Philly Phlyer Results

Results from this past weekend are posted on http://www.velocityresults.net/

Road Race:
http://www.velocityresults.net/results/135/eccc-week-2-philly-road-race

Team Time Trial:
http://www.velocityresults.net/results/136/eccc-week-2-philly-team-time-trial

Circuit Race:
http://www.velocityresults.net/results/137/eccc-week-2-philly-circuit-race

Philly Phlyer

I got back from a busy race weekend about 2 hours ago. My first race for this season...

SATURDAY ROAD RACE, 15 Miles in Phoenixville, PA:
Friday night into Saturday it rained, and Saturday was bad. However, my race it hardly rained except for the pouring at the very beginning that stopped after a minute, and several light drizzles here and there. The course though, I HATED IT! First, it was totally different from the course description, or the description was at least very vague. I took it that it was just one hill climb at the beginning, then downhills and flats after that. Well, there obviously was a reason why it was mostly flats and downhills after that; because "that" was a long, un-steady climb (grade kept changing), with some false flats that I would sprint on thinking the climb was over. The climbs just kept coming and coming and coming. Also, very many technical turns that were sharp on the downhill, which I absolutely hated because it just didn't seem like a good course.

I got dropped on the 3rd or 4th climb, which I attribute to the crash with a car back in October. I'm sure I could have kept up with some of the riders in the front if I had those 12 weeks back to train. I learned later that the pack blew up later on a climb and there really was no peloton, but just a bunch of small groups.

I didn't think at the time that anyone else dropped before me besides three other guys that got dropped at the same time I did, which I stayed with them for a little until the killed me on a hill. I thought I was in last place, so I basically slowed down and paced myself, since the roads were wet and I wasn't going to risk killing myself. But somewhere about 10 miles into the road race I got caught up by someone from Drexel (who got dropped on the first hill he told me) who shouted out something like "c'mon, keep going!". At first I didn't know if he was Men's D1 or D2, so I asked if he was racing right now, and what category he was. He was the same category I was in (D2), so I made sure I stuck with him the rest of the way. When we were done with the climbs and it was downhills and flats the rest of the way, we had an "unspoken" agreement for a friendly battle to the end. We both started sprinting but he ended up slowing down, I'm guessing his legs were dead from the climbs, and I took off. I ended the race about 10-15 seconds before he did. We both shook hands and said "good race" right after he crossed the finish.

Nick and Sean started their Men's Intro race shortly before I crossed the finish, and they ended up getting pounded on by the rain. Sean finished 7th, Nick 8th. After their race the officials said that it's too dangerous for a road race because of flooding, and turned the rest of the races into a criterium in the middle of town. All the races got pushed back for atleast 2 hours, and Kim decided not do to her Women's A race because by the time they would've went off, it would've been 4:00.

SUNDAY Team Time Trial (8+ miles) and Circuit Race, Philadelphia, PA:
Why was daylight savings time last night? I lost an hour of sleep!!!

I arrived in Philadelphia at about 6:50 this morning. Nick, John and I decided to do the Team Time Trial for Men's Intro. I went down a grade just for the TTT because Nick and John never did one before, and it was their first race weekend as road racers. Anyways, we took off at about 8:30, and had a good start. However, when we turned around and started riding into the wind, John just started freezing up and Nick and I slowed down so he could keep up. He started not feeling well and we stuck with him, knowing that we were getting points for our team since there weren't that many teams racing Men's Intro. When Nick and I got close to the hill climb at the end of the race, I looked back to John and said "we're going, see you at the finish" which he knew we would do since only 2 needed to cross the finish for the timer to stop. He kept telling us to go but we wanted to stay with him until the hill climb, which was our original plan since Nick and I are stronger climbers. We got 2nd.............................................. but there were only two teams. We gained 11 points for the DeSales Cycling team, but I know if it was just Nick and me, we could have beaten the other team. They were ahead of us by about 4 minutes.

Later in the day I was supposed to do the circuit race, however the wind was getting more violent and colder, that I made the difficult decision to opt out of it. My reason, I'm about to finish off a minor cold of just a nose congestion and some coughing that I got earlier this week. I didn't want to risk making it worse when it was REALLY cold out there because the wind was blowing 20+ mph. I want to race next weekend, not have to skip it because of being sick!

Well, that's my race weekend story. Sorry for the long post, but I just love talking about details! For those of you that read my posts, please let me know what you think about my decision to opt out of the circuit race earlier today. I kind of regret doing that, thinking I could have done a good job with it, but I was afraid of getting sicker and having to miss some training time this week and maybe even next weekend's race. Thanks!

Rain, Snow or Shine, I'll ride... but FLOOD?!

It rained worse than I expected it to last night, and some of the roads I like to ride on are flooded. I'm debating now whether to go out riding, since I know there are still some roads flood-free and I can get a decent training ride done. However, I won't be able to do the hill climb to Haven as I described in my last post since Landingville is flooded, and I'm sure the back road to Deer Lake is flooded, so that hill climb behind Deer Lake might be inaccessible. I might just do 3 hours tomorrow, first hour hill climbing, second hour sprinting, and then the last hour work on a steady speed as I would expect to be going while in the peloton. I'll be sure to eat a LOT of stuff tomorrow, since after this 3 hour ride, I will be playing basketball for 2 hours with the guys that I usually play with every thursday when I'm home from school. Friday, probably still just a one hour recovery ride, average less than 13 mph, before heading to my sister's house for the weekend.

Philly Phlyer weekend

I'm trying to fall asleep but can't cause I took a nap earlier that energized me a bit, so I decided to take this time to talk about the next race weekend of the ECCC conference.

Race flyer here if anyone is interested in seeing it

On Saturday is the Phoenixville Fury Road Race, weather: showers and wind, high of 50. One loop is about 15 miles long, and since I'm racing Men's D for the start of this season, I will only be doing one lap. From what I understand, it is diverse with some riding in downtown areas (with traffic unfortunately) and then some mountainous riding in rural areas. Some climbing involved, which I always hate (who likes climbing?) and expect to be dropped on the first or second climb because of my loss of fitness from my my car/bike crash. I am going to try my best to stay with the peloton, so that if there are very few leaders who broke away from the peloton, I will try to place top 15, even though only top 9 or so get points for their team. Because I didn't get a chance to go to Rutgers, this will be my first race of the season, and first race since the car/bike crash so even though I expect to be not good or at the same level as the others, I will strive for my best, plus 10%.

Sunday, weather: sunny, in the 40s. There is a Team Time Trial in the morning, but I doubt we will be doing that. I think there could be 3 of us there that morning that are in either Men's Intro or D (John, Nick and myself) that we could do it, but since John and Nick don't have any race experiences yet (except John did some triathlons) I think we'll pass for this weekend and train for the following weekend for time trialing. This reminds me, I need to send an email out asking if anyone would be up for doing the TTT.

Later in the morning is the Circuit race. This race is a 6.2 miles long loop, and Men's D will be doing 2 laps for a total of 12.4 miles. From the description, I'm only reading just one big climb with a lot of flat, straight roads and a short climb before a few corners just before the start/finish line. I'm going to use that to my advantage, try to keep with the peloton before the last climb, try to attack and break away so that when I hit the hills I don't risk getting dropped, and then fight for the finish line. Let me know what you think of that tactic?

Tomorrow I'm doing a 2 hour ride, first hour will be climbing. I'm going to go to Haven to climb this long dragging climb that is probably a mile or two long. Once I get to the top, I will decide whether to go to the downtown of Haven via a straight, steep downhill that should be fun and allow me to hit 40+ mph, or to go back the way I came up towards Landingville, which will be fun as well but I have to be careful with some blind turns. The only danger I run into with the straight downhill is that there is a drop off the side of the road that goes straight down, so if I were to hit a rock or something that would send me over the edge, I'm not going to Philly. Then the last hour or so I will just focus on steady pace and speed around 15 to 20 mph that I would expect to do to be in the peloton this weekend. Thursday I will be doing some sprints for 1 to 2 hours, using the roads around Landingville and Haven that are pretty flat with some tiny inclines. Friday will just be a recovery ride, no more than 12 mph average, for an hour or so before I pack up and get ready to head to school and then to my sister's place which is close to both race days. Post later this week most likely!

R.I.P. Caleb

A friend of mine's younger brother has been killed in an automobile accident Saturday night. I would like to take a moment to reflect on the Ott family. News article here

I grew up playing soccer with the one of the sons, Luke. The father, Reverend Randy Ott was always involved with the soccer when we were growing up, and was my dad's assistant coach for our local and travel soccer teams for several years. I later met 2 of Luke's 3 brother, Josh who is older and Caleb who is younger, both very athletic themselves. The mother I met when I was young, a very sweet lady.

The timing is bad for this recent death. Mrs. Ott (link to her blog) was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in September. It is really a hard time for the Ott family, and I want to express my love and prayers to the Ott family. Mr. and Mrs. Ott, I know this is a difficult time for you, but Caleb is in a better place, and I'm sure he misses all of us down here.

Rest in Peace Caleb, you will be missed.

T-Town Ride

Today, after I had my Orthopedic appointment in Allentown to get my left knee and left ankle x-rayed and observed by the Doc, I headed over to Trexlertown (T-Town) to meet with Kim at the Valley Preferred Cycling Center (formally Lehigh Valley Velodrome) for a 2 hour ride on the road. Today was a great day in the 50s and very sunny. There were times I almost ripped off my leg-warmers just because I was getting hot!

We take off heading towards Old 22 and I kept up with the Pro, Kim, for a while. But then, we hit this HUGE hill climb, and I was able to keep up with her until a quarter to a half way through, when I slowed down and she took off. I finally yelled out "DROP!" to let her know I was dropping back. She slowed down a little while still climbing and I met up with her at the next stop sign after a fun downhill after the climb. I did my usual thing by apologizing (for slowing her down and not keeping up) and she just laughs and says "not a problem". I did a decent job keeping up with her, or staying with 15 feet behind her with multiple catch-up (I go just a tad slower on hills and slow inclines and I play catch-up on flat or downhill roads).

We've passed a few cyclists going in the opposite position, which is different to me since I live in an area that isn't as cyclist-friendly. The pinnacle of my town with cycling is that Jeff Rutter lived here, he was a huge track star (bike, not running), and was supposed to be in the Olympics that one year the U.S. boycotted it. But not many people around her knows about that, which isn't surprising. Back on topic, Kim and I were near Topton (I think) when she heard people talking and shouting behind us... I couldn't hear them but she said that there is a group coming up behind us, let's slow down and catch on to the group. Well............. they were going faster than we had anticipated and when we tried to catch onto the back, we were going too slow (to let them catch up to us) and we got dropped instantly... sorry Kim. However, I felt good when we caught up to a lone-cyclist and passed him. He actually jumped on my wheel I think for a bit, cause I looked back several times and he was like 10 feet behind me. But then after a turn I looked back to see him not there anymore. I thought maybe he took a turn in a different direction.

Kim and I finished the 2 hour ride and got back to the velodrome. I was just cooling down when that guy who we caught up and passed got to the velodrome, like a minute or two after we got there. So I guess he was still behind me and just dropped off at some point.

I'm taking a rest day tomorrow, then Wednesday (in between my scheduled MRI for my knee and my sister's State's second round playoff game) I will be doing a 2 hour ride, thursday I'll do some sprints for an hour or two, and friday I'll be doing a very light ride to recover from the previous two days. Then this weekend is the Philly Phlyer collegiate race weekend. Later this week I will post to talk about that, which I am getting excited for now!

disappointed

So, I wake up at 4:30 this morning very excited for Rutgers. Then I see 2 text messages and 3 missed calls from our club president. I call him back, and I find out the other teammates have decided we shouldn't go. It's not raining outside, it's not snowing... heck, it ain't even that cold right now! "Wet road" was their excuse. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't majority of races "Rain or Shine"? Yes, I know roads are slippery when it rains, but the sun might clear it up, or the races may slow down a little! I've been on training rides when there were wet roads, and I've slipped and scraped up my elbows, legs and knees. But that's part of the risk of being a cyclist. Heck, my car/bike crash back in October was in down pouring rain, and my teammates are afraid of wet roads.

I am really disappointed right now because of this. I spent the last 2 months training and training HARD, I even let me school study slip because I was so determined to place top 9 today in the Time Trial. "Well, you could go by yourself if you really want to race" our president said. I am not going to represent a team by myself when there should be 5 of us on our way to Rutgers right this minute!

If you're going to let rain or wet road stop you, you're in the wrong sport.