So at the beginning of the year, I catted up from cat5 to cat4, and I’ve struggled a ton – not that cat5 racing was cake. Anyway, I raced my fourth race of this still very young season down in Winston Salem, and just totally struggled with no real excuse.
It’s not worth writing a race report, other than saying last night’s race was another embarrasing showing. It started out fast and within a few laps, I was spent. The pace was just too high for me to sustain. Granted, it was a combined 3/4 race, but still couldn’t fathom keeping the 28ish miles per hour pace for 45 minutes, and as the link below shows, I didn’t.
Cartting up has been a real shock to the system. It’s been embarrasing and mildly depressing. Between the wet, cold, shitty weather, work and life in general, I have put in fewer miles. That obviously has to change if I’m going to have any success in crit and road racing. It basically comes down on me fully and only — I need more races, more and better training and more miles. Period. I’ve got no excuses, other than my engine out there. I’m more than a little bummed, but hopefully I can transform that into some fuel and motivation for the coming weeks and months of training and racing.
Ryan,
You can do fine in the 4’s on 6 hrs/week of training. Intensity is the key. No junk miles. I’ve never heard of a cat 4 crit lasting more than an hour (more like :30 minutes +5 laps) so your rides don’t need to be long. They’d better be hard though! The other thing is to get lean. Your wattage produced on the bike can remain the same and if you get leaner, then you’ll be faster ’cause your watts/kg will improve. Get your bodyfat in the single digits and see how much faster you are.
Ryan, I feel for you. I was planning on catting up to 4 as soon as I had my 10 races in. After a bad showing at OCS & Dixie, and after reading your reports, I might wait. Although, I did pretty well in the RR last Saturday. You’ve got to remember, if you haven’t been training at intensity this stuff is going to hurt. Once you start doing more intervals & doing Ace regularly, you should feel better. As far as weight goes, you’re definitely lighter than I’ve ever seen you but w/kg doesn’t matter much at Ace or Dixie. That takes either raw power or good race skills, ie. hiding in the pack. I know some people are in great shape already, some from doing CX all winter, but it’s only March folks. Keep racing and tell me how you’re feeling in June.
I’ll echo what the others have said and I know you’ve been working really hard in the saddle and I think it shows. But what is even more important than miles is the quality of those miles and the pace you’re keeping. If the Cat4 races are at 28mph/average and you’re training at 20mph/average – it doesn’t work.
Let’s look at revamping our diet and I think it will help if we do it together. Your job is to go out and race hard and be victorious. My job is to help you in any way possible, including preparing the right meals and allowing you to get time in the saddle as often as necessary.
I’m very confident in your abilities and I think you have the strength; you just need to hone your energy and build your confidence!
Love you and keep at it! It’s early and you have the right strategies and exercise program – now you just need to apply all of this knowledge to everyday living and training.
I feel your pain. Sometimes I think the biggest mistake I made last year was catting up to 4 after a particularly good weekend. It turned out to be a fluke and this year has been a wreck.
The weather hasn’t helped. I find it less than fun to ride when your snot is freezing, or you are so wet you can’t get anymore wet.
I’m thinking it’s time to switch to track racing.