Novice Racing and discovering Strava

A few nice days have come to Portland, and that means no excuses for not racing at the velodrome. I signed up for fast twitch fridays, a novice friendly event put on by Bike Central. It was a timed event night featuring flying 200 meters. This was my opportunity to test my speed and not have to worry about a long mass start event that would surely expose my fitness weaknesses. Although I have a lot of miles on the road this year, and the race is only 200 meters, I was nervous and fearful of failure and the discomfort that an all out 200 meter effort can give. The one thing I've learned after getting back into cycling, is that short extreme efforts like 200 meter sprints are not something that my body has experienced in a long time. As a kid, and athlete in college, my body was accustomed to those intense efforts and had adapted to recover more easily. But now, not having gone that deep into the red in...er...many many years, the shock to my system was enormous. Long climbs in the west hills or on Bald Peak or Chehalem Mountain simply don't draw that deep. Maybe it's because, in that short effort, your mind knows you only have 15 seconds so it will go further and deeper than it will allow you to go when out on the mountain roads. As Friday evening approached, I still considered dropping out. In the end I didn't, and it was a gorgeous evening at Alpenrose. All ages and sexes with shaved legs were present. I warmed up on the ancient, battered club track bike. I had great race wheels provided by the club, and the bike is in perfect mechanical condition. But everyone else seemed...so...like they belonged there. I felt out of place and inexperienced. I knew what they were thinking. Look at that Fred! Me with my hairy legs and ancient bike.


There were super fast looking men and women on expensive bikes with expensive clothing. I watched them warm up on their rollers, casually spinning out 180 rpm bursts. I wished I could ride steadily on rollers!

I also didn't know what I was doing in the sprint. I watched the other riders and got in line to do my own. The first run, the only real one I had in me, was poorly executed. I started sprinting too late, and wasn't in the sprinters lane up to full speed before crossing the start line. I hit full speed before the banking but allowed the bike to kick up out of the sprinters lane. I fought it back down and crossed the line in 14.7 seconds. I rolled around the track and into the warmup circle trying to recover. My legs were now jelly and rigamortis was starting to set in, and my lungs felt burnt around the edges. I felt like packing it in. But I got back in line for another run. It seemed to take forever, but my turn finally came. This time, I decided that I would start the sprint earlier and be at full speed and in the sprinter lane before crossing the start line. However I worried that I wouldn't be able to hold on to the sprint for the full 200 meters. As I came around the bank before the start, I stood up and hit the pedals as hard as I could, dropped into the sprinters lane, and was already hurting and struggling to hold the cadence as I crossed the start. 200 meters to go! My legs felt like they were down to 20% power, and I was breathing in big puffs like a steam engine. I kept the bike in the sprinters lane this time and entered the straight looking at the clock as the tenths clicked by. I was losing power exponentially as I struggled as hard as I could to pedal circles all the way through the finish. I crossed the line and clocked 14.43, good for second place in my age group.. A little faster, unbelievably, than my first effort, though it felt so much worse. 200 meters...doesn't sound very far, but you do really need fitness to perform your best at this event. With the right gearing, and more work on my fitness to sustain that 200 meter effort, I feel I can get that time down.

Now on to my discovery. Have you all seen those adds for strava.com? The social networking site for cyclists? I have, and I thought it was just another site for uploading gps tracks. How different could it be? But it has lots of cool features that iMapMyRide doesn't have. I particularly like how it finds segments of your rides that others have ridden and keeps a leader board. Here is a recent commute from work. Notice that there is a segment of my commute called "Terwillilger Time Trial". This segment was part of Strava, I didn't create it. Now I can compare how my ascent of Terwilliger compares to others. Check it out, I recommend it. I'm currently 14th on the Terwilliger Time Trial. Go ahead, knock me down a bit!