Friday, August 5, 2011

2011 National Masters track Champs - Part one: it's business time!

The Trexlertown track, near Allentown PA,  is 333m 'round and gorgeously smooth as a big bag of smooth things. The straights are about the same length as my home track (Alpenrose) but the turns are wide, sweeping arcs that seem to go forever.

The day before the event started it bucketed down preventing any close inpection of the track itself. We arrived early the next morning to get some track time in and practice the lines for the turns. Unlike our home track where one has to actually 'turn' into the turns, no real turing is necessary and the tendency for Portlanders is to over-react and risk ending up on the apron. This was going to take some getting used to.

On a 80-something degree humid morning my kilo (1000m) time-trial was an early event on the program and I was the first rider off. The bikes were weighed (>6.8 kg) and checked for geometry (aero bars not too long) just prior to start. The low hum of hacksaws filled the air as the occasional rider was obliged to shorten his bars to become race legal.

With new wheels (Corsa Concept, 88mm rims) and a smooth track I upped the gearage to 49/14 (94 in). The race was over pretty quickly with nearly 2 secs taken of my PR to 1:17 to finish 12th overall. Some of my lines were a bit wobbly, which I put down to the new, deep wheels and not being so used to the track. Due to the fact that violent post-race coughing did NOT occur I probably could have gone faster - though the humidity may have reduced the lung scorching. The languid week in Florida dealing with the space mice prior to come to T-town probably did me no favors either. Still, I was delighted to carve so much time out of my Alpenrose PR.

Tuesday was the 3K pursuit and team sprint day for me. There was some anxiety about my saddle position. It was only about 2cm set back from the bottom bracket, and the rules require a 5cm set-back. The loop-hole is a 'morphological exemption' where if your knee cannot project forward of the bottom bracket. Fortunately, due to my short-arsed femurs I was given an exemption. We had a loaner saddle from a LBS in case the officials ruled against me.

My 3K was late in the day, 77 heats away. As you can imagine, this took ALL day and the 'morning' session finished at 5:30. My race was about 4:30. The race went well and I chipped 5 secs or so off my PR to finish in 4:06.8 in a 92 inch gear. Felt better about this race than the kilo and 'left' more on the track.

Ex-HVer MS has been racing fantastically well and won gold in her pursuit and a 4th in the scratch race the night before. Good on her.

The evening session when all the Team Sprints were to be contested was pushed back to 7pm. I teamed with my roomies CD and BK of Brihop in the 30+ race (since BK is 30-something). Since I had ridden a hard 3K 'bout 3 hours previously I got the lead out position and would only have to complete one 333m lap. My sole job was to get the other two up to speed as quickly as possible and then pull off gracefully at the start finish line. CD was to complete 2 laps and BK was to bring it home. Well, it all went pretty well. I stomped on my 94 inch gear, dropped them briefly but they caught back on and delivered them back round to the start at 50kph. We recorded a time of 1:11 which was good enough for 5th place and the podium. Holy crap! - we had won a medal at a National Championship!!!!! BA won gold in the 40+ team sprint.

Day 3 of the meet was a rest day for me with the match sprints ahead on day 4 and the 4K team pursuit on day 6. It had been a very good Championship for me so far.....what was to come ?

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