May Totals, and 40 km TT test

It's been wet and cold. I see that according to the National Weather Service we had a record cold maximum temperature today:

... Record low maximum temperature tied at Seattle-Tacoma Airport...

a record low maximum of 55 degrees was recorded at Seattle-Tacoma
Airport today. This ties the old record of 55 set in 2002 and 1950.

Bree was supposed to have her "intro to track racing" class today, but it was canceled. She should get her chance tomorrow if the weather improves. It's June! I want sun!

Wednesday was some good track racing. 28 Cat 4's showed up despite threatening weather, so they split us into two groups to keep the field size "manageable" and safer. Here's an edited version of the email I sent to the team:

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It was a great night of racing by the team. Niels and Jerry were in the Cat 4 Group B, and John, Ernie and I were in the Cat 4 Group A.

In the 8 lap scratch races, the field pretty much hung together in my group, and while there were some heated attempts to lift the pace (including by John), it came down to a field sprint, in which I got beat by Ross Spero, yet again, and another guy from Recycled whose thighs are as big as my torso. But, I was happy with 3rd. Niels scored a nice 2nd in Group B, again in a field sprint. There was some fast dude from "Brazen Dropouts", Ryan Gist, who appeared to be the Ross Spero of Group B.

In the 200 m flying TT, many of us were looking to John and Mark for advice, since none of us had ever done it. The general strategy is to wind it up for the first lap, head high on the banking in turn 1, and then fly down the banking of turn 2 toward the 200 m line, sprinting to the finish. I definitely need to work on the timing in this event. I did as described above, but continued to accelerate through the final 200 m, and felt like I had much more to give. Next time I will try and hit max speed right when I cross the 200 m mark and hold it to the finish. I may have had a decent time, but I'm sure I could have done better (I suspect we all felt this way). Seems like gearing is a big question too. John had the biggest gearing (94 inches?), and I was running 90 inches. More to learn about this particular event. My time was 13.8 seconds, which means 52.3 km/h, or about 32.9 mph. I know I can beat that.

We all froze while we waited for all the groups to do the 200 m TT. I was shivering, with teeth chattering, even though I was under a blanket and wearing a sweater!

The final 4x4 points race - Niels and Jerry will have to comment on theirs. I only know that Niels did a good job and scored some points. In our group we had a solo flyer from Wines take off from the gun (or maybe it was the 2nd lap) and hold it through the first sprint. With 1.5 laps to go to the next sprint, I took off in pursuit, and barely held on for the 5 points after passing the previous breakaway at about 150 m to go. I sat up, and then a lap later John Caprica (sp?) took off. Many of us in the field figured he wouldn't last. But he was joined by some guy wearing a PEZ Cycling jersey, and I am sad to say they outwitted us and took the remaining top-2 placings in the last two sprints. I did manage to collect one more point in the last sprint, which put me in a tie with my nemesis.

Thankfully, Ross will now upgrade!
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I should follow him shortly. By my calculations, I have 19 upgrade points, and I need 20. That makes last Friday getting rained out an extra bummer. I want to move up - it's so close! I am having so much fun at the track. I'm surrounded by a great group of teammates and competitors every race night, and it is just a blast.

May Totals
The totals are lower since I was off the bike for 10 days...

Bicycle
Time: 25:50:00
Distance: 461.6 miles
Longest Ride: 48.9 miles, 3:00:00 (hill repeats on Zoo Hill)
Rest days: 11 (some of the vacation days were running days)

Running
Time: 2:25:00
Distance: 18.0 miles
Longest Run: 5.0 miles

40 km TT test for May (OK, early June)
My previous best time from April has fallen yet again. I was skeptical that I would have it in me today for two reasons - yesterday I did a hill run, and I haven't really been doing long intervals since track season started. Even so, after 2.5 miles of warm up, I hit West Lake Sammamish with hopes of at least equaling April's time of 1:07:00. By the time I was looping around the south end of the lake, I was running a good time, but not better than 1:07:00. However, the east side of the lake is much less undulating, and the shoulder is a lot smoother. When I made it to Marymoor, I was slowed down by heavy traffic. It's a bit sketchy passing cars on the right side of the speedbumps, but I wanted to get an accurate time! I hit the 24.8 mile (40 km) mark at 1:05:11, a substantial improvement over last month. Also interesting is a comparison my winning time for the Cat 5 men in the Minnesota State TT, in 1999. The course was pancake flat, and my time was 1:05:25. It's both comforting and sad that my time is better, but not by much over the same distance 9 years ago. As Bree told me, though, you really can't compare the two races since the terrain is so different.

Next time I do the test I will instead attempt to beat an hour, rather than limit my HR to sub 160 bpm. I think it is totally possible, and would be a good benchmark in my training.