Well, that was a fun sort of a DISC session! Hard, but fun...
Warmup: 1/2lap powerjump, Entry + 1/4 lap: 57.3/140
Happy with the entry speed, 140RPM is good, only on 86" though. Do that on 99" and I'll be cranking!
The first of the 'work' exercises were a pair of 3/4 lap powerjumps, with the rider in front jumping first. This started around the F200 line, from ~10km/hr and hence down on the blue. I was a bit tentative accelerating on the first one, starting behind Dino, and I never closed on him after his initial jump. Got up to 52.1/128, so not too bad I guess though I don't have anything else to compare it to yet! The second effort, starting from in front, was similar - 51.3/126 from about 15m shorter.
Then we got a bit scarier! Well, not too too much scarier, but a bit at least. I borrowed a 14T from Carl since mine still hasn't arrived, which put me on about 92" for some gate starts - this time standing. I started off by not tightening the cog enough, so that when I stood on the left pedal to clip in, I actually unwound it! So back out of the gate, fix that, and try to slot back in to the lineup.
Eventually I got going, and the first effort actually felt pretty good - I'd been watching the others, working on the countdown in my head, and it went off without a hitch. I'm not sure on the numbers - garmin tells me I hit 53.8/106, but that doesn't quite seem likely. On the other hand, strava tells me ~45/~90, which doesn't seem quite right either.
The next two efforts were 1/4 laps, and while the first of those felt pretty good (probably could have gone a bit harder out of the gate though) and gave 41.7/92, the second was off - I lost confidence in the count (though it turned out I was right!) and so was quite tentative out of the gate. Not only did that affect power, but balance, and I was all over the shop heading through the bend, and only managed 39.5/90.
Then it was time for keirins! Other than watching a few youtube videos, I'd never done these before so I was excited and a bit nervous. I went back to 86" for these, since I couldn't get 82". The first one was with Carl and Emily, and I slotted straight in to third position so as to keep an eye on what was going on and not have to worry about people coming from behind. As we approached the point where the motorbike pulled off, Carl had been laying back off Emily and went wide through a bend so, taking advantage of what he'd told me in the warmup, I moved up behind Emily so as to keep him up the track, in the wind, riding the greater distance. As we passed one lap to go, Carl pulled forward around Emily and I waited back, not wanting to take the long line through the bend and wanting to hide in the slipstream that little bit longer. By the time I pulled out heading in to the back straight, Carl had a good 15 metres on me and I thought I'd left things too late, but I kept on pulling him back and was in his draft coming out on to the final straight. I pulled out, pushed pushed pushed and... no idea. Call it a dead-heat! I hit 55.7/138, which is right in a good sort of a range.
The second keirin was all six of us, and once again I pulled in to third spot behind the bike. This time though, Carl swung off to drop back, hoping to ride for Emily. That left me in second spot, behind Neil, which wasn't where I wanted to be! I didn't want to swing up and drop all the way back though, and I was hoping that as we came up to time for the motorbike to pull off, one or two of those behind would come over the top and I could slot in. Carl did do that, but couldn't pull all the way through and, as the bike pulled off, Neil jumped straight off, as I suspected he might. I wasn't going to try to stick with him for 2.5 laps, so I hoped that someone else would come around. But no. Or, rather, not for another lap, by which time Neil was well away. Eventually Dino and Nic came around and I grabbed a wheel, but with just under a lap to go it fell apart a bit - Nic swung up, thinking it was over, I went past Dino and heard him asking if it was over or if we were still going, Neil was 60-odd metres in front... I crossed in second, but by that point it was all a bit confusing and academic, and there was no real sprint, reflected in the top of 51.3/126.
I was pretty spent by the end of all that! I'm glad to have had the practice at the keirin, as Carl has lined me up to race on Friday with the BBN sprint night, featuring keirins at the end, so perhaps I'll have a chance to know what I'm doing! I'll also ride a F200, which will be a chance to see how my speed compares to the only other F200 I've done at DISC, 13.34s. We shall see!
Brief stats here.
Showing posts with label K1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label K1. Show all posts
12 June 2011
01 May 2011
DISC Session #2 with ABOC
Well there goes the now traditional Sunday massacre at DISC. The emphasis was on strength, with two sets of K1s, the first three as reaction drills (a group of 3, since there were just 5 sprinters in total) and the second set gate starts. All 1/4 lap except for the final gate start, which was a 1/2 lap.
The main difference in the rolling K1s compared to the last session was that this time we had to do them seated, in Race Gear (as previously mentioned, 99.7" for me) which made them so much more difficult. I think I came third in both of the competitive efforts (the first I did solo due to a mistake.) I had a bit of front-end wobble in the last effort, and checked out my bike afterwards but could find nothing strange around the front-end so thought it must just have been user error.
The gate starts were interesting, as I've never done them before and watching a youtube video or two is only so useful. Especially when, again, we had to do them seated rather than the usual standing out of the saddle. But I watched carefully, took note of the audible countdown and felt okay about it all. When I was strapped in and just about to start the countdown, I pushed forward on my bars to get my hands well seated-in and they moved! Back off I got and went back to the infield to tighten them up - each of the 4 bolts needed to be done up a full 2 turns at least! Very disconcerting, and not something I've encountered before; sprint training does, I agree, put more stress through the frame and contact points, but I would never have expected that to happen. But a track bike is a very simple thing, really, so I know the points to be checked every time I get on at least.
My first gate start was... an experience. I was very slow, very wobbly, and looking straight down, just concerned about getting away cleanly, not falling over and so on. Which of course meant that my form and power were rather lacking. I'd like to say that that improved for the next two efforts, and it did really (top speed on effort two was 3km/hr higher, and 1km/hr higher than the fastest rolling start), but not nearly enough. I suspect there's a reason why the next couple of months are going to be focussed on strength work! The last effort, being a half lap, felt better because once I'd actually gotten moving it was much easier to get the power going and get some acceleration happening, which always feels awesome.
We rounded off the evening with 3xFlying 100s, each of the three of us taking turns to lead the group in. I decided to stick with the theme of the evening, staying in the saddle to accelerate in to the starting point, and try to work on my line. I managed over 57km/hr on the first two efforts (top 57.6) but the third was a bit off, though at the time it felt okay, so perhaps it had more to do with the line I took than with getting too fatigued.
I was though. Rooted. And then to make things funner, getting up at 4am to take my sister to the airport, and getting almost no sleep beforehand because I always anticipate when I have to get up early. Even if it's not really that early. Anyway. 1hr spin on the roadie today. Then sleep!
Brief stats here.
The main difference in the rolling K1s compared to the last session was that this time we had to do them seated, in Race Gear (as previously mentioned, 99.7" for me) which made them so much more difficult. I think I came third in both of the competitive efforts (the first I did solo due to a mistake.) I had a bit of front-end wobble in the last effort, and checked out my bike afterwards but could find nothing strange around the front-end so thought it must just have been user error.
The gate starts were interesting, as I've never done them before and watching a youtube video or two is only so useful. Especially when, again, we had to do them seated rather than the usual standing out of the saddle. But I watched carefully, took note of the audible countdown and felt okay about it all. When I was strapped in and just about to start the countdown, I pushed forward on my bars to get my hands well seated-in and they moved! Back off I got and went back to the infield to tighten them up - each of the 4 bolts needed to be done up a full 2 turns at least! Very disconcerting, and not something I've encountered before; sprint training does, I agree, put more stress through the frame and contact points, but I would never have expected that to happen. But a track bike is a very simple thing, really, so I know the points to be checked every time I get on at least.
My first gate start was... an experience. I was very slow, very wobbly, and looking straight down, just concerned about getting away cleanly, not falling over and so on. Which of course meant that my form and power were rather lacking. I'd like to say that that improved for the next two efforts, and it did really (top speed on effort two was 3km/hr higher, and 1km/hr higher than the fastest rolling start), but not nearly enough. I suspect there's a reason why the next couple of months are going to be focussed on strength work! The last effort, being a half lap, felt better because once I'd actually gotten moving it was much easier to get the power going and get some acceleration happening, which always feels awesome.
We rounded off the evening with 3xFlying 100s, each of the three of us taking turns to lead the group in. I decided to stick with the theme of the evening, staying in the saddle to accelerate in to the starting point, and try to work on my line. I managed over 57km/hr on the first two efforts (top 57.6) but the third was a bit off, though at the time it felt okay, so perhaps it had more to do with the line I took than with getting too fatigued.
I was though. Rooted. And then to make things funner, getting up at 4am to take my sister to the airport, and getting almost no sleep beforehand because I always anticipate when I have to get up early. Even if it's not really that early. Anyway. 1hr spin on the roadie today. Then sleep!
Brief stats here.
21 April 2011
Blackburn Velo 21/04
After being frustrated in my attempts to get out earlier in the week, today was my last chance to get a ride in before the Easter camping trip. Unfortunately (sort of) I got there at the same time as another chap and we spent a lot of time 'warming up' (that is, chatting!) and so I only got in 4 K1s and a flying 100 or so. Still, it gave me a bit of a rev-up before the weekend and at least provided some training benefit. Hopefully.
Brief stats here.
Brief stats here.
17 April 2011
DISC Session #1 with ABOC
This evening was the first of the ABOC winter training sessions at DISC. But why was I there? Lovely of you to ask!
At 33, I only took up track sprint 2 months ago on a borrowed bike affectionately nicknamed 'The beer can.' Despite getting roundly thumped in my two races in my first meet, I somehow felt that my enjoyment of the racing was sufficient to justify the purchase of my very own brand new second-hand track bike, so that's what I did! And so yet another bike was added to the collection, this one a 2009 Felt TK2. Another couple of rounds of the sprint series later, including a third place in C-Grade and then racing in B, plus a go at a DISC 'Come 'n Try' day where I did a Flying 200 time of 13.34sec (hardly world-class, but not bad for a first attempt!) I decided that I might as well give this track sprinting business a decent crack. So I enlisted the support of a coach, Carl Brewer of ABOC, and here we go...
So here be, more or less, a training diary!
The session started with a roller warmup - well, I don't have rollers, so a 'normal' trainer would have to do! After that I rolled out with Nic Marc to guide me through most of the rest of the session - there were only 6 of us there, so we paired up for each exercise with someone similar. Ish.
The warmup was done ostensibly on something like 82", but being somewhat new I only have the chainring and two sprockets which came with the bike, which put me on 86.4". Not a great problem though at this stage. We then switched to 'race gear', which for me by default became 99.7", for the first set of exercises - 3 x v.slow start rolling K1 1/4. Which basically means that you come as close to stopped as you can on the bike, the person on the outside accelerates and the person on the inside responds and each tries to make it to the 1/4 lap point (at DISC, that's 62.5 metres) first. Simple, eh?
Unfortunately somehow between my tightening and someone else checking, the rear wheel wasn't quite secured tightly enough and when I tried to power away from the start, I pulled the wheel forward in the dropouts, jamming the tyre in to the seat stay and almost making me fall. Fortunately I stayed up, managing not to crash in to Nic either!
The second attempt passed without particular incident, and I tried to concentrate on the "giving it 100%" attitude of a sprinter. It's just not something that feels very natural, either in cycling (where it's usually more about who can stay at 83% for longest, or who can put in more bursts of 92% up climbs, or who can sprint as close to 100% as possible after riding at 83% for 6 hours) or in life more generally. Sprint training for cycling looks ridiculously easy at first glance compared to a 'standard' program - 3 efforts with 5ish minutes rest between each followed by a 20 minute break, then another round of 3 efforts with a break, then a final couple or so efforts and it's time to go home. And each of those efforts are often 10-30 seconds each. But sprint training is absolutely 100% - or should be, at least. Better to fall over somewhere in the middle of your second effort than to keep something back to make sure you get through all three! I think I've a little way to go yet.
The third attempt I revisited something I'd hoped I'd mostly eradicated in my own self-directed training at Blackburn, where I'd been trying a few of these K1-type efforts. What happens is that it can be awful hard to ride in a straight line in the first few pedal strokes, and so there can be a tendency to swerve - often in a general downward direction, given that even the straights at DISC are banked at 12°. I suspect that what happened is that I forgot about trying to keep the chest straight and pointed forward, possibly because I started with my front wheel turned because I was going too slowly. At any rate, after a couple of pedal strokes I ducked down in to Nic's lane, wobbled back up, backed off, tried to straighten up, and eventually switched off so as to safely negotiate the 42° banking of the corner without wobbling all over the boards, and possibly sliding down them!
The next section involved my first experience with riding behind a motorbike, which was... not very scary at all, actually! I was a little skittish sitting behind Nic sitting behind the motorcycle (which isn't actually a derny, but which has a roll-bar on the back making it perfectly (relatively!) safe to bump in to) during our first of three 30km/h powerjumps (where you draft behind the motorbike, it pulls up and you both jump, the second rider trying to overtake the lead rider within half a lap) than when it was my turn to sit behind the derny (it's just shorter, okay?) on the next go around.
The idea, as the following rider, was to 'lay off' the lead rider coming through the last bend before the derny swung up by moving up the track but travelling at the same speed - so not losing any momentum - then diving back down, into and through the draft of the lead rider, and catapaulting your way past and on to glory. Or something like that. Important race tactic. I've got a lot to learn! Not least of which is positioning on the bike - when I was the lead rider, getting out of the saddle to accelerate as the derny swung up I had the rear wheel slipping for a good two or three pedal strokes before I got it under control, which apparently is likely due to being too far forward. Not something I've noticed at Blackburn on the outdoor, concrete velo, but much more apparent on the slippery boards!
Okay. Nearly the end of the epic. I don't know why I'm explaining so much, since anyone likely to read this probably knows all about it anyway. It's only a training diary! Maybe it's because I don't know what I'm talking about yet.
The last section was supposed to involve 2x500m revouts at 82" (86.4" for me), where you sit behind the derny and in each corner it accelerates and you just stay with it as long as you can - or as long as it lets you! We ended up just doing the one though, for which I was very thankful; shattered, was I. But I felt comfortable sitting behind the derny (no idea how close, really, but probably not close enough since I didn't hit it!) and accelerated pretty well. But I've nothing to compare it to, and not even any Garmin stats because my speed sensor wasn't properly lined up for the revout - the perils of flipping the wheel around.
So that was that! No Nandos afterwards with the rest of the squad, as family had arrived and I had to head home, but next time! I feel like I'm somewhere I oughta be...
Brief stats here (minus the revout).
At 33, I only took up track sprint 2 months ago on a borrowed bike affectionately nicknamed 'The beer can.' Despite getting roundly thumped in my two races in my first meet, I somehow felt that my enjoyment of the racing was sufficient to justify the purchase of my very own brand new second-hand track bike, so that's what I did! And so yet another bike was added to the collection, this one a 2009 Felt TK2. Another couple of rounds of the sprint series later, including a third place in C-Grade and then racing in B, plus a go at a DISC 'Come 'n Try' day where I did a Flying 200 time of 13.34sec (hardly world-class, but not bad for a first attempt!) I decided that I might as well give this track sprinting business a decent crack. So I enlisted the support of a coach, Carl Brewer of ABOC, and here we go...
So here be, more or less, a training diary!
The session started with a roller warmup - well, I don't have rollers, so a 'normal' trainer would have to do! After that I rolled out with Nic Marc to guide me through most of the rest of the session - there were only 6 of us there, so we paired up for each exercise with someone similar. Ish.
The warmup was done ostensibly on something like 82", but being somewhat new I only have the chainring and two sprockets which came with the bike, which put me on 86.4". Not a great problem though at this stage. We then switched to 'race gear', which for me by default became 99.7", for the first set of exercises - 3 x v.slow start rolling K1 1/4. Which basically means that you come as close to stopped as you can on the bike, the person on the outside accelerates and the person on the inside responds and each tries to make it to the 1/4 lap point (at DISC, that's 62.5 metres) first. Simple, eh?
Unfortunately somehow between my tightening and someone else checking, the rear wheel wasn't quite secured tightly enough and when I tried to power away from the start, I pulled the wheel forward in the dropouts, jamming the tyre in to the seat stay and almost making me fall. Fortunately I stayed up, managing not to crash in to Nic either!
The second attempt passed without particular incident, and I tried to concentrate on the "giving it 100%" attitude of a sprinter. It's just not something that feels very natural, either in cycling (where it's usually more about who can stay at 83% for longest, or who can put in more bursts of 92% up climbs, or who can sprint as close to 100% as possible after riding at 83% for 6 hours) or in life more generally. Sprint training for cycling looks ridiculously easy at first glance compared to a 'standard' program - 3 efforts with 5ish minutes rest between each followed by a 20 minute break, then another round of 3 efforts with a break, then a final couple or so efforts and it's time to go home. And each of those efforts are often 10-30 seconds each. But sprint training is absolutely 100% - or should be, at least. Better to fall over somewhere in the middle of your second effort than to keep something back to make sure you get through all three! I think I've a little way to go yet.
The third attempt I revisited something I'd hoped I'd mostly eradicated in my own self-directed training at Blackburn, where I'd been trying a few of these K1-type efforts. What happens is that it can be awful hard to ride in a straight line in the first few pedal strokes, and so there can be a tendency to swerve - often in a general downward direction, given that even the straights at DISC are banked at 12°. I suspect that what happened is that I forgot about trying to keep the chest straight and pointed forward, possibly because I started with my front wheel turned because I was going too slowly. At any rate, after a couple of pedal strokes I ducked down in to Nic's lane, wobbled back up, backed off, tried to straighten up, and eventually switched off so as to safely negotiate the 42° banking of the corner without wobbling all over the boards, and possibly sliding down them!
The next section involved my first experience with riding behind a motorbike, which was... not very scary at all, actually! I was a little skittish sitting behind Nic sitting behind the motorcycle (which isn't actually a derny, but which has a roll-bar on the back making it perfectly (relatively!) safe to bump in to) during our first of three 30km/h powerjumps (where you draft behind the motorbike, it pulls up and you both jump, the second rider trying to overtake the lead rider within half a lap) than when it was my turn to sit behind the derny (it's just shorter, okay?) on the next go around.
The idea, as the following rider, was to 'lay off' the lead rider coming through the last bend before the derny swung up by moving up the track but travelling at the same speed - so not losing any momentum - then diving back down, into and through the draft of the lead rider, and catapaulting your way past and on to glory. Or something like that. Important race tactic. I've got a lot to learn! Not least of which is positioning on the bike - when I was the lead rider, getting out of the saddle to accelerate as the derny swung up I had the rear wheel slipping for a good two or three pedal strokes before I got it under control, which apparently is likely due to being too far forward. Not something I've noticed at Blackburn on the outdoor, concrete velo, but much more apparent on the slippery boards!
Okay. Nearly the end of the epic. I don't know why I'm explaining so much, since anyone likely to read this probably knows all about it anyway. It's only a training diary! Maybe it's because I don't know what I'm talking about yet.
The last section was supposed to involve 2x500m revouts at 82" (86.4" for me), where you sit behind the derny and in each corner it accelerates and you just stay with it as long as you can - or as long as it lets you! We ended up just doing the one though, for which I was very thankful; shattered, was I. But I felt comfortable sitting behind the derny (no idea how close, really, but probably not close enough since I didn't hit it!) and accelerated pretty well. But I've nothing to compare it to, and not even any Garmin stats because my speed sensor wasn't properly lined up for the revout - the perils of flipping the wheel around.
So that was that! No Nandos afterwards with the rest of the squad, as family had arrived and I had to head home, but next time! I feel like I'm somewhere I oughta be...
Brief stats here (minus the revout).
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