Still out of town for a couple days.  So, I’m not taking the time to come up with something original this morning.  There are a couple of comments from past posts that I think it would be good to repeat.

First, I need to put out a correction to one of my Twitter posts:

Jim Cunningham wins masters race. LPOA rider Reece Jackson was 2nd. 1-2-3 race is underway. Poor cat 3s. http://twitpic.com/65cih #

I was a little confused on this finish when I sent this tweet.  Thankfully, Jeff Gunn caught my errant message and set the record straight:

JP, Cunningham didn’t win the Master’s race, my teammate Bill Short did. I guess he beat them so bad in the sprint you didn’t know he was in the same race.

Next, I’d like to publish some advice given to me by a new friend of mine that I first met here on LowCadence.com.  It was really cool to be riding up Highway 80 during the Assault on Mount Mitchell and overtake a group of riders with one of them saying, “Hey, Jonathan, what are the chances we would meet here!?”  It was Jeff Palleiko from Rollinsford, NH and a LowCadence.com reader.

Jeff has been doing this for a while and had this piece of advice for me.  Now, I’ve heard it before, but it is something to keep reminding myself.  Also, if you are just starting out in racing like I am, this is something you need to know.

Hi Jonathan,

I know you just missed your goal but you still had a great race — nice work!

As you know racing is all about output management; essentially you are a book of matches with each extra effort being one less match. Ask yourself “where were the extra efforts?” the corners, too much wind, or floating back and forth through the field?

You asked how to build stamina for this type of racing? Well the best way is to do more races — nothing simulates racing better than racing! Also if you have a weekly training race series, make sure you do as many of those as possible. And since they are training races — be aggressive — ride the front and push your limits and don’t worry too much about race management. Not only will this make you stronger, it will also help you define your weaknesses and help you better manage all future racing.

As you gain fitness and (of course) better race management and savvy, you’ll really start to utilize that “full book of matches.” The key is to save that full book for your “A” races.

Cheers,
Jeff

PS. This may sound a bit masochistic but the “throw up” means you were really pushing yourself. It also means that your body was probably overloaded with lactic acid and a sick stomach is normal. More training and racing will partially alleviate this … However if you really like to go hard, this may still happen to some extent … as all of my best time trails always included a little throw up .

If this happens again, spit it out, as the body usually feels much better when it rids itself of all that extra stomach acid — and it will allow for a better race.

Have a wonderful Sunday!  I’m enjoying mine with the family.

 

Tags: Assault on Mount Mitchell, Bill Short, Jeff Gunn, Jeff Palleiko, Jim Cunningham, Twitter

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 31st, 2009 at 8:27 am and is filed under Site News, Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.