Racing during heavy volume....
I recently headed out west for the Marble Falls triathlon. While I didn't have much energy to do this race, I was coerced by my good friend A. Wilk. I'm currently getting ready for CATS Half Ironman and IM Florida so the volume is coming up and the desire to race smaller, shorter distance races is becoming less attractive by the minute. After a long talk with Mr. Humble himself, I drew on a couple conclusions.....the race would have some serious competition, a challenging bike, and because it was a Grand Prix SMW Championship Race....I could snag some solid points for overall ranking at both the USAT level and local USAT-SMW level. Even if I was off my mark, I would still get an amazing workout, some good points, racing experience, and see a bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a while.
So here I am driving down to Marble Falls the day before the race. I'm sitting in the car thinking to myself, "what the heck was I doing". Not only was my volume up pretty big this week but I woke up and rode 50+ miles with a transition run this morning. This was no way to get ready for a race like this. Not only falling asleep at the wheel but I was headed south to a race with no race wheels. Whoohooo, at least I'll know what its like to race on tired legs.
I showed up to the race venue and headed straight over to Adam's camper where he and Laura were entertaining the two little girls. It was good to see AW as we hadn't hooked up since BSLT. Oh yeah, I needed to get some race wheels. Good ol' Adam leant me his 909 set and after a couple minutes chatting I was off to take care of business. Check into the hotel, drive the bike course, register, eat, and get the bike setup for a test ride that evening were some of the nice little jobs I had waiting for me. Wow, that took a lot out of me to even write. Ok, so all that's done and I'm off to bed.
I woke up race morning feeling pretty good. Headed over to transition...racked the bike...walked down to the lake....came back to transition and my rear tire was flat, NICE. Oh well, no disk today. Looked at the front wheel and it too had a problem...a nice little cut to make things interesting. Crap.... Not my morning. I quickly ran back to the hotel and changed both wheels to a Zero 050 front and a rear crappy Mavic training wheel. After all that, I had just enough time to grab my chip and lineup. Only 45 seconds was left before we entered the water.
Race was descent. For the swim, I just stayed relaxed and swam a steady pace. With all the commotion earlier I wasn't really in the mood to push the envelope. Got out of the water with a sub par time and hopped on the bike.
With a rear training wheel and a bearing shot, I knew I'd have to put a lot of stock into the bike just to stay close to the leaders. I rode hard, and when I say hard...I mean hard, a lot harder than I usually ride. Even though I rode my heart out, I wasn't very happy with my bike. With no race wheels, I felt as if my bike could have been better.
Here is reminder for next time you go to a race Mr. Mark. A disk, Blackwell 100, Zipp 808, HED3, or any rear aero wheel, not only gives an aero advantage, but all require less energy at higher speeds. There worth every single cent you can spend on them. Some of coarse better than others....but all in all, they provide an aerodynamic advantage otherwise not found in your everyday training wheels. The watts/energy it took to spin that 32 spoke wheel was far greater than I was accustomed to doing, that is....at the speed I was moving at. Man was I missing the aero high! Next race, no matter how insignificant....I'll be there with race wheels.
The run was fun. I left T-2 feeling great despite going so hard on the bike. All the Ironman training is started to pay off big. Going into mile one was pretty nice. Cleared mile 1, 2, and 3 in around 6:35 and decided to speed up and make a couple passes before the finish line. At mile 3 I left the person I was running with and cleared the 4th mile in 5:55. Not sure what the final .4 miles came out to, but all and all I was a fun race....especially the run. I enjoyed the solid effort I gave and always look forward to running as it has nothing to do with equipment or aerodynamics, just mano-a-mano.....you against the person your chasing....or who's chasing you.
In the end, I finished up 11th overall and 3rd in my age-group. After the race, I took off to Austin to hang out with an old friend.
See you at CATS...
So here I am driving down to Marble Falls the day before the race. I'm sitting in the car thinking to myself, "what the heck was I doing". Not only was my volume up pretty big this week but I woke up and rode 50+ miles with a transition run this morning. This was no way to get ready for a race like this. Not only falling asleep at the wheel but I was headed south to a race with no race wheels. Whoohooo, at least I'll know what its like to race on tired legs.
I showed up to the race venue and headed straight over to Adam's camper where he and Laura were entertaining the two little girls. It was good to see AW as we hadn't hooked up since BSLT. Oh yeah, I needed to get some race wheels. Good ol' Adam leant me his 909 set and after a couple minutes chatting I was off to take care of business. Check into the hotel, drive the bike course, register, eat, and get the bike setup for a test ride that evening were some of the nice little jobs I had waiting for me. Wow, that took a lot out of me to even write. Ok, so all that's done and I'm off to bed.
I woke up race morning feeling pretty good. Headed over to transition...racked the bike...walked down to the lake....came back to transition and my rear tire was flat, NICE. Oh well, no disk today. Looked at the front wheel and it too had a problem...a nice little cut to make things interesting. Crap.... Not my morning. I quickly ran back to the hotel and changed both wheels to a Zero 050 front and a rear crappy Mavic training wheel. After all that, I had just enough time to grab my chip and lineup. Only 45 seconds was left before we entered the water.
Race was descent. For the swim, I just stayed relaxed and swam a steady pace. With all the commotion earlier I wasn't really in the mood to push the envelope. Got out of the water with a sub par time and hopped on the bike.
With a rear training wheel and a bearing shot, I knew I'd have to put a lot of stock into the bike just to stay close to the leaders. I rode hard, and when I say hard...I mean hard, a lot harder than I usually ride. Even though I rode my heart out, I wasn't very happy with my bike. With no race wheels, I felt as if my bike could have been better.
Here is reminder for next time you go to a race Mr. Mark. A disk, Blackwell 100, Zipp 808, HED3, or any rear aero wheel, not only gives an aero advantage, but all require less energy at higher speeds. There worth every single cent you can spend on them. Some of coarse better than others....but all in all, they provide an aerodynamic advantage otherwise not found in your everyday training wheels. The watts/energy it took to spin that 32 spoke wheel was far greater than I was accustomed to doing, that is....at the speed I was moving at. Man was I missing the aero high! Next race, no matter how insignificant....I'll be there with race wheels.
The run was fun. I left T-2 feeling great despite going so hard on the bike. All the Ironman training is started to pay off big. Going into mile one was pretty nice. Cleared mile 1, 2, and 3 in around 6:35 and decided to speed up and make a couple passes before the finish line. At mile 3 I left the person I was running with and cleared the 4th mile in 5:55. Not sure what the final .4 miles came out to, but all and all I was a fun race....especially the run. I enjoyed the solid effort I gave and always look forward to running as it has nothing to do with equipment or aerodynamics, just mano-a-mano.....you against the person your chasing....or who's chasing you.
In the end, I finished up 11th overall and 3rd in my age-group. After the race, I took off to Austin to hang out with an old friend.
See you at CATS...
posted by Mark Gingrich at 9:26 AM
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