When last we spoke of Relays (Rockwell) and our participation in them our plans for 2016's version of the race were far from firm. In 2015 we had a good time, a really good time, but didn't finish in a 'good time'. Cap'n Engar and I have participated in several 'kicks & giggles' Relays, some featuring less giggles than others, and we both agreed we wanted one race where all four participants trained for the event and were ready to ride. We had that last year for the most part and our PR finish time (by twenty minutes) reflected that. We were however, blessed with ideal riding conditions, and that finish time, while none too shabby, was far from competitive compared to similarly staffed (co-ed competitive) teams. Before he would commit Thad (aka Pickle Juice, aka Cap'n Engar) had some caveats which he spelled out (literally) in an email.
Actually the Email could have been titled 'I'm not committing to anything, not even committing to commit, but if we do this again this is what needs to happen...' Followed by a detailed, itemized list of things we could do better and ways to improve. We came to the 2015 race trained but not... honed I guess would be the best way to put it. Kim was just finishing her third year of dental school and mixing training with studying (and being a mom and wife), Jenn had just run the Ogden marathon three weeks prior and her training reflected the fact that she ran it with a goal of Boston Qualifying, a goal she achieved but one that limited her saddle time. Aerobically she was more than ready; running and riding are hardly mutually exclusive activities training-wise, but they are distinct. Different muscles are recruited, different techniques are employed for conditioning; there's a different mindset and different goals. As for me, I did what I always do: pushed the miles, upped the cycling hours (commuting mostly), spent lots of time in tempo rides, reaching a plateau and staying there (even as I write this I can picture Thad reading it and repeatedly pounding his forehead with a closed fist) but never escaping the Tempo Trap. Only Thad came to the race if not in top form, at least trained to compete, regardless of race conditions, which history has taught us can be Brutal (yes, with a capital 'B') and our results if you compare splits reflected that. Thad above or in the top third of Cyclist 3 competitors and the rest of us all over the map but generally below the mean or in the bottom third.
So there was an itemized list of must have/must do's authored by the captain himself:
1) Everybody gets a power meter
2) Everybody has a trainer
3) Sufferfest Videos (to coordinate and customize workouts)
4) Saddle time in the fall
5) Trainer in the winter with building workouts geared to peak by race day
6) Only one (or preferably none) marathon or 1/2 Ironman for the year and preferably post-Rockwell
So of course, the first thing Jennifer and I did was find a marathon to run, albeit one that we would finish 4 months before Rockwell...
(cue cap'n Engar face palm number two). That's actually not completely true, but without splitting hairs, it's essentially true and the end result was we didn't get on the bike until the end of February. Again, training, and training to be fast, but not training to be fast on the bike.
"If you want to be fast on the bike, you've got to train on the bike." -Thad 'pickle juice' Engar
Doesn't seem like the most penetrating syllogism ever proposed, seems like it should go without saying, seems like... OK, now I'm face palming. So about two weeks before we ran the Phoenix marathon, Thad showed up on our front porch with something that looked like a terry-cloth athletic supporter for a grossly deformed individual (turned out to be a sweat guard to strap to our bike to protect the top tube while we did our trainer workouts) and an old school, paper printout calendar with specific workouts (again, literally) spelled out for us.
He then confirmed, everybody has trainer? Everybody has a power meter? To which I responded:
"We have one trainer we can both use. I get up long before Jenn. As for the power meter, Jenn has the Quarq on her Cannondale Synapse, but we aren't using that bike on the trainer... but she's pretty sure she knows her zones and her efforts and can adjust accordingly. I can probably do the wattage workouts on the stationary bikes at the gy..." I don't think I finished that sentence because at some point I saw (may have imagined it, but I'm not convinced of that) actual steam coming out of Cap'n Engar's ears. Within days (again the how and when are unclear and in the end unimportant) we had Thad's old Power meter and wheel set in our basement, mounted on the 6/13 and ready to go. And soon after I was converted completely and utterly to training with a Power Meter. That's all I'm going to say about that, if I provoke even one more face-palm/closed fist blow to the head, Cap'n Engar may spend Rockwell 2017 re-habbing in the Traumatic Brain Injury clinic.
So we ran our marathon, recovered for a week and then started our training sessions with a threshold test (reference Rockwell blog from 2013 for further description of this diabolical debacle) to see where we were. Jenn did pretty well. Her Watts/Kg ratio (using this overly generous chart that Cap'n Engar tells us is bogus but which we used to settle our marital training wagers) had her at a low Cat Five (with a bullet) female cyclist. My results from the same test had me at... well it doesn't actually show up on that chart. It was somewhere between 'untrained' and 'feel free to use the motorized cart at the grocery store'. When I gave the numbers to Thad (via chat, glad I didn't have to look him in the eye) I told him it's possible I have cancer. I mean that's possible, right? He found the entire scenario really entertaining. He has done the math, done the work and knows what works and what does not. Follow the process, trust the training and the numbers and get results. I wasn't so sure. I finished last season watching everybody else race Lotoja and spent the winter running. Clearly it had affected my ability to perform, but we had 14 weeks to change that, So we got to it. Started with Hell Hath No Fury (referencing the pro female cyclists in the videos but could also be applied to Cap'n Engar and we were feeling that fury now)
which (repeatedly) danced on our collective chamois, while increasing our endurance and twenty minute power. Then we graduated to the Hunted, which had us Time Trialing up mountains. That was followed up by a bludgeoning by the 9 Hammers, to increase VO2 max and Critical Power...and finally the Downward Spiral which was designed to decrease recovery time between maximum efforts and, as Cap'n Engar so aptly described it, felt like drowning on a bike.
And as the Captain predicted (and our training software Golden Cheetah tracked and quantified) we improved slowly at first but eventually dramatically. We signed up for and raced the Bear Lake Classic. A fifty mile criterium style race around the lake with a Suncrest-style climb at the finish. We crossed the line in a respectable time, but more importantly our wattage (the only statistic I worried about... the student had become... well still the student but I was learning and applying the lessons) was right where it needed to be, in fact right where Thad predicted it would be. Again, so many things I want to say*, all of them would put Thad's melon in jeopardy, so I shan't. You were right though. What can I say, You were right. *"My boy ['Juice] predicted this exactly. More [watts], more [power]... Where's the love?" -Jay Z
All the while we were receiving... not concerning but odd updates from the Rockwell Relay website: New Sponsor Charity Vision (cool, part of our registration will be used to treat blindness in under developed countries), different weekend for the race, third Fri/Sat in June instead of the customary second weekend (double cool, extra weekend to train), huge cash purse, eight grand to be split between male and female Open (at least one cat 1/pro rider on the squad) category teams (weird, this has historically been the ultimate amateur event, the Cat 1 teams have essentially just raced themselves, an academic more than a physical exercise for them, wonder how many open category teams will take the bait). And finally new (well, shifted) management of the race from the Stewart family to Tyler Servoss (sad but maybe Cort and Dan will finally get a chance to ride rather than just watch the Relay). If we were worried about it, even when the total teams signed up were decreased by almost forty percent at the cut off date (Memorial Weekend) we didn't say anything (or more to the point text/chat anything about it).
We teamed up for the traditional Memorial Day Rockwell team (Honey Mooners this year) ride and blew it up. It was the last in a series of big rides: BCC with Kim, Jenn and me, Alpine Loop with Jenn and Emigration/Big Mtn with the entire roster that featured PR after PR for everybody. Watts were up, weight was down and spirits were high going into the June taper.
Which takes us to race weekend. We got out of town on time, early even but things were a bit weird. There was the last minute equipment swap that always seems to happen (this time a tire for Jenn's bike, no big whoop and picked up the pro tip: tire brand over the stem so it's easily spotted, noted, thanks Cap') but nutrition was a last minute throw together for Thad & Kim (very un-cap'n Engar-like) and kinda slim for us, mostly potatoes. I should say for me, Jenn was meticulously prepared and had every meal, every exchange, every calorie planned out and prepped. She's a bit of a freak (take that as a compliment honey) that way.When we arrived at Swanney park we found it... subdued. Not a ton of people. Fatty had his tent set up and Brats, brat-ing, but no fatty and no team Fatty-family. We talked to Tyler and he told us the total number of teams was down, less than a hundred total (compared to 150 last year) and they didn't even have three female open category teams. So every female open category racer, assuming they finished, would get paid. Kind of a head-scratcher. Also, as I suspected, the Relay would no longer carry the name Rockwell (for obvious reasons) but would rather go by the handle: Charity Vision Relay (same delicious taste, different packaging) but sad, just the same. Felt like the end of an era and the loss of the 'family project/reunion' vibe that made this race feel like a homecoming every year.
We left the park and went to our hotel (not Bowen, rates were twice as much as last year so we got... pods, or rooms that felt like pods but were at the appropriate price point, at the Riverside Inn) and if things were odd before, they became surreal as we watched the Asian Abbot and Costello team of Man and Shut up Man argue about... I don't even know, for a full fifteen minutes while the only employee with a solid command of the King's English was busy helping a couple from Iowa who, now one month later, may or may not still be checked in to the Riverside, depending on whether or not they remember to check out before 11 am and or they get charged for an extra day if they don't. At least I think that's what happened... as a team we went through a total of 5 bladder cycles and the better part of a Rodzilla BM interval waiting to check in, so we didn't catch everything that went down. We did find a better place to eat, had some gelato for desert and went back to the pods.
The night did end on a high note as we invited Cap'n Engar over to our pod so he could check out our training stats on Golden Cheetah (we really need to invest in online software, it's like getting your kid a bike for Christmas, even though it seems exorbitant given your budget, but the look on his face? Would totally be worth it) and watched (and grinned) and he read the charts and made happy noises, occasionally letting slip a 'giggety'. We were ready, more than we ever had been. And while race conditions promised to be less than ideal we were more than prepared to handle it.
Next up: Race Day, It's gonna be Hot! (and windy).
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| "Did you really just post that we are Team Honey Nooners?" -Jenn (PS that's a solid team name, maybe next year) |
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