April 7, 2007, University of Arizona Criterium, Category 4
Tucson, AZ

This was a flat, 40 minute criterium on smooth roads. It was the first real race in Tucson for the season, so close to home. The course was around 2 blocks forming a figure 8 in the U of AZ campus, 0.58 miles long (less than a kilometer) per lap. The last corner was a short half block to the finish, so the win would be decided before turn 7 of the 8 corners. The corners were somewhat tight and a slight upgrade between 6 and 7.

The only Masters race listed for the event was a 30+ race, which also came immediately after the Category 4. The 30+ would have been really tough, so I opted to ride just the Cat 4. It had been a while since I was in a Cat 4 race as I usually would ride the Masters division and found that I didn't have enough stamina to do well in more than one race with the limited training time I had available.

The race started well and I was in 2nd spot after going through the midway intersection at turn 2 on the first lap. I was going to stay in the top 5 for a while, making sure no one got away and to get a feel for who the stronger riders were. By lap two I had dropped into 3rd spot and was watching the others. There would often be a surge between turns 2 and 4, and I lost another place, but still near the front so nothing to worry about.

As we came to complete the fourth lap, I was struggling a bit just to ride the tempo pace. It felt like I possibly didn't get an adequate warm up as there was inadequate power in my legs. On the fifth lap, I slipped out of the top positions that I wanted to remain in and was wondering what was going on. As we started through the intersection corner of lap 6, my rear wheel ran over a rock, the rear wheel skipped, and I found myself going very wide as I tried to recover and not run into the curb on the outside. This lost me several more places and I was now at the very back of the pack. I struggled just to hang on and with a slight surge in the pack on lap 8 I found myself off the back with no strength to rejoin the field. I pulled out of the race in bewilderment, as I thought I had an excellent chance to win this event.

My friends Desi & Donna had come to watch me and we discussed my situation. The pace had been somewhat quick, but not overly demanding. There weren't too many real attacks to tax me. My legs just felt tight and unwilling to give me the power I needed. So I chalked it up to just not having a good day and look towards the future. While we watched the finish of my race, there were two crashes, one in turn 5, where we could see the carnage from our viewpoint at the intersection. Then another closer to the end, probably at turn 4 as we saw the stragglers after they had jumped back onto their bikes to finish. So maybe it was just as well that I was forced out of the race before getting into trouble.

Strange Aftermath
What happened over the following time period was a shock. The following day I was able to do a one hour recovery ride as I would usually do after a race day. I did another recovery day the following day as well, but my quadriceps were extremely sore and it was a struggle to get back home. The next day my quads really hurt and I had a headache and I felt too dizzy to safely go out on the road, so no ride; which happened again the next day as well. It is very unusual for me to take any days off, let alone two days in a row, as usually it takes too long to get back into riding shape and is usually painful to do so (cramps). The following day I was still feeling woosey, but I needed to get my legs working, so I did 30 minutes on the trainer; my quads were in pain and I had a headache. My legs would just not recover. They constantly felt like I had just finished a 200 mile ride. So I rested the next day without riding, hoping that might be the best solution.

I usually do weight workouts every 4 days for my upper body. I was able to do so on 4/9 after the race, but I fell a little behind with this weakness onset. I started to do a workout on 4/14, but couldn't even finish one set and it would be months before I would get back into this regime.

I would end up taking 11 days off the bike over the next 6 weeks. I felt exhausted all day long. My legs would hurt constantly, even when not exercising. I was able to get some one hour rides, but many others were cut short and I lacked all power. On May 1 I went out, feeling a bit weary before getting on the bike, but hoping I'd feel better once I got the blood flowing; unfortunately after a mile I felt even worse and after a mile and a half had to turn around and crawl back, hoping I'd make it home. I had pre-registered for a criterium on May 6th, but knew that I probably couldn't even finish the race, so I stayed home. On May 7th I could barely walk, had a headache, and felt very weak; no ride that day.

Finally a few days later, I felt like I had control of my legs again and the pain was not debilitating. But after a month of no strong workouts, I felt out of shape. I'd start throwing in a short sprint or two into my rides and was able to feel that I could train again, but it was going to take a while to regain racing strength. Finally towards the end of May I could include up to 3 sprints, but no more and no other TT type efforts.

We had left Tucson on May 15th as we made our way to MN for a summer with my parents. I had hoped to win the State Criterium championships to be held on June 3rd and had changed my racing state to MN back in December. The opportunity to pull off a win seemed out of reach and I hoped that I could regain enough strength just to finish with the main pack. We would arrive in MN in time to hit a Thursday night Velodrome series and May 31 would be my first racing since experiencing this strange ordeal.

The experience seemed to exhibit the symptoms of over-training. However, I only ride an hour a day, two out of three are recovery days, and there's usually less than 10 minutes of intensity on my hard days; so it doesn't seem like this could be possible. During this time period though, I did have a heavy work load and I had several days with very little sleep and a bad schedule. My best conclusion is that the lack of recovery needed from sleep inhibited my ability to recover and pushed me into a state of simulated over-training. So there was too much stress on my body for the little bit of sleep to overcome. I had often been able to abuse my body by working late into the night and have no problems; but too many too often probably pushed me over the edge. I lost basically two months of racing and a lot of training. Hopefully this forced rest would allow me to begin a fresh program to use the next three months to peak for the track Nationals in Trexlertown PA at the end of August.

Summary
Start
Time		 Distance
(Miles)		 Starters Duration Weather
(Deg F, mph)		 Climbing
(Feet)		 Speed avg
(MPH)		 Speed Max
(MPH)		 HR avg
(BPM)		 HR max
(BPM)		 HR waking
(BPM)		 Calories Burned
(Kcal)
8:31 pm 4.7 18 11:13 74, Calm 20 25.4 29.5 175 179 49 98

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