Six A.M., I’ll just sleep until 7 and then get up, 7:15, I’m up, no one else is. I’ll just read a bit and then get up. Must have fallen asleep again because now it’s 9 and I just need to be up. Out of my room and I see Linsey is awake and then down stairs our newest arrival, Sam is awake too, both looking at their phones. Obviously a lazy morning, everyone seems to be acclimated to the time zone change and finally sleeping. Sam is from about 2 hours north of here and is staying part of the week with us and racing as well.
We were all at the track last night until later waiting and watching Dan go for the gold in his Individual Pursuit. Unfortunately, didn’t happen but he did ride to a second place finish against a very fast Brit. Two races under Dan’s belt, a gold and a silver, not so bad at all.
Tonight James and I ride, James a 750 and me a 5K Scratch race. I finally get to really be involved. Hope the legs are ready after all this soft time. It should be a good warm up race for the rest of the week. Sign in time for the race is no later than 17:30 (24 hour time) The session opens at 18:00. On track warm up can be done from 17:00 until the start but the officials usually close the track at about 10 to 6, so really only 50 minutes of warm up time and that needs to be split amongst all the evenings riders, 24 at a time on the track. This makes for an interesting challenge to get on the track. My plan is to ride the rollers for about 20 minutes before in a slightly smaller gear than race but bigger than my normal on track warm up gear. Then switch to a race gear for an on track warm up. You have to line up to get on and if you are the 25th rider, you get on after the first group is pulled, about 10 minutes or so. You can keep getting back in line if you want and try for more time, just tough to do. After that, just sit and wait for your event to be called riding rollers as needed to stay warmed. Just prior to your race, you end up riding around in a small warm up circle as the officials check off your number. When it’s time to race, you roll out through a gate midway on the back straight onto the apron in turn 4 and line up along the inner rail. Everyone is ready and we roll off to start the neutral lap with hopefully a gun if everyone is together at the next pass of the start/finish line.
The weather is very cool and windy today after some very pleasant days with occasional rain, glad to have a warm indoor velodrome this time of year. (wishing the same was true for MN, a plug for the possible future MN Cycling Center) The rest of the day here will be easy, eat, read, relax and then pack for the track. Glad to have a car to get to the track this morning. Even though the track is within easy walking distance, the rain, cold and wind are not very friendly. Like most of the major races I’ve been to, the area is quite secure so we can leave bikes, rollers, wheels, etc in the infield. Most are locked up but that doesn’t seem to be a real necessity. With that, we don’t have to haul a lot of stuff back and forth throughout the week. That’s a plus. We also found one of the rider boxes to call our own, actually 2 of them midway on the back straight, right across from the warm up circle with easy access to anything we need. Similar to the spots we’ve had in the past.
Sign off time, more updates later as the excitement continues.