Race Report: Downeast Cross (10/07/07)
Allie & I made the voyage up to New Gloucester, Maine this morning. We were both pretty psyched because this is such a cool venue... plus with the leaves changing it was a good oppurtunity to get in some folioage scenery.
After my race at UNH wed, i was feeling good & followed up Thursday with some threshold intervals. Lungs still feeling good as of yesterday, so i was really looking foward to this race. dare i say: confident. my luck has turned around, and i was hoping (umm...expecting) a good result today.
Front row position, with about 35-40 other guys. Unfortunately, I didn get the start, i wanted, and immediately was back a ways. Made up for it by running the first "tech" section, making up a few spots.
It didnt take long for the lungs to start burning. Im spewing mucus out of every orifice of my head. ugh. I kept going, but was bummed at how bad I was doing. Josh was on my wheel for a lap, then opened a gap when the guy in front of me fumbled on the off camber stuff... I could see him for the next lap, about 5 secs up, but i just couldnt make contackt. nice job josh. bad job justin.
I was solo for a bit, then suddenly had 5 guys on my wheel. ugh. Again, I figured I was back mid-20s (or worse). My legs are tired, and my lungs are burning. They pass me, and I got no answer. Next lap, allie yells "you're in 15th!" this was after i just let those 5 guys walk away from me. oh well. didnt matter anyways. i was hurting too bad to do anything, even if i did know i was in 10th place just a lap ago.
anyways, i "held on" for 15th.
The course was awesome. when i think off-camber, i think of new gloucester. and they didnt dissapoint. the venue is sweet, the course is great. and they mix it up every year. and i hate to admit it, but i even liked the runup, even tho i almost started crying after the 5th time up it!!
/end race report
--------------------------------------
/begin personal babble
not the result i wanted. not. at. all.
damn. i felt so confident I was going to place well. My legs & lungs appearantly felt otherwise.
Its frustrating to train soo much harder this year than in years past, but still get similar results.
I gave it some thought on the way home and came up with a few things.
1. the asthma sucks this year. its hit or miss on an attack. fine one week, bad the next. or (like today), sort-of bad during the race...then a delayed problem that night. not a damn thing i can do about this. Mark text'd me on his way home from LI to tell me he had the same problem.
2. The one good result I had so far was at SBC. What was soo different? well, the course suits me better.. but more importantly, I was RESTED. hmm.
3. I have been racing UNH on wed. Then threshold intervals on thursday. While i may be recovered by the weekend, I'm certainly not fresh.
4. Some may say "duh... stop training so close to the weekend" yeah. but its back to problem #1. I race, then either drop out due to asthma, or loose training time due to asthma... so when im feeling good, like the past couple weeks, I feel I need to train to make up for the lost time... this results in poor result on the weekend... and the cycle continues. The earliest races were even worse, as they were during my intensity phase, with even more training during the week, even the day before the race.
5. I told myself a while ago, that I didnt care about results until after Gloucester. Training & preping for Canton, UNH, Plymouth, etc is more important..
So why am I setting myself up for this dissapointment, by expecting to be killing it right now? i dunno... but i am.
Ok... here is the new plan. Basicaly what Steve told me to do a while ago.
STOP training during the week! I gotta scale things back a bit, to make sure im ready to go when its important.
This is the last week of UNH. and by racing, i may be tired for Gloucester. i realize & accept this. That race is soo huge, im not really concernd about results (someone remind me of this statement, when/if i do poorly). So I think i will still go... but this will be my last week of "training"...
the week after glostah, REST. allie has a 5k on sunday...and rather than try to cram a cross race in on saturday, i think i will skip it & do something fun & fall related with her :) maybe carve some more pumpkins.
After that, I am going into a straight 'race & recover' mode... moderate cross workout on wed. thats it. easy riding otherwise. Lets see how this works.
ok.. i need to hack up some mucus. and then head to bed.
/end personal babble.
After my race at UNH wed, i was feeling good & followed up Thursday with some threshold intervals. Lungs still feeling good as of yesterday, so i was really looking foward to this race. dare i say: confident. my luck has turned around, and i was hoping (umm...expecting) a good result today.
Front row position, with about 35-40 other guys. Unfortunately, I didn get the start, i wanted, and immediately was back a ways. Made up for it by running the first "tech" section, making up a few spots.
It didnt take long for the lungs to start burning. Im spewing mucus out of every orifice of my head. ugh. I kept going, but was bummed at how bad I was doing. Josh was on my wheel for a lap, then opened a gap when the guy in front of me fumbled on the off camber stuff... I could see him for the next lap, about 5 secs up, but i just couldnt make contackt. nice job josh. bad job justin.
I was solo for a bit, then suddenly had 5 guys on my wheel. ugh. Again, I figured I was back mid-20s (or worse). My legs are tired, and my lungs are burning. They pass me, and I got no answer. Next lap, allie yells "you're in 15th!" this was after i just let those 5 guys walk away from me. oh well. didnt matter anyways. i was hurting too bad to do anything, even if i did know i was in 10th place just a lap ago.
anyways, i "held on" for 15th.
The course was awesome. when i think off-camber, i think of new gloucester. and they didnt dissapoint. the venue is sweet, the course is great. and they mix it up every year. and i hate to admit it, but i even liked the runup, even tho i almost started crying after the 5th time up it!!
/end race report
--------------------------------------
/begin personal babble
not the result i wanted. not. at. all.
damn. i felt so confident I was going to place well. My legs & lungs appearantly felt otherwise.
Its frustrating to train soo much harder this year than in years past, but still get similar results.
I gave it some thought on the way home and came up with a few things.
1. the asthma sucks this year. its hit or miss on an attack. fine one week, bad the next. or (like today), sort-of bad during the race...then a delayed problem that night. not a damn thing i can do about this. Mark text'd me on his way home from LI to tell me he had the same problem.
2. The one good result I had so far was at SBC. What was soo different? well, the course suits me better.. but more importantly, I was RESTED. hmm.
3. I have been racing UNH on wed. Then threshold intervals on thursday. While i may be recovered by the weekend, I'm certainly not fresh.
4. Some may say "duh... stop training so close to the weekend" yeah. but its back to problem #1. I race, then either drop out due to asthma, or loose training time due to asthma... so when im feeling good, like the past couple weeks, I feel I need to train to make up for the lost time... this results in poor result on the weekend... and the cycle continues. The earliest races were even worse, as they were during my intensity phase, with even more training during the week, even the day before the race.
5. I told myself a while ago, that I didnt care about results until after Gloucester. Training & preping for Canton, UNH, Plymouth, etc is more important..
So why am I setting myself up for this dissapointment, by expecting to be killing it right now? i dunno... but i am.
Ok... here is the new plan. Basicaly what Steve told me to do a while ago.
STOP training during the week! I gotta scale things back a bit, to make sure im ready to go when its important.
This is the last week of UNH. and by racing, i may be tired for Gloucester. i realize & accept this. That race is soo huge, im not really concernd about results (someone remind me of this statement, when/if i do poorly). So I think i will still go... but this will be my last week of "training"...
the week after glostah, REST. allie has a 5k on sunday...and rather than try to cram a cross race in on saturday, i think i will skip it & do something fun & fall related with her :) maybe carve some more pumpkins.
After that, I am going into a straight 'race & recover' mode... moderate cross workout on wed. thats it. easy riding otherwise. Lets see how this works.
ok.. i need to hack up some mucus. and then head to bed.
/end personal babble.
Labels: race report, training
posted by Justin at
4:52 PM
2 Comments:
hey man, nice race. you were riding real well and I was surprised to be staying behind you for that lap, and even more surprised when I went around you and you didn't come along.
I may or may not do unh....no g-star...ct weekend?
im doing glostah... but then im taking a week off from racing. so, no CT for me... but good luck though :) its a fun course!
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