BVC Friday - final night for Fall series

Who knew a head cold for a week equals tapering :-)

The last night of the BVC IWE Friday night series for fall 2007... double points for the last night. In strong 2nd place but trailing Tony Zachary by large amount, with a strong third place contender (Mike Sidic) snapping at my heels...

Tony Zachary 73
Stuart Lynne 47
Mike Sidic 38
Nick Berry 29
Jacob Swhingboth 28

But if I managed 1st, 7 points, times two, in all three races, that would put me past Tony, assuming he didn't finish well.

Three races:

Elimination to 15 lap Scratch
30 Lap Scratch
5x10 Points

With 17 people showing up....

I decided on the 51x14 as that has been my most successful gearing so far this year. And managed to get a good 20 minutes warmup on it. Because of my cold last week, I effectively have been tapering for two weeks. Current TSB is through the roof...

Elimination, standard tactics, get to front so I don't have to burn any matches sprinting ... had a minor problem when someone else got ahead of me after about 4 eliminations, and I got boxed in. Got to the back and went over the top to get back to the front. I can easily deal with 42-44kph leading the group. Much easier than trying to contest the back ...

The scratch portion was easy, just got to the front and on the blue with a half dozen or so laps to go, waited, Mike Sidic (I think) jumped with about 3-4 to go, went 2 laps, I just went the rest and took it easily.. Legs felt absolutely marvelous...

Next was the 30 lap scratch. Just stayed at the back for the first 20+ laps.. The front group kept trying to push the pace up, doing little sprint efforts. But the rest of the field was strong enough that it didn't split, so I was safe at the back and not doing any work. After one of those sprint efforts, when the group bunched up again I just moved over the top to the front and took over on the blue line. Waited for a lead out.

Nobody wanted to try anything, preferring to follow me when I went. With a little over one lap to go I jumped, and again easily kept ahead of the field (only 230m, 16 seconds, not long enough to fade.)

The 5x10 points race was harder. I was starting to notice some fatigue. And my bronchitis was hurting my breathing a bit... But I made an effort to contest every sprint. Figured even if I just placed in all of them, that would keep me in the top 3 as it was unlikely that anyone would win more than two..

First two where hotly contested. I only (barely) managed 3rd in each. In the next two the field was slowing down a bit and I was able to get 1st both times. But at a cost, I had little or nothing left for the last sprint, a group of about six riders took off with about a lap and a half to go and I just couldn't hang on. But 2 1sts and 2 3rds still was enough to get me 1st place.

Which in the end managed to get me enough points to get 1st in the fall series. By about 4 points. I missed it last year to Mike Roethengaler by (if I recall correctly) about 2-3 points so that was nice. And getting three 1sts on the final night was fun as well.

So, it appears that a head cold that keeps you off the bike for a week doesn't affect your legs... They just treated it like a bit taper. It wasn't until the final sprint of the final race tonight that I really had any problem keeping up. That was after contesting the first four sprints (and winning two!) Normally in a 5x10 I contest the first and possibly the second, then alternate more or less. Try and do well in at least 3. That allows me some rest between the ones I contest. But tonight I just didn't need to rest until after the first 4... And that absolutely has to do with big TSB...


Now, a little more than two weeks to go to the 6-day... and my CTL has plummeted... I think the plan is to see if we can punch in some good workouts with some intensity over the next week or so, get ATL/CTL back in line, then see what we can do for the 6-day.

For us B-Riders the 6-day is actually 8 races over 4 days for the Ominium, then a one day series for Olympic events (500m TT, Flying 200, kierin etc.) So it's hard to taper for. But still the Ominium is 1 less race than the last 3-day. And the Olympic series is at the end so doing it won't interfere with the Ominium.