Training Log Archive: Flight

Stage Two: Hill Climb
Rather than trying to stick the fast group off the gun, I paced myself and raced my own race. Kept my HR in a manageable range and kept the load feel in the legs low enough to not feel like they would be burnt out for the evening crit.
This kept me just off the main pack, only moving slightly slower then them.
Not surprisingly, women blew up and popped off. I passed them. Then collected a woman who was moving a similar pace as I was. I let her pull me a bit. Then moved up to pull her. We worked together for a large chunk of the climb.
At 1k to go the hill "flattened" out a bit. I moved around and upshifted. We caught someone who tried to sit on our wheels. My new friend came around to keep the pace up in the next pitch. At 200m to go she pulled aside and yelled "it's all you girl" and I made a solid sprint to the finish to beat out our hanger on.

The ride was good for 15th place. About 3:04 back from first.
For perspective on this years field, 2016 climb was won with a time of just over 24min

C • Keep up the great race stories! 3

The crit

There's a climb and a massive headwind on the home stretch. This is sure to hurt.

I was slow to clip in which put me at the back of the Peloton.
It started hot. Attack on the first corner, I had to get around the slower women. Janelle and jess were off the back after lap one I tried to bridge them on but janelle slipped off my wheel.
I caught back on the pack.
Kailee jumped on my wheel because she didn't trust the line if the women mid pack. I went to move forward around the outside, kailee was suddenly gone. I found out later she dropped her chain which isn't good for a free lap.
I drifted back to the back and looked for her. I couldn't see her.

Then I saw janelle and Jess ahead.
They get pulled.
Greg was on the decent corner so the next lap around I looked at him and yelled "kailee?!"
He said something the next time I came around but I didn't know what.
Next time around I see janelle and jess on the sidelines and hear "it's all you".
I'm the only one from the team left in the crit.
I'm tired.
There are 10 laps left
I try and move up and get boxed out on the corner into a curb. I stay upright.
Okay. Pack time works. Don't drop off.
They call a prime at two laps to go.
KR team member goes for the suicide prime. The pace lights up. She takes the prime. The pace stays lit for the final lap.
I barely have a sprint. I finish in the pack.

Usually crits don't do much to change GC. This one did
Kailee drops to 9th from 6th
I move up to 12 from 14.

We go to the beer gardens.

This race was super weird.
We were supposed to start at 11:20
We rolled out at 12:10.

The pack was pretty dicey so I moved to the front. I followed some attacks. Then countered. People were starting to gas.
21km in we were neutralized.
Full stop
Then told we had to ride neutral for all of highway 2.....until icicle road.
So we rolled downhill. And rolled. And braked. And not much happened. We ate.
At 45 or 50km we hit icicle and stopped being neutral.
Someone hit a pinecone and almost took a few girls out.
Then redtruck hit a stick and almost took someone out.
The someone hit Jess over the Centre line and my heart stopped because I thought her shoulder was clipped by the blue car coming toward us that was right next to her.
The final messy was Athena kit doing something, she was right in front of me, swerved, lost balance, I yelled to the women behind me braked and swerved. Then this girl wobbles and managed to plant a foot and 180 herself around and keep her bike upright. It was wild. I chased with her back onto the group that had made a tiny gap on us.
At this point we are part way up the 20km finishing climb.
I move up near KB and jess.
I jump on KB's wheel at 1km to go (this is now a bigger climb).
We keep the break of 20-25 women around the corner and up the big hill.
No signs for 500m
We are back outside edge.
I see the 200m sign around the corner and tell KB I'm going for it. I sprint wide and around a bunch of women. It's not 200m. It's maybe 100. Which sucks because I was still building speed when I crossed the line.

Current finish order has me in 10th with 2 ghost riders ahead of me, the partial numbers look like riders that appear elsewhere, so I may be 8th.

I think I found my roady classification.
Sprinter.
But really. Is that a surprise? Quadzilla

C • Sprinter indeed 3

5x 2 squats at 60%

3x 4jumps

Practice pacelining and did some sprints.
My rear tire jumped on my flat land sprint starts.
Power

Fun fact
Max speed on the RR was 53.2km/hr it was chasing Ben and Matts attack on the second lap.
Finishing sprint was 50.3

Out with janelle and lee for some edworthy repeats.

Three times up.
All faster than this years current PB
Best time 3:16
For those keeping track, that is 51 sec faster than last years PB.
I may have beaten KBs best posted time up (which includes the parking lot)

We then headed over to Patterson which is a bit longer, it's actually more like two back to back hills. One at about 6% then a little flat section and a second hill at 7.5%

Not a bad day for legs being super tired.

Tried the new Shimano gear (shoes, pedals, cleats). Adjusted the right foot when I got home because I had a bit of weird pressure. Left side felt fine.
Will take some time to get used to clipping in and out.
I'll practice tonight during the women's clinic.

C • Really long warm up 2

I was super nervous for this race. I hadn't ever piloted in a Peloton of tandems.
My race strategy was stick with the men for as long as I could. Then go hard.
This worked.
Benoit and Matt took off on the second lap. They went HARD and no one was able to chase them down. We tried. The friend cracked to Ben + Matt bike alone in front. Robbie + Audrey (olimpic), Cindy + pilot (Quebec), Lowell + Mark (Alberta), Kevin + Scott (Ontario), Quebec men, us. The rest were behind.
There were a lot of attacks. Some lulls of taking turns pulling. Audrey attack after every one of our pulls. We reeled her in each time. A few times I will credit to scotts strong wheel.
We kept with the group until 3 laps to go then we got behind Cindy after an attack and she fell off the group, rather than come around and pull her back to the group, I sat on her wheel for a bit then came around for a pull. The group ahead exploded, Robbie was dropped half a lap after us but stayed ahead of us.
We worked with Cindy for the last few laps tsking short pulls and keeping the pace up.
500m to go they tried to drop us by picking up the pace. I wasn't having it.
200m to go I pulled us up beside them
150 I yelled at Carla to go and upshifted us to track mode and started the sprint.
We dropped them right away.
Took home second place. Audry gave us congratulations and said "holy you're strong." Then said she'd like to have us at their training camp this summer.
So.
That's a thing that may happen.
Team Canada training camp.
Holy
Shit.

C • Wow! 6