Thursday, 500 TT day

Let me say I hate waking up at 5 A.M. to get ready for race day. Lucky I am done with that for this week, afternoon rides on Friday and Saturday.

A beautiful morning, mid 60’s and fog but the promise of warm temps and good, dry weather. Today was my 500TT day. A race I never have quite gotten right. It always feels good but the times are never what I would like to see. I guess if I really trained for them, I might get a better result but that must be for next years training.

Another thing I struggle with is my pre race warm up. How long and how hard is a challenge for me to get right. I hate making it painful during a warm up. Race conditions are different probably because I don’t concentrate on the hurt while racing. During warm ups, it’s just you and the bike and the hurt. I was talking to Dave Gray a day ago about this and because of that talk I decided to do what would feel like a proper warm up today no matter what. Warm up gear track time with some jumps to activate. Change to race gear and another jump on the track to feel the pain. Back in the infield to wait. Racing started at 8 again and there were lots  of events before me.  Again, trying to keep track of the schedule was a challenge, just ask the guy next to me who warmed up all morning and then missed his call to race and was a DNS. We are on the edge of the turn one infield and the announcer speaker is on the other end of the track and is really hard to hear and understand. I just kept watching who was racing and planning accordingly.

There are some rollers for anyone to use where I am set up. True Trainer brand I believe that have an option of adding resistance. You can only adjust the resistance if you aren’t riding, so either all off or some degree of resistance based on tightening some screws on the end of the middle roller. I used them along with my Kreitler’s yesterday to get a proper warm up right before the race. It seemed to work good yesterday and I planned to use them again. On and off my rollers and then 2 resistance efforts prior to my start. Seemed about right. Finally about 10:00 I was close to racing, 2 hours since last being on the track.

Off to bike check and weighing, passed again thanks to Bruce allowing us to use his bike fit jig at NSC a week or so ago.  Second up in my group on the back straight with Jeff Helgeson from NSC holding me again. I got a good start and started through 3 and 4, sat down after turn four and struggled to get down in the aero position until almost the end of the home straight but once down I took off and settled in for another 3/4 of a lap. (33 track means 1.5 laps for a 500, start back, finish home straight). The announcer said I had 3rd place but it was a disappointing time so I knew I would not do well with the rest of the pack to ride. The first half of the ride was faster than the second half so I don’t think the aero drop problem hurt much but I probably could have used a bigger gear for more speed. Hard to tell until I analyze the data. The end result was a very disappointing 42.626 time for 15th overall out of 18. Slower than I would have thought but there it is.

While rolling around the warm down track the next rider on the back straight got a false start and the announcer called my name? Crap, couldn’t be me, I just finished my ride. I checked with the officials, they sent me to the head official who handled my protest during the Sprints.  He must think I am trouble because he looked annoyed and said it was just an announcer mistake. Thanks, just checking mister official, trying to take care of myself.

Two more chances, tomorrow a 10K Points race after 4 in the afternoon and then a 5K Scratch race after 2 P.M. on Saturday afternoon.  Time to rest up sleep in tomorrow for a change and re focus on what I have been working for all season long.

Footnote after relaxing all day;

I just remembered that even though my results were not as good as I would like, I still had a GREAT morning at the track! It was a perfect weather day, fun to be alive and race a bike at a nice track facility that looks to have a future. Although, NSC is sooo much smoother and the banking here is like riding on a crowned road.