More Fast and Furious...

OK, so it looks like the last two weeks where not a fluke...

I only did two races in the A's tonight. The first was a 30 lap scratch, skipped the Elimination in the middle and then a 5x10 Points.

There was an "increase" in the fast people out this week, Bukcosky and Caves where back. Chaddock and Carleton where there again. So the consensus was that there would be some fast racing.

And yes... very fast. The 30 lap Scratch averaged 49.1 kph. The 5x10 Points slightly slower. After a slow start, the last 40 laps averaged 48.5 kph.

I didn't get a very good warm up so at the start of the scratch I just jumped to the front and gave it a little kick to see who would follow.. they didn't so I took about 6-7 laps at speed and then when they started to reel me in sat up and let them catch me... Great way to get the muscles and heart up to speed . And if they are going to let you get a nice warmup in ... no reason not to :-)

Mostly sat at the back for the next 10-12 laps... Then worked my way up through the rotation. Arriving towards the front with just about 3 to go. At that point our group was about a third of a lap behind the leaders, Chaddock, Buckosky and Sidic... I jumped and bridged to them. Chaddock jumped. I stayed with Buckosky and Sidic. With 1 lap to go I moved to the blue and fought to get over Sidic, taking a narrow 3rd at the line. Hit 800+ watts in the jump, 502 watts average for the last 572 meters, 54.1 kph...


The last race was a 5x10... I was mostly hanging on for the first 10-20 laps... Too busy to go to the front while everyone jockeying for position. I was able to get to the front group, Chaddock, Caves, Jones and Denis and follow around for the 3rd and 4th sprints... but in both cases there was just no getting over anyone to get points.. Nice solid 5th both times... Hit 58 in the 3rd sprint!


Chaddock sprinted with two others for the 4th and just kept going. Leaving four of us for the last 10 laps. I worked in the rotation and ended up nicely positioned, arriving at the front with 3 and a half laps to go. Jumped and got a very nice gap, carried it through to the finish to take 2nd in the final sprint. Unfortunately that didn't quite get me to 5th... :-(

But still I thought it was a very nice effort. And just like last week, finished both races strong and could I think easily have carried through for another 10 laps.

Whats really bizarre is that my CTL has dropped significantly. Had it up to about 85 for the Whister Fondo and now its down to about 50... Can't for the life of me get up to speed or do an effort outside... End up doing L2/L3 recovery rides when I get out on the weekends... But the track workouts and races feel easy. Perceived effort is not that high. Speed is up, power is ok.. Endurance on the track is great.

I've been doing the Wednesday Structured workout, usually followed by a 10-20 minute fast pace line workout in the Buckosky 42kph workout... This week I also did the Tuesday morning workout.

Also back to the Computrainer and the winter racing with the Computrainer Race League. Last week it was the 10k TT opener.. Was about 4 seconds faster than last year.. But the front derailleur cable snapped just before I started, so I was stuck in the small ring.. Probably could have done it about 10-15 seconds faster taking advantage of the "hills" to go fast in the 53x11.