Crit Practice and Intervals

This year Evolution has been holding crit practice at the Ride Sally Ride course every Wednesday at 6:00.  At first it was a few guys going around having 3-on-2-off little crits and it eventually grew to about 10-15 showing up regularly and making for a damn good workout.  It's not Greenbelt, but maybe one day it can grow to something like that.  Mid week racing seems to have helped my training immensely as my 1-2 minute efforts have gotten better and better throughout the season.  Although I occasionally do some intervals in a structured manner, I really hate them and would typically rather chew glass.

Crit practice allows you to do structured intervals in a group setting, if that makes any sense.  Since you're going around a loop, you can do your 1-2 min efforts either off the front, on the front, off the back, whatever, and know you're not going to get dropped since you can catch the group as it comes around.  Although it's not that much of an issue these days, in the past I have been on group rides and sat in a little too much because I was worried I'd be spit out the back in the middle of NoVA with no idea how to get home.  With crit practice, blowing up is the name of the game, if you get dropped, who cares!?

The other great thing about doing fast laps is that you get to work on a couple of important race situations - attacks, bridges, and positioning.  Although it's not as aggressive as a real race it's not a bad simulation.  The attacking practice is really important for guys like me that don't have that much experience racing.  This year was the first year I have been something other than pack fodder, and so working on attacking finally became relevant.  Attacking is a lot more than just riding hard off the front and most lower cats really f this up.  Most of the reason why cat 4/5 races are such a big blob with no breaks is not because the riders going OTF are weaker, it's because riders in the pack that think they are "attacking" to bridge up are actually just dragging the field up.

I have to go off an a tangent here.  It's really annoying when guys ramp up the pace with everyone in the pack right on their wheel.  Don't they look behind them and see that the end result of their move is to just suck everyone along and force a reaction from the pack?  There is 0 reason to do this, except in the following circumstances which apply to maybe 1% of the times someone nails the break back:

• Your team has a sprinter in the pack and you want to prevent any breaks from getting a gap because you're confident that your team has a better chance of winning in a field sprint than out of a break.  However, even if you have the bomb-diggity cat 4 sprinter extraordinaire sitting in the field, what's the harm in trying to bridge to the break instead?  You're going to blow up your lead out train or something?
• You love to be a sled dog to chase anything and everything that goes off the front.  Sounds like a personal problem to me.
• You showed up to the race and your coach told you to pull everyone around all day because you missed all your threshold workouts last week.
• You're trying to get recruited as the lead out man for the best cat 4 squad in Northern Virginia.
• The cameraman taking pictures is on the back straight so you really need to position yourself well for that.

I really want to hear from people who think there are some other valid reasons for this move.  I just call it negative racing, it prevents anything interesting from ever happening.  I don't actually believe most guys are doing it on purpose, they just don't actually know what an attack is.  Staying seated and rolling off the front at 1 mph faster than the guy behind you is not an attack.  An attack requires gapping the field by 10-15 bike lengths is a few seconds. Otherwise someone will just sit on your wheel and take a free ride.  If you look back after 10 seconds and the whole field is behind you, you're not attacking.

Anyways, crit practice is a great place to work on this.  Timing of an attack at the end of the race is as important as raw power.  I am not a strong rider when you compare my power data against other competitive riders in my category.  However, I've managed to cat up this season with positioning and timing, essentially knowing when to use the sad amount of power I have.  When I went all out at Hagerstown, it was an all or nothing commitment.  If the pack caught me, I'd be going across the line dead fucking last.  That's the type of commitment you need to have when going for the W.  If I was a sprinter, I'd sit in until the last 200m but the best I can do in that situation is a top 5.  In the 3s, my best pack finish will be out of the top 10 I'm sure.  Crit practice helps define your limits and allows you to test out the attacks.  The week of Hagerstown I did two all out attacks in practice with about 600m to go just to see if I could create the gap and hold it.  It worked well enough, so I tried it in a race.

Maybe we can turn crit practice into a Greenbelt style training series, but honestly the current format might even be more conducive to training since it allows everyone to take some risks.  With limited bragging rights, you're just worried about getting a good workout.  At least I hope that's how people use it.

What Getting Knocked Out Taught Me About Cycling

A couple weeks ago I was on the Reston Bike Club "1" ride, or simply the racer-types that get out and try to rip each others legs off on Tuesdays and Thursdays during the summer. Well, apparently we were going down Stuart Mill after Birdfoot and there was a crash. One of the riders hit a rock, bounced into a teammate, and then went down hard right in front of me. I don't remember any of this, but apparently I rammed into his bike/body at almost 30 mph and went over the bars, landing on my head and shoulder. What followed was a slide across the pavement on the side of the head and shoulder and a KO. 45-60 seconds later I got up, called my wife, and stumbled around. I'm not going to dwell much further on the actual accident and immediate aftermath, but I do want to add that all the guys that stopped to take care of me and the other rider were awesome. Although I was conscious, my memory of the day has faded into oblivion and I pretty much have to take people's word on what happened.

Well, the moral of the story is that getting knocked out is good for your racing! Before the accident I was sneaking into the top 10 throughout the season but I'd never had a podium, even as a cat 5. Just two weeks after the wreck I placed 1st in the Washington County Stage Race Criterium and then two weeks after that I won Hagerstown Criterium, the MABRA championship. Seems like getting creamed and using your head as a street sweeper helps...

The reality is, I've been decently overtrained for most of the season. The Zatopek effect (http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2010/04/history-lesson-the-zatopek-effect.html) pretty much defines my results this season and hopefully I can learn from it next year. The problem with the whole overtraining/training issue is that most training plans are designed for 1-2 peaks per season. When you're racing for upgrade points, it's difficult to focus on just a few races since they don't offer enough possibility to earn them. Therefore, if you're following a proper season training plan you're going to go into some race weekends with major fatigue in the legs. At the level I'm racing at (cat 4), it's not as critical to have a strict schedule with peaks in your season as it is for higher level riders. Basically, as long as you lots as a cat 4 you will win races if you recover correctly. Peaking is not as important as recovery between hard workout blocks. I'm not saying you can't do both, it's just a lot more difficult to plan for when life gets in the way of training and you need to make adjustments to your weekly schedule.

My personal experience and evidence this year is enough to make me fully appreciate the value of some time off the bike. Every single one of my good results was after extended time (more than 4 days) off the bike shortly before the result. Let's go over my season so far...

• Vint Hill: Went there at the end of a tough training block. Was totally destroyed and barely finished both races. The week before Jefferson Cup and I felt like all my work over the winter was out the window.
• Jefferson Cup: After Vint Hill I became sick and rode maybe 1-2 hours the week before the race. I got 4th and if it wasn't for the shock of being near the front I could have done better. Coming off of the Vint Hill results this was great news.
• Morgantown Road Race: Still recovering from being sick the week before and ended up 5th only because I bungled a 3 up sprint for 3rd. Still working off the good form I was on after taking 4-5 days off due to sickness.
• Murad Road Race: Again, took some time off the bike because of business travel. Came back and got 4th in that race. Again, felt awesome and like I had a lot more in me, just can't sprint.
• Washington County Criterium: First race after my concussion. 10 days off the bike, started riding two days before the road race. I win from a 3 man break after attacking on the final lap.
• MABRA Championship Crit (Hagerstown): I took a really easy peak week before the race and the legs felt better than ever. Didn't feel like I used any energy during the race and when I went for my solo flyer on the last lap it stuck as I rolled across the line 50 yards in front of the chasing field.

Moral of the story here is that all of my good results come after significant time off the bike in the week or two before the race. Although I'm not as fit as I would be were I to follow the training plan as prescribed, for the race calendar I'm riding and for my goals (upgrade!) getting my base fitness as high as possible and then properly resting every 3-4 weeks is critical. My rest weeks were only a 25-30% decrease in training stress (TSS for those training with power) and they should have been closer to a 50-60% decrease. The caveat here is that this works for my body and might not work for others as effectively. However, given all the other anecdotal evidence out there, it seems like many amateur cyclists fall into the same trap of thinking that if they're not wasted tired they're losing fitness. It took me getting sick and getting knocked the f-out to show me the way.