Strava: http://www.strava.com/activities/145065407
About Palmdale: if you ever decide to stay up here for any reason, definitely stay on the WEST side of the 14. I stayed on the EAST side and never felt confident that my car would still be outside my hotel room in the morning. I didn't even want to leave my bike in my room as there were guys walking around like they were just scoping the place out. There was even two guys who parked just outside my room and sat in the car and looked at me as I unloaded. Thankfully, I'm from the hood too, so maybe they recognized one of their own. HA HA.
About the course: I drove up on Friday and had every plan to just go straight to my hotel and settle in. However, I opted to have lunch with the wife first, and she had asked whether I was going to check out the course beforehand. What a novel idea? It never even dawned on me to do so, but I think doing so would definitely ease some of my anxiety of racing on an course I'm not familiar with. It took a whingle to get there as it was an extra 25 minutes away from my hotel, but I'm glad I got to see it. There were some guys there riding the course likely preparing for the race. I never stopped since it also looked like a place where they filmed Boyz-in-the-Hood. I drove around the whole thing to check out the road conditions, width, and the varying (albeit slight) elevation change. The first 6 miles had an average grade of 1%, which made me wonder how the hell people were doing 36 mph averages on it last year. However, given how hard the wind was blowing in the afternoon, I don't think one even had to pedal to get up to that speed. The right turn to 240th street led you to a slight downhill, which I figured would provide some reprieve from the slight climb before it. It didn't take that long to get down it...in a car. Then there was the right turn to Palmdale where the road was actually finally smooth where the roads before definitely seemedb like they could use some repaving here and there. It wasn't smooth the whole time as it got rough again after a little pitch up, but it was nowhere near as bad as the last part of the Stagecoach. On the last road, it was similar to the first two but seemed pretty flat throughout. For the race, the course would not be closed to cars but it would controlled at the intersections and there was very little traffic in the morning other than support cars driving around.
About the weather: As I mentioned above, the winds were definitely howling on Friday and I could just see setting some mean KOMs with that wind behind you. I actually died down some the next morning, but it would be best described as going from a category 4 tornado to a category 3...i.e. it was still a tornado. It definitely had me wondering how the race was going to be on the course and how to ride through it, but I didn't actually get to see what it would be like until I actually raced it. I warmed up on my trainer, so I really wasn't sure what to expect except I knew I definitely wasn't looking forward to heading into it. As it turned out, you did have a tail wind on the first stretch, a head wind on 240th, more head wind on Palm, and it behind you once again on 180th and on Avenue O.
About me: I parked on 180th as most had and warmed up on my trainer as most everyone else seemed to also. I saw Kim Nida there, possibly Tracy, Rose and Peter before the race but other than that, I just did my own thing. My own thing included chugging down a bunch of coconut water and some water with electrolytes just before the race. I tried to put away my trainer and get to the porta potties for a last minute piss given all the fluids I drank in the morning given I had planned on not taking any fluids with me. However, by the time I got to the porta potties, the line was too long and my time to line up was coming up too fast. I decided I'd just without taking one and make the best of it.
About the race: I changed my plan this race (last minute) and decided I'd focus more on my power (3s average and overall average) and actually opted not to look at speed at all. I had speed on my display, but on the very bottom just under distance. I don't really know if this worked well for me as I ended up feeling like I was always behind the eight ball the whole race, but that's what I get for making changes on the day of the race. When I finally got going, I was monitoring my power and couldn't figure out why I just couldn't hit the numbers I was hoping for. I had a decent warm-up being on the trainer for about 20 or so minutes and actually sweating, but I never did push very hard and if anything, probably pushed too little to really get a lot of blood flowing through my legs. Thus, monitoring my power was definitely making me feel like I just wasn't ever working hard enough. While my numbers were low, I still did 28+ mph avg on the first stretch. It wasn't enough though as the guy who started after me was already passed me probably 3/4 of theo way of the stretch. Sigh. When I came up on the first right turn, it felt like running into a wall. You can see it was downhill, but the winds were pushing so hard that I really had a hard time getting through that section at a reasonable speed. When I got on Palm, I still didn't feel that connection with my bike but pushed through anyway hoping to just get the damn race over with. After getting passed again, I got a little bit more motivated and finally found my rhythm half way through Palmdale Ave. I tried to keep the guy who passed me not too far away and succeeded in doing so. I did end up passing a couple guys in the process as well. When we hit 180th, I finally felt the wind let up and thought to myself, now it's on. I tried to chase the guy down and was even pedaling at the top gear throughout, but still I wasn't closing like I'd hoped. I passed a couple other guys but I don't know if there were in my category or not. When I rounded the final turn and headed for the finish another 6 miles away, I was really pushing hard and almost held the top gear throughout the entire distance. I started to run out of steam at the end having pushed so hard, but I managed to average 29.4 on the last stretch. I was definitely done after that and did not even know how I'd make it back 6 miles where my car is...and against the wind to boot!
About the results: Having moved up to Cat 4, my expectations were definitely not as high as had I raced 5 as originally planned. I catted up though after seeing only 4 other people signed up for CAT 5 (there were 20 all together in Cat 4) where it just didn't seem worth racing if only against that little. One guy didn't even show up, so actually there were only 3 in the end. For Cat 4, I just missed the 10th spot by ~1 second. Of course, I wish I could have hit the turns harder but I never really felt comfortable since they weren't too wide, there could be cars, and it didn't seem clean enough where I didn't want to wash the front. I don't know if it would have mattered or not, but whatever. In the end, my time was 53:35 with an average speed of 25.8 mph. This is a far cry from what they did on the course last year, but the conditions were definitely more challenging as others were off their time previously by at least a couple minutes.
About next time: We'll see if this is a race I'd do again. I may just to see if I can top my time from this year, but a 23 mile TT is definitely not the same av ~10 mile TT. I'll have to see what the conditions will be like next year, but I'm definitely not looking forward to 9 miles of serious headwind again anytime soon. Ridiculous.
About Palmdale: if you ever decide to stay up here for any reason, definitely stay on the WEST side of the 14. I stayed on the EAST side and never felt confident that my car would still be outside my hotel room in the morning. I didn't even want to leave my bike in my room as there were guys walking around like they were just scoping the place out. There was even two guys who parked just outside my room and sat in the car and looked at me as I unloaded. Thankfully, I'm from the hood too, so maybe they recognized one of their own. HA HA.
About the course: I drove up on Friday and had every plan to just go straight to my hotel and settle in. However, I opted to have lunch with the wife first, and she had asked whether I was going to check out the course beforehand. What a novel idea? It never even dawned on me to do so, but I think doing so would definitely ease some of my anxiety of racing on an course I'm not familiar with. It took a whingle to get there as it was an extra 25 minutes away from my hotel, but I'm glad I got to see it. There were some guys there riding the course likely preparing for the race. I never stopped since it also looked like a place where they filmed Boyz-in-the-Hood. I drove around the whole thing to check out the road conditions, width, and the varying (albeit slight) elevation change. The first 6 miles had an average grade of 1%, which made me wonder how the hell people were doing 36 mph averages on it last year. However, given how hard the wind was blowing in the afternoon, I don't think one even had to pedal to get up to that speed. The right turn to 240th street led you to a slight downhill, which I figured would provide some reprieve from the slight climb before it. It didn't take that long to get down it...in a car. Then there was the right turn to Palmdale where the road was actually finally smooth where the roads before definitely seemedb like they could use some repaving here and there. It wasn't smooth the whole time as it got rough again after a little pitch up, but it was nowhere near as bad as the last part of the Stagecoach. On the last road, it was similar to the first two but seemed pretty flat throughout. For the race, the course would not be closed to cars but it would controlled at the intersections and there was very little traffic in the morning other than support cars driving around.
About the weather: As I mentioned above, the winds were definitely howling on Friday and I could just see setting some mean KOMs with that wind behind you. I actually died down some the next morning, but it would be best described as going from a category 4 tornado to a category 3...i.e. it was still a tornado. It definitely had me wondering how the race was going to be on the course and how to ride through it, but I didn't actually get to see what it would be like until I actually raced it. I warmed up on my trainer, so I really wasn't sure what to expect except I knew I definitely wasn't looking forward to heading into it. As it turned out, you did have a tail wind on the first stretch, a head wind on 240th, more head wind on Palm, and it behind you once again on 180th and on Avenue O.
About me: I parked on 180th as most had and warmed up on my trainer as most everyone else seemed to also. I saw Kim Nida there, possibly Tracy, Rose and Peter before the race but other than that, I just did my own thing. My own thing included chugging down a bunch of coconut water and some water with electrolytes just before the race. I tried to put away my trainer and get to the porta potties for a last minute piss given all the fluids I drank in the morning given I had planned on not taking any fluids with me. However, by the time I got to the porta potties, the line was too long and my time to line up was coming up too fast. I decided I'd just without taking one and make the best of it.
About the race: I changed my plan this race (last minute) and decided I'd focus more on my power (3s average and overall average) and actually opted not to look at speed at all. I had speed on my display, but on the very bottom just under distance. I don't really know if this worked well for me as I ended up feeling like I was always behind the eight ball the whole race, but that's what I get for making changes on the day of the race. When I finally got going, I was monitoring my power and couldn't figure out why I just couldn't hit the numbers I was hoping for. I had a decent warm-up being on the trainer for about 20 or so minutes and actually sweating, but I never did push very hard and if anything, probably pushed too little to really get a lot of blood flowing through my legs. Thus, monitoring my power was definitely making me feel like I just wasn't ever working hard enough. While my numbers were low, I still did 28+ mph avg on the first stretch. It wasn't enough though as the guy who started after me was already passed me probably 3/4 of theo way of the stretch. Sigh. When I came up on the first right turn, it felt like running into a wall. You can see it was downhill, but the winds were pushing so hard that I really had a hard time getting through that section at a reasonable speed. When I got on Palm, I still didn't feel that connection with my bike but pushed through anyway hoping to just get the damn race over with. After getting passed again, I got a little bit more motivated and finally found my rhythm half way through Palmdale Ave. I tried to keep the guy who passed me not too far away and succeeded in doing so. I did end up passing a couple guys in the process as well. When we hit 180th, I finally felt the wind let up and thought to myself, now it's on. I tried to chase the guy down and was even pedaling at the top gear throughout, but still I wasn't closing like I'd hoped. I passed a couple other guys but I don't know if there were in my category or not. When I rounded the final turn and headed for the finish another 6 miles away, I was really pushing hard and almost held the top gear throughout the entire distance. I started to run out of steam at the end having pushed so hard, but I managed to average 29.4 on the last stretch. I was definitely done after that and did not even know how I'd make it back 6 miles where my car is...and against the wind to boot!
About the results: Having moved up to Cat 4, my expectations were definitely not as high as had I raced 5 as originally planned. I catted up though after seeing only 4 other people signed up for CAT 5 (there were 20 all together in Cat 4) where it just didn't seem worth racing if only against that little. One guy didn't even show up, so actually there were only 3 in the end. For Cat 4, I just missed the 10th spot by ~1 second. Of course, I wish I could have hit the turns harder but I never really felt comfortable since they weren't too wide, there could be cars, and it didn't seem clean enough where I didn't want to wash the front. I don't know if it would have mattered or not, but whatever. In the end, my time was 53:35 with an average speed of 25.8 mph. This is a far cry from what they did on the course last year, but the conditions were definitely more challenging as others were off their time previously by at least a couple minutes.
About next time: We'll see if this is a race I'd do again. I may just to see if I can top my time from this year, but a 23 mile TT is definitely not the same av ~10 mile TT. I'll have to see what the conditions will be like next year, but I'm definitely not looking forward to 9 miles of serious headwind again anytime soon. Ridiculous.
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