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Giro del Cielo Race Report (Podcast #19)

The Giro del Cielo is a 2-day stage race in Sussex County, New Jersey. Originally begun as a women's only race, in the 9 years or so that it's been in existence, organizers have added men's cat 3 and 4/5 fields. USA Cycling sanctioned, the 2 day/3 stage event is a great way to introduce people to stage racing without forcing them to commit to something as brutal as the Green Mountain Stage Race, Tour of the Catskills or the like. It's geographical location in northern New Jersey is also the perfect venue to draw a diverse group of racers and teams, ranging from local squads to teams and riders from New York City and Philadelphia.

I'll go through my experience stage by stage, discussing some of the things that worked, some of the things that didn't, and how to improve for next year. I'll cover:

Time Trial warm up – Getting your body primed for a hard, constant effort
TT recap
Post TT recovery – How to make sure the legs are fresh for a second race that day
Crit race warm up – Getting your leg speed online
Crit race recap
Day 1 recovery – The key to riding strong on day 2
Circuit race warm up – Getting the legs moving after a couple hard efforts the day before
Circuit race recap
Overall impression of the race and of my performance

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:00:16 — 55.2MB)

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Tags: Coaching, podcast, racing, reviews|

On Cycling Hero(in)es

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending the Parx Casino Philly Cycling Classic with the finish atop the legendary Manyunk Wall. The close atmosphere of the event, combined with a large, high quality field allowed spectators and fans an amazing opportunity to get up close and personal with the action and the main protagonists in the field.

Not only did we watch the Bicycling Classic (which allowed anyone who had a bike and $25 to pin on a number and do a couple laps of the wall) but we were able to watch a brutally hard women's race and an action packed men's race. As the day wore on and we watched as riders suffered for the glory of the win, the QOM/KOM points, the points jersey and even just to stay in the race, it occurred to me that events like the Philly Classic cement cycling's foundation of a sport full of heroes. The more I pondered the events of the day, the more I realized why we react to cycling the way we do.

And honestly, it made me think about who my heroes are. Perhaps you'll consider who yours are as well.

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Tags: pro cycling, racing|

Giro d’Italia Week 1 Review

[dc]T[/dc]he first (and perhaps most beautiful) grand tour of the year arrived and has wound it's way around Italy for a week now. As always, the Giro has been surprise after surprise, with rain and slippery roads playing almost as big a part as the racers themselves. How has the first week developed and what might we see in the coming two weeks?

As for the protagonists (or antagonists depending upon which side of the fence you're on), Katusha is here thanks to the CAS ruling that placed them into the World Tour, although without the defending second place Joachim Rodriguez. Ryder Hesjedal (defending champion) lined up next to Cadel Evans, Vincenzo Nibali, Michele Scarponi, Robert Gesink and the odds on favorite, Bradley Wiggins. It was anyone's guess who could challenge Wiggins for the overall honors of the 2013 Giro, especially after his and Sky's dominating performance in the Tour de France last year. But as has been shown through the first week, the Giro is an unpredictable and fickle mistress, causing a number of the GC contenders to come to grief and leaving us all to wonder who will take home the coveted Maglia Rosa.

Stages

In the past few years, the Giro has been criticized as being too intense. Too demanding. Flat out too hard. Michele Acquarone has done a fantastic job in balancing the act in order to ensure star quality participation and exciting racing from beginning to end. Balancing time trial kilometers with mountaintop finishes, flat sprint stages and stages suitable to allow a break to go clear and somehow managing to not tip the balance towards one specialist or another is a difficult task indeed. Let's see how the stages developed.

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Tags: pro cycling, racing|

The Sweet Taste of Victory…

Or the bitter sting of defeat?

It's been a psychologically (and let's be honest, physically) difficult week post Battenkill. Sure, there's the usual post-event down swing that accompanies any event that you've spent the better part of half a year preparing for. But between the elation of watching my coached athletes succeed at America's toughest one day race and the misery of abandoning America's toughest one day race, it's been a psychological tug-o-war. And there have been constant reminders to deal with: the Strava comments, teammates wondering what happened and the depressing WKO+ upload.

While it's been difficult to sort through the myriad of self discussions going on in my head, the ultimate irony was hearing Lou Reed's “Perfect Day” come across my iPod while cleaning the Cambridge mud off my frame. And since the process of washing, drying and polishing a frame is hardly difficult or attention demanding work, I was able to really listen to the lyrics for the first time in a long time, extracting a lot of meaning out of those forty-one year old lyrics.

Just a perfect day, you made me forget myself
I thought I was, someone else, someone good

For days I've racked my brain, trying to come to grips with the crushing mental defeat that comes with abandoning a race. That bitter sting of defeat has been nagging me like a hangnail since I lay curled up on the side of the road. The first thoughts to go through my head were not of the difficulty breathing, or the pain squeezing my torso like a pair of vise grips, but more of the mental pain of failing to accomplish a goal. I'm competitive, if not with those around me, with myself. I had set a goal and I would not be able to complete it. In the moment, I felt at the very least I was letting down friends, family and teammates, lest of all myself. I felt all the work I had done, all the time I had spent designing and following my specific training plans, and all the planning I had put into the weekend was washed away in a sea of bad luck and uncontrollable circumstances. There was a moment in which a single tear slid down the side of my face as I pounded on the ground in frustration.

I trained and fought for the better part of five months just to get to where I was, and I know my form was high. Would I have won my field? No. Could I have been on the podium? Probably not. Could I have finished with a top 10 placing? Maybe. Top 20? Definitely. The only thing holding me back was….my back; a previous injury that I have been coping with for a year now, which I had described previously in these pages. In reality, there wasn't much I could do (having thought I had everything under control), except take some lessons from the whole debacle.

To look at things in a different light, we take another page from Lou's book:

Oh, it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day, you just keep me hanging on
You just keep me hanging on.

It was serendipitous to fall like a soldier in combat by the side of the road. It allowed me to focus on pushing others through their races, watching their successes and encouraging their performances, allowing me to push away the feelings of defeat. The successes of others provided me a way to just keep hanging on, which was just what I needed at that moment.

That's the thing about racing. You have successes and failures. You fight and usually you lose, but sometimes you win. The biggest lesson it can teach us is how to swallow our shattered pride, pick ourselves up off the pavement (or in this case pavé) and reload our guns for the next fight.

Marcellus Wallace put it best:

The night of the fight, you may feel a slight sting. That's pride fucking with you. Fuck pride. Pride only hurts. It never helps. You fight through that shit.

You fight through that shit. And when you do, you realize that you're stronger and more thoroughly prepared for the next time pride comes calling. It's that preparation that silences the bitter sting of defeat and allows you to savor the sweet taste of victory.

Have you swallowed the bitter pill that is defeat? Talk about it in the comments:

Tags: injury, Motivation, racing|

Tour of the Battenkill 2013 Race Report (Podcast #12)

Tour of the Battenkill is one of my favorite races: it has all the hallmarks of the northern European classics: pave, short, steep climbs, big crowds and throngs of exuberant racers.

Having raced Battenkill in 2011 and finished 33rd with massive, horrible muscle cramps, I was determined to head back to Cambridge NY and have another go at the 64 miles of hell and dirt. Saturday was the 9th running of the Tour of the Battenkill, and featured about 3500 racers between the pro/am day and the Gran Fondo.

In today's podcast, I'll detail my Battenkill weekend, from Friday through race day, what went right and what went wrong.

ANNOUNCEMENT: You still have 5 days to download my “Berg Buster” HIT workout for free. Just use the code “classicsgift” and that $10 workout becomes free!

Remember to review the Tailwind Coaching Podcast on iTunes!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:48 — 18.7MB)

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Tags: battenkill, injury, podcast, racing|