Saturday, July 30, 2011

Provincial Road Race


So I have this new warmup that I have been doing before most races as prescribed by Coach Dino which has been helping a lot to get me ready for racing.  It has been helping so much.

So yes provincial road race as a master A just like nationals unlike Ontario cup races where I race as a Senior 2.  We line up on the start line and start waiting.  Four different categories are starting together the master As and Bs, the junior and cadet girls.  You can tell whom the junior and cadet girls are but figuring out who the master As and Bs are is a little harder.  You’ll have to wait for the finish for me to explain that.  So the start line we are waiting for our follow car and well to let off a little nervousness I let one ripper of a belch off whowa that helped a lot and well all the girls and ladies laughed a little which was nice to see.  Oh yes I have to also say that this race started with a neutral start on a gravel piece of road because of where the start line was at the top of a roller.  So we are off I get my clip in foot in right away but others have problems because of the types of pedals they are running.

Finally on the road and rolling and under way with the race.  The course is pretty rollie as we had already come a few weeks prior to the race to look at the course and wow what a shock to the system.  It was a pretty warm morning to start already pretty humid.  Oh yes I forgot racing in the masters category gives you a pretty early start time 8:05am to be exact for this race.  Up really early to get there and get ready.  So back to the race, nothing really happened in the first lap just a few jumps that were covered right away.  Coming into the start finish line was fun it was on top of one of the more major rollers.  I had to make note of that as to where to position myself well within the group.  All of the jumps usually happened going up the rollers and nobody really got away and if they did they were covered.  I tried some jumps myself to try and get away and me & Julie the lapdog girl got away for like a bit of time but no luck.  I think I tried every kind of jump possible.  No luck but I tried and I was happy with that.  As for the whole race I think this was my first race that I actually raced a smart race.  Not on the front too much not off the back.  Moving around with in the group.

Now about the finish and the different categories racing together.  The master A and B women race numbers were not really highly different from each other like a completely different series of numbers like 400 and 500.  The only difference was second digit like 576 and 586.  So you had to be really paying attention as to where everybody was and I told you about the start finish line.  Well I knew on the last lap I had to get myself close to the front, on the front or off the front to get myself up to the finish line as close to the front as possible without everybody coming around me.   I am just not a great sprinter and then make the sprint go up hill oh boy that’s even more fun.  So in the end some of the juniors and some of the cadets went around me and well a couple of the master B ladies and of course the one master A lady that kept herself really well hidden in the group.  So good job to her and I was second step down from her.  It was a fun race and I hope the next one is just as fun as this one.

Of course the next race is Terra Cotta which mass start of both men and women.  So I slightly different style of racing and women get to work with the men which is always a plus.

Til the next time.

Shell

Saturday, July 16, 2011

The weeks after masters nationals


It’s been a couple of weeks after nationals now and have only done a couple of races since then.  Road race (Ontario Masters Association Club) last weekend and time trial (Hamilton Cycling club) today both were club events.  Been ramping back up the training for the coming races in the next few weeks.  Provincial road next weekend, an OMAC time trial, Terra Cotta the following weekend and then the Tour of Catskills starting in the first week in August.  These days I’ve started doing some hill repeats on our local hill to get ready for some of these races fun times.

So a little recap on Nationals. 

The time trial was on the Thursday, the crit on the Friday and then the road race on the Sunday.  Hamilton Cycling Club is the club I race for and they asked me to do race reports and give them some pictures from all of the races for their webpage.  So here is the link to that:


A couple of days after nationals it kind of felt surreal.  It was like Christmas time when I was a kid you know that feeling like wow it’s all only a certain number of days away and then it comes goes and you have to wait til next year to do it all over again.  At least next year I will probably just do 2 of the 3 races at nationals but you never I may change my mind again lol.  I am thinking I’ll probably just do the time trial of course and the road race next year.


Til after the next race.

Shell