Thursday, July 26, 2007

musings on the tour & wed night racing

I am sure I could write about all the tour drama, but I will save that for jerry springer. All I have to say is it totally blows. I think to become a pro, people should have to display the quality of knowing how to lose and handle it well. Some people are bad losers. Me, I love to get a new asshole ripped open for me. Maybe I am bummed for a little bit, but really performance has nothing to do with me as a person. If people felt comfortable losing with class - while of course working as hard as they can to win - there would be less temptation to cheat. ( Of course for the pros- money, livelihood, pressure from team, "everyone is doing it" all play a part as well.) Rasmussen showed he had very little class when he trash talked his teammate to the press. Trash talking competitors is bad enough, teammates worse, and to the press worse still. If you don't respect what others are doing, you have no problem disrespecting them by giving yourself an unfair advantage. He clearly is very insecure and insecure people are the most likely to resort to doping, as they don't believe in their natural ability/training, and/or have a sense of self-worth tied to winning. My mom always said it best to me: "Beth, there will always be someone better than you." Perhaps people might think telling your child that after a good performance in school or sports is odd, but taught me to reality check at a young age and to really respect competitors. Well, I guess I had more to say that I intended.

Speaking of losing-- Wednesday night racing at the track!

Well, I actually didn't lose, I think I won my omnium...but that it certainly felt like I lost cause I wasn't so happy with how I rode some of the races.

Points Race. 12 laps, sprints every 3. I need to learn to warm up. I totally missed a jump at the beginning cause I was positioned bad, was just sucking on the sprints, and not riding the right wheels. I should have tried to jump early and break away, but my head was in my ass the whole race. Luckily, I managed to score points every sprint. I think I place 2nd in this race, just cause the points were spreading out amongst people, not cause I rode well.

Scratch Race. 10 laps. This was better. Head was kinda coming out of my ass. It felt slow. I attacked on lap 9. Broke away a bit with some other dude. Then he took a pull, then the field bunched up again. I attacked again. Then he took a pull and we bunched up again. I may have attacked a third time, but then I decided I'd just sprint it out at the finish cause things were slowing down when I stopped pulling and would bunch up. That is my own fault for making crappy attacks-- I wasn't accelerating quick enough to get big enough gaps. Anyway, I was on this tall dudes wheel for the last lap. I timed it pretty good- he just rode me around and didn't even try to pull off or get away from me. I started my sprint in the middle of the last turn and beat him at the line for 1st. Cool I won, but I wish I was better in my attacks.

Miss 'n Out. This is becoming my favorite race. Funny, cause I sucked at it the first time. I just rode wheels the whole time on the outside. Then we were down to three. The dude from the scratch race was in front after the neutral lap. I was planning on doing the same thing as in the scratch race, but I already knew I could beat him short, so i thought I would try to beat him long. So at the first curve on I passed him, made a gap on the back stretch and held it to the finish. This was a really good long sprint. Someone told me when I wound it up, I was sprinting really smooth. This made me glad. This was my best race of the night.

B/C Points Race. 25 laps, sprints every 5. Last week I scored points in this race. The week before I hung in. This week i got dropped...after lap 11. I was pissed at myself for getting dropped--especially cause I've hung in there previous weeks. I was in no mans land, and just TTed the rest as a 15 lap punishment! :) Everyone said that was the fastest B/C points race this year, so that was good to know, but I wish I'd have done a bit better.

Well, that was Wednesday night. I think next week I will try to move up the C1 group. (Any thoughts?) Pace didn't feel difficult last night, but that is just cause I am comparing it to the weekend where my ass got lit on fire by all the pros! Anyway, the last two weeks I've done pretty well and think it will be a good challenge to have to work to be in the middle of the pack.


On the ups - I did my quad measurement when I got home-- ready? 60cm. That is .5 cm bigger. Of course, perhaps my measuring is faulty/inconsistent-- or maybe seeing Jennie Reeds quads made mine want to grow bigger.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

"maybe seeing Jennie Reeds quads made mine want to grow bigger."

that's hilarious!

as for the tour...any trash talking about any person in general is wrong - worst if made public...

at the pro level...I would imagine a lot of temptations come their way - hats of to those who resist temptations even if they lose...

WarrenG said...

Look who won the omnium, again! Well done.

I would suggest that you don't move up in race difficulty too quickly. A third week with a high omnium placing would be fine. If you move up too soon you'll end up following wheels a lot and not really learning how to race, understanding the tactics, having a chance to try different things, etc.. But it's great that you want more challenges!

I think you may want to bookmark this page...

http://www.ridethetrack.com/upgrade.html

beth bikes! said...

Thanks for the tip Warren- that is a good point! It was good practice to try and win a sprint both short and long, and much easier to try different things when I am not just trying to hang on.

Itinerant Rick said...

Sounds like your mom instilled some good wisdom in you at an early age. Would be better if more parents were so wise.

Awesome results. You seem to be learning fast. I suspect that those quads will grow a bit more before they are finished.

Anonymous said...

Hi Beth, this is Christi from Seattle - we met at your AVC last week. I linked to your blog through a comment you made on Jen Triplett's. Anyway, just wanted to say hi and it was nice meeting you! Our 2-day event is this weekend...I wonder if the field will be as star-studded as in SJ?

place_holder said...

sounds like we need to establish a quad measuring protocol/control. just like how people keep track of their resting hr (not me).

Dino Dante said...

I'm looking forward to having you drilling it in the B Group. We'll wear matching socks and work together ;-)

Grey said...

great work again this week. i agree with warren. it's a problem with women's racing in some disciplines. like on the road, making the jump from 4 to 3, when the races are p/1/2/3...

the faster groups on the track aren't necessarily that distinct. i think the c1 group was bigger and faster this week, and the b's weren't that much faster, in my opinion. for example the guy who won the c1 omnium also dominated the c/b points race--so he definitely could have been racing b's. point being that those self categorized groups don't always get faster in steady increments, and there may be a big jump on any given week between c2 and c1. but depending on who shows, there may not be...

so you may learn more by beating someone trying different tactics (as you describe)--perhaps things you think may be your weaknesses, like if i ever try and be the tailgunner in the miss and out. that could be more informative than playing the game of trying to choose the right wheel to follow so you don't get dropped in a race sooner rather than later, ya know?

track is fun!

Heavens to Betsy said...

beth, i can't wait to say i remember you when you didn't even know how to ride a bike...


oh wait that was last week ;) how about i remember her before she was measuring her quads?

i'm so proud of you and the dedication you've shown to biking, i know it hasn't been the easiest adjustment but i think you are doing fabulously!