Chicago trip
I had to go to Chicago for a few days to do some work. Luckily, I was going with a few other guys and we were able to have some fun while we were out there. We finished up a little early on the last day, and were able to head into the city. It was beatiful weather and we enjoyed kicking it out on Navy Pier. The highlight was a ride on the Sea Dog. It’s a large speedboat that had TWO turbo-charged 2,000 horsepower engines. Oh, and an EIGHT HUNDRED gallon gas tank!! Kick the tires and light the fires!!!
The feeling of speed wasn’t quite as extreme as I had anticipated, but boy, did that shoreline go by quickly…
RACE REPORT #11 Cherry Creek TT series – week 6 CAT 4
There is one more week to go, but this was my last race of the series as I will be on the road to Utah next week. It was good to go out with my best time yet – 25:25, which put me 23rd out of 46. Mr. 50% again… I had ridden pretty hard up High Grade last night, sacrificing a little bit of leg freshness tonight for extra training in advance of my big race next week. I felt pretty decent, finally getting my heart rate up over 180 like it should be. I tried a new strategy – my teammate Marco said that an average speed of 24.7mph was needed to get below 25 minutes. I set my computer to display the average speed and focused on keeping it as high as I could. With a couple miles to go, it dropped to 24.6 – I cranked as hard as I could and went faster, and faster as the line closed in. By the time I crossed it, my average was up to 25mph. I was pumped! Then I looked at my time – dang! Didn’t break 25:00, but got my best yet. Need to check Marco’s math, though…
I ended up 29th out of 62 in the series.
High Grade observations
You’ve probably noticed by now that I’m pretty obsessed with my times up a climb that I live near. High Grade is a good test of fitness and has been my measuring-stick over the last year and a half. The wind can influence times a bit, but I still like to use it as a point of reference.
On my climb today, my time was 59:54 – which wasn’t very spectacular. It just amuses me to think of how HARD I tried to break an hour last year, and never came within 3 minutes. Now, it seems like on any given day – even with a headwind and average legs like today, breaking an hour is almost a sure thing.
On the steepest part of the climb, I was in a 19 tooth cog holding just under 10mph. Last year, I would climb this section in my 25 tooth (granny-gear) and struggle to grind out 4-6mph while thrashing around all over the bike. Guess that’s called taking it to a new level.
The Scene Begins 
