 6:30 to head out for our first, and last, race of the WWU/UW omnium. No snow today!! First off were the D men, followed by the C men. Next were the B women, then the B men. Then the A women, and finally us–at 1:30. There was a lot of waiting around. During which I took 3.5 poops!!

As for the results, not including the A men’s race, Lisa Turnbull won the A women’s field (big surprise!). Lary took 4th in the D men’ crit, Andrew took 11th in the B men’s race, and Karey took 11th in the Women’s B field. Most of the rest of the team placed top 20 in their races. So this week wasn’t a great success. Tony, who couldn’t make the collegiate race this weekend but raced Piece of Cake road race, took first in the cat 4s.

Back to the parking lot in Seattle:
After completing my fourth trip to the bathroom, I suited up and began the long process of warming up before a crit. I began with about an hour on the trainer, followed that with some honey and stretching, then more trainer, and finally topped it off with more honey. I was feeling pretty good, but not great. It’s been about 4 weeks since I’ve felt great.

The women’s A race had just ended when I took my bike off the trainer and discovered that I had a rear flat. Takuya lent me his spare wheel (thanks T) and I rolled up to the start line. This is the third time in 7 races that I haven’t had any power data because I have gotten flats before or during the race. So, according to Ivar, because there was no power data, this race was a waste of time and there really was no point in doing it. Ivar also had no power data because he deleted his CPU right after his race on accident. HA.

The first 10 minutes of the hour long crit were fast. David, Peter, and I attacked a lot but nothing that we were involved in stayed away permanently. After 10 or 15 minutes, a UW guy got away and stayed away by himself for the rest of the race. Wow.

I attacked a number of times throughout the race but I didn’t have the oomf in my legs to keep cranking out the watts after the initial sprint. I guess that will come a bit later in the spring/summer for me. I feel like a have great endurance, but the power and ability to recover quickly from a hard effort just isn’t in me yet.

The end was approaching quickly, and no one seemed to be able to get away on the hilly course. But with 3 or 4 laps to go, Peter and 2 other guys broke off and stayed away. Peter took 4th. Not too bad considering this was his 3rd race in 2 years.

By the last lap, there wasn’t much of a pack left. These collegiate races aren’t as big as OBRA events, so there are no fields of 50+ riders. We started out with about 30 or so, and after a number of people had dropped out, there were probably only 15 left in the peloton by the end. I was sitting at the back of the pack coming down the final hill of the last lap, and I jumped on the back wheel of an OSU guy as he made his way to the front. He stopped short though, and so did I. My legs were feeling decent enough by then because I hadn’t attacked for at least 3 laps, so I made a split decision and decided to go for the finish line at the bottom of the hill–which was probably a bit too early. The hill starts out “steep” (but not very steep) and flattens out a bit and curves around to the finish with only a slight uphill grade. I just barely held off Adam Cadez, from Idaho, and took first in the pack sprint and 5th overall. I wasn’t pleased with the place I got, but wasn’t super upset either.

The rest of the team was eager to get home to watch TV, so I didn’t get a very good cool down in before the 6 hour van ride back home to Eugene. The highlight of the van ride home was chasing Ivar with a stick in a Safeway parking lot during one of our rest stops. And also telling mom jokes over the van radios. And I can’t forget the amazing discussion our van had about the possible solutions to the energy crisis/global warming/overpopulation. David had the best idea: fiber optic cables supported by a new kind of carbon fiber that would go all the way up into space and to the moon, where solar panels would collect the sun’s energy.

It was a hell of a lot of driving for a 60 minute crit. But it was a fun trip and everyone kept a positive attitude despite the god damn snow that fucked everything up. God damn it. Well….maybe I didn’t keep a positive attitude.

After a long drive up to Bellingham Washington in a cramped van with the UO collegiate team, I finally arrived at our host house. On the ride up, I had consumed about 4 pounds of pasta, shrimp, and sausage. It was a fine meal. And it did not improve the smell inside the van. Ever since Tuesday, I had been stocking my stomach full of bean burritos and chile. The gas had been building up to dangerous pressure. And it decided to come out during the van ride. My teammates spent the majority of the 8 hour ride with their heads out thew window, gasping for fresh air.

We got to sleep at around 10:30, and woke up the next morning at 6 to a snow covered ground. It began to snow harder and harder as we drove out to the TTT course. Our van (which included Ivar, Karey, Takuya, David H, and Dereck) was getting pumped up with a little Rob Zombie when we got a call from our team coordinator, Adam, that the TTT was cancelled due to snow. I was pissed. When was I ever going to have another opportunity to do a TTT in the snow?

The van headed back to the host house where we slept for another couple hours, waiting to here if the RR was going to be cancelled as well. Mike and I listened to Flight of the Concords–The Humans Are Dead–while wrestling with a German Shepard named Citrus. Our worries were forgotten briefly, then we heard more bad news. The road race was cancelled too. I was pissed.

We headed south to Seattle; and on the ride down I ate an old meatball sandwich that I really hope won’t give me troubles tomorrow during the crit. We got to our next host house and threw our stuff out of the vans and eagerly hopped on our bikes to let out some steam. The most eventful event that occurred during the ride was a train wreck that happened right on the bike path. We were riding among some trolly tracks that went through the street when Andrew rode by Will and I proclaiming that he “was a train.” “Chuga chuga choot chooooooot,” were his last words before he plastered himself across pavement. After we saw that he was alright–except for a torn bib and road rash–Will and I burst into laughter.

I just finished dinner and am sitting in front of an EXTREMELY boring basketball game, sampling some Japanese candy that Takuya just brought back from home. More food has just been brought out. Time to go.

I cautiously peaked out of the window yesterday morning, hoping that the sound of rain falling from the sky onto the roof and blasting sideways against the window was just a figment of my imagination. But no. It was not. Instead of riding outside, my dad and I went over to the YMCA and rode on the spin bikes. I thought that taking the day easy–instead of doing hill intervals, which was what was scheduled–would benefit my race the next day on Saturday. But it turned out that it would not even matter.

I rode for an easy 3 hours today. Average heart rate at about 130. The weather was all over the place, early this morning it was so frosty it looked like snow (I didn’t get up early, I just got a glimpse of it through the sleep in my eyes as I stumbled to a from the bathroom). Anyways, I went out riding in the early afternoon when I saw that it was sunny, although still cold. I stayed in the hills all day and experienced heavy, big drops of cold rain, hail, very light snow, extreme wind, and sun. I was tired today from yesterday, and surprisingly close to bonking by the time I got home. I hadn’t brought very much food and if I had made it a four hour ride instead of 3, I think the last half hour would have really sucked.

One other thing that has been sucking is that my left ipod earbud keeps falling out. I think it has to do something with a nagging ear infection that I’ve been fighting since September. When the race season ended last year with the Eugene Celebration SR, I noticed a slight itch in my right ear. That itch turned into a burning sensation that would wake me up at night. It oozed fluid and built up large quantities of wax. I finally did something about it in late January. The first doctor I went to said it wasn’t an ear infection, and told me that the only thing wrong with it was all the wax. He had a nurse irrigate it and he said it would be fine. It was not fine. Two days later, it started acting up again. About two weeks later, it got so bad that the built-up pressure forced me to down about 6 ibuprofen. The next day I went into the university health care center and the doctor there gave me some antibiotics saying, “Wow, you certainly do have an ear infection.” I cursed the other doctor under my breath. Freakin idiot.

It was 10 days later and I thought my ear itching days were over, but when the later doctor stuck the ear microscope thing in my right ear to examine the infection, she swapped it over into my left ear to see if ol’ lefty was infected as well. He was not…at the time. But I’m guessing that when she put the scope into my left ear, she transferred the infection over into it. So by day 11 the left ear was burning with a passion just like the right one had been for half a year. Now I have no infection in my right ear, but my left ear definitely has something growing in it–and it seems to be swollen, which causes my ipod earbud to spit out on rides. Is it too much to ask for at least a month of clean and uninfected ears!!??

First ride: 1.5 hours easy this morning. Feeling good, I averaged about 250 watts in the hilly country roads of sherwood. I got home just before it began to pour.

Second ride:

About four hours later at 3:30, I headed out on the hard ride. It had been raining hard for most of the day, but luckily it stopped about 30 minutes before I headed out. After 45 minutes of warm up, the pain began. The scheduled intervals were supposed to be 2X 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 minutes in the 39×15 at 24mph. They are painful, but today they weren’t going to work out. The wind was too strong, so I decided to just do a lot of all-out intervals. About an hour later, I was done. And could feel it in my legs.

After the intervals, I headed over to the hills for some hill repeats. After those, I could really feel it in my legs. The workout wasn’t over then though. I had about 1.5 more hours of easyish hills. At around 7PM it began to snow, and The Final Countdown started playing on my ipod. It was time to hammer again. I got home at around 8 and ate a huge bowl of chili, rice, and steak. Total ride time today: 6+ hours.