The race was a bit of a dissapointment. My legs were ok, but not great, and I needed great legs to do something in the race.

The racing was super aggressive right from the gun. We hit over 35 mph just a half mile into the race! I covered several attacks before we hit Fillmore the first time, but it was extremely challenging to pick the right move to follow. So many of them seemed really promising with a combination of riders that could be the right ones.

The attacks continued unabated for the first three laps. I joined several small groups, but didn't seem to pick the right one. Finally, a group of 12 escaped the clutches of the pack and made up some serious time without our team represented in it. I tried to go with some counters, but I couldn't seem to pick the right one to follow, and my legs were really starting to hurt. I was good, but just didn't have the power to make the difference.
I got gapped off on the descent down Broadway from Fillmore on the 5th lap when Scott Moniger sat up. I chased through the cars and made contact just as we exited the marina and headed back to Fillmore. My legs were starting to cramp at this point, only 55 miles, and a little over two hours into the race. I emptied my pockets of food to my teamate Ted, dragged him to the front of the pack just before the climb began, and said goodbye. There was a big crash at the bottom of the climb - one rider fell over on the left side of the road, and riders fell down like dominos all the way across the road. I had to clip out, descend down, and then restart the climb. I thought it would be too hard to try and clip in and ride. You can actually see me heading down and looping around the Mavic car in the TV coverage of the event. A few riders in the crash made it back on, but my legs were done. I pulled out at the end of the lap when it was obvious my day was done. I averaged 271 watts for those two and a half hours, with an average heart rate of 155 BPM, and an average speed over 25.5 mph. What an incredible pace on a course with so much climbing!

My teamate Ted rode a stellar race, and was active in the finale, but still had enough energy left to take 19th against such a tough field of riders. Patrick and Marc both were dealt some bad luck, and were forced out of the race with crashes. I think they had the legs to be protagonists at the end of the race, but it just wasn't to be.

Even though I was a bit dissapointed personally, it was still an amazing day. The weather was perfect, the crowd was insane, and the brutal course provided the spectators with a spectacle to match their enthusiastic cheering. This race really has become one of the biggest and best races in the states. Only Philedelphia can compare.

I've posted my complete SRM data file from the race online. It provides a bit of insight into just how hard racing at this level can be.

Went out and did openers to get my legs loosened up and prime the energy systems for tomorrow. A couple of 5 minute tempo and sub-threshold efforts, and a couple of jumps to clear the fuel injectors and get ready to rock.

The legs feel pretty good - we'll find out for sure tomorrow.

Not much news on the training front the past two days. Did some light riding on the trainer last night and I don't plan to touch my bike at all today. Rest and relax - that's it.

Been eating a lot of carbs the past few days to carbo load. The old theory on carbo loading required you to first deplete your system of carbs and sugars by shifting your diet more towards protein and vegetables. After a couple of days of this, you would go out and do a depletion ride - ride at a easy endurance pace until you bonk. Then, just like a sponge, your body could soak up all the carbs you would poor into it leading up to race day. The problem with this approach is that it made you feel completely miserable during the depletion phase. Without enough sugar in your system, you get really, really irritable. The new approach is to just increase your carb intake to around 70% for a couple of days leading up to the big event. You get nearly the same results, without the same side effects. Its a lot easier when you are working that's for sure! So, today I had some oatmeal and a banana and bagel for breakfast, some pasta for lunch, and probably some more pasta or rice for dinner. Just pooring it in to the fuel tank for Sunday.

I think racing in America would definately be helped by having more events like San Francisco. The secret to the success of this race really is its difficulty. When you look at the most popular races in the world - races such as the Tour of Flanders, Paris Roubaix, and the Tour de France - they all feature spectacularly tough courses that can reduce some of the strongest riders in the world to tears. I think this is why so many spectators are facinated and entranced by them. In America, the four biggest races are probably Philly, the Zinger, Housatonic, and San Francisco. Philly has the Manayunk wall, Housatonic has a roller coaster course of steep climbs, the Zinger has a horribly brutal course with epic climbs, dirt descents, and Colorado's lung searing altitude, and San Francisco has the ridiculously steep Fillmore Street climb. We need more races like these if we want the sport to grow in America.

Today was my last real day of training and preparation before the race. The next few days I have some rides scheduled just to keep the legs going, but my main goal is to just rest, relax, and prepare myself mentally for the big day.

I ended up doing a bit of a double day today, which was originally the plan. Motorpaced for an hour on the Hellyer Park track at lunch averaging between 30 and 35 mph. In the evening I went out for another hour to get in some final hard climbs up Quinhill. Though I average between 160 and 170 bpm for the hour on the track, and my aerobic system was definately getting a workout, my legs didn't feel that stressed or fatigued. I added in six repeats up Quinhill for good measure, and only the last two seemed to hurt much. I think that's a good sign for sunday.

Today is also 9/11, and it seems like an appropriate time to remember the events of the past year.

The contrast between 9/11, and last year's race just two days prior is still vivid in my mind. It was incredible to see the smiles etched on the faces of the hundereds of thousands of fans lining the race course. Many consider sports to be trivial and unimportant in light of the events of the past year. I disagree. Anything that can make several hundred thousand people laugh and have a good time is an unambigously good thing.

I hope that this race is just as successful in bringing joy and happiness to the world.

A rather uneventful training day. Sat on the trainer watching TV this evening for a couple of hours. Didn't get home from work until it was too late to ride outside. I can't wait until the new season of television starts - at least then there will be fresh new junk to watch when I'm on the trainer.

At this point, the key is almost to not worry about my training much. Just rest, recover, and don't stress - my fitness isn't going to improve or decline much. So, I putted on the trainer for about 90 minutes at 115 bpm with around 20 minutes at 140 - 145 bpm. Maybe a little shorter than scheduled, but it doesn't really matter much at this point. Why worry about it?

Anyway, its probably better than I'm fresh for tomorrow's motorpacing session. Its my only hard workout this week as I taper for Sunday, and its my final chance to fine tune my fitness.

Its pretty lucky I had a rest day scheduled on monday - there was no way I would have been able to ride. Went straight from work to a cycling club meeting, then back to work to finish up some prototypes. Got home and went straight to bed.

I was a bit tired today - yesterday's hard efforts really took something out of me. My legs felt fine, but I just didn't have a ton of energy. The plan was to keep my heartrate below was 150 all day, which was good because I couldn't get it any higher no matter how hard I tried.

Went up to San Francisco with my teamates Ted, Patrick, Greg, and Marc to ride the Paradise Loop, Fairfax-Bolinas route, and the Mt. Tam loop. We ended up climbing Mt. Tamalpais from two different directions just for fun. Patrick recorded a fairly impressive amount of climbing on his altimeter - something around 6000'. The other four were feeling frisky all day, and I felt like I was about to bonk most of the time. Pretty much as soon as the road started to climb, I'd go out the back. I actually wasn't going to slowly, but they were just flying.

When we got to the top of Mt. Tam the second time, we continued to climb for up for another 10 minutes or so to reach the top of east peak to stop at the snack shop and take in the panaramic view of the bay and San Francisco. I was pretty ravenous and dehydrated at this point, and gulped down two cokes, a gatorade, and a bag of fritos in less than five minutes. Fritos sometimes are the greatest food on earth. After extensive research, I found that Fritos have the highest salt content for the lowest amount of fat and calories of any chip on the market - awesome! Without that stop I probably would have been reduced to a quivery mass of pathetic biker flesh by the time we made it back to San Francisco. I still was barely hanging on as my teamates opened the throttles up on the way back.

Finished the ride off with a couple more climbs up Fillmore. Just a bit more reconaissance. I really think that specificity is a crucial part of training. If you are going to be climbing a steep climb in a race, you should be training on steep climbs. If the race is flat, you should be out riding on the flats. There are important differences in pedaling style and the muscles you recruit while pedaling while climbing v. riding on the flats v. humping over some monster wall like Fillmore. It felt better up Fillmore today than I did last week, and much better than last year.

I saw something pretty amazing while climbing Fillmore.

One of my teamates managed to big ring it.

It is possible.

It requires some quite serious cross-chaining, and an amazing set of legs, but it can be done.

I think our team has a good shot of doing some damage in the race. I'm really excited about our chances. If you can big ring Fillmore - look out!

Friday was a rest day, but I didn't get a whole lot of rest. Work was really stressful in the morning. It began with a pretty unpleasant call to a vendor who unfortunately, isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. I'm not sure why this happens, but when I'm under a lot of pressure, my legs really seem to tense up. I could almost feel my form slipping away. Tight legs can't produce much power on the bike. Luckily, there were two product release parties in the afternoon, and a couple of glasses of champagne later, I was relaxed, and my legs were feeling much better (kids: don't try this at home). I probably overindulged on the fine spread they had set up for the party though. When I'm feeling stressed out, my resistance to temptation is much lower than normal. I went for a spin in the evening just to fool myself into thinking I had done something productive that day, but I was so drained that all I could do was put around the block at about 15 mph. Some days are like that.

Today I rode for almost exactly four hours with 2.5 hours of solid tempo thrown in for good measure. Lots of high speed motoring on the flats, and several short, steep climbs - Crestview, Alameda de las Pulgas, Hillsdale, Bunker Hill, Mt. Eden, Pierce, Toll Gate, Sara Hills. The form definately looks to be coming around quite nicely. I was really motoring today, and attacking the steep climbs at near race pace. I went so hard today, that I actually started to cramp towards the end of the ride. That was encouraging to see. Its not easy to push yourself that hard in training! Today definately give me a bit of confidence after two pathetic days of training that I'm still on track to have a strong ride in San Francisco.

Recovery after a hard ride like that is super critical to translate a hard effort into real gains in fitness. When I got home, I quickly drank some Endurox, then heated up some leftovers. After lunch, I took a really wonderful hour-long nap. Tomorrow is going to be a long, long day in the saddle, so I really need to make sure I have my energy back by then.