Another dramatic race report - Hamilton Pine River Wheelers Club Championship Road Race - Elimbah

Alberto always teases me for writing way-too-dramatic blog posts. It made me think: Am I a drama queen? You judge!

After a much needed rest week, which saw me do two easy river rides during the week, I felt refreshed and strong on Friday morning. The power data analysis showed very promising figures, too, but this post is about drama so more on power in a separate post.

I felt pumped for the Club Championship road race on Saturday. Since I had won the Criterium Championship (10 points) and had come second in the Individual Time Trial (6 points) and Sharon had placed second in the criterium and won the time trial, we both had 16 points and needed to win the road race in order to take home the overall Club Champion title in the Women Master Two category. I wanted to win so badly. I had won the title in 2007 in the Elite Women category and liked the idea of adding another club champion jersey to my wardrobe.

(Looking for the 2007 race report made me realise that I missed the two year anniversary for my blog, which was on 12th August!)

And then the dramas began: I visited my naturopath on Friday for an early hay fever prevention treatment. I mentioned my sore neck and back. He poked and prodded and cupped my back. After the acupuncture he explained that the Glandular Fever virus was still underlying causing trouble and that this type of virus tends to come out when the temperatures go up. He gave me a herbal tea to combat this. I felt a bit banged up after the treatment. Later in the afternoon my Mum called with bad news that Dad was in hospital. Even though I knew that it wasn't a life threatening condition, I was worried and sad to know that Dad wasn't well.

After dinner I drank the herbal tea from the naturopath. It was revolting. The bitterness made me gag a couple of times while I forced it down and I started feeling queasy immediately. It got worse and within an hour I was throwing up. Alberto, alarmed and worried because not even in our heydays of partying he saw me so violently ill, rang my naturopath who assured us that nothing in the tea should cause such a reaction. It was only about midnight, with nothing left in my stomach to bring up, that I finally found some sleep.

I woke up weak and tired but was still determined to race the club championship. I had to promise to stop immediately if I felt any lightheadedness or nausea.

About 2 PM the race got under way: two 17 km loops on undulating country roads in sweltering 33 degrees. I remember feeling good and strong for the first five kilometers. I remember Nikki saying 'Let's go, come on!' when we hit the first hill in the first lap. I remember replying 'I need another couple of k's to warm up' and I remember Nikki getting out of her saddle and going anyway and from then on my memory is a bit blurry.

My arms and legs started tingling, I broke out in cold sweat, I felt nauseous and swallowed the vomit in my throat and I concentrated on staying on Nikki's wheel and when we crossed the finish line the first time I was ready to climb off my bike and call it a day. I didn't think my body would handle another 17 kilometers in this heat. The only thing was: I really really wanted to win the club championship AND we were away. Sharon had dropped from our little group and all I needed to do to win was to hold on to my lead and finish the race.

Nikki knew I was suffering and kept telling me to stay on her wheel. I was so grateful for it. Donna and Trish, who had started in the other women's category, caught up to us in the second lap and called out that Sharon was a long way behind. The speed picked up and with it my nausea and dizziness. I couldn't keep up with the trio and the last 15 kilometers I road by myself, concentrating on keeping an even pace. My power dropped to a fraction of my threshold power and I kept checking over my shoulder, paranoid that Sharon would catch me. The last three kilometers I had nothing left to push into the head wind and slowed to 23 km/h. I felt so weak and dizzy that I just hoped I wouldn't fall off my bike before the finish line. A last check over my shoulder with the finish in sight and I couldn't believe I had managed to win.

The rest of the afternoon I had bad diarrhea.

My stomach is still a little upset today but I'm feeling much stronger. I will probably just spin my legs on the rollers for a bit and I haven't decided, yet, if I'm going to keep or cancel my next appointment with the naturopath.

A new way of determining your maximum heartrate

You are curious to know your true maximum heart rate? If you are like me then you have always just estimated your heart rate with one of the several formulas that calculate your maximum heart rate based on your age. You have estimated it because you dreaded the hurt of the traditional testing method, where you torture yourself on the wind trainer by increasing your cadence, power or heart rate every two minutes until you reach this pinnacle of pain - your maximum heart rate. Am I right?

Well, I discovered a new pain-free way of determining your maximum heart rate correctly without all this high tech lab equipment nonsense.

A word of warning, however! Do not try this test, no matter how intrigued you are by its simplicity and accuracy.

The disadvantages of my method are enormous and I therefore think, this method won't find recognition amongst renowned sports scientists and coaches around the world. The disadvantages are the high associated risks of bodily harm or even death and its lack of repeatability.

I survived and I determined a new maximum heart rate of 192 bpm. Now, how did I do this?

I rode along one of Brisbane's roads not so long ago, tucked into an aero position on time trial bars because I was training for a specific event, when I heard the roaring engines of something BIG approaching from behind. There were two lanes of smooth fast hotmix and a wall that protects the new housing estate from road noise but there was not much of a road shoulder.

My brain had made sense of all this information in a matter of seconds and given signal to muscles to move out of the time trail position and onto the drops. I was doing 40km/h when I felt that giant truck next to me. Very next to me! So much next to me that I could almost feel the cold metal brushing my elbow, the wind moving my bike and I had to steer against the truck to not get sucked in. I closed my eyes for a tenth of a second as to not having to look at those enormous wheels that were coming up to my waist and that were spinning fast, way to close for comfort. And then came the trailer and I was just praying that the driver would hold his line and that I would hold my line and that it would be over soon. It felt like eternity and when he finally had past and I didn't get sucked in and I was still riding along at 40 km/h I looked down and there I saw it: 192 bits per minute! My maximum heart rate! Voila!

Club Criterium and Queensland State Road Championship

After a rather mediocre training week I lined up twice this weekend to race my little untrained heart out.
Why mediocre you might ask? Well, my Tuesday morning hill repeats left me feeling hugely depressed because there is no improvement, neither time nor power output. It also didn't help that my friend Donna told me that she climbs in her big chain ring while I struggled my way up in my 39/21.

Over dinner that night, Alberto – I’m always amazed how observant he is – pointed out that Donna runs a compact group set. That, of course, made me feel a little bit better.

Then I slept ten hours solid, only to wake up tired. I skipped the Wednesday night strength session because I was too exhausted at the end of the day and I was in bed by 8:30 pm. Memories of the immense tiredness a few months ago came up ... worries of Glandular Fever returning ... and another solid ten hour sleep. Again I woke up with familiar puffy eyes so more rest was needed on Thursday. Friday I resumed easy riding. Saturday morning I felt fine.

Women's only criterium handicap, Nundah

A 30 minute club criterium, run in a handicap format, was a perfect opportunity to get some intensity before the Road Championship.

Thirty girls showed up and started in three groups, about a minute apart. I started with another nine in the middle group and felt compelled to whip everybody into a pace line. Yeah right, talk about natural leadership qualities! I felt embarrassed for bossing the others around but figured that we weren’t going to catch the girls ahead if we continued in an unorganised mess. Two laps into the race and we had a chase going.

It took the elite girls until 'two laps to go' to catch us and it all came together in a bunch sprint. I chickened out – too many girls too close at 40 km/h - and finished middle of the pack. Even though I felt great during this short race, I struggled to recover. I was more exhausted from this effort then I should have been. I kept eating and drinking all afternoon and went to bed early, only to wake up with a headache.

Queensland State Championship - Road Race

I left the house at 6:45 am and drove out to Kalbar, just over an hour southwest of Brisbane. It was a beautiful morning. Summer sneaked up on us and arrived today with a bang! I arrived at the race start with an hour to spare, plenty of time to register, visit the loo, change, visit the loo, warm up, visit the loo...

I raced the course three or four years ago but it might as well have been new to me as I had hardly any recollection of it. I remembered that it was a tough course with an uphill start and a downhill finish. My memory was right.

In the general hustle and bustle of race preparation I ran into girls that I hadn't seen since last year's race season and my friend P was there and the chatting relaxed me but it also contributed to a very insufficient warm up. I still had this headache. My legs felt heavy. I knew I was in for some tough love.

There were ten names on the start list for my age group. They combined Women Master 2, 3 and 4 so there were maybe 15 women lining up on the start line. The first hill felt alright, the second was easy, too, but on the third hill two girls attacked. I jumped out of the saddle to match the sudden increase in pace and my legs solidified. Bang! Like someone had injected cement. I was hurting. Badly! I cursed myself for not warming up better.

The rest of the race became a mental fight. I fought back to the group of four that was chasing the break. I dangled off the back of that quartet a couple of times. One girl dropped off, I dug deeper and got back on, now completing the quartet myself, took turns on the front, up another hill, a short reprieve downhill before the next rise, chasing the break, burning, hurting, wondering whether there was any flat section in this course at all.

And suddenly there was this old house that I had seen earlier when I had driven into Kalbar - the sign that said "5 km" to the finish.

And then the fun fast downhill run to the finish line and the quiet sense of achievement that I had dug deep and had hung on to the chase group. Someone said I finished fifth in my age group but I haven't seen the official results, yet.

Fuck - A versatile word (PG recommended)

"FUCK" is an amazing word, you have to admit! It's so versatile. I'm wondering if it is not even the most versatile word in the English language. It can take almost any place in a sentence. It can be used as a noun (the hugely popular "good fuck"), the verb (the common Fuck you! or Get fucked!), an adverb or adjective (as often used by Judi when describing "fucking good runs or rides"). It probably can't replace a pronoun but I heard people try using it that way, too.

You have to admire a versatile word like this. There aren't many words like this around!

Alberto and I met someone today who, I don't think, quite grasped the beauty of the word but was certainly unintelligent enough to make use of its versatility and if it hadn't sadly highlighted the general redneckedness of some young Australian drivers then it would have been even comic and funny.

Manly Yacht Harbour - I had to think of Bluenoser and took the picture just for him
(because I know he likes boats :-)

We were returning from a very enjoyable and hot (I was so badly overdressed that I ended up with all winter clothes bundled up and stuffed under the vest like 'Michelin Man') morning ride and we were barely three kilometers from home when we heard someone beeping a horn frantically behind us. A quick glance over my shoulder showed what I thought was an infuriated woman behind a little blue car's steering wheel, wildly gesticulating and screaming.

There were three lanes and a concrete barrier because of road works and no shoulder for bikes so, yes, we were taking up part of the lane, which obviously caused her great distress. Traffic was moving slightly faster than we were but the inevitable next traffic light stopped us all and the woman, who turned out to be a baby-faced barely legal-aged kid, started shouting abuse at us. Alberto rolled up to his window and confronted him and when he couldn't come up with anything intelligible to say he just let out an embarrassing "Fucking fuck, fucking, fucked fucking fuck ..." and I started laughing because he made a complete dick of himself in front of all the other people but - really - his fucked-up mental processes just made me angry.

And now I learned just minutes ago that Colin got taken out by a woman opening her car door, obviously without checking her rear view mirror, on Wednesday morning and on Grey Street, a road hugely populated by cyclists at that time of day. As a result he spent a few days in hospital with multiple breaks to rips and shoulder and a punctured lung. Now, this lady was probably not malicious like our young friend today but it still upsets me that people are ignorant enough to let these accidents happen. She should be very proud of herself - taking out three cyclists with one strike! I wish Colin a speedy recovery and hope that you all have a safe ride.

The composition of pain

When I do housework, my mind usually drifts off with the fairies into La La Land. It wasn’t any different on Friday while sweeping the floors. Then I passed Alberto in the hallway.

“Are you alright?”

I was deep in thoughts and Alberto's alarmed expression on his face brought me back to reality.

"You look exhausted."

The time trial championship had been on my mind. All I could think was "I don't want to hurt, I don't want to torture myself tomorrow morning ..." Tight feeling in my stomach, I was resisting the pain badly and feared the agony of body and mind. Time trials mean suffering. Of course I wanted to win and I knew I had to pull out something special. Maybe it was that pressure that I put on myself that made me so anxious.

I oiled the chain, attached the time trial bars, moved my saddle forward, changed the brake pads so I could race the carbon deep dish wheels, adjusted the strap of the new time trial helmet - anything that would help... and got almost excited when I looked at my race-ready bike. It hadn't looked like this in over eight months.

Fast forward to the race start! I rolled up to the marshalling area only a few seconds before my name got called out. The warm-up on the rollers had me dripping with sweat, even though the morning was still cool. The timing was perfect as it gave me no time to get nervous and no time to cool down again.

The course - a hilly out and back 33 km - starts with a gradual uphill. My heart rate went from 120 bpm to 170 bpm in 45 seconds. My legs felt good, my cadence was up in the nineties and all my worries were gone. I wanted to race!

It didn't feel like 170 bpm at all. I wasn’t even breathing heavily but every time I looked down, there was a big fat 172 staring in my face. I knew my heart rate should be around 162 bpm but it just didn't feel that high. Why back off when it feels so good? My legs felt good, and the cadence was high and I was flying and I loved the feeling of flying up that incline at 28 km/h, steadily closing in on my 30 second girl.

Five minutes into the race and I passed her. I strained my eyes to see the next one up the road but there was just empty road ahead of me. I felt great. I kept going, heart rate now, 15 minutes into the race, at my threshold heart rate of 162 bpm.

I was missing my iPod. No one ahead of me to keep me focused. The next hill, and another one - I tried to remember how many there were to the turn-around point. Twenty five minutes into the race and another longish incline - 25 km/h - 23 km/h - 20 km/h – and my legs felt uncomfortably heavy. Out of the saddle but that just seemed to flood more lactic acid stiffness into the quads and all my worries were back. Oh, the pain! I pushed through it and knew there were many more climbs to come.

I had studied the results from two weeks ago and I knew I had to aim for 1:02:00 hour in order to have a chance of winning. My best time on this course some two years ago had been something over 1:03:00 hour. I approached the turn around point and half an hour hadn't passed. If it just wasn't for my damn burning quads I would have been really excited but I was fearful of the pain of the return leg.

And then, completely unexpectedly and out of the blue, my 30 second chase girl caught me just before the turn around. And she slowed down way more than I would have at the turn and took ages to get around and then she slowed down more and took her water bottle out to drink and I stayed behind her - politely.

"Shit! What am I doing? It's a time trial - me against the clock - remember?"

So I passed her again, up the next incline and I notice a shadow slightly behind me on the road. It stays there. I try to ride away from it, burning legs and everything. It's glued to me, this shadow to my right. I try and ride harder. The shadow stays - till I finally turn around and tell her to stop drafting on me. I was hurting, not just my legs, but also that burning sense of disappointment of having conceded 30 seconds that I would not gain back. I was upset, my rhythm was broken, and I stopped pedalling for two seconds to force her to pass me. I had given up for those two seconds.

And then I told myself to keep pushing harder. I told myself that didn’t really know what pain was and to give it all and I stayed behind her, sometimes ten meters, sometimes thirty and the last long climb before the run down into the finish I looked down and there was the 28 km/h again and my legs were screaming but I didn't care.

I didn't care about winning or loosing nor did I care about anybody else in the race anymore. It was just me and the clock and I knew I had pulled out something special.

My clock stopped at 1:00:31 hour. I didn’t win the club time trial championship but I had just posted my best time on this course … and only six weeks into my training.

Now, if I could just learn how to pace myself…

Breakfast is important

Ok, ok, ok! You can back off now, you knowledgeable, article-writing dieticians, coaches and health advisors! I get it! I really do. Breakfast is important!

It's not like I'm a breakfast snob. I love long leisurely brunches in the sun on a Sunday morning or extended coffee stops mid-morning to devour some delicious muffins.

But food before eight is an organisational problem and my stomach does not stomach any solids before 9 am. A big bold-lettered "Closed" sign in my gullet is blocking the path. On Tuesdays and Thursdays this means a good four to five hours of wide-awakeness before I have my first meal. Yes, I agree. It's not good and I'm determined to change this.

The other problem with breakfast is that I hate dishes! Come on, dishes are bad enough before bed but before work, when there are so many other important things that need to be taken care of in this short time gap between getting home from the training ride and running out the door for work? Like checking emails, reading blogs, updating twitter, having a shower, doing the hair and in worst cases ironing your work shirt? See? There is simply no time for breakfast and dishes.

Yesterday morning I got up at 4:25 am, exactly the time that Alberto had to leave for work, and this is what I found in the kitchen:

And this:

Now guess, what I chose to eat before my training ride: the gluten-free buckwheat muffin or the peanut butter & honey sandwich? I had the easy muffin option, thought I make it as easy as possible for myself.

And then I had scrambled eggs on toast and yoghurt for breakfast after my training ride at 7 am, which gave me about 22 g of protein, which - according to the cycling magazine that's sitting next to the loo and the Paleo Diet for Athletes - is less than I should have. Not an easy task for anybody to get the required amount of protein into your breakfast, let alone a Vegetarian!

But guess what? I didn't feel hungry all day, had no sugar cravings and plenty of energy all day long. Oh, and I left the dishes in the sink ... it's all work in progress. But I promise! I got it now: Breakfast is important!

I wish I was a thoroughbred

All weekend I felt like I tank. I wanted to feel like a Porsche but there wasn't any snap in my legs. Sluggish, steady and fat like a pack horse I moved when I wanted to dance like a thoroughbred. I guess it's supposed to feel like this during the strength building phase? I wonder whether the lack of breakfast and the insufficient sleep had something to do with it also.

Otherwise the weekend turned out to be quite marvellous, after the rocky start. Nanna naps on Saturday and Sunday ensured that my mood was sweet and relaxed and Alberto did get some peace and rest from my crankiness.

Saturday morning we rode out to Lakeside and I lined up in C-Grade for a little intensity training session. I felt good in the first half of the race, yes, a little pack-horsish but otherwise comfortable, when stomach cramps in the prime lap forced me to race to the loo rather then the finish line. I am still not sure if it was the amount of carbohydrates that caused the upset or just the intensity of racing or the fact that I did have breakfast that morning? Oh well, I was disappointed but got over it fairly quickly. It was "just training" after all!

I finally found some snap again in my legs yesterday, and at Mt Coot-tha of all places! Aberto and Kristian joined me for my hill repeats.

They enjoyed themselves doing laps and eventually just waited patiently at the top while I did my last 2.3 km effort. Once done we headed to the city for a well deserved coffee.

Centennial bike path underneath the Riverside Expressway

Alberto, Kristian and I at the Garage coffee shop, enjoying the spring sun!

Happy smiles and coffee at last!

Home at sunrise

Shane seemed very satisfied that the two hour windtrainer sessions that he had included in last month's training program did coerce me into agreeing to get up before dawn again. My new training program, that started this week, now includes 5 am starts. Tuesday and Thursday I got up at 4:30 am and was on my bike by five - the first early starts of 2009!

The full moon over our house brightening the night at 5 am!

Leaving home at 5 am and training on dark roads - my training program sends me up Brisbane's climbs repeatedly - I need to buy better lights. The lights I own get me seen. which is all I need on well lit city roads, but when arriving at the bottom of Mt Nebo or Mt Coot-tha at 5:30 AM I am rather vision impaired. The sun comes up at around 6 am and on Thursday morning I felt my way along the white middle line in the pitch black dark until I caught up to a rider with lights powerful enough to illuminate the night and edge of the mountain road. I'm tossing up between Ay-Ups and the Exposure Joystick MaxX.

Both mornings I got home when the sun just rose over the horizon.

Sunrise over Brisbane


Home after a good workout at 7 am

I managed to get through my workdays without feeling tired. However, the early starts and increased training load, combined with a good gym session on Wednesday night that left me sore and sorry, did take its toll at the end of the week. Alberto realised it straight away when I got home from work last night: He was in trouble. He had done loads of laundry but not the cycling clothes. The way he had hung the clothes wasn't the way I wanted them hung and he had stripped the linen off the bed but hadn't put new linen on. He cooked dinner but cut the cheese the wrong way ... I know, I know. He handled my grumpy mood admirably. At 8:30 pm my lights went out and I fell asleep under the shower!

I did apologise this morning and feel truly grateful for having such a patient man. He reckons I'm not ready to cope with the early morning starts, yet, but I secretly suspect he is more concerned about his own well-being than mine. I couldn't blame him. In any case I hope that my body will settle into this new old routine again quickly.

Missing Alex

If you ever came across a really good massage therapist, especially as a cyclist, then you will probably agree: It takes time and dedication to find a good one! One that helps un-knotting the knotty hamstrings, de-bubbling the bubble-wrap quads, soften the rock hard calves, loosen the gluts and straighten the stiff and painful neck.

One that enjoys making you peel of the massage table but in a good way, in a way that will have you sigh with relief after the pain is over and the next time you push your muscles to the limit.

I had a great massage therapist in Cairns. Her name was Becky and she was very pretty and bloody strong. I thought I'd never find a good massage therapist like her again when we moved to Brisbane. It took a couple of years of trying out different places until Alberto found RaceElements and Alex.

Alex is one of those massage therapists who know exactly how deep to dig before you jump of the table. He always makes you feel better because he cares. Not uncommonly, he would call up the next day to enquire how a training session went after the massage. Equally important, he knows when to strike up a light-hearted conversation and when to just shut up, not scared to say nothing for an hour, an unbeatable quality in a massage therapist (or hair dresser, but so far I haven't found a hair dresser who masters this art).

And not just that! Alex is one of these inspiring people who go on silent retreats (not talking for ten days - at all!) and bike rides around Australia. He took off in March from Brisbane on his bike and is now somewhere in Far North Queensland. Judging by the speed he is travelling he won't be back in a hurry. Alex is gone.

My neck is stiff, my hamstrings are niggling, my quads feel like bubble wrap when you run your palm along the muscle and I'm not going to even mention my glutes ... I don't think good massage therapists should be allowed to go on long bike rides around continents ... :-)

winter time trials (and tribulations)

Donna was already waiting in front of her garage when I rolled into her driveway. She looked as rugged up and uncomfortable as I felt. It was 7 AM but not getting any warmer. Once we descended the other side of the range into Samford valley, the temperatures even dropped another few degrees. My nose wouldn't stop running and my full finger gloves and arm warmers looked like covered in snail trails. Blowing or wiping, it made a mess on me. Stop cringing - I wasn't the only one. I spotted snail trails on other people's jerseys, too.

You might wonder what I was doing, racing a 33 km individual time trial during my rest week?

I wanted to pre-ride the club championship course, which will be held in two weeks time on exactly the same course, to fine-tune my time trial set up and pacing. Apparently my training intensity will ramp up in the next three training weeks so I need to start the next training block well rested. Therefore I didn't go all out and my hamstrings made sure that I didn't get carried away. They niggled the first ten kilometres. I had to nurse them up the hills and found the pacing hard. Every time I settled into a rhythm, there was the next incline, but the downloaded data shows that the out and back leg were both exactly the same speed so my pace was more even than it felt.

My set up needs some tweaking; especially the saddle needs to move forward. I was sitting right on the tip the whole time and after a few kilometres I couldn't get comfortable anymore.

The most frustrating moment of the race was when I looked down and saw a big fat 47 km/h on my computer (Relax! It was downhill!) and heard the whoop whoop whoop sound of a disc wheel approaching from behind and a black speed demon helmet flying pass me like I was standing still.

Do you reckon a speed demon helmet would look silly when you actually suck at time trialling?

Donna asked me after the race if I could race in the Club Master's Time Trial team for this year's State Championship. Donna and the two Mel's needed a forth women to complete the team and that will be me. I've never raced a team time trial and I'm so excited! Maybe I should get the speed demon helmet?

I've got to go now, put my legs up and do what I'm supposed to do ... rest!