Back to Colorado and off-season racing

On the way back to Colorado, I stopped in Rawlins, Wyoming for some fuel and a chance to get out of the car and stretch my legs.  Right there on the I-80 business route, I saw something that took my breath away, and had to take a picture.

If Motel 6 doesn't quite do it for you, Rawlins has a Motel 7.

At the end of my first week back on the Colorado front range, I was able to compete in two races.  One was a track racing event at Boulder Indoor Cycling and the other was a run/bike duathlon at Cherry Creek State Park in Denver.

First Friday track racing
Boulder Indoor Cycling, 2-Dec-2011

I jumped in for two races at the December edition of First Friday at Boulder Indoor Cycling.  The first event was a 20-lap tempo race.  He had a field of 6 or 7 riders and the race started off with a moderate pace but quickly became quite brisk and shattered the field.  After bridging over a split in the field, I picked up a few points in the 2nd half of the race, including the 5 points on the finishing lap.

Due to some confusion about which riders would be in which races, I wound up sitting out until the final event of the night, a 70-lap points race.  Colby Pearce and Alex Howes wound up dominating the race, although I felt pretty good about the attack I put in following the first sprint at 60-laps to go.  By the time the field caught me, several riders had dropped out and the field was splintered.  I'm satisfied with how it went for being my first ride back at elevation after two months at sea level.

Only tangentially related to the racing, I walked from my apartment to Boulder Indoor Cycling and then back to my apartment after the event was concluded, 1.8 miles each way, carrying my track bike.

The next First Friday event should be held on 6-Jan-2012.  I'm looking forward to it already!

Chilly Cheeks duathlon series, race #1
Cherry Creek State Park, 3-Dec-2011

There was snow overnight, and the morning was characterized by cold temperatures and more snow falling during the race.  The first race of the Chilly Cheeks duathlon series was a 4-mile run and a 10-mile bike ride.

I started the run at a comfortable pace, intending to increase my tempo at each mile marker.  Many racers started too fast, so I wound up passing people right away and continued to do so throughout the run.  The run course transitioned from road to trail to bike path and back to road at the end, so we had a variety of surfaces to keep things interesting.  Having snow all over the ground required being careful about where I placed my feet.

With the cold temperatures, I had to make a conscious effort to keep my hands from going numb.  In order to stay warm, I wore wool socks, cycling shorts, leg warmers, two base-layer undershirts, a short-sleeve jersey, a long-sleeve jersey, a vest, and a cycling hat. For the run, I wore lightweight windbreaker-style gloves.  They worked well, although midway through the run I pulled my fingers out of the gloves' fingers and wore them more like mittens with my hands clenched into fists.  By the end of the run, my hands were nice and toasty so I could manipulate shoelaces and Velcro to change from running to cycling shoes and operate the buckle on my helmet.  The last step in the transition area was to put on my heavy mittens to keep my hands warm with the windchill on the bike.

Heading out on the bike, my glasses immediately fogged up.  Arg!  I spent a couple minutes fooling around with the glasses trying to clear them of fog while riding slowly (I could barely make out the snow-covered road).  Once my glasses cleared up, I picked up the pace as conditions allowed.  I felt much more comfortable on the climbs than the flat or downhill sections (something about that just seems wrong).  The course wrapped around the lake at the park, with a turn-around on the east side and then headed back to the west side for the race finish.  On the way back, I managed to drop my chain twice. On a fixed gear, a dropped chain means I had no drive and no stopping power.  Needless to say, it was quite exciting as the first chain drop happened on a downhill.

Each time the chain dropped, I coasted to a stop, dismounted the bike, and lifted the chain back onto the chainring and cog by hand (despite being an engineer, I still do some things by hand!).  The first chain drop was on a downhill section.  Riding a fixed gear bike downhill on a snowy ride is an exercise in vaguely-controlled chaos.  In light of the low chain tension I was running, that first chain drop was largely unavoidable as I bounced, slid, and rolled down the hill.  The 2nd drop, however, was due to sloppy pedaling technique.  Following the second drop, I focused on a fluid pedal stroke with steady power for the remainder of the race and kept the chain properly seated through the finish line.  I even managed to catch the two riders who passed me while I was re-setting the chain the 2nd time.  One of them was the winning woman.

The next edition of the race will take place on 21-Jan-2012.  Between now and then I will have some more time to re-acclimate to high elevation exercise (it's been just 1 week since I returned to Boulder after 2 months at sea level) and do a bit of run training (a couple of interval workouts on the track would serve me well for an event like this).  I'll also be able to adjust the chain tension on the fixed gear road bike so it is less susceptible to jumping off when the course is bumpy and figure out a solution for foggy glasses when I am stopped in transition between segments of the race.

That's it for race reports.  I've also been back to the lab, and should have some interesting pictures of circuit boards and measurement systems in the next couple weeks.