April 30, 2005, Track Racing, AVC
San Diego, CA

(All pictures can be clicked to go to a different page of more details)

We made another trip to San Diego this year for the only advertised weekend race on their calander. This was an "American Velodrome Challenge", which used to be a series to determine National team members. There were some good riders in attendence. Only two classes were provided, men and women. Although I didn't feel like I was in great shape to be very competitive, there are few opportunities to compete against the big boys and see where I might stand. The weather was wonderful.

Being a larger meet with prize money and competitive racers, this meet should be run with good organization and officiating. The previous track meets this year were run by the Arizona club and were rather low key, so it would be expected to grant some leeway for less than perfect running of the meet. Bill Egan, 45 from Phoenix, was here again and said that he was feeling much better and had a couple of good training days the previous week.

My first event would be the 200 m flying TT, which is the qualifier for the match sprints. There were 31 entries and 30 participated. Of course I was the oldest at the meet and some of the riders had some pretty impressively sized muscles, typical of track sprinters. I'd have to give it everything I had to try to qualify for the actual sprints. A month ago I had done my first 200 m and only managed 13.1 seconds. I was hoping that I could improve on my technique and dramatically reduce my time, as when it came to the actual sprints I was easily beating those with times that were a half second faster. I used a somewhat smaller gear this time, 50x15 as I had hurt my left knee during standing start training the previous Tuesday and didn't want to overstress it. We all lined up on the far side of the track to do our individual runs and I started somewhere in the middle, just before 11:00 am. A couple of the riders did their runs in under 12 seconds, pretty fast. I gave it a good run and came up with 13.08; pretty disappointing.

They ran some other events for women and also the 4000 m pursuit for men (which I did not compete in, as my distance is now 2000 m). About half way through the 4000, they still had not posted any results for the 200 m, so the sprinters didn't know if they quailfied or who they may be competing against in the first round. I asked the officials when they might post the 200 m results and being the non-local, non-competitive looking participant, was given the terse answer of "we're doing the 4000 now". I replied, OK, but the next event is the sprint quarter finals and nobody knows who qualified. Within the next minute, two others also asked the officials for the results and so they went to their computer to figure it out.

They came out with the results and of the 30 partipants, the top 18 were to do 6 quarter finals of 3 in each race. I had the 19th fastest time, so the event was over for me. One interesting aspect was that they did not seem to have a printer for their computer. So all the results and starting positions were hand written. This also meant that there was only one copy and you'd see the officials swapping notes back and forth to try to keep track as to what was going on.

Noel and I watched most of the sprints together from the stands. Some of the heats were very close and you'd hear the announcer state "that was too close for me to call, we'll see what the officials say". Interesting that they didn't use any cameras, so the apparently inexperienced officials were to be relied on for this judgement.

While down in the trenches, eating my food and getting my gear ready, some people came over to a guy that was helping some riders. They asked him some questions as well as asking what the next event would be; apparently he had done some meet organization at the track previously. His response was "I don't know, go ask the officials" to which they replied "We did, they said to ask you". With a huff, he dropped what he was doing and went over to have a talk with the officials. I started to get a much better appreciation for the way the Arizona club ran their meets.

Just after 3:00 pm we had my next event, a miss and out. I usually do very well in these and probably this would be my best chance to do anything this weekend. There were only 15 starters, so my tactic would be to control the back for the entire race. We got one free lap and then the last rider across the line on every lap would be pulled from the race.

My tactics were working well for the first several laps as guys on the pole line would get boxed in and unexpectantly (for them) get eliminated. Pretty soon, I was at the back with Bill Egan being the next to last guy. There was just enough room to come around him at the outside of the track and make sure that I was at least ahead of him on several occasions. Then on the backstrectch, there was a loud bang and I could smell burning rubber. I thought someone had gotten a flat, but nobody pulled out of the race. We completed another sprint and pulled another rider. Then on the backstretch, the rider with the problem (a broken spoke), eased out of the back. Surprisingly to me, Bill Egan eased up as well, impeding me in the process. Before I realized that he was quitting, there was a several length gap in front of him and I had to sprint around him. I started to make up ground on the remaining leaders and looked back to ensure that Bill would be the eliminated rider between turns 3 and 4, so that I could judge my effort to regain contact. However the officials decided to pull me from the race, thus 3 were eliminated on that lap. I complained verbally, but the damage had already been done and my race was done (after the race others mentioned that they realized I got a bad call). I was pretty upset that my best event was ruined by bad luck and poor officiating. By this time I was sure that the meet organizers were a joke.
Starting at the back Coming to the line Coming around Bill

An hour later we started the final event for the day, a 10 mile scratch race, 48 laps. 21 started and the pace was fairly brisk. After several laps of even pace riding with riders taking half lap pulls, a rider attacked at turn 2 and was followed by a rider right in front of me. Since I was in the perfect position to join them, I went along and the three of us tried to make a go of it for several laps. The first break attempt is usually not the smartest break to join, but if we could get another couple of riders to join us it might just stay away. Alas, the three of us could not increase our lead and were eventually caught by the pack. As often happens, another attack happened just at that point (unfortunately while I was still weary). 4 riders got a quick gap and I could only sit in the pack and rest for a while. This was easy as some team mates of riders in the break put a major damper on any chase attempts and within just a couple of laps the leaders had a half lap lead. For several more laps the pack could not avoid the disruptions and we were soon lapped. At least at this point we can get the speed back up, but it was pretty tough for me just the same. About half way into the race I was in the pack and Bill Egan happened to be the rider just in front of me and he just started to slow down! I started to move to his outside to pass him, but he moved a bit to the right. So I thought I'd pass him on the inside to get around him, but then he started veering to the left. Frustrated, I tried to go around on the outside just as a rider from behind came screaming by and Bill started moving to the right again, squeezing me into too narrow a gap. I eased up, let a couple of other riders pass to get some room and then sprinted around him to catch back up with the pack. I really need to avoid this guy in the future as he always seems to be quitting at the strangest times and creates a major disruption.

So I hung on to the riders in the pack, just barely. I felt like quitting several times, but they'd then just slightly ease up and I'd get just enough of a breather to stay in the group, even taking my turns when I rotated to the front. Coming into the final laps, there were about 9 of us and I actually got into a fairly good position with just a couple laps to go. However as the sprint came into the final lap I just didn't have the speed, although I was doing nearly 35 mph, and all but one were able to beat me to the line. Although this is an amateur event, they only kept track of the results as far down as they were paying out prize money, so I don't know exactly where I finished in the results.
Settling in Getting back in First attack
Ten Mile Summary
Start
Time		 Distance
(Miles)		 Starters Duration Weather
(Deg F, mph)		 Speed avg
(MPH)		 Speed Max
(MPH)		 HR avg
(BPM)		 HR max
(BPM)		 HR waking
(BPM)		 Calories Burned
(Kcal)
4:09 pm 10.0 21 22:35 74, Calm 26.6 35.6 175 188 44 225


So I was definitely outclassed, as expected. My luck was not running well, my Wheaties were not kicking in, and the organization and officiating were sub-standard. There were more races on Sunday, but I felt it would be more enjoyable to spend the day with Noel checking out some of the features of San Diego.

On the bright side, I did not have any congestion problems with my lungs, during or after the races. Maybe I can start doing some more intense workouts and get back on track to improving rather than just staying at the present level of fitness.

Results

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