:+: Tieni Duro Cycling :+:

Heat, dehydration, and overtraining, these three things were the biggest influence on my performance at Nationals. It all started with the 93 mile RR, three laps of a 31 mile course. Our start time was scheduled for 8:20 but we didn't leave until 9 when it was at least 5 degrees warmer. On each lap there were two feed zones, a neutral one 9 miles from the finish of the lap and one right before the line. Because of the heat I started with an extra half bottle in my back pocket, just in case, also because one of my bottles had super concentrated energy drink that wouldn't hydrate me at all. Anyway, the first bit of the race was relatively slow, no one wanted to kill themselves in the first 30 miles. My goal was to stay in the front and not get into any kind of trouble and I did just that, I made sure that I never slipped beyond the top thirty while never actually getting to the front. Going through the first feed zone I took one bottle, expecting to get another one in the second feed, that proved to be a bad expectation. Although the first feed had been at the top of the largest hill in the race (probably biggest in the county and you still went up in the big ring), the second one was on basically flat terrain (1% gradient at most) and typically everyone sped up to get to a position to get a bottle. The basic result was that we flew thought the feed zone in our 52x14's with no hope of actually being able to grab a bottle, I tried and dropped it. Next time going through the neutral feed zone I grabbed two bottles but I had been riding with no water for a few miles. I didn't even try to grab a bottle at the parent's feed, too hard and too risky and I wouldn't have gotten it anyway.

On to the third lap, now I really in needed water and I was trying to conserve my bottles to get to the last feed, but I could feel my body getting weaker and weaker from the dehydration. Suddenly a crash occurred and somebody took the opportunity to attack and a big break formed with Zak Grabowski and Keith Norris but without Steven Cozza. That break stayed away for the rest of the race. Finally I made it to the feed zone, but as I tried to get out of the saddle to go up the hill the inside of my legs cramped badly and I had to sit back on the saddle and try to make in seated. I got to the top and grabbed a bottle but I got dropped. I chased back on but I knew I was in trouble, I had a hard time breathing deeply and I couldn't get out of the saddle without my legs cramping. End of story is, I make it back to the finish, off the back and dying of thirst in 60 something place.

After a day of rest I was prepared for a huge shock to my system. I knew this was going to be fast. I had like an hour warm up on road and I was on the front row in the staging area, they then called forward some people who took up the front row, so I started on the second one. I was prepared for an all out sprint from the start and I almost had to do it but I went though the first corner in about 25th place and I stayed there. After about 5 laps I looked back and there were at the most 15 people behind me and I was still about 25th. I am glad I did the all out sprint. everything was going fine, Grabowski was already off the front and going to win and it was about 38 minutes into the race, I suddenly started to feel cold (it was like 85 outside), my first sign of dehydration and sure enough in the space of a few laps I totally blew up, that should not have happened considering how much water I had been drinking but something in my body is just not working right. On a positive note, Clint dropped out of the crit on the same lap as me.

Nationals was a great learning experience for me even though I didn't actually get any decent result. Nationals is harder then a cat 3 race and is probably like a cat 2, the people can usually handle their bikes but during the crit I was still cornering better then half of them (a lot were sprinting out of ever corner yet I stayed seated usually). If you hit bars with somebody they don't freak out and crash and it seemed pretty safe. Also I learned the importance of not racing an average of 1.4 times a weekend since the start of my season at Cherry Pie. I was definitely faster in May then now. Oh well, next year. Hopefully we'll be able to bring a whole team. Now I am going to take a long break, don't be surprised if you don't see me until the RR Districts on August 9th.

Used Heliums, warmed up on course. Maybe went a little fast during the start of warm up, hr was high and on the line was up to like 140 even though i hadn't ridden for a while. on the second lap i used my brakes too much in the second half on the corner at the bottom of the hill and gapped the field, couldn't get back on and that was that. i started to really suffer and i just felt terrible. on the positive note i outsprinted the guy i was with near the end. I hit 42.3 mph and totally spun out the 14 because of the downhill. Nick felt sick and stopped after a few lapps to avoid passing out. It was great to have Shawn and his parents as well as Lesley and Scott cheering me on but i just had a bad day.

Berkeley Hills Road Race (5/11/03, Cat 3): Started off pretty slowly and I was close to the front on Bear Creek Rd, probably too close to the front however as I followed a guy going up the little hill to the Dam road and when I looked bach there was a 300 yard gap that was increasing rapidly. Soon another guy bridged up and we started working with each other. For some reason my legs started to really hurt on the Dam Rd and kept hurting all the way untill we got caught on the bottom of Mama Bear. I was then trying to recover and go to the middle of the pack but the field hammered though Papa Bear and I ended up in one of the tail end groups by the top. We chased on the decent and managed to catch on just as we hit the flat. I then moved up to about the top 2/3 of the pack and stayed there on the dam road to recover. my legs were cramping a bit on the Dam road from not pedalling down the hill and mainting an aerodynamic position but it got better. Nothing much happened for the rest of the race, no more breaks got far off and I mooved up to the top 3rd. on Alhambra rd on the last lap I started mooving up and by the start of Mama Bear I was in the top 10, but my legs totally blew on Mama Bear and I think I finished around 25th or 30th. The break really killed my legs but I still think this race was a success for my first Cat 3 RR.

Cat's Hill Criterium (5/10/03, Junior 17/18): Not a good race. My focus was totally blown when they made me do roll out half way through warm up and then dropped my bike in the proccess. This resulted in me not trying very hard at the start and being dropped on the 1st lap. A guy ended up on my wheel but wouldn't pull thu for 2 laps, if he had we could have caught on. Going up the hill on every lap, my rear wheel spun as I lost traction going over the bumps this meant that I couldn't go anything like as fast as I could. In the sprint I made the other guy lead out because we were going fairly slowly. However he accelarated right before the corner and I did not stay on his wheel. I took a differant line and ended up a lot further right. we then matched our sprint pedal for pedal. I should have stayed on his wheel and used his draft to come around. Oh well.

Lodi Appellation TT (5/4/03, Junior 17/18): Started with a good 45 min crit warm up. Started off slowly and cautious to keep hr down to about 5 beats below AT(184), at one point went up to 191 but brought it back down. There wasn't much of a tailwind on the way out, the wind was mostly a cross wind. I messed up my turn around a bit when I overbraked and almost ran into the marshal and I passed Josh, who left 3 min before me, soon after it around. coming back the wind had picked up and changed so that it was a big head wind and I was fighting to keep my cadence above 95 rpm. With about 5 miles to go I could see Evan in the distance and I could tell I was closing since he left 4 minutes before me. I never quite caught him but I think I finished about 15 sec behind him on the road. In the last 5 mile the Flite TT that Jason Kent gave me was killing me and I may want a more comfy saddle before the next long TT. I finished with a time of 50.01 which was 1:40 faster then the second placed person. I had a feeling that I had won but I was surprized it was that much. It was definately a great (but very painful) race.

Copperopolis (4/19/03, Junior 17/18): Race started off pretty slowly, there were a few minor accelerations from some of the riders but they were mostly to wake the legs up. Going up the start of the first climb Evan put it a slight acceleration and I followed him, when he stopped I went around him and picked the pace up a tiny bit. However the group all stayed behind Evan so I had about a 20 bike length gap, I then kept the same speed to see what the group would do, they did nothing. After about half a minute Shawn bridged up and got on my wheel. I picked up the pace and decided to go for it given that the group seemed really unresponsive. Shawn and I worked well together on the first lap but I could tell he wasn't feeling great. By the end of the climb on the second lap Shawn was really suffering so I took to pulling by myself, right before the last little climb Evan suddenly appeared from behind and said that he had attacked at the first climb and bridged up to us. Evan and I then took turns pulling and we set a good tempo up the climb, however on the steep part of the first climb Shawn totally exploded and we went on without him. A few miles after the climb on the third lap I began to suffer, my legs still felt fine I just had totally no energy, I gave up pulling and let Evan do it all, I was using all I had in order to keep going and not fall asleep. I had to keep refocusing just to stay on Evans wheel. By the time we got to the last climb I was praying for the finish and I wanted Evan to leave me behind but he encouraged me to keep up. We ended up coming across the line together, Evan first (obviously, he's the highest ranked in the JR points series and was totally able to drop me and second he wished) and me second, Shawn finished about 1.5 minutes back in 3rd.

Sea Otter MTB Race (4/13/03, Jr. Sport): Had a good start and was dicing for the lead with 2 other guys but when we ran into the old beginners that started before us they could get around them better then I so I dropped back, eventually more people passed me all because I got bonked by the old people. The course was really rough and after I finished I found that my rear wheel was moving laterally about .5-1cm on the axel, it was also rubbing on the brakes, I think this happened on the opening rough section so it came loose pretty close to the time I started loosing a lot of places (a slight correlation maybe) anyway I think I finished top 15 maybe top 10 in my age group.
By the way I have to thank Alex and the Tischenkos for the excellent house and food, I had a lot of fun and look foreward to next year and maybe a training camp in the summer.

Sea Otter Circuit Race (4/12/03, Junior 17/18):Had a great warm up but found that the race started 2 hrs later after I finished it, still I did another one later and felt good for the start. Going up the first hill on the circuit I slipped back a bit because I did not want to go at a 100% on the first lap. In front of me however, someone cut Josh off and he went down and I had nowhere to go but into his rear wheel. I went down too but did not get a scratch however, my chain was totally jammed and by the time I got it fixed I was about 2 min behind the pack, there was no way I would chase back so I just finished the lap and retired. Josh's wheel got too bent so that he couldn't ride so he walked, luckily everyone was OK.

Sea Otter Road Race (4/11/03, Junior 17/18): Had a good 45 min warm up and started off in the top 10 or 15 in the pack, stayed there all the way down the long hill on which I hit 50mph and half way up the steep hill right after, however my chain wouldn't shift into the small ring and when I finally did manage to get it to shift it fell and jammed. After I got off and put it back on I was dead last in the race, I then sprinted up the hill and down the other side in the hopes of regaining the piloting, however what I thought was the platoon was in fact just clumps of dropped groups who eventually formed into one large group of like 20-30 people. We worked well together and picked up a few more people including Schimmer and Harter from Swift. When we were going up the final 3 mile hill Harter started off by pulling at a fairly easy tempo at the bottom then with me second wheel and about a third of the way up Shawn came to the front and I got his wheel and he set a good tempo that held everyone at bay but was still comfortable for me. With about 1k to go on the climb I saw a steep section so I attacked and got about a 15 second gap on the only chaser, Jake Allen (15-16), I led all the way up the hill and crested the summit with the same 15 sec gap but on the flat part of the section Allen caught me and managed to ride me off his wheel because my legs were dead from the hill. Still I came first from the looser group and it was thanks to a great lead out by Shawn. Later I discovered the reason for my shifting issues, the little bolt on the bottom of the bike that one can take out to drain the frame was gone, I took it out and didn't put it back in so the plate that the cables run through was sliding around whenever I shifted. Lesson learned: always make sure you finish doing any maintenance work on a bike.

McClane Pacific Road Race (3/23/03, Junior 17/18): Felt really good in the race, Shawn attacked after about 2 miles and the group let him go. The rest of us spent a lot of time blocking by riding in the front but not really working. Attacks started coming from Holloway and Clint Rogers, I and Josh did a few as well, but the longest any ever lasted was about 2 minutes. The field would not let any of us go, some of the little kids attacked and we allowed to go but they were caught again before the finish. On the second lap, when it was obvious that Shawn was going to stay away I started trying to form an attack that would actually succeed, but no one had the strength to pull away from the field. I knew that I couldn't beat Clint or Daniel in the sprint so I tried a last all out attack with about a mile and a half to go and stayed away for about .75 of a mile but everyone was chasing me and because it was on the flat I eventually got caught and got stuck as second wheel coming into the sprint. Daniel went first and Clint followed, I tried to go too but my legs had nothing left after the attack so I finished in 6th.

McClane Pacific Crit (4/11/03, Junior 17/18 and Cat 4): I started with a 40 min warm up on the course for the junior crit, and in the race I felt good. I helped bring Evan back to the group a few times and chased back a few breaks as well as being in a few of them myself, all however only lasted about third of a lap. I chased back a break with 2 laps to go, so I was a little tired for the sprint, probably got around 10th, next time I'll leave it to somebody else to get those last minute breaks. Still I kept Evan out of trouble and I think he finished right behind the Swift guys. In the cat 4 crit I hung at the back for the first half, trying to recover from the Junior's race then moved up to try to be in the sprint. I did not get as high as I wanted to be really in contention and I wished that I had a bigger gear for sprint. I probably got around 15th. Rode around slowly after the race for like 15 or 20 minutes as warm down.